Street Prostitute 37- Photographing Ronda
Here is where you can read a sample of Volume 2 that begins with Ronda's first day in the hospital:
I hope you you will consider purchasing one of the books, which are described on this video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWgnO6fZqmM
****************************************************************************
(This photo was taken the day after the following story)
_____________
10:30 P.M.
"George, this is Tim G______."
His voice sounds grim.
"I'm calling from Grady Hospital," he says. "Ronda's here, and it looks like she's gonna be here for a while."
"What's wrong with her?" I ask.
"They say she's got a staph infection and a heart murmur."
"What room is she in?"
"Still in the emergency room."
"I'll be right down."
As I'm throwing on some clothes, I wonder:
Should I take my camera? My recorder?
No, I reluctantly but quickly decide. Because if I do, Ronda might think that the only reason I've come is to document the event for the book.
In ten minutes, I'm parked near the county hospital for indigents—a mammoth hulk of a building. Hurrying on foot past the ambulances and police cars jamming the rampway to the emergency room, I look down just in time to avoid stepping in a puddle of blood.
Once inside, the first person I see is Tim. (Note: Tim is a trick of Ronda’s, an educated middle-class social worker who knows Ronda well, and who told me during a long interview that he is in love with her; and, according to Ronda, offered the other day to take her away from it all and move up to the mountains with him.) He's down in a squatting position right outside the doors to the emergency room. His face is buried in his hands.
He looks up at me with eyes wet from tears. He stands and leads me through one of two huge swinging doors into the emergency room.
The place is like a tunnel. A long and windowless tunnel. Lining both walls are stretchers. Every one appears to be occupied, and every one of their occupants appears to be black and elderly.
Nurses and orderlies, doctors and police officers are bustling here and there — mostly in and out of the examining rooms, which run the length of the right-hand side of the corridor.
Tim and I proceed onward...until, about halfway down, Tim stops and points to the open door of one of the examining rooms.
I take a few steps further, peer in, and there see Ronda..
.
...Who looks awful.
She's in a raised-up hospital bed, an IV protruding from her neck....
She's holding a teddy bear—Joey, her favorite. With both arms, she’s clutching him tightly to her chest.
Also in the room is a man in white—a doctor no doubt. Standing with his back to Ronda, he is writing something... working, I realize at that second, on her chart.
Tim waits outside in the tunnell while I go on in and stand beside Ronda in her bed.
"Hi, George," she says, her voice weak but warm.
"Hi, Ronda..."
I start to hold her hand...hesitate... But then I go ahead: I put my hand over hers, holding it.
"How're you doing?"
"I'm worried about Melvin," she answers. "What's Melvin gonna do?"
"Ronda, I think you should be concerned about yourself right now," I tell her.
I glance at the doctor, his back still to us.
"Dr. Grumwald?" Ronda catches his attention. "I'd like you to meet George Mitchell," she says as he turns. "He's the one I told you about that's writing the book about me."
"What's the situation?" I ask him. He is handsome, tall and curly-haired. In his early thirties.
"All we know for sure right now—" [his demeanor serious]—"is that she has an infection of the skin called cellulitis. Which is usually caused by dirty needles. But she could also have endocarditis. We're running tests for endocarditis now."
As the doctor is talking, Ronda slowly moves her hand from underneath mine. I've held it, I realize, a little too long for her comfort.
I bring out my notepad. "En—do—car—di—tis? What's that?"
"An infection of the heart valve," says Dr. Grunwald. "Bacteria gets on the heart valve, and it sits on the valve and chews it up. It is extremely serious, and if she has it, we might have to do open heart surgery. To replace the heart valve.”
He takes a breath.
“And I want to impress upon Ronda—and upon you—just how serious the situation is."
With that, he leaves the room.
Ronda groans.
"A nurse took a blood sample from here"—she gingerly places her hand over her abdomen—"and she messed up and hit a bone."
I wince... "Is it hurting?"
"Hell yeah, it's hurting!" her voice picks up energy. "And, goddammit, I want decent medical care! This IV has fallen out of my neck twice."
"Why did they put it in your neck?"
"Because they said— They said that they couldn't find enough—enough—undamaged—vein in my arm."
Ronda is very upset.
"And they've taken so many blood samples, it's a wonder I got any blood left. They ain't taking no more blood from me either. Uh uh. [Shaking her head.] I don't want to see another needle."
Someone in the doorway. Two nurses.
Addressing me, the older one says, "I'm sorry, sir, but you're going to have to leave. We need another blood sample."
Ronda's lips tighten. She sets Joey aside and folds her hands across her lap. She stares at the ceiling.
"Do you want me to stick around?" I ask her.
Keeping her eyes on the ceiling, she gives a quick little nod.
I step out into the hubbub of humanity in the tunnel, where I immediately see Melvin. Talking with him is a young and attractive black woman holding a clipboard with pen poised above it. I check her name tag as I join them. Dr. Wendy Clayton.
"And who," she is asking amicably, "should be called in case of an emergency?"
Melvin sits there appearing uncertain.
"Me," he says finally.
Melvin solely responsible for Ronda? Melvin?! In the condition that Ronda is in?
I ask the doctor to put my name down as well.
And with no questions asked, she does; and then moves on, leaving the seat next to Melvin available to me.
"So what happened, Melvin?" I ask, sitting down.
"Well, last night her arm started swelling," he relates. "And then this morning, her leg started swelling too. And she got a real high fever, and she was hurting. But", he says, "she wanted to wait until Tim got off work to go to the hospital, so she'd have a ride here and back. See, she thought that they'd just give her a shot and she could go home—but when we got here, the doctor told her she'd have to stay. And so then she said that since they wouldn't give her anything for pain, she was going to go home and do a Dilaudid."
Melvin appears as unruffled as ever. I, though, need a cigarette and need one desperately.
"Melvin, you wanna go have a cigarette?"
"No, I believe I'll just stick around in here."
Just outside the big swinging doors where I'd originally found Tim squatting, I now find him pacing. He comes over to me as I'm firing up my cigarette.
"Okay, Tim," I say, "let me get your report. What happened?"And pretty soon he’s taking up where Melvin left off…when Ronda announced she was going to leave and get one more shot of Dilaudid…
"And I said to the doctor, I said, 'Doctor, tell her what's gonna happen if she leaves here and doesn't come back!' And he said, 'Well, your arm will puss out, and it'll have to come off. If it doesn't kill you.' And then she was raising hell, raising hell. Big scene, big scene. And she slugged me in the jaw."
"She hit you?"
"Yeah, she nailed me! Because I wasn't gonna take her anywhere. But finally I said, 'Fuck it! If this is the only way, fine, let's go get high!
"So she got her pill, and she shot herself up, and she shot Melvin up, and we came back here. Came in, and the doctor knew what she had done; he just chewed her ass out good.
"And by this time, man, I thought I was having a heart attack, and so I had to go through all this hassle. Finally they wheeled me into an examining room—the one next door to Ronda's—and gave me an EKG."
"They gave you an EKG?"
"Yeah, but I was okay. So...."
"Listen, Tim, I appreciate you calling me. I really do appreciate it."
"When I told Melvin I'd called you, he said, 'Yeah, George'll be coming in here with his tape recorder rolling and his flash bulbs popping.'"
"I considered bringing them," I confess.
"Well, I'm glad you didn't, man."
When Tim squats down, I squat down next to him. I light up another cigarette.
"Ronda told me," I reveal, "that you asked her to leave the city and go away with you."
"Yeah," Tim confirms, "I told her that she could just ,you know, drop it all and start over, and we could move to the mountains. And before you got here tonight, I went in and renewed the offer. And she just looked at me, and she asked me: 'Why would anybody want me?'"
When I get up, Tim does too, and we push open the big swinging doors and again begin making our way down that long teeming tunnel. We meet up with Melvin right outside Ronda's room.
The door is open. In there with Ronda now is a new nurse, who is wrapping gauze around her right arm to hold in place a splint.
Tim, Melvin and I stand watching.
Suddenly there are only two of us watching the scene; Tim has become a part of it. He's marching into the room and up to Ronda's bed, where he kisses her rather awkwardly on the forehead.
I sneak a glance at Melvin to see what his reaction might be, but can detect none.
Tim comes right back out...and again the three of us watch. A mass of gauze by now encircles Ronda's arm, and the nurse is securing it with adhesive tape.
Again Tim goes in. And again kisses Ronda, on the cheek this time, and then comes back out.
Now a wheelchair is brought in.
The nurse starts to help Ronda into it, but Ronda, holding up her hand, stops her, indicating that she wants to do it on her own. Sitting up, she lowers her swollen foot to the floor. When she attempts to stand up, though, she winces in pain.
"That's a sick girl," mutters Tim.
He's right about that, I think, as Ronda allows the nurse to help her into the wheelchair... She is a sick girl.
From her wheelchair, Ronda looks up at the nurse and points toward the bed. Joey's still there.
Ronda wants her teddy bear.
_________________
This concludes the story of photographing Ronda.
You may view many more photos and read a lot about her in the two volumes of my ebook, RONDA: AN INTIMATE PORTRAIT OF A SOUTHERN STREETWALKER
Here is where you may read and view a sample of Volume One: www.amazon.com/dp/B0755CS9ZJ/
And here is where you can read a sample of Volume 2 that begins with Ronda's first day in the hospital:
I hope you have enjoyed this album and will enjoy the books, which are described on this video:
Street Prostitute 37- Photographing Ronda
Here is where you can read a sample of Volume 2 that begins with Ronda's first day in the hospital:
I hope you you will consider purchasing one of the books, which are described on this video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWgnO6fZqmM
****************************************************************************
(This photo was taken the day after the following story)
_____________
10:30 P.M.
"George, this is Tim G______."
His voice sounds grim.
"I'm calling from Grady Hospital," he says. "Ronda's here, and it looks like she's gonna be here for a while."
"What's wrong with her?" I ask.
"They say she's got a staph infection and a heart murmur."
"What room is she in?"
"Still in the emergency room."
"I'll be right down."
As I'm throwing on some clothes, I wonder:
Should I take my camera? My recorder?
No, I reluctantly but quickly decide. Because if I do, Ronda might think that the only reason I've come is to document the event for the book.
In ten minutes, I'm parked near the county hospital for indigents—a mammoth hulk of a building. Hurrying on foot past the ambulances and police cars jamming the rampway to the emergency room, I look down just in time to avoid stepping in a puddle of blood.
Once inside, the first person I see is Tim. (Note: Tim is a trick of Ronda’s, an educated middle-class social worker who knows Ronda well, and who told me during a long interview that he is in love with her; and, according to Ronda, offered the other day to take her away from it all and move up to the mountains with him.) He's down in a squatting position right outside the doors to the emergency room. His face is buried in his hands.
He looks up at me with eyes wet from tears. He stands and leads me through one of two huge swinging doors into the emergency room.
The place is like a tunnel. A long and windowless tunnel. Lining both walls are stretchers. Every one appears to be occupied, and every one of their occupants appears to be black and elderly.
Nurses and orderlies, doctors and police officers are bustling here and there — mostly in and out of the examining rooms, which run the length of the right-hand side of the corridor.
Tim and I proceed onward...until, about halfway down, Tim stops and points to the open door of one of the examining rooms.
I take a few steps further, peer in, and there see Ronda..
.
...Who looks awful.
She's in a raised-up hospital bed, an IV protruding from her neck....
She's holding a teddy bear—Joey, her favorite. With both arms, she’s clutching him tightly to her chest.
Also in the room is a man in white—a doctor no doubt. Standing with his back to Ronda, he is writing something... working, I realize at that second, on her chart.
Tim waits outside in the tunnell while I go on in and stand beside Ronda in her bed.
"Hi, George," she says, her voice weak but warm.
"Hi, Ronda..."
I start to hold her hand...hesitate... But then I go ahead: I put my hand over hers, holding it.
"How're you doing?"
"I'm worried about Melvin," she answers. "What's Melvin gonna do?"
"Ronda, I think you should be concerned about yourself right now," I tell her.
I glance at the doctor, his back still to us.
"Dr. Grumwald?" Ronda catches his attention. "I'd like you to meet George Mitchell," she says as he turns. "He's the one I told you about that's writing the book about me."
"What's the situation?" I ask him. He is handsome, tall and curly-haired. In his early thirties.
"All we know for sure right now—" [his demeanor serious]—"is that she has an infection of the skin called cellulitis. Which is usually caused by dirty needles. But she could also have endocarditis. We're running tests for endocarditis now."
As the doctor is talking, Ronda slowly moves her hand from underneath mine. I've held it, I realize, a little too long for her comfort.
I bring out my notepad. "En—do—car—di—tis? What's that?"
"An infection of the heart valve," says Dr. Grunwald. "Bacteria gets on the heart valve, and it sits on the valve and chews it up. It is extremely serious, and if she has it, we might have to do open heart surgery. To replace the heart valve.”
He takes a breath.
“And I want to impress upon Ronda—and upon you—just how serious the situation is."
With that, he leaves the room.
Ronda groans.
"A nurse took a blood sample from here"—she gingerly places her hand over her abdomen—"and she messed up and hit a bone."
I wince... "Is it hurting?"
"Hell yeah, it's hurting!" her voice picks up energy. "And, goddammit, I want decent medical care! This IV has fallen out of my neck twice."
"Why did they put it in your neck?"
"Because they said— They said that they couldn't find enough—enough—undamaged—vein in my arm."
Ronda is very upset.
"And they've taken so many blood samples, it's a wonder I got any blood left. They ain't taking no more blood from me either. Uh uh. [Shaking her head.] I don't want to see another needle."
Someone in the doorway. Two nurses.
Addressing me, the older one says, "I'm sorry, sir, but you're going to have to leave. We need another blood sample."
Ronda's lips tighten. She sets Joey aside and folds her hands across her lap. She stares at the ceiling.
"Do you want me to stick around?" I ask her.
Keeping her eyes on the ceiling, she gives a quick little nod.
I step out into the hubbub of humanity in the tunnel, where I immediately see Melvin. Talking with him is a young and attractive black woman holding a clipboard with pen poised above it. I check her name tag as I join them. Dr. Wendy Clayton.
"And who," she is asking amicably, "should be called in case of an emergency?"
Melvin sits there appearing uncertain.
"Me," he says finally.
Melvin solely responsible for Ronda? Melvin?! In the condition that Ronda is in?
I ask the doctor to put my name down as well.
And with no questions asked, she does; and then moves on, leaving the seat next to Melvin available to me.
"So what happened, Melvin?" I ask, sitting down.
"Well, last night her arm started swelling," he relates. "And then this morning, her leg started swelling too. And she got a real high fever, and she was hurting. But", he says, "she wanted to wait until Tim got off work to go to the hospital, so she'd have a ride here and back. See, she thought that they'd just give her a shot and she could go home—but when we got here, the doctor told her she'd have to stay. And so then she said that since they wouldn't give her anything for pain, she was going to go home and do a Dilaudid."
Melvin appears as unruffled as ever. I, though, need a cigarette and need one desperately.
"Melvin, you wanna go have a cigarette?"
"No, I believe I'll just stick around in here."
Just outside the big swinging doors where I'd originally found Tim squatting, I now find him pacing. He comes over to me as I'm firing up my cigarette.
"Okay, Tim," I say, "let me get your report. What happened?"And pretty soon he’s taking up where Melvin left off…when Ronda announced she was going to leave and get one more shot of Dilaudid…
"And I said to the doctor, I said, 'Doctor, tell her what's gonna happen if she leaves here and doesn't come back!' And he said, 'Well, your arm will puss out, and it'll have to come off. If it doesn't kill you.' And then she was raising hell, raising hell. Big scene, big scene. And she slugged me in the jaw."
"She hit you?"
"Yeah, she nailed me! Because I wasn't gonna take her anywhere. But finally I said, 'Fuck it! If this is the only way, fine, let's go get high!
"So she got her pill, and she shot herself up, and she shot Melvin up, and we came back here. Came in, and the doctor knew what she had done; he just chewed her ass out good.
"And by this time, man, I thought I was having a heart attack, and so I had to go through all this hassle. Finally they wheeled me into an examining room—the one next door to Ronda's—and gave me an EKG."
"They gave you an EKG?"
"Yeah, but I was okay. So...."
"Listen, Tim, I appreciate you calling me. I really do appreciate it."
"When I told Melvin I'd called you, he said, 'Yeah, George'll be coming in here with his tape recorder rolling and his flash bulbs popping.'"
"I considered bringing them," I confess.
"Well, I'm glad you didn't, man."
When Tim squats down, I squat down next to him. I light up another cigarette.
"Ronda told me," I reveal, "that you asked her to leave the city and go away with you."
"Yeah," Tim confirms, "I told her that she could just ,you know, drop it all and start over, and we could move to the mountains. And before you got here tonight, I went in and renewed the offer. And she just looked at me, and she asked me: 'Why would anybody want me?'"
When I get up, Tim does too, and we push open the big swinging doors and again begin making our way down that long teeming tunnel. We meet up with Melvin right outside Ronda's room.
The door is open. In there with Ronda now is a new nurse, who is wrapping gauze around her right arm to hold in place a splint.
Tim, Melvin and I stand watching.
Suddenly there are only two of us watching the scene; Tim has become a part of it. He's marching into the room and up to Ronda's bed, where he kisses her rather awkwardly on the forehead.
I sneak a glance at Melvin to see what his reaction might be, but can detect none.
Tim comes right back out...and again the three of us watch. A mass of gauze by now encircles Ronda's arm, and the nurse is securing it with adhesive tape.
Again Tim goes in. And again kisses Ronda, on the cheek this time, and then comes back out.
Now a wheelchair is brought in.
The nurse starts to help Ronda into it, but Ronda, holding up her hand, stops her, indicating that she wants to do it on her own. Sitting up, she lowers her swollen foot to the floor. When she attempts to stand up, though, she winces in pain.
"That's a sick girl," mutters Tim.
He's right about that, I think, as Ronda allows the nurse to help her into the wheelchair... She is a sick girl.
From her wheelchair, Ronda looks up at the nurse and points toward the bed. Joey's still there.
Ronda wants her teddy bear.
_________________
This concludes the story of photographing Ronda.
You may view many more photos and read a lot about her in the two volumes of my ebook, RONDA: AN INTIMATE PORTRAIT OF A SOUTHERN STREETWALKER
Here is where you may read and view a sample of Volume One: www.amazon.com/dp/B0755CS9ZJ/
And here is where you can read a sample of Volume 2 that begins with Ronda's first day in the hospital:
I hope you have enjoyed this album and will enjoy the books, which are described on this video: