Doctor, Doctor

I didn't feel guilty as I sat across from her. This was the same woman I stripped in front of a handful of weeks earlier confidently asking about medications, fasting and such. I was surprised how things went that day, I just never knew how this so-called non date would affect me in coming home.

I was in Houston and I was in a funk. I thought I was where I was supposed to be and I appreciated every bit of it. A month or two earlier I was in Chicago trudging through the winter months going to a job I didn't want any part of while keeping my ex-girlfriend's couch warm and putting up with her boyfriend. Don't ask how I got there, the ex and I figured out right after she cheated on me how we were perfect and better off as friends than we were lovers. After getting back into Chicago her couch was available, so I took it and crashed there for a moment.

I was trying to get back into the trucking industry after suffering an injury to my shoulder. When going through the application process, the fed gives a mighty gauntlet to get over in order to drive and I failed the physical. I had pneumonia but worse I was diabetic. There was someone that was showing me interest down in Texas and I asked if I could come there and get some help getting back on my feet and she said yes. I got a free ticked to better weather and what I though would be better environment for me employment-wise and creatively.

Neither happened, and most of it had to do with where I wanted to be.

Houston was what I expected coming from the south side of Chicago and getting employed was a challenge. The environment provided by my host and her friends was exactly as advertised, but by the time I got to the end of the summer things began to fall apart. I went to the Houston VA and there was another sister really eager to assist me in getting back on point, and that was unexpected.


It took damn near two months to get an appointment with the VA and I did not miss my initial appointment after getting notification in the mail. I knew I was in for an EKG, a stress test and about ten other challenges as well as me knowing that I would get poked, prodded and would be giving up blood so we can get a plan in action. When I got to the strip down and put this on portion of the evaluation I knew some old, white cat would stroll in and lecture me about too many lipids, the downfall of red meats and such, so why did I freeze up when a sister about my age came walking into the room and identified herself as my evaluating doctor?

Our conversation was long and detailed. She made me tell her everything without even asking. Here I was half naked and overweight, hair standing on top of my head after running on a treadmill and all she could do was look me in my eye and tell me what I needed to do to get back on track health-wise so we could get together and do a little something and me not die from her putting it on me.

It never dawned to me that she was a doctor and saw dudes much worse off than me at the VA and I had some sort of redeeming quality that had her interested in me particularly. It was she who extended her number and asked if I would be cool having dinner with her as she handed me prescriptions for an anti-depressant, high blood pressure medication, blood thinners and aspirin. She also advised me that as long as I had stress, high blood pressure and was on the mood altering pills that I would have side effects other than the ones I was having before I started taking the drugs.

Fast forward a few weeks later and here we were at a hotel right off downtown and I was nervous. I caller her after a few weeks of arguments, emotional ups and downs and me complaining about being in Texas and me practically being dared to leave and change my situation on my own by my host. Here I thought I was going to hook up with this doctor and that she could help me take the edge off and get back on track sexually, that wasn't even the case. Our conversation went from one extreme to the other and I was amazed in this woman's patience and eagerness to assist.

She asked me the most outlandish questions, from her initial amazement that I was actually taking the drugs she prescribed to how things like how my libido and circulation would never be the same. She questioned my motives about being in Houston and asked me if I was in love with another sister from Texas that I had been in constant contact with for a year and some change previous to me coming there. She challenged me to follow my heart and leave the man made chemicals alone and also convinced me to go to Chicago alone for vacation.

She knew that I was damaged goods and had painted myself in a corner in being where I was across the table from her, but she also dug me like an old soul record and knew as long as the right DJ came along the needle would be put in the right grooves...

"I did her, not just to say that I did it
But I'm committed, but so many niggaz hit it
That shes just not the same lettin' all these groupies do her
I see niggaz slammin' her, and takin' her to the sewer
But imma take her back hopin' that the shit stop
Cause who I'm talkin' bout y'all is hip-hop"

Common - 'I Used To Love H.E.R.


It turned out to be a short lived affair... She knew what my ailments were and still gave me play. She recommended that I stop taking the drugs and follow my heart and deal with my physical shortcomings holistically, and I did. She told me to go home and be around folks that wanted to be around me and stop playing with my own heart and others. She knew that things would only rotate between us a few times so she told me to make the phone calls that would change my life and I did. From the time that we shared dinner at a non-descript restaurant in Houston, Texas to the time I went 'home' for a weeks vacation last year, all of the things she told me would happen did.

I doubted the shit out of her, but I giver her credit because she knew.

She emailed me the other day and asked if I was enjoying Chicago, like she knew I was here. She didn't, so I replied back to her and told her the wife and I are adjusting to the big city well.

That was the first time I got only a smiley face in the body of an email.