by C. McGee
Having gotten what I came for, I eased open the closet door and peeked out. The hallway was empty. A clear path back to the bathroom lay before me. Proceeding without hesitation, I slid out and made my way. With soft but swift steps I crossed the hall, arriving at the ladies’ room door without incident. Unfortunately, when it came to opening and passing through that same ladies’ room door, I was much less successful. At the exact moment that I grasped the handle to the restroom, I heard the sound of another handle being turned down the hall. Startled, I hastily opened the door and ducked into the bathroom, or, rather, attempted to duck in. Halfway into the crapper, I was suddenly yanked backward by the strap around my shoulder. Turning around to investigate, I found that my purse had gotten snagged on the strike plate of the door lock. Not thinking, I immediately tugged at the purse in an attempt to tear it free. My attempt failed. Actually it seemed to make things worse, wedging the material in even tighter. My yanking grew more frantic as the voices in the hall grew louder. Both the veterinarian and her assistant were making their way down the hall. In a matter of seconds they would see that the bathroom door was cracked open, then they would see that my purse was snagged, then they would insist on helping me dislodge my purse. That would more than likely lead to them seeing the contents of my purse, which would more than likely lead to me spending time in prison, which would more than likely lead to me becoming some bad-woman’s girlfriend. I did not want to be some bad-woman’s girlfriend. I made out with a girl once in college and hated it. Everything was too soft: lips, face, body, all of it. It was like hooking up with a pillow.
Fuck, I thought.
With the vet and her assistant a few feet away I made one last effort, simultaneously yanking the door and my purse. It worked—kind of. The door closed, but my purse remained stuck. I hadn’t freed myself, but I had bought myself time.
The possibility of escape still present, I twisted the lock and attempted to regain some composure. It wasn’t easy. I was an anxious, sweaty mess, awkwardly kneeling next to a ladies’ room door. My heart was hammering out a percussive beat that pulsed through my entire body, and my muscles were burning from holding the contorted pose that the snagged handbag had forced me into. Despite all of the powers working against me, when the moment of truth arrived, I succeeded. When Dr. Kealoha inquired as to how I was doing, I responded in a remarkably calm and untroubled fashion.
“I’m fine,” I said. “The nosebleed stopped and the nausea passed. I just need a couple minutes to clean myself up, then I’ll be out.”
“Glad to hear it,” Dr. Kealoha replied, her voice muddled by the door between us. “We’re going to see another patient, and then we’ll meet you back in the room with Biggie.”
“Perfect,” I said. It was not perfect. That left me roughly five minutes to free the purse and get back. Shit.
I listened intently as the vet and her assistant walked down the hall and into an exam room. The sound of their departing footsteps was followed by the sound of an opening door, an indistinct greeting, and then a closing door. The second I heard the latch click behind them I got back to work.
I untwisted the lock, turned the handle, and pulled. The door moved a centimeter, no more. The purse was impeding its progress; too much material was jammed into the space between the door and its frame. Friction was working against me. Attempting to fix the problem with brute force, I pulled back a second time, harder. Much to my surprise, it worked. The door swung open, and the sunlight occupying the hallway poured in. Delighted by the success, I decided to employ the same tactic once more, this time on the bag. I turned sideways, established a wide base, and grabbed the strap of the purse with two hands; it was a tug-of-war between myself and the strike plate on that stupid fucking lock, and I was going to win. After a mental countdown of three, two, one I pulled back. The bag didn’t budge. The lock held strong to the material, refusing to give an inch. Angry and intent on not going to jail, I pulled again, harder, enlisting all of my muscles in the effort. Still nothing. Deciding to give the brute force method one final try, I took a moment, reset my feet, re-established my grip, and then tugged. It was a mighty tug, a tug that was disproportionate to my size and stature, and it worked. The purse sprung free.
The sudden lack of resistance sent me stumbling backward into the bathroom wall. The liberated bag flew into my shin. My hands, still clenching the purse strap, came crashing into my boobs. It was a triumphant moment but it certainly wasn’t a dignified one.
Knowing that time was running short, I made my way to Biggie’s room as I inspected the bag for damage. At first glance it looked remarkably unscathed. The contents of the purse were all intact, the interior was unchanged, and the exterior had escaped with nothing but a few scuffmarks. I was delighted and a little surprised.
Lucky, I thought.
I should have been thinking, This bag has to be fucked up somewhere, because it was.
Near the bottom corner of the purse there was a small cut and as I walked down the hallway that cut turned into a tear, which turned into a gash, which turned into a hole, which was then utilized as an escape route by one small bottle of Ketamine. I was two steps away from Biggie’s exam room when the vial of animal tranquilizer fell from my purse, hit the ground, and broke.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” I said, more annoyed than panicked. The fear of getting caught was starting to feel passé.
Acting swiftly but calmly, I grabbed a clipboard and a folder out of a nearby wall file. Using the clipboard as a dustpan and the folder as a broom, I cleaned up the mess in under a minute. As soon as I finished I returned the makeshift cleaning supplies to the wall file and then headed into the room from which I had originally set out.
Biggie greeted me as soon as I entered, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, Biggie acknowledged me as soon as I entered. She lifted her head and wagged her tail a little, that’s it. I suppose to a morbidly obese dog that qualifies as a greeting. What a lazy bitch. I responded to Biggie’s nebulous salutation by scratching her behind the ears and under the chin. Appeased, she went back to sleep. Knowing that I was not yet in the clear, I went back to work.
I walked over to the chair in the corner of the room, sat down, and began shoring up my purse. Within a minute, I located the hole, patched it up, and then rearranged the contents of the purse so that nothing else would fall out. I was setting the mended handbag under my chair when Dr. Kealoha re-entered the room.
I greeted the veterinarian with an easy smile that she returned in kind. We exchanged some pleasantries, she inquired about my nose and my nausea, and then we commenced normal animal-owner to animal-doctor interactions. She updated me on Biggie’s health and advised me on some minor procedures that might benefit the little chunk monster. I listened politely and agreed to the procedures that sounded reasonable: a teeth cleaning to get rid of some excess plaque and a biopsy to check out the lump on her belly. We then discussed possible dates to schedule the teeth cleaning as well as the dietary restrictions that I would need to impose upon Biggie the night before the procedure. It was all very routine. Everything was going fine.
Then suddenly things changed.
Chapter 19
East Coast–West Coast Rap War Revival
“Ouch! What the hell?”
Dr. Kealoha was staring down at her hand. Blood was blooming out of her palm.
“Oh my god, what happened?” I asked in a tone that evinced concern. The question was for show. I knew what happened. The clipboard that Dr. Kealoha held in her hand was wet at the bottom. It was the one that I had used as a dustpan; the one on which I had gathered glass shards and cat tranquilizer; the one that, by the looks of it, still had a fair amount of glass shards and cat tranquilizer stuck to its lower half. She had been cut by the remnants of the splintered Ketamine vial.
Trying to stem the blood flow while minimizing the mess, Dr. Kealoha pressed her palm against the clipboard and made her way over to the sink. She turned on the faucet and thrust
her bloody hand and the even bloodier clipboard, into the stream of water.
“I apologize for my language,” she said as the liquid poured down onto her wound. “I was taken by surprise. Somehow I cut myself on something.”
“Weird,” I replied. It seemed an appropriate response.
“Just out of the blue, I felt this stinging in my hand and then I looked down and there was a bunch of blood.”
“Huh.” Feigning concern.
“Maybe this clipboard has a jagged edge or something.” The doctor lifted the wooden slate out of the sink with her uninjured hand and began looking it over. Her gaze seemed to linger around the metal clasp at the top; presumably she thought that this was the source of her wound. It was a reasonable guess. Logically speaking, the metal part of the clipboard was the most likely culprit, but of course it wasn’t the actual culprit. The glass shards clinging to the lower half of the wood were the real perpetrators. The veterinarian’s logical mind was leading her away from the truth.
While the good doctor’s eyes were fixated on the metal at the top of the clipboard, my gaze moved southward, toward the bottom half of the device. It was difficult to tell from where I was sitting, but it appeared that all of the glass shards and tranquilizer were gone, washed down the drain alongside the veterinarian’s blood. Fortunate.
“Well,” Dr. Kealoha said as she dried her hands. “That was odd, but no big deal. The cut isn’t very deep, so I’ll be fine.”
“Good, I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Me too,” she replied with a smile.
The doctor grabbed some antibiotic cream from the shelf, rubbed it onto her cut, and then covered the injury with a bandage. Having tended to her wound, she sat down in the chair next to me and resumed our discussion of Biggie.
The conversation lasted about two minutes. Then it devolved into something that only vaguely resembled a conversation.
“So the teeth cleaning is scheduled for the twentieth,” Dr. Kealoha said, her gaze shifting away from me and toward the wall.
“No,” I replied, slightly annoyed with her mistake. “We just discussed this, the twentieth doesn’t work. We have to do it on the twenty-second.”
“Right the twenty …” she faded out.
“Second,” I finished her sentence. “The twenty-second.”
“Uh-huh, the twenty …” she faded out again.
“—Second. The twenty-second!”
“Right the second. What’s that?”
“What’s what?” I turned around and looked at the wall at which the doctor was staring. It was blank.
“That. There.”
“What? Where?”
“The second.”
“No the twenty-second.”
“Biggie Smalls what are you doing here? You’re dead.”
“What?” Alarmed, I looked down at Biggie. She was lying on her side, tail wagging, grotesquely obese but far from dead. Angered by the vet’s panic-inducing words, I started in on some vitriol. “What kind of a sick fucking joke is that,” I said, looking up at her with scorn in my eyes.
Dr. Kealoha responded to my scathing gaze by staring vacantly and leaning her body awkwardly. For a moment it looked as though she was going to fall out of her chair, then suddenly she righted herself and started in on an old school rhyme. “And I just love your flashy ways,” she sang/slurred. “Guess that’s why they broke and you’re so paid.”
“What the hell are you …” I ended my sentence as comprehension dawned on me. It should have struck a lot sooner. I had watched her use the Ketamine-saturated clipboard to stem the bleeding.
“You’re falling down a k-hole, Dr. Kealoha,” I said, somehow recalling the street slang for getting high on animal tranquilizers. Evidently, that National Geographic documentary on club drugs stuck with me.
“You’re an a-hole Biggie Smalls,” the doctor stated in a rather pouty voice. Then, shifting suddenly into a more emphatic tone, she asserted, “Tupac was better.” Then again, louder, “Tupac was better!” Then one more time, softly and slurred, “Tupac was better.”
“Yes, he was,” I said, attempting to placate the increasingly discombobulated veterinarian. I actually had no opinion on the matter. Rap has never been my genre of choice.
“Tooopack was bettaaa,” the vet said one last time, her words bordering on incomprehensible.
“Of course he was. Tupac was far more talented.”
“The twentieth!” Dr. Kealoha asserted incongruously.
“No, the twenty-second,” I replied. I knew that she wouldn’t remember what she was saying, but I couldn’t help from correcting her.
“RIP Tupac.”
“Yes, rest in peace Tupac,” I replied with a hint of laughter in my voice. It was a serious situation but it was also a hilarious one.
“You too, Biggie. I don’t hold a grudge.”
I slid my chair so that it was adjacent to Dr. Kealoha’s. Her body lean was becoming more severe. It was only a matter of time before she fell over, and I wanted to be there to catch her when she did.
“The twentieth,” she asserted once more while leaning against my shoulder.
“Twenty-second.”
“What’s that?”
“That’s Biggie Smalls.”
“Why’s it blue.”
“It isn’t.”
“Tupac was better.”
“Uh-huh.”
Our exchange continued on in this fashion for a few minutes. Dr. Kealoha babbled and leaned while I provided appeasing answers and a sturdy shoulder. As I sat there, stabilizing the veterinarian, I attempted to devise a way out of my current predicament. Nothing came to me. When the vet tech entered the room a few minutes later, I just stared up at her with a distressed face.
“Oh my god, what happened,” she said, rushing to the veterinarian’s side.
My mind was a blank. I had no plausible explanation, no cover story, no easy out, so I decided to tell the truth, or at least part of the truth.
“She cut her hand and then a few minutes later she just started acting crazy.”
“Why didn’t you come and get me?”
“I was headed out to grab you, but then the doctor started to fall out of her chair so I came back over here to help hold her up and that’s when you walked in.” The lies were coming to me now.
“That was smart, she might have hit her head or something. Probably not a good idea to leave her alone.”
“That’s what I was thinking.” That’s not what I was thinking.
“Do you think you could stay with her for a—”
“Tupac,” Dr. Kealoha interjected. “Oh my god, Tupac you’re back, too.”
“What is she talking about?” the assistant asked, an expression of concern adorning her face.
“I don’t know. She has been doing this for a whi—”
“Tupac too!” the veterinarian interrupted once more. “Two pack two! Two pack two—four pack!”
“All right, I’m going to go call 9-1-1. Are you okay staying with her?”
The vet tech didn’t wait for my answer. She headed out of the room and toward the nearest phone while I stayed behind with the drug-addled doctor. Over the course of the next two minutes, I heard the chorus of Notorious B.I.G’s “Hypnotize” seventeen times. I know the exact number. I counted. The repetition should have unnerved me, but it didn’t. It actually had the opposite effect, each passing verse made the situation seem more benign, the veterinarian’s behavior more ordinary. Well, perhaps not more ordinary but certainly more ignorable. Oddly enough, when the vet tech returned, she seemed to experience a similar reaction. Although initially unsettled by Dr. Kealoha’s gangster rap, the veterinary assistant soon relaxed and settled down into the room’s last remaining chair. Within a couple of minutes, we were both laughing at the situation.
“This reminds me of college,” the tech said. “It’s like we’re taking care of one of our freshman friends that’s still figuring out how to drink.”
I laughed. “True, except I was usually the blubbering shit show, not the sober caretaker.”
“Oh god, me too. That’s why I’m a veterinary assistant and not a veterinarian.”
“Where’d you go?”
“Three semesters at UH. I didn’t fail out, but I did get a 2.0. I knew that wasn’t gonna get me into vet school, so I stopped and went to Windward to get my associate’s.”
“Well, at least you get to work with animals. It sounds like that was your main goal.”
“Yeah, it definitely was. And I really enjoy my job here.”
“I’m glad to hear that. It’s a shame how rare it is to hear from someone that likes their job.”
“True, you know …”
The conversation between the vet tech and I continued on in that everyday fashion until the ambulance arrived. I learned that her name was Izzy and that she had a fiancé that did logistics for the island’s main coffee company. Izzy learned about my Midwestern roots and my boyfriend that sometimes acts like a high school kid. It was a nice chat, an ordinary chat, and amazingly it led to my making an ordinary departure. The paramedics came in, asked us some questions, ran some basic tests on Dr. Kealoha, and then loaded her up in the ambulance and headed off. The veterinarian safely on her way to the hospital, Izzy walked me to the register and rang me up. I paid, grabbed some free pet food samples from a box on the counter, and departed. It was a remarkably eventful trip to the animal hospital that ended in a remarkably uneventful fashion.
Chapter 20
