Ham On Rye - Charles Bukowski [47]
It was arranged for me to go to the L.A. County General Hospital. I was given a long white card. I took the white card and got on the #7 streetcar. The fare was seven cents (or four tokens for a quarter). I dropped in my token and walked to the back of the streetcar. I had an 8:30 a.m. appointment.
A few blocks later a young boy and a woman got on the streetcar. The woman was fat and the boy was about four years old. They sat in the seat behind me. I looked out the window. We rolled along. I liked that #7 streetcar. It went really fast and rocked back and forth as the sun shone outside.
“Mommy,” I heard the young boy say, “What’s wrong with that man’s face?”
The woman didn’t answer.
The boy asked her the same question again.
She didn’t answer.
Then the boy screamed it out, “Mommy! What’s wrong with that man’s face?”
“Shut up! I don’t know what’s wrong with his face!”
I went to Admissions at the hospital and they instructed me to report to the fourth floor. There the nurse at the desk took my name and told me to be seated. We sat in two long rows of green metal chairs facing one another. Mexicans, whites and blacks. There were no Orientals. There was nothing to read. Some of the patients had day-old newspapers. The people were of all ages, thin and fat, short and tall, old and young. Nobody talked. Everybody seemed very tired. Orderlies walked back and forth, sometimes you saw a nurse, but never a doctor. An hour went by, two hours. Nobody’s name was called. I got up to look for a water fountain. I looked in the little rooms where people were to be examined. There wasn’t anybody in any of the rooms, neither doctors or patients.
I went to the desk. The nurse was staring down into a big fat book with names written in it. The phone rang. She answered it.
“Dr. Menen isn’t here yet.” She hung up.
“Pardon me,” I said.
“Yes?” the nurse asked.
“The doctors aren’t here yet. Can I come back later?”
“No.”
“But there’s nobody here.”
“The doctors are on call.”
“But I have an 8:30 appointment.”
“Everybody here has an 8:30 appointment.”
There were 45 or 50 people waiting.
“Since I’m on the waiting list, suppose I come back in a couple of hours, maybe there will be some doctors here then.”
“If you leave now, you will automatically lose your appointment. You will have to return tomorrow if you still wish treatment.”
I walked back and sat in a chair. The others didn’t protest. There was very little movement. Sometimes two or three nurses would walk by laughing. Once they pushed a man past in a wheelchair. Both of his legs were heavily bandaged and his ear on the side of his head toward me had been sliced off. There was a black hole divided into little sections, and it looked like a spider had gone in there and made a spider web. Hours passed. Noon came and went. Another hour. Two hours. We sat and waited. Then somebody said, “There’s a doctor!”
The doctor walked into one of the examination rooms and closed the door. We all watched. Nothing. A nurse went in. We heard her laughing. Then she walked out. Five minutes. Ten minutes. The doctor walked out with a clipboard in his hand.
“Martinez?” the doctor asked. “José Martinez?”
An old thin Mexican man stood up and began walking toward the doctor.
“Martinez? Martinez, old boy, how are you?”
“Sick, doctor…I think I die…”
“Well, now…Step in here…”
Martinez was in there a long time. I picked up a discarded newspaper and tried to read it. But we were all thinking about Martinez. If Martinez ever got out of there, someone would be next.
Then Martinez screamed. “AHHHHH! AHHHHH! STOP! STOP! AHHHH! MERCY! GOD! PLEASE STOP!”
“Now, now, that doesn’t hurt…” said the doctor.
Martinez screamed again. A nurse ran into the examination room. There was silence. All we could see was the black shadow of the half-open doorway. Then an orderly ran into the examination room. Martinez made a gurgling sound. He was taken out of there on a rolling stretcher. The nurse and the orderly pushed him down