We're All Hurting, Baby [Finished]:

[Rottanger Howell]

Pain. Ever since he'd gotten hit with that limo, all he could feel was the sharp, stinging sensation of pain in his shoulder, the dull throb of blood pumping into his entire arm. His hand wouldn't move. No matter how he tried to move the bones, it just wouldn't move.

He hated the man who'd been driving that limo. And he hated the girl who'd gotten into the back of it with him. She was another one of those hip scene kids who thought that going and looking inside of the boxes at the dump was something exciting. Putting yourself in danger, just so you could have something to brag about, the next day, at school.

He'd overheard all of it countless times when he'd been a teacher. Then, it hadn't mattered to him as much as it mattered to him, now. It really mattered to him, now, because it was his personal space that people were invading, and not just nameless homeless face that he didn't give a crap about. "I'm in pain. Can somebody help me? I hurt. Somebody?" Voice wavered weakly.

An older, big, black woman looked over at him, and furrowed her eyebrows. She was dressed like a government official--plastic gloves, a mask on her face. They only put these officials here to keep up appearances. They didn't really care about the health of the homeless. Not all of them, anyway.

Mostly, they just handed out Tylenol, here, and told you to suck it up.

When the old black woman spoke, her voice was like anesthesia. "We all hu'tin', baby." And then she took him in her sleepy hold. "We see if we cain' get you some he'p."

***

The 'doctor's room' was cold. So was the table he sat on, as he waited for the white-coated Mr. Whoever to arrive and adjust his bones. Maybe even slap him in a cast, or give him a sling, if he got lucky.

[I Am Everyman]

Dr. Whoever shuffles into the room, shoulders hunched and posture slumped around his hump - it's a very big one, makes him crescent roll shaped - and stares at the patient sitting on the table.

Grunting something unintelligible in the back of his throat, the humpback raises a dirty finger and shoves it into his bulbous nose, mining for gold for a good two minutes as he stands there and stares at the large man sitting on his table, taking up space. Flinging the bogey with a splat onto the floor, he pulls some gloves - used ones - from his pocket and slips them onto his misshapen hands with a snap. The right thumb is missing, and his middle finger's missing the top knuckle.

Snapping his fingers to catch the man's attention, Dr. Whoever mimes a question - pointing to a band aid, then on various places of his own body, with a questioning tilt to his head. Where does it hurt? He needs to know so he can examine his patient.

[Rottanger Howell]

Rottanger wasn't particularly interested in getting treated by this hunch-backed, fingerless, funny-smelling 'doctor', he decided, but where else would did he have to go to get proper treatment [or any treatment, at all, for that matter] for his broken hand and, probably dislocated, shoulder? It wasn't like his pockets were full of enough loot that he could go to the subway, where they charged money, or let you take out a kind of 'medical loan'. 'Money' that they always got back. Always. Even if they had to send their 'loan sharks' out to get somebody to pay their medical expenses, but only after they'd given them MORE medical expenses. One thing he didn't need: Debt. Another thing he didn't need: More broken bones. So he wouldn't be going to the Subway. Definitely. He didn't have the insurance to go to an actual hospital. They wouldn't take him there, anyway, because he looked like shit.

His face twisted up as he stared at the man--unabashedly stared, as a matter of fact. He looked freaky. How was he NOT supposed to stare? You know that smell from people's ears, when they've had their ears gauged? That's kind of what this guy smelled like.

WAS HE PICKING HIS NOSE? What kind of a doctor WAS he?!

Rottanger twitched, and clenched his jaw up.

They called it the Homeless Hospice for a reason. It was because this was where people came to die. Right before they were shovelled into a ditch. The Ditch.

"My arm hurts. Badly. And my hand." Rottanger held his hand up. It was gnarled-looking: The fingers were curled into his palm at a funny angle, and some of the bones in the knuckles popped out unnaturally. The flesh was red, yellow, black, blue, and very sensitive. He hadn't used it for a day and a half. The amount of swelling was ludicrous. "I want it wrapped." And he wanted a perscription for some pain pills.

So he could abuse them, just like he wanted to abuse that little red-head's driver. And that little red-head.

But he knew none of those things were going to happen. But he especially knew that he wasn't getting pain medication. God, he hated his life, right now.

[I Am Everyman]

Dr. Whoever nodded - he might not speak a lick of english, but he's learned enough to understand it, thank whatever God may be presiding over the occasion.

Reaching out for the hand, he prods it with his meaty fingers and brings it close to his face, almost brushing the skin with his thick rubbery lips and pock marked visage. Greasy hair lay tangled and limp against his egg shaped pate, already receding in a disturbing mockery of a widow's peak.

Watching the patient with half an eye, he pulls at one of the fingers before nodding at the grimace of pain. Shuffling to the ratty cabinets, Dr. Whoever pulls a sturdy leather belt - one much longer than normal - from a drawer and approaches his patient. Eyeing the shoulder, his lips pull down, moreso than they already were, in a frown as he pulls himself up onto his sturdy wood block.

Rubbing his palms together, the humpback braces a leg against the table, and with one quick jerk he yanks the patient's arm out to its straightest before heaving on it until the ball slips back into its socket with a sickening - almost echoing - pop. Satisfied, he quickly loops the belt around the male's torso and ties the arm down with firm tugs to tighten the leather a bit too snugly.

Nodding, he rummages around for a hand cast and the plaster that keeps it hard. Dr. Whoever likes to do his shit right - he's the bone expert, you break it, he fixes it. Miming to keep still, the doc begins his pain staking work of twisting the knuckles back into place and realigning the wrist bones. Click. Pop. Crack. Click. Pop. Crack.

Putting the two halves of the palm and wrist brace into place, he secures the fingers in their holes just right, and begins to wrap it to hold it on. Then comes the plaster. Then a new layer of gauze. No matter how unsanitary the doctor may be, he likes his shit done right and proper. It's his specialty. And everyone needs a specialty.

Pulling a bottle of tylenol from his pocket, he sets it on the table and unknots the belt to find a square of cloth - a sling for the dislocated shoulder. A tuck here, a knot there. He was done.

Patting his patient's knee, Dr. Whoever shuffles off.

[Rottanger Howell]

When the doctor started nodding his head, Rottanger got the impression that the man might've been retarded. Or foreign. Or... retarded. And neither of those things sat very well with Rottanger, who used his good arm to pull down on the folded brim of his gray, tweed donegal--an attempt at hiding his expression of worry, and also a nervous habit, of his: A movement which he could use to take his mind off of the forthcoming pain.

Rottanger grimaced when the doctor took his hand and started prodding at it... had to bring it up to his face to inspect it nice and close. The wounded individual found himself increasingly dissatisfied and grossed out by the visually-vulgar Dracula man who held his hand, and came up to it like he might [God forbid] kiss it.

Rottanger was new to this whole Homeless thing. And to the fucking-yourself-with-alcohol thing. And to the begging thing. He'd been an alright guy, before this. Not the pick of the litter, really, but he'd had a job that he was decent at. He'd had a house that was remotely comfortable. He just didn't agree with some man [who was really sort of an idiot on a power trip, anyway].

Pudgy hunchback fingers wrapped around one of Rottanger's own long, thick digits, and then tugged at it. Rotty found himself grimacing, all over, again, and trying to yank his arm away from the doctor's surprisingly strong grip. When the doc went off to do whatever it was he was doing, Rottanger cradled his hand pathetically against his chest. Some man, he was.

The hunchback moved so fast, that Rottanger hardly had the time to register what was happening before pain started shooting down his entire arm, and the a belt squeezed it. All Rottanger did was scream. And scream.

And scream...

And scream...

And scream...

The pain hadn't stopped. As a matter of fact, it might've gotten worse. And tears were streaking down his face as he struggled against the belt that'd lashed his arm down, and the man who'd gotten the belt. His face contorted. It hadn't hurt this bad, when it'd been broken. Why did it hurt so bad right now?

All of the screaming and crying had stopped, after about five minutes, and he just sat there, shuddering as the other man worked whatever magic he was trying to work.

After the doctor left, Rottanger dazedly grabbed his bottle of Tylenol, shoved it down into his pocket, and got the hell out of that room.

The big nurse, from earlier, was smiling behind the mandatory breathing equipment that she had to wear. "Feel betta, honey?"

Rottanger scowled, and tugged the brim of his hat down, again, to cover up his red-rimmed eyes. "No."

He needed a drink.

A stiff one.