Rebel Yell

 It's the first day of autumn and the man sitting across from me in the waiting area asks me what the date is. I tell him and he goes back to eating a moist pastry with a knife from a carton. He finishes that and opens another carton full of what look like apple slices, and finishes his meal with a cup of chocolate pudding, which he also eats with the knife. Before him sits a wheelchair laden with bags and plastic milk crates. 

Over the loudspeaker comes the morning prayer. I've only heard this once before, and couldn't make out what was being said. I can barely understand it this time as well; though the woman's voice is loud, it's not clear. "Our biggest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure," I think she says, though I can confidently state that this is not, in fact, my biggest fear. "We were born to manifest the glory of God within us." 

The nurse whose name I can never remember comes out, and tells the man with the wheelchair they're ready for him. "Do you have a paper shirt I can wear?" he asks.

"A paper shirt?" she asks.

"Yeah like something disposable. This one is all wet with sweat. I mean with water. Sweat. Water. Not water." He continues to mumble and the nurse says she doesn't have any shirts.  He follows her into the office, pushing his wheelchair. I can tell by the way his sneaker bends upwards that, like me, he has no toes on his left foot. 

A few minutes later Kaitlin comes for me. I haven't seen her in a while. She was one of the first people who treated me here. After two years all I know about her is that she loves horror movies, 80s pop music, and fantasy novels. Oh, and she possesses an impressive wardrobe of seasonally-themed scrubs, which today showcase woodland creatures romping in an autumnal forest. She saws the cast in one go, and much faster than Thompson did, straight and clean. then takes my measurements and enters them in th computer without any assistance. She is probably the most capable nurse here.

I ask how her weekend was and she says she saw Billy Idol and Joan Jett at the fair. I suddenly remember that I saw Joan Jett years ago, in the late eighties, playing at some other fair. That woman's been playing fairs for a long time. 

Taggert enters, followed by a spectacled young man she introduces as Dr. Stevens, whose parents were probably children when White Wedding was on the charts. I tell Taggert that the shoe place called and said they will visit during my appointment next week. She's ecstatic. "They took my referral! They really took it! I can't believe it!"

She does a quick debriding then leaves so Kaitlin can prepare for the cast. 

“Things will be better once you get the new shoes,” she says. 

“Yeah but I've been through this before,” I say.

“Well if it gets bad again we'll just patch you back up like we always do.” She starts singing that old Pearl Harbor song, We Did it Before (and we can do it again). 

I laugh. “How do you even know that song?” Unlike me, she’s not into weird old-timey stuff. It occurs to me that this old patriotic song was forty years old when Billy Idol’s smash hit Eyes Without a Face came came out…forty years ago. I feel a little dizzy. 

“You know that's going to be in my head all day,” I say. 

She immediately starts to sing a song I don't recognize. "He’s still got it," she says, and I gather it’s a Billy Idol song. I don’t tell her that I find Billy Idol obnoxious. 

I hear a man with a booming voice announce, 

I’m here!"

"Hello Robert, we're all full up, why don't you wait in the lobby," says Shelley.

"Tell them to hurry up!" he bellows. “I haven’t got all day!”

Doctor Taggert returns with her young charge, "We approved you for a skin graft," she says. "The only catch is, you haven't met your deductible yet so you'll have to pay for it."

I sigh. “Any idea how much…”

"192 dollars per application," says Kaitlin. 

"And how many applications do I…?" 

“We do an assessment after four,” says Taggert, “And if it’s helping, we continue until you’re healed up.” She sees the look on my face. “You can change your mind at any time.” She starts wrapping the cast as the young doctor watches quietly over her shoulder. 

I get out just in time to make it to work by ten, like I had hoped. On the bus I see that my boss has called me asking me where I am, and if I’m okay. I text him saying I was at a doctor appointment and should be there shortly. I’m certain I asked for the morning off but now I’m nervous. I’m so paranoid about pissing them off, asking for too many favors. 

"Why is it so goddamn hot in here!" the person across the aisle screams, then leaps up and opens all the windows. "This is how people got COVID!" I close my eyes and try to relax but that stupid song keeps ricocheting around in my head. Not the Billy Idol one, thank God, but the other one, written the day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, which the songwriters laced with anti-fascist sentiment, which we could sure use more of now. 

And even though it may take a year, 

or two or five or ten, 

we did it before, and we’ll do it again.

God I really hope it doesn’t take that long.