The ride felt different today. The train shook back and forth on the rails, the early-morning light strobing through the windows, looking like the beginning of an old-time film reel. I reached the right station at seven forty-five A.M. and descended the stairs.
“This phone’s mine, move your damn blanket over!” This morning I noticed a row of pay phones, long since missing their earpieces, and surely free of dimes. They now provided the backbone for a cardboard shelter where two homeless people were arguing over the edges of their blankets.
There were more people milling, getting on and off the train. It was windy today, thank goodness, creating a rare breeze. It sent pieces of trash scudding around on the ground, weaving in between people’s feet, looking like they too were queuing up for the train.
I moved to the periphery and struck out for Divisadero. I walked past shit by the side of the road that looked, to my clinical eye, too big to be from a dog. I’d have to be more careful where I stepped today.
I looked behind me and wondered if the man I’d helped treat was somewhere in the crowd—or if those who’d come to get him were. I didn’t think I saw anyone I recognized, but I did walk a little faster at the thought.
The same bloodstain was there on the stoop when I reached the clinic doors. Blood’s really hard to get out of a lot of things, especially cement. I was pondering this when I heard a small moan from behind me.
I jumped and turned around. It didn’t sound human, really, more like wind stroking past the end of an open glass bottle. I heard it again. I stood there on the sidewalk for a second, overly conscious of my attempts to avoid stepping on the stain from yesterday’s altercation, trying to locate the source of the sound with my ears.
“Hey, lady.”
The kid from yesterday walked up the block. “Hey,” I said back.
“You still need a limpieza. I can tell.”
“Yeah, that’s still not gonna happen. I gotta get to work. First day on the job.” I pointed with my thumb to the clinic behind me. He wagged his head in exaggerated disapproval at my playing for the other team. “I’m Edie. Who’re you?”
“I’m Olympio.”
“What do you do all day, Olympio?” It was summer now, otherwise I’d have asked him why he wasn’t off at school.
He grinned, showing uneven teeth. “Try to stop people from going in there. You all can’t do half the things my grandfather can.”
“How so?”
“You all take months to figure out what’s wrong with someone, and then pills for the rest of their lives. My grandfather, he can heal you in just one day.”
As a nurse, I’d heard all sorts of holistic health bullshit. I’d seen patients who’d been burned by cupping, who had made themselves ill by eating mislabeled “remedy” pills contaminated with lead. “Yeah?” I said, my eyebrows rising.
“Yeah. You got something wrong with you, lady. I can tell. I don’t know what it is, but my grandfather is a great curandero, he’d know.”
“Well.” I was quiet for a moment, trying to hear the sound again. There was a storm drain across the street—it could be wind going by its entrance. “Well—” I regrouped. “I disagree. No, wait. Actually, I do agree—there’s something wrong with me.” I was sure I looked worried about my mom. I’d seen it in the mirror this morning, in the corners of my eyes. “But it’s not the kind of thing that other people can fix.”
“My grandfather—”
“I’m late for work. I brought an extra sandwich, though. For lunch. Maybe I could trade you for it, and you could tell me more. At noontime.”
He leaned back, casual, ready for wherever business took him. “Hey, I’ll be here trying to rescue people from you all, all day.”
I grinned at him. “Make sure you stand in the shade. I don’t want to know what your grandfather does for heatstroke.”
* * *
I went into the clinic. There were already three people waiting. The receptionist saw me and buzzed me in. I went through the door, and as it thunked shut Dr. Tovar stuck his head out of his office. “It’s eight oh five. Are you always late?”
“Sorry.”
“I know you didn’t get lost, seeing as you were here yesterday,” he went on, and then pointed down the hall. “Catrina will get you set up. Your first patient’s a tecato, needs a dressing changed on an abscess.” Then he slammed the door.
Another woman came to my side and rescued me from the hallway, pulling me into a short corridor lined with rooms.
“I’m Catrina. And he’s not always a hard-ass. He just thought you quit was all.” She wore much the same outfit as she had yesterday, a pink scrub top seamed in purple, with matching scrub pants. She had light brown skin and short cropped black hair. Her face’s angular cheekbones gave her back the traditional femininity that the short hair took away. “Is it true you don’t speak Spanish?”
“What’s a tecato?” I asked in response.
She stuck out her lower lip and blew air up her face. “You’re going to be useless here.”
“I really want this job,” I protested.“Why?” She leaned in toward me. “Are you some sort of stupid do-gooder?”
“No. Yes. But no.” I took a step away. I couldn’t really say, Hey, I’m looking for Santa Muerte so I can trade her in to get a favor for my mom, and I heard someone talk about her in your waiting room yesterday.
She crossed her arms and squinted at me. I saw a strange tattoo on the back of one of her fingers, but now was not the time to ask about it. “You have a record?”
“What?” She’d startled me.
“Shoplifting. DUI. Something dumb,” she guessed.
“No!” I protested. “I just hated my last job is all. I need to work here.”
“I don’t want to waste time training you if you’re just going to leave.”
That was a reasonable enough fear. I crossed my heart in a Catholic fashion. “I promise not to.”
“Oh, well, now that you’ve crossed, I believe you for sure,” she said, her voice dripping with irony. “Do you even have scrubs to wear?”
“Yes—I just—” It hadn’t occurred to me to bring them. I wasn’t used to wearing scrubs during the day. “I should have brought some in. I’ll bring them in tomorrow.”
“If I did not see you jump in to help that gangbanger yesterday—” She ran a hand through her short hair. “Tecatos are heroin addicts,” she said, and watched to see if I’d flinch. “You’re not going to get grossed out, are you?”
“No. I’m good with addicts, Spanish or not.” At least here I’d get paid to deal with them, unlike all the times I’d tried to help out my brother. “Who else will I see? What else will I do?”
“Didn’t you ask any questions?”
“I was busy not getting hired—until I got hired.” I gave her a weak smile and she sighed again.
“Well.” Her hands found her hips. “You’ll be double-checking the work the medical assistants do—there’s three of us. I’ve been here the longest, and I’m also a phlebotomist,” she said, like I ought not to forget those facts. “Other than that, there’s wound care, people with diabetes, missing toes, some ostomy checks, paperwork, more paperwork, oh, and when shit hits the fan, you’ll be doing triage.”
“How often does that happen?”
“Every few months. When the gangs go to war. The ambulances come for the dead guys, and we get the live ones.”
“When’s the last time that happened?”
Her lips thinned into a line. “We’re due. It’s the heat outside or something. Makes people angry and dumb.”
“Does Dr. Tovar report things?” I didn’t want to straight-out ask about the bullet wound from yesterday.
Her face said she got my meaning, even as she chose not to answer me. “Depends on the thing.”
I gave a one-shoulder shrug. “Okay.” I wasn’t a stickler for the rules, especially when I didn’t know what they were.
She handed over a set of keys. “Anything that can be stolen is locked down, and everything can be stolen.” I could see her mentally dismissing any prior hospital experience I had. “I’m not sure where you worked at before. Most people are nice, and even the bad ones need our help. But there’s a reason we’re separated from the outside world with bulletproof plastic.”
* * *
I was quiet while she gave me the rest of the tour. There were three small rooms that they saw people in, in addition to Dr. Tovar’s private office, and a slightly larger office in the center of the building with an attached break room. Then she put me into the first patient room and said, “Wait here.”
I waited. I tried keys until I found the one that unlocked the cabinets, so I could figure out what was where. I was shoving boxes of gauze aside when the doors opened behind me and a man walked in.
“He’s got a fever. His name is Frank,” Catrina called from the hall behind him.
I knew hazing when I saw it—or smelled it. I stepped aside, and gestured for him to sit down on the table. He was Caucasian, but he’d been in a lot of sun. He stumbled over to the table, leaned against it for a bit like he might puke or fall to the floor, before remembering to turn around and sit down.
He had an odor like stale beer and pee and whatever else you smell like when you never take a bath and you’ve worn the same pants for a month.
“Hello, Frank. How can I help you?”
He looked me up and down—even his gaze was disgusting. Between my nurse radar and a lifetime of being female, I knew then that the next phrase out of his mouth was going to be inappropriate.
“You can give me a kiss,” he said slowly, leaning dangerously forward.
I put a hand on one shoulder to press him back upright. “No, thank you. Why’re you here?”