Soheil skipped tonight’s meal. He’s been skipping a lot of meals lately. I spoke to him about it last week. He told me he had a toothache. He’d seen a nurse and told her he needed a dentist. The nurse sent him away with two Panadol. A few days later I saw Soheil again. I asked how his toothache was. He told me it still hurt. He was still skipping most meals.
I spot Soheil walking toward his room. I intercept him and ask how he is. He still has a toothache. I know it’s just a toothache, a pissy little chunk of exoskeleton that little kids rip out of their own face for fun, but I think about the times I’ve had a toothache that persists, gets worse, won’t go away. It’s misery.
I ask Soheil if he is on the dental list. He isn’t sure. Ahh, I think, there it is again — the not knowing. The worst part of being in detention: you never know the when, what or why of any of the significant events of life behind the fence. Ok, I figure, easy: I can help just by finding out if he is on the dentist’s list, and when he is scheduled to go.
Late that night, when I have no other duties, I go to medical. I speak with the duty nurse at the counter.
“Hi there. I was wondering if you could tell me whether a particular client is on the dentist’s waiting list? It’s Soheil Hamid, M-I-G-3-7.”
Her face contorts. She is giving me a purposeful look of confusion, perhaps bewilderment. I explain that I am enquiring for a client.
“Why?”
“It’s for a client.”
“Yes, but why?”
Now I am bemused. “Because he would like to know the answer.”
The contempt writ on her handsome face suggests that my behaviour is abnormal, probably unpatriotic, potentially traitorous.
“Very odd,” she says.
She tells me that if I really must know I should come back during daytime and ask Margaret, the woman responsible for the list. I go back and tell Soheil I don’t know yet, but I will find out.
Later, I hear a call over the radio. An officer is asking if they can bring Mani — he of the fucked back and geriatric shuffle — to medical. He’s in terrible pain again, though still is probably more accurate. The response from the nurse comes in a single curt word.
“Negative.”
The officer persists. It’s Quincy, I think. “He’s in a lot of pain. I don’t think he can make it on his own.”
“Negative. He needs to start walking. To put it nicely, he has to get over it and get on with it.”
Just “get over” a prolapsed disk? I’m all for tough love. I was raised on tough love. But this shit isn’t tough love — it’s dumb. Maybe even outright cruel. That bitch on the radio — I want to go kick her in the back and crush a chunk of intervertebral fibrocartilage, then look at her on the ground, writhing, calling for help, and say, “Get up, you pathetic bitch. Start walking.”
Just formulating the thought — absurd, obscene, wrong — makes me feel better.