One Winter Month’s Gas Bill
by Bree
when i was eighteen i had a lingering sore throat and no insurance so i went to the Free Clinic on Euclid Ave. i waited a tortuous two hours to be seen, during which time i decided i would ask for a pap smear, while i was at it. when they finally called my name i got into a smock and waited in a room the size of a British phone booth.
the doctor entered my “room,” (the larger half of the rather large woman doctor was actually outside of the room) looked at my throat, and told me it was “red,” and then she took a culture. she went down under, next. then she hooted, and came back up to proclaim, “looks like somebody has herpes!”
“really?” i asked her, aghast.
“that’s incurable, right?” i stammered.
“you’ll have it the rest of your life,” the doctor told me.
when i started immediately crying, she scolded, “get yourself together!”
she said it so mean it made me feel smaller than somebody who has just been told she has herpes would normally feel.
the doctor tested me for all the other testable STDs: ghonnoreah, chlamydia, etc.
“call in three days for the results,” my doctor said.
and i had to go out into the waiting room where my boyfriend waited expectantly to find out how my throat was doing.
by some fluke my boyfriend wasn’t angry about the herpes. funny, because we’d been together for nearly a year and to suddenly ‘have’ herpes would indicate cheating on my part. even tho i hadn’t. so, funny that i wasn’t upset with my boyfriend, because if i hadn’t cheated, then, naturally, he had.
instead we held hands in the car and headed to the bookstore together to investigate herbal remedies for herpes. i spent a small fortune at the Food Co-Op on herbs and nettles for my sick pussetta.
three days later i was at work and remembered to call the Free Clinic, find out what else i might have.
“negative,” was what my doctor told me on the phone.
“negative for which?” i asked her, “the ghonnoreah? chlamydia?”
“you are STD free,” she told me.
“do you mean i dont even have herpes?” i said, astounded.
“no herpes either. all of your tests came back clean.”
what was missing from the good news was an apology, you know, maybe an “I’m sorry if i caused you undue distress,” or something, from the doctor.
i had been working for seven dollars an hour on seven hour shifts 13 days for every 14, and shelled out $700 rent, plus utilities and food for me and my boyfriend (who didn’t work because he was a genius.)
i had gone to the Free Clinic to save myself some money, but i spent a winter gas bill on needless tonics and tinctures. and, i still had a sore throat. so i buckled down and went to the fancy Clinic. the doctor at the Clinic was surprised a doctor told me i had herpes. when she had a look downstairs, at my junk, she told me i am “a little red” down there, on account of i had a bacterial infection from not treating my sore throat.
Bree is the founder of Green Panda Press, which has published countless poets and artists of the small press. Her full-length memoir “The Rainbow Sweater” is online at rainbowsweater.blogspot.com. She is the author of “Laying Pans” (Ecstatic Peace 2009), “Sleeping With the Sun In His Eyes” (Green Panda 2009), “was chicken trax amid sparrows tread” (Temple Inc. 2009), and “A-Awol” (P2B Press 2009).
