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under_control
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» concealment Yesterday morning at 5AM my cell phone rang. My caller-ID told me that it was rmutt and/or his wife. I decided not to answer (it was 5Am for cripes sake). A few minutes later the phone ran again. This time the caller-ID indicated that Iris was phoning. I was too puzzled to answer. I listened to the message that had been left. It was rmutt's wife. "Troy, there's an emergency. Please call me back as soon as possible." She sounded really shaken up. When the phone rang again it was Iris and I answered it. She told me that rmutt had suffered a heart attack, the location of the hospital he had been taken to, and that wife asked that I come. I was dazed. For a minute or two I just lie there in bed wondering what I could possibly do. I don't have a car. I would have to call for a cab. I got up and showered. As I toweled off I played various scenarios in my head: rmutt in the hospital bed with tubes coming out of every opening as I stood clutching my hat in the doorway, comforting his wife as they performed yet another open-heart surgery on him (he's had at least two that I know of), rmutt's doctor appearing in the waiting room with downcast eyes. As I dressed I found my self muttering "fuck, oh fuck" over and over. I found a cab company willing to send a cab out before 6AM and was at the hospital in Oakland by 5:45AM. His wife met me there. She was shaken and perhaps even in shock. She explained that it had not been a heart attack, but instead a seizure. She explained that the last time he had seized was in 1998, just before they replaced the artificial valve in his chest. What she didn't know, I realized, is that rmutt had suffered a seizure at work in July. She had left that day for a week in Vancouver. We had tried to reach her, but could only leave messages for her to call us. In the meantime rmutt had recovered and begged us not to tell her. He said it would ruin her trip and that he would tell her when she returned. He didn't. I took him aside a few weeks after the seizure in July and asked him if he had told her. He swore to me that he had. He hadn't. And that's why he had asked to see me when he came to yesterday morning in the hospital. He wanted to tell me that I couldn't tell her about the episode in July. Well, I was going to tell her. But Iris called and beat me to the punch. What a strange week this has been so far. rmutt is still in the hospital and will be for at least another day, for tests. My life is so low on drama. It's everyone around me who generates it for me.
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diaryland |