works by w.pham

works by william pham, 2005-present

A Good and Proper Nosebleed

I hadn't had a good and proper nosebleed in a few years.

But I was losing my voice, so I went to the university health clinic. The only time I'd been in there before was when I had needed a hepatitis immunization, and it was a walk in, walk out type of procedure. It cost thirty dollars for the shot and I remember thinking about it in terms of cups of coffee: if the price of each cup of coffee averaged out to one dollar and fifty cents, that one shot was worth about twenty cups of coffee, and twenty cups of coffee would surely have done me more good than the third immunization shot in a series of three immunization shots.

Thinking about coffee, and getting a little thirsty, I walked into the university health clinic. It was a very muted environment. The wallpaper was some shade of tan, the chairs were a dull beige, and the desks were painted the color of coffee after it's had cream or milk poured into it. A young man, presumably also a university student, was engaged in a knockdown, drag-out type of conversation with the girl behind the desk, but though he was practically yelling, it was a hushed sort of near-yelling that made it almost impossible to understand what he was saying. I took the nearest empty seat and began to read a magazine without really reading it or looking at the pictures, feeling somewhat ashamed because of the rudeness of the young man, and apologetic to the girl behind the desk. But why should I feel ashamed or apologetic? I hadn't done anything wrong. And so I became a little angry at the both of them.

The thirst interrupted my internal discourse. It had become that kind of gut-wrenching, heart-pounding, synapse-blocking thirst, where all I could think about was a nice, cool cup of French roast, with plenty of cream and sugar. Even a plain cup of water would have sufficed. I looked around. A vending machine was in one corner of the room. I thrust a hand into my right front pocket: no change. I stood up, took out my wallet, and thumbed through the dollar bills: two tens and a twenty. Enough for twenty-six cups of coffee, but not for a soda. The thirst would have to wait; I wasn't about to waste a ten-dollar bill on one bottle of soda.

In the midst of my dilemma, I didn't hear the girl behind the desk ask me what I needed. I only heard the faint production of noise, and so I turned to face her. Her brow was furrowed, and her cheeks were slightly flushed. Her hair was completely, exactly, and perfectly between blonde and brown, and some of it fell in strands across her small but well-proportioned face, while the rest was tied back with a plain dark band. I supposed she had been trying to get my attention for a while.

"Arhuwokaieshir?"

I had no idea what she was trying to say. I asked her to repeat herself, but even that simple action scratched at my throat like stucco against knuckles. I rubbed my neck.

"AREhuwOKAYshir?"

She had a pretty mouth. I shook my head and tapped my neck. She nodded, procured a clipboard and pen, and handed them both to me. I moved to the side while I filled it out; the usual minutiae: name, address, date of birth, insurance information.

When I finished, I returned the clipboard to her. She smiled at me, then leaned over the desk and pointed to a half-open door at the end of a hallway. I acknowledged, smiled in thanks, and walked down the hallway. Never had I been in the presence of such perfection until that very moment. I hadn't gotten a good look at any of the others, but her right index finger was so perfectly crafted, with the perfect amount of wrinkles around the joints, the perfect width and length, that it seemed absurd. I wondered if she played piano, or guitar. Maybe violin. She could be a virtuoso if the other fingers were anything like that one, even if only one or two were that perfect.

I reached the end of the hallway and tentatively put my hand around the doorknob, then stopped, and knocked instead.

"Comwin!"

This was getting to be a little annoying. It was a university health clinic, so I could understand why there needed to be some peace and quiet, but they could at least speak loudly enough to be heard. I was losing my voice, but I wasn't deaf. I knocked again.

The door opened. A man punched me in the face, his fist landing squarely on my nose after having traveled through the air at a fairly high velocity, the kind of speed someone who has taken up boxing as a hobby can reach.

I fell backward, bracing myself with my hands; I was at a complete loss, and a bit dazed, admittedly.

After a moment I stood and touched my nose. It didn't feel broken, but it was definitely bleeding. I got a good look at the man who had punched me. By all appearances, he was a doctor, or at least a clinician, and on the far end of middle-aged; tall, lean, with mostly gray hair. He adjusted his white lab coat. I continued to bleed from my nose and stared at him.

"Feel any better?" he asked, smiling.

"What?"

"Do you feel any better? You can hear me, right?" He continued to smile. I felt the anger pouring forth like oil onto the frying pan, sizzling and cracking. Meanwhile the thirst had faded somewhat into the background, to keep the company of a now-rising hunger. I briefly thought of eggs and toast.

"Yes, but what does --"

He interrupted me with a dismissive gesture, still smiling. If anything, he was smiling even more broadly the more he spoke.

"Theory of hemophilic nasally encephalopathic congestion," he said, with some measure of pride. That smile was still there on his kindly face. I wanted to punch him back. "Too much pressure on the brain, causes all sorts of difficulties. You lost your voice; others have lost other functions for some time. Completely in the head, you see. Symptomatic of not having had a good and proper nosebleed in a long period of time, the length of such a period of time depending, of course, on the individual."

"That's bullshit."

"Your throat doesn't hurt, does it?"

It didn't. I attributed the reason to two causes: one, my overwhelming sense of anger without any real outlet, and two, the throbbing pain centered on my nose. I wiped some of the blood from my nose and mouth with the back of my right hand.

"Great. You can pay the girl behind the desk, the one with the pretty mouth."

I swung a good right hook at him, catching his jaw inadvertently, due to his height. My knuckles started hurting instantly, but it was worth it. He didn't say anything immediately, nor did he retaliate, or appear to be angry at all. He stuck a finger inside of his mouth, and when he took it out, it had some small amount of blood on it.

"I suppoth thith meanth you won't be paying," he said, sounding somewhat disappointed.

"No," I said, and walked back down the hallway, to the front room. On my way out, I looked at the girl behind the desk. I must have seemed a mess, with blood caked on my upper lip and around my mouth, my nose swelling and purple, blood on my right hand, the knuckles of which were now bruised slightly. But she really was very pretty, like a leading actress in a French film that didn't do too well in the box office. She smiled at me as if to say, "Look, I'm sorry for what happened." I accepted her gracious, unspoken thanks with no words of my own and left.

I paused, still in the doorway.

The university health clinic was across the street.