Dave Ford Does Earth

Posted by Dave Ford

I have been sick for the last week. Strep Throat = No Bueno. I thought only 9 year olds got strep throat, but apparently they are not alone; enters the 30 year old guy in a new city. One of the downsides of being in a new town is getting a new “support staff”: doctor, dentist, accountant, lawyer, sushi chef, fortune teller, madame, etc. Last week, after consulting with a local pharmacist, I found Dr. Babu–a short 60 year old man of Indian descent– who has a very generic looking doctor’s office set up a few blocks from my place. Babu is his first name and when I saw him a week ago he prescribed me a course of Penicillin.

Seven days later after the Penicillin was all gone. Still feeling like crap, I set off on foot to find a new, better doctor. Cursing Dr. Babu, I headed through the Brooklyn-brownstone-townhome laden-community where Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable used to live and practice medicine. Maybe he still lives there–who knows. I remember how nice his family was. Remember when they found out Theo was dyslexic? A tear still comes to my eye at the thought.

The “doctor’s office walking tour” was interesting if anything. I quickly discovered that finding Dr. Huxtable was going to be a challenge and that there was a good chance I would have to settle for less. God knows there is nobody better. Going north, I headed for Park Slope–the nicest neighborhood around here–hedging my bet that any of the doctors there would put Dr. Babu to shame and instantly cure my throat infected with demonic strep from hell. I found out very quickly that wealthy neighborhood doctors do not take kindly to walk-ins. Come to think of it, I do not remember if Dr. Huxtable took walk-ins either. Although I feel like whenever that fat kid Peter from next door showed up, he jumped right to the head of the line. Or maybe he just came over to play with Rudy? I can’t remember.

The one place that I found that did take walk-ins was swarming with a mix of extremely sick-looking, red-nosed white people and (someone) promptly told me to come back tomorrow. Not giving up hope, I decided to walk east towards 9th Avenue –through the Brooklyn neighborhood of Slope South. I was determined to find a cure. I knocked on two more doors and found that neither of the doctors were taking new patients. In fact, neither even had office hours on Wednesday. I did meet a very nice midwife, but she was unable to help me with my predicament.

Note to self: Doctors, in general, have a pretty sweet deal.

Second note to self: It is far too late in life for me to become a doctor.

Walking down 9th Avenue into a lower working class neighborhood–this did not look like the Huxtables neighborhood at all– I found two more walk-in clinics, both full to the brim. The clinics were on the same side of the street, a few blocks apart. One was full of black people, the other was full of Latinos. When I say full, I mean literally there was 100% black patients in one of the offices and 100% Latinos in the other. This after visiting the first clinic that was 100% white. Furthermore, it seems to me that the doctors in all of these places–including Dr.Babu– were 75% of Indian descent, while the other 25% were Asian. Are Brooklyn doctors offices segregated? Is there an unwritten rule where white people go to Indian doctors and Black People go to Asian doctors? Do Latinos go to black doctors? Who goes to Latino doctors? My head started to hurt.

2 hours and 9 doctors’ offices later, my throat felt like I had just chugged a glass of razor blades. After all of my efforts, I ended up –”guess where?” — back at Dr. Babu’s office. His office was empty except for his receptionist, Esmerelda, who seemed irritated that I interrupted her lunch. She chewed her smelly tuna salad sandwich with her mouth open.

A half hour later, when Dr. Babu finally came out, I told him that the Penicillin had not worked. He replied, “oh maybe you need a stronger antibiotic?” Freeze Frame. Now, why in the hell did he fail to give me the stronger antibiotic in the first place? Do I look like I can not handle a grown-up dose of antibiotics? I am a huge physical presence. Give me the god damn good stuff! I did not say any of this. What I did say was “thank you” and headed straight for the pharmacy with my new prescription in hand.

So, alas, I am coming to my second consecutive weekend on antibiotics. Officially, I am as sober as I have been since the summer of 1993. When is someone going to invent an antibiotic that you can enjoy with a gentle cocktail?

On the bright side, at least I know that Dr. Babu will be there for me. I have come to the sad conclusion that there are not many Dr. Heathcliff Huxtables out there anymore. And if there are, they do not take new patients or walk-ins. At the same time a thought popped into my head– wasn’t Dr. Huxtable an OBGYN?

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Related Note: Rudy’s really hot now. Damn!

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