Bounty

 

I.

Some weeks ago, I dreamt of being in a car in a packed parking lot, and there was only one spot available.  As I headed toward it, another car zipped in.  I sat in my car and just looked at this spot, the one I was driving toward, the one that had been empty and waiting, and now was unavailable.  I sat in my car and focused on this spot, but around it, in other places in the parking lot, cars pulled out, leaving new space.  I felt my gaze pulled to look around, but I also felt attached to this one place that no longer offered anything.  Look around.  Look at all the other spaces.

II.

A week ago I picked up a catering shift.  I left my first job, drove to the second, put on my black shirt, name tag, and because it was a formal event, a black and white tie.  I was working the event with one established server, and one new server.  I was somewhere in between.  The new server dropped a crate full of china plates, tipped a cooler full of ice, and dropped a large tray holding glasses of ice water.  The china plates, surprisingly, fared well.  Only 5 broke.  The tray of water glasses was a complete loss: shattered shards mixed with ice on an industrial carpet.  The first two accidents, I’d crouched immediately, cleaning with her, and shared with her my own horror stories of my first event worked ---I couldn’t open a wine bottle!  I poured glasses of Chianti and Riesling that had bits of cork floating in them!  I sliced my thumbs on aluminum foil at the busiest point of the evening, and couldn’t find Bandaids or back-up!  We picked up broken china, and because we both assumed it wouldn't happen again, she laughed at my attempts to normalize First Time Mistakes.

This third accident, when the water glasses broke, was the busiest point of this evening.  The new server swore at herself, the established server said, Jesus *%$ Christ, then yelled at her not to touch it, not to get cut on the glass.  She told me to pour coffee and clear and they got the mess cleaned up while I walked around them with carafes.

Something happened before the dropped tray of glasses.

In the first hour of my shift, I suddenly, unexpectedly, felt bone tired.  Catering can be a fast-paced and energetic and enjoyable type of work.  Few things I’ve done are so physical and frenetic.  But I felt tired, and since I had 9 hours ahead of me, this made me internally grumpy.  It was snowing again, there was outdoor work, I'd forgotten my gloves, I had only worn a vest.  As the other servers and I went over the checklist of what to haul from Point A to Point B, we formed our plan.  But none of us had a pen to write down the details.  We checked our pockets, purses, jackets.  In the next room, beyond the banquet hall we were setting up, there was a business office, unrelated to the event.  I walked over, entered through the glass doors, and two women at large desks looked up.  One was on the phone, so I approached the other. 

I explained that we were setting up the next room and needed to write a quick list.  I asked if she had a pencil or pen that I could borrow for two minutes and return right away.

She said, “I have a nice pen, you can keep it.”

And she handed me a beautiful pen.

“We just need it for a second, I’ll bring it right back.”

“Please keep it.”

My impulse was to hand it back, or bring it back right after.  But a small voice said say yes.

It was so strange.  She was smiling.  She wanted me to keep this pen.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Thank you.”

She looked happy, and I felt odd.  Unreasonably emotional over being given a really nice pen by a total stranger for no apparent reason.  When she had a cup of pencils and Bic pens on her desk.  I exited the office and didn't feel so tired.  I was holding a beautiful pen.  I had just received an unexpected gift. 

I used the pen all evening.  I used it all week.  Every time I use it, I think of her unexplained kindness. 

III.

Somewhere in that night, probably toward the end, which is when people get tired and mistakes can be made, I lifted a crate of dishes from the loading van to the dolly.  I felt something pull.  The next morning I was sore.

Days passed and my shoulder hurt.  I waited for it to go away, but a week later, when my daughter ran to hug me, and I winced and turned my body sideways to block the impact, I realized it wasn’t better.  At night I couldn’t lie on my side because it was too tender, and during the day, I couldn’t lift my arm past a certain point.  I'd adjusted all my movements to minimize moving my shoulder.

After wincing at my daughter's hug, I called the doctor to make an appointment.  The medical secretary answered.  She is the only secretary for my doctor.  She is efficient and professional and I’ve never seen her smile.  She manages hundreds of patients at the busy practice.  She guards the gate to this very busy doctor because the doctor is that good. 

 ( My first appointment, the doctor pulled up a stool, asked me about my family, and drew genograms to chart genetic history.  This is how every appointment is: thoughtful and thorough.  She’s an incredible diagnostician because she takes her time, asks a lot of rule-out questions, and listens.)  (My father’s physician speaks to his patients from behind the computer screen he brings into each visit.  While recording answers to required questions, he once asked my father the date of his last gynecological exam.  My father didn’t answer, and a long pause filled the air until at last, the doctor looked up from the screen, then went onto the next question.)  (I believe in finding a good doctor. )

The secretary took my name and asked for the reason for the call.  I told her the reason.  She gave me an appointment for over a week away.  I asked if there was anything earlier.

“No,” she said.

 

The night that I made the appointment, I woke several times with a start.  My body, in sleep, tried to turn to its side position.  My shoulder would spark pain and wake me up, requesting me to find a new position.  After a few rounds of this I thought: I wish I had a doctor who could see me sooner rather than later.

I thought But I like my doctor.  She is good, and worth the wait.

I thought But my shoulder hurts.

More thoughts: about health insurance, future, ouch my shoulder. 

 

Early the next morning, the phone rang.  It was the medical secretary.

She asked if I was available for an earlier appointment.

I said yes.

She gave me the day and time. 

Relief---or at least information---was closer now.  Someone else must have cancelled and an appointment opened up.

The secretary spoke in her professional and even tone, “I thought about you all night.”

I was caught off guard and immediately moved.

No one had cancelled.  She re-arranged an appointment to get me in.

Suddenly, she became three-dimensional, a woman who went home and sometimes lay awake at night wondering if she’d done her job in the best way possible.  She worried about the patients.  The reality of this blew me away, filled me with that same odd feeling of being given a beautiful pen for no other reason than Here, please, have it. 

“Thank you,” I said, relief at near relief. 

Sometimes pain is not permitted to be fully felt until we know there is relief on the way.  Why give it too much energy if it has to be lived with? 

“Okay, see you at 11 am,” she confirmed.

When we hung up, I felt a simultaneous rush of pain, and relief at the knowledge that it was temporary.  This knowledge let me feel the pain because I knew it wouldn’t last.  Anything temporary can be lived through.  But the message of pain is often so immediate, and often says forever! and that makes us do all sorts of things to ignore or cope.    

 I sat with the phone in my hand.  The medical secretary’s name is Dina. 

The night before, when I’d started awake in pain, Dina, whom I barely knew, lay awake as well.

Goddam, was all I could think.  We are all too connected and it’s almost too much to bear, this kindness, this incredible world. 

 

IV.

My mother used to bring me to drop off bags of groceries and clothes for a woman with six children.  The woman was a medical doctor who chose not to practice.  Two of the children were adopted with special needs, one from an addicted mother, and another from a woman in prison.  The family was supported by her husband’s income.  He worked as an organist at the local church, and made, as my mother said, “a pittance.”

So much about these drop-offs didn’t make sense to me. 

Why, on God’s green earth, wouldn’t he care for the kids, and she could work as a doctor?

Why was that child in a wheelchair?  Would she ever get out?

Why did the mother cry every time we came over, saying thank you, over and over?

My reactions were normal ones for a kid.  When I took my daughter to a soup kitchen, she covered her nose at the vast vapors of mass produced food mixed with church basement scents, and cried, “It’s awful!”

My mother would answer my questions as we drove home, and still, I was left confused. 

One thing I never asked out loud was why the woman cried.  I decided she was embarrassed.  I decided it must be as equally embarrassing for her to have us there, in her kitchen, with bags of things, as it was for me to be there, in her kitchen, with bags of things. 

The art of giving and receiving is rarely perfected in equal measure.  I was comfortable with giving the bags, but not with seeing.  I’d have preferred to have stayed in the car.  Or placed the bags on the porch, rang the bell, and skeedaddled.  Something about her crying was just a little too much for me.  Her embarrassment made me feel embarrassed.

Years later, I learned her family was okay, more than okay.  The hard patch lasted awhile, but everyone came out.  The grown children from that family are deeply empathetic and involved in healing and artistic, business and religious endeavors.  The mom, eventually, began to practice medicine again. 

The girl in the wheelchair, she never walked, but she made great strides past what her life was supposed to be.

The dad still makes music.

 

Perhaps the mother wasn’t embarrassed.

Maybe, maybe, she was feeling some version of this world is too much. 

Too much goodness that follows on the heels of pain and a person is bound to have an odd feeling, and left saying some version of Goddam, or whispering thank you, over and over.