The Enumerator
His Last Will and Testament
Part 3
By: Olaf Danielson
This is a copyrighted novel owned by Sandbares Press, PO Box 808, Summit SD 57266, an imprint owned by Orient Beach Publishing Inc. All rights reserved. Contact information: storolaf@yahoo.com, 605-949-0982. The novel is serialized to Substack in 2025, no reproduction is allowed unless authorized by Sandbares Press.
Chapter 3
I decided they were definitely listening as a few seconds after I hung up the telephone, a different nurse came in to escort me to the quarantine building. They knew my answer and they never even asked me for one. Even then, I realized that the walls in Fillmore County had ears, eyes, and even sometimes both arms and legs. Occasionally, I forgot that I knew this though, it is easy to assume one has privacy when one does not.
This nurse, as it turned out, was also my daytime jailer, for lack of a better word, for the next many days. Her name was Krauthammer, Nurse Krauthammer, and she didn’t have a first name until I met her later in the census, and learned it was Florence but it was never used here. Formality, with her was total. She was maybe fifty and she reminded me of why Germans get a bad rap in medicine. Oh, she was American, as American as I was and had only the local accent, but she was what I pictured an East German nurse to be. I think Webster in the dictionary would even have shown her picture next to “East German Nurse,” if they had listed the phrase.
She never smiled, never offered even the remotest of small talk, and only spoke in orders and declaratives. Occasionally, I would attempt to get her to talk to me but it never worked. I would hate to be her husband but then I remembered no one is married here, possibly the first good thing I could say about the lack of matrimony was no man had to suffer in her presence until death they did part.
She walked me to the end of a hall where there was a desk—her desk, the hallway as everywhere in the hospital was painted sterile white. At the end of the wall there was noticeably a sliding window that once it was closed, someone on the other side could effectively be shut out of this hallway and possibly every contact with the outside world. It was a prison cell with cushions and odd literature. I turned around and could see people in the main part of the hospital milling about.
“Suitcase in that box.” She pointed. “It will be sterilized and returned to you after two weeks. If you have anything hazardous or something in there I should not know about I suggest you tell me now, as that will be taken as contraband and given to you upon leaving the county. I know how perverted you members from the outside are, but it matters not to me. These items include, alcohol, recreational drugs, illegal substances of any kind, and possibly the worst …pornography.” She kicked over a basket and pointed towards it. “Clothes in there, pronto! You will get clean ones through the window at precisely at 0630 each morning. Clean bed linens will be given every-other day. It is your job to bring them to the window, or you can sleep in your own filth. You are to be prescribed: three meals at precisely 7, noon and six, with a snack in the evening, wine—two glasses on Friday and Saturday night. The meals will conform to any food allergies you reported.” She looked at her paperwork. “You reported none. You take no regular medicine. If the meal sits past 15 minutes in that window,” she pointed. “It will be removed, and it will not be replaced. You are expected to keep the area tidy, or upon release you will clean it up yourself. You got that Mr. Thoreson?”
I nodded but didn’t say anything.
“If you follow the rules, you will find your time here tolerable and if not, intolerable.”
“Can I at least get my books out of my suitcase?” I asked.
“No!” She snarled as I had interrupted her. “There is plenty of reading material in the library in there, probably of a much better caliber than what garbage you have undoubtedly brought with you. There are records for the phonograph and a radio connected to the local station. I doubt you will get any other station except after the sun goes down. Go outside and get some air in the outside area. Jump the fence or walk out this door and the sheriff will either arrest you or drop you off three miles out of town. Sun is the best of cures and exercise will help you to detoxify. You can use the phone in there once a day, for a single phone call, local or long distance but nothing international. If you get any incoming phone calls, they will have to leave a message, and you can call them back for your one daily phone call. Take your medication that is given to you, all or your medication, or the next person you will see is the sheriff.”
“Medication?” I asked “…for what?”
“Purging and detoxifying, this will be a long difficult time with you. Exactly fourteen days from now, you will be reevaluated by Doctor Elkart, if you last that long. The Kansas quarantine statutes and the rules for here will be on the table inside. Water in the faucet is safe for drinking. Drink a lot as it helps clean you of all that is bad in you. It is my belief that you may need an entire river of water to do that, but it will be a start.” She looked at me as I was still standing there. “Well, that may be difficult as you listen but don’t hear. Clothes in the basket already! Everything. Now!” She ordered. “I do not see deafness as one of your disabilities. Mr. Thoreson, do you understand me?”
“Here?” I looked a bit sheepish. “All of it?”
“Mr. Thoreson. This is a place of health, your body is nothing that you or I should be ashamed about, and I don’t have all day.” She tapped her foot as I stripped down naked. She did not look away and just tapped her foot impatiently. It was odd just standing there with no clothes on, luckily I had gotten over that at the summer camp in Vermont. “Sign here, any monies in your possession will be documented and returned, no one here has any use for any of your currency. It will not be stolen. This also states that this is voluntary. You can sign out at any time and leave the county. Is that clear?”
“Yes.” I signed without reading it. I had probably waived any chance of ever suing anyone by signing my rights away. “Voluntary my ass.” I said quietly.
She snatched up the clipboard hearing every word. “You are here and wasting my time, not the other way around, Mr. Thoreson. That sure seems voluntary to me. You have every opportunity and every reason to leave. Are you going to be troublesome and difficult?”
“No.” I said sheepishly. Still standing naked in the middle of the hallway.
“I don’t like difficult.” She said unlocking the door as I skidded in, trying to hide myself as another nurse was now coming my way. What kind of place was this? I asked to myself as I opened a second door that led into what was a surprisingly spacious area. I had expected sterile white and industrial tile, something like a holding cell for a mental health ward, but instead I got pastels, blues, greens, and aqua. There was a large patio, and a couple of small bushes outside with a large cottonwood tree giving the area some shade. Still naked, I opened the door and a western kingbird flew out of the tree with a chirp. The living area, if you could call this living, had a large sitting room with a table, a sofa and a couple of chairs. Where there wasn’t windows, there were bookshelves. I opened the doors of the room and found three bedrooms.
Obviously sometimes there are more people here. I thought. It smelled fresh and not musty so someone had cleaned it recently. That surprised me. I grabbed a simple shirt and drawstring pants and slipped them on. The pants were a bit too short and the shirt was one size too big but it fit and something was better than the nothing I still had on.
There was a large communal bathroom and a large shower between two of the bedrooms. I looked at a pamphlet sitting on the table, Rules for Quarantine, and read the first sentence out loud. “The best way to tolerate quarantine is keeping a positive mental attitude.” I chuckled, putting it down unread, and walked over to the collection of books. I browsed through them fast, names like Marx and Engels caught my eye, as did classics from Sinclair Lewis and Updike. I saw some religious themed books from authors I did not know, which was a bit surprising as I had read a great deal in college. Finally, I grabbed a novel by John Wyndham and sat down and started reading. Somewhere between the alien insemination and the telepathy, I dozed off and by the time I awoke I almost missed dinner.
I was very hungry as I had missed lunch and just about lost the tray of food as Nurse Krauthammer was just opening the window as I grabbed the tray. I almost had to wrestle it from her meaty paws but she let me have it, warning me again that if she gets it before I do, there is no food for me. I was suspicious that my food would be something like prison food, bread and water but although a little cool due to my tardiness, dinner was really good. Hunger does that for a man. A peanut butter sandwich would have been gourmet in my mind on that day, as for the last few weeks I was living on the stuff. It had been years since I had drank fresh whole milk and after dinner I went back to finishing my read of Wyndham and then went back to checking out my surroundings. I actually even read fully the directions for quarantine and noticed that I was required to take three showers a day, so I spent the first part of the evening taking a shower. That seemed easy enough. I was even trainable.
I later pulled out a book by Carl Jung the psychologist called “The Red Book.” I had studied him in a course in college, so I expected a text about psychology but instead got a book about Jung’s visions and religious theory. I was something I never knew existed. I was somewhat shocked by the contents. Having been a bit of a religious scholar at Earlham, it captivated me until early morning, before I fell asleep with it on my chest.
I awoke with a start as I sensed someone was present. I looked around. I saw no one although I suspected that I had been spied upon as things had moved. I had however been served breakfast at the window and had a handful of pills sitting in a bowl on my tray to take and some liquid medicine. I never knew for sure if it was the cause, but I came to regard the liquid medicine as something I would not look forward too. I took it every three days. Starting today I also experienced something else that I didn’t look forward to every three days, and that was colon cleansing. I read somewhere later in life that there was nothing better than a good colonic, but back in Goodpasture in 1960, about the only thing worse I could think of was broken bones and I guess having an anal probe might also have been worse, but not by much.
About an hour after eating, I began something I would rather forget. By four in the afternoon, I found myself worn out from spending hours on the toilet and I was sitting out in the patio, trying not to moan, wanting never to see the inside walls of the bathroom again, my behind raw from the experience. Whatever I had taken had cleaned me out. My stomach had never rumbled so much.
I had skipped lunch and when I saw the evening meal had come, I was relieved that it was just chicken soup. I tried to thank my unfriendly nurse, Krauthammer’s evening replacement, whom never told me her name doing my entire ordeal in quarantine. She just turned her back on me each of the few times we shared glances. I wouldn’t be able to tolerate much more than soup as everything was going right through me. Too beat up to read, I passed out early and hoped for the best. The diarrhea only woke me up once at night.
The next two days were better, the food soon tasted good again and I was feeling like my old self when on Friday my relationship with the toilet returned as had the same strange liquid and my colon got its second scrubbing of the week. I must not have looked so good that afternoon as Krauthammer looked through the window at me and came in and took my vitals. I don’t really remember the score on her notes as all I remember was dizziness. She returned with some fizzy water. “Drink this!” She exclaimed. “You need to drink lots, or you will get dehydrated or worse.”
It was around five that evening that I hit rock bottom, with everything inside of me becoming a river. I was finishing four days of isolation. I just sat there like a zombie as dinner came. I don’t think I was ever prone to depression, and I naturally fought melancholy by being optimistic, but it was tough and it was definitely going to be a long weekend, a long weekend alone. I ignored my food for a moment and using the little strength I still had left, I stood and walked outside. I looked at the fence. I heard the train whistle. You know, I could just leave. I thought. Then I saw a way to jump the fence. I could use the table. I took one step for the table and then God must have intervened, I had the urge to go back to the bathroom. It was the only time I would have left.
I was as stubborn as a guy could be. I had long ago realized that my stubbornness would be the death of me and quite probably that point was right before me but I wasn’t leaving, the moment of my escaped passed much like whatever passed through me on down into the sewer. Weak though I was, I became filled with a great resolve. They could carry me out dead in a coffin, but until that point, I was staying put. I took a deep breath and walked back out and moved the table farther from the fence, then shook my head negatively and walked inside and looked at my food tray. I had a half of a carafe of wine on the tray.
I poured a glass. “To shit! …buckets and buckets of fucking shit!” I said toasting my day and drank the whole glass using language I rarely used, saying every foul word I could as loudly as possible. The second glass went down almost as fast as the first and I was just as vocal. Having lost quite a bit of fluid and not being used to strong drink, even wine, the alcohol hit me like a hammer, soon I was out cold. I was still holding the glass when I awoke sometime after ten the next day. I was weak and hungry and I had missed breakfast and I had not eaten anything before I passed out, I could have been in a sorry state. Mysteriously the tray I had from supper had been taken but not the glass I was holding. I looked out my window, but Krauthammer wasn’t there. No one was. Momentarily, I thought again about sneaking out since no one would have noticed, but by the time I summoned up the courage it was almost noon and my lunch was arriving. I was very hungry and so I smiled and took my tray outside and ate in the cool air as it had just rained. Lunch included another carafe of wine. Deciding to keep that for later, I ate the barbeque and drank water.
Feeling a little more energetic after I ate, I started trying some exercises to keep myself going. Later that evening after dinner, I drank the wine I had saved and began voracious reading and read two books by Engels, and five Upton Sinclair novels in the next 2 days. I spent part of the next day looking out my window between pages, making a note of what I saw and writing it down, but didn’t see much so I decided to take another shower, my second of that day. It seemed the showers were my highlights and were almost as good as the wine.
My life started a routine, wake, exercise, shower, eat, exercise, read, eat, exercise, shower, sun, exercise, read, eat, read, exercise and finally, I went to bed. I decided the regimentation would help in keeping me sane. Monday started with Krauthammer offering me breakfast with my medications. I could count, I suspected what was on the docket for the day.
“You still here?” She asked mocking me.
“Yes!” I acted tough.
“Too bad.” She handed me the medications, some different pills this time and as I suspected it was the third day and two hours later my colon was cleansing itself again, but I didn’t let it get me down. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. I purposely forced myself to go to lunch and take the soup, despite a certain urgency. Today was my seventh day and I was just at halfway through my purgatory, maybe on my own special path to hell. I kept up on my fluids and made a call to California. I had forgotten I did have contact with the outside with a daily telephone call. I didn’t have that many people I could call but afterwards I always made a daily contact if even just to the registrar at Earlham College or a Friend from Washington just for someone to talk to.
“How is quarantine going?” Lipset asked.
“Every third day I get a purge, a colonic, or a colon cleaning, I don’t know the precise word.” I said.
“The word purge works. Every third day, really? That seems a bit over the top.”
“I can say it is really shit.” He laughed at my comment. “Yup, they are trying to break me and get me to leave but I got less than halfway to go now.” I was trying to act tough, I was sure they were listening. “You hear that?” I said to the presumed listener.
“Well, hang in there. One of our people in Los Angeles got mugged yesterday. It could be worse. It is tough all over, but you might take the cake.” Lipset said. “Are you really doing okay?”
“I am a bit stir crazy, trying to regiment things and my daily routine to keep sane. One could easily get depressed in here. I have no one to talk to. I just read Robert Heinlein, Citizen of the Galaxy.”
I haven’t read that one.”
“I found the story to be much like that of Joseph from the Bible. Family sells heir into slavery, he does well, proves himself to return to take his rightful place, and in the end, it teaches us that one can’t run out from their responsibility. Sort of reminds of my situation, I can’t leave sir, no matter what. They’ll have to kill me first. I have to keep my responsibility.”
“Glad of your dedication but if you got to purge yourself every third day, that is a pretty high price. Maybe they will kill you?”
“I’ll survive.” I tried to be positive.
“What are you going to read next?” Lipset kept me engaged I think knowing my loneliness.
“Well, I have this novel by Frank Hardy, then I have some speeches by Castro I want to read today and then I was thinking of some more sci-fi.”
“Wow, Frank Hardy, he is a hardcore leftist from Australia. I have heard of him. That is one odd library you have access to. I am sort of jealous. It would be fun just to see what they have. They could sell weeks at the quarantine center to some of the professors here. They’d enjoy just reading for two weeks.”
“Yes, even weirder is that I finished reading Ayn Rand yesterday, boy was that a long novel--Atlas Shrugged. It isn’t just left leaning literature. This is just the stuff lying around here. They must have a really eclectic collection somewhere if this is what they put in here. I have never seen so much politically motivated fiction form all perspectives in one place.”
“Well, they do not appear to be ignorant Kansans at least.” Lipset said.
“I read something earlier it was a small novel called Bobbin up, by Dorothy Hewitt…”
“Social realism…” He started laughing. “You won’t need graduate school, John. You can critique all the books you are reading and sit for your oral defense when you return.” He laughed. “Hewitt is beyond hardcore, another leftist Australian. Wow! I would have never pictured that book would ever be anywhere near Kansas.”
“Their religious views also appear to be a little out there. I may read some of that teaching shortly. All of this political fiction is starting to bore me. It keeps repeating itself with a morality of a socially bankrupt system that needs replacement.”
“Well, hang in there.” The professor said again encouraging me. “The end is near.” He hung up and I continued my isolation. The two days later I got two words out of Krauthammer, which was my goal for the day. Hold and still, was something like a conversation form her. But it wasn’t letting her take my temperature that ruined my day. About four in the afternoon I was sunbathing, finishing yet another Heinlein novel and was interrupted by a bell at my window to Krauthammer and the world. I walked over and saw I had a letter, she had slid it through the widow. I picked up the paper which looked much like my quarantine order all written in legalese. I focused on one sentence, and one sentence only. The court so orders the extension of the Quarantine of John Thoreson to a full 21 days.“ Twenty one days!” I shouted towards Krauthammer who ignored me. I shouted again. I took the paper, made a paper airplane out of it and ejected it out a gap in the service window where I usually got my food. It hit her in the nurse cap and it went to the floor.
“Krauthammer, you tell those people you work for that if they think they are going to break me to think again. Tomorrow is another purge day, bring it on woman! Bring it on!” I screamed and walked back toward my couch. I hadn’t reached halfway and when I decided I’d call Professor Lipset again for my daily call and when I told him he just laughed. So did I, because what could I really do? I took my pills with gusto the next morning and kept to a clear liquid diet all day which kept me going so much so that I began reading much of the religious texts I found to find some solace in the scripture or something. Krauthammer even had an immunization for me and didn’t even have to tell me to hold still this time. I began with a historical treaty on the Cathars, then some discussions on other heresies from that era and then I read some selected texts on a couple of religious figures. Luther wasn’t portrayed so well in one and Zwingli was portrayed even worse, as some sort of misguided or delusional fool.
Today became the next day and with tomorrow, another purge, making me forget about yesterday and then another day, finally I walked to my window for my after lunch stare down with Krauthammer which I had begun to do when she offered me something different through the window—
a conversation. Well, it was sort of a conversation.
“Doctor Elkart will see you now.” She ordered.
I was surprised as I had lost track of the days, had it been twenty one already? Three weeks can go by pretty fast when you are in solitary confinement. It was an odd walk down the hall in my pajama-like attire. I waited for Elkart in a room next to her office, but I kept the door open and stared out. I fully expected her to extend the quarantine. I had no illusions that I’d ever pass. Finally, I began to listen and could hear what sounded like an argument murmured through her office door. Then two people left, first a young woman who made my heart skip a beat when I laid eyes upon her and a few minutes later a man I would later meet as Nick Sartor who left with a frown on his face. Just when I saw him the door to my room was closed from the other direction. I never understood what was said and fifteen minutes later, the doctor came in and examined me, and she looked none too pleased to see me.
“I see you are still with us.” She said and began her examination of me. “I cannot keep you any longer, but I wish you would just up and leave.” She sighed. “Please leave, Mister Thoreson!”
Having not talked to anyone in person for so long, I began quoting Heinlein and the need to finish one’s responsibilities. “It is a book in quarantine, maybe there is another interpretation.” I said when she looked confused as to my quote and why I was giving it. I hammered it home with another one later in the examination and Dr. Elkart looked exhausted at my dictates from other writers and eventually, she had that look that she was just giving up.
She stood, moved her hands in a motion to mimic surrender and held open the door for me. “You will have to report back to Nick Sartor’s office.” She said as she handed me an official looking piece of paper, and I hurried out towards the door of the hospital before she changed her mind. I forgot, I was just wearing the simple shirt and drawstring pants I was given, but I was free!