Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures (16 page)

“Can't say,” she said.

“'Course not. Mental illness. Tragic. He needs help. I'll fix his cut after we scan his head.” I was looking forward to finishing my shift, to saying goodbye to the officers as I left. They would be here all night unless someone relieved them. We all have our quiet ways of asserting ourselves.

 

Two hours later.

The CT scan showed no intracerebral blood, but an old broken nose. Eli was quiet. The officers had already called the station and requested relief, but no one had arrived. They were no longer jovial, but they still wore their blue-banded caps and sat up straight. I put on a surgical mask to breathe through.

“We're gonna fix you now,” I said as I wheeled the suture cart into the quiet room. I scrubbed Eli's face and the side of his head with saline-soaked gauze. I poured salt water over his head through curses.

Eli said, “Fuck off.”

“Listen to me carefully. Have you ever seen a psychiatrist?”

“No ya fuckin'—howdya like my face, huh, doc?” With the jellied blood washed away, I could see the cut was four centimetres long. A forehead bleeds more than you would think for that length.

“I got a good face?”

“You hearing voices?” I couldn't tell him to act psychotic. “Seeing things that other people don't see?” But a little fishing never hurt.

“Ya better fuckin' make it look good.”

“Anyone out to get you?” With the otoscope I peered inside his ears. No blood behind the drums. The cut had a neat, straight edge. “You want to look good? Better hold still.” This fish needed bait. “Eli, I'm worried about your mental health. Crazy people have to stay in hospital.”

I drew lidocaine into the syringe. The anaesthetic swirled into the graduated barrel. I flicked with my finger, clearing the bubbles toward the needle, and expelled the air like a sneeze with a quick motion of the plunger.

“I don't want it to hurt,” he said.

“It's gonna hurt.”

“I'm hearing fuckin' spooky voices and seeing pink dinosaurs and shit,” said Eli. He began to giggle.

“Thought so.”

“I don't wanna feel nothin', man.”

“It's gonna sting when I freeze you. You won't feel it when I'm stitching.”

The syringe was between my index and middle
fingers. My thumb was on the plunger. With my other hand, I held open the end of the cut. I slipped the needle under the edge of skin, and my thumb eased down on the plunger. The tissue swelled and turned white at the injection.

Eli swung his head. “Hey that fuckin' hurts.”

I held the syringe pointed into the air the way a cowboy raises his pistol to fire a warning shot.

“Don't move,” I said. Sharps were open, syringes and needles.
A physician should be morally opposed to cutting himself,
I was taught. These instruments were for piercing patients, opening their skin. Sudden movements cause accidents, and it is a sinful violence to cut oneself. “Be absolutely still, Eli.”

“Yo. It hurts.”

“It'll hurt more if you move. One more chance, then the officers hold you.” I didn't look up. I could feel the police watching through the window. Enjoying the show. I didn't want to need them. One more try. Again, I slipped the steel sliver through the edge of the cut, ran it under the skin's surface. Again, upon injection, he bucked. “All right, we'll get your friends in here.”

I opened the door. They sat there grinning. “Come on in here. Hold your boy.”

“Like we said, we just want him fixed,” said officer 1483. “This sure is getting complicated.”

The two officers clattered into the room, pulled on thick blue latex gloves, snapping them at the wrists.

“One at the head, one on the legs,” I said.

Then it was a tumbling, struggling effort as Eli flailed and kicked.
Restraining people is an ironic task.
The more you restrain them the more they resist and the harder you must hold them still, strap them in, beat them down until a certain point is reached, until there's no point resisting.
Once they know who's boss, it's done. Like breaking a horse,
I was taught.
A show of force is best. A hand on each limb—make them see who's in charge, because then they won't resist anymore.
More limb jerking. Eli cursed, grabbed, pushed, and through this the officers shouted at him until they got him down. Now I was on him with the needle, injecting. Mostly for show now. The record would not state that I hadn't provided anaesthesia. I jabbed the needle in a few times as Eli bucked his head. I tossed sterile drapes over him, over the hands of the female officer who gripped his head securely between both palms and outstretched fingers. Now the thread and needle; the thorn in my needle driver. The sewing is easy, it's getting the head to hold still that is difficult. The needle pierced skin, the black line pulled through, a one-handed knot. I couldn't tell whether he felt it or not, with all the roaring and thrashing. Maybe he really was psychotic. Then a flashing surge of movement, and the drape shook off as Eli lunged quickly and officer 6982 jumped back. There was red on the back of my hand, and wetness, and a gash in my glove from the new cut.

Upon seeing it, I felt the pain. It was a bloody hurt that dripped into the fingers of the glove.

“You piece of shit,” I said to Eli. My tired annoyance was suddenly eclipsed by panic, my heart pounding, pushing the blood from the back of my hand.

“Told you to watch yourself,” said officer 6982.

I ripped off my glove. “Why'd you let go?” I said, my own blood hot and running.

“Slipped.”

“Your boy too strong for you? Get a good hold of him.” I pointed the needle at her. She didn't know that needles are our pistols, because she calmly put on new blue latex gloves, and then the leather gloves that flopped out of her back pocket. I stuck my hand in the sink, and poured a litre of saline over it. I told myself to slow my breathing.

“Too quick for you,” said Eli with a giggle.

Officer 6982 grabbed his head from underneath and at the sides, pinched his ears under her thumbs.

“Time to fix you, Eli,” I said. I poured another litre of saline over my hand, tossed the empty plastic bottle into the corner of the room, and flexed my fingers. No tendon damage. Just skinned. I pulled on fresh gloves, then a second pair over the first. Breathing hard.

I reached over to the suture cart and grabbed a stapler. Usually we staple scalps and sometimes legs. It's less accurate, and when the staples come out they leave little marks like train tracks. I squeezed Eli's forehead, not paying attention to the alignment.
Thunk thunk,
in went the staples. The male officer forced down Eli's knees as he bucked at the hips.
Thunk thunk.

“Aw fuck! That hurts, man.”

“Shut up, you piece of shit,” I whispered. I leaned the sharp corner of my elbow on his sternum. This leaves no bruises, and we use the pain of this spot to wake the comatose. I rolled my elbow over his chest, could see the blood smudging over my gloved hand.
Thunk thunk,
I put in a few extra just for the sting. “Don't bite the doctor.” My fingers were sticky with blood inside the glove.

“Didn't mean to bite
you,
man,” Eli laughed. “Trynna taste that sweet police meat.”

“Watch your mouth,” said officer 6982.

Had Eli been trying to bite the cop, or me? It's hard to know what occurs mentally in a lunge, in a movement. Maybe the motivations of an instant are most true. Did officer 6982 feel him slip, or did she let go? Did she sense he was going for a bite, and then pull herself out of the way? Had he intended me instead of her? Did motive matter now that my skin was ripped open? Anger needs to lay blame.

“Who ya trying to bite?” said officer 1483 from where he leaned over the knees.

“Yummy yummy,” said Eli. His shirt had been pulled open in the struggle, and his belly shook as he laughed. Eli wiggled his tongue at the female officer. I saw her forearms flex as she compressed the sides of his head. Her expression did not change.

“Aiee!” said Eli, squeezing his eyes together.

Thunk thunk.

“I'm done.” I threw the stapler across the room, clanging into the trash can. I peeled off my gloves and opened another bottle of saline, poured it in a steady stream. It ran clear onto the translucent flesh of my hand, and red streaming down into the sink. “Send in one of the nurses, will you?”

The police left. A nurse entered.

“Fiona, can you draw blood for hepatitis B and C, and HIV 1 and 2.”

Fiona was calm. She told Eli she was going to take some blood. I stood with my cut hand on his forearm, in case he bucked. He flinched as the needle plunged under his skin. Dry. She rolled the skin under her white latex fingers.
Blood bears the curse of human malice. This life fluid may conceal destruction, the way words and thoughts can kill unseen. Within blood the idea of death can flow.
The blood from Eli's forehead had stopped, and now we sought to pull it from his arm.

“He doesn't have much left here,” said Fiona, probing the network of old punctures and thickened scars for a suitable vessel. Eli tried to pull his arm away. I dug in my nails and he stopped moving, Fiona readjusted. Then the gush. The vacuum in the tube pulled up his blood squirting thin, safe, within the sealed glass walls. Fiona left the room with the blood in the tubes, like little glass torpedoes.

On my wrist were two jagged abrasions adjacent to my metal watchband, leaking red. The skin was peeled back, but not deep. Was it teeth? The cuff of my lab
coat was ripped sideways. Did his teeth tear the coat? Was it teeth through the coat cutting my wrist? Or was it teeth pulling my watch, with the rungs of the watchband scraping my skin off? I removed the watch, turned it over. The watch was perfect, unmarked. The human bite is the dirtiest, the most foul, and destined for infection. Worse than dogs or cats, because the human mouth is full of filth.

I sat down on the edge of the stretcher where Eli was handcuffed. He was tired from his efforts and lay quietly, eyes open, breathing hard. The staples in his forehead were haphazard and excessive in number. The wound did not bleed anymore.

“Eli. Why did you do that?” Until now, I had been mostly interested in creating clean paperwork, deriving a mild pleasure from inconveniencing the police. This no longer felt like quite enough, and I knew that I would feel cheated if I left it at that.

“Yo man, they fucked with me.”

“Did I fuck with you?” I said softly. Now, I told myself, let it go if Eli makes a nice apology. The right apology. I made a deal—Fitz, you'll be nice now for the right apology, if he says something close to begging.

Eli shrugged.

“Is that what you say after you bite someone?” I asked in a very sweet way, knowing now that there would be no apology.

“Go to fucking hell.”

“Open your mouth.”

He half-opened his mouth, and I didn't see any blood. None from him, none from me. With a tongue depressor I lifted his lips, the way you lift the lips to see a horse's teeth. Gums intact. Saliva, though.
Saliva, clear and innocent, but sometimes it carries infections and curses like the words it lubricates.
I was angry at Eli for taking a bite, I was angry at officer 6982 for letting go, or slipping, or losing whatever balance lies between a head held and released. I darted the stick further into his mouth, gagged him hard—against the tongue only so as to leave no marks—and let him retch, grunting against the tongue depressor for a while, until I started to feel better.

“You're going with the police now.” I turned away.

“Hey, I'm seeing shit. Dancing elephants and shit.”

“Never heard you say it.”

I plucked the suture off the tray and dropped it into the sharps disposal box. I placed the forceps and needle driver in the silver k-basin. Officers 6982 and 1483 stood outside the room, wrote on their pads. Eli watched them. No one's eyes were on the quiet room. I placed the scissors on the stretcher within reach of Eli's cuffed right hand.
The evil of blood is like a malevolent thought. Once it touches, the very suspicion of its presence causes it to grow, to distort motive and action, and to propagate its own dark, spreading reach.
Then I wrapped the light blue covers over the rest of the tray and picked it up, left the room. Eli's right hand lay on his side away from the window, and could not be seen from where the officers sat.

Outside the room, eight charts on the rack. Last time I checked we were three hours behind. I pressed gauze onto my cut.

“Sorry I lost my grip there,” said officer 6982.

The child in the next room was still crying, the sound of a child who knows he's being ignored. The fact of being ignored made the waiting painful.

“Need some stitches, doc?” said the male officer, smiling. I felt the anger rising inside me—a heat that filled my chest. I exhaled. I felt the relief of justification about the scissors. I wrote in the chart that after being bitten, I had closed the patient's laceration with staples, and that the wound edges were well apposed.

“Bad stuff happens,” I said, looking up. “You guys see it all the time. I've got to get a bandage. Then I need to speak to one of you.”

At the nursing station, the father of the child in the next stall asked how long for the tests to come back. They paged me in the resuscitation room to reassess two patients, and announced overhead that there was a call for me on line six from a pharmacist. I gestured to Fiona, stepped into the drug dispensing room, and sat among the racks and drawers.

“How's your wrist?” asked Fiona.

“It's nothing. A scrape.” I tried to sound convincing. “We have to send mine, too.” I rolled up my sleeve. The Potential HIV Exposure kits were in paper bags on the left. Lots of pills. Yellow and black ones. Red and white ones. They made everyone so sick that no one ever
finished taking the full course of precautionary anti-retrovirals. My sleeve was up, and Fiona's white latexed fingers directed the cool sharp rush of the needle. Seeing my own blood flow freely and thick, the texture of boiled milk, lulled me for a moment. I sat still. She pulled out the syringe with a quick withdrawal that was like the same pain in reverse. This blood wouldn't show anything. This was innocence blood, to show I was clean today in case I seroconverted later. My disability policy would pay for occupational HIV, but not if I got it a month previously from a hooker.