The humbling act of parking your derrière on crinkling medical exam table paper can make you cringe in expectation of health-related surprises. I’m perched like a pigeon in the examining room of my orthopedic surgeon, awaiting his entrance. He operated on me a year prior, so at least I’m familiar with him, his team, the whole nine yards.
But this time, the surprise is altogether different.
As he enters, donned in his signature crisp white coat, I’m instantly drawn to a distinct Edvard Munchian palette of black, purple and yellow beneath his right eye. What the #?¥§? I avoid staring, but the curiosity is killing me.
His black eye appears acutely pronounced by the refracted view through his eyeglasses. Mentally dismissing his framed Ivy League diplomas, I question whether a doctor with such composure would get into a brawl.
Until now, I assumed my doctor’s calm and professional manner carried over into his personal life. Surely he can let loose like the best of us, but he wouldn’t do anything heedless or, God forbid, stupid.
Or maybe he isn’t quite as stable as I thought. I enter a state of gloomy speculation as my brain races with suspicions. Was he part of a violent spousal fight? Could he be unfaithful? Does his Irish name flag a drinking problem? An upsetting stew of conjecture simmers in my mind. My restless anxiety for the truth leaves me making absurd and visceral assumptions as I question the necessity of my impending surgery.
Without gleaning any information, I reach a binary conclusion: his black eye represents either a violent temperament or psychological instability. Either way, it’s not good.
I’ve always associated black eyes with tough guys. You wouldn’t want to meet someone in a dark alley with one. Take Norman Rockwell’s iconic illustration, Girl with Black Eye (The Shiner), featured on the 1953 cover of the Saturday Evening Post. A disheveled, 10ish-year-old tomboy sits outside a doctor’s office – socks fallen to her ankles, shoes untied, bandaged knee, and an arresting big black eye. Rockwell takes no pity on her, as evidenced by her mischievous smirk. It’s easy to suspect she was the instigator of a schoolyard dustup. Back in the day, she was just the type of bad-ass playmate I avoided.
Surely anyone can get a black eye. You don’t have to be Mr. Tough Guy or even MTG’s victim. A shiner can result from tripping over your puppy’s squeaky toy or opening an assumed-heavy door inward. It could happen during a party that begins well, until a champagne cork fires across the room toward your iris.
So why do black eyes create such an aura of mysteriousness? Television news anchor, Erin Burnett, appeared on her evening segment with one, instantaneously generating a social media flurry. She tried to mask the issue by looking down at her notes and turning to an extreme profile. A Twitter post blamed it on a bad cold, while Erin later indicated it happened right before she aired, only fueling curiosity.
Black eyes can even be intentionally self-induced. Consider Arnaud Desplechin’s 2015 film, My Golden Days. The protagonist, trying to justify his missing passport, purposefully bashes his face into a cement column, intending to impersonate a victim of a mugging. But when your doctor has a black eye, it becomes an entirely different story.
I don’t ask how the shiner came about, feeling it was too personal. I could make a trite joke, hoping he’d volunteer some snippet of information, but being too chummy would breach that doctor-patient relationship thing. Plus, I view doctors as superheroes, setting them apart from the rest of humanity. They perform brain surgery and save lives.
Ironically, even I once had a black eye, and it was self-induced. Yet unlike Desplechin’s character, it wasn’t intentional. Heading to Mexico City on business, my delayed flight left me with a late hotel check-in. Playing it safe, I called the front desk requesting a wake-up call. Despite the hotel’s fine reputation, it hadn’t updated its rotary-dial telephones, circa 1968. The receiver felt as weighty as an anvil.
In deep REM, as the city’s morning rays peeked through the drapes, I awoke to a shrill, piercing ring, with no concept of the hour or my location. Disoriented, I fumbled for the receiver, slamming it above my right cheekbone as a cheerful, Buenos dias chimed out.
I wasn’t aware of the damage I had inflicted until I left the shower. Were those mascara smudges that the soap failed to remove? I had yet to insert my contact lenses, and the shower’s steam compromised my vision. As the day progressed, my black eye became more pronounced, while its swelling and rainbow of colors only intensified.
Admittedly, I liked my new bad-girl image. Think you can mess with me? I made my statement loud and proud, parading it through Mexico City like a mariachi band with WiFi. Passersby from Paseo de la Reforma to Avenida Juárez flashed grimacing looks at my clients, suspecting they were culprits.
You would think I’d learned my lesson in Mexico. Deep down, I know my doctor embodies the epitome of professionalism. He is affiliated with a highly reputable hospital. His roster of clients includes major league basketball players whose ginormous sneakers are signed and displayed in his waiting room.
As it turns out, my surgery’s successful outcome gave me pause. At my follow-up exam, only negligible traces of my doctor’s black eye remain. He approaches me with his usual bonhomie. For all I know, his black eye represents benevolence. He could have defended a helpless victim. Or it suggested athleticism — his badge of honor from tackling his opponent in a game of touch football.
While I’ll likely never know the real story, I issue a mea culpa for my suspicions. Reassured, I smile back, feeling fortunate to get top-notch care. I reverse my prejudice against bearers of black eyes, accepting a shiner as merit. Just call it a bravery mark. After all, pity those who get hit in other, more vulnerable body parts and bear the pain, but with nothing cool to show for it.
Top photo: Bigstock
