attending
The lights in the small room are too bright. I close my eyes and inside my head stays lit up like a supermarket. They remove everything from the room—a small table, a chair, my sweater which was hung on the back of the chair—everything except me and the examination bed-slash-table I’m laying on. There is a small, glass and chicken wire window in the door to the room. I lift my head to see the doctors and nurses walking by, some of them pausing to look in at me. Only three people come into the room, their visits staggered and synchronized.
There’s the doctor who’s been assigned to my cuts. He is cocky, a surgeon. He pokes and squeezes the cuts, wipes them with liquid and gauze. He doesn’t look at my face. Just as I’m able to adjust to the pain, absorb it until the numbness returns, he comes back into the room and rips the old gauze away, more poking and squeezing and wiping. I imagine him as a child, pumping his air gun until his arm burned, then taking aim at the family dog, chained up and oblivious in the backyard.
Now why would you want to go and do a thing like this? Why’d you want to hurt yourself, huh? What happened, some boy break your heart? There’s other fish in the sea, you know. A pretty girl like you…What would your daddy say? It hurts now, doesn’t it? Not much we can do about that…
There’s the psychiatrist who comes down from the second floor, a thin, humorless man whom I distrust immediately. The feeling appears to be mutual. To him, there is no difference between a self-inflicted injury and a suicide attempt. He carries a pen and a notepad. When I cry, he writes “hysterical.” When I am calm and quiet he writes, “unresponsive” or “lacks affect.”
Were you trying to commit suicide? Did you harm yourself on purpose? I’ve spoken to your mother. She’s aware of the situation. We both agree that it would be best to transport you directly from here to the Belmont psychiatric hospital, as an inpatient. They will take excellent care of you there. We need you to agree to what’s best, to getting you better. Do you agree?
There’s the baby-faced nurse with a thick Southie accent. He smiles and calls me “Sweethaht” without condescension. He tells me the psychiatrist wants to have me put in restraints, but he assured the doctor that it was unnecessary, ridiculous. He’s so kind to me that I weep quietly, gratefully, every time he comes into the room.
So they’re not gonna strap you down, but I need you to stay calm for me, okay? I told ‘em you’re not gonna run, that I’d keep my eye on you. I’m sorry I can’t turn the lights out for you, but just try and get some rest. I know it’s hard. Don’t cry, Sweethaht. Yeah, it sucks right now, but it’s gonna be all right. I promise you, everything’s gonna be all right.
Time passes slowly or quickly, I’m not sure. Every time I manage to soothe myself to the edge of sleep, the door opens and someone enters the room.
Your friend, the girl you came in with, she’s gone home. She wanted me to tell you.
Jackie, my roommate. She found me in the bathroom. She walked with me six blocks from our apartment to the emergency room. She told me I should lie about what happened, save myself some trouble. But I didn’t want to, or I couldn’t. And now she’s gone home. She’s taken my purse with my wallet and cigarettes and cell phone. The only number I am able to recall from memory is the first one I ever learned, corresponding to the house I lived in for the first 13 years of my life, now inhabited by a different family or possibly torn down. 974-9327. Useless.
This smaller cut here shouldn’t leave much of a scar, but this bigger one—I’m gonna stitch it up now, temporarily, but they’ll have to reopen it to do the surgery in a couple weeks. That’ll scar up pretty good, I’m guessing. I know how girls don’t like scars, but think of it this way—it’ll make you look tough.
I keep the pain at bay as long as I don’t look at my hand. But even without looking directly, the fresh, wiry stitches are visible on the left side of my periphery.
You know, I have a daughter around your age. If she ever did a thing like this, it would break my heart. You don’t want to break your daddy’s heart, do you? Did you ever stop to think about that?
When the surgeon leaves the room, I keep my eyes fixed on the ceiling until the light draws more tears to form, rolling down and out the corners of my eyes. My pinky finger flinches involuntarily and pain shoots through my hand, up my arm, nerves fire miscommunications at both ends of the severed tendon. I babble a quiet mantra, a single word whispered over and over as an attempt at self-soothing. Through tears and phlegm and chattering teeth I repeat, “Please, please, please, please…”
I want to go over the details of the situation one more time as we prepare your transfer arrangements. The injuries you’ve sustained were self-inflicted, correct? You made the smaller cut first and then went on to slash the backside of your left hand, wherein you managed to sever your flexor tendon, yes? But as you say, it was not your intention to cause yourself fatal harm. And you had been drinking, is that right? You were mildly intoxicated. And you came to the hospital of your own accord. Okay. I think we’ve got it.
Please go away. Please stop asking questions. Please stop touching me. Please just leave me alone.
All right, sweethaht. You’ll be outta here soon. They’re not gonna let you go home just yet, but they’re gonna take you somewhere you can get some rest and have some help sorting everything out. Take care of yourself, okay? You’re gonna be just fine, you’ll see.
I just want a bed, a real bed. I need to sleep. And when I wake up tomorrow, they’ll see that I’m fine. They’ll let me go home. This was all just a stupid mistake.
