"Yes?" the nurse asked.
"The doctors aren't here yet. Can I come back later?"
"No."
"But there's nobody here."
"The doctors are on call."
"But I have an 8:30 appointment."
"Everybody here has an 8:30 appointment."
There were 45 or 50 people waiting.
"Since I'm on the waiting list, suppose I come back in a couple of hours, maybe there will be some doctors here then."
"If you leave now, you will automatically lose your appointment. You will have to return tomorrow if you still wish treatment."
I walked back and sat in a chair. The others didn't protest.
There was very little movement. Sometimes two or three nurses would walk by laughing. Once they pushed a man past in a wheelchair. Both of his legs were heavily bandaged and his ear on the side of his head toward me had been sliced off. There was a black hole divided into little sections, and it looked like a spider had gone in there and made a spider web. Hours passed. Noon came and went. Another hour. Two hours. We sat and waited. Then somebody said, "There's a doctor!"
The doctor walked into one of the examination rooms and closed the door. We all watched. Nothing. A nurse went in. We heard her laughing. Then she walked out. Five minutes. Ten minutes. The doctor walked out with a clipboard in his hand.
"Martinez?" the doctor asked. "Jose Martinez?"
An old thin Mexican man stood up and began walking toward the doctor.
"Martinez? Martinez, old boy, how are you?"
"Sick, doctor… I think I die…"
"Well, now… Step in here…"
Martinez was in there a long time. I picked up a discarded newspaper and tried to read it. But we were all thinking about Martinez. If Martinez ever got out of there, someone would be next.
Then Martinez screamed. "AHHHHH! AHHHHH! STOP! STOP! AHHHH! MERCY! GOD! PLEASE, STOP!"
"Now, now, that doesn't hurt…" said the doctor. Martinez screamed again. A nurse ran into the examination room. There was silence. All we could see was the black shadow of the half-open doorway. Then an orderly ran into the examination room. Martinez made a gurgling sound. He was taken out of there on a rolling stretcher. The nurse and the orderly pushed him down the hall and through some swinging doors. Martinez was under a sheet but he wasn't dead because the sheet wasn't pulled over his face.
The doctor stayed in the examination room for another ten minutes. Then he came out with the clipboard.
"Jefferson Williams?" he asked. There was no answer.
"Is Jefferson Williams here?"
There was no response.
"Mary Blackthorne?"
There was no answer.
"Harry Lewis?"
"Yes, doctor?"
"Step forward, please…"
It was very slow. The doctor saw five more patients. Then he left the examination room, stopped at the desk, lit a cigarette and talked to the nurse for fifteen minutes. He looked like a very intelligent man. He had a twitch on the right side of his face, which kept jumping, and he had red hair with streaks of grey. He wore glasses and kept taking them off and putting them back on. Another nurse came in and gave him a cup of coffee. He took a sip, then holding the coffee in one hand he pushed the swinging doors open with the other and was gone.
The office nurse came out from behind the desk with our long white cards and she called our names. As we answered, she handed each of us our card back. "This ward is closed for the day. Please return tomorrow if you wish. Your appointment time is stamped on your card."
I looked down at my card. It was stamped 8:30 a.m.
30
I got lucky the next day. They called my name. It was a different doctor. I stripped down. He turned a hot white light on me and looked me over. I was sitting on the edge of the examination table.
"Hmmm, hmmmm," he said, "uh huh…"
I sat there.
"How long have you had this?"
"A couple of years. It keeps getting worse and worse."
"Ah hah."
He kept looking.
"Now, you just stretch out there on your stomach. I'll be right back."
Some moments passed and suddenly there were many people in the room. They were all doctors. At least they looked and talked like doctors. Where had they come from? I had thought there were hardly any doctors at L.A. County General Hospital.
"Acne vulgaris. The worst case I've seen in all my years of practice!"
"Fantastic!"
"Incredible!"
"Look at the face!"
"The neck!"
"I just finished examining a young girl with acne vulgaris. Her back was covered. She cried. She told me, 'How will I ever get a man? My back will be scarred forever. I want to kill myself!' And now look at this fellow! If she could see him, she'd know that she really had nothing to complain about!"
You dumb fuck, I thought, don't you realize that I can hear what you're saying? How did a man get to be a doctor? Did they take anybody?
"Is he asleep?"
"Why?"
"He seems very calm."
"No, I don't think he's asleep. Are you asleep, my boy?"
"Yes."
They kept moving the hot white light about on various parts of my body.
"Turn over."
I turned over.
"Look, there's a lesion inside of his mouth!"
"Well, how will we treat it?"
"The electric needle, I think…
"Yes, of course, the electric needle."
"Yes, the needle."
It was decided.
31
The next day I sat in the hall in my green tin chair, waiting to be called. Across from me sat a man who had something wrong with his nose. It was very red and very raw and very fat and long and it was growing upon itself. You could see where section had grown upon section. Something had irritated the man's nose and it had just started growing. I looked at the nose and then tried not to look. I didn't want the man to see me looking, I knew how he felt. But the man seemed very comfortable. He was fat and sat there almost asleep.
They called him first: "Mr. Sleeth?"
He moved forward a bit in his chair.
"Sleeth? Richard Sleeth?"
"Uh? Yes, I'm here…"
He stood up and moved toward the doctor.
"How are you today, Mr. Sleeth?"
"Fine… I'm all right…"
He followed the doctor into the examination room.
I got my call an hour later. I followed the doctor through some swinging doors and into another room. It was larger than the examination room. I was told to disrobe and to sit on a table. The doctor looked at me.
"You really have a case there, haven't you?"
"Yeah."
He poked at a boil on my back.
"That hurt?"
"Yeah."
"Well," he said, "we're going to try to get some drainage."
I heard him turn on the machinery. It made a whirring sound. I could smell oil getting hot.
"Ready?" he asked.
"Yeah."
He pushed the electric needle into my back. I was being drilled. The pain was immense. It filled the room. I felt the blood run down my back. Then he pulled the needle out.
"Now we're going to get another one," said the doctor. He jammed the needle into me. Then he pulled it out and jammed it into a third boil. Two other men had walked in and were standing there watching. They were probably doctors. The needle went into me again.
"I never saw anybody go under the needle like that," said one of the men.
"He gives no sign at all," said the other man.
"Why don't you guys go out and pinch some nurse's ass?" I asked them.
"Look, son, you can't talk to us like that!"
The needle dug into me. I didn't answer.
"The boy is evidently very bitter…"