Thursday I leave work early for my eye appointment. I don’t have to wait long before the assistant calls me back. She sits me in the chair and asks me why I’m there. “I see that the scheduler tried to call you to make a date for your cataract surgery,” she says. This is true; last week, I got a call at work from a woman saying just that. I was surprised; I didn’t remember being told someone would call me, and I told her that I had an appointment with the doctor this week. She sounded confused, but the call got dropped. She called back once but reception at work is so bad it wouldn’t connect. She didn’t leave a message, and when I tried calling the number, no one answered. I figured she’d call back, but she never did. I tell all this to the assistant, and she seems confused by the whole thing.
“Can I just make the appointment now, since I'm here?" I ask.
“No, it all has to go through the scheduler.” She hands me the woman’s business card.
“Great, so I can call her?”
“No, she has to call you.”
“Then why are you giving me her card?”
“Just so you have it.”
“So I have to constantly carry my phone in my hand at work, where I get no service and shouldn’t reallly be taking calls in the first place?” I ask.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” she says.
“Look,” I say, “I know this isn’t your fault, and I’m sorry if I sound frustrated, but this is really fucked up. I’ve been practically blind since March and I want this fucking taken care of.”
“I understand,” she says, at this point just praying that I leave. I oblige her.
As I wait for the streetcar, I start to feel irritateded with myself. When I got the call from the scheduler, I should have immediately called the office and tried to figure out what was going on. Hell, I was in the office for my retina shot; I should have asked someone there, even though they all seem like clueless assholes. I didn’t, though, because I am exhausted and emotional and probably not thinking straight about any of this. Just this morning I felt like I could handle all of this, but I am so tired. I am so fucking tired of all of it.
“I found this on the floor!” She yells, grinning manically. “You can have its blessing! It’s a Rosh Hashanah blessing! It’s for you!”
Rosh Hashanah was two weeks ago. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to take the bunny, because she is shaking it wildly in my face. I just thank her and roll off the bus as she continues yelling.
Ten minutes later Courtney saws my cast off with impressive speed and efficiency, chattering the whole time about all the horror movies she’s seen so far this month. I don’t know where she got the idea I like horror movies. I’m not a huge fan of Halloween either, but I’m impressed that she has a different set of spooky scrubs for every day of the week. Today’s are crowded with ghosts, pumpkins, and black cats.
“It looks a lot better,” she says, “But there’s still a lot of drainage so you’ll have to come in twice a week for now.”
“Lucky me,” I say.
“It’s hard to belieeeeve, but it’s alllll coming back to me nowww!” Dr. Taggert sings at what I hope is the top of her lungs. She kicks the curtain aside and dances into the room.
“Looks like someone got an early start on her weekend drinking,” I say.
“No way! I’m just happy it’s Friday!” she screams. Gladys and Courtney seem to be the only other ones left in the office. I forgot how loopy they all get on Friday afternoons.
I ask her if she takes requests. “I had one guy the other day who wanted me to sing Highway to Hell,” she says. “He really hated his cast.”
She takes a quick look at the wound then leaves while Courtney prepares the materials and Gladys stays “to torment you.”
“It’s my birthday tomorrow, what did you get me?” she asks.
“Aren’t you’re a little old for presents? I mean, you’re going to be twenty-six, right?” I think about what I was doing when I was twenty-six. That was the year of my first infection, and Jasmine moved in to help take care of me. Almost half my life ago.
“You’re never too old for presents.”
“Here, I got you this.” I reach into my pocket and slowly pull out my hand with the middle finger extended.
Dr. Taggert reappears, singing the happy birthday song. Gladys blushes as we all sing, loud and off-key.
Taggert asks how work is going. I tell her i work with a bunch of guys who want to be hospital guards.
. “I don’t know why,” she says. “All the guys here wear tachtical gear. We had two lockdowns last week. One of them was a guy with a gunshot wound and they thought someone was coming to finish the job.”
“When I was doing my internship,” Gladys interjects, “I walked around the corner one day to find one of my patients totally naked and trying to pull out her triple pic line. Luckily it snapped before she could yank it out. She was screaming an hollering and the only thing that would calm her down was when this one security guard would hold her hand. She wouldn’t let go of it. She looked so happy as long as he was sitting there with her. That's what it's like being a hospital guard.”
Taggert slaps the cast together in time for me to catch an earlier bus than usual, which is fortunate, as I’m going out to the movies tonight, pretending everything's normal, that none of the events of the year ever happened. Just an ordinary guy spending an ordinary Friday night on the town. None of it's true, of course, but sometimes it's better to lie to oneself. It doesn't feel as shitty as the truth.
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