Growing up, we all got used to my mother being in the hospital.  I knew that whenever she was pregnant and about to have a baby, she would disappear for a week and then return with my little brother or sister.  But there were other times that my father would tell us Mom was “in the hospital.”  I’ve tried very hard to remember, but I simply have no memory of ever asking (or having it explained to me) why she was there.  She was simply “sick.”  I also don’t recall worrying about whether she would get well or not.  Perhaps it was my father’s attitude (both openly and unconscious) which removed any fear that she was terminally ill.  Or maybe I just didn’t care.  But on at least four occasions while we lived in Connecticut, she would be “in the hospital” for a few weeks at a time.  It wasn’t until my teenage years that I realized those trips to the hospital were to mental wards.

There are a few which stick out as more memorable than the others.  One would be the time when my father was working in Chicago and had been admitted to the hospital with an unknown illness (later to be diagnosed as both hepatitis and diabetes).   I came home from school and was told by a neighbor that mom was “in the hospital.”  For the next 10 days or so, the Kent children basically were on our own – with some occasional outside assistance from the neighborhood.  Quite a few classic memories took place over those 10 days.  But those are stories for another day. 

Instead, in this particular instance, my father was home taking care of the six of us the best he could.  He was still working 50 hours a week or more, plus commuting into New York City.  Mom had been “in the hospital” for a week or so, and when the weekend rolled around, he decided he’d go visit her and bring the children with him.  As I recall, Paul (the oldest) has some prior obligation, or else he simply didn’t want to go.  And I think the hospital would only permit one child to visit at a time.  Not wanting to leave us at home alone, Dad figured him and my youngest brother Jon would go to the hospital, and in the meantime he’d drop the rest of us off at a nearby movie theater to see Superman, which had been out for a while by then.  In my childhood eyes, it seemed like we were in some major city such as New York, but I have a sneaking suspicion with was simply a more urban section of Danbury, Connecticut.

Left to our own devices, it was common practice to search the house for whatever food was available.   Treasure hunts in the pantry usually resulted in unsuccessful experiments (learning that food items such as baker’s chocolate or dry flour were not very edible on their own), but sometimes you’d stumble on some old cookies, cereal which wasn’t stale, or some other prize.  It was through hunts like this that I developed the habit of eating brown sugar by the spoonful out of the box.  Eventually I learned to take the entire box to my room and keep it there.  Molasses was another source of sustenance, by the spoonful or poured over anything readily available.  Bread was generally moldy, crammed into the metal bread box with all of the other moldy loaves until nothing else could be packed in there (why it never occurred to any of us to throw the moldy bread away, I have no idea).  In the freezer you might find a frozen waffle or frozen pancake – sort of like winning on a scratch-off lottery ticket.  Old ice cream of a less popular flavor, or some sherbet with serious freezer burn, was usually around.  Eggs and milk were best avoided, unless they were of a recent vintage; better luck was usually found with processed cheese slices, as they did not age quite so fast.  If the cheese was old, you could break off the dried edges and just eat the center portion.  Cans of soup were rare, but powdered Lipton’s soup mix (Giggle Noodle being the favorite) came in handy, and had eternal shelf life.

On this particular morning, I think I went without breakfast altogether.  I figured we’d be given a couple of bucks for popcorn, and with any luck Dad would stop at McDonald’s on the way home (my brother Andy and myself could each put away five of the single-patty hamburgers without a problem, when given the opportunity).    My youngest sister Allison, however, seemed particularly hungry on this morning, and found herself an orange can of salt-free dry peanuts in the pantry.  Somehow she managed to consume the entire unce can, stuffing it into her three-year-old’s stomach.  The rest of the family made do with what they could find, and then we dressed in near-clean clothes and prepared for the trip to the hospital.

We climbed into Dad’s Dodge Aries-K and started off.  This was a new car for him, and in particular I though the plush red interior looked (and felt) quite luxurious.  For all I know it could have been a used junker, but I thought it was a very beautiful automobile.  There was the typical squabbling in the car on the way, but in general we all seemed rather subdued.  Looking back (and using childhood photos as a guide), I can only imagine what a sight we were to “normal people”, with mussed stringy hair, mismatched clothes, and dirty faces.  But for us it was just another day, more exciting than most.

Dad dropped us off at the theater, buying us tickets and having the usher bring us inside.  At the last minute he gave Andy – the oldest of us at the movies – the phone number of the hospital, in case of an emergency.  Then Dad and Jon left, leaving myself, Andy, Allison, and Antonia there to enjoy the show.  At the time, Superman was regarded as a terrific movie, and I really liked it.  The parts in the beginning with Marlon Brando were boring, but once Christopher Reeve donned his Superman cape and started flying around, it was great fun. 

About halfway through, as Superman and Lois Lane are flying around in the evening together, Allison announced that her stomach hurt.  We were sitting in the front row of the theater, but as this was an early weekend matinee of a film that had been out for some time, I think there were only five or ten other patrons scattered throughout the other rows.  We shushed Allison and tried to go on watching the action on the screen, but her squirming and moaning became a distraction. 

Suddenly her entire body tensed up and her mouth opened wide.  Like something out of The Exorcist, a steady stream of vomit spewed from her head and landed three feet away on the cinema floor.  Of course, some of it wound up on her clothes;   the smell from this evil brew of apple juice, peanuts, and stomach acid was quite something to experience.  Incredibly, once Allison stopped crying, we remained in our seats to watch more of the movie.  But one of the other patrons had alerted the usher, who herded us out to the lobby and demanded we arrange to get ourselves out of there before Mount Allison had another eruption.

Andy went to the phone booth and called the hospital.  Not yet a teenager, he nonetheless displayed the anger, intolerance, and impatience the Kent males have made famous in the decades that followed.  After some difficulty getting the payphone to accept his dime, he dialed and connected with the hospital.

“I need to be connected with Susan Kent’s room right away.  Her daughter is sick and needs to be picked up.”

“I’m sorry, we don’t have a Mrs. Susan admitted here at this hospital.”

“Not Susan.  Kent!  Mrs. Kent!”

“Let me check.  No, we don’t have a Mrs. Lent here, I am sorry.”

“No!  Kent!  K-E-N-T.  K as in Kite, E as in Edward, N as in Nice, and T as in Timothy!”

“I’m sorry, I’m checking, but we don’t have a Mrs. Kite here.”

“Is there somebody else there I can speak to?  Somebody who understands English and isn’t a moron?”

Amazingly, they didn’t hang up on him for that remark, and after being switched to another operator, he managed to locate my mother and tell Dad about what happened.  Fifteen minutes later, he arrived, with Jon in tow.  The hospital visit had to be cut short.  We climbed into the car and headed home.

Along the way, however, another memorable scene played itself out.  Allison’s clothes had dried out a bit, but they still smelled awful, so we were driving with the windows open despite the shill in the air.  Allison, sitting in the back seat directly behind my father, announced that she was going to be sick again.  I looked at her, amazed; I couldn’t imagine there could be anything left in her stomach after she had left a gallon of toxic waste at the movie theater.  Unfortunately, we were on a busy road with no place to turn off, and no shoulder.  Besides, there was no time.  She was ready to blow. 

“No Allison, not in the car!” my father cried out.  I guess he realized from the stench on Allison’s clothes that if she erupted, the smell would never come out of the plus upholstery, to say nothing of the acidic stain it would leave.  So he did the only thing he could think of in that moment of panic.  Gripping the steering wheel with his knees, he twisted his body around, cupped his hands, and magically caught nearly every drop of her vomit, with the few drops he missed falling harmlessly onto her already-soiled clothes.  Twisting forward again, all in one fluid motion that had taken no more than four seconds, he shook the peanuts and stomach acid off of his hands out the open window.  The car was saved, Allison’s stomach was empty, and we went on home.  I felt kind of gypped, because we didn’t get to go to McDonald’s after all, and because it would be a few years before I was able to see the end of Superman.  But that didn’t matter.  How could the end of the movie be any more exciting then what I had just witnessed?