the short story of waiting

I shuffled into the NOLA ER. I'm fairly familiar with the emergency room drill. Intake, triage, wait, room, wait, wait, nurse, doctor, nurse, wait, doctor, discharge. There may be some peculiarities to each experience, but the general pace is usually the same. The waiting is what fills the time. It's like a drip that just won't quit.

It had been pouring rain that day, and apparently this had affected the emergency room; I stepped over wet, dirty towels as I made my way past the security desk, and sat down at the check-in booth.

"What's the matter, baby?" The staffer was a giant man with a sharp mustache and an earring. My eyes welled with tears, and I told him I just couldn't stop being sick.

"Where are you from?"

"Minneapolis."

He asked me for my social security number. My name. No inquiries of insurance or anything. He asked me why I was in New Orleans.

"Work," I croaked.

"Well, you'll just have to come back sometime when you can have some fun," he said.

"I haven't even gotten to eat a muffuletta," I whimpered. This was one of the most important things I had not been able to accomplish. Because I'm just that petty and obsessed.

"You'll come back and have one."

A loud voice bellowed behind me, and I didn't turn around: "What happened to Lori's file?!"

The man before me raised one eyebrow.

"She had the ultrasound and she was just here."

Flashes of HIPAA violations flooded my brain.

"I don't know, I just got here, I don't know anything," he said in a high-pitched lull. Then he directed his attention back to me, the puddle of Minneapolis pathetic goo before him.

"Please go with Mr. Henry, he's the triage nurse and he'll take care of you, baby."

I turned around to see the most massive man in nurse scrubs. He was easily 6'4". He could have crushed me like a can, and he didn't look like he would call me "baby."

We walked through a doorway into a dark room that could be seen from the waiting room. I saw five women there, and I wondered if they all knew each other. They didn't look sick, and they were all chatting away like they were sitting on a breezy street, fanning themselves just because they had the means.

The nurse began the questions, most of which I'll skip. The only one worth mentioning was the obligatory, "Are you pregnant?" To which the answer was, "No," and which elicited the response, "Perfect."

"You're number 668, you need to remember this number," he said as he slipped the hospital bracelet around my wrist. I looked down and there it was, a 668. Touro. Minneapolis.

Out to the waiting room I went, sitting in the same section as the five familiar women. I watched a young, pregnant woman walk painfully toward another bank of chairs with her friend or sister or someone who clearly cared, and three perfect children under the age of 6. She held the underside of her belly like a bad cramp had caught her there and just wouldn't budge. Across from them was a woman in a wheelchair who had busted her arm, sitting in discomfort. Next to me was a guy in Homer Simpson PJs with a bum leg. There was no T.V., no magazines. No distractions.

I listened to the women because really, what else could I do?

"I was in Dallas when Katrina came. And the doors of my house opened up and let the storm in, but I wasn't there to see it."

"PRAISE the Lord."

"The Lord took care of us. He knows what to do. Always."

I leaned my head on the front of my fist and closed my eyes. I wanted to listen but not to intrude. Apparently, the did not know each other. There was some conversation about how familiar she seemed and she seemed, too, and maybe they had met at the market, the place where they said they spent all their money. Child, that's where I've seen you. Of course it is.

By some amazing chance, every one of them had four children. I did the math. That's a lot of people in the world.

"My four boys are all grown and there ain't but one who doesn't live with me."

I thought about the economic implications of this scheme. I imagined myself with three grown adults in my two-bedroom home, and thought about how angry I would be. I wondered what she did for all of them. Turns out one of her sons is blind, but according to her:

"He knows EXACTLY what's going on, and he could get the services."

The woman closest to me piped up. According to her looks, she was the oldest of the five, maybe late 60s, with curlers still in her hair and really, really nice shoes.

And a voice like treacle.

"My first child...was a love child. My second child I had because the first was too attached to her daddy. The third was an accident. And the fourth was a fuck-up."

The other four howled with laughter. I grinned and peeked at them. They saw me and smiled back as their amusement softened.

A doctor came out to see the woman who had been in Dallas when Katrina hit. They stepped out of sight, near the wet towels at the entrance. When she came back, she was clutching her chest. I know because I decided to look.

"He said to call whoever needs to be here and tell them to come."

She walked away in tears. And we all closed our eyes together.