Three doctors, two women and a man came back and looked impatient with us for bothering them. The man introduced himself as the supervising doctor for the unit. When we explained what the possible connection was they were quiet for a minute. The male doctor turned to a younger, freckled, brunette female doctor and in a stentorian voice said, “You mean you didn’t ask them if they had put something unusual on their scalp?”
“I thought that it was a... It just didn’t occur to me.” She sighed tilting her head to the side, her face thin and unadorned.
They took down the name of the product and seemed mildly disappointed that we didn’t have it in our possession. Did we have to do their job for them?
“Maybe it’s some kind of chemical reaction… you know?” I offered.
“Yes, hair relaxers have lye in them—that’s their base, even the so called no-lye-relaxers have got lye in them, I don’t care what the manufacturers say,” said a lithe woman who had been quiet during our earlier conversation, her skin a shade darker than honey with two braids tucked behind her head. Her hands were deeply affected by the rash, but there was just one small spiral over her right eye.
“Yeah, ‘hair tonic.’ What a joke,” the woman with green hair said.
The doctors nodded sympathetically. The older female doctor said, “From the tests that we have done, we don’t think the rash is chemically based, but we’ll check this tip out.”
In listening to them I realized they no real idea what a hair relaxer really was or what it did. I felt myself becoming invisible to them. We all were becoming invisible to them. It was as if they were looking right through all of us.
As the time dragged on, the doctors started to call each one of us in for examination, then back out to the waiting room. They took blood again and urine samples.
Later, the same three physicians walked back in the room. The head doctor said, “There isn’t a whole lot of good news, I’m afraid.”
“That’s the story of my life,” someone said in a loud voice.
“We think it’s a virus, and it is a type of virus that acts very differently than most.” He paused and surveyed the room. “A traditional virus, as you may know, gets into your cells and changes them, imprinting them with different signals.”
“Spare us the bio lesson and just get to the point, doc,” the gum-chewing rail-thin young woman said.
“I actually would like to hear the ‘bio lesson’ if you don’t mind,” I said loudly, shooting her a glare. Who was this kid anyway?
Ignoring the both of us, the young female doctor cleared her throat. “What we don’t understand is why it is reproducing itself so quickly, how it is transmitted, and which receptors it has bonded to.”
“Receptors are the key links to understanding viruses.” the mature female doctor offered. When she spoke, her heavy cheeks puffed out, reminding me of a chipmunk.
“While we haven’t had time yet to discover how it affects you, we have some good clues to go on. We can examine your symptoms and determine which systems in the body are being affected. For example, Ms. Jorge can’t smell a thing,” she continued. The annoying young woman, Constancia, nodded.
The younger brunette doctor picked up the thread and continued to explain. “Some of you have experienced constant vomiting, while others have bad headaches. Preliminary tests and examination results suggest that the two main systems being affected are the olfactory system and the gastrointestinal system—”
“What about the way we look—our skin,” Pearlie interrupted.
“Yes, yes well that’s just a cosmetic side effect, unpleasant for sure, but in and of itself, appears inconsequential,” she said with a wave of her hand.
I sucked air through my teeth. Inconsequential? Sure, doc.
“Am I the only one that can hear what this thing is thinking?” the crazy woman, with yarn and knitting needles in her lap, piped up for the first time since I’d seen her earlier that day.
“Are you hearing voices?’ The male doctor asked, his expression vaguely surprised.
“That’s a whole other kind of problem,” a woman with a gap between her teeth quipped, her rash had spread all over the front of her face and down her chest.
“I’m not hearing voices. I’m hearing what’s inside of me, of us. It’s a part of us now, there’s nothing you can do.”
Other women gave her a strange look and shook their heads, even physically backing away from her.
A brief smile crossed the male doctor’s face, as if such a dire outlook amused him. “Well, let’s not take a fatalistic view... Mrs. Parker, is it?”
He continued, “There are many viruses in the world, and this one is sure to match up with one that we have seen before. The only problem would be if it is mutating into a different type of virus, but most known viruses don’t do that quickly. Our virologist isn’t here, so we’re little understaffed today.”
“A mutating virus! That’s serious,” a woman said.
“What about Reenu-You?” Constancia asked.
“Yeah,” Pearlie said nodding, clapping.
He shook his head. “We’re ruling that out. Viruses just don’t come from hair products.” The other doctors nodded.
“A hair relaxer would be a very strange source for a virus,” the young female doctor said.
“This city is full of strange shit happening,” Pearlie added.
I could feel the heat and frustration of the day take its toll. We were not going be nice, quiet and compliant. The room erupted in questions, comments and even shouts.
“Listen to that girl!”
“I was feeling fine before putting that stuff on my head!”
The male doctor held out his arms, waving them slightly trying to placate the crowd of angry brown women. “But, uh we’re still checking out all leads. But there’s not biologically active agents in over the counter….”
The older female doctor leaned forward and said, “There is a difference between causation and correlation. Just because many of you used this product doesn’t mean it caused your symptoms. They may seem rel–”
“You’re supposed to be helping us, not talking down to us. We’re not stupid,” Pearlie interrupted.
“What are you not telling us?” The gap-toothed woman interjected, glaring at them.
The doctors looked at each other for a moment before the male doctor resumed his annoying, placating tone. “Please, ladies, please calm down. There is nothing to be alarmed by. We understand this news is unexpected and is terribly inconvenient.”
“You damn right, it is!” the gap-toothed woman stood up angrily, fists clenched.
Their answers weren’t satisfying to me at all. In fact, the longer they tried to spin, the more unconvincing and uninformed they sounded.
The young doctor looked around at the room, the first glimmers of panic showing in her eyes. “This is a very low level contagion situation. The CDC representatives—that is, the Centers for Disease Control officers—are flying here tonight. They will investigate the epidemic.”
“What CDC? What epidemic?” I felt like that kid in that ridiculous sitcom of the 1980s Different Strokes, “What are you talking about, Willis?”
“You see…” the eldest female doctor began, excruciatingly articulating every syllable, as if we didn’t have an unidentified virus infecting us, but were recovering patients from a routine lobotomy, “An epidemic, according to the medical community’s definition, occurs when three people come into see us, or any doctor, and are diagnosed with either a known or unknown disease or viral infection.” She smiled and widened her eyes at the last, like a storyteller reaching the end of a fairytale.
“The staff will make you comfortable here while you wait,” she concluded, then strode away murmuring to her colleagues, discussing how many “microns” this virus was and other things that we peons could not understand.