Under the Rainbow by Celia Laskey

Author:Celia Laskey [Laskey, Celia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2020-03-03T00:00:00+00:00

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• • •

I LEAVE WORK early to go to my doctor’s appointment. Jean was able to squeeze me in at the last minute because she told Dr. Webber it was serious.

“Gabe! My man!” he booms as he walks in and slaps his wide palm against my back. We went to high school together, so my medical advice always comes with a side of off-putting chumminess. He sets my chart on the counter and turns on the hot water, pressing the heel of his hand against the soap dispenser three times. The antiseptic smell of the foam fills the room. “So how are we doing, buddy?” he asks as he rubs the soap between his fingers.

“Jean made me come. It’s really nothing.”

He rinses his hands and dries them with a paper towel, then turns around and regards me, looking down at my splint. “Is it about that?”

“No, I’m here for something else.”

He picks up my hand at the wrist and holds it in front of his face. “How’d you do this, anyway?”

“I fell on it,” I say for the millionth time.

He presses on my middle knuckle with his thumb, and I just about hit the ceiling. “Yeah, and I shit gold. How’d you really do it?”

“I really did fall on it.” I shift on the exam table, the crepe paper crinkling under me.

“This here is a boxer’s fracture, champ. You don’t get it from falling. You get it from punching shit.”

I shrug.

“All right, you don’t want to talk about it.” He holds his hands up in surrender. “I’ll get you a better splint and if you ice it once a day, it should be feeling better in about six weeks.” He takes a pinwheel peppermint out of his lab coat pocket and tosses it in his mouth. “So what’s the thing that you are here for?”

I stare at an illustrated poster for prostate cancer. Dr. Webber’s brother had it a while back, so he’s become a champion for early detection. A bright red lump like a misshapen heart sits at the base of the shaft. “My stomach has been a little off lately.”

“Off.” He opens my chart and flips through it. “Can you elaborate?”

“Nausea, mostly. Not much of an appetite.”

He closes my chart. “Any vomiting or diarrhea?”

I shake my head.

“Hm. Nausea can be psychological. What’s going on up here?” He taps his temple with his pen.

The prostate cancer poster warns me that one in six men will be diagnosed with the disease. What if I die having never slept with a man? “Just the usual,” I say.

“What are your usual stressors? What makes you punch shit?” He smiles, biting down on the mint. It crunches between his teeth.

“Oh, you know. Money, sales goals at work, the house falling apart, Billy getting F’s on his English papers, Jean riding my ass about whatever.” Imagining men riding my ass constantly.

“Tell me about it, man.” He makes a note in my chart. “Let’s go ahead and schedule you for a barium swallow, just to rule out an ulcer.

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