CREEK ROAD GANG
Your Subtitle text
Wednesdays at the Clinic
by Mary Porth
I eased my mini-van in close to the curb on the narrow street, turned it off and stepped out carefully, trying to avoid the scattered glass fragments that littered the sidewalk and glinted in the late winter sun. The crumbling old building I parked next to was a forgotten remnant of one of the city’s now defunct industries. Cinder blocks unceremoniously closed off windows that had been expertly wrought in their day with decorative brick work surrounding grand arches. Telltale stains around the base of the building coupled with the pungent smell of urine confirmed its current use. As I hurried away I clicked the lock button on my remote car key twice. I pressed it a third time and heard the answering car horn that assured me, as much as one could be assured in this gritty Kensington neighborhood, that my vehicle was safe.
Half a block away I was greeted by one of the handful of disheveled men gathered around the stoop of an aging row home. The others looked warily away. I was new here.
“Mornin’, Miss.”
“Good morning.” I nodded, stepping over a clipboard sign-up sheet. “It’s getting a little bit warmer these days, hmm?”
“Can’t come too soon. I’ll tell you that, Miss.”
I smiled back in agreement as I pushed open the door of the free clinic. Inside, the director, a wiry fortyish woman, dressed casually in jeans and sweater vest, was relating a story about a recent service trip she’d taken to Central America as advisor to a group of college students.
“At this point, our flight home had already been delayed thirty-six hours and they were sending us to Newark instead of Philly. I was hoping not to have to take the bus the University was sending. That would have had me arriving way out in the suburbs in the middle of the night. So I asked this translator who lives in the city if her boyfriend might have room for me when he picked her up. As soon as we arrived I got the students loaded on the bus and went to use the bathroom. When I came back the place was nearly deserted and the boyfriend was on his knees proposing to the translator! I thought ‘Oh my gosh I have to run and catch the student bus! I can’t drive back with these two!’” She paused briefly, chuckling, “But the problem was she was sitting on my suitcase!” Now she laughed heartily, joined by the other volunteers and I thought, not for the first time, that Mary Beth got a lot of pleasure out of life despite the many personal sacrifices she’d made when she committed decades ago to live in and serve this struggling community.
“Anyway, I missed the bus and did ride home with them. They were very gracious. Hey, Mary,” she turned her attention to me, “how are you?”
“Good, thanks. Sorry I’m late,” I said.
“No problem. We’re just going to say a prayer, then we’ll open up. You can do intake today if that’s all right.”
“Sure,” I replied, “whatever you need.”
We gathered around a worn wooden table piled high with files, stethoscopes, blood pressure cuffs, and informational flyers. Maggie, a physician’s assistant, matter-of-factly read aloud a reflection sounding the themes of service to the poor and conscientious objection.
“MLK or Gandhi?” a volunteer questioned.
“MLK” Maggie answered.
“I knew it,” the other woman responded with a satisfied smile.
Mary Beth began a brief rundown for the morning. “Maggie and I will be seeing patients. Mary and Kevin are on intake. Lucy is doing showers today…”
“That’s me, the shower lady!” a woman interrupted as she emerged from the basement carrying a basket of laundry. I turned to smile at Lucy, a sturdy no-nonsense nurse practitioner who had grown weary of treating people who never seemed to get better. She preferred running the shower operation, closely monitoring the ten minute time limit, rationing out clean socks to the first six people on the list and guarding the extra large bottles of shampoo which had a habit of walking out on us. She started folding a towel and looked up suddenly, “Didn’t you say we had a dentist coming in this week?”
“Oh, right! We have a dentist coming in tomorrow!” Mary Beth raised her eyebrows and smiled broadly, “We haven’t had a dentist in ages. So let people know and tell them they need to sign up.” She turned to me, “He only does extractions, but it’s better than nothing.” She shrugged and started toward the door to open up then stopped herself, her shoulders slumping visibly as she gestured toward a photo hanging on the wall. “By the way, that’s Michelle, one of our patients. She was murdered over the weekend, stabbed in the neck.”
The flurry of activity that had begun stopped suddenly. I drew in my breath.
“What happened?”
“Did they catch the person?”
“How did you hear about it?”
The questions came from all sides. Mary Beth shook her head and pushed her glasses up on her nose. She ran the fingers of her right hand through her salt and pepper short hair. “It was probably a drug deal or a trick gone bad. No, they don’t have anyone in custody. I read about it in the paper and when I saw the location I knew it had to be someone we’ve worked with…” She shook her head. “She was here last week. She had agreed to check herself into rehab. We had it all set up for Tuesday but…” Her voice trailed off in a rare show of helplessness and futility.
I turned my attention to the photo tacked on the wall. A worn but triumphant young woman posed for the camera holding a wrinkled, skinny newborn in her arms. Her lusterless brown hair was pulled back loosely from her face and her skin was pale, despite the tank top she wore and the glistening perspiration on her face that indicated a hot summer day.
“How old is that baby now?” I asked.
“That’s Timmy. He’s nine months old,” Mary Beth answered, “Michelle’s boyfriend and the boyfriend’s mother are taking care of him.”
Insistent thumping on the door reminded us there were patients waiting. Mary Beth refocused. “Kevin, they sound kind of rowdy today. Will you have a word with them about the rules?”
Kevin moved forward and opened the door to the growing crowd. From what I could gather, the rules involved being reasonably quiet, patient, and unarmed. He stepped away and the throng entered, moving to use the bathrooms, the telephone, and to sign up for showers and/or medical appointments. All available seating was soon taken up. Musings about Michelle faded to the background. I checked the medical sign-up sheet and called the first patient.
“Darnell?”
“Hey, hey how you doin’?” Darnell inquired amiably.
“Good, how about you?”
“Well, I think I need to see Mary Beth. I got these nasty bug bites.” He pointed to large angry welts on his forearm.
“How long have you had them?” I asked.
“ ‘Bout three weeks now. I was helpin’ out at the shelter around the block. I was givin’ out blankets that were donated from some old hotel. I thought they had little stains on them. Turns out they was bedbugs. Man! Those things are nasty! I been usin’ cream on them but I don’t know. Maybe I need antibiotics or something stronger, ya know?”
“All right, let me get some information,” I replied, “and Mary Beth will be able to see you shortly.”
After Darnell, came Michael inquiring about HIV testing.
“I asked about it before but I never followed up,” he explained apologetically.
“No problem, Michael. We do it on Tuesday mornings here at the clinic.”
“Yeah, but I can’t come that day. I been helpin’ this roofer on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I can’t get here then.”
“Okay,” I reached for a flyer. “There’s a place on Lehigh Avenue that does testing Monday through Friday. It’s free and confidential and the results are back in twenty minutes. They’ll even give you a ten dollar gift card to McDonald’s just for having it done.”
“Yeah, that’s probably the place they told me about before. What’s the address again?”
When Michael was taken care of I called the next name on the list.
“Megan?”
“That’s Meegan,” an unkempt middle-aged woman corrected me.
“Okay, Meegan. Have a seat. How are you today?”
“I need some pain killers bad. I got pain twenty-four/seven. I can’t even sleep these past few weeks.”
“I’m so sorry,” I replied, “Do you know what the problem is?”
“I know all right. I got brain tumors. I got three of ‘em, see?” She pointed to the crown of her head and poked beneath a pile of stringy gray hair. “Two of ‘em I can move around when they’re bothering me, but not the third.”
“Are you being treated for them?” I asked with concern.
“Yeah, yeah, I got doctors, but they get you in the hospital and they try to kill you! I just need some pain killers. Can you get me some?”
The morning continued on without pause. At one point I overheard Mary Beth pleading with an elderly woman to go directly to the hospital. She had hobbled in complaining of foot pain and asking for Epsom salts to soak her foot.
“Honey,” Mary Beth explained insistently, “this is more than a little foot infection. This is gangrene. It could go through your whole system. I’d really like to take you to the hospital right now.”
“No, no, I’ll be okay. I’ll go to the hospital later. Can you just give me something to soak my foot? Oh and maybe something for heartburn, too.”
“Look, I’ll give you clean socks, ” Mary Beth’s voice trailed off slightly as she rummaged around in the supply closet, “and I think I have Tums in here, but…”
“I prefer Rolaids. Do you have Rolaids?”
“I have a big pack of Tums,” Mary Beth emerged from the closet “ but you really need to go to the hospital. Will you let me take you?”
“I’ll go. Don’t worry, I’ll go…”
Their conversation was interrupted by a commotion outside. Mary Beth moved swiftly to the door and I heard snippets of an excited interchange. But my attention was soon diverted to Will.
“Miss, I got to use the phone and he been on it for like twenty minutes. I got to call about this job! I got to use the phone now. Can you get him off?”
Unsure of telephone protocol I turned to inquire of another volunteer when Mary Beth came back inside.
“Mary, did you see Jamal?”
“Sorry, I don’t know who Jamal is.”
“He was here a little while ago with two other guys. They were reading the notices on the bulletin board.”
I had a fleeting recollection of the three men hanging out in the corner of the room.
“Yes, I saw them over there but I guess they left.”
Mary Beth shook her head in exasperation and went back outside. Will followed her out, giving up on the phone for the moment. When she returned a few minutes later she was still shaking her head.
“That was a police cruiser outside blocking all the traffic. They were looking for Jamal. I told them he’d been here but he’d left. They didn’t believe me and wanted to come in and look around.” Mary Beth was clearly agitated.
“Why couldn’t you let them in?” one of the volunteers asked.
“They know we don’t let anyone in with a gun. I couldn’t let them in! It takes so long to build up the trust with our patients here. Anyway, he wasn’t here! Then I tried to give them some information on Michelle’s murder. A couple of patients this morning told me about possible witnesses.” She looked down at a business card. “They told me to call homicide after 3P.M. today…” Mary Beth blew out a long frustrated exhalation then looked up again at the photo on the wall. In a quiet voice she murmured sadly, “And she was going to try rehab again this Tuesday. She wanted to make a better life for Timmy…” The young woman in the photo continued to look on, smiling and unaware of the sorrow her early death had caused. Mary Beth turned away and grabbed a file from the inbox, “Alan? Is Alan here?”
Half a block away I was greeted by one of the handful of disheveled men gathered around the stoop of an aging row home. The others looked warily away. I was new here.
“Mornin’, Miss.”
“Good morning.” I nodded, stepping over a clipboard sign-up sheet. “It’s getting a little bit warmer these days, hmm?”
“Can’t come too soon. I’ll tell you that, Miss.”
I smiled back in agreement as I pushed open the door of the free clinic. Inside, the director, a wiry fortyish woman, dressed casually in jeans and sweater vest, was relating a story about a recent service trip she’d taken to Central America as advisor to a group of college students.
“At this point, our flight home had already been delayed thirty-six hours and they were sending us to Newark instead of Philly. I was hoping not to have to take the bus the University was sending. That would have had me arriving way out in the suburbs in the middle of the night. So I asked this translator who lives in the city if her boyfriend might have room for me when he picked her up. As soon as we arrived I got the students loaded on the bus and went to use the bathroom. When I came back the place was nearly deserted and the boyfriend was on his knees proposing to the translator! I thought ‘Oh my gosh I have to run and catch the student bus! I can’t drive back with these two!’” She paused briefly, chuckling, “But the problem was she was sitting on my suitcase!” Now she laughed heartily, joined by the other volunteers and I thought, not for the first time, that Mary Beth got a lot of pleasure out of life despite the many personal sacrifices she’d made when she committed decades ago to live in and serve this struggling community.
“Anyway, I missed the bus and did ride home with them. They were very gracious. Hey, Mary,” she turned her attention to me, “how are you?”
“Good, thanks. Sorry I’m late,” I said.
“No problem. We’re just going to say a prayer, then we’ll open up. You can do intake today if that’s all right.”
“Sure,” I replied, “whatever you need.”
We gathered around a worn wooden table piled high with files, stethoscopes, blood pressure cuffs, and informational flyers. Maggie, a physician’s assistant, matter-of-factly read aloud a reflection sounding the themes of service to the poor and conscientious objection.
“MLK or Gandhi?” a volunteer questioned.
“MLK” Maggie answered.
“I knew it,” the other woman responded with a satisfied smile.
Mary Beth began a brief rundown for the morning. “Maggie and I will be seeing patients. Mary and Kevin are on intake. Lucy is doing showers today…”
“That’s me, the shower lady!” a woman interrupted as she emerged from the basement carrying a basket of laundry. I turned to smile at Lucy, a sturdy no-nonsense nurse practitioner who had grown weary of treating people who never seemed to get better. She preferred running the shower operation, closely monitoring the ten minute time limit, rationing out clean socks to the first six people on the list and guarding the extra large bottles of shampoo which had a habit of walking out on us. She started folding a towel and looked up suddenly, “Didn’t you say we had a dentist coming in this week?”
“Oh, right! We have a dentist coming in tomorrow!” Mary Beth raised her eyebrows and smiled broadly, “We haven’t had a dentist in ages. So let people know and tell them they need to sign up.” She turned to me, “He only does extractions, but it’s better than nothing.” She shrugged and started toward the door to open up then stopped herself, her shoulders slumping visibly as she gestured toward a photo hanging on the wall. “By the way, that’s Michelle, one of our patients. She was murdered over the weekend, stabbed in the neck.”
The flurry of activity that had begun stopped suddenly. I drew in my breath.
“What happened?”
“Did they catch the person?”
“How did you hear about it?”
The questions came from all sides. Mary Beth shook her head and pushed her glasses up on her nose. She ran the fingers of her right hand through her salt and pepper short hair. “It was probably a drug deal or a trick gone bad. No, they don’t have anyone in custody. I read about it in the paper and when I saw the location I knew it had to be someone we’ve worked with…” She shook her head. “She was here last week. She had agreed to check herself into rehab. We had it all set up for Tuesday but…” Her voice trailed off in a rare show of helplessness and futility.
I turned my attention to the photo tacked on the wall. A worn but triumphant young woman posed for the camera holding a wrinkled, skinny newborn in her arms. Her lusterless brown hair was pulled back loosely from her face and her skin was pale, despite the tank top she wore and the glistening perspiration on her face that indicated a hot summer day.
“How old is that baby now?” I asked.
“That’s Timmy. He’s nine months old,” Mary Beth answered, “Michelle’s boyfriend and the boyfriend’s mother are taking care of him.”
Insistent thumping on the door reminded us there were patients waiting. Mary Beth refocused. “Kevin, they sound kind of rowdy today. Will you have a word with them about the rules?”
Kevin moved forward and opened the door to the growing crowd. From what I could gather, the rules involved being reasonably quiet, patient, and unarmed. He stepped away and the throng entered, moving to use the bathrooms, the telephone, and to sign up for showers and/or medical appointments. All available seating was soon taken up. Musings about Michelle faded to the background. I checked the medical sign-up sheet and called the first patient.
“Darnell?”
“Hey, hey how you doin’?” Darnell inquired amiably.
“Good, how about you?”
“Well, I think I need to see Mary Beth. I got these nasty bug bites.” He pointed to large angry welts on his forearm.
“How long have you had them?” I asked.
“ ‘Bout three weeks now. I was helpin’ out at the shelter around the block. I was givin’ out blankets that were donated from some old hotel. I thought they had little stains on them. Turns out they was bedbugs. Man! Those things are nasty! I been usin’ cream on them but I don’t know. Maybe I need antibiotics or something stronger, ya know?”
“All right, let me get some information,” I replied, “and Mary Beth will be able to see you shortly.”
After Darnell, came Michael inquiring about HIV testing.
“I asked about it before but I never followed up,” he explained apologetically.
“No problem, Michael. We do it on Tuesday mornings here at the clinic.”
“Yeah, but I can’t come that day. I been helpin’ this roofer on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I can’t get here then.”
“Okay,” I reached for a flyer. “There’s a place on Lehigh Avenue that does testing Monday through Friday. It’s free and confidential and the results are back in twenty minutes. They’ll even give you a ten dollar gift card to McDonald’s just for having it done.”
“Yeah, that’s probably the place they told me about before. What’s the address again?”
When Michael was taken care of I called the next name on the list.
“Megan?”
“That’s Meegan,” an unkempt middle-aged woman corrected me.
“Okay, Meegan. Have a seat. How are you today?”
“I need some pain killers bad. I got pain twenty-four/seven. I can’t even sleep these past few weeks.”
“I’m so sorry,” I replied, “Do you know what the problem is?”
“I know all right. I got brain tumors. I got three of ‘em, see?” She pointed to the crown of her head and poked beneath a pile of stringy gray hair. “Two of ‘em I can move around when they’re bothering me, but not the third.”
“Are you being treated for them?” I asked with concern.
“Yeah, yeah, I got doctors, but they get you in the hospital and they try to kill you! I just need some pain killers. Can you get me some?”
The morning continued on without pause. At one point I overheard Mary Beth pleading with an elderly woman to go directly to the hospital. She had hobbled in complaining of foot pain and asking for Epsom salts to soak her foot.
“Honey,” Mary Beth explained insistently, “this is more than a little foot infection. This is gangrene. It could go through your whole system. I’d really like to take you to the hospital right now.”
“No, no, I’ll be okay. I’ll go to the hospital later. Can you just give me something to soak my foot? Oh and maybe something for heartburn, too.”
“Look, I’ll give you clean socks, ” Mary Beth’s voice trailed off slightly as she rummaged around in the supply closet, “and I think I have Tums in here, but…”
“I prefer Rolaids. Do you have Rolaids?”
“I have a big pack of Tums,” Mary Beth emerged from the closet “ but you really need to go to the hospital. Will you let me take you?”
“I’ll go. Don’t worry, I’ll go…”
Their conversation was interrupted by a commotion outside. Mary Beth moved swiftly to the door and I heard snippets of an excited interchange. But my attention was soon diverted to Will.
“Miss, I got to use the phone and he been on it for like twenty minutes. I got to call about this job! I got to use the phone now. Can you get him off?”
Unsure of telephone protocol I turned to inquire of another volunteer when Mary Beth came back inside.
“Mary, did you see Jamal?”
“Sorry, I don’t know who Jamal is.”
“He was here a little while ago with two other guys. They were reading the notices on the bulletin board.”
I had a fleeting recollection of the three men hanging out in the corner of the room.
“Yes, I saw them over there but I guess they left.”
Mary Beth shook her head in exasperation and went back outside. Will followed her out, giving up on the phone for the moment. When she returned a few minutes later she was still shaking her head.
“That was a police cruiser outside blocking all the traffic. They were looking for Jamal. I told them he’d been here but he’d left. They didn’t believe me and wanted to come in and look around.” Mary Beth was clearly agitated.
“Why couldn’t you let them in?” one of the volunteers asked.
“They know we don’t let anyone in with a gun. I couldn’t let them in! It takes so long to build up the trust with our patients here. Anyway, he wasn’t here! Then I tried to give them some information on Michelle’s murder. A couple of patients this morning told me about possible witnesses.” She looked down at a business card. “They told me to call homicide after 3P.M. today…” Mary Beth blew out a long frustrated exhalation then looked up again at the photo on the wall. In a quiet voice she murmured sadly, “And she was going to try rehab again this Tuesday. She wanted to make a better life for Timmy…” The young woman in the photo continued to look on, smiling and unaware of the sorrow her early death had caused. Mary Beth turned away and grabbed a file from the inbox, “Alan? Is Alan here?”
copyright Mary Porth
Appendix 1
Daily News / March 16, 2009
“Weekend Toll: Three Slain, Four Critical”
Two stabbings and four shootings in the city killed three people in a two-hour span yesterday and also left four people in critical condition over the weekend…
2:01 A.M. Sunday : A thirty-one year old woman was found stabbed to death on East Norris Street near North Front in Kensington. The woman, whose identity is being withheld by police pending family notification, was found on the sidewalk with a single stab wound to her neck and one to her hand. Police are having a difficult time determining where the woman is from and who her family might be since she appears to have been a wanderer…
Daily News / March 16, 2009
“Weekend Toll: Three Slain, Four Critical”
Two stabbings and four shootings in the city killed three people in a two-hour span yesterday and also left four people in critical condition over the weekend…
2:01 A.M. Sunday : A thirty-one year old woman was found stabbed to death on East Norris Street near North Front in Kensington. The woman, whose identity is being withheld by police pending family notification, was found on the sidewalk with a single stab wound to her neck and one to her hand. Police are having a difficult time determining where the woman is from and who her family might be since she appears to have been a wanderer…
* * *
Mary Porth is a writer who resides in suburban Philadelphia with her husband and five children. She claims as her personal mantra the words of poet Nan Merrill who says, “Keep your heart open and free, make time to dwell in silence, become a peaceful presence in the world.” Although she reached the half century mark in the summer of 2009, she’s still unsure what to be when she grows up. Read Mary's poetry from the September issue.
