Going Down by Jennifer Belle

Author:Jennifer Belle [Belle, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101551189
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 1996-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

34

I OPENED MY eyes in a hospital bed. I decided to try to move my legs. I wondered what would happen if they didn’t move. They moved. A doctor came in and stood over me. “You’re a lucky young lady,” he said. “What’s your name? You didn’t have any ID.”

I didn’t carry ID because if I ever got arrested I could give the police a fake name. I told him my name which I immediately regretted since I didn’t have insurance.

“You have a perforated ulcer,” the doctor said. He went on and on about it. I blocked out the details.

“Am I okay?” I asked him. “Can I still have a baby?”

“Did you think you were pregnant?”

“No. I mean in the future.”

“Yes.”

“Can I get a phone and a TV?”

“Yes. When you passed out you hit your head, but we got that stitched up.” I put my hand on my head.

“I hope you didn’t have to shave anything.”

“Just a little patch.”

“Oh my God! I never signed anything for that.” I started to cry. “How long am I in for?”

“This isn’t a prison.”

“Then can I leave now?”

“No, you’ll have to stay a few days.”

“Please call my mother,” I said.

My mother came to visit me in the afternoon. She had a bouquet of tulips and a Lord & Taylor shopping bag. She handed me the tulips.

“Aren’t they just the most beautiful flowers you’ve ever seen in your life? Five ninety-nine. I was thrilled when I saw them. They’re exquisite.”

“Thank you. What’s in the bag?”

“A new nightgown. I’m so tired of sleeping in an old rag.” She took it out and put it on over her clothes. “Eighty-nine dollars on sale. I really need it but I got a terrible headache spending the money. A terrible bum came up to me and I gave him a dollar, but then I realized it was a twenty-dollar bill and I grabbed it back and I didn’t have a dollar bill so I gave him all the change I had, three pennies, and he called me a bitch.” She thrust her hand toward my stomach to give me a pinch. “Who’s my baby girl?”

“Mom, be careful, I have a bleeding ulcer.”

“That’s just too horrible to imagine. My stomach muscles are killing me from Stretch & Tone. And that’s with a hot bath.” She took two aspirin with the water by my bed. “How are you feeling, Benny?”

“I’m very shook up.” The minute I said the word “shook” I felt like crying.

“What happened to your hair?”

I started to cry and so did my mother.

“I feel shook up too,” she said. “This whole thing has given me a headache.”

We just sat there and cried and she got into bed with me, climbing over the metal rail. “Here we are, two girls together,” she said.

The doctor walked in. “What do we have here?”

“Doctor, I have to talk to you,” my mother said. “Should I take a Midrin for a tension headache or an Anaprox?”

“Are you a patient here?”

“She’s my mother,” I said.

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