Stonewalled

Stonewalled
My stomach grumbled and I had to pee badly. The heat beat down in a mid morning haze. I felt discombobulated, a feeling that I sometimes get when I am traveling. Nevertheless, after Mom and I had finished our purchases at Fab India, I climbed onto my rental scooter to drive home. “Come with me, Mom,” I encouraged my mother. “Nope, I'd rather walk,” she replied. “Okay, I'll see you at home.”

Mom stood while I turned my scooter around and started the engine. Cautiously, I eyed the traffic on both sides. Driving on the opposite side of the road to home was still weird to me. The road was empty
except for motorcycle in the distance. I inched out and began to turn into the left hand lane on the other side of the road. To this day, I'll never know exactly what happened. I remember trying to turn the scooter, it not responding, giving it some gas, speeding up. The next thing I knew I was crashing into a cement wall. The crunch of plastic jolted me as I scraped along the side. My glasses flew off and something tore at my ear. I ground to a halt. Numb. Shaking. I heard my mother screaming in the distance, “Chris, Chris.” She nearly got hit trying to get across the road to me. Dazed, I hopped off my scooter and frantically began searching for my eight hundred dollar glasses. Men came running from all directions. I found my glasses intact, thank God, shoved them on my face and then touched my hand to my left ear. Blood. Flesh dangling where my gold earring used to be. Shit.

“Where's my earring? I must find my earring,” I said. One sweet man who works at the bank across the road scrounged the grass for five minutes as I stood there in shock. “Here, Mam,” he smiled as he handed it to me. “Thank you,” I whispered shakily. Another Indian man handed me two Kleenex for my bleeding ear. Mom was in hysterics, crying. “Stop Mom, I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm okay.” I tried to console her even though my ear was lopped off. Meanwhile another man parked my scooter on the side of the road, handed me the key and pointed me in the direction of a government clinic.

Mom and I started off down the road with me clutching my ear with the Kleenex that Mom thought was for tears. We walked and walked. I felt a little faint. I promised my traumatized mother that I would never get back on the scooter. She is particularly paranoid after having had an accident herself in Goaa. “It's not worth it, Mom. I'll get rid of the bike. It's just not worth it.” Tearfully, my mother agreed.

At the clinic, there was a huge lineup at a curtained door. “You have to get a paper,” we are informed. Mom went off to get it while I waited. She asked at the office for a paper. The woman at the desk said, “the papers are finished.” “But we need a paper,” Mom said. “Go stand in line,” she was told. Mom came back but not without first sticking her head in the curtain door. “My daughter has had an accident.” The doctor inside told her to go to the Doctors Room. We saw a room that said 'Doctors Room' – some sort of room with a desk, a chair and a bed. We sat there for five minutes. A nurse came along and says, “This is the doctor's room. You are not to be sitting in here. Go over there,” she pointed to a bench in the hall.

We sat on the bench. I was still clutching my ear and feeling faint. More and more sick people were straggling in. An opaqued door opened across from us and we noticed a sign above it says EX room. Mom said again, “My daughter has had an accident. Her ear has been lopped off.” A cute Indian doctor replied, “Tell her to come in here,” and calmly slid the opaque door closed behind me. My mother sat and looked at the shadows behind the door. A few minutes later the opaque door opened again and Mom saw my feet on the end of a stretcher. The door closed again. Time passed as I received fourteen, I mean four stitches to my lopped off ear. My left collar bone had swollen up and become black and blue but nothing was broken. Mom continued to wait outside. Much later, when the cute doctor came out, Mom wished that her ear had been lopped off. She was even more impressed when he thought that she was my sister. Mom vowed to herself that when I go back to have my dressing changed, she will come along. She might even tint her eyebrows.

I walked out of the clinic with a bandaged ear. Mom thought it would bring me more sympathy but to me it was a reminder of the blow to my ego. Worried that I am about to collapse, my ashen face and stricken look distressing my mother, she called our friend Sukhminder who came in his jeep. He took one look at me and said, “Come on. Sturdy frame like you. What's your problem? Get back on the bike.”

Sukhi drove us home in his jeep. Before that, Mom stopped to pick up my penicillin and antiseptic cream. Fortunately I had recently had a tetanus shot because you never know what was on that cement wall where my ear was lopped off.

One week later, we headed back to the clinic. We arrived at nine o'clock as instructed. It was series of lineups. First the paper. I paid twenty rupees for the treatment and got my paper, which is now my personal file that I am to keep just in case I end up in the hospital again in Goa. God forbid. Then we headed back to the curtained door to line up. On the way, my mother stuck her head in the opaque door again seeking the gorgeous doctor's sympathy. He looked up from reading his paper and said, “we're not open until nine thirty.” To which my mother said, “ My daughter is here. You know the one.” To which he replied. “Nine-thirty.” Now she was glad she didn't tint her eyebrows. We waited and waited, struggled to keep our place in line as others attempted to jump the queue. Finally I got in to see the first doctor who proclaimed me healed and sent me to the opaque door to get my stitches removed. The handsome doctor greeted me, scolding, “You did not come back to get your dressing changed.” Sheepishly I responded, “I know. I was able to do it myself.” “Protocol must be followed,” he chided me. Fifteen minutes later, not without some struggle, he finally took out the last of the stitches and instructed me not to wear earrings for next two months. Yah right.

Meanwhile, all week Mom and I discussed back and forth whether or not I should get back on the scooter. For five days it was in the shop getting repaired. It needed a new headlight, a new steering column and the handlebars were twisted. In the meantime, one day we saw a horrendous accident where a guy on a scooter was crushed between a stone wall and a local bus. Rumor had it that he did not survive as we watched the ambulance pull away. “That's it,” Sukhi, who was with us, said. “You're not getting back on the bike. It's too dangerous here.” I left the scooter at the repair shop and he and a friend picked it up for me. Part of me was a little disappointed to not get to ride it more but I realized that perhaps this was not the place for me to learn to drive a two-wheeler. I'll wait until I get back to Canada to do that.