“Flanagan,
Patrick.” The nurse's surprisingly soft voice only catches Patrick's
attention. She turns and leads him into the examining rooms, almost
tripping over her own feet as she realizes he towers at six foot five
over her five foot petite frame. “In here, sit and we'll get your vitals.”
Patrick
sits on the crinkly paper, holding a now pink towel next to his right eye.
Blood has dried on his hand and on his shirt and his dirty blond hair is matted
to his forehead.
The nurse puts on her gloves and gently puts her hand on the towel,
lifting it slightly off his face before blood trickles down. She
presses the still damp towel back to his face, removes her gloves
and then her cold hand takes his left wrist and locates a pulse. She
smiles cordially before shoving a thermometer in his mouth. “Any other
complaints besides your eye?”
He
tries to talk and not drop or bite the thermometer, “No, jus' my ...”
“Don't talk. Your arm
please.” She takes the thermometer, glancing at it before putting the blood
pressure cuff around his arm. He sighs as the throbbing next to his eye becomes
less tolerable and she releases the air in the cuff.
“Perfect
health. The other nurse will be in to stitch you up.” With that she leaves
Patrick in the sterile room.
He
looks around at the slightly worn walls and listens to the constant hum outside
the room. Footsteps, coughing, beeping,
and laughing mingle into a white noise. He hears muffled talking and footsteps
getting closer. Two voices continue down the hall while footsteps stop outside
of his door.
Knock
Knock.
“Mr.
Flanagan?” A dark-haired, fair skinned woman enters the room complete with what
could be called a tackle kit of torture. Needles, scissors, pins, tape, gauze
and gloves packed neatly away.
“Dr.”
“Nurse.
Rose.”
“No,
I meant Doctor, Flanagan. I’m Dr. Flanagan. You said mister.” He mumbles off
“I
apologize. Can I see your eye?” She snaps on gloves and eyes him from head to
toe.
Patrick moves his
hand away from his face. Again, the blood starts to ooze.
Rose
takes the towel from his hand and throws it into a hazardous materials pail. “I
hope that wasn’t a sentimental towel, Doctor Flanagan.” She grabs some clean
white gauze and pats where the blood is seeping from. “A few stiches and you’ll
be fine. Looks like you’ve been through this before.”
Patrick’s
face has a few other warrior scars, healed and forgotten until now.
“Run into other
Penguin fans with that silly Ranger shirt one before, have we?” Rose begins to
clean the dried blood off Patrick’s face. “Let me know if this hurts too much.”
Just as the two make direct eye contact for an extended duration of three
second, a commotion can be heard down the hall.
“Stay
put. And here.” She places some fresh gauze into Patrick’s hand. Rose exits the
room, leaving the door ajar, and enters into the hallway where a now empty
bedpan has been thrown out of another exam room and towards the nurse that
examined Patrick.
“Kelsea,
you okay?” Rose approaches the door where there is an obviously unhappy
patient.
“We’re
doing okay, Rose. Mr. Williams is little upset.”
“Upset?
Upset? I knew I shouldn’t have come in here. No one ever listens to me.”
Rose peeks her head
around the corner of the door. “Hey, Mr. Williams.” Inside a man in his sixties
is pacing back and forth. He’s skinny, with graying long hair, and treasure
trove of tattoos on his arms. “Any reason why you threw the bedpan at your
nurse?” Rose stands squarely in the doorway now. She watches as the man stops
pacing and turns to her.
“No
one understands. They think I’m crazy.”
“Why
don’t you tell me what’s going.”
“Helicopters.
They won’t go away.” He runs his hands threw his thinning hair. “I can’t take
it anymore.”
Rose’s
eyes focus on Mr. Williams but she doesn’t say anything.
“Well?
What have you got to say to me?”
“When
did you serve in Vietnam Mr. Williams?”
He
leans against the exam room table as Rose slowly enters the room. “How did you
know?” He crosses his arms.
“You’ve
got the survivor tattoo from the Tet Offensive, your Airborne tattoo…Hueys?”
“Goddamn.
Your father in the war young lady?” He rubs his face like he’s coming out of a
long dream.
Rose
inches closer to him. “Nah, I hear ‘em too.” She hold out her hand to him.
As
they shake hands he asks, “What unit?”
“68
Whiskey.”
Back in the exam room, Pat strains
to hear anything. He takes the gauze off his face. Still bright red. He stands
and makes his way to the partially closed door stands and stands behind it. He
puts his head closer as the voices become quiet. And without warning…
“Jesus. I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
Asks a shocked Rose right after she realized that she’s hit her patient in the
nose with the door. “Why were you standing behind the door?”
Momentarily forgetting about the
blood dripping down his face from his eye, Patrick hold his nose as he walks
back to the exam table. “Totally my fault.”
Rose grabs a pair of gloves from her
purple scrubs and immediately begins checking the patient...
