Knight had fears. Fear of changing in the middle of a busy street. Fear of losing Mal (yes, even still). There was one thing he was not afraid of, however.
Needles.
The phlibotomist called the name of the person waiting in the waiting room She was thin and nearly emaciated, with eyes wide as saucers. “They told me to come down here for a drug test. I don’t take no drugs, just painkillers.”
Riiiight, thought Knight as he watched her go in. A moment later, he heard a scream.
A moment after that, he watched as the woman stormed out. “You don’t need to watch me take a piss!” she screeched at the phlibotomist and stormed away.
Knight decided not to come back to this clinic any time soon.
“Next,” the phlibotomist said with a sigh. Knight got up and went to the door. The phlibotomist was already down the hall, waiting at a door. He hustled and followed her.
“Hello,” he said, giving her his nicest smile.
She smiled back, a little wan. “Hello, sir.” She took his paper and read it, looked at him, read it again. “Mr. King,” she said, slightly confused and still looking at the paper while she moved to the computer, “Take a seat right over there.”
He sat in the smallish seat and assumed the position, offering both veins for her to choose from. She typed some things into the computer. “Wow, it took.”
“Wha’?”
“Pregnancy test for males.” She finished typing, labels printed out. She plucked three tubes and put the labels on them. “Which one – oh, they’re both fine.” She examined the left, put on the tourniquet, and held the needle.
It slipped in without him feeling a thing. “You have good veins. Lots of room.”
He chuckled, “Thanks.” He watched the tubes fill with crimson liquid, always amazed at the color. She finished, plucked the needle out, and held a piece of gauze against the wound. Seconds later, it stopped bleeding, and she put tape over the gauze.
“How long ’til I know?”
“Depends on the doctor,” she said. “The doctor should know by tonight.”
“Okay.”
Knight was nervous. He rode to the pub, getting there even before Paulie opened it up. Knight had a key and the alarm code so he opened up and started working. Today he wanted to make fish and chips the old fashioned way, and that meant hand-cutting the fries. He used beer batter for the fish.
After a successful lunch, he was cleaning up, when his phone rang, a number he wasn’t familiar with. He picked it up and said gruffly, “Hello.”
“This is Dr. Sacks.”
“Hello,” he said a little brighter.
“I think, Mr. King, we’d better be on first name terms. Because we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other over the next few months.”
“Why?”
“It’s positive.”
Knight fell backwards, against the door which was half-open, and stumbled backwards out into the alley way. “Are you sure?”
“99.7 percent accuracy. So, shall we make an appointment for your prenatal next week?”
“I gotta…I gotta…My husband.”
“Of course. And I am being pushy in making assumptions that you’ll pick me for your GYN, but I thought you came to me for a reason.”
“I gotta tell my husband.”
“Yes, Mr. King. Call me next week to set up an appointment. Congratulations.”
She hung up the phone as he stood staring at it dumbly. He put a hand on his belly. “Shit,” he whispered. “Oh, shit.”
He’d just added a new fear.