It Might As Well Be 1950

Doctor Emma Charles grabbed her bag off the entry hall bench, petted her French Bulldog, King, and tried to get her ringing phone out of her coat pocket. All while she struggled to get the front door open. When she got her phone out of her pocket, an unsigned birthday card from her father floated to the floor. Her mother’s picture stared up at her from her phone. She glared at both representations of her parents. Then she sent her mother’s call to voicemail as she shoved the card under the bench. With a breath, she opened the door, finally, and walked out. As she closed the door to her one-room apartment, a woof came from within.

“Sorry, King.”

Even with a neighbor who visited him during the afternoons, Emma despised leaving the little guy alone. As it was, she was only supposed to have been here for fifteen minutes between a double shift. That had easily turned into a forty-five minute cuddle session.

With a groan as her mother called again, she slid her phone to mute and walked down the hallway. When she got a page from her hospital issued cell phone, she almost broke into a run.

Fifteen minutes later, Emma entered the emergency room and came up short. In the hour she’d been gone, the waiting room had overflown with too many patients.

“Where have you been? We’ve been paging you for the last twenty minutes.” The duty nurse, Kelly, said as she came up to her. “A girl in room two keeps complaining of abdominal pain but damned if she’ll tell us what’s wrong.”

Even as Kelly updated her, she took Emma’s things. Emma's mouth didn't have time to form the words thank you when a scream rent the air. Without a backwards glance, she said, “Thank you.”

She pulled on her lab coat when and buttoned it closed like it was her armor. This girl and the terrible pain she was in deserved her full attention. As she entered the room, Emma left behind the fact this was her last night as a doctor, a choice out of her control. 

Twenty years after the Trump administration, new laws were still being created to take anyone in the LGBTQ community out of the public workforce. But here, in her beloved ER, on her last two nights, she was here to forget her troubles. She was here as a doctored medical professional to give whatever aid she could to those in need. It had always been her job. No bigot in the government would take this away from her. Not on her last nights.

That decided, even as chaos surrounded her, she took a deep breath and walked up to the side of the bed. Two nurses and her resident, Ralph, yelled at each other as they tried to stop their patient's bleeding. The young girl, who couldn't be more than twenty, screamed again.

As she took the young girl's hand, she whispered to the nearest nurse to push pain medication. The young girl had large hands and had a good strength as she squeezed Emma’s hand. Emma leaned over the bed and put her other hand to the girl’s forehead. She looked the teen in the eyes. “What’s your name, sweetie?”

The young woman rolled her lips in and shook her head. Pain had put a sheen in her eyes.

“She won’t tell us. Someone threw her out of a moving car. Please tell us what’s wrong.” The nurse to her left said, pleading in her eyes as she handed Ralph a lap sponge.

The young woman shoved them all away when Ralph tried to help her and the burst of strength surprised everyone. When the two nurses and Ralph would have dived back in, Emma held out her hands.

“Wait. Just wait a moment.”

“Are you serious?” Ralph asked, then came closer to her and lowered his voice. “You’ve shown me what this kind of bleeding means.”

“I also taught you to respect your patient’s wishes.” Emma said and looked Ralph in the eyes. The need to help was bursting from him, but he nodded and stepped back.

Emma went back to her patient. “Please, sweetie. Please tell us your name and why there is so much bleeding from your lap.”

“I can’t.” Tears came pouring out and smeared the already melting makeup she’d used to sculpt her face. “I can’t. I asked my friend not to bring me here. I begged.”

“With the amount of blood coming from your lower half, it’s best they did. You’re going to die if we don’t help you, and soon.” Emma said. She tried taking the young girl’s hand again but the patient shoved her away again.

“No. You don’t get it. I’m gonna die anyways.” A deeper quality entered her voice, a voice already strained trying to find a female tone. “They’ll force me to love him. No.” She shook her head as more fat tears rolled down her face. “No. I’d rather die than go back to him.”

“Are you saying a man did this to you?” When the young woman shook her head, Emma chanced moving closer again. And, when she wasn’t shoved away, Emma took the opening. “Please, sweetie. We need to know what’s happened to you.”

The young woman stared at her a moment longer then flipped back the cover she had gripped tight, like a shield. “Fine. Look.” She turned her head away and laid an arm over her face.

Emma waited a second longer then stepped down the bed and lifted the girl’s shirt. A bloody pair of underwear hid the wound. She cut them away with the scissors Ralph handed her and found a nightmare. Emma closed her eyes for a second. Not to block out the mutilation done to the poor girl, but to collect herself. Emma called for a surgeon. The girl needed urgent repair on the botched sex reassignment surgery she’d gotten. The surgeon had forgotten key steps in her surgery from male to female.

A few years ago, a law had passed nationwide to criminalize sex reassignment surgeries. Desperate teens and young adults had taken to getting the surgeries done either out of country, or with unlicensed, hack surgeons. Like this young woman here. Hopefully this young woman’s story wouldn’t end like most, in death.

When Emma turned back to her patient, she found her patient staring at her. 

“Billie.” The word was hard for her to get out. She had to swallow a few times before she could talk again. “It’s the only thing I wanted to keep.”

“Well, Billie,” Emma said with a soft smile, “Let’s make certain you keep your new life too.”

***

Emma jerked awake in an on-call room when the door burst open and light blinded her. A glance at her wrist watch told her it was the next afternoon. Twelve more hours of her last shift, which also happened to be the last day of the year.

“Emma. Thank god I found you. Why are you in this on-call room?” Kelly asked as she walked in and brought over Emma’s shoes, but waved that question away. “It’s one of your patients.”

Emma took her shoes and ignored the reasons she was in this room. Ignored the fact her ex-wife, who still tried to visit her during her double shifts, had ruined the best on-call room. After a messy divorce where Emma had lost her home, her mad ex didn’t seem to understand that divorce eliminated the possibility of sex.

“Emma. Come on. It’s Billie. The police are here.” Kelly said.

“Police?” Emma asked as she shoved her feet into her shoes and got up then all but shoved Kelly out of the room.

“Yeah. They’ve come to arrest Billie for having a sex change operation. And Dickhead is looking for you.”

Emma met Doctor 'Dickhead' Young and two police officers outside Billie's recovery room.

“What is going on? I’m woke up and told my patient is being arrested because someone mutilated her?”

“Save it Doctor Charles.” Doctor Young said. “She already told me she went to an unlicensed surgeon for gender reassignment.”

Emma took a breath. “She needs help. Not arrested. Does she have to be arrested?” She asked the police officers.

A tall, white male stepped forward. His police vest called him Hemings. “Yes. HE broke the law. His name is Billie Arthur Franklin. The surgeon, if Billie is smart enough to turn him over, will be arrested too.”

“She hasn’t done anything wrong.” Emma said even as they pushed her out of the way.

“Even if the surgery wasn’t against the law, he had his dick cut off. Something is definitely wrong with him.” Hemings said. The smaller, quiet police officer, who closed his eyes for a moment, went into the room with Doctor Young.

Minutes later, when Young came out of the room, she stepped in front of him. “What is wrong with you? She needed our help, and you called the police on her?”

“I’m not losing my job for a stranger.” Young said, as he pointed back to the room where Billie was being arrested in.

“She’s not a stranger. She’s our patient. Someone we swore an oath to protect and heal.” Emma said and followed him when he walked away. “Or don’t you remember your Hippocratic oath?”

She almost ran into Young when he jerked around. He grabbed her arm and pulled her into a hall closet. He released her the moment he closed them inside. 

“What is wrong with you? You just called the police on a troubled teenager and you're thinking I'll have sex with you?” Emma asked.

“Just shut up and listen,” he said. “I don’t want to have sex with you. I never did. I did it to keep my job.”

She opened her mouth, but he slashed his hand through the air.

“As wrong as you think my actions are, I want to keep my job. Anything else be damned. Anyone else.” Young said. “You already lost your job because you aren’t closeted. Don’t screw it up for me.” He took a deep breath then slammed the door as he left, though she now knew a part of him would never leave that, or any, closet.

***

“You had no choice, Emma.” Kelly said.

Emma looked up as she put away the tablet she’d used with her last patient. “Of course I had a choice, which makes me no better than anyone else that doesn’t speak up.”

Kelly looked up and a deep sadness entered her eyes. “True as that may be, getting locked in jail won’t help anything. Or anyone.”

“With this police state we’ve fallen into, it might as well be the 1950s again. A hundred years hasn’t changed a damn thing.” Emma said. She waved away the conversation. “You paged me?”

“Exam room four,” Kelly said, somber tone in her voice.

Emma put her stethoscope around her neck as she walked into the exam room. She came up short when she looked at her patient. Police officer Hemings, the one who arrested Billie, sat on the bed and held a bloody cloth to his forehead.

“Oh hey doc. I hope there's no hard feelings from earlier. We both got a job to do.” He laughed and took down the rag. A large gash bisected his left eyebrow. “Speaking of jobs, Halloween and New Years are always the worst. Oh, and happy New Year.”

Emma paused in putting on her medical glove. “Excuse me. I didn’t hear the last part.” 

“I said happy New Year. The ball dropped in Times Square like five minutes ago.” The officer said.

Emma laughed a bit then harder as she took the gloves to the trash. “I hadn't even noticed. This is some way to end a career." Then to Hemings she said, “The next doctor will help you shortly.”

“But what about my head?” The officer whined.

“Not my problem. I don’t have to treat you.” Emma said and turned to leave.

“Of course you do.” The officer said.

“No, I don’t.” Emma said as she turned back and crossed her arms over her chest. “Legally, I am no longer allowed to, as I'm queer. The ‘real’ doctor will be along shortly.”

“You do it. No one will know.” The police officer said. "It could be our little secret."

But she turned and walked away.

Emma hugged Kelly on her way out. It was a tearful goodbye. She couldn’t attend the farewell party for her and the other open members of the staff. Kelly promised they’d have a memorial just the two of them on Monday.

As Emma left the hospital for the last time, she took out her phone. For the last few months, she’d flirted off and on with a young woman. After her bad history with her ex, she hadn’t been able to get herself to open up. She feared a repeat. If today had taught her anything, she couldn’t stand back and let doubt rule her life. She had to take responsibility and not just be a bystander as she had done today. If she continued to stand back and allow people to do wrong, she was no better than the person committing the acts.

Emma couldn't live in the past. It wasn't 1950 anymore.

Tonight, she’d move forward in her personal life. Tomorrow, she’d call her divorce lawyer and ask for a good defense attorney’s number. Even if she had to pay for it herself, Billie would get the legal representation she needed.

“Hi. It’s Emma.” The happiness in the voice on the other end of the call made Emma smile. “Happy New Year.”