Ham On Rye

The doctor stayed in the examination room for another ten minutes. Then he came out with the clipboard.

"Jefferson Williams?" he asked. There was no answer.

"Is Jefferson Williams here?"

There was no response.

"Mary Blackthorne?"

There was no answer.

"Harry Lewis?"

"Yes, doctor?"

"Step forward, please…"

It was very slow. The doctor saw five more patients. Then he left the examination room, stopped at the desk, lit a cigarette and talked to the nurse for fifteen minutes. He looked like a very intelligent man. He had a twitch on the right side of his face, which kept jumping, and he had red hair with streaks of grey. He wore glasses and kept taking them off and putting them back on. Another nurse came in and gave him a cup of coffee. He took a sip, then holding the coffee in one hand he pushed the swinging doors open with the other and was gone.

The office nurse came out from behind the desk with our long white cards and she called our names. As we answered, she handed each of us our card back. "This ward is closed for the day. Please return tomorrow if you wish. Your appointment time is stamped on your card."

I looked down at my card. It was stamped 8:30 a.m.

30

I got lucky the next day. They called my name. It was a different doctor. I stripped down. He turned a hot white light on me and looked me over. I was sitting on the edge of the examination table.

"Hmmm, hmmmm," he said, "uh huh…"

I sat there.

"How long have you had this?"

"A couple of years. It keeps getting worse and worse."

"Ah hah."

He kept looking.

"Now, you just stretch out there on your stomach. I'll be right back."

Some moments passed and suddenly there were many people in the room. They were all doctors. At least they looked and talked like doctors. Where had they come from? I had thought there were hardly any doctors at L.A. County General Hospital.

"Acne vulgaris. The worst case I've seen in all my years of practice!"

"Fantastic!"

"Incredible!"

"Look at the face!"

"The neck!"

"I just finished examining a young girl with acne vulgaris. Her back was covered. She cried. She told me, 'How will I ever get a man? My back will be scarred forever. I want to kill myself!' And now look at this fellow! If she could see him, she'd know that she really had nothing to complain about!"

You dumb fuck, I thought, don't you realize that I can hear what you're saying? How did a man get to be a doctor? Did they take anybody?

"Is he asleep?"

"Why?"

"He seems very calm."

"No, I don't think he's asleep. Are you asleep, my boy?"

"Yes."

They kept moving the hot white light about on various parts of my body.

"Turn over."

I turned over.

"Look, there's a lesion inside of his mouth!"

"Well, how will we treat it?"

"The electric needle, I think…

"Yes, of course, the electric needle."

"Yes, the needle."

It was decided.

31

The next day I sat in the hall in my green tin chair, waiting to be called. Across from me sat a man who had something wrong with his nose. It was very red and very raw and very fat and long and it was growing upon itself. You could see where section had grown upon section. Something had irritated the man's nose and it had just started growing. I looked at the nose and then tried not to look. I didn't want the man to see me looking, I knew how he felt. But the man seemed very comfortable. He was fat and sat there almost asleep.

They called him first: "Mr. Sleeth?"

He moved forward a bit in his chair.

"Sleeth? Richard Sleeth?"

"Uh? Yes, I'm here…"

He stood up and moved toward the doctor.

"How are you today, Mr. Sleeth?"

"Fine… I'm all right…"

He followed the doctor into the examination room.

I got my call an hour later. I followed the doctor through some swinging doors and into another room. It was larger than the examination room. I was told to disrobe and to sit on a table. The doctor looked at me.

"You really have a case there, haven't you?"

"Yeah."

He poked at a boil on my back.

"That hurt?"

"Yeah."

"Well," he said, "we're going to try to get some drainage."

I heard him turn on the machinery. It made a whirring sound. I could smell oil getting hot.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Yeah."

He pushed the electric needle into my back. I was being drilled. The pain was immense. It filled the room. I felt the blood run down my back. Then he pulled the needle out.

"Now we're going to get another one," said the doctor. He jammed the needle into me. Then he pulled it out and jammed it into a third boil. Two other men had walked in and were standing there watching. They were probably doctors. The needle went into me again.

"I never saw anybody go under the needle like that," said one of the men.

"He gives no sign at all," said the other man.

"Why don't you guys go out and pinch some nurse's ass?" I asked them.

"Look, son, you can't talk to us like that!"

The needle dug into me. I didn't answer.

"The boy is evidently very bitter…"

"Yes, of course, that's it."

The men walked out.

"Those are fine professional men," said my doctor. "It's not good of you to abuse them."

"Just go ahead and drill," I told him.

He did. The needle got very hot but he went on and on. He drilled my entire back, then he got my chest. Then I stretched out and he drilled my neck and my face.

A nurse came in and she got her instructions. "Now, Miss Ackerman, I want these… pustules… thoroughly drained. And when you get to the blood, keep squeezing. I want thorough drainage."

"Yes, Dr. Grundy."

"And afterwards, the ultra-violet ray machine. Two minutes on each side to begin with…"

"Yes, Dr. Grundy."

I followed Miss Ackerman into another room. She told me to lay down on the table. She got a tissue and started on the first boil.

"Does this hurt?"

"It's all right."

"You poor boy…"

"Don't worry. I'm just sorry you have to do this."

"You poor boy…"

Miss Ackerman was the first person to give me any sympathy. It felt strange. She was a chubby little nurse in her early thirties.

"Are you going to school?" she asked.

"No, they had to take me out."

Miss Ackerman kept squeezing as she talked.

"What do you do all day?"

"I just stay in bed."

"That's awful."

"No, it's nice. I like it."

"Does this hurt?"

"Go ahead. It's all right."

"What's so nice about laying in bed all day?"

"I don't have to see anybody."

"You like that?"

"Oh, yes."

"What do you do all day?"

"Some of the day I listen to the radio."

"What do you listen to?"

"Music. And people talking."

"Do you think of girls?"

"Sure. But that's out."

"You don't want to think that way."

"I make charts of airplanes going overhead. They come over at the same time each day. I have them timed. Say that I know that one of them is going to pass over at 11:15 a.m. Around 11:10, I start listening for the sound of the motor. I try to hear the first sound. Sometimes I imagine I hear it and sometimes I'm not sure and then I begin to hear it, 'way off, for sure. And the sound gets stronger. Then at 11:15 a.m. it passes overhead and the sound is as loud as it's going to get."

"You do that every day?"

"Not when I'm here."

"Turn over," said Miss Ackerman.

I did. Then in the ward next to us a man started screaming. We were next to the disturbed ward. He was really loud.