On Being Trapped at the HIV Outpatient Clinic, 1989

Sometimes it’s merely minutes after I arrive before a nurse takes me back and checks my weight to see how much I’ve lost. Not today. No. Today I’m stuck in the waiting room’s limbo, suffering an impertinent child’s inspection of my face. She’s turned about in her plastic chair, gawking at me. The room is stiflingly hot, and my arms ache from aggravation. But I can’t step outside for a smoke or I might miss my turn—one only makes that mistake once.

I look up to the slice of sky showing through the room’s lone window, a deep clerestory slit cut like an impossibly high mail slot. That’s what I want to do right now, bust through that window and fly right out.

I glance back at the annoying girl when she leans forward for a better look. She smiles, a front tooth missing, then ducks behind her chair and up again. A tiny snicker escapes her mouth.

Ignoring her daughter’s inane game, the mother, who reeks of cannabis, shakes and sweats while scanning a National Inquirer she brought in. Further along than I am, purple lesions cover the woman’s arms. Even this mother, a sunken-faced junkie, should know this is no place to bring your child along. Another waiting room in another doctor’s office, certainly. But in this waiting room the girl is someone with a future, something the others here have lost.

The child waves her tiny hand, taunting me, so I search the room’s faded Berber carpet, determined not to be drawn in. I find a bloodstain that looks like a butterfly.

Should I smile at the girl? Or say hello? I guess that’s what most decent people would do. But the last thing I wanted today was to deal with this. Honestly, I shouldn’t even be here.

Back when I managed Hibernia Bank I had insurance. I went to a real doctor with a real receptionist. It was nothing like this run-down clinic with its latex-gloved gatekeeper shouting “pay stub or proof of no income” whenever anyone enters. But I’m no longer employed at the bank—they dismissed me when I started looking sick.

The mother glares back at me and finally says, “Tristiana. Sit right in your chair.”

So the beleaguering child forfeits, turning around and facing the empty wall before her. I smile at the back of her head, victorious, as the office door opens.

A nurse I’ve never seen before appears, scanning the room. She peers down at her chart, tucks her hair behind an ear, and leans forward. She smiles widely.

“Tristiana, are you ready to see the doctor?”

The little girl nods tentatively, then hops up from her chair and disappears into the back. Her mother struggles up with a cane to follow. I glower at the bloodstain on the carpet. No child should have to come somewhere like this. I glance back up to sliver of sky showing through the unreachable window.

I should have given her that smile.