Of course it’s purposeful that they send you to the basement in order to access the laboratory. With other sick dogs. Holding pattern dogs, howling at the closed dungeon walls. I hunted for a staircase and there was none. Early outside in the dazzling springtime sunshine on the mountains the flowers and the sea, and thought we would beat the lab rush. I stood next to an ancient couple. The elevator doors opened and we stepped inside. Press “B.” The elevator snatched us down and stopped. The doors opened and we were cautious; we looked around the corner and saw that we had not beaten the lab rush. There were old people drooping in their chairs, spreading joy. Motorcycle magazines on the table and People; the Newsweeks were taken. A stooped and withered woman in a white wool sweater with an old chicken-skin hand reached for the motorcycle magazine, brought it to her eyes, and stared at it for a long while. Then she returned it to the little coffee table. I checked in; a nurse came out, looked down at her chart, and called a name. A person went with her. One old, thin man, probably ninety, held his wife’s arm. They looked cute, the kind of cute that attracted the entire room; people cooed as you would for an infant. The old man led his wife to the back room and they sucked some blood. The Latina nurse mispronounced my name, badly enough so that I didn’t know it was me; my blood entered tubes and flowed and they can tell so many things.
