Well, I was more than a bit taken back. Perhaps the word should be confused or perhaps it was shocked. Really it was both! What ever the description, I was unable to comment, think straight or respond. My friend just sat there as my numb, dazed, inarticulate response refused to challenge my paralyzed tongue. My mind refused to give any command to my voice or body. I felt my face go blank as my body just tensed then began to tremble ever so slightly. I don't think I purposefully moved for at least ten seconds. I didn't even breathe.
The shock of what he had just told me was beyond believable yet, there he sat across the little Arby's table, looking intently and sympathetically at me. My left hand was the first to respond as I carefully put the diet cola I had been sipping back on the table. I had been in a state of animated suspension, unable to move.
Next, I realized that my mouth was still almost full of the icy drink I had sipped through the straw. I gulped it down and took a big long overdue breath. Letting my breath out slowly through pursed lips, I felt my best friend's warm hand cover my right hand. I had dropped my recently purchased sandwich. My hand had begun to twitch slightly. I sat otherwise motionless.
The emotional response to his statement had been pure, body paralyzing shock. My response mimicked my first day in surgery as a junior medical student when I straight out fainted when a small artery squirted a stream of blood from the mouth of a small child who was undergoing a tonsillectomy.
The blood had hit me in the face, splattering on my face. This was long before HIV was known and we were required to wear shields to prevent contact with body fluids during surgery. Sure, I had had no breakfast; I had had trouble breathing with that my first full sterile suit up with twin tightly applied cotton masks. Fortunately I was only an observer. Nevertheless, my response had been paralytic then a full faint. I learned later that the surgeon had ordered the circulating nurse to pull my limp body over to the side of the surgical suite so no one would trip over me. Never since, until now, had I had such a paralytic response.
Now, as then, I felt the rapid onset of a vasovagal faint coming on but I now knew how to manage it this time. I quickly slipped over from behind the little table, bent forward, grabbed my knees, pulled them tightly up against my stomach and rolled onto my back on the bench seat. Gradually I felt the buzzing and deafness diminish as the blackness receded.
The lights came back on howbeit agonizingly slow. Finally I could hear again and the nausea regressed. I saw my friend standing by me unsure of what to do except to keep asking me if I was alright. I small crowd of inquisitive diners had gathered nearby. Others just stared at me from their booths as I recovered. The manager came around but by then I was almost fully functional again. I sat back up as my presence of mind and body reappeared from the hazy darkness.
My first reaction to this so unlike me event, was: total embarrassment. I smiled and waved off the onlookers as I grasped my cola to take another sip. I found great beads of sweat had gathered on my face and forehead. I tasted the salty flavor of those that had run down my face onto my lips. These were all quickly dispensed with by a series of quick wipes with a paper napkin. I sat in an almost trance like state smiling apologetically at my friend Bobby. He was again seated across the table from me.
"I..I.. I'm sorry, Bobby" I stammered in a whisper. "That was so quick I had lost control for a moment. That has happened only once before in my whole lifetime."
What had triggered such an overwhelming and somewhat embarrassing situation? I couldn't remember right off. You see, I'm an E. R. doctor, trained and experienced in handling all sorts of emergencies with the cool, calm collected dispassionate response needed to save lives and bring order out of chaos. I was truly embarrassed by my body's uncontrolled response to those few words from an old and trusted friend. As my senses came back on line, hearing first, then sense of warmth, the vision then body position and finally speech, the last to recover was the memory of his words.
I will never forget them. "Jon, your wife is having an affair" There it was, just like the right hook the boxer never saw. Like the unseen and unfelt haymaker that had put him on the floor for the ten count plus more. Those words were now etched in my memory, indelibly, neither to be fathomed nor forgotten.
I was sitting again now, sipping on my diet cola, looking over the off-white rim of the plastic cup. I stared at my friend. I was still a little numb in my brain but the buzzing in my ears had ceased and my peripheral vision was now perfect again. I sensed purposelessness in my movements of adjusting to my buttock while sipping my cola and trying to get oxygen flowing to my frontal lobes.
"Bobby", I mouthed softly, "Tell me what you know. I can't believe what you just said yet you have never lied to me before. Surely you didn't say what I thought I heard?".
Bobby, my colleague in the E.R., long time friend, classmate in Medical school and residency plus being a nearby neighbor, looked at me with grim determination. I saw sadness in his eyes.
"Jon, I told you that I am sure your Sherrie is messing around on you."
"Bobby?" I questioned him. "Please don't fuck with me. I know we joke around a lot but this time, this is really serious business. What in the world would make you tell me such an unbelievable story?"
"Jon, I could not believe it at first either. At first I believed it was just gossip but it's from a reliable source and with more than a smidgeon of evidence supporting this outrageous crap."
"What the heck, Bobby. Let me hear the story."
"Okay, Jon. Here it is. Just you don't fall out on me again."
