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I smile at him. “We’ve been over this. He’s just my friend.” I go to the computer and scan my key card to get access. “What brought you in today? Dr. Mendez said something about a fight?”
He waves his age-spotted hand. “Tim’s an asshole. He thinks he can fight me, but he can’t.”
I run through the bloodwork they’ve done on him and see that no scans were ordered since they didn’t find any sign of him being concussed.
“Did this happen at a shelter?” I pull the stool over to his bedside and take a seat.
“No, he claims he owns the spot under Michigan Avenue by Nordstrom. I’ve been there for ages. Everyone knows that’s my spot.”
I sit with him for another ten minutes, get him calmed down, and tell him I’ll be back. It’s only a matter of time until we’ll have to send him back to the streets, but at least we’ll get a warm meal in him. Hopefully we won’t need the bed he’s in today, and I can let him stay a little longer and try to make sure he makes it to the shelter after my shift.
Eight hours later, I’m sitting at the station, looking up shelters to try to get Mr. Euing a spot, when Jennifer, our intake nurse, walks through the doors with Cooper right behind her.
“What are you doing here?” I ask him with a smile.
“I’m here to take you home.”
I flick my wrist to look at my watch. It is almost time, but since I worked the second shift, it’s late for him to come and get me. “You should be sleeping. You have practice in the morning.”
He’s dressed in his joggers and a T-shirt. His T-shirt is slightly damp, and I’m not sure if he came from a workout or if it’s still humid outside.
“I’ll be fine. Just saw Mr. Euing. He saw me walk by and called me in. Said you’re trying to get him into a shelter tonight? Something about a fight with Tom?”
Mr. Euing loves Cooper. Any time he sees him here, he chats him up.
Cooper sits in a chair with his arms crossed. Compared to most of our staff, he’s larger than life. Six foot four, over two hundred pounds, huge hands. He’s a presence.
“Yeah. Said they got in a fight.”
“I thought they were best friends.” He reads my mind.
“Exactly. Something’s wrong, so I really want to get him in a shelter tonight rather than be out there on the streets.”
“You go finish up, and I’ll call around and see if any have openings.”
“Thanks. Go visit him, you know he loves you.”
He stands and heads down to the room I told him.
“Jeez, he’s even invested in your cases,” Alice says, coming up beside me.
“Please, Mr. Euing’s been coming here forever.”
Just as I say that to Alice, I hear Mr. Euing shout, “Coop, my man!”
Alice shakes her head. “Everyone else gets it but you.”
After she walks away, I finish doing my rounds on my patients and hand them over to the next physician.
Before I have the opportunity to go rescue Cooper, Mr. Euing walks out of his room. “I’m discharging myself,” he says, proud as if he said he’s been one hundred days sober. “Coop is driving me to a shelter.”
“He is, is he?” I’ll have to do up the paperwork to discharge him before we leave.
As they approach, Cooper leans in and whispers, “You’d never sleep otherwise. Now you’ll know he’s off the streets for at least one night.”
This man knows me so well.
I do the discharge paperwork, and then we drive Mr. Euing to the shelter on North, drop him off, and Cooper looks at me from the driver’s seat of his Land Rover.
