Rough Trade

to park in the doctors’ lot with impunity.
    I fished the cashmere scarf out of the pocket of my coat and told Chrissy to use it to cover her blond hair. Then I took off my jacket, rolled it in a ball, and had Chrissy tuck it into the waistband of her leggings under her coat. Then, operating under the assumption that nothing attracts attention more quickly than someone trying to hide, we walked brazenly down the street and into the entrance marked MATERNITY.
    Once we were safely inside it took us a few minutes to convince the admitting staff that no one was expecting a baby anytime soon. I was eventually able to find a sympathetic orderly who, in exchange for a twenty, was willing to lead us through the series of underground passages that linked the laundry, the cafeteria, and the morgue to the trauma center.
    We took the elevator to the sixth floor, where we had no trouble locating the surgical family waiting area, a space cruelly lacking in both comfort and privacy. It consisted of little more than a group of vinyl chairs bolted to the floor strategically located between a bank of busy elevators and the double doors to the surgical suites.
    Signs directed us to check in with the volunteer at the desk, a disapproving woman with starched hair who took our names, pointed to the alcove where the coffeepot was set up, and handed us a map to the cafeteria. Throughout the entire exchange her demeanor eloquently communicated the fact that while she might not know the exact details of Chrissy’s distress, it was to her mind certainly no less than Chrissy deserved.
    I got Chrissy settled and went to pour us each a cup of coffee. It was too terrible to actually drink, but there was comfort in just being able to wrap our hands around the familiar warmth of the Styrofoam cups. In the corner, mounted high up on the wall so that the volume control and channel changer were out of reach, the TV blared the third quarter of the Monarchs game. Milwaukee was leading Green Bay 27 to 10.
    Time wore on. People came and went. When we first arrived, there had been a young black woman sitting alone, huddled in the corner crying quietly. She was gradually joined by several other members of her family whose family resemblance now extended to the similar expressions of shell-shocked disbelief.
    There was another group that was the center of attention. They were congregated around a middle-aged man dressed as a mechanic in a set of blue overalls that said “Ed” in curly script above the pocket. He had the same kind of impenetrable face as Coach Bennato, hardened by what it had seen. He was with three women, any one of whom might have been his wife, and a gaggle of scraggy teenagers with bad skin and worse teeth. They were all dressed in tight jeans and T-shirts emblazoned with the names of their favorite headbanger bands.
    I was pouring myself a cup of fresh coffee, still trying to keep myself occupied by trying to figure out how the mechanic and the other people were connected, when the double doors of the surgical suite banged open. Two surgeons walked out and scanned the room. We all waited, terrified, collectively holding our breaths, wondering whether they were coming for us.
    “McGyver?” the older of the two surgeons called out wearily. Chrissy and I relaxed.
    The mechanic answered “here” as if responding to roll call at school. The surgeons pulled off their caps and squatted down in front of the family, introducing themselves and launching into a rapid-fire explanation of what was being done for their loved one. When one of them got to “I don’t know what he was despondent about, but from the wound it looks like he must have put the barrel of the gun directly to his chest before pulling the trigger,” Chrissy got up and fled to the most distant corner of the waiting area.
    A few seconds later the double doors burst open again, and this time a trio of surgeons emerged, the V necks of their scrubs ringed with sweat. They did not call out a name but made a beeline for Chrissy. They introduced themselves so fast that there was no way I could catch a name. One, like my roommate Claudia, was apparently the trauma surgeon who’d been on call in the emergency room when they’d brought in Jeff. The other was a vascular surgeon and the third a thoracic specialist. Together they had just spent six hours trying to save Jeffrey Rendell’s life.
    “How is he?” Chrissy blurted desperately.
    “The next twenty-four hours will be