Emergency room episode marks end to reality TV show
Slumped in our seats underneath the blaring television mounted high on the emergency room's wall, I watched hospital security encircle the British film crew and its highly incensed director. One officer placed his hand over the camera lens, so they couldn't film without permission.
Three hours after we'd arrived at the emergency room, my sliced middle finger still seeped blood despite being held aloft. I was surprised it could still bleed. I was holding it so tightly I didn't think air could have escaped through the cut.
Beside me, the War Department made lists on the little notebook she carries in her purse. This activity is a way to calm herself, a sort of personal hypnosis. I think it's an obsessive compulsive disorder thing myself, but what do I know? I'm the guy who tried to slice off his middle finger with an electric filet knife.
Still, it was good to see the War Department busy herself. It kept her from throttling the occasional nurse who obviously mistook the emergency room door for an egress into the employee break room. Each time a nurse came through the ER door and saw the ward full of sick people, she turned and fled back into the safety, and relative quiet, of the treatment rooms.
"What do you notice about almost everyone in here?" I asked my bride. I was bored and couldn't stand the reality TV show on the screen above our heads.
She took an inordinately long time before looking up from her lists, which means she's really thinking hard. Either that or she had tuned out everything so well that my voice was slow to penetrate her self-induced hypnosis.
"Uh, they're all sick?"
"Good answer," I said supportively, because one of those marriage books I read said that we should encourage our spouses if and when they decide to talk to us. "But that's not what I had in mind. Every patient in here, or someone sitting with the patient, is wearing camouflage."
She looked around. "So?"
"So? Doesn't that pique your interest? In this part of Texas, is camouflage a fashion statement or a requirement? And whatever it is, should it match? For example, that guy over there has a mossy oak brush cap, but his pants are army woodland green."
"How much blood have you lost?" she asked.
"This much," I said, showing her the seeping gauze. "Why?"
"I thought maybe you were suffering from a mental problem due to blood loss, but I was wrong. You're just weird."
Before I could further the conversation by pointing out that one particularly sick lady had brought her own matching camouflage pillow and blanket, the security officers threw up their hands.
The director broke free and approached our seats, followed by his cameraman.
"This is the shot," the director said. "Get the bloody bandage and that weary, hurt look in his eyes."
"Don't curse in here," the War Department said.
"What?" The director asked.
"I know you Britishers use the word 'bloody' as a curse word."
The director looked stunned. He couldn't come up with a response.
One extremely sick lady who'd been there longer than us crept past on her hundredth trip to smoke a cigarette outside. I was glad she'd left her oxygen bottle this time.
The lady lying across three seats under the admissions window had long since ceased to point out the small semicircular window above her head to new incoming patients. She was covered in a white drift of "Step One" forms. I felt better when I saw her move a hand. Her stillness was creepy.
"You two should converse," the director told us. "Remember, this is a reality television series about outdoorspersons. We need dialogue."
"Want me to get you another cup of coffee from the machine?" I asked my bride.
"Sure."
Wounded hand aloft, I dug in my muddy, fishy jeans to find quarters. The video crew followed me to the vending area where I purchased two cups, then realized carrying both would be an issue.
Both the director and cameraman refused to help carry the coffee, voicing the statement that with their assistance, it would no longer be reality.
I wondered if true reality television would be maintained if I turned them both into patients.
I carried the first cup back to my bride, forgetting that I was holding my injured middle finger aloft. A fight nearly broke out between myself and another less-ill patient who took offense at the gesture. The War Department came to my assistance, knelt beside the angry patient's wheelchair and explained my issue with the sick lady. I think I could have taken her, despite my injured digit.
After finishing the coffee, I couldn't stand it any longer. I went back to the "Step One" desk until a nurse passed by and accidentally made eye contact. Before she could escape, I stopped her.
"How much longer? I've been here three hours and not one person has been taken back."
"I know that," she said.
"I just need a couple of stitches." I removed the gauze and offered a view of my bloody finger.
"You're right. But we don't have an empty treatment room. They're all full."
"You could use a desk."
"No."
"I'll stand here and you can throw in a couple of whip stitches, and I'm gone."
"No."
"Gimme a needle and thread, and I'll do it myself."
She stared at me.
"I'm right-handed."
"No."
I held out my right arm. "Cut this hospital band off. We're leaving."
Leaving the emergency room, the director stopped us outside. "Where are you going? Tell the viewers what your next step will be."
I took the War Department's arm. "We're going to that gas station across the street. I'm going to buy a tube of Super Glue and glue this cut together, then we're going back to the ranch to fry fish without you guys. It's been fun. Bye."
We left as the director shouted cut and went back inside to begin a documentary on Emergency Rooms That Refuse to Treat Patients. It'll be a hit, I'm sure.
• Reavis Wortham's e-mail address is r.wortham@tx.rr.com.
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