Schooled, at the ER
Here’s a memory from a freezing winter night in the Time Before. It describes the time I spent in a big-city ER, where, three hours after being ushered past Registration into the vast inner rooms, my main thought was, “Where do I sit?”
I spotted a single chair clear at the end of a row beside two public toilets and grabbed it, just happy to sit down and open my book. But as time went on and people kept trooping in and out of these bathrooms not 18 inches from where I sat, I decided to do my waiting elsewhere.
I circled around some in that vast warren of rooms ‘til I spotted a small semi-enclosed area occupied by two big middle-aged guys. It had a television.
“TV!” I silently exulted, and sat down.
Immediately, the brow of the first of the first furrowed as he held up his swollen hand. “I have to stay here attached to this IV, all fuckin’ night ” he told me, indicating the pole he was connected to. He seemed friendly enough and I offered my sympathy. As for the second man, his split lip twisted into a sneer the minute he caught sight of my book. “Gloria Steinem!” he snorted. “She made all that stuff up, I hope you know!”
Just then, a third man with long gray hair over his eyes arrived at the entrance to this area and stood for a moment beside the staff member who was escorting him.
“Jeez will you look at THIS guy!” yelped the one guy.
“Hey, SHAGGY!” cried the other. “Talk about needing a haircut!”
“Guys!” I whispered. “He can hear you!”
“Who gives a crap?” the first man replied.
The new man took a chair and slumped over in it, cradling one hand against his chest.
“Asshole! Hey ASSHOLE!” said the second of the two men - at which point the newcomer sat up and let loose a barrage of language sharp enough to shave your mustache. Then the air grew thick with streams of profanity, lobbed in all directions.
“People?“ I finally squeaked. “Can’t we all just get through this?” But “Come on!” replied the sneering man. “This is FUN!”
Looking back now I see all this in a different light.
Because there I was making judgments about what I thought I saw in these others, never imagining that they were very likely making judgments about what they thought they saw in me: Some kind of 60-something book-clutching lady in a floor-length fur. Of course they didn’t know I wore the coat because I had travelled 100 miles, by bus, on an eight-degree day to get to this ER. Of course they couldn’t see the holes under the arms of its cracking pelts, or know that it had once been fiercely peed upon by a cat who fired a redolent stream of urine at it, right through the bars of its sweet little Pet Taxi. All they saw was someone who thought she could teacher-boss everyone into behaving a certain way.
So maybe none of us understood much in that little ER corner; but it’s a good bet that that nobody understood less than the preachy old gal in the long fur coat.