I went for X-rays the other day. Re: the aging knees.
I just wanted to know who the enemy is here. Arthritis? Torn meniscus? Bursitis? Gout? Knowing who the enemy is, in my opinion, half the battle. So.
At the X-ray department desk, the receptionist had a catalogue of questions for me. So many, I was beginning to wonder if she was giving me a memory test on the sly. Phone numbers, email address, street address, date of birth, next of kin.
Then she asked if I was a fall risk. No, I said. I thought. A fall risk? Quickly, I glanced behind from whence I came checking for a line I might have crossed. The line where you pass from immortal to mortal. To needing somebody with you to answer all these questions and to make sure you don’t fall.
I could see no line, but I did fall into a distraction about seeing one somewhere. Was it on the horizon? Did I cross it unwittingly back there, last week when I couldn’t remember the name of what’s her name on Derry Girls? The mother. No not the mother, her sister. Couldn’t for the life of me ...
The receptionist turned another page.
“Pardon me?”
“COVID-19!” She roared through the glass, and her mask. “Have yeh had the test?!”
“No, no, I haven’t.”
“Any travelling?”
“Unravelling?”
“Tra-ve-lling!”
“No, no.” In my defence, the Blackwatch Pipe and Drum Corp passed behind me at the time, disguised as two screaming kids with toy hammers.
I sat down in the outer waiting room. It was full of people my age. The guy who went to the receptionist next rhymed off his answers all at once and had her racing to keep up. He’s either very sharp for a guy our age or else it’s not his first rodeo, I thought. No, for sure, not his first time.
An orderly called my name and led me to a locker room and passed me a johnny shirt. Told me to take my pants and coat and sweater off. “Leave your socks and shirt on, since it’s your knees,” he said.
“What about the boots?” I asked.
“The boots can stay.” He gave me a plastic bag and told me to put everything in it and take it with me. He pointed.
“Change in there and meet me,” he pointed again, “On the other side of that door over there.”
“OK.”
A few minutes later, bare-legged, I had the johnny shirt on and the boots. A sight. But I wasn’t worried. I was no longer in civilian traffic. We’d all be in johnny shirts in the inner room. It would be like a club.
It’s not a club I want to be in, but it’s a good club. Sincerity runs high in this group. How could you be anything but? Standing in the middle of a public square in a cut sheet, trying to find a wall to stand against. All pretense gone.
Makes me think I’ve lived my entire life in a johnny shirt, metaphorically speaking. Never did get the hang of the strut. Always an extra beat behind a punchline. My spaghetti sauce never quite what the recipe promised.
I’ll admit though, I was a hell of a first baseman. Nothing got by me on first. I’d rather die.
Anyway, these people get me. They can empathize. The aches, the pains. We once strode the world like a colossus or tried our best to put up a good front, but now we’re slapping goose grease on our chest at the hint of a cold before going to bed at night; we’re buying copper bracelets and looking into cannabis oils or fish pills and arch supports. Comrades in arms.
I walked through the door. Things could only look up.
SARAH!
That’s her name!
Mike Finigan from Glace Bay is a freelance writer now living in Sydney River.
