Vignette City 47.

*** ‘Vignette City’ is an ongoing project of daily writing and urban photography ***

I went to see my OBGYN. It always makes me nervous. I don’t have any reason to think anything is wrong with me, but maybe that means something is wrong with me, you know? How would I know? I’m not a doctor. But if something is wrong, the doctor is going to be the one to tell me, but if I don’t go, then nothing can be wrong, right? Because the doctor can’t tell me something is if she doesn’t know, right?

She’s okay, my doctor. She asks everybody to call her Caitlyn. All my OBs who weren’t men were like that, like, “We’re friends, this isn’t weird.” I’ve had two OBs who were men and both of them were named Scott, but the nurses always referred to them as “the Doctor.”

I took my clothes off and put on that gown and I sat there on the edge of the examination table, in between the stirrups. I sat with my hands nestled limply in my lap. Those rooms always make me feel like I’m in the principal's office.

I looked at the stirrups. I’ve always thought they’re weird. I feel about them the way I would feel about the tools in a Victorian dentist’s office.

Then the door opened really fast and I looked up expecting to see Caitlyn, but it wasn’t her. I had to squint because at first I didn’t understand what I was seeing. Then I said, “You’re the Mayor …”

He was dressed like the Mayor, but with a white lab coat over his suit coat. His hair was all, well, the way it is.

“Yeah, yeah. It’s impressive, right?” He snapped on a pair of powdery white latex gloves. “Okay, let’s go ahead and do this.”

“Wait. What?”

“I don’t have all day. I have a very busy day, very busy. You wouldn’t believe how much I have to do.” He stood there. He is a much bigger man than I’d ever realized. Really tall and super wide, like a thick tree trunk of a wall. I didn’t vote for him, I always tried to ignore him.

“Are you even a doctor?”

“No, no. I could have been. I’m very smart. I would have been the best doctor.”

“What are you doing here?” I didn’t like being so close to him, especially since I was only wearing a thin gown, just loosely tied down the back. I’d heard the stories about him.

“I’m here straightening out the medical care in this city. We’re going to have the best health care here. The best. It is the best already, everyone says so. I’m going to make it better. So let’s get started. How to these leg straps work? Get those legs up there.”

“WHAT?”

“Yeah, I need to keep track of what’s going on up there. I’m the Mayor.”

“WHAT.”

Then the door opened again and Caitlyn was their, her cheeks red like she’d just dashed back from lunch after getting a call from the office, the rest of her face was an empty horrified white, as if her toddler son had just punched a handicapped puppy in the face.

“Mister Mayor!” She almost yelled. “We need you, there is a problem … in the other room. A … big and important problem …”

“Oh yeah?” The Mayor said. Then he turned and looked at my body shape, like he was scanning my flesh through the gown. “Okay,” he said, pulling the gloves off and dropping them right onto the floor. “I have to go,” he said to me, “something big and important is happening. You know though, you might be hot if you lost some weight. I’m the Mayor.”

He walked out of the examination room and Caitlyn said to me, “I’m so sorry,” she was close to tears, “He keeps doing this. I don’t know why. He just shows up.”

She closed the door and it was just me in the room again. I jumped off the table and dressed as fast as I could. I left the office as fast as I could and I am never going back.

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