“Was that excessively loud,” the old man asked? He was adjusting something in his ears.
The announcement had come blaring over the P.A. system, “Cold Stroke in Room 4 Emergency. Cold Stroke in Room 4 Emergency.” There was a slight pause and it came over the system again, just as loud.
“Yes,” I said to the old man. There were three other men in the room. Only one looked up from what he was doing and glanced at the old man, but said nothing. Then he went back to what he was doing on his mobile phone like the others.
“It blew up my hearing aids,” the old man said to me. “I have to turn it up now to hear you. What did you say?” He kept adjusting the hearing aids in his ear.
He looked pretty old and had walked into the room slowly, with a cane, a few minutes earlier. The lady who escorted him into the waiting room spoke louder than usual as she guided him into the room. He looked a little delicate.
“Take a seat and they will call you,” she pronounced slowly, the way you speak to people you think have hearing problems.
Other women had escorted the other men to the room after me with the same message. One man walked in by himself, took a seat and pulled out his cell phone.
The old man looked around the room. A couple of seats were further away from the door. There was an empty chair next to me, so the old man sat down in it. We were both directly across from the door he entered from.
He had only been sitting there for a few minutes when the emergency announcement had blared out.
“You don’t have to turn them up to hear me,” I replied to his question. “I’m not important. The announcement was important because…”
“Listen,” he said sternly, turning slightly to look at me as he interrupted my reply. He seemed a little angry as he continued to adjust his hearing aids while he spoke. “Everyone is important. Everyone.” It was said with emphasis. Loudly. Clearly. “You’re important to someone, I’m important to someone, everyone is important.”
He said it so the entire room could hear him if they wanted to, as if he was his own PA system. He seemed pleased with the declaration. The other men kept at the mobile devices without any acknowledgment of the old man or what he said.
Just a few seconds after he finished with his announcement, a different door in the room opened. That got everyone’s attention. An attendant stepped partially in asking out loudly as she panned the room with all eyes looking at her, “Frank?”
“That’s me,” the old man said, standing up quickly with the help of his cane and beaming for some reason. As he started hobbling toward her, he declared, “Now I’m important because I go first!”
He said it with pride, looking around at the room, glancing at me with a curious smile, at the others, and then walked away with the attendant. The door closed behind them. They were actually both smiling as that door closed and you heard the attendant say, “How are you today, Frank?”
I smiled. You know, a smile is often contagious.
The other men in the waiting room were not smiling because they weren’t looking at the closing door. Once she said “Frank,” they all went back to what they were doing with their mobile phones. They just kept their heads down, focused on something. Perhaps one of them wondered how Frank managed to be called first. Perhaps another didn’t really give it that much thought.
I had a sense they dismissed the entire event as, well, unimportant. Or bad luck. After all, they had been in the room before him as I was. In fact, they all came in after me. Perhaps they attributed Frank getting called ahead of them to Frank’s age. Hard to say.
I went back to reading my book. I actually wasn’t waiting to be called. I was just waiting for my wife who had been already called. That’s why the chair next to me was empty.
In less than five minutes from Frank’s disappearance, the same door opened and Frank walked out. He had a spring to his step even though he was using the cane. It was almost a strut. He headed for the door to the hallway where the other lady had brought him in.
“Have a good weekend, Frank,” the attendant said as she opened the outer door for him.
“You too,” he said back to her. Then he turned slightly to the room and said, “You all have a nice weekend.”
He left the waiting room and the door closed.
The other men didn’t budge. Only their hands moved once in awhile over the mobile phones. Once again, there was no indication they had heard Frank. Or even seen him.
I said smiling once the door had closed completely, “There goes one happy guy.”
The men didn’t still didn’t budge. No one lifted their eyes. I almost felt I should repeat myself, but then, for what purpose? Did I want to impose Frank’s existence on them? My own? The truth about my words to Frank came home to me, that I’m not important. Maybe no one is.
I went back to reading my book. I was reading a short story called Prue by Alice Munro and wondered if these guys had old tobacco tins at their homes like Prue did. I wondered if they did, what might be in them.
I guessed that Frank just might have one.
I made a mental note to check my own tin and put Frank into it. So I did.