Banner Pic #3

This photo was taken during Saturday Market, this past May, in Portland, Oregon. Justin, Sparkles, and myself were bumming around downtown and spent several hours first up at PSU, walking around their Farmer’s Market. We then spent several hours in an adjacent neighborhood, exploring the weekly Saturday Market by the Skidmore Fountain. And here we are waiting for a train.

Downtown Blood

The needle pierced my skin for the third time, and I sighed at the attempts but grinned and said words of encouragement so as not to make her feel so bad. The room was colder then the last room I was in, but it was quiet, and Matchbox Twenty no longer came over the speakers. Her knee went out as she was still holding the needle in my arm, and the tip moved inside the skin and the sting was accompanied by a bit of blood. “I’m so sorry, so sorry.”

“It’s alright.”

“I’m going to try your other arm.”

“Okay.” She tried for the second time in my left arm.

“I still can’t find a vein, but we have to send in your blood in for the tests.”

“I know.”

“I can stick the needle in the top of your hand, or your wrist, but that will really hurt.”

“I prefer not.”

“Well, we can send you to the lab next door, just right outside past the next light on Dobson. They’ll hopefully be able to tap you then we can run your blood from the tests we need. Is your wife waiting for you in the lobby?”

“I don’t have a wife.”

“Your girlfriend? Anyone?”

“No. I came alone. My boyfriend is at work.”

“Oh. You’re gay.”

“That’s right.”

“Well in that case we’ll just run a few more tests on your blood.” This is said with a smile, and she then puts gloves on for her last attempt at drawing my blood before sending me on.

A half an hour later I sat in a room full of people awaiting blood tests, plasma services, liver biopsies and an array of other procedures. To my knowledge, I was the healthiest in the room. But who am I to talk when I am awaiting a blood test? They called my name.

“William McAdam?”

“Yes?”

“Do you go by William McAdam?”

“Sometimes. I go by Jeff Nash.”

“Your insurance card says Jeff McAdam.”

“Of course.”

“Is this you.”

“I am me.”

“Sir, we don’t have alot of time.”

“My apologies ma’am. My name is William Jeffery-Nash McAdam (formerly William Jeffery Nash-McAdam). Here is my i.d. card.”

Back in the office, the nurse sits me down. Her accent is tells me she hails from Jersey.

“Why are you here?”

“They couldn’t find a vein.”

“What? What the fuck? There’s a fucking vein right there, are they fucking blind?”

“Perhaps.”

She sticks a butterfly into the one untapped vein in my arm and the blood makes its way up a tube and she subtracts three vials from my body.

“All done. You’ll have your test results back in seven to ten days.”

“Thanks.”

I return Justin’s call outside the lobby. I drive home from Chandler, and take off my bandage and cotton upon entering the bedroom. I spend the rest of the night in downtown Phoenix, and end up walking slightly ahead of the group by accident, my mind somewhere else in the dirty city streets and bright city lights of the inner cities that I love so much. After dinner, Arica and I walk to the corner of Roosevelt & 7th to kill time, away from the noise of Arkansas created inside. Later, I sit on the curb with a beat poet, the same beat poet whom I say on this curb with while we chatted and took photos with Joy Electric almost a year ago.

Back then things were still a struggle, or maybe. Things were still confused. The poet and I concluded the conversation with lunch at a dim sum cafe in south central Phoenix the next day. I tell him where I am now. He listens, but shakes his head, and his opinion could have been echoed verbatim by countless others. Where is the line between a challenging friendship and cutting ties with those who don’t understand? Where is the line between love and judgement?

I know the answer, but the answer will upset many.

The next night I meet with my personal trainer, then return with Justin to downtown Phoenix, and further explore the city lights, and we recap a night and have conversation that only we seem to understand.

The city nights are now cold, and the palm trees reek of home.