Bendel Bonding



This one kinda looks like mine.



Not my Russian lady.
Just a generic Russian lady.

So got all my stuff together, my oxygen, my cane and my brace and walked to the Homecrest Health Center on Avenue S.  It's literally three blocks from my apartment.  I put the oxygen tank in my highly fashionable, vintage messenger bag, and then stuck the cannula up my nostrils.  It's been a long time since I used oxygen, thank G-d.  It was hard for me to imagine that I used to walk around with this thing in my nose 24/7.  It is sooooo uncomfortable.  I guess you can get used to anything.  After all, I got used to breathing through a hole in my neck, too.  When I got to the place, my breathing was free and easy.  Damn!  I figured I'd have to really channel my inner Lawrence Olivier and give the performance of a lifetime.  I thought I'd walk through the door and right into the Doctor's office.  Right.  I should have realized that city bureaucracy doesn't work that way.  There was a waiting room full of people in various stages of handicapped-ness.  Virtually everyone in the room had a cane.  There was a neck brace or two.  There was a guy with a very wierd contraption on his arm and hand, with pullies and rubber bands and stuff.  I was the only one with oxygen...nah nah nah nah nah!  I had to sign in and I asked the guy hat the desk if there would be a long wait.  That's like asking a dentist if the root canal is gonna hurt.  "You'll be outta here by 3:45", he said.  I looked at my watch.  It was 2:15.  An hour and a half.  Actually, not as bad as I thought.  But it was a typical city agency waiting area: No magazines (unless you count the various pamphlets about AIDS awareness and gonorrhea).  There was TV right in front of me that was turned off.  I figured I'd have to use my old standby whenever I'm in situations like this: go through Shas by heart.  I was right at the beginning of Brachos when Eddie* walked in.  I've known Eddie forever.  We went to elementary school together and there was a time that we were really good friends.  Eddie is enormous.  He looks like a walking mountain.  He's gotta be 6'2" and I can't even imagine how much he weighs.  I happened to notice his sneakers, maybe because they were just a hair smaller than those cute little Smart Cars you see zipping around these days.  I asked him what size they were.  Eighteen.  Eighteen!  You can't get 'em in a shoe store, Eddie said, you have to order them from a catalog.  He's so big that he's had trouble walking for a long time, but the last year or two he's had heart problems as well.  He has a pacemaker.  OMG...I have a friend with a pacemaker!  Boy, am I getting old!  So at least with Eddie there I had someone to talk to, and before I knew it they were calling Mr. Zweeg.  Yes Zweeg, not Zweig.  I get that a lot.  I limped my way into the Doctor's office.  At least I thought it was a doctor's office.  Sitting before me was a Russian lady.  A very nice Russian lady as it turned out, but a Russian lady nonetheless.  She had one of those official looking ID cards dangling from her neck.  No white coat.  No stethoscope.  Nothing to indicate that she knew any more about the practice of medicine than I did.  In short, I don't think she was a doctor.  Maybe a nurse of some kind, but definitely not a doctor.  She looked over my paperwork while I sucked hard on my cannula.  If it were a movie, I would surely** have been nominated for an Oscar.  She didn't even bother looking at me; she was too enthralled with my medical history, and, I might add, rightly so.  Finally she looked up and said, "boy, you've had a wery rough year."  No, it's not a typo...she said "wery".  As if to confirm her rather obvious observation, I handed her my list of meds.  She looked it over and stopped at the Imuran.  Imuran is generally prescribed as an anti-rejection drug for kidney transplant patients, or for patients suffering from severe rheumatoid arthritis or other auto-immuse diseases.  She wanted to know why I was taking it.  I didn't know.  His Majesty Dr. DePalo had prescribed it.  So you have an auto-immune disease, she said.  Hell, I wasn't gonna argue.  I guess so, I said.  So according to her I had lung problems (my breathing), heart problems, (my A-fib episode) and an auto-immune disease (she made that one up).  She probably thought it was amazing that I was even walking around.  She looked up from the papers and said, "you'll get the permit in the mail in about four weeks".  That was it.  No cold stethoscope, no rubber-gloved examination, nothing.  I could have kissed her.  Then on my way out, she made it a point to show me her "roiteh bendel".  It's a red string that Jews wear, usually around their wrist, to ward off the Evil Eye.  She obviously had seen mine.  She gave me this knowing, "we're from the same tribe" kind of smile.  "It's from Israel", she said proudly.  I was going to say "big deal, mine is from an even holier place: Eichler's!", but I thought better of it. Hers was a simple red string.  Mine is a little fancier, it has a Chamsa, a Sephardic Jewish good luck thingy dangling from it.  But it didn't matter.  I think I could have strode in there like a triathlete and I would have gotten the permit.  After all...I was a Lantzman***.

* Not his real name.
** And don't call me Shirley.
*** Lantzman = a fellow countryman or friend; same idea as "Paisan" in Italian.