Chapter 6
Monday morning my alarm sounded, playing the sweet sound of Carlos Santana. Waking up with Carlos was at least an attempt to put me in a good morning mood. I crawled out of bed to get ready for my job as a CA for my brother, Eli. He had graduated from chiropractic school and moved back to Dallas to open his own clinic. I thought this was cool—owning your own business right out of college. I didn’t know how cool it would be for me to work for him.
I decided to wear my white Dior sweater and black slacks, subtle yet sophisticated. I pulled the sweater on over my favorite Victoria’s Secret camisole. Damn hanger titties. These are the annoying little bumps you get when you leave your sweater on the hanger from the dry cleaner’s. I smoothed them away as best as possible, slid on my Jimmy Choo pumps with a slight mourning for my past employer, and I was out the door. I hopped in my cute car and headed east toward what we call the country.
Sunnyside had a few farms, and I waved at the cows as I passed. My dad, being part Native American, told us if all the cows were standing in the same direction, it was going to rain. I had the top down, so I checked out the cow forecast, and about 30 percent of the cows were standing in the same direction, so I felt like my chances were good it wasn’t going to rain today. You can never tell about the weather in Texas. It’s as finicky as an old woman going through menopause. One minute it’s ninety degrees and sunny skies, the next you’re in the middle of a downpour. I chose to go with the cows instead of the local weatherman. More accurate.
My dad’s health-food store—well, really it was a feed store that sold a lot of vitamins, but being so close to the farms, he sold more products for animals than humans—sat on the corner of Beltline Street and Main Street. The town of Sunnyside and the city of Mesquite intersected at my dad’s corner. He got the farmers and the suburbanites all in one swoop. My dad’s Ford truck was parked behind the store. He was a diehard Ford man. I beeped my horn as I passed the store and turned right on Beltline. I motored down Beltline, passed the high school, and took Highway 80 out of Mesquite.
Eli’s clinic was in a small town called Coffee Creek, about twenty minutes east from my house. People in Coffee Creek didn’t take any shit. They were hardworking blue-collar people. Most of the locals worked on farms or at the ice-cream factory. The factory was the only big industry in the town.
My brother’s building was located on the downtown square. I exited Highway 80 and made a beeline to the drive-through at the McDonald’s on the corner. I needed a jolt of coffee to get me motivated. The girl at the drive-through had a name tag that read “Marie.” I wanted to tell Marie that she and I were going to be good friends, because if I had to be at work every day by eight thirty, I was going to have to start it off with a large mocha latte.
After I was properly caffeinated, I turned on Fourth Street and entered the downtown area of Coffee Creek. The big red courthouse stood tall and proud, identifying the center of the town. About twenty steps led up to the entry, lined with colonial-style columns across the front. It was a typical, small-town square with four intersections and one-way-only signs directing you around the courthouse. I passed Eli’s chiropractic office. His building was bookended by a barber on the right and an empty building on the left. A nice courtyard stretched between Eli’s office and the empty building. On the other side of the vacant building was Busch Taxidermy. He had a sign in the window that read, “Get mounted cheap.” Geesh.
I motored around the square and parked behind Eli’s building in his employee-only parking. I tried the back door, but it was locked, so I walked through the courtyard and stood admiring the big plate-glass window that read “Cloud Chiropractic Center.” I was proud of Eli but not so sure I was cut out to work in a medical office. I tried to watch CSI one time and got queasy.
“You can do this until the great shoe-buying god finds your resume and calls for an interview,” I said to myself as I took a deep breath and walked in the front door.
The office wasn’t open for business yet, and I took a minute to take it all in. The waiting room was painted a soft beige color, and the carpeting was deep blue. There was a TV turned on in the corner carrying on about your bones and how you should be taking care of them. I stood up straighter and walked up to the sliding-glass window at the front counter. I could hear people talking from the other side of the glass. The window slid open, and a gray-haired lady stuck her head out.
“We open in five; you can take a seat,” she instructed.
To my left a door opened, and a cute girl who looked about sixteen came bouncing up to me.
“Hi, you must be Jennifer,” she said with a perky smile.
“Yep, that’s me,” I answered, extending my hand.
“I’m Paulina, Dr. Cloud’s assistant,” she explained as she grabbed my hand and pumped it up and down. “I’ll show you around. We just opened last month, and we are already very busy. I think this is on account of your brother is so cute. All the LOLs just love him.”
“LOLs?” I asked.
“Yeah, little old ladies,” she answered. “Your brother has a way with them.”
The gray-haired lady chimed in, “Yep, they haven’t had a hot doctor in this town since Dr. Evans moved in thirty years ago and gave away free gynecological exams with your first visit.”
“Dr. Evans was a hottie?” asked Paulina, making a face.
“Girl, that was back in the day.”
“Must have been,” giggled Paulina. “Now he looks like Gene Wilder in Dr. Frankenstein. This is Mary, by the way; she is our office manager.” Paulina gestured toward the older lady.
“Proud to meet ya,” Mary said from the window. “Why don’t you show Jennifer around the office? We have a few minutes before the morning appointments arrive.”
Paulina showed me the front office where Mary worked, then took me down the hall, passing rooms that opened off the hallway where the chiropractic would take place. Beyond this was an open room where patients could exercise and get therapy. Paulina explained this to me as we crossed the hall into a break room.
She also informed me she was twenty-two—could have fooled me—and had a two-year-old daughter. Her husband worked at the ice-cream factory. I suddenly felt the hands of time around my throat, and my biological clock struck twelve, reminding me I had one. I swallowed hard, breaking the grasp, and tried to smile politely at Paulina. She poured a cup of coffee, and I followed her out of the break room and into an X-ray room.
My brother stood looking over some X-rays placed on a viewing box. Paulina handed him the coffee and left, giving me a pat on the back. For the first time, I noticed my brother was no longer the big football jock. He was dressed in a white doctor’s coat, dark pants, and a tie. Under the coat he had a blue shirt the color of his eyes. Every strand of his dark, short hair was held in place by some space-age gel. Eli had grown up.
“Hey, Jen,” he said, coming over to give me a hug.
“I like the tie, but I swear I remember a certain boy proclaiming he would never wear a tie when he went to work.”
“Yeah, well, I guess Mom was right; it does look nice, and she bought it for me.” He grinned and his cheek dimpled. “I know you do not know much about chiropractic, but you are friendly, determined, and I can teach you what you need to know.”
I took his coffee and drank a big gulp, wishing it had some Bailey’s in it.
“I’m a little nervous. I have never been to the chiropractor. I have no idea what you do.”
“I think you will do a good job here.” He reached for his coffee and took a sip. “You will assist me today. All you need to do is follow me around and write down the things I say,” he explained, handing me a clipboard.
“That’s it?” I asked.
“For now,” he said, “I want to start you off slow. I know you have never been to a chiropractor, and I want you to watch me work so you can understand what I do.”
“No problemo,” I responded. It sounded easy enough.
Paulina stuck her head i
n the doorway. “Dr. Cloud, Mr. Creedy is ready in room one.”
“OK, thanks, Paulina,” Eli said.
“Now what do I do?” I asked.
“Follow me…” He rubbed his palms together and spoke in his best Mad Doctor voice.
I followed Eli to room one, and Mr. Creedy was lying face up on the table. He was about seventy years old and had equal amounts of wiry hair protruding from his ears and nose. His head was bald except for a small crown of gray hair. He was wearing tan coveralls with big, brown, work boots covered in dry bird poop. He had his eyes closed. My brother bent down at the end of the table near the patient’s head.
“How are you today, Mr. Creedy?” he asked in a loud voice.
“No need to yell, son, I can hear just fine.”
“OK, Mr. Creedy,” Eli responded with a smile.
“Whadya say?” Mr. Creedy asked.
Eli rolled his eyes and mouthed, “Hard of hearing,” at me.
I couldn’t help but smile at this comic routine. Eli asked how he was again, this time leaning toward the patient’s right ear and giving me a wink.
“Not so good today,” Mr. Creedy responded, eyes still closed. “My chickens got out last night, and I had to chase them all around the yard to get them back in the coop. I think I pulled something in my neck.”
Eli turned to me. “Jennifer, write down Mr. Creedy says he has neck pain.”
Mr. Creedy opened one eye and looked in my direction. I wrote it down. I watched my brother feel Mr. Creedy’s neck. In one swift motion, my brother took this man’s head and torqued it to the right, making a loud crack.
I gasped, and then everything went dark. When I regained consciousness, my brother and Mr. Creedy were leaning over me. Eli was shining a light in my eyes.
“She’s going to be fine,” I heard him say.
“I don’t know, Doc, she doesn’t look so good to me… kinda green.”
I opened my eyes, squinting at the light. “What happened?” I asked, then turned to Mr. Creedy. “You’re OK?”
“Yes sirree Bob!” he said. “Doc Cloud gives a good adjustment, fixes me right up.”
“Mr. Creedy, this is Jen, my little sister. She just witnessed her first adjustment today.”
“Glad I could help out,” he said and gave me a pat on the shoulder.
Eli helped me get to my feet. “Are you sure you are OK?” He gave me that Cheshire cat smile.
“Very funny,” I said. “You could have warned me. I didn’t know it was going to sound so loud.”
“How about if you work the back desk with Elvira?” Eli asked, keeping a hand on my back.
I thought maybe this was a good idea. I was still a little queasy from my first adjustment experience. Elvira, I found out, was a heavyset Caucasian lady who used to drive a truck. She had a cobra tattoo on her right leg just above her ankle. Elvira was in charge of collections. This meant if people didn’t pay their bills, she would call the deadbeats and persuade them to drag their butts in to make a payment. Apparently my brother thought he needed this service before he opened his doors for business in this town. I watched Elvira make a few calls to verify what the insurance companies would pay. She threatened a lady at Blue Cross because she didn’t like the way she gave Elvira the benefit information.
“Next time I call, you’d better say ‘please’ when you need to ask me somethin’. You don’t just go demandin’ personal information thatta way.” She winked at me and wrote the info down. After she hung up, she said to me, “You just gotta let them know who’s boss.”
Elvira twisted her stringy brown hair up into an alligator clip as if she were donning her battle armor. She activated the speaker on the phone so I could listen to the next call. Learning on the job. The next call was to a Ms. Jones.
“I know you’re on social security, but you forgot to make your co-pay, and you can’t just walk outta here and blame it on dementia.” The patient on the phone apologized several times and promised to pay on her next visit. By the time Elvira was finished with her, the woman was promising to drop by at lunch with her cash payment.
I decided I would use the “kill ‘em with kindness” approach instead of “Attila the Hun.”
I verified a few insurances without the threats and answered a few phone calls. Around ten o’clock a girl named Su Le came in.
“She’s the one who does the real torture, you know, needle sticker,” Elvira told me. I thought I would save learning about Su Le’s job for another day.
We saw several patients, and by lunchtime I had mastered the phones and met many new people. A nice man who worked for the ice-cream factory brought me a gallon of chocolate-chunk ice cream—yum—and another older man asked for my phone number. I think he might have been about eighty years old, but who am I to complain? Paulina breezed in and out of the front office, taking patients back to rooms and being very perky.
Around one o’clock Eli came in carrying scrubs that Paulina had ordered for me. Most of them were brightly colored and covered with flowers, happy faces, or some kind of cartoon character. I scrunched my nose.
“SpongeBob, seriously?” I asked him.
Eli slung an arm around my neck. “The kids I treat love SpongeBob. He’s the new Superman. Let’s go get some lunch.”
I decided this job wasn’t so bad and I could get some cute shoes to go with my SpongeBob scrubs. Maybe Nine West casuals or Malono slides. Who knew the possibilities?
We ate at a little Italian-food place on the opposite side of the downtown square. The people were very friendly, and the food was great. I was on my second piece of Canadian-bacon-and-pineapple pizza when Eli said, “I know this isn’t what you want to do with your life, but look at it as a temporary learning experience.”
“I feel like everyone around me has a plan for the future except me.”
“You’ll figure it out. One day something will happen that will change your life, and you will know it’s your destiny.”
“Is that what happened to you?”
“Yeah, remember when I had that shoulder injury my junior year, and I couldn’t throw the football?” I nodded, remembering how devastated Eli was because of his injury.
“I thought Johnny Stephens was going to take over my position. I really wanted to play my senior year.”
“I remember you tried every type of medicine. The bottles were always crammed on the breakfast table blocking the salt shaker.”
Eli laughed. “Yeah, then Dad took me to a chiropractor. The first time he adjusted me, I felt better immediately. After three weeks of care, I was playing again. That’s when I knew I wanted to study chiropractic.”
I sucked down the rest of my Coke through the straw. “I hope something like that happens to me. I really loved buying shoes, but I didn’t feel like I was doing anything important. I think I just liked the discount.”
“Everyone needs shoes, and everyone also needs chiropractic, so let’s get back to work before I have a line of angry patients.” Eli pulled out his wallet and waved away my attempt to pay my part of the bill. “Today’s on me, because I have half the Coffee Creek football team coming in for school physicals this afternoon. One look at you, and they will be my patients for life,” he said, grinning as he left a tip, and we headed toward the door.