XRAY vision

At the hospital, the woman admitting me is huge. The concept of elbows is lost on her. Her upper arms look as if she raided a meat locker and hung two, floppy ham hocks from each one. All I am getting is an xray, but it seems like i am being checked in for a week long stay.

My estimated payment, with insurance, is nineteen dollars. Would I like to pay that up front? Sure, why not. She runs my card and I receive an electronically printed receipt, then she (her name is Carol) brings out a large, metal sheet, like something you'd bake cookies on (she would, and has, certainly) and hand writes a receipt as well. She is very thorough. Her hammy arms flop and flop in her thoroughness. She tells me to go across the lobby and check in at out patient/radiology.

"I'm just here for an xray." I reassure her.

"I know," she says, unsmiling. Her head is a pea on a mountain of mashed potatoes.

I check in across the lobby at radiology. The woman behind the counter grabs my papers without a glance at me. She is talking to the other woman behind the counter about broken gas gages. She says, "Oh, I've had that before, a broken gas gage," and laughs, like, oh isn't that funny. Without looking at me she says, "Go sit over there."

There is nothing good to read. Nothing. There is a Smithsonian and a magazine called, Trailer Life. On the cover is a couple standing outside a winnebego, waving. On the cover over of Smithsonian there is a bird. I'm about to pick up Trailer Life when a man with a moustache comes out and calls my name. He is the xray technician. His name is Ray. That's fitting.

Ray gets to wear scrubs even though he isn't a doctor. I bet it makes him feel important, which is really the most important thing. Feeling important. Ray talks like a game show host, which is good because as he directs me where to stand and place my left knee it feels like if i do all this right I might win money. He is encouraging without condascention.

"Okay, now just one more inch over. Great. Oh, you're on nine. Good position."

I smile at my luck.

After he pushes the xray button--I can't actually see it but I assume it is a big red X that one has to through their entire body against--a maching in the corner goes one long beep, then one short. It is morse code for, "I just took your xray."

Rays appears from the control booth and instructs me to lie on the table. My body is twisted and I feel a little vulnerable, as if he has caught me napping. Then I must lie on my back, and I have to hold part of the xray plate. I am Vana White and Ray is Pat Sajack. People who live in trailers watch Wheel of Fortune; people who live in three bedroom houses watch Jeopardy. That's just the way it is. The xray, Ray tells me with instruction, is called a, "sunrise shot." Once Ray has pushed the big X button again he moved the table I am lying on down toward the floor and says, "Back to earth."

I wait while he makes sure the xrays came out all right. I hold back the urge to say, "May I please see them now?"

Ray holds his arm out, ushering me, and says, "You may exit out that door past the prison guards." I laugh because I think he is joking but when I look up I see two guards, armed, and next to them is a man in a wheel chair, in khaki garbs, his hands are cuffed. He stares me down as I walk by and the guards give me a cordial nod. The door beeps as I walk through it.