Aretha

 When the relief at knowing I’m finally taking care of my health wears off, I console myself with the prospect of continuing to document the saga. I enjoy writing about my experience, and relish the idea of getting a book out of the process. 

But as the weeks drag on, the routine starts grinding me down, and I start to wonder if I’m up to the challenge of transforming such dull material into something worth reading. Maybe I need to take a break from writing.

Fortunately, I have a break from nearly everything coming up. After much agonizing, I’ve decided to fly back East for two weeks. I haven’t been there –or anywhere, aside from an occasional overnight at the beach- since my sister’s wedding two years ago. It will be a nuisance having to travel with Harvest Lightning again, but I’ve done it twice before so I know I can manage it. If nothing else, it will be good to have a respite from this pitiless routine. 

But I don’t leave for three weeks, so in the meantime, the pitiless routine continues. 

Something different does happen when I check in at the counter on Thursday. I get a desk clerk I’ve never seen before, an old woman with uncannily smooth, pale skin and white hair. I wonder if she’s an albino, but her eyes are nearly black. She takes my information then tells me I owe a copay. I’ve never had a copay for any of these appointments, and it rattles me. She says I can have it billed but I take out my card and pay it and head upstairs, nearly getting run over by the old man driving the people mover, which is festooned with autumn leaves cut from construction paper. 

The office is unnaturally quiet. “You’re the only one here!” cries Shelley, ushering me into the big room. The seat feels harder than usual, and when I comment on this, she asks, “Do you like it? We just got new ones. Well, not new, they’re from another office that closed up.”

“What, since Monday?” I ask, and realize that despite all the times I’ve sat on these chairs, I’ve never paid any attention to them. She says yes and that everyone else seems to like them. 

“Yes but you know what a sensitive princess I am,” I say.

“I do know,” she says. “Oof, I don’t like that blood pressure. Let’s try again in a few minutes.”

She cuts off the cast and says the drainage isn’t too bad. “It’s definitely getting smaller,” she says. I don’t say anything. I’m weary of the whole process, and don’t feel up for pretending otherwise. 

Dr. Thompson comes in before I’m fully prepared for the cast. She looks at the stopwatch on the glove dispenser and tells Shelley, “I know you can do better than that.” Are they timing everything they do now? 

While she applies the cast, the doctor and Shelley talk about some Netflix show I’ve never heard of called Blood of my Blood, a prequel to another show I’ve never heard of called Outlander. “It’s kind of a chick flick,” says the doctor, and my mind drifts as they heatedly discuss some intrigue between three of the characters, who are possibly nurses, or time travellers, or maybe time travelling nurses. 

As I’m leaving, the doctor looks at the piece of foam I’ve taken to placing on the seat of the scooter. “Is that helping?” she asks. 

“Oh yeah, it’s making a huge difference,” I say. It really is.

“When I hurt my leg I found this lambskin knee pad that worked really well. I got it on the internet, I’ll send you the link if I can find it.” I tell her thanks, though I couldn’t care less. I don’t care about anything right now. I don’t even care that the bus is a half hour late, or that a woman at the stop asks everyone angrily if they have a cigarette, and when they say no, screams “You’re what’s wrong with the world!” She keeps wandering out in front of cars to ask people on the other side of the street for a smoke.

“She not even looking. She gone get hit,” a woman in a hospital gown says. The other woman wanders back onto the safety of the sidewalk.

“Got a cigarette?” she screams.

“Do you even know who I am?” the woman in the gown asks. “I’m Aretha Franklin.” 

“You’re not fucking Aretha Franklin,” she cigarette-less woman snarls. 

“I am too Aretha Franklin, and just for that I ain’t giving you no damn cigarette,” she says, and shuffles off in her paper slippers. I put my arms on my handlebars and bury my face in them and close my eyes and pray that when I open them again I’ll be back at home, and four days away from having to do this all over again.