Caught Stealing - Charlie Huston [1]
Out of the shower now, I finish the last of the beer while trimming my toenails. I clip them very short and even and make sure there is no grit hiding at the edges. I find a clean pair of socks with no holes and get dressed. I head out the front door. There’s time for breakfast.
At the diner I have bacon and eggs and another beer. The first beer was good, but the second is even better. I’m heading into the third week of a pretty good binge and the first couple drinks of the day are always the best. I have to ease into it with beer because my job starts late. If I hit it too early I’ll be drooling by the time the shift begins. I sip the beer, eat my chow, and look over the sports pages.
As a rule, the Daily News consists of equal parts violent sensationalism, feel-good human interest, celebrity gossip and advertising. I read it every day and feel dirty all over. But it’s New York, and everybody gets dirty sooner or later. Today it’s all election coverage and stories about yet more dotcoms biting the dust. I flip past the photos of the interchangeable candidates and get to the important stuff. See, the reason I started buying this rag in the first place is because it’s the only way to get West Coast scores in the morning. Unless you have cable. I can’t afford cable.
Back in California, the Giants are suffering their usual late season collapse. A week ago they were in striking distance of first place. But after a seven-game skid, they’ve been eliminated from contention for the division and are trailing the Mets for the wild card by four games with eight games left in the season. Meanwhile the Dodgers are red hot and have the division clinched after winning twelve of their last fourteen.
I look at my watch and it’s time to go see the doctor.
I hate the Dodgers.
I’ve had this appointment for a week. I’m not here about the blood, I’m here about my feet. I’ve tried every kind of shoe and insert I can find and my feet are still killing me. So now, after years of bitching, I’m finally seeing a doctor. I could ask about the blood while I’m here, but what the hell is he gonna tell me? He’s gonna tell me to go to an emergency room and they’re gonna tell me that it’s not life-threatening. They’re gonna charge me a few thou I don’t have to tell me to rest a bit and not to drink alcohol or caffeine. I don’t drink caffeine. It makes me jittery. I sit in the waiting room and think about that second beer and how good it was.
I’m not worried about the kidney. If the kidney was serious, I’d be unconscious by now. It’s contused: my kidney is scraped and it’s bleeding a bit. Dr. Bob comes out of his office and calls my name.
Dr. Bob is a great guy. He’s an Ivy League med school graduate who came to the Lower East Side and opened a community practice. He’ll take anybody as a patient insurance or no insurance, his rates are as low as they get, and you pay your bills whenever you can. All of which suits my situation. He told me once he didn’t want to make people healthy just to make them poor. Like I said, a great guy.
I told him about the feet a week ago and he sent me out for some X rays. Now, in his tiny office, he turns from where the X rays are clipped to one of those light things on the wall and sits on the stool in front of me. He starts to look at my feet. He really takes his time, inspecting them. He holds each foot, first one and then the other, and kneads a bit, searching for some imperfection. All the while, he directs his eyes upward, as if they might interfere with the examination: a safecracker with his eyes shut.
—Doc?
—Shhh.
He squeezes my feet a few more times, then stands up. He’s talking now, but I’m having trouble hearing what he’s saying. He’s gesturing from my feet to the X rays. I’m thinking about getting out of here and drinking my next beer. I’m thinking how I wish I were lying down right now because I feel a little strange. He is looking at me oddly.
The roaring in my ears is not the hangover. I cannot