2007-07-17 - 9:31 p.m.

I'm sitting in the Emergency Room. Well, there's not just one ROOM. It should be called the Emergency RoomS. I'm sitting in one of these rooms. It's covered in animal themed wallpaper, the door is painted royal blue with a giant white turtle in the middle. Above the turtle is a giant, block white, number 4. I guess I'm in Room #4. I'd be forced to hazard a guess that I'm in the children's ward, if it wasn't the Vietnam Vet in resplendent mutton chops in a wheelchair in the room next to me. He's being restrained (by being cuffed to his own wheelchair! The humanity!) and keeps shouting that he better be taken care of soon or we're "all gonna be sorry". He's gonna be fucking sorry when I bite each hair of his mutton chops off one by one with my teeth because the doctor still hasn't been in to see me. I really want the doctor to come in and see me. I was in the outer waiting room for only 10 minutes so I thought I'd be all fucking set. I should have known things were going downhill when the receptionist printed my hospital bracelet as "ZachOry". She fixed it later. Finally, the doctor comes in and he looks no older than me. But I'm kind of old, so it's ok. He jams a needle the size of a cricket bat in my heel and I silently cry tears of blood. He roots around my numbed heel while rooting out the glass from my foot. Then he dresses the wound. I demand copies of my x-rays. I missed out on ever getting my mug shots. I'm not about to lose out on my x-rays. And I don't. He gives them to me. Then I walk out of the emergency room. I feel bad for myself. When I walk into the parking garage and get into the car, I notice the man parked next to me. He's on a motorcycle. And he's crying. Real tears, not blood.

This is Summer.

It's been real,

Wentworth Douglass

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