Raccoon

 It was one year ago today that Luigi Mangione shot and killed the millionaire CEO of insurance giant UnitedHealthcare. Luigi was arrested a week later, and is crrently awaiting trial. There have been no further killings of industry bigwigs yet, though insurance premiums are set to double next year as the malicious creeps in the White House work to destroy the entire health care system.

My co-workers once again forget that I need to leave at two, so I’m stressed by the time I finally escape work. I needn’t have worried; the digital readout on the shelter informs me that the 2:14 bus has been canceled and that the next one will arrive in a half hour. Just this week, Tri-met made the first round of what it warns will be a series of increasingly drastic cuts in service. It’s a wet, miserable afternoon and I don’t want to wait for a half hour in this poor excuse for a shelter, so I decide to take a chance and hop on the 12, which is due any minute, then transfer to the 20, which will get me six blocks from the hospital. 

I get off the 12 in a corridor of Neo-Brutalist high-rises that I can’t imagine anyone wanting to live in. I only have to wait a minute for the 20 to arrive. The driver asks me where I’m going, and he says he’ll lower the ramp for me when we get there. I tell him not to bother but he insists. “Oh and by the way,” he says, “You’re wearing two different shoes.” 

“What? Oh, no!” I cry.  

Over the weekend, my surgical shoe dropped off somewhere along my travels. I called around to a half dozen pharmacies but no one sells them, so I took one of my old shoe inserts and taped it to the bottom of my football so I would have something a little sturdier to walk in. I covered it with a black sleeve I cut from a sweatshirt to make it look slightly less shitty when I was at work. I felt like an idiot but no one commented on it. Now I’ve put a plastic bag on top of that. It does not look good, but a pretty woman sitting next to me smiles and says she likes my hat.

The six blocks to the hospital is up a very steep hill. I speed along as fast as I dare, splashing through puddles and keeping a close eye on the bumps and cracks of the unfamiliar terrain. At least this is breaking the monotony of my usual routine. I hit a stick and nearly go flying. Monotony does has its good side.

I decide to take a chance on the side entrance, even though it isn’t supposed to be open to the public any longer; going through the main doors will involve me going two blocks out of my way. Luckily a man in scrubs is leaving just as I approach the sliding doors, so I roll right in. 

Once upstairs, I go into the restroom and strip off my makeshift cast cover; I don’t want them to laugh at me. As I sit in the waiting area, an old woman in a wheelchair takes out a white comb and starts carefully running it through her enormous mass of curls, which I’m pretty sure is a wig. 

“I’m ready for you!” calls Shelley, flinging open the door. 

“Oh you think you are,” I say. 

“Uh oh, do you have something nefarious planned?” she asks. 

“No plan, I’m just going to wing it.” 

I wheel into the big room and make myself comfortable. My blood pressure is, unsurprisingly, high. As she cuts off my football, I ask Shelley how her Thanksgiving was. She says it was just her and her husband and the kids, who are at the age when they refuse to eat anything but mac and cheese. She asks how mine was and I say my cat caught a hummingbird.  

“Ew, gross. That’s… oh my goodness, this looks fabulous. Looks like you’ve been doing your homework.” I tell her I’m trying to be good. “I can see that. There’s barely anything here, just a slit. There’s a little bit of drainage but it’s dry. I’m not actually sure there’s a wound here at all but I’ll let the doctor determine that.” 

She doesn't comment on the fact that I obviously did not change my dressing myself two days ago lke I was instructed to. She’s positively ebullient, and even though I’ve been through this many times before, and I know how easily progress can be undone, even though I know that contentment is fleeting and any sort of stability in this world is delicate at best, I find myself laughing along with her. 

She leaves and I hear her call Dr. Thompson to tell her I’m ready. I wait for a long time; every once in a while Shelley pokes her head in to say she doesn’t know what’s taking so long. I stare at the words stitched forwards and backwards on the beige curtain. Peace. Speak your truth. Be gentle. And something I can’t quite make out… Something something spirit. I just can’t decipher what the other words are. The phrase is repeated a number of times, but always right in one of the ripples of the curtain, and always backwards. How can something be so close and yet remain unintelligible? I feel obsessed, that it is somehow vital that I figure out what that that no-doubt insipid phrase reads. ALong with the words, the curtain is also covered with prints of a fern, a flower, and a snail shell. I take it one letter at a time and finally I see it. Nurture something spirit. 

Dr. Thompson rushes in, wearing her Yoda cap. She takes one look at my foot and says, “Wow.” She scrapes a bit with the tiny blade. “You know, I’m not sure there’s even a wound here.”

“He’s been doing his homework,” says Shelley. 

“I can see that. Okay, I see now, there’s still a slight opening here. But it’s very close.” She scrapes some more. “Next week.”

“So another football?” asks Shelley.

“I don’t see any need for a hard cast at this point,” the doctor says. “How was your Thanksgiving, by the way?” I tell her it was quiet, and ask about hers.

“It was nice. Just friends. No family in sight.” She hurries away before I can ask if she read this morning’s Guardian article about hyperbaric therapy. It was an interesting piece about how the practice needs to be regulated to prevent more tragedies, such as a young boy who was incinerated when his blanket slipped off, causing a spark. The treatments are being prescribed more and more to treat all kinds of things, from ADHD to anxiety. Some people even claim they slow down the aging process and erase wrinkles. The malicious creeps in the White House are of course excited by this. I think we should encourage every one of them to take advantage of these wonderful devices, and not to worry too much about all that talk of needing a grounding wire. 

I finally see it. Nurture strength of spirit is what the curtain says.

Karen slips in as Shelley prepares the gauze for the football. “Just stealing some supplies,” she says, rifling through the drawers. 

“You’re like a raccoon,” I say. Actually she's more like a bunny.

“My littlest is obsessed with raccoons,” says Shelley. “She wants Santa to bring one for Christmas. I’ve got some bad news for her.”

“I hear things are looking good!” says Karen.

“He’s been doing his homework,” Shelley says yet again, wrapping and wrapping and wrapping my foot. 

“I’m not going to be able to get my shoe on that thing,” I laugh. “Oh and that reminds me; I need a new shoe.”

“Just one more roll,” she says, and chatters on happily about the holidays and demoing her kitchen.

When she’s done encasing my foot in the biggest football I’ve ever seen, I have four minutes to make the bus. Though I know I might be able to make it, I don’t feel like rushing, so I slowly make my way down to the lobby. They’ve put up the Christmas decorations since I was here last week. The tree towers over the metal detector. They should really put lights on the metal detector itself. On top of the tree is a gift box lit from within, topped by a ridiculously large red bow. 

It’s quiet and peaceful here, like waiting in an airport terminal at night. I am filled with what feels like an endless reservoir of patience. It’s a strange feeling. I take out my phone to look at the news but immediately think better of it and put it away.

Eventually I push my way up the hill in the near dark. A milky blue ribbon of oil floats on the surface of the water that runs along the gutter, skirting clumps of sodden leaves. 

Aside from the sound of the engine, it’s quiet on the bus. Everyone is lost in thought, reading magazines, staring at their screens. A strong, healthy-looking young man in an ocher jumpsuit unfolds a sheet of cardboard and starts to carefully print on it with a white paint marker. He concentrates hard to make sure every line of every letter is neat and straight. 

PLZ     HELP     I’M

He pulls the cord and folds the cardboard and gets off, thanking the driver. The doors close and the bus drives off, seeming to float as if carried along by a gentle current, keeping us cozy and warm as the storm rages all around us, scratching the windows with its claws.