DR. LIVINGSTON SWALLOW, THAT LONGFELLOW BOY:537 Park Avenue : this doctor had a
catharsis and was taken from his office on a stretcher being rolled by two men while a female EMT with a plasma bottle held high walked alongside them and
they were all chattering strange numbers and words I could not understand nor recognize but I knew the situation as well as any other for
it isn't always that the 'Doctor' of the house goes down as the patient and gets taken away by the ambulance himself and (I wondered) 'where to?' does one go in such a case -
the light blue flicker of a computer screen illumined the interior rear of the medical wagon as someone else was crouched at a keyboard plotting in numbers and information and - I'd supposed - awaiting results or instructions back and all this even before they entered the flow of auto traffic which whizzed the street and not knowing where they'd be headed I understood all too well the haste
but the same would be said for anything along Park Ave's majestically reputated denizens and doctor's offices and psychiatric couches and chairs : everything medical was here pronounced real and sure and true and actual while to so many others everywhere else in the city it remained a distant fantasy a glimmer of something else a chimera one hoped never to need to face -
that chasm that yawping hole that gaping wide-eyed destination DEATH that which slaughters us all - and with no one speaking I kept a watch at the least at what I saw (the
languorous rump of the female
assistant held the allure of assertion that - to me at least - proved still I was alive!) and they entered their wagon and slammed shut the doors and a siren pronounced its intention to garner attention and away
OFF! they sped (sprinkling in between some cars and a lone workman's truck) while faces looked up - that old gent by the
median's flowers the woman in a gaudy hat punishing her dog with a leash while looking back to what had
occurred -
but they all still passed as moments and people do : some tidy assertion of sidewalk and premise or occurrence and chance or doubt and dishonor and 'there but for fortune' go you or go I.