Sometimes when I was on a bicycle, I couldn’t stop myself at all. I thought that if I stopped and stood there in the middle of the chaos, I would feel lost, maybe even lonely, small, and kind of useless. So I kept on bicycling, swaying amidst car doors and pedestrians, hoping my dare would not run into an insurmountable obstacle. Pieces of conversations buzzed through my ears, then faded away, and so did dog barks, and laughter. People’s faces came into view, and then disappeared; easy come, easy go. Pearls of sweat intermingled with visions, blurring my sight. Some were memories, some dreams, some the variegated expressions of the people I darted by.
Like a long tunnel of life, it repeated itself interminably. New York was an undeniable mass of colors and sounds, which stuck to your soul for a while. Like the circus you always remembered, and the face of that clown that gave you a flower in passing.
Sometimes I felt like I had crept into that world through the shrewd expedient of a salesman, and that sooner or later I would be getting this interminable bill, delivered at my doorstep, by the stern face of a really dissatisfied soul; somebody really not in the mood for talking.
I was kind of worried about that, whenever the postman scratched my door in the mornings.
"Well, we need to talk."
The doctor sat on the uncomfortable plastic chair usually reserved for unhappy customers, and extended his hand over my left knee.
My heart started to race a little, and the visiting room seemed smaller and stuffy.
"What's the matter with my knee?"
I looked at him straight in the eyes thinking he could never lie that way. It was a trick I had learned from my ex-husband, a marine by trade.
"Oh, it's not a big deal really....well, basically you need a new knee."
He left a little gap on purpose, so that I could fit in whatever sentiment I decided to express. It was a little pre-rehearsed speech doctors must have had in their mental archives, I thought.
They probably had some quick response for those who suffered of absolutely nothing, then they had slower ones for people like me of the medium type of problems, and then they had the long pauses for those with deadly, unexplainable, and unreversible deseases.
The ones that sit straight on the chair when they first come in, and slide off it a couple of hours later, when their life pretty much ends.
It turned out that back in the 70s, when according to Doctor Shaffer, medicine was still a hothouse for newborn scientists, my 75 years old medicine man, a doctor whose name I could not remember, had removed the inner meniscus right out of my left joint, leaving not only a five inch purple scar spelling hostility, but also rubbing bones as a parting gift for my future years. Remembering that year of my life, almost brought back fond memories. It was the year I graduated from high school, and I was known amidst friends and family, as "thumper."
“Where’s our little girl?” Nameless doc had ventured in my sterilized room with a smile, rubbing his hands, and carrying a lemon-flavored Popsicle he had the audacity of consoling me with.
“Beautiful, …just beautiful.” He said looking at my scar. He patted my upper leg, and then my cheeks.
“Well hello there!” My eyes had already wondered to the green-eyed monster that entered my hospital room at the same time. The old doctor needed to leave, and the young boy-nurse needed my whole concentration. As on cue, the old man's attention span died, and humming a nameless tune, he ventured out the door.
"How are you feeling?" The nurse smiled as he cupped his hand gently over my scar. This must have been God's way of letting me know how sorry He was for my predicament, because this nurse was the best thing a bored, hurt, and demoralized young girl could hope for.
"I feel quite wonderful actually," I stared straight into his green eyes, as I propped myself up on the pillow.
"...and how about you,....let me see that tag now,...Joel is it?"








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