Ring-Ring

Macie was in with the doctor when her cell phone rang. Her phone sat in the crowded waiting room with her husband, Carson. The ringtone actually spoke the words, “Ring-Ring,” repeatedly for six full rings, unless the call was answered sooner. The volume was turned up full.

 Carson, a man who would soon celebrate his 40th birthday, was suddenly embarrassed by the ring tone his wife selected. What caused his embarrassment: Two people started giggling by the third ring. He noticed the others in the room had stopped talking. That, and he couldn’t find the phone in her voluminous handbag.  He stood and lifted the bag. Red and black, it was emblazoned with images of the members of the rock band KISS. Naturally, the guy with the protruding tongue was prominently featured. Did the handbag trigger more giggles or was he just imagining it?

 “Sorry,” he mumbled to the others sitting in the waiting room. He found the phone just after the final “Ring-Ring.” Carson glanced to see who had called and was immediately annoyed. It was Macie’s sister, Mavis, the one who borrowed money the way most people borrowed cigarettes. Macie could return that call on the way home.

It was hot in the waiting room. A man in his late 70s checked in at the window. After the receptionist gave him back his Medicare card, he asked, “Something wrong with the air conditioning? It feels like we’re on planet Mercury in here.” A couple of people nodded and grunted their agreement. The man grinned at them, enjoying the smattering of attention.

“Sorry, sir,” the receptionist said. “The AC isn’t working. Maintenance is working on it.”

Carson was wearing a light jacket with a smallish NASCAR logo he considered classy. Feeling overwhelmed by the heat now, he took the jacket off. Both arms, from his biceps to just above his wrists were covered with flame tattoos.   The man who mentioned Mercury, thinking he was on a roll now, saw the flame tattoos and said, “Maybe it’s those red flames making us so hot.”  

He’d had done it in his 30s, when he was going through a religious rejuvenation brought on by a near miss. Driving the five-year-old Ford F-150 he’d bought three months before the accident, he’d flipped it, avoiding a collision with a crosstown bus. The truck was still running when it came to rest. He wasn’t hurt. The truck was. Convinced the Lord had saved him, he went to church that Sunday and took Macie with him.

Three days later, still shaken up by the incident, he decided to get a tattoo to remind him of the Lord’s work. Macie suggested flames symbolizing the Holy Ghost. The tattoo artist, skilled, but not religious, gave him flames all right, but intertwined with the flames were frightening ghostly figures that didn’t exactly conjure religious images. Not that it mattered. By the time his truck was repaired, apparently, Carson’s soul was too. He was sleeping in on Sundays again. 

The cell phone rang again. “Ring-Ring,” the automated voice said. He picked it up on the first ring this time, just as Macie walked into the waiting room. He handed it to her. “Your sister, again.” She silenced the phone and dropped it in her handbag. Carson noticed now that she had tears in her eyes. “What’s wrong, Babe?”

She slung the bag over her shoulder. “I’ll tell you when we get in the truck,” she whispered.  

As he pulled his truck out of the parking space, Carson spoke. “What did the doctor say, honey?”

“I’m fine. He gave me some medicine and told me not to wear any jewelry where the rashes are until they clear up.”

“Is that what you were crying about, just cause you can’t wear your earrings for a while?” The couple drove down Madison Road toward the Interstate, passing beautiful homes, none of them less than six thousand square feet. At the stoplight where he would make a left turn, Carson eased up behind a sleek Mercedes. The car to his right was a beautiful, white Infiniti SUV. He looked at her, noticing now that she had already removed the earrings from her ears. She had at least nine pierced earrings on each ear.

“No, it was the nurse. She said I look ridiculous anyway. That my ears look like a kiosk jewelry store outlet.”

“She said that?”

Macie looked at her husband. “You see all these nice houses and expensive cars, don’t you?”

“Yeah, what of it?”

“People with money express themselves different than we do.”

“What’s that got to do with your earrings, Macie?”

“All them houses and big cars, that’s how they let the world know they’re here. Well, my earrings and your tattoos; that’s how we tell the world we’re here.”

“My tattoos are about my religious conviction, Macie. I’m not trying to tell anybody I’m here.” He wondered about the man in the waiting room who joked about his flames. “What’s your point?”

“I don’t make fun of their fancy lives. Why do people like that think it’s okay to rag on our lives?”

“One nurse says something mean and you’re putting down everybody has money? Most people could care less about what jewelry you wear.”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. You gonna tell me you’re wearin’ that jacket today cause you’re chilly?”  Macie’s phone rang. “Ring-Ring, Ring-Ring.”

Carson grit his teeth. That ring tone really was embarrassing.