Ham on Rye: 30
I got lucky the next day. They called my name. It was a different
doctor. I stripped down. He turned a hot white light on me and looked me over. I was sitting on the edge of the examination table.
“Hmmm, hmmmm,” he said, “uh huh . . .”
I sat there.
“How long have you had this?”
“A couple of years. It keeps getting worse and worse.”
“Ah hah.”
He kept looking.
“Now, you just stretch out there on your stomach. I’ll be right back.”
Some moments passed and suddenly there were many people in the room. They were all doctors. At least they looked and talked like doctors. Where had they come from? I had thought there were hardly any doctors at L.A. County General Hospital.
“Acne vulgaris. The worst case I’ve seen in all my years of practice!” “Fantastic!”
“Incredible!”
“Look at the face!”
“The neck!”
“I just finished examining a young girl with acne vulgaris. Her back
was covered. She cried. She told me, ‘How will I ever get a man? My back will be scarred forever. I want to kill myself!’ And now look at this
fellow! If she could see him, she’d know that she really had nothing to complain about!”
You dumb fuck, I thought, don’t you realize that I can hear
what you’re saying? How did a man get to be a doctor? Did they take anybody?
“Is he asleep?”
“Why?”
“He seems very calm.”
“No, I don’t think he’s asleep. Are you asleep, my boy?”
“Yes.”
They kept moving the hot white light about on various parts of
my body.
“Turn over.”
I turned over.
“Look, there’s a lesion inside of his mouth!”
“Well, how will we treat it?”
“The electric needle, I think . . .
”Yes, of course, the electric needle.”
“Yes, the needle.”
It was decided.
Other works by Charles Bukowski...
