Ask Me Why I Hurt (30 page)

I had been back only a few weeks, and we were parked in downtown Phoenix, in the lots where I had met Donald in what, I realized, had been an amazing five years since. I had just finished taking care of three different urgent cases, including a troubling head injury, when I was distracted by the sudden sound of kids making a racket. It was a rough area of town we were in, and shouting and yelling had erupted outside the van. The first thing I thought was: fight. The second was that someone was going to get hurt. I was ahead of Jan and out the door in a flash.

I landed in the middle of a large group of kids. They were dustier than usual but loud and laughing, slapping one another’s backs and dropping loaded backpacks.

“What’s up?” I asked, bewildered.

“We just got back from camping,” Lisa said, not sounding quite as tough as usual.

“Camping?”

“Yeah,” one boy said. His brown hair was tangled, and his face dirty, but he was happy. He was weighted down with a big pack. “Fall is the best time of year to go camping.”

“Where did you all go?” I asked, mystified.

“Up in Dreamy Draw Gulf,” the boy said. He dumped his backpack with a sigh, stretching his back.

“We had a campfire. Marshmallows and everything.”

“It was awesome.” The boy chimed in. “Lisa sang. She sounded like a dying crow.” This earned him a punch on the shoulder.

Jan had joined me, her hands on her hips. We exchanged a delighted look. I was amazed. Here these kids were, homeless and
on the streets. Despite all fear and hunger and stress, they had decided to go camping. There were no holidays on the street, no birthday parties, or trick-or-treating. But they’re still kids, I thought. Despite everything, they are still children who want to have fun.

That night Reed wanted to show me something. He had come out of the messy toy room with a plastic spider in his hand, talking nonstop about how he wanted a tarantula. I was trying to pay attention, though I was distracted by having to get ready to go out. Only this time it wasn’t for an evening meeting: Amy and I were planning to go out to dinner once the sitter arrived. It had been a long time since we had had a romantic night out together. I was trying to take what she had said to heart. I picked Reed up to wrestle with the spider in his hand, but he didn’t want to wrestle. He wanted to tell me about tarantulas and what awesome pets they would make.

I watched Reed, and I remembered my own father, who had endless time and limitless patience for me. Whenever we needed to fix the truck on the farm, he would make a day of it. We would spend a leisurely morning driving to town to pick up the parts and then stop for lunch. I always insisted on Burger King. I would order a Yumbo, a ham and cheese sandwich it had for a time on the menu when I was a kid. Dad thought it was so funny I would insist on a hamburger place to order a ham and cheese sandwich. While we ate, Dad would share with me all sorts of advice. He was a big believer in the right tool for the right job. We would take home the bag of parts to fix the truck, and by the time we were done it would be supper, and Mom would be calling us inside. She and Stephanie would have also been spending the day together, and I would see Stephanie at the stove while Mom gave a cooking lesson.

I didn’t have that time for my own son, I thought sadly. I could tell myself I spent more time with him than some dads. I could say
it was quality time. I could bring up all the little rushed trips we had taken and the time at the diabetes camp when Amy brought them for the day. But that was being dishonest with myself. The daily time counted too.

“How about we take the kids camping?” I asked Amy that night as we ate under candlelight at the Parlor. We both liked the pizza place for its casual but romantic setting. From where we were sitting we could look up through the skylights and see the stars. Amy had ordered one of her usual crazy combinations, with wild mushrooms and goat cheese, while I had my typical ham and pineapple.

“Camping?” The look of happy surprise on her face was answer enough. When we were dating, Amy and I loved camping. It was one of the special things we liked to do together. I found out soon enough that she liked to rough it. No trailers or cabins. I suspected she thought tents were a little sissy and would have been fine with a blanket in the woods. When I was a kid, my family saw the country by car: Mount Rushmore, Old Faithful, the Grand Canyon. Dad got a little camper shell. We stayed at Motel 6’s, but I thought we were kings of the road. There wasn’t a famous site that my parents didn’t want to drive to, watching America pass outside our dust-spotted windows. Each morning Stephanie and I would eagerly pile into the back of the car, ready to play with our toys. We never minded the long hours of driving, because we knew at the end we would peg the family tent out somewhere, and Mom would put her pot of water above the fire to boil. If there was a lake nearby, Dad would take me to catch trout, and Mom would cook them above the fire. But since the twins had been born, Amy and I had forgotten about camping. I hadn’t taken the kids fishing yet either.

As soon as we got home, Amy was online, making plans. “How about a trailer?” I asked. “When I was younger, my parents eventually got this little trailer—”

“Pffft.” She made a derisive noise. “Why not just tie a mattress to your back? Let’s see … a national park would be nice. Randy, honey, when can you promise a weekend off?”

“Let me make some calls. I know we can do it.”

Within a few weeks we were in a state park in New Mexico for a long-overdue weekend camping trip. I watched the twins run around the tent, while little Charlotte pointed at the trees and the squirrels. Fall and winter in Arizona were the best times to go camping. Amy was crouched in front of the fire, threading marshmallows onto sticks. She had a plate with graham crackers and pieces of Hershey bars all ready. I sat on a log, and Reed came and leaned against me. We didn’t say anything. We watched the smoke drift up to the sky a bit. I should take Reed fishing, I thought. And Janie, and Charlotte.

For me, the times I spent fishing with my dad were some of my most precious memories. I remembered how he had packed up a tackle box specially for me. I should do that for Reed too, I thought, and the girls as well. I wanted them to have the same wonderful experiences I had had as a child. I know what is important, I thought. My family is as important as the kids on the van—more important. I can’t let their needs be forgotten next to what seems the more pressing needs of the homeless kids. Or I will be repeating the same neglect of the parents I condemn.

Amy came and sat next to me, handing me a marshmallow to roast. “Ready?” she asked.

Jan and I had learned over time that we had to focus our efforts on the here and now. If we worried over what had happened to so many of the kids we saw, we would be bogged down in constant stress. So we tried not to play the game of Have You Heard. Too often it came with depressing results.
Have you heard what happened to that albino baby girl and her sister Nizhoni?
No, I haven’t seen her or heard anything. I hope she and her sister are OK.
What about that blond girl who came in from the squat with the mastoiditis? Remember her?
She died. When she got to the hospital, she went into acute respiratory
distress. She went under before they could save her. Her heart was weak from the infection, they said.
Did her friends make it to see her before she died?
I don’t know.

We had learned that asking “Have your heard” came with too many questions unanswered and too much heartache. Most of the time we didn’t know what happened to the kids after we saw them. It could mean they were now successful, having moved on to a better life once we referred them to shelters. Or it could mean they had disappeared, were in prison, or were dead. We often never knew.

Sometimes the question didn’t need to be asked. Sugar still appeared occasionally. I imagined a chart showing the dissipation and decline of her spirit over the years since I had first met her. Her eyes became haunted. Her cheeks narrowed. Her hair was no longer thick and full. Sometimes she had venereal diseases; often she was sick with one ailment or another. Always she refused help. She rarely joked anymore, and when she got on the table, it was never with the energy she had once had. Her one sign of hope was she always asked after our dog, Ginger. I kept pictures of the puppy as she grew into an adult dog, and I always shared these with Sugar. But eventually she would leave, grimly clutching the white bag of her STD meds. Each time I checked her eyes I felt I could still see light of survival in them. But it was diminishing over time, like the dot on a television when you turn it off.

A year after my return from Katrina she came in, having been badly beaten again. She denied she had been raped, though I suspected she had been. I cleaned her facial wounds. A new intern was helping out, and I passed him the bloodstained cotton, which he disposed of. I applied a butterfly patch to a cut on her cheek. I could still see the faint scars from ring marks from the last time I had treated her wounds. Eventually, I realized, her pretty face would be covered with scars.

“Remember when you first came to me?” I asked softly. “That was a long time ago, wasn’t it?”

“I guess.”

“Several years.”

She looked reflective. “I remember that first day. I’m older now.” She cracked a little smile. “And I don’t look a day over forty.” She batted her eyelashes at me.

“You’re not supposed to make me laugh in this situation.” I gently wiped the rest of her face.

Her battered eyes lifted. “I’ve done a lot of bad things.”

“No,” I said. “A lot of bad things have been done to you.”

“Do you still think there is hope for me?” she asked, her voice breaking.

“Yes, I do.”

“How’s Ginger?” she asked suddenly.

“She’s doing great. I tried to shave her for the heat, and she looks awful.” I waited a moment. “You know, if you can care about a dog, you can care about yourself. Let me help you.”

She was thoughtful. Maybe this will be it, I thought. Maybe this will be the miracle. Her lips moved. Numbers. She was counting. I could see the abacus in her head. I had a sudden wild hope she was counting something good. Maybe she was counting future birthdays. Maybe it was the hours until she found shelter. “Are you counting the years?” I asked. But I should have known better.

“No. I was counting how many johns I had this week.” She painfully slid off the table. “Time to go.”

The intern was furious with both her and me. “I can’t believe you let her get away with that,” he said angrily once she had left.

“Let her get away with what?”

“Not going into a shelter.”

“She said no,” I said, realizing I sounded curt.

“That’s what I can’t believe. I mean she has a chance to go in a shelter. Who would chose prostitution over that?”

“The person who has known no other life. Who knows what she fears? Maybe she thinks people will judge her. Maybe she thinks there is no way she can succeed in life. Maybe she even tried a shelter once and something happened that convinced her it won’t work.”

The intern followed me up front. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he said.

“You should try living in a shelter for a night. Kids get hurt in some of them. Besides, giving someone a cot and an army blanket for the night is not a cure. The next day they wake up and the reasons they became homeless in the first place are still there. Sugar has to wake up every day with pain you and I could never understand. That kind of pain might make her feel that life is hopeless.”

“Then cut her loose,” the intern said.

“What do you mean?” I asked, appalled.

“Tell her she can’t come back unless she accepts help.”

I wanted to give some passionate speech on how all our patients deserved a chance. But I was too tired. “We’re doctors,” I said. “We are here to treat, not judge. If you plan on denying treatment to patients you don’t like, then it is time to find another career.”