Eye of a Hurricane, Listen to Yourself Churn

I lived with Emily and Patrick in a grubby apartment complex next to an alligator infested pond in South Carolina. It was during hurricane Felix. The rain came in sideways and just about drilled holes through your shirt. The alligator floated on its belly all day long, its stubby arms and legs spread out. We saw it travel from end to end all day from our living room window.

Emily was sick. Patrick called me at the restaurant and told me to come home. She couldn’t keep down applesauce. She couldn’t keep down anything.

I stunk like French fries and ranch dressing. The wind threw the door open and I kicked off my shoes and my keys slid across the counter and crashed against the kitchen wall. “Emmy, Em are you okay?” She was awake with a fever and a trash can of vomited up water.

She was in the hospital for 5 days a week ago. They thought it was food poisoning. They couldn’t find anything else wrong. This wasn’t food poisoning. I was 18. I had driven the two hours to the hospital after work and then back to work in the morning for the 5 days she was admitted. They sent her home because she was fine. Now, a week later, she is not fine again. I called the man who had been her doctor before. It was 4 a.m.

“Bring her in at 8 AM. Leave home with her at 6.” The phone rang at 4:15. It was the doctor again. “I changed my mind. Bring her in now.”

She was curled on the back seat. The traffic lights swung precariously from their threads above. Stop signs quivered and the rain and wind were smashing. What do you do? She didn’t move. I had a tape of REM’s “It’s the end of the world as we know it.” I played the first 5 seconds and rewound it until I memorized it:

That's great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane -Lenny Bruce is not afraid. Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn -world serves its own needs, don't misserve your own needs.

Then played the next 5 seconds until I memorized it, then the next until I got to the hospital. It was all hurry and fury and take the corners slow so it doesn’t hurt her and the wipers going at high speed, keep that glass clean! and then it was into the hospital where they whisked her away from me then it was me sitting alone in a plastic covered chair with a Styrofoam cup and silence and more silence and the buzz of fluorescent lights and I am alone. Alone. Alone for a long time. Then the lady tells me to come in here and sit down at this desk and fill out this stuff and I filled it out. Is the pregnant? No. Is she allergic to anything? Does she smoke? How much does she drink? And I had some questions, like Where did you take her? Why didn’t you figure this out the first fucking time? Where are our parents? What are you doing to her? Are you going to save her life or not? What is wrong with her? How will I ever survive if she dies? Why didn’t I do something sooner?

The doctor came in and told me they didn’t know. They didn’t know what was wrong but there is a mass in her abdomen. For a second I thought Mass? The Pope and candles and Glory Glory Hallelujah and smoke? I hadn’t slept all night. I still had on my orange-tinted panty hose and waitress apron. What do you mean mass? I uncrossed and recrossed my legs, and the change in the apron jingled.

I mean, there’s something in there and we can’t figure out what it is, so we’re going to do surgery. We don’t know what we’re going to do in there. We have to look inside to see what’s wrong, then we’ll fix it. If we can. And we’ll know more then.

I’m calling our parents. They can be here in 18 hours.

We’re taking her to surgery now. Are you a legal adult? You’ll have to sign here.

I paused and thought, “I’m signing a piece of paper so this doctor can slice my sister open and do something, we don’t know what, to an unidentifiable mass in her abdomen.” The doctor said, “If we’d have had any idea how bad this was, we wouldn’t have had you drive her. We’d have sent a helicopter to pick her up.

I signed it.