The person who will come all the way across town to the emergency room in which you have been stranded for seven hours.
You need not have called him.
If you did, you will have forgotten to provide the name of the hospital itself, nevermind your own name.
Just as your voice reaches a fever pitch in the conversation you are having with your parents, in which your mother asks you whether a recent, covert abortion or intravenous drug use might be to blame for your current medical condition...
You are not equipped to handle this audacity. You mumble exasperated negatives, and your hand shakes too much to hang up the phone but...
Just as you look towards the sliding glass doors and seriously contemplate a lunatic rush to the nearest bar, where someone could feed vodka into your IV drip.
Despite the fact that you are wearing boxer shorts and a hospital shift.
In subzero temperatures.
Just as alone sinks in down to your wobbling knees...
He strides in bearing take-out Chinese food and strong cigarettes and cab fare.
Overjoyed to see your sunken ash-tray of a face; eyes jumping like pinballs, lip chewed to a nervous pulp.
He
Listens to the demerol talking.
Will discuss various excretory (dis)functions of your ailing body.
Will tell you finally that he came and found you first and foremost, because he missed your company, and because he just couldn't eat anything until he knew you were going to be all right.