If nothing else, I have a feeling that I’m going to start getting phone calls again here really soon.
***
My meeting with Mitchell Young goes everywhere but anywhere, but the point was never progress. Mitchell Young and John Parker are, on most things, of the same mind, and I want it to be clear to anyone who’s paying attention, anyone that either of these men talk to on a day-to-day basis, that I’m not fucking around.
If nothing else, I’ve just saved my job, even if I will end up having to wait a little longer to get what I want from it.
Right now, though, I’m sitting on my couch at home, snuffing out my amateur attempt at a joint and wondering why I still have yet to figure out that I should just have a glass of water waiting on the table for me so I don’t have to make the arduous trek all the way into the next room to wet my mouth.
My next round of chemo starts before too long, and I’m already dreading it.
I’m not sure if I’m getting in a capsule the same stuff that others get in their veins, but what I do know is that if it weren’t for pot, something which I’ve never had the slightest inclination to even try before all of this, the hell of chemo would be a lot darker.
Even with my little green friend, though, I’m not looking forward to round two.
The nice thing is that, as a decently paid professional, I’ve been able to quite literally change my hair on a daily basis.
This is one of those times where it would be really nice to have a friend that I’m not employing, but I don’t have any of those. Working an average of 80 hours a week isn’t particularly conducive to interpersonal relationships.
So, I get up the courage to make my way into my kitchen, I pour myself a glass of water before realizing that I bought bottled water for just such an occasion, and I go back into the living room and gargle a moment before I pull out my phone and dial the number.
It’s a short phone call.
I sit and veg out to some old episodes of The Golden Girls for a while before there’s a knock on my door.
“Just a minute!” I call, and make sure all my smoking gear is put away, and I spray some air freshener just to cover any lingering smell. I’m not doing anything illegal; I am a patient with a valid prescription for a serious medical condition. Still, people can be so judgmental.
I open the door and Jace comes in, saying, “You know, we’ve got to stop meeting this way.”
I smile and close the door behind him.
He compliments me on my hair, which is shorter, lightly disheveled, yet still professional, and black with just a tinge of purple if the light catches it just right. This is one of my favorites.
“So, how was the traffic on your way over?” I ask.
“It was fine,” he says. “You know, you don’t have to call me through my agency.”
“I don’t have your home number, and this isn’t exactly a medical emergency, so it doesn’t seem right to have the hospital page you-”
“It’s just,” he starts and then hesitates, “I charge less for my time as a doctor than I do as an escort.”
“Well, since I’m both your patient and your client in your sex work-”
“I don’t have sex with my clients,” he protests, but I couldn’t care less.
“I’m just saying, I think maybe it’s time to discuss some kind of discount,” I snicker.
“Why me?” he asks. “You could have asked for someone else, you could have called a different service. I’m your doctor. That doesn’t bother you?”
“Does it bother me that you’re my doctor?” I ask, adding an extra touch of snark to the situation. “No,” I conclude. “It would bother me less if I didn’t have to have a doctor at all, but we are where we are. So, what got you into medicine? And, don’t give me the trite answer.”
“What’s the trite answer?” he asks stupidly.
“You know very well what the trite answer is,” I tell him.
“What if I did get into it to help people?”
“Then you’re more boring than I thought. Are you single?”