Luck of the Draw

Chapter 11 -Let Me Help You

"Again, Mr. Schafer?" The nurse frowned as she dug out his file and ordered him up on the examination table.

"It wasn't me it was a waiter in the restaur—"

"It's never you is it. Always the victim. Give me your hand." She grabbed his swollen fingers and kneaded them like she was softening up pastry dough.

"Aaaa-a-a-h, that really hurts." He leaned on his other hand and created more grief for himself.

"Probably cracked. I suppose we'll need an x-ray." Obviously disappointed, she dropped his hand and scribbled some instructions on his file and gave him a slip to take to the x-ray department.

"Do you have a wheelchair I could use?" He held up his hands and his leg.

"How did you get here?" She growled.

"A friend brought me, but she had to get to work."

"All we have is this wheeled walker. You can sit on it and push yourself down the hall." She dragged it over near him and left.

Mickey, using one foot to push, and his elbows against the walls as steering guides, finally managed to reach the x-ray department where a young lady waited with his file.

"How did you get that," he asked after handing her his slip of paper.

"The attending nurse brought it down." She wheeled him over to the machine and positioned his hand on the frame. Mickey gnawed at his lip.

"It's cracked. You'll need a cast."

"I didn't think you people were permitted to tell patients the results."

She held the film against one hip with a fist and stared at him. "Didn't you want to know?"

"Well sure, I just thought—"

"So what's the big deal? The nurse was right; you are a pain in the ass." She jammed the film into an envelope and handed to him. "Take this back to the front desk." She opened the door and waited while he struggled out into the hall. Just can't help charming these people, he muttered to himself.

The taxi driver sucked his teeth, climbed out of the cab, and sauntered around to where Mickey stood on the sidewalk, propped against the clinic window. Nurse Nazi had held the door with one hand on the walker so that when he stood up he was on his own, pirouetting across the front of the clinic on his one good foot.

"I gotta bad back so don't be hangin' on too tight, pal."

"Do you need help?" Mickey asked with a massive dose of sarcasm.

The look was withering.

At home again with reluctant assistance from the driver, and the postman, Mickey made his call to the nursery, explaining his dilemma and what it meant as far as reporting for work on Monday. He was given one extra day, and then they would be advertising for his position. Mickey thanked him for his compassion and understanding and finished talking to dead air.

He spent his day building ingenious pathways through the apartment that he could manage with one good leg, a relief to his plants, which were only interested in the lack of food and grooming that Mickey was hard-pressed to explain.

His life was literally splintering out of control.

!!!!!

Teddy lay on his back with the covers pulled tightly up under his chin, praying that Sally would come out of the bathroom and leave. His night had been an exhausting exercise, enduring the Olympic abilities she possessed, and he was a drained shell of his former self.