1964.
On Tuesday, Sarah took her son eight-year-old Blake to Dr. Felipe, the haughty pediatrician on the fourth floor. “He hasn’t had the mumps,” she complained to the nurse, a middle-aged woman in a pristine white uniform.
“You’ve brought him here because he isn’t sick?” she asked Sarah.
“If he doesn’t get them now, he’ll get them later,” Sarah told her, nervously touching her orange wool cap. “Like when he’s twenty. I read he won’t be able to have children.”
The nurse left her desk and went to the back of the office behind the counter. Sarah watched her talking rapidly, flailing her hands about as she ranted to the calm, antiseptic-looking doctor with the blackest hair Blake had ever seen. Her hands are too big for a woman, Sarah thought. She shouldn’t be wearing red nail polish in a doctor’s office.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to come back,” the nurse told Sarah, closing Blake’s chart. “When he’s really sick –”
“Fine!” Sarah interrupted. Crusty old bitch, she muttered to herself, as she slammed the door
1967
Blake waited restlessly on the hard plastic chair. He tried to read his comic book, but the lighting in the hallway was too dim. He didn’t understand why his mother would make a doctor’s appointment after dinnertime. He didn’t like this place, and he didn’t think anyone else did either. The taxi driver who had reluctantly taken the fare complained about coming to “that part of town.”
Finally, his mother came out. She limped, one hand clutching her stomach, the other wiping a few tears from her tired face.
It wasn’t until he was twenty that Blake figured out what she had done.
1975
Blake had done it once with Fonny, the Italian kid who pumped gas at the Esso station on Howard Avenue. He regretted his poorly thought-out experiment. “Should have known he’d give me some shit,” he thought, as he sat in the waiting room of the free clinic. He had an hour’s wait to deal with his remorse until he was escorted to a small office by a counselor named Ivan in the back. The room was furnished with two discarded kitchen chairs and a makeshift desk fashioned out of a dismembered door.
Ivan asked him the number of instances of oral copulation in which he had engaged, having recently been trained on the risks of venereal disease transmission through oral sex. He didn’t believe Blake and asked him twice again.
“Can I just get the shot?”
“Let me give you these pamphlets to read first,” Ivan said.
1987
Blake held Amanda’s hand while they waited for Dr. Smith to return. Amanda admired his cherry wood bookcases and ornately carved desk. A preoccupied man of fifty finally appeared, as if magically transported him from his 10:10 am appointment.
“Pneumonia?” he said, as if they were supposed to decipher the question he was answering.
“We were on vacation in New York,” Blake explained, hoping that if he rambled through enough details, he would eventually answer his question. “She got unbelievably sick on the second day. We went to the hospital. They kept her there for ten days.” He paused. “You should see the bills,” he complained. He sounded like he was expecting the doctor to arrange for a discount.
“How do you feel now?” the doctor asked.
“I feel bad all the time,” Amanda said. “Especially at night. Bad sweats, headaches, so tired.”
A chilly moment of silence passed. “How long have you been together?”
“Over ten years,” Blake replied.
“And have you been faithful to each other, all that time?”
Amanda sat up, startled. “What kind of question is that?”
“Of course we have,” Blake lied. Amanda squeezed his hand as if agreeing.
“Mrs. Steele?”
“Why, yes. I’ve never even thought about seeing anyone else.” Amanda smiled. “Blake’s always been enough for me. I was in a car accident only a year after we met. He never left my side.”
“Car accident?”
“Yes. A terrible head-on collision. The man who drove into me didn’t survive.”
The doctor leaned toward her, now quite serious. “Did you happen to have a blood transfusion?”
2004
Blake stopped at the clinic on his way from the lawyer’s office. He was overdue for his flu shot. There had been no vaccine available the year before, due to the contamination, and he had been sick for two weeks. Not this year. He fingered the red slip of paper with his number and the consent form he hadn’t bothered to read.
As he waited for his number to be called, he opened the manila envelope his lawyer had mailed to him. Despite all he had learned from requesting Amanda’s medical records for the useless AIDS lawsuit, it had been a nearly impossible task to obtain his own.
He thumbed through the stiff photocopies of the file from the office of the antiseptic pediatrician with the black hair. Dr. Felice’s practice had been sold twice and moved three times. This last bit of Blake’s medical legacy was a hard-earned prize. He stared at the copy of handwritten notes section of the file cover.
COMMENTS: Do not ask child about father. Illegitimate.
“Number 94?”
2005
Though he’d avoided check-ups for almost ten years, Blake knew he had to have one before his 49th birthday. He had heard too many frightening stories from his middle-aged peers about Colonoscopy@50. His strategy: if he got his check-up now, he would avoid having the doctor ask about scheduling the procedure.
He thought he was finished after a short lecture on avoiding sodium and the suggestion that he get a mumps vaccine.
“I didn’t know there was one.”
“I never mentioned it before?” The doctor didn’t wait for an answer. “And of course, next year, you’ll be due for …” He gave Blake a knowing smile. You-know-what.
Blake put on his tie. Crusty old bitch.
2015
Inoperable.
2019
COMMENT: Just keep patient comfortable.