Aid Ambiguous
They heard it before they saw it, their first impression of the clinic, as they biked in the next morning just after sunrise, no overnight cool for the dawn to burn away, the air sodden already. There was the sound of metal on metal, a whine like a train whistle, woesome thunks, and shouts Rosie could not identify as Thai or Burmese but knew for sure were curse words. She guessed someone yelling at cats in battle or maybe heat, though they’d seen only dogs and dogs and more dogs so far, and never in her life had she heard a dog make a sound like that, a high-pitched keening, more screech than scream. Some kind of insect maybe? It would have to be bigger than she was willing to think about so early in the morning. A monkey? An army of frogs? Animal attack? And indeed, when she and Claude arrived at the mouth of the chewed-up dirt drive leading into the clinic, they found soot-caked, mud-stained feet and scratched-up shins kicking desperately at the end of a body otherwise entirely consumed by a voracious, growling maw.
When it revealed itself, the battle proved age-old but not animal: motion versus stasis, senescence versus youthful tenacity, the maw in question neither beast nor human but mineral: an ancient, heretofore pickup truck. It had a mechanic swearing under its open hood and two small children giggling in its cab, one on the floor using two hands to depress and release (usually all at once) the clutch, one shifting and turning the key (with more tenacity than would have been ideal) as directed.
“Truck” was a generous term. It was more rust than engine, more dirt than vehicle, and not the kind of dirt you could just wash off with a good scrub either because Rosie had a feeling this dirt was load bearing. The body had once been green and probably lovely. It was one of those pickups from the 1950s with the bubbled hoods and rounded wheel wells that someone at home would have dressed up with whitewall tires, a chrome grill, a thousand hours with a Q-tip and a cloth diaper, and then paraded for the Fourth of July. This one didn’t look like that. Apparently, it didn’t run like that either.
The filthy truck spit out a filthier mechanic. “You new doctor?”
“I am. Rosie Walsh. This is my dau … um, son,” she stammered. “Claude.” She glanced at him to see if she could apologize with her eyes, but he was staring at the ground and wouldn’t meet them.
“You drive?”
“No, we biked.” She turned back to the mechanic, distracted. “The guesthouse where we’re staying lent us bicycles.”
“Sorry, my English.” The mechanic tried again. “You can drive? Manual shift car?”
“Oh. Yes!” Rosie’s own English comprehension was apparently jet-lagged.
The mechanic shooed the two children out of the cab, performed final ministrations under the hood, and gave Rosie the international sign for “Pray to your gods and hit it again.” The motor turned over like a well-trained seal. There was much rejoicing. Rosie’s first procedure at the clinic was a success. The patient—improbably, it seemed to her—lived.
The mechanic was slick with grease from the elbows down, but fortunately, greetings in Thailand involved not shaking hands but pressing your own together in front of your chest and bowing toward one another. “Very glad to meet you. I am K. Do not ask what K stand for. It stand for so much. We happy you here. I show you around. First, meet Sorry Ralph.”
“The truck is named Ralph?”
“Sorry Ralph,” K corrected.
“Why?”
“He very sorry.”
“I can see that.”
“Sorry Ralph is ambulance. Also fetch medicine and supply if there is medicine and supply. Also hearse. Usually sorry though so hope you do not need.”