Burundi

 The following day, the multimillionaire CEO of a huge health insurance company is murdered in New York. I follow the story with avid interest as the police search for the killer. A stranger reports seeing him in a McDonald’s in Altoona, and he is arrested shortly before I roll into the hospital lobby for my weekly cast change. 

The security guard at the metal detector is cheery. As always, because of my scooter, she has me go around. Before she runs her wand across my person, she asks if I have a knife on me. I could easily have one hidden in my shoe. Or a gun, for that matter. 

She points at my ride and says, “I was on one of those things once. Hurt myself worse racing around like an idiot.”

The round young woman at the desk asks me three times how to spell my name. A woman a few seats over over, who looks like she could be her sister, yells, “McCollum. I gotchoo. You can go on up honey.” 

Upstairs they see me right away, even though I’m very early. A nurse whose name I’ve never known leads me into the room. I’ve only had her a few times. She’s one of the quieter, gentler nurses. She watches as Sjon shows her how to use the new saw. He sees to be in good spirits and doesn’t complain or say anything weird. 

I want to talk to them about the killing but I don’t know how to bring it up. Instead I just sit there as they remove my cast and lather up my leg. As I expected, they fuss over the scabs on my knee from a few days ago when I hit a bump and went flying. My battery pack for the string of lights was smashed and the remains of the cornucopia were crushed. Rest in Peace, Harvest Lightning.

I think about last April, when I lost my insurance for nearly a month due to a clerical error. Or so I was eventually told, after weeks of calling and emailing the hospital and the insurance people every day. No one would answer the phone or return my messages. I had been right in the middle of my hyperbaric treatments, and if my infection was left untreated, there was the chance of losing my foot. I was filled with both terror and rage, and had violent fantasies of doing just what that young man did last week; blowing out the brains of one of the millionaire insurance bigwigs. I wanted to see him beg for his life first though, wanted to lubricate the gun barrel with his tears.

Since the Epicord is staying on another week, Dr. Taggert doesn’t even look at my foot. Sjon leaves and the quiet nurse prepares the new undercast. I ask where else she has worked. She tells me she volunteered in Africa for a while, and adopted two daughters from Burundi, which I’ve never heard of. 

Taggert’s mood is friendly but subdued. There is no singing or screeching as she wraps the cast. She asks if I managed to pick up the wheelchair and I say yes. She asks if it’s working out. “I thought it was only for if both feet get bad again,” I say. She apprehensively agrees, and asks how my good foot is doing. I tell her it’s fine. She says she’ll look at it next week when she puts on the last scrap of Epicord. 

As she wraps the cast I think about what Aaron said a few weeks ago. The president of Providence healthcare, Rodney Hochman, makes ten million dollars a year. In January he will be replaced by a man named Erik Wexler. Both of them are so dull and unassuming it’s easy to forget they exist. It’s time to remember. 

I’m curious what Taggert thinks of the whole thing. She’s always bitching about how the insurance companies prevent her from giving people the help they need. But I don’t want to distract her, and sure enough, she finishes quickly enough that I’ll be able to make the earlier bus.

Downstairs, the women at the front desk wave and say, “See you next week, baby.” The Christmas tree glows next to the metal detector. The automatic doors part and I roll out of this factory of pain and suffering, this private mint with a crucifix in every room. There’s still some light in the sky, and I roll off down the sidewalk as fast as I can until I hit a crack and go sprawling.