An Evening at the Emergency Room

One evening back in the fall of 2004, my son accidentally bit through his bottom lip with his front teeth as he went to tackle a ball carrier playing "band football," a rough pad-less form of tackle football played by athletic band students with a jock chip on their shoulders. Living next to the school, I was immediately called and rushed him to the local emergency room for treatment. Little did we know that we'd have one of the more unusual experiences of our young lives.

(Please beware of some sensitive language. I had no choice but to use it.)

An Evening at the Emergency Room

At the emergency room this evening, I met this chubby, stubble-bearded, smelly guy who spent two and a half hours telling me his entire life story as we waited. I was there to have my son's lip stitched up after a rough play in a pick-up grudge match football game between the band and the cross country team. We had passed through the identification, triage, patient registration, and waiting room gauntlet at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital. I’d paid the obligatory $150 “Thanks for Visiting“ fee. After only about 30 minutes, we were led in a parade of the wounded into the bowels of the ER. That’s where I met him. His name was Mike, I think; but I’m not really sure, and frankly his name really isn’t important to the telling of this story.

About ten minutes after we arrived and after the nurse assured us for the first time that the doctor would be right out to see my son, the man popped over and just began chatting. He asked what happened, and we told him our story. Then he asked what I did for a living, and I told him that I am a teacher. He told me that the reason I have grey hair was because of them kids. I said that I probably was getting some after about twenty years in the profession. This peaked his interest, and he asked my age. After learning my age (44), this man, who looked to be about 55 to 70, told me that his wife, who was in the next stall nursing an almost broken ankle, is almost exactly my age. I learned after a few moments of patient listening that his wife was born on August 6^th, and I admitted that I was born on May 15th. He then informed me that he and his wife had been together for 31 years...only married for the last 18 years. They lived 13 years in sin before that.

They have a son who is serving 5 years in the state pen for driving on a suspended license..."Well actually he got a DUI while driving on a suspended license. He said, 'Daddy, come bail me out,' but the bail was set at $35,000 and I said son I ain't gonna do it 'cause my daddy told me that if you commit the crime you haf ta do the time, besides I ain't got that kind of money." I later learned that the son's name is Peter-built, "He didn’t much care for the name, but I thought it was funny. You know his first name is Peter and his middle name is Bilt…like Bill. I named him that because that’s the truck I drove, and he was born at the end of a truck haul from Canada.

That happened when my wife and I were in Canada and she went into labor, so I started heading back to Roanoke Memorial. We sped out and were pult over. When I told the trooper that my wife was in labor, he gave us an escort all the way through Charleston, South Carolina. When we got there, the local police took over and led us all the way to I-581 in Roanoke then they told us that we'd have to make it the rest of the way ourselves. Her water broke up there in at the state line in Canada. And that baby was born as soon as she got in Roanoke Memorial. I parked the truck right outside the hospital, and they came and told me that I had to move it, and I told them that I wasn’t going to budge it, and they could move it themselves if they wanted it moved. My wife and her mamma own a piece of this place and of the other hospitals in Roanoke. Right hun? (yep)

We been here all day. My mother in law had a heart attack today. She was eating a sandwich and started to turn blue so her daughter went behind her and squeezed her hard, and she snapped outta it. So we brought her here, and the doctors say she’s got congestive heart failure. Then my wife fell and broke her ankle when she was answering the door, so we’re back here again. So I've been here all day.

I got emphysema, type II diabetes, high blood pressure, and I've had my knee replaced. The doctor put this metal plate in there (showing me the vertical scar indicative of a traumatic knee surgery). Now whenever I go through a metal detector, I always get stopped, and they ask me to empty my pockets. So I do. Then I get buzzed again, and they ask me if I got some metal or something. I like to tell them that if they give me my pocketknife back, I’ll cut open my knee and pull out the metal plate so they can see it if they don’t believe me.

About a year after the surgery, I felt a stabbing pain in my knee. When my dentist x-rayed it, he found a pair of scissors in there. They was sticking me, and I knew something whaddent right. They had to open me back up and pull them out, and I had to pay fer the whole thing again. I coulda sued them right then and there, but I didn’t. But I had to pay fer the whole second surgery. They didn’t even pay fer it. It cost $65,785. I'm on disability so my Medicare and Medicaid took care of most of it. I could have gotten the job done at the VA Hospital because I'm a veteran, but I didn't want to. I spent fifteen years in the military.

I can't drive trucks anymore, because my doctor is afraid that I'll pass out at the wheel, and I guess I can understand that. But I keep my chauffer’s license up to date. I’ve got a license for every state that I drive in. That’s the way truckers do it. Sometimes I do drive though. One day this guy that I know from Clifton Forge called me up and asked me if I would drive a load for him for five thousand dollars. I told him that I wasn’t saying yes and I wasn’t saying no. But if you was to give me cash in my hand, I’d do it. He had given checks before that bounced when I got to the bank, and I wasn’t gonna let him do that again. He said ‘wait a minute,’ and he went to the bank and got the cash. I got to be careful how much money I make since I got disability. I didn’t want to go on disability but I got emphysema, type II diabetes, high blood pressure and I've had my knee replaced.

So I was driving the truck back from Clifton Forge when my friend said that he’d meet me to pay me at the liquor store. You know the one at Tower’s Mall. I told him that I ain’t buying no booze ‘cause I don’t drink because I got Type II diabetes, and I had to quit drinking. So I left there at 5:30 and I was in the parking lot at Tower’s by 6:15. They had said that that truck couldn’t be driven fast, but I knew how to make it run faster, by taking apart the governor. When I got there, my friend said, ‘Man how you get here that fast in that truck?’ I told him, ‘I ain’t tellin’ you cause I got my secrets.’[grinning with his dark teeth, proud of his speed feat]

I bought me this van from this guy for $500. The guy wanted $3000, but I went over there and looked it over and started telling the guy what it had wrong with it. I told all the stuff. I told him that it had carburetor problems and needed a new module. Then I just said, ‘That’s too much money.’ And I began to walk out. A second later, he came up and tapped me on the shoulder and asked how much I would give him, and I told him, ‘$500.’ So I went out and bought the module for about $150. It runs good., but then it needed to have the master cylinder replaced, and I didn’t want it no more, so I sold it to my friend for $50.

Last week I got into a wreck. I hit this lady at an intersection, and the police gave ME the ticket. They said I didn't stop at the stop sign, and that's why I hit her. I think it was her fault. That lady wants my insurance company to pay $3,000 to fix the side of her car. I told her that I know a guy who could get the door and put it on for a couple hundred bucks. My insurance company wrote me to tell me that I don't have no insurance anymore. They said that I ain't got none. So I wrote told them that I do. You gotta have insurance when you drive a truck.

My wife and me got this Chihuahua that’s about this high [places his hand just above his knee to demonstrate dog height…this seemed a bit tall to me for a Chihuahua, but I went along with it for the sake of the story]. He’s a real good dog. He’ll bark whenever anybody comes to the door. He don’t like Black people though. [Gives the obligatory white guy checking for Black people glance] No, he don’t like Niggers. He’ll bark at and bite any damn Nigger that comes to the door. That dog though, we feed him Bets of Kibbles, I think that’s the food. He eats that stuff, but he likes my food better. If I bring home a ham sandwich or a weenie bun, I can’t even get two bites out of it before he takes it from me. Worse than that, he drinks my coffee. Ever since he was a little pup, he’s loved coffee. He drinks it all the time. It makes him real excited though and my dog doc says it’s not real good for him. I like to hold him in my arms, and he’ll just lay his head on my shoulder real cute-like. At night, he lays on the bed right between my wife and me. When I go to kiss my wife, he just growls and growls. And when she tries to kiss me, he just growls and growls. He’s got all his shots though, but I have to take him back for some more pretty soon.

I can't read or write, but I can get by. I tried to learn one time at the library but the person never came back again to help me. See this pocket watch? (nod) I was over at Happy’s Flea Market the other day going through the trash bin, and I found this pocket watch. See? (nod) It works great. And I found this wallet in there with $850 in it. I just folded up that money and stuck it right in my pocket.

My daddy died when he was eighty-one. He was driving down to Florida in his _____________ (three versions of this story were told to me...in one he drove a truck, in another he drove a 1956 Bel-Air, in the other he drove a Chevy Corsica. Each version of the story was told to completion with slight variations) and he drove straight on to Orlando. When he got there he got a call to say that his daddy died and he drove right back. He made it down there in 15 1/2 hours and made the trip back in 12. When he got to South Carolina, he was pulled over by his son while he was doing 115 mph and the boy told him to slow down or he'd get a ticket. Then 100 miles up the road, sure enough he got a ticket. But he told the trooper that he was rushing home to Roanoke because his daddy died. And the trooper gave him an escort. He told that trooper that he hoped that his Ford cruiser could keep up with his ___________. I was up in Canada with my wife when daddy was rushing home for his daddy's funeral. That's when my wife went into labor. So then his son went and paid the ticket, but when my daddy went to the DMV later, they said that they couldn’t renew his license because it said that he hadn’t never paid his speeding ticket. But his son had come all the way up that day and went over to DMV with Daddy and showed them his police badge and showed him the receipt ‘cause he had brought it with him.”

So the guy asked me if I liked football. I told him that I did, then he proceeded to tell me all about NASCAR. He then asked who I liked. I told him that I didn't like "Pretty Boy." (Everyone knows that's J. Gordon). He said, "My wife and her mamma like Gordon, right hun? Me, I don't like Junior. He whines too much. He ain't nothing like his daddy. Now I liked his daddy. He was one tough driver..." and so on for another fifteen minutes.

“My daddy used to drive for the county for 35 years. He worked hard. When we would get a big snow, my daddy would get behind the wheel and go hour after hour. He could just keep going. Sometimes they’d tell him to go home and get some sleep, but he’d just go sit in the recliner and nod off for an hour or two then go back at it. I remember one time when I was plowing the old Mill Mountain road. That road was windy and narrow and it was easy plowing up, but coming down was tough. I’d go fast. One time I was coming down and another guy was coming up. We passed each other with only an inch to spare between our mirrors. He told everyone that I was a crazy driver.

What do you do? You still work fer the hospital?”

“No, I’m a teacher.”

Incidentally, my son was fine. The doctor, somewhere in the midst of my friend’s life story came in and examined my son’s lip. He explained to us we had several choices for treatment. He explained that the wound was star shaped, was between one and two sonometres (I’m not sure exactly what a sonometre is, but I think he meant centimeter) wide, and that it was a tooth wound. Since it was on the borderline between mandatory sewing and optional sewing, we could either stitch it and risk infection from tooth bacteria or we could simply let it heal naturally. He suggested that we should just let it heal and swish with peroxide and water. We chose to leave.

About that time, the nurse came by and gave my son surprise tetanus shot as a going away jolt and sent us on our way. I shook the man’s dirty hand and wished him well. Then we walked out of his life.