My First Drunk

CATEGORY: MEDICAL INTERPRETING, DOCTORS, INTERPRETERS

“Hi, good evening. Did you call a medical interpreter?” I ask a nurse on the other side of the line. “I’ll be right there with you," I say. “Don’t worry,” the nurse answers. “There’s no rush. The guy’s drunk. He’s not going anywhere.”

It was my first call as a new Spanish medical interpreter on-call on the third shift from midnight to eight in the morning. It was also “my first drunk,” though, of course, he wasn't.

There was the friend in college, whom everybody loved, and everybody laughed with every time he would get intoxicated (which, by the way, doesn’t mean the same in Spanish – take note: in Spanish, “intoxicado” does not necessarily refer to a person who has been ingesting alcohol or is drug overdosed. In many cultures, intoxicado means nauseous. In a very sad case of a medical interpretation gone wrong in 1980, a Spanish-speaking teenager from the state of Florida became quadraplegic because of a confusion that began with the erroneous interpretation of the word.)

But back to my narration: Every time my college friend got drunk, everybody around him became a “loved one.” “I love you my man!” where the words he would dedicate anyone next to him, as he hugged them and burst into tears -- a memory which would surely follow him every single day -- and certainly years -- after the facts, beckoning to be recounted.

There was also the guy in my barrio -- everybody’s favorite borrachito. Usually, he was the guy who’d sell us the verduras – batata, mamey, and other root vegetables – or sometimes the aguacates (avocado). We knew when he was off-duty when he would emerge down the hill with a bottle of rum in place of the bag of aguacates, zigzagging and singing some happy tune.

Then, there was the kind (a failed relationship) that upon getting drunk would wait for my young grandmother at the balcony, after she'd come back from work, yelling away his frustrations, furiously layering on her offensive lines and recriminations, “until I felt sleepy and went to bed,” she recounted.

That night at the hospital, during my first service as a medical interpreter I would learn of a few other kinds of "drunk," some of which would give my heart a bit more grief than the previous ones.

At the hospital I learned how some drunks are big and despite their size, get drunk with just a few beers; meanwhile, others are tiny men capable of withstanding the weight of an entire night drinking with hardly any trouble, except almost total desiccation. (Categories and classifications always begin on the surface, of course.)

The big guys drink away the wives who stab them as their four children watch, while others sleep on the street, living to drink until they pass out. They mumble until their sobs take a hold of their uttering, confessing their lives in tears while the monitor transcribes its own version of the breaking of an already broken heart in waves that oscillate at random.

Still, others, the pros, no matter how dehydrated their bodies, look almost sober. They sound fine, they articulate almost too well, and remain alert and aware. Only the brutal shaking of their bodies -- their shaking chills -- and the odor emanating from their abused bodies give away their state.

Such was the first patient I would ever interpret for: a Mexican man in his late thirties whom the police had escorted to the emergency department.

His breath was the most obnoxious substance I have ever smelled in my entire life until I met him. Positioned at about five feet of distance, the odor coming from his mouth would startle the nose.


"How many beers did you have today?" the doctor asked. "About 35 cans," the man said. "When did you start drinking?" the physician continued. "From Friday to Saturday at dawn. I always get these shakes when I am done drinking," the man said. "What about the vomiting? What did you do differently this time? Do you always vomit and shake?" asked the doctor. "I was vomiting, and shaking," he added. "When I drink, when I'm done, I start shaking. My whole body starts shaking."


"Do you have anyone we can call so they can pick you up once you are done here?"

"No. I don't have anyone."

"Where do you live?"

"I sleep on the street where I can."

"Where do you usually stay?"

"I hang around the square."

"Have you been to the shelters?"

"What's that?" the man asks me. I explain, "Where people without homes go to sleep and to eat."

"No," says the man. "They told me of one near here, but I don't know how to get there so I haven't gone."

"Well," says the physician, "we're going wait a couple of hours to see how you are feeling, so you can stay here for a couple of hours. Where are you going after here?

"I'll go to the square."

"Well, you can stay here for a couple hours, see how you're feeling, and when you're ready to go, we can let you go."

"Can I go now?"

"Do you feel ready now?"

"Yes, I am ready."

"Do you feel well?"

"I am OK," he says, his body still shaking violently.

The doctor offers an ironic smile. “Sure,” he says.

"Do you have questions for me?" he asks the man, gently. "Can you help me to take a taxi?" the man asks.

"I can call one but I can't pay for it. "

"Ah… well, then I can't take it because I don't have any money."

"You could take the bus."

"But the bus is two bucks, one buck or two bucks, and I don't have nothing on me here."

"Do you have any other question for me?" The physician asks. The man looks around, searching for his answer. "Do you have any soda?" he says finally.

"Well, we have Gingerelle? Is that good?" the physician asks. The man nods. The physician turns to me, the interpreter, and adds jokingly, “since I’m serving tonight, would you like a soda too?”

A soon as the doctor makes it back to the room, the man asks again if he can leave. "Can I take these things off?" he says, as he attempts to take off the intravenous lines that were placed in him in an effort to hydrate his body.

"Give us a few seconds,” the doctor answers. “Just wait here calmly, and someone will be back soon to remove those."

I step outside to wait, and a few minutes later, when the nurse enters the room, I follow. The nurse starts removing the IV lines. As he does this, he begins a very fast chatter with me about how this man is still shaking, “Look at him!” he says in English. He is very drunk and he won't stop shaking because that's what you get when you stop drinking. You shake like crazy. And you know what will help him right now? You know the only thing that will help him right now? The thing that'll help him is to drink! That's right, the only thing that will actually stop his shaking is that he takes another drink. Actually, that's what they used to do in some places around here in the past. They used to give them a drink at the emergency room when they arrived, because they knew that’s the only thing that will help them. You know what he'll do when he gets out of the hospital, right? Yup! He's gonna go drink again. He won't stop. He should, stop, but he won't. He can't. Once he starts shaking again, he knows what he has to do.

The nurse is talking very fast, and of course the man knows that he is the subject of such animated monologue. This isn't the first time he's heard it -- in either language, English or Spanish. I should not stop interpreting. I shouldn't, but I have stopped, and the reason is twofold.

It isn't that I cannot keep up with the nurse's speech rhythm; it's that the nurse isn't speaking to he man, but about him, in his presence, trusting that I, the interpreter, am on his side -- the side of the medical team. The nurse is treating me like a comrade, and it's flattering to a new intepreter; but I cannot be either person's comrade: I can't pick a team. I can't pick sides. I must serve both parties, even though my fear is that the man, my drunk, sees me as another stranger, another judge of him -- "one of them," not exactly an unbiased preoccupation, I am aware.

And I don't want to interpret and repeat what the nurse probably means, "yeah, man, he thinks you will be a drunk all of your life, and you'll never stop hurting yourself. He really believes you'll get out of here but to get another drink until you're back here again. And yes, he truly is convinced that you will remain in this hellish cycle until the day you die!" I cannot possibly tell the man what the nurse is saying. So instead, this is the interpretation I offer : "He is saying that the reason you are trembling is because you drank too much, and he really thinks you should stop drinking. He says that if you keep on drinking you are going to feel terrible again. He says that drinking is not good for you. You should really stop, you know?" My drunk looks at me, a deep look in his eyes, and smiles softly.

The nurse has finished his job and leaves, and though I should leave too, I stay. "You are so young, and able,” I tell the man. He smiles and looks at me in disbelief. “You are!” I continue, “You can do better. Why don’t you seek help so you don’t have to drink anymore," says Snow Brown to the ill, while little birdies sing melodious songs around them. The man replies: "Yeah. (pause) yeah," but only out of courtesy, I suspect. Then he looks at me, like he knows, like I know, like we all know…

"Take care, alright?" I say. "Do you have two bucks you can give me for the bus?" he asks. I go search for my wallet, and I come back with exactly one dollar and fifty cents.

[Note: details about people have been changed to protect people's identities.]