At the Hospital

We were at the hospital.

“What the fuck happened?” Des asked. 

Ah, it was a long story, but I’ve been in the habit lately of making long stories short, so I told her that, basically, the Reverend Father Alabaster Fudge had swallowed St. Anvil’s sacral horn.  Man was that awkward.  You see, I’d agreed to assist Rev. Al in conjuring the miracle, but then he’d gone all archaic on me, blessing himself, murmuring obscure chants under his breath, and then he kneeled down and stuck out his tongue and, Christ, the thing looked like it belonged inside the shell of a mollusk, not the mouth of a human, all pallid and ashen like, devoid of any color that would hint at the presence of blood beneath its slippery surface, and I’d only just placed the bone there when who showed up but Ms. Spigot, exploding open the wooden door of the shrine like a SWAT team member and barreling herself into the space, demanding to know if Al had stolen her dentures again (remind me to ask him about that later) startling us both, but, remember, only one of us had a bone on his tongue—Al—and he swallowed the fucking thing.

Des was at a loss for words, which, believe me, doesn’t happen often.  “Wait, what?” she asked.  “A bone?  Miracles?”  Umm, yeah, Des, you’re telling me you haven’t been made aware of Al’s affliction, his saintly suffering, his bearing the cross?  No?  Well, the poor fucker is near-blind on account of his staring at the sun during the eclipse the other week, and I, for one, have been devastated for him, just an absolute freak accident, like, why do bad things happen to good people, Des?  Anyway, after swallowing the bone, Al had turned himself into a Looney Tunes character, going all bug-eyed and grabbing his throat and making these loud choking noises, the whole works.  I was convinced he was pulling our legs, mine and Ms. Spigot’s, but then he keeled over, and the guttural sounds coming from his mouth turned into more of a weak yet shrill whistle, like a geriatric with a kazoo, and now that I think about it, he did turn a bit bluish, and I think that’s when Ms. Spigot went and called 911.  I called Des and told her to meet us at the hospital, considering I’d need a ride home.

So that’s how we’d found ourselves sitting in the hospital waiting room, and just as I’d finished relaying all of this to Des, a blue-scrubbed woman walked in, a tight brown ponytail on top of her shapely head, a pink stethoscope over her shoulders, her face bearing that stern, sound countenance that doctors have when they come bearing news—usually bad—to share.  She glided over to us and asked, “Y’all are here with Father Fudge, yes, the priest?”  And, hell, just like that, just a snap of the fingers, and I was hooked.  Something about the dazzling greenness of her eyes when she looked at me, the gentle roll of her southern accent, the way she referred to Rev. Al as Father Fudge, a permutation of his name and title that he absolutely despises.  I’ve discovered that when you’ve been a hopeless and fruitless romantic for as long as I have, it’s the little things that can send you from 0 to 60, that can push you over the edge, where in one moment you’re just standing there, minding your own business, and then in the next you’re in a freefall, ready to dive headfirst into what you hope are the warm ocean waters of love but, more often than not, is only the cold smack of concrete at the bottom of an unfilled swimming pool—in other words, utter annihilation.  It’s an affliction a thousand times more real (and more dangerous) than Al’s near-blindness.  I read the script stitching on the breast of her scrubs—Dr. Tablebottom—and who knows how much time had passed before I realized in a stomach-plummeting horror that my eyes had shifted to her own bottom, as if her name had indirectly invited me to do so, an absolutely barbaric move, I know, I know, like, hi Dr. Tablebottom, let me just inspect your rear right quick to see if there’s any associative characteristics, like what the hell was I looking for, expecting to find there, a wad of gum?  I quickly averted my eyes but caught Des’ in the aftermath, which were set on me in a death stare more penetrating than the drill of an industrial oil rig, a look that indicated she’d witnessed my psychopath uncouthness and that conveyed a single word: pig.  Thankfully, Dr. Tablebottom didn’t let on that she, too, had noticed my piggish behavior, as she began her rundown on Rev. Al’s—or Father Fudge’s—status, initiating it with that cliché about good and bad news.

The good news was that Al had regained consciousness and was in relatively stable condition.  “The bad news,” she continued, “is that, right now, he’s only speaking in proverbs.”

Des said, “Well, he’s a priest, so.”

“Yes, but what he’s saying is, I don’t know, it’s…off.  The sayings, they’re just wrong.”  She let that sink in for a moment before concluding, “We’re waiting on more tests, but we fear his speech and motor functions may have been slightly affected by the temporary lack of oxygen.  Whether it’s permanent or not is too soon to say.”

She then led us back to see him—Des made sure to get in the middle of us and block my view—and we found Al on the bed, curled up under a mound of sterile, blue hospital blankets.  He popped up when we entered and greeted us in a drawn-out drawl, saying, “Well, well, well, look at what the cat’s ragged skin.”  Des and I looked at each other, and then Rev. Al, realizing he’d botched that one, tried again: “You two look like what the cat’s dragon skin.”  He must’ve figured he’d nailed it because he relaxed and sank back into the blankets.  Dr. Tablebottom asked him if he was feeling any better, and Al responded in a muffled voice something along the lines of it wasn’t over until John Daly swings.  He then gave a hearty laugh, which quickly morphed into several pained, wet coughs.  He reached over to the bedrail and grabbed a handkerchief and spit a glob of crap into it.  “I’ll be out of this bed and into my shoes in no time,” he said.  “A sitting stone gathers no momentum, as they say.”  Des and I gave each other another look, and we both silently agreed that Dr. Tablebottom was right—the temporary lack of oxygen to his brain had transformed Al into some kind of corrupted encyclopedia of aphorisms and adages.  He reminded me of one of those spontaneous savants you’d see on the Discovery Channel back in the day—the guy who, after getting struck by lightning, could not just play the piano but write a Mozartian composition in a half hour, or the girl who was hit in the head by a foul ball and overnight turned into a polyglot.  Al’s newfound peculiarity, though, was entirely useless and impractical—spontaneous savant, no; instantaneous idiot, yes. 

We hung around for a few more minutes, unsure of what to do, what to say, a fog of unease having settled over me and Des, that overwhelming and claustrophobic awkwardness intrinsic to a setting like a hospital room where the dichotomy between sick and healthy is so palpable it can’t be ignored, like, alrighty now, I’d love to hang out and watch you play with your tapioca pudding as you stare at the grainy picture on the twelve-inch telly mounted in the corner there, but I really need to get back outside to the land of the living.  Des and I started to perform the normal fumbling and fidgeting to intimate our imminent departure, the placing of hands in pockets and removing them, the shifting of feet and swaying back and forth, and, before I made the first move towards the door, I told Al that he was looking grand, all things considered.  He shot me a look and shrugged.  “Ah, well, I thank you Sterling, but fine swords will butter no parsnips.  Hell, they’d chop right through them!  But as Sheila down at the IHOP is always telling me, you can’t make an omelet out of a sow’s ear, no you can’t.”  I gave him a little nod in agreement, like I had any idea what he was talking about, and then the three of us exited the room, leaving Rev. Al to convalesce on his own.  Before the door closed, I heard him shout after us, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stranger!”  Yes, that much was true.

Outside the room, Dr. Tablebottom turned to me and Des.  “See what I mean?”

“Eh,” Des said, giving a flippant wave of the hand, “he’s alright, Doc.  He’s always been a bit of a kook.”

Dr. Tablebottom pursed her lips and cocked her head, trying to reconcile Des’ remark, the cocksure certainty of it, with her own medical knowledge and training, like, sure, this man had sustained cerebral hypoxia and is now speaking gibberish, but this woman says he’s fine so, yeah, I guess he’s fine.  Dr. Tablebottom and Des continued talking, and that’s where it all got fuzzy on me, because I think Dr. Tablebottom then asked me what I thought about it, about what I have no clue, probably Al’s condition, but my head was swimming because, for the second time that day, my eyes were fixated on the doctor, this time not on her ass, thank God, but on the triangulated patch of olive skin inside the collar of her scrubs.  I was so close to her that I could make out each link of her necklace chain and the tiny, silver buffalo charm attached to it, could see the individual hairs that had escaped her pony tail and had fallen along the smooth and gentle bumps of her collar bones, like rolling ridges rising up from the plain of her upper chest, and perhaps my brain needed studying just like Al’s, perhaps I, too, should’ve been admitted to the hospital (or if not to the hospital then to the fucking loony bin) because I think I began whistling the tune of “Home on the Range.”  The next thing I remembered, Dr. Tablebottom was laughing and telling me to, please, call her Kelley, and that she was looking forward to it, and then she was heading back down the hallway to see more patients, and Des was ushering me to the exit.

Outside, walking to her car, I asked Des what Dr. Tablebottom—or Kelley—had meant by “it,” what was it she was looking forward to?  “Well, I’m not sure how you managed it, Romeo,” Des said, “but you have a date with the Doc.”