Make me a martini with all the right ingredients but hold that sugary bright red crap that you ring the glass with. A martini at the Keg in Brampton is awash with synthetic red dye that completely tarted up the whole idea of a martini which is to say a drink to be drunk languorously in the evening slowly savouring it listening to Cole Porter.
But the steak was great and the garlic mashed potatoes and all Mimi's mushrooms that she loaded on my plate.
The annual Bolton Xmas Bash at the keg.
The scene is the Brantford clinic where I work some nights. But it is a much much bigger place. Huge sprawling shopping centre with a grocery store attached to it. I made it to work in time and there are people waiting for me. The next patient is a middle aged lab X, brown in colour, panting and straining on her leash. She is heavy set and seems to be lurching towards the door like she needs to go out and pee. Someone mumbles that I am supposed to check her "tractor". I hate when people use cute words to describe common medical problems as if anal sacculitis requires a euphemism to cover it up, even if it's a cute word of my own invention in my own goddamn dream.
So goes the dream.
Unfortunately this dog, (was her name Lady?) belonged to a bunch of folks from a palliative care unit who were all dying of some horrible, unmanageable disease from cancer to cancer to cancer. They were waiting in a large glassed in waiting area; about 9 of them some of them standing and some of them reclining on their mobile guerney/beds. A lot of them in the same combination of outer clothes and bedclothes that you would see on any visit to an old folks home or chronic care place.
I walked in the room, one woman in particularI had noticed earlier, she was now hidden amongst all of these ragg tagg people; this one particular woman had facial deformities; she kept her face partly hidden which naturally drew my eye to her right away; this one woman had an upper lip partly eroded by a large growing mass which pushed upward and was also eroding her left eye. She was the advance man who came in with her spouse, I think, to make the appointment. Now I couldn't see her in this room full of people; she blended in to the others with masses and deformed bodies.
I could feel rain falling and I looked over; one woman on the side of the room was vomiting against the wall; everyone else was carrying on as if normal, but the vomitus came out in a spray and I could feel some of the droplets hitting my skin. I thought, my god, I have to stay reasonably clean to work, I've got to get out of here.
So I announced to everyone at large who were looking at me intently waiting for me to take care of Lady; I said; "my brother is here and he can help me; it would be easier and more convenient if I take Lady into the adjoining room and we will take care of her "tractor"". The adjoining room was in full view of the waiting area.
No sooner had I said this but another of these poor misbegotten souls started to vomit on the opposite side of the room, likely due to the visual stimulus from the first lady. She was vomiting something of a different colour and texture; rather than bright green, I think her vomitus may have been petroleum jelly gray.
So I beat a retreat and took Lady on her long EXTEND - A - LEASH, (God how I hate those things; everyone seems to have one and they are such a pain in the ass, dogs always managed to get in the door with the brake off; so the dog as I take it from the client is rambling all over the place while I fumble for the little button; which way does it move forward, backward?) Thank God this time I found the brake on the leash right away, I took her out of that room of perdition and out into the gray light of a wet, snowy, spring afternoon of the parking lot in my dream in Brantford for a quick pee before I take care of her "tractor".
Out in the lot; I see Lady has more than a tractor problem; she appears to be partly obstructed because she is straining, straining to urinate and the stream of urine is coming out in that partial stream under pressure that I know so well and it is pointed backward as if the obstruction is ventral in her urethra. She drags me over to the side of the lot against the building where stands a tall 30 gallon fish tank filled with water beside a tall steel rod with a parking sign on it. Lady walks around the tank and the sign and the next thing I know she has pulled her leash tight against the metal stand under the tank and I see that the fish tank is toppling forward. I run to grab it and I've managed to save it but the stand itself is partially collapsed. I am holding the tank upwards to keep it from falling; and the stand has collapsed into a single steel column that is just keeping the thing in the air; all 400 lb of water. (Remember 10 lb water = 100 lb) And Lady is lurking under the tank with her leash behind it dangerously close to getting crushed by the whole thing. I am yelling, screaming, HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME. And there are people milling around; going to their cars with their groceries, a big strong guy trucking shopping carts in a big long line to their repository in the lot. This guy looked at me and shook his head twice as if to say "FUCK you, you're on your own, bitch"
I'm amazed that I can keep the thing just balanced afloat but I figure the stand is going to buckle under the enormous weight at any moment. All I want is for someone to erect the thing, arrange the legs of the stand back in their proper position or at the very least take the dog away so I can let the whole thing crash without hurting anyone. But no one is moving. And for the first time in a lifetime of dreams; I can hear, really hear my voice, my scream in a dream.
I've been in this job way too long.