When Cop 633 saw Faye for the first time in Chungking Express, she was wiping the canteen counter and windows with a soapy rag. Not every one who meets at a greasy spoon finds love, but for those two, in that movie in the span of one year as portrayed in one hour and twenty minutes of film --they found it.
If I could be at a food counter just in time to be found by love or find it I know it could be any guy, on any day, at any time of the day, but never on a Saturday morning.
Yesterday was the twenty-third day since my release from the hospital, and my fourth Saturday as an outpatient. Once I had to see the internist on a Wednesday, once the EENT on a Thursday, next week the pulmonologist on a Tuesday, but Saturdays are staple days at the hospital. I could be sleeping, dreaming, eating, or drinking at any given time, but never on a Saturday morning.
Every Saturday at around nine, I take my place in a long white corridor at the doctor’s clinics, selecting the blue chair-of-the-week where I will sit and wait at least one hour and twenty minutes for my allergologist to see me. For three Saturdays I arrived on or about nine-thirty to have the privilege of being first or second on the patient’s list. But on my fourth Saturday, I arrived nine minutes before ten o’clock and was fourth on the list. When the receptionist told me I stepped back then out of the office into the crowded hallway and braced myself for the horror that was already gathering around me.
Did you know that I am afraid of sick people? The irony is killing me. No, my allergies are killing me; the irony is just there to entertain you.
It’s true: whether I arrive early or late I will wait one hour and twenty minutes. But one hour and twenty minutes when I’m early is an hour and twenty minutes spent in relative peace as patients come every ten minutes like sporadic sneezes. One hour and twenty minutes when I’m late is a crazy hour and twenty minutes, when people practically spill into the hospital, their children and relatives carried under their current, toting their lab results and x-rays in bulky manila envelopes that conceal the reasons behind this surge of humanity, this legion of illness clogging the clinics. The sheer number of them grows dramatically, and their cloying odors -- their collective cologne, packed lunches, sweaty armpits, dried saliva and sweat and rubbing alcohol – attack me from every direction. They walk to stare at me, try to guess why I’m there, compete in the mind (who is sicker?) and walk away. These rituals increase exponentially with every new pair of eyes that sizes me up as I sit and wait for the minutes to pass. At the end of the hall, a hacking cough rose above the chatter; a little boy ran past with his father close behind.
I forgot to bring a book so I just sat at there until boredom took over, folding my hands neatly on my lap to avoid touching anything contaminated by hepatitis or other infectious diseases (seats, walls, doors). After half an hour I could not help but do my share of staring and guessing as people walked past me. To my right, ten feet away, a man about my age was wheeled to a stop in front of one of the clinics. His mother was with him, a tall woman, with soft brown curls and radiant skin; the only one in my immediate vicinity who actually looked fragrant, if being fragrant was a matter for the eyes. She was talking sternly to another son while this son, the one on the wheelchair, rocked himself ever so slightly, his head bent to his left, his face contorted in pain.
What was I doing there? Hospitals were made for people like that man, men in pain, those who cannot walk, cannot talk, cannot even sit properly and size up and guess what was wrong with everyone else.
His mother left with his brother, presumably to argue with her other son somewhere else, leaving the man in pain alone in his wheelchair unattended. I could not look away. He was making the softest groaning sounds; they walked softly out of his throat through his lips and traveled ten feet for my ears to hear. In these situations one would want to ask, are you all right, but cannot. After all, it is a stupid question to ask in a place like this. No one in a hospital is supposed to be all right. But maybe, my idle mind said, he is feeling worse than usual, and he needs help. How do you ask a person in pain if he hurts?
“Relative to the usual degree of pain you feel, are you about normal, or are you in extraordinary pain?”
I didn’t ask him, although I wanted to. I really wanted to. Mercifully, his mother returned and the receptionist called my name.
If all these sick people, with their children, their lab results, their x-rays and their relatives, their coughs, sneezes, groans and wheelchairs were transplanted from a hospital corridor to a sidewalk canteen, would love find them, or will love have to fall ill, make an appointment and chance upon these sick people right where they are on a Saturday morning? Will she arrive just in time for the man on the wheelchair, or the guy on my right, who is reading Tom Clancy and chuckling quietly? Probably not.
Beside me, the boy who had been running a while ago squirmed in his seat as I got up to enter the allergologist’s office. His mother and father were talking; the three of them looked healthy, but one of them was bound to be ill. Which one, and did it matter? His parents had one less problem: they found each other (presumably anywhere but here) and they had a son to prove it. I have to get out of this hospital or I’ll never have a son.
I spent forty minutes in the allergologist’s, discussing symptoms and medicine, last week’s blood test, next week’s blood test, a shift in medicine and my life so far. I told her that I wanted to marry a doctor so I could get free checkups. She smiled (but didn’t even give me a discount). I asked her if marrying a doctor was even possible, knowing what doctors know about heredity. I could finally ask a question, “Am I, genetically, shit?”
She said no. If I find someone who has no history of allergies, our children will only have a twenty percent chance of inheriting my legacy of runny noses, rashes, blotches, blood examinations, shots, shots, shots, antibiotics and antihistamines. However, finding a man with this profile is difficult, she said. My allergologist is an unmarried female with allergies. The rest of the competition is sneezing, coughing, scratching, wheezing, and looking around very seriously.
At noon, my appointment was over. Somewhere someone was meeting someone else. I stopped telling myself it could have been me as I hailed a taxi and went home. Saturday morning was finally over as I rode into the afternoon.
