The Exit Industry

When I walk in to the hospice facility the air is still, as if it daren’t even move in a place where people are preparing to die. I pass by rooms with empty beds and think this is good – most people are kept at their homes as much as they can be, but sometimes it’s not enough, and sometimes they come here for respite care and then they return home, and often they don’t return home at all.

Fred was moved here on Thursday for respite care, an event he does not recall but it must have happened all the same for here he is, in room 109. A nurse points me in the right direction but then adds, “But I think he just went to sleep.”

No problem. Fred’s wife, Jenifer, is standing in the hallway, and when she sees me she squeals as only a 49-year old woman can, and goes into Fred’s room, saying, “Monique’s here, she’s here!”

I walk in and Fred’s eyes get big and light up while he holds out both arms for a hug. (This is not unusual. I am often greeted like this when I walk into rooms, assuming there are people in said rooms.) He looks like nothing so much as an imp, or an impish elf, though an impish elf in need of a shave.

We hug, and I ask how he is. What a question. I always ask it anyway though. He asks how I am, and I tell him I’m good.

Jenifer tells us the temperature has gone up two degrees, and neither Fred nor I know what she’s talking about. At first I think she means Fred’s temperature, but then she says it went up to 72, so I’m pretty sure it’s not Fred she’s talking about. Turns out she means the room temperature. Jenifer is great at keeping track of weather and temperatures and important calendar dates, like daylight savings time. Every time I see her she reminds me when to change my clocks. Fred says that of course the room temperature went up, once I showed up. That Fred.

We discuss the relative merits of Ensure. Chocolate is the only flavor that’s at all digestible, in case you were wondering. Don’t even worry about the other flavors, just stick with chocolate.

We discover how he came to be there, which he doesn’t remember. It was by ambulance. Shame to have an ambulance ride and not remember it, I tell him. After all, how many opportunities do you get for that?

I ask Fred if there’s anything I can bring him when I come see him again, and he says, “Bring a piece of paper. On it write, ‘Release Fred . . . ‘” and I laugh and say, “Sure, I’d e happy to, but I don’t think they’ll listen to me.”

Jenifer explains that the doctor has to make that decision, which both Fred and I know, but we let her explain the process.

Fred is tired, so I tell him I’ll see him in a couple of days. He’s planning on being well by Monday to go back home, and I tell him he better get some sleep then. He grasps my hand firmly in his and tells me it was nice to see me. I tell him it was nice to see him too.

It’s a 45 mile drive back home (45 miles there too – merely a coincidence?) and I find myself thinking about the Exit Industry. This is an industry that isn’t going to get smaller, only bigger. Demand will only go up as more and more of us get old. Not me, of course, but some of the others of us. Could be a big money maker, or at least a secure career field.

Also, not only is it a wonderful business opportunity, it would make a fantastic musical. One of those elaborate Busby Berkeley affairs with chorus girls and precise geometrics, with the previously decrepit dying singing and dancing as if they’d already ascended to heaven. Perhaps they could rise up against a particularly evil offshoot of the Exit Industry and enlist others to their cause. There could be a tragic-comic romance between two or more cast members, dying or not, it doesn’t really matter, as long as they can sing and dance, and at the end the entire cast does a number that brings down the house.

So fascinated am I with this scenario that I pull in at a convenient rest stop (for once, there’s one where I need it), pull out my notebook, and start writing it down. Is this not a fabulous idea? Now I just need to find some backers to invest. Beat the rush and send your check now.