“Oh my God!”
Hearing my wife Lala yell from the bathroom, I tore back there expecting to view an item off our slight tragedies menu: spilled bathroom cleanser, an unsightly and never previously spotted mole, poor commode aim from one of the male members of the family. Instead, my son London rocked on his heels like a little Al Jolson, his self-applied black face paint left over from a class party we had just returned (escaped) from. But London wasn’t on his knees singing “My Mammy” even though his body was rigid before his dear (and upset) mother.
“Have you seen this?” Lala peeled back London’s upper lip to expose a deep and bloodless cut that resembled what I imagined a shaved hedgehog’s vagina would look like. My mind retraced the events at the first-grade graduation festivities—general girl-chase-boy antics, pizza inhalation, piñata beat down—but I couldn’t locate any moment when London had shown any emotion other than a type of drunken joy that I was desperate to emulate through imbibing a margarita brought by the thoughtful parents who arranged the student soirée. My plan was to survive the party and then attend a jazz concert afterward. Plan aborted. All because London had fallen from the monkey bars when I wasn’t looking and landed a faceplant in the back of a girl named Leina’s head.
As Lala and London scrubbed away the spastic semblance of what London said were Wolverine’s whiskers, I spoke to a nurse on call who asked me a series of questions about the wound, including if the cut was “gaping.” I shivered a little PTSD shiver and said yes, it was, but left out any references to the imaginary hedgehog’s taint. Short story short, I shuttled London to Urgent Care.
“It’s gonna be OK, buddy,” I said, as the doctor walked into the examination room with a nurse by his side. He was a stiff young guy with a triangle of hair that could have easily been mistaken for a toupee. After snapping on some gloves, he rolled back London’s lip.
“Yup. One or two stitches. Only have to torture you for five minutes, pal.” He smiled in a way that would make God frown.
“I’m gonna die!” London wailed and the doctor recoiled.
“Your kid seems upset,” he said.
“I would be too if I had to trust a guy whose bedside manner includes the usage of the word ‘torture’” is what I wanted to say, but instead I tried to placate London with the promise of a fresh pack of Pokemon cards.
Dr. Mengele started backpedaling: “We could use human superglue instead since your son seems so concerned. May not hold as well but you could come back and get stitches if it doesn’t work.”
I thought of my monthly premium which is 10 percent of my salary; my co-pay that can buy a full tank of gas; and the average wait to get into these kinds of places that is at least as long as an episode of The Sopranos. “Stitches,” I said.
The nurse then smeared topical Novocain on a wad of gauze and nudged it under where London’s first bad mustache would someday appear. “This needs to stay here for at least 20 minutes,” she said, making it very clear that she couldn’t stay, but not exactly asking me to perform the tricky maneuver.
“Do you have a glove for me?” I sighed and she pointed to the counter. I tried to snap one on like they do on ER, but there was no such glamour for this Doctor McDad. I grabbed a curved cuspidor, too, while I was there because I’d been where London was and knew it was full of blood, spit and tears. I realized the definition of fatherly love is not sage moral advice or the instruction of a split-finger fastball; it’s holding your fingers against your son’s wound for 30 minutes as the doctors and nurses forget that you’re there.