The Tunnel

The ghost of Lump lives in a godless place between heaven and earth. Only the scar tissue remains.

Lump, lovable Lump is dead, killed by radiation and chemical warfare. Lump put up a good fight, but in the end his Majesty’s Royal Radiation cut him down to size. One day, I’m not sure when, dear Lump was disappeared. The government silenced him. Shot him down in the street.

Now the ghost of Lump still hangs around. More importantly, the treatment, and what a treat it has been, is over. I know they have my best interests at heart, but there are days when it just looks like elder abuse.

It is day 5 in the hospital. The fever that brought me here is gone. So let’s stay for the food! It’s the Palm Beach story. My neck looks like a veteran Palm Beach neck, bronzed, spotted, peeling, a pentimento pastiche. It matches with my ulcerative tongue, burned in the Radiation Wars of 23. I push my food around the plate, just as my Mother did on her visits to Applebee’s with my eldest brother Pat. She would have the risotto with shrimp, carefully lining up the shrimp, her fork pushes under the risotto, as if to raise to her lips, then distracted, she counts the shrimps again. Best to have small sip of wine.

Meanwhile in beautiful Palm Beach, Lido Caine is also pushing her food around the plate. Lido is currently out if work, but hopes to have a modelling job for one of the local clothing chains in a few weeks. That’s what her agent said. It has come to this, from the lofty heights of a semi-naked murder scene in a made-for-tv movie, called The Striped Bride Stripped of All Her Dignity, starring Brenda Fonda. It struggled to get one star. The killer was played by the relative unknown- Argyle Yankauer.

Argyle woke to the sound of his morning nausea. He was in hospital, 5 days on. Was the end today? Not “the end” end, but the end of the hospital stay. Argyle had been prescribed hydro morphone, now on the 12 hour time release. The room was very bright, then he realized that the day nurse had left the surgical lights on. He vaguely remembers her asking him if he wanted them on or off. Frankly the day nurses and the night nurses were starting to blend into one amalgamated Nurse with No Name. Dressed in yellow from head to toe, with the word NURSE on her uniform, no doubt they are real, their gender is more than fluid, more like a caterpillar morphing into a butterfly, than back into a caterpillar. They ask him what his name is and when his birthday is. He has been asked that question many times now. He says Dennis Mills.

It says Argyle Yankauer here. That’s just a character I say. A fiction.

No, it says very clearly that your name is Argyle Yankauer. I start to argue, then shut up. Ok. I will be what I will be. What you want me to be. Where am I?

You need to get ready for your last treatment.

I thought that was yesterday.

It says on the paper it is today.

Can you just ask the doctor?

Dr. Yankauer? He is on vacation I think, but another doctor is covering for him.

Wait. Don’t tell me. Is his name also Yankauer?

Strange, it is. Perhaps his father.

The porter is here to take you for your radiation. You will be going through the Tunnel.

I pause from staring at my food.

Are you trying to say something here? I see an H in the eggs. What did you want to say? Mr. Yankauer? Mr. Yankauer?

Help.

There is a tunnel under VGH that leads all the way to the BC Cancer Agency. It is at least a few blocks long. There were no tents. There were a few spots with spare stretchers and wheel chairs.

I discussed with the porter, that is the medical professional who sees that I get where I am going. Then another porter ensures that you get back. Porters don’t wait.

I said no tents, as it’s a wonder people were not living down here. He said at one point in the past few years there was one fellow who lived down here for some time escaping detection, and then he just disappeared. Reddit:There is a tunnel system under VGH connecting all the buildings in that area (spanning between Ash to Oak).It's mainly for transferring patients and housekeeping purposes, but it's secured for hospital staff only.

In 1906, The Heather Pavillion opened as a new part of Vancouver General Hospital or VGH. Were the tunnels built at that time to link all buildings? I am trying to get more information. The morgue is down there. Many abandoned or shuttered operating rooms, including one that resembles this:

Apparently I have butterflies in my wishbone!

There are also reputed ghosts. There are corridors that have been shut down. Operating rooms abandoned. Movies shot down there. You will find few facts online. Aaron Chapman and John Mackie are in circular firing squad pointing at the the other Vancouver historian, saying he may know.

I go online. Apparently at the time of the Heather Pavillion, a doctor named Yankauer suggested building a tunnel to join all the health facilities. Seeing into a strange future world of phones with cameras and books called The Palm Beach Diet.

My phone rings.

It’s a number from Toronto. Dr. Yankauer??

One ring to rule them all.

Lump smiles. Am I a ghost?

For a laugh, Lump pushes some food on my plate around.