You
In the distance you see a shadow, quivering, or perhaps trembling. Yes, trembling. You aren�t really sure there�s a difference between quivering and trembling, but if there is, this one definitely has more trembling characteristics. Maybe it�s just a loose air-conditioning unit. You think to tell the landlord about it, but as you get closer, you realize it isn�t an air-conditioning unit at all, but a person. A woman. She�s still trembling, but now you�re starting to think it�s more of a quiver after all. You get even closer and realize she�s in bad shape. Some sort of fluid, the substance of which you can�t possibly begin to imagine, is dripping from her mouth. Her face is a klan-robe white, almost silk, and it incites a strange fury in you. But it isn�t her fault her skin reminds you of racism. And you�re still a little drunk. In the distance, you hear sirens. Good, you think. They�re coming for this woman. But the noises fade to the distance, turning corners, and you feel helpless. You pick up the woman, whose mystery fluid is now caked across the sleeve of your jacket. She needs to go to a hospital. Is she over-dosing? Having a seizure? You�re no doctor. You study architectural design at a community college on the west side. You�re hardly qualified to know what is wrong with this woman and if she will even live. You barely know the difference between quivering and trembling. You drag her to your car, putting your arms underneath hers and walking backwards. Her heels drag against the pavement. It feels so awkward. It must feel awkward for her, too. Then you start to think this might be a daily routine for her. Trembling, being taken to a hospital by a stranger. These types of things might be on her daily to-do list. In the car, she passes in and out of consciousness. She also moans a lot. She still hasn�t said anything coherent and you start to wonder if she ever will. The radio is playing some upbeat Stevie Wonder song. Something completely unfitting for what you�re doing. Doesn�t this radio station know�you wonder�don�t they know I�m dragging some dying stranger to the hospital? Can�t they play some song for this occasion? The woman is still moaning. Your mind starts to wander. If a cop pulls you over, will your blood alcohol level be low enough to pass a sobriety test? Will the cop even care? Won�t he take one look at the woman and let you continue your trip to the hospital? It doesn�t matter. You follow the red arrows to the emergency room. The receptionist is very calm. She must see these types of things a lot: strangers taking trembling moaners to the hospital. You can�t be the first to do such a thing. She�the nurse�asks you the patients name. �I have no idea,� you say. You�re being honest. You�ve never seen this woman before in your life. You start to wonder if the nurse can tell you�re slightly drunk. You both have a seat while the nurse types things into her computer. Other patients pass by and stare. A man with a neck brace, an old woman in a walker, a woman pushing a man in a wheelchair. You want to rip all their eyes out. You want them to quit staring. You hate them all. Then you realize that you�d stare at this situation if you were them. It�s a highly stare-able situation. They take the woman back. It should be noted that by now she has stopped moaning and trembling, but appears to be completely unconscious. You sit in the waiting room, next to a large, tattooed man who is probably only in the ER because he has no health insurance. A security guard walks by with a large, black dog. The tattooed man inquires, loudly, �What the hell is a dog doing in the emergency room? Can�t they take that thing to a vet?� You wonder if he�s trying to make a really awful joke. The receptionist responds, calmly, �that dog is for security, sir.� The tattooed man lets out a barely audible, �heh, heh.� Yes. He was trying to make a joke. You look over at the nurse condescendingly. You both smile. The tattooed man eventually gets up and walks away. You spend a majority of your time looking at the snack machine. There is a bag of white cheddar Cheez-Its hanging on that curly bar. They�re just stuck there, unable to come off. Someone must have punched and shaken that machine a thousand times to no avail. It reminds you of one time when you were eight and at a hotel in Las Vegas with your family. You went into the lobby to buy a pack of M&M�s, but the pack got stuck on that same standardized curly bar. You were furious. You punched and kicked the machine. You even tried out a flying kick you had learned from a Street Fighter arcade game. Nothing. Then a woman came by, figured out the problem, and bought a pack of M&M�s. Both packs dropped. You took yours and gave her hers. You thanked her and she left. Where was that woman when someone was buying those white cheddar cheez-its? Why wasn�t anyone there to help that person out in his time of need? You divert your attention to the television, playing an old episode of MASH. Jamie Farr is saying something stupid. The laugh track finds it hilarious. You think of how outdated and trite all the gags in this show really are. You wonder how anyone could have liked this show. You rationalize that, at the time, the jokes weren�t stale. They were new and original. So why show re-runs? If something is ripped-off, plundered, and raped of meaning to the point of utter uselessness, does it still retain the inherent value of an honest product? Is there static meaning among the realms of art? Or is the value transient; a fleeting light in time, until originality distinguishes the flame, rendering useless the painstaking art, the meticulous creation of truth. A woman walks up to the snack machine and buys a bag with two cookies in it. The curly bar twists and the cookies drop. She grabs them and shuffles away. You can�t imagine why she bought those. She could have gotten two bags of white cheddar cheez-its for the price of one. Didn�t she notice that? Is she so unperceptive as to not notice these types of things? These things are important. Your attention is directed back to MASH. You think of the few old people still left on this planet, dragging their bones in a bag of skin until they will fall inevitably apart, who actually enjoy this television program. You try to imagine someone far away�in a studio apartment eating Doritos and drinking Keystone light�actually deriving some sort of pleasure from this show. But you rationalize that those people are all resigned to the solace of sleep, completely devoid of the late-night MASH experience. And the only people left watching the show are doing it not out of love, but as a sort of compromise. Life often works this way. And finally a nurse comes in, asking for the friends and family of Ms. DaFonte. You look around the waiting room, now completely empty aside from you, and question what this woman is talking about. The nurse makes enough eye-contact with you to assure that Ms. DaFonte was, in fact, that over-dosing stranger you brought in here. But you aren�t quite her �friend� and are definitely not her �family.� The awkward feeling is beginning to become a theme for the night. You stand up anyway, though, because you realize that this woman, Ms. DaFonte, probably doesn�t have any family in the entire world and you�re probably the closest thing she�s had to a friend in years. Your shoes make loud squeaky noises on the tile floor as you pass old people with tubes stuck in their necks. You stare at them, the same way those people stared at you and your stranger. Somehow you feel exempt from the unwritten staring etiquette. You�re beginning to become awfully tired and you are still a tad drunk. You enter a small room with a bed, a few chairs, and the woman you came in with. It�s only right that you introduce yourself. This, too, is awkward. Then you start to ramble about how you weren�t sure if she was quivering or trembling or if there was even a difference. She stares at you blankly, as speechless as she is annoyed. You start to ask her questions about her existence, but then realize that you don�t really want to know. You aren�t being apathetic, you�d just rather the intimate details of her life remain a mystery. You fear finding out something that you don�t want to know. She�s reluctant to say anything at all, but you know she would tell you every last detail if you persisted long enough. But neither of you really want that. You put your coat around her and walk back to your car, silently. As you walk together, a street light hits her face perfectly. She�s a spectre in an oversized overcoat; a skid-mark with a mysterious white glow in her face. As you drop her off, you think of your life and how lonely you are. You think of who you can tell this strange story to, but your mind draws a blank. All those people are gone. No one bothers to stick around for the aftermath. They enter, make their point, and exit. The lights fade in, act one, and curtain call. Just like this bizarre woman or the tattooed man. You wish that just once, something could be static. Just once, you want something to cling to. Something of substance and durability. A pillar of reliability. But you have nothing. You�re empty. You�re a hanging bag of cheez-its that no one will purchase. You�re on a street corner flicking coins at lights because coins and lights are the only things you can control. Your pants drag on the ground and your feet hurt, but you stand beneath that barely lit stairway in your barely lit world; quivering, trembling� You see the landlord and remember that you had something to tell him. What was it? Oh yes, the air-conditioning unit is loose again. |