poem

 VIP

I’d heard the patient was some kind of VIP. Which kind, I wasn’t certain. We have echelons of important-ness in our hospital system. At the top of the prestige pyramid is UberHealth Select. Which is for all the big donors and local celebrities, executives and men-about-town. You have to cough up a fairly hefty chunk of change to “qualify”. UberHealth Elect is also VIP but without many of the perks. No afternoon Reiki sessions or sushi bar options for dinner. No biannual executive physicals or quarterly blow jobs. No calcium gauging. No manganese scoring. No niacin scything. No self actualization coach. No daily inspirational phone calls from a reassuringly gravelly Midwestern voice.  No waiting room charcuterie. The eligibility criteria are actually sort of funny. You just have to be on one of the lists submitted by mega-donors. One of the perks of UberHealth Select is that they get to submit a list with twenty names who will henceforth be designated at UberHealth Elect patients. Basically, spawn of the inexplicably aristocratic. So you get these randos sometimes, distant cousins from deadbeat ex-steel towns in dead eastern Ohio where the donor grew up and never forgot his roots who show up with their violet hair and hoop earrings announcing in no uncertain terms how they are UberHealth Elect and damn sure aren’t supposed to be waiting more than 20 minutes to be seen by the doctor thank you very much. Some are inner circle wealthy. Almost seem embarrassed to whisper their Elect status upon arrival. Like, my husband’s rich uncle did this, it wasn’t my choice. I am very normal. I drive a Prius. Finally there is UberHealth Connect which just means that when you call for appointments you don’t have to navigate through a automated phone tree.  And when you’re in the hospital, you have 24/7 access to a bossy lady who then harasses all the doctors about why so and so’s x-ray hasn't been done yet.  Anyway this patient was either one of those, select or elect, I didn’t know which. When I entered the room I did my customary intro and asked him to please tell me how to pronounce his last name. (Long-ass consonant-heavy Slavic sort of a name, like a mid sized Slovenian city only with unusual vowels with gothic symbols hovering over them). ((As a second derivative side note:  in these situations I used to just give these 17 letter monstrosities a shot, which worked out very nicely when I guessed correctly and if I was wrong I would just say, when they corrected me, hold on, I’m supposed to get two tries, that was my next guess! Which would usually engender a chuckle or two, for whatever reason, because it’s not all that funny of a line)) But instead of the old guy I was actually talking to answering, a woman, sitting on the visitor couch, interjected — umm, just like the name on the building? Oh which building? I asked her. Uh… the building right over there?  pointing to what seemed to be east of me. I remember swiveling my head in her finger direction, stupidly, like I was going to immediately see THE BUILDING just sitting there for me to recognize. She was making a frog-like face at this point, the corners of her mouth tugging down like invisible weights were attached to them. Then she pronounced the name out loud, but as a question. Oh yeah, I’m thinking. That makes sense. Etymologically. It’s funny, I tell her, all this time I’ve been saying it to myself inside my head in a sonically different way. Thank you for clarifying. Anyway, I don’t go over there too much. Mostly it’s orthopedics. I’m a general guy. General Surgery.  Blood and pus and shit. Surgical proletariat. None of this was landing. Her botoxed eyes seemed dangerously wide open. Like driving in the rain with broken windshield wipers. Then a long monologue ensued which I won’t reproduce here. Phrases playing a prominent role included: “pillar of community”, “visionary”, “America’s uncle”, “uncle of efficiency”, followed by a brief aside explaining why uncles in their own peculiar family lore tended to have roles and powers typically associated with genial Magi. I was like, Yes, yes, of course, yes, I’m so very sorry, yes. This was starting to spiral out of control and I still hadn’t been able to formulate an assessment of the old man’s condition. I was supposed to be working here!  Listen ma’am I am just trying to get some basic background information here. Trying to get to know him. Your father, right? Yes. Ok then. Well they asked me to see him about his abdominal pain. I always go into a room stone cold, you see? Blinded. No assumptions or preconceptions. I don’t Google people. No background checks. It’s the only way to get to the dissolving points. Where it’s like I’m not even there and the patient is just doing his best to answer questions coming from deeper inside his own head. No disrespect intended. It just helps me to be consistent and thorough. Like if I told you that the secret to who I am could be summed up with a single phrase like, say “Tucson Arizona, summer of 1986” it wouldn’t mean anything to you, at first. But you’d be curious right? It would be an opening. A shortcut to the place where all the truths hide. Doing it this way helps me find that question, whatever it is for anyone else. She rolled her eyes and looked at her father. Just do what you came here for, doctor. She was making rapid, insectile-like motions with her fingers. She looked exhausted and sad and shadowed. The poor guy didn’t look so good himself, if I have to be honest. Cachectic and yellowed. The blankets and pillows swallowed his skeletal form like waves crashing and then billowing around a drowned surfer. There wasn’t anything I was going to be able to do for him. I knew that from the beginning. And I think he knew it too, being that he was obviously at that stage when it was sort of his job to know. What sir? I leaned in to hear what he was trying to say. It was hard for him to speak. Lips like chicken cuttings left out all night on the counter. With my ear inches from the papyrus of his face he rasped “what happened to you in Tucson? in 1986?” So I sat down next to him and began to tell him my story. He closed his eyes but I knew he was listening. He didn’t care that I turned into an unpleasant 13 year old boy right before his eyes. He didn't mind even when I started to cry. When I finished he looked me straight in the eye like his own fate. “For me it was much later in life”, he whispered. “Probably it happened earlier but I was too caught up in everything to notice.”  He shook his head. And then he reached for my hand and started to squeeze the shit out of it. “Are you still afraid?” he asked me.  I said I was. That, now that I think about it, it’s never released its ironclad grip. Which, to be completely honest, is why I never think I could ever be anywhere else. But I don’t call it trapped. He nodded his head.  “I knew it all along, probably”, he said. His daughter was sobbing quietly. I could both hear her and not hear her. She was either disappearing into the fake leather couch or turning into a centerfold poster taped to the inside of a locker in the gymnasium where everyone goes to sweat out the poisons of their lives. The light in the room was radiant coming in through the big windows. I asked him if he wanted to sleep. I could pull the curtains and he said no, “not yet. I want to see the sunset.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that, despite his dignitary status, his room faced north. Nonetheless I remained. We watched in silence and waited for the darkness

8/25/24