Football

 “You want the ramp?” the bus driver asks. 

“Naw, I relish the struggle,” I say. It’s not really much of a struggle; I’ve become such a pro at this I barely have to pay attention to what I’m doing. 

“I know, but last Friday you said you were pooped and needed the ramp,” she says. 

“Well I’m feeling better today,” I say, plopping down onto a seat. I’ve never seen this woman before in my life. 

The streets downtown are bustling, but not with the murderous hordes of Antifa that the administration claims are burning the city to the ground. The only wars here are being fought against Fentanyl and steadily rising inflation. The vacancy rate of the office buildings downtown is up to 15% with no signs of relief. The majority of the shop fronts are empty. But the city remains quiet and peaceful. Blank walls are papered over with posters with the latest symbol of resistance, the Portland Frog, saying DON’T OBEY.

The driver does lower the ramp when I get to the hospital, so I can trade places with another man with a knee scooter. “You’re in a Cadillac compared to mine,” I say to him. He chuckles.

The woman at the counter is the same one as the last few weeks. “I know I promised I’d remember your name…” she says. 

“But you don’t,” I say sadly. 

“I remember your birth date because it’s the same as my mother’s,” she says. “Just remind me of the year.”

When I get to the elevator, it’s full. The next car that arrives is going down, so I wait again. Only one of them seems to be working. I eventually make it upstairs, where Bridget opens the door to greet me.

“Now you won’t be here next week, is that right?” she asks as she leads me into the big room. 

“That’s right. Or the week after that.” 

“So we obviously won’t be putting you in another cast. Are we giving you a football? Do you want one?” 

“I would love a football,” I say. “I mean, really, I was hoping you would ask. Also, what’s a football?” 

I take off my shoe and Karen wheels in the saw with a glint in her eye. “You’re probably an expert at these by now,” I say. 

“You can call me Saw Master,” she says, and proceeds to slice the cast off smoothly and easily. She peels off the wrapping and inspects the padding for drainage. “Looks like it slipped again,” she says. “But it didn’t do any harm. This looks much better than when I saw it last.” Bridget agrees, and enters the numbers as she measures. It’s nearly half the size it was last week. 

“We don’t need to take a picture this week, but I’m going to take one anyways, so you can see,” Bridget says. She hands me the phone. The wound looks horrifying, but I have seen enough of these awful photos by now to know that she’s right, it really is looking much healthier. 

She turns her computer screen to show me what a football is. It’s just a huge ball of cast wrap wound around the foot, kind of a less-intense version of the total contact cast. 

Jenny pops her head in. “Actually Doug, the guy in the next room, loves them, and he’s pretty cranky, as he himself will tell you. I’m putting on him right after you. It’s done wonders for him.” I tell her I think I may have had one and she tells me I haven’t.

There’s a spot of red showing through the foam bandage on my knee, but underneath is nothing but a huge scab. Karen takes a tweezers and gently tugs it off. “Are we calling that one closed?” asks Bridget.

“Closed,” says Karen, peeling off a few stray scraps of scab. I imagine how satisfying it would feel to pick it off but she doesn’t leave me any scraps. As she writes some notes on the white board, I look down shamelessly at her ass, not because it’s amazing or anything, but because it’s there. She’s wearing bright purple pants and a lilac sweatshirt for Zion National Park with some poorly rendered mesas on the front.

Dr. Thompson comes in and is extremely pleased. “Would you look at that. Just look at that. Stunning. Are we doing a football? Good, you’re going to like that. You still need to stay off it as much as possible though.” I file “as much as possible” away in case I need it. 

 She shaves some callous and says she’s taking next week off as well, to study for her recertification. When Rachel asks her why, she says she wants to be a missionary. I’m curious but I don’t want to distract her from concentrating. 

 When she’s done, she tells me I’m to wear the football for ten days, then take it off and cover the wound with a small square of Hydrofaera, a foam dressing I’ve used before. I tell her I think I’ve also had a football before, but she also says I’m wrong. 

“We’ll see you when you get back,” she says, leaving Bridget to do the actual footballing by herself. 

She immediately hits a snag; she doesn’t have enough cast wrap. The entire department is out. “I thought you called down to supplies,” she says to someone. 

“They said they didn’t carry that barcode,” a voice I don’t recognize says. 

“That’s ridiculous. We get it from them all the time,” says Vicki. “They must mean they’re just out. I’m calling down there now.”

“We need enough for Doug too,” says Jenny. 

“Code Gray in ER room 5,” says the loudspeaker. “Code Gray in ER room 5.”

“But I’m right here,” I joke.

Bridget starts the football anyways, measuring out lengths of wrap then winding it tightly around my foot and ankle. “I’m half a roll short,” she says. She opens all the cupboards in the room, then leaves to scour the rest of the office. When she comes back she asks, “Would you mind if I run downstairs for a bit to try to track some down?” And here I had assumed this would be a short appointment.  

She’s gone for what feels like a long time. When she returns the whole office cheers. 

“Where’d you find it?”

“Well somebody told me maternity had some, so I went there first, and they looked at me like I was crazy. So I went to the OR on three and they had a ton.”

“I don’t know what they’re doing down there in supplies,” grumbles Vicki, “But they better get their act together.” 

“Let’s get a move on. I don’t have all day here,” says someone I assume is Doug.

“I thought you liked spending time with us,” says Jenny.

Bridget finishes binding my foot, then covers it with layers of that stretchy beige wrap I love because it sticks to itself in s satisfying way. She pulls a thin stocking over the whole thing and Karen, perched on a stool outside the open curtain, says, “Aw, what a cute foot. It’s so little.” It’s true; even with the bulging bandages, which do somewhat resemble a football, my toeless foot appears oddly petite, no doubt because i've grown accustomed to how huge it is when swaddled in four rolls of Fibreglass casting. It feels so light, and I can move my ankle, which feels wonderful. 

Bridget gets me a new cast shoe and I’m finally free to go. I text my friend to let her know I’m done; she’s driving me home so I can give her the keys to the apartment so she can feed the cat while I’m gone. I leave out the side entrance and sit to wait on the bench where I sat so many times while I was receiving hyperbaric treatment. It’s a bleak view of the busy street and narrow parking lot. A house directly across the street is for sale; I can only imagine how noisy it must be to live there, between the traffic and the sirens. 

I take out my phone and arrange for a car for the airport tomorrow morning; I’ve always taken the train, but I really don’t feel like dealing with it this time. I’m nervous about flying, especially with the government shut down and the shortage of air traffic controllers, but otherwise I’m excited about my trip. If nothing else, two entire weeks without a single doctor visit sounds like a hell of a vacation. 

Born to Run

 I feel like I’m sleepwalking -or sleeprolling, rather; trapped in this rigid routine, getting through the day one revolution of these chipped and brittle scooter wheels at a time. I’m only paying as much attention to the world around me as is necessary to keep from getting creamed by a truck. Where is my mind through all of this? What am I thinking about? Even I don’t know. It’s like I’ve locked my consciousness in a kind of purgatory to protect it from becoming damaged. More damaged.

Monday morning rolls around and once again I don’t die in my sleep –my record is perfect so far. I guess I must make it to the bus on time, because I suddenly find myself at the hospital. The metal detector in the lobby is once again roped off. I scoot upstairs to find the waiting area empty aside from some cleaning workers. Eight o’clock comes and goes with no morning prayer. I was looking forward to finally deciphering its mumbled incantation.

Jenny calls me in and leads me to room two, where she takes my vitals then sits at the computer while Vicki removes my cast. We exchange the usual banal chitchat about our cats and how we spent our weekends. Vicki starts talking about an episode of Sixty Minutes about gender affirming care for children. “It’s all too woke for me,” she says. This isn’t something I feel like exploring this early in the morning, but I don’t have the energy to change the subject so I just let her drone on. Jenny says she doesn’t care what gender her kid wants to be, she would love them no matter what. Vicki has trouble cutting through the thick layers of the Thompson cast.

 I hear Shelley announce that Michael, the bedraggled man from the past two Mondays, is here. "Who wants Michael?" she calls. I don’t hear his cries of agony so hopefully he’s in better shape this week. I say “hopefully” but right now I don’t care about him or anyone else. Certainly not myself. I look around the room but I don’t really see any of it. The curtain, the whiteboard, the cabinets, the sink; they’re all still there, presumably; solid objects occupying space. I have no more interest in them than I do in Michael’s pain or Jenny's kitties or Vicki’s ideas about what constitutes "wokeness." 

Taggert comes in but for the first time doesn’t do the weekly debridement. She doesn’t even look at the wound, though Vicki tells her it doesn’t look too bad, with only moderate drainage. “Pretty soon you’ll be down to once a week,” she says. This should register as good news but I don't buy it. She sounds more low key than usual as she does the casting. I don't see her do it, don't feel a thing. I just look down and my leg is suddenly encased in Fiberglas. 

It all takes less than an hour, and I realize that if I hurry I can catch the earlier bus downtown. I race up the hill as fast as I can,  and make it with minutes to spare. I wheel aboard and close my eyes, and when I open them it’s Thursday afternoon and we’re heading in the other direction, back toward the hospital that I left just a few minutes ago.

The woman at the counter remembers my first name but not my last. She laughs and says she should know them both by now. I tell her not to worry, that she’ll be seeing me for a long time to come. 

I’m not late, but feeling a sudden surge of energy, I dash upstairs as fast as I can, speeding along the carpet of the first floor to the tiles of the fourth. Shelley opens the door before I can even sit down and ushers me into room one. Bridget joins her to do the data entry. 

Shelley takes my vitals and is excited by the results. “One forty-seven over seventy-seven,” she says. “And your temperature is ninety-seven. All these sevens!” She sounds delighted by this. 

"I should go to the casino," I say.

“What’s your pain level?” asks Bridget.

“Seven.” 

Shelley saws my cast in one go, then congratulates herself for doing such a clean job. Her tone immediately changes when she sees the inside of the cast.

“Oh no! It’s all wet. What happened? Did this seep all the way through?” She unwraps the cotton dressings, which are totally dry. “This makes no sense. Did something drip into your cast from outside?” 

She untapes the bandages on my wound. 

“Oh my gosh, this looks wonderful,” she says. "Look how nice and pink that is."

 “But it looked so bad last week,” I say, dazed by the whiplash.

“That’s how it is sometimes,” Shelley says. “Sometimes it just all of a sudden decides to get better… look, this is a bridge of healthy skin right here.” Bridget leans in to look and coos in admiration. She takes the measurements and sure enough, the wound, while still not small, has shrunk significantly.

“I didn’t do anything differently,” I say. 

Shelley shrugs and leaves and New Karen takes her place. Dr. Thompson comes in, followed by yet another young doctor. 

“This is all really good skin,” she says. “I like this a lot. What was the drainage like?” Bridget tells her it was barely moderate, and she says, “I think we’re ready to go down to once a week.”

“Wow, really?” I say. “So just Thursdays from now on?”

“Just Thursdays,” she says. 

Just Thursdays means that I will no longer have to bear the hectoring of Doctor Taggert. Of course, I also won’t get the chance to pretend I’m not flirting with KC, who has off Thursdays.  

The doctor also surprises me by having the young doctor do the slicing and scraping. It only takes a minute or two. Thompson watches him but not very closely. 

She leaves and Vicki and Jenny come in to congratulate me. Jenny talks about wanting to see the new Bruce Springsteen biopic coming out. “My husband’s the biggest Springsteen fan, and he got to see him live for the first time this year. He played three hours, it was incredible. Seventy-five and he’s jumping all over the stage.” 

“Shit, I’m only fifty-two and I can barely walk. But then again, I’m not The Boss.”

"No, and you can't afford the drugs The Boss can afford."

New Karen -I suppose it's time to stop calling her that, I rarely see Old Karen- materliaizes. As Bridget wraps my leg back up she asks her questions every step of the way, even though it’s clear that she knows what she’s doing. I almost make a joke about being afraid of being at the mercy of the two newbies, but instead I say, “You’re such pros, it’s like you’ve both been here for years.” They both look pleased. Everyone hseems pleased with themselves today. 

And I admit, my own mood feels lighter in the face of the surprisingly good news. Unlike Disassociation Monday, today I find myself trying to focus on every word and every action the nurses make. Bridget’s hair glows more burgundy than ever, and Karen’s dark eyes shine with a kindly attentiveness. The cast prep materials seem as carefully arranged as a Dutch still life. I hear a patient’s voice droning on about a recipe for chicken pilaf. Through the crack in the curtain, I watch the dry erase marker in Shelley’s hand as she crosses out a name on the daily patient board. I want to take in everything, the good, the bad, and the boring. I want to carry the entire fucking world inside me. 

I watch Dr. Thompson closely as she applies the cast, her legs splayed wide on the low stool. I look at the tight black and gray curls poking from beneath her cap, her blue-gloved hands sticking out of her yellow paper gown as she slops and splashes and rubs the cast vigorously. When she’s done, she examines her handiwork and says, “I’m pretty happy with that.” As I roll out of the office, she looks at my scooter and says, “I need to bring you a bell for that thing.”

I once again miss the earlier bus by a few moments, but it’s a nice day and I’m not in any hurry to get anywhere. The lovely woman with the long hair from last week has been replaced by a girl in a black skin-tight bodysuit decorated with a skeleton of pink sequins. It’s extremely low-cut but I am strong and do not stare too long. Life and death, fecundity and decay. The creator and destroyer encapsulated in one curvaceous figure, holding a cigarette and never once looking up from her phone.

Claw Machine

 “Hey there, are you alright? You need help?”

“Just taking a little nap.”

“Okay, I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Take care.”

I had noticed the enormous man lying on the sidewalk by the bus shelter, but unlike this good Samaritan, I hadn’t even thought to check if he was okay. It’s horrifying how easily we grow numb to the cruelty around us.

The bus is early, but luckily I got out of work on time. Mumbling something, an old man moves his walker to make room for me. 

“The situation is hopeless but not serious,” he says, staring straight ahead. I wonder if he might not have it backwards. He takes out his phone and starts scrolling. “5,496 views on YouTube. Blog has 593. I don’t want to be an influencer, I want to influence. Get the right information to the right people.” He tucks his phone into his backpack and gets off a few stops later, maneuvering his walker with some difficulty. 

His seat is taken by a young man in a plaid shirt and cowboy hat. He carries a thick, gnarled walking stick, and his left foot is sheathed in a big gray walking cast identical to the kind I used to wear. He takes out a paperback book called Claw Machine and starts to read. I don’t think I’ve ever tried one of those claw games; it seems like a foolish gamble for a disappointing prize. The claw is designed to let almost everything slip out of its grip. 

 There’s something unsettling about this guy, and after a while I realize that he never blinks. 

In the hospital lobby, I’m surprised to see that there are two security guards standing behind the metal detector, a tall Black man and a tiny white woman. I put my bag in the bin to be x-rayed and skirt the machine . 

“I didn’t think you used this anymore,” I say, holding my arms out so the woman can run the wand under my armpits. 

“We do when we have the staffing,” the man says.

The wand beeps frantically.

“Do you have an artificial hip?” the woman asks.

“Not yet,” I say. 

The woman at the desk says, “I’ve seen you before,” she says. 

“I’m here twice as week,” I say, trying not to sound irritated. She asks me to spell my name three times then says I’m all checked in.

Jenny comes out of the office the moment I sit down. “You’re in big trouble, mister,” she says.

“Please help me,” I say to an old woman in a wheelchair. She stares at me. “I’m begging you,” I say. “You don’t know what she’s going to do to me.” The woman opens her mouth and lets out a raspy, toothless laugh.

“Don’t listen to him, Eleanor,” says Jenny. “He’s just being a baby.”

She leads me to room one, which also has a new chair, though a very different model than the one in room two. This one is brown and looks like it was built in the seventies. 

She takes my vitals then saws off the cast with some difficulty. She asks how I am and I say feisty. “We’ve all been feisty today,” she says. “Must be something in the air.” 

Shelley comes in and says she can’t wait to get home and have some wine. She giggles, but turns serious when she measures the wound; in the past three days it has gotten wider and deeper. 

“Why?” I ask. “I haven’t done anything differently. There’s no reason for it to be bigger.” 

She says she doesn’t know. “It’ll start to get better,” she says. “It’s not as wet as it was last time.” The wound on my knee is also bigger. 

Dr. Thompson comes in and she says she likes my hat. I tell her I got it at a junk shop. “You don’t strike me as a junk shop kind of guy,” she says. What the hell is she talking about? My entire wardrobe is from thrift stores.

She starts to scrape at both wounds. “This is too pale,” she says. “I don’t like this at all. Not healthy flesh.” She chops and slices and keeps having to wipe the blood from her knife.  “That’s much better. Now we can start fresh.” She leaves and Shelley holds gauze against my foot to staunch the bleeding. She pulls her hand away then immediately puts it back. The blood is shockingly bright, like strawberry syrup.

“I am never going to get better,” I say. “This will just keep happening and there is nothing I can do about it but do like Taggert says and stop pretending I’m ever going to walk again.”  

Vicki comes in for a while, then Karen. Agnes even steps in to lob a few snarky comments, which I ignore. Everything is melting together. “My brain is starting to crack,” I say. Or maybe I yell it. Have I been yelling? I can’t tell. I feel like I’ve been yelling but everyone seems calm and normal, so maybe not. Maybe I’m just screaming inside my skull. 

Dr. Thompson comes back with some printouts for me. There are photos of various knee scooter cushions. 

“These are from Amazon, but they might help with the knee. And, this is saying too much maybe, but I got one of those Temperpedic beds and it didn’t work, so they brought me a new one and told me to throw out the old one, so I took all the foam out of it and used some of it for a dog bed. I still have a lot left, I can bring some in if you like, you can use it for padding.” 

She goes to change into her yellow paper “ball gown,” and comes back and asks how she looks. She has rolled up an extra set of scrubs and draped it across herself like a sash. Maybe I’m not the only one whose brain is cracked. 

She puts the cast on, splashing and rubbing and complaining, “Why isn’t this sticking? Is this defective?” When she’s done, it’s the fattest cast she’s ever wrapped me in. I can barely pull my pants down over it. 

I don’t even try to make the bus, and plop myself dejectedly on the wide concrete slab of a bench to wait.  For the next one. A woman at the other end of the slab has her back to me. Her shoulders are shaking as if she’s sobbing but she’s not making a sound.

In the bus shelter sits an attractive middle-aged woman with long blond hair who i’ve seen here on and off for over a year; she dresses like a hospital administrator. I smile at her and she smiles back; a warm, gentle smile. When the bus arrives, I get on and she follows, sitting in the very front. Her shapely left leg disappears into a walking cast. I’m seeing these things everywhere. I want to say something but she doesn’t look my way and anyways I’m sure she’s tired of creeps like me trying to chat her up.

 If only some hand would descend from the heavens to take mine, or at least clamp itself around my head and lift me from the glass box of my misery, save me from drowning in this sea of plastic eggs and cheap plush. 

The woman gets out after just two stops, like always, and waves to thank a truck for stopping for her as  hobbles across the street. She carries herself with a kind of damaged grace. I close my eyes and for a moment allow myself to imagine what it would be like to hold someone like that, to be held by someone like that, and then I open my eyes and shake away that asinine and stare out at the hard, bright world speeding by.