An insult to steal a skorokoro
THERE were medics at the table, alumnae of public hospitals. Beer flowed and steak and chips, not to forget the salad and the sparkling water and talk turned to Bara, now officially the Chris HaniBaragwanath Hospital and the fount of many memories. A sampling: K, when a very junior audiologist, was at a medics meeting over rural patient Tsepo, who has voices in his head.
Heavyweights are assessing: Is this a case for neurologists, psychiatrists, who?
K’s timid voice ventures to ask: What do these mysterious voices say? The question is put to Tsepo. The reply is: They say: “Calling Doctor Cohen, calling Doctor Cohen …”
Then there was the time J as junior surgeon, ending an exhausting day in theatre, discovers his jacket has vanished from the changeroom, with his car keys.
It’s his girlfriend’s birthday. He needs to get home. A bulb lights in his head. One of today’s patients was a famous car thief.
The nurses had commented, saying here he was, back again, more bullets inside him. They had also divided into the Hippocratics who took the view that he is a human being and their job is to fix him regardless, and the Sisyphuses who say he’s a skebenga, to heal him is to sponsor crime and waste medical capacity.
J remembers the commentary but he doesn’t know who the patient was.
He goes to a likely ward and delicately enquires: “Might anyone here be in a position to help him to, er, get his car opened, and, um, started?”
That gets discussion under way, in lively vernacular. J learns he is looking for one Elias. He is to go and wait at his car. Arrangements will be made. In the doctors’ parking lot, J contemplates his aged Volksie, so humble among the consultants’ vehicles.
How deceptively secure it seems, against his keyless self.
Can he really expect Elias to become his keys?
Can he ask him to expose himself so? That’s surely dangerous for him. He might take terrible offence?
People arrive, bearing Elias on a stretcher. J is awed, meeting such a champion in his field.
Elias is impressed to meet the doctor whose spanners have reconnected his insides. It’s win-win.
Until J puts his case: “Would Elias kindly mind stealing his car for him?”
As J speaks, a shadow crosses Elias’ brow. He seems scandalised. J feels terrible. Is he accusing an innocent man of being a criminal?
Elias expostulates. “You want me to steal this car? What sort of person do you think I am?” J is about to back off, abjectly. Elias adds: “I can’t steal a car like this, it’s skorokoro, a jalopy, people will laugh at me.
“Take me to that nice BMW over there… and I’ll steal it for you with pleasure.”
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR FAX
PO BOX 610, KIMBERLEY 8300 832-1141 E-MAIL: patsy.beangstrom@inl.co.za