Sekhnet’s father, during his last long hospitalization, at one point shared a room with a noisy insane man.   The insane man was well-known at the hospital and always fretfully and annoyingly attended by his troublesome, equally insane wife.   Sammy soon had his share of stories, which he told with a wry world-weariness that was very becoming.

“He came over in the middle of the night to try to take my glasses,” Sammy reported one morning.

“He tried to climb into my bed last night,” Sammy said matter of factly the next day.

Once, when the madman turned to me in fear and fury and accused me of being his landlord, and told me I couldn’t harass him in his hospital bed, that he was a veteran and an American hero and so forth, Sammy raised his eyebrows to the ceiling in a gesture more eloquent than any rejoinder I can invent now, years later.  

The crazy man complained about the poisonous food, the criminally negligent treatment, threatened legal action.  He barked a series of accusations at Sammy who said “the Complaint Department’s on the fifth floor.”  For some reason that quieted the agitated man.  Perhaps he was wondering how to get there from the hospital’s top floor, which was the fourth.