1991...

Orientation week at St. Raphael's Hospital was perhaps one of the very best orientations in a work place I ever had. Did you ever go to work at a job and just know right from the very first day you were in the right place for you? The right job, the right environment, the right co-workers...everything. You found your comfort zone.

The food was ok too for the most part.

Once the ice was broken you knew you were ready to settle in for a long relationship with the place. I already knew I was in a good situation and the experience appeared to just be getting better.

In fact the people I went thru orientation week there turned out to be the people that we grew friendly with that week and when we'd run into them once in awhile, we at least knew something about them.

One of the many duties I was going to be expected to perform was the possibility of pinch hitting as a "constant" which meant you sitting a room with a patient who could potentially snap. I don't know exactly what we were supposed to do if they did. I mean its not like we could beat the crap out of them and tell them to stop snapping but we were in the room to provide the hospital some sort of legal defense against this...if the patient went off...someone was in the room to get hurt by them.

It wasn't really as bad as it sounded. In fact it was a dull side of the job but you got paid to sit there and watch TV. Rare was the patient who was really gonna do all the stuff they said they were gonna do. If the patient was really going to go off the deep end, chances are they were chemically sedated anyway.

One of the days I spent was an orientation just for the THAT portion of the job.

I was grouped in with about 5 or 6 people and one of them was a Catholic religious "brother" named Richard. Without prying too much or getting too much detail, from what I gathered he was like a male nun but not like a monk. I'm sure if we asked more, he would've been happy to tell us. He was an incredibly nice guy with a calm, easy going and even occasionally humorous spirit.

In fact he was so kind and likable that he was often one of the most popular constants in the hospital after orientation. Truth be told he could've worked 24 hours a day if he wanted and he often did take on extra constants. Not in "need" of the money he could work as often as he wanted.

He wore Coke bottle glasses and walked with a limp and a cane from childhood polio but you could see him coming across the cafeteria or wherever with his smile. I'd always get up to say hi to him and talk about what he was up to, not that he had an exciting life. I mean it wasn't like he was out getting a lap dance when lights out of the "Order of Brothers" was 10 pm.

Some of the nurses I worked with for some reason didn't like him...one told me, "Does he have to sit with us, he creeps me out. No one is THAT nice!" Me always one for the underdog, abandoned my buddies and went to sit with him once just so he'd have someone to talk to.

Some time had gone by and I hadn't seen Richard. I thought maybe he had been reassigned by the Brothers and the hospital was cutting back on the use of constants due to costs, so maybe he wasn't needed as much. But I ran into one of the people we oriented with who told me Richard had been sick but didn't know exactly what was wrong.

I'm going to say almost a year went by when one day I saw him limp onto the floor scheduled to sit one of our patients. I was happy to see him because that meant I didn't have to sit the patient. The trouble is that Rich didn't appear to be happy to see me...or much of anyone else. In fact, he didn't look like himself that much at all.

He looked the same except thru the Coke bottle glasses there was a bit of a crazier look to him.

"Hey Rich, how you feeling?"

"I'm alright, seems nothing changes in this dump huh?" he answered with a question. I looked at him like I was waiting for the punch line but it was clear he was in no joking mood. I decided to give him a little space.

About an hour later, he stood outside the room of the person he was watching (something constants did to generally stretch their legs)...but Rich was more intent on stretching his vocal cords. He starts shouting out to no one in particular, 'IS ANYONE GOING TO HELP THIS MAN?"

I look over at him and thought this was a joke? A couple of seconds later, he starts screaming, "ARE ANY OF YOU WORTH A DAMN ON THIS FLOOR, YOUR ALL A BUNCH OF LOSERS! SOMEBODY...ANYBODY...DO SOMETHING RIGHT!"

Finally one of the nurses told him to keep quiet and get back in the room. He went back in and sat down for a few. A couple of minutes later he got agitated again and began to come out and start yelling at nurses again...

"WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU PEOPLE? DOESN'T ANYONE UP HERE CARE ABOUT ANYTHING?" Being his "friend" they sent me in to calm him down and sit him down. I told him he needed to relax and just sit the patient. People of a religious order were still held in high esteem at the hospital as it is a bit of a religious institution. BUT it was starting to become more of a business and frankly they didn't care anymore.

A few minutes after I calmed him down he was back outside the door getting obnoxious again. Our head nurse Peggy decided it was time to have him replaced. She called the staffing office and told them she was having him removed from the floor and to send and alternate sitter which they didn't have by midday. Guess who got stuck with the job?

Peggy told Rich he was being relieved for the day and he needed to leave. He left the floor quietly but with a look of concern on his face. It was easy to see this wasn't the nice guy I had come to know and ironically he seemed to know it too.

It was the last time I ever saw him.

Two weeks later I walked on the floor one morning someone handed me the newspaper with the obituary that Brother Richard had died of a brain tumor. It sure would explain his erratic behavior and that bizarre day.

When Peggy came onto the floor I showed her the obituary. She walked away and said, "Well I guess it saves me the trouble of filing the paperwork to get him fired huh?"

A few weeks later, I saw one of the people we oriented with and she said she saw him a few weeks before he died.

She said, "He told me I was a slut and disgraceful."

While my jaw was hung I said "What did you say back?"

"I really got him! I told him he was a virgin!"

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