Welcome to Boomtown - Chapter 2
Just as scarecrows were a dying breed as family farms gave way to strip malls and factories loomed vacant as haunting remnants of an era fading into history, Earl sometimes felt himself drifting into oblivion. He too was of a different time and the pallor of his skin was making him look increasingly like a character from an old black & white movie. Jimmy Stewart might have portrayed him, a classic man of honor whose personal code prohibited him from going back on his word.
He checked his watch one more time, hoping to find that the hands had magically reversed course. Hoping didn’t make things so he thought as he pulled the tattered photograph from a pocket of his wallet. As he exhaled a long labored breath, the name Mary sighed from deep within his chest. Deep within his being. He tucked the picture back into its compartment and removed a few bills which he tucked neatly beneath the edge of his coffee cup.
Taking the final swig as his rose from the stool he called out to Luann, “You take care of yourself, beautiful.”
Luann paused from restacking some water glasses behind the counter to give him an over-the-shoulder smile and a wave. “You too sug’.”
Heading outside he flipped the collar on his jacket up to try to stave off the chill that seemed to stalk him. This ever-present ghost would have caused the hairs on the back of his neck to stand up had any been allowed to take hold there.
The hospital would have been a short walk for him a few years ago but now he opted for the short bus ride, comforting himself in the knowledge that no one walked in Boomtown. It was a city of motion, constantly turning, churning, sometimes crushing the unprepared beneath its wheels. The oppressive dryness of the environment created its own type of brake dust.
He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the Emergency Room doors before the electronic eye granted him admission. He still recognized the man who returned his gaze, his physical form altered yet familiar. A cold gust rushed out as the doors slid open. Why did they have to make these places so cold? “You trying to freeze me to death,” he jokingly blurted out to the universe or the keeper of the hospital thermostat. Actually he remembered hearing that freezing wasn’t a bad way to go.
Following the yellow line that mapped out the pathway along the tiled floor, he zigzagged around a couple of corners and arrived in the waiting area of the ER. Kavitha looked up from her work at the nurse’s station as her internal radar signaled a distressed soul coming within range.
“You came, as you said you would,” she stated as she picked up a clipboard and started toward Earl, motioning for him to take a seat in one of the hard plastic seats that lined the walls. “Fill this out for me and I’ll be back in a minute. I want to see if Dr. Gall can see you.”
Earl removed his cap and gave a nod in lieu of tipping the hat, before accepting the paperwork from his angel of mercy. She smiled, a bit more on one side of her face than the other, which could have been body language for “You old charmer” or “You poor sick bastard.” Based on their earlier interaction it was safe to assume it was the former.
He sat down, balanced the hat on one knee, and ran his hand over his smoothed waves of silver hair as a comforting gesture before turning to the paperwork. He hated hospitals but he had promised Kavitha he would come. Truth be told, her long black hair tied back in a low-hanging bun reminded him of his daughter-in-law for whom he had always had a fondness. But she and the boy had split up years ago and he had no idea what had become of her.
After returning the clipboard and going through the routine maneuvers of sticking out his tongue, coughing, breathing deeply, and remaining still during the x-ray, for a stream of nurses and residents and technicians, he was left alone in the exam room for a time. He laid back on the table and tried to imagine his beloved Mary standing at his side, holding his hand in a reversal of the reality that had played out between the two of them at a hospital that smelled just like this one.
“I should have gone first, baby,” he said, as the exam door was opening again.
“Let us have a look at zese, shall ve?” The doctor who Earl presumed to be Dr. Gall, was pulling x-rays out of a giant folder as he entered and seemed to be speaking to himself more than Earl. “So vhat is going on here?”
Unsure if his input was required but equally unwilling to be a bystander to his own virtual, preliminary autopsy, Earl chimed in with an uneasy joviality, “My lungs seem to be having a bit of disagreement with me. I think they should breath and they think I should cough.”
“Smoker. Ah, factory. Ya, I see.” The doctor still hadn’t looked directly at Earl but continued to look at the chart and the back-lit images that formed a macabre art installation along the wall. “Zat could cause some impediments.”
Earl let out a few muffled coughs as he tried to steady his breathing for the diagnosis he expected to come next.
“Ya, ze smoking is bad but now let us talk about zose bumps on your head.”
