B.F. JONES
100 Decibels
The architect pulls his new Mazda into the dusty hospital lot. It took him fifty minutes to get here from the city, driving through endless fields of corn, interrupted by the occasional dilapidated barn. At one point, he got stuck behind a tractor. He wears a light-colored suit over a blue t-shirt. As he gets out of his car, his pants brush against the dirty truck parked next to him. He wipes himself off, swearing, and assesses the hospital building. It’s blocky, depressing, mottled yellow brick, mucous colored. Disgust expands within him. “Man up,” he mutters.
The architect is the winner of the Merle and Norma Lynn Hansen Foundation prize for the betterment of rural women. The foundation is updating labor and delivery units in underserved hospitals across the state. The architect will take whatever grimy wing this hospital has to offer and transform it into a spectacular beacon of modern design. “Lucky bitches,” he thinks.
Inside the maternity ward, the architect shakes hands with the team. Except for the hospital superintendent, who greeted him and scooted, the group is all females. A dumpy one, a mousy one, an ancient one, a black one. The architect grins. “I’m a lucky man,” he says, “surrounded by so many beautiful ladies.”
The black one, he forgot her name, but her tag says “DIANA,” clears her throat. “If you’ll follow me into the break room, we have lunch ready, and we can begin our listening session.” She looks at the architect, “this group has a lot of great ideas for improving care for our new moms.”
It takes him a beat to process “new moms.” Right, the patients. He wonders if he can do anything about the smell, disinfectant over horror. Lunch is from a sub shop. Soggy white bread, iceberg lettuce in strips strewn across the table, cold cuts like wounds. He forgot how much he hates hospitals. He will use that in the work; transform the abhorrent into something people will clamor to see. The women chatter as they eat. He nods and smiles, scratching notes on a legal pad. They like him. Except that Diana, and she’s the only hot one.
***
It’s 8 a.m., but Diana has had a day already. The babysitter didn’t show, and she had to drive Charlie all the way over to Lanceburg to her sister, bleary eyed and unenthusiastic about her nephew’s arrival. “Please don’t smoke around him, Sheila.” Sheila rolled her eyes.
She’d clocked in ten minutes late—a miracle—though her supervisor wasn’t going to see it that way and immediately checked in two patients whose labors were progressing too close to each other for her liking. She enters a request in the system; they’ll need another nurse for this block of rooms. She doesn’t want to be caught alone if both patients need to push at the same time. One is a reedy fifteen-year-old, attended by a boyfriend twice her age who doesn’t want Diana in the room. The other is a first-time mom at the age of thirty-nine, nervous and full of need, her husband on a business trip.
Both tug at Diana’s heart, but between getting sufficient time in the first room and any time out of the second, she is irritable, which is why she greets the coffee and donuts with a bright, real smile, though they arrive in the arms of the architect.
***
Today, the architect presents his design to the hospital board, the maternity team, and representatives from the Hansen foundation, including shriveled up Mrs. Hansen herself. He’s invited members of the press. His scale model and glossy posters are in a palette of pinks. He thinks this a clever wink to his audience.
He thanks the foundation, the board, the ladies on the team for their input, honoring him with this prize, this task, this sacred task. He spouts the importance of rural health, women’s health. Backbone of this country. Nothing more precious than mother and child. He’s honored to present a design that will make this hospital a true standout, not just in the region, but on the national stage. He’s visualizing bigger prizes. The Oyster. The Domain.
He will give, to this wasteland, a post-modern masterpiece, unconstrained by faddish aesthetic sensibilities, radically democratic in concept, for every patient, her own room for both labor and delivery. We’ll smother any dissonance in the hospital atmosphere by playing with glass and light. Every patient a jewel, a work of art. A glittering, modern facility. The space will be composed in two levels, a viewing area below, and above, a curved gallery of new life. Bold fenestration, repeated in pattern, around the lower level. Above, a sanctuary. To each room, a wall given over to a huge, framed picture window. Those gathered below will look up, up to witness the miracle of life, as nurse or proud father holds the newborn before the glass for all to see. Don’t worry ladies, I haven’t forgotten the more delicate aspects. For each window, a red velvet curtain.
The press people clap and snap photos. The board people and foundation people clap, though Mrs. Hansen has nodded off in her wheelchair. The architect doesn’t notice the nurses murmuring. He doesn’t see Diana, crossing her arms, crushing what’s left of that cardboard cup of coffee.
***
You’d think Diana could get someone to listen. She’s been the head nurse on labor and delivery for five years. She’s won patient care awards.
She tries the hospital superintendent. Demolition begins. She makes calls to the Hansen foundation. The windows arrive on a giant truck; each takes a team of men to bring it in. She calls city planning and tries every mid-level manager in a hospital teeming with mid-level managers. They’re starting to clean up dust, preparing for the grand opening.
She tries, one last time, to talk to the architect.
“Hey there, lovely. Why don’t we grab a drink?”
“You can’t put windows in labor and delivery rooms.”
“I’ve told you, there will be curtains.” He looks at his notes. “Bring me a cup of coffee, will ya?”
Diana will not.
***
The hospital superintendent and the architect cut a giant pink ribbon. Chemical smells, new carpet and fresh paint, champagne for the donors. The architect devours accolades alongside mini quiches and shrimp cocktail. The party is on the lower level. Here’s the big moment. The architect will flip a switch and the rooms above will come to life. Light will fall from the windows to anoint those gathered below.
The lights go on. A woman screams. Another screams. Another. Another. In each delivery room, a nurse opens her mouth and screams, framed behind her window. The sound is horrendous. Shrieking. The noise is enough to crack an ego.
Diana says, “you can’t put windows in a labor and delivery room. People will hear the screams.”
***
It takes months to cover over all that glass, to bury those windows so neither light nor sound can cross them. The hospital superintendent, face bright red, has never been so angry.
“That glass can block 100 decibels,” says the architect, shaking his head. “I had no idea a woman could be that loud.”