Carmen Advises Her Cousin Dawn on Getting a Job at the Nursing Home (they speak Spanglish)

Carmen Advises Her Cousin Dawn on Getting a Job at the Nursing Home 

                                                     (they speak Spanglish)

    Sobrina mia, this woman, the activity director, she’s a crazy lady. Last Christmas she gave guns to the old men and baby dolls to the old women.  Si!  Verdad!

     The guns were plastic machine guns that shoot bubbles.   The dolls had heads como melones,   soft white bodies, pink hands, and feet with tiny toes. Their crazy blue eyes followed you up and down the hallway.   Dios mia!  They were girl Chuckie dolls! Dolls from the devil.

     The old men with guns started shooting anyone who came into their rooms--the nurses who stick the catheters into their wrinkled pinas, the pobrecitas who empty the bedpans. 

   Soon they were shooting their sons and daughters, cursing them for living.  When one viejo  put the gun into his mouth and tried to kill himself with bubbles, they had to  pump his  stomach, take him to the ICU.    They took away the  bubble guns--pronto.

   The old women hated the  baby dolls.   Except one old lady.  She held it all day and all night. Until the day she died, she sat in the hallway in her wheelchair holding her doll, crooning to  its bald head.  “ See my beautiful baby, rockabye beautiful baby.”

    The Chuckie doll grinned at us como la cabeza de la muerte.  Si!  Verdad!   A true story. 

    Someday I will take you to the janitor’s closet.  In the darkest corner you will see the crazy doll sitting on a wheelchair staring at you. None of us will touch it.