The 32 bus careens efficiently around the corner at 6:00 am.
I’m one of three passengers.
The sun isn’t up yet, but the sky is pale, the world is faint, and the skyscrapers reflect opal in shimmering grids, like rectangular lace.
The streets and sidewalks are empty and stained. A woman is shouting for a doorway, “When I get to heaven,” but I don’t hear the rest. A bearded man stops as I pass and says, “I don’t have anything to eat,” and I say, “I’m sorry.” He says something back but I am still moving, so I don’t hear what it is.
As I get closer to the ER, there are more people, wearing scrubs or security guard uniforms, going to work or coming from it.
I’m there to get my third rabies shot out of four, after a bite from a stray cat. The vaccine is only stocked in emergency rooms around here, and I’m going before 7:00 because the ER has calmed down from the night before and hasn’t ramped up for the day yet. I put all my earthly possessions in a tub at security, but I still set off the alarm. The guard waved me through, probably because I am a little old lady with a floral scarf around my neck.
I check in. A man calls me over and takes my blood pressure, temperature, and O2 levels. He asks me all the questions (“Do you feel safe at home?”) but also asks if I’m likely to go into withdrawal from drugs.
“I’m 52 years sober,” I say and he chuckles.
“You’d be surprised,” he says. “I had a 78-year-old with a racing heart due to cocaine.”
No, I wouldn’t be surprised.
A triage doctor calls for “Delli” and I know she means me, though that’s not my name. She asks me what I’m here for and I say “Third rabies shot.”
“You know you have one more,” she says and dismisses me.
There are other people here with their own emergencies: A young man tending a young woman. A woman by herself. Another woman scrolling on her phone, folded in on herself, wearing plastic slides and a colorful dress.
I will never see them again.
A young man is checking in. “All over my arms and legs,” he says in answer to a question. “I can’t tell if it’s on my back because I live alone.”
I get my third rabies vaccine. The nurse says she treated someone for a possum bite once. I ask if I can get my flu and vaccine vaccines after the next rabies shot, and she has to call the pharmacist because she can’t trust the CDC website. “Three months for any live vaccine,” she reports back. “So you can get the COVID vaccine.”
I leave and the streets have changed, because the sun is up. The skyscrapers are solid now, and fierce in the sunlight. One more shot to go, in a week. One more morning of empty streets and faintly glowing sky.
I’m glad I could get the vaccine, so I won’t worry. I’m trying to get whatever health care I can, while I still can. I still have Medicare. I still qualify for the COVID vaccine. Maybe they will still have the flu vaccine when I’m allowed. I’m working it one day at a time, trying not to get too far into the future.