Small southern towns and queers. I am a lesbian nurse practitioner. I work with a gay physician. We practice in a very small, rural, redneck, ill-educated, conservative town. And we are accepted. Of course, we don't have a sign up that says Gay Health Care, nor are we flamingly "out". But neither are we secretive. And it is interesting how we are received. Mostly, our orientation is overlooked, which is fine. I don't feel a need to impose my personal life on professional exchanges. But even those who would never openly acknowledge that Doc or I might be gay will ask about Jack, Doc's partner, as if it were a very ordinary social inquiry. Which it is, or should be. But it still amazes me that this can happen HERE.

While we were working to get our office ready to open a couple of months ago, Doc's 8 year old daughter asked the carpenter if he had a wife. "No," he said, in his quiet, manly-man voice. "Well," the girl persisted, "Do you have a HUSBAND?"

I thought I would howl. Mr. Carpenter just lifted one eyebrow and grinned at me, and said, "Nope. Don't have one of them neither." The girl had exhausted her line of inquiry and wandered away.

We have several AIDS patients. I had to sew up the lacerated hand of one such man one day. He declined a pain shot saying, "I'm feeling really butch today." But when he saw the needle for the numbing medication (a tiny thing, a quarter of an inch long, not much more diameter than a hair) he shrieked. And in a tiny voice said, "I don't feel so butch after all..." I love him. We never talked about gayness, but I get the feeling he picked up on mine, thus feeling free to be himself with me. We never talked about it, but we joke around a lot whenever he comes in and are very comfortable with one another.

One patient to whom I make home visits confided recently that she has a lesbian daughter. She doesn't understand, but she reckons it is all right, especially since daughter's lover is more likely to call and check on her than the daughter.

And I am sidetracked here. Ths patient, whom I'll call Mary, and her husband I'll call Archie, are both well into their 90s. I first met Archie while we were working on getting the office opened. He drove up VERY slowly in an ancient rusting car that was still not nearly as old as Archie himself. He demanded a B12 shot. He was feeling weak and tired (which never entered his mind could be a result of being 97) and wanted it fixed NOW. We hadn't even ordered supplies yet, but we are right next to a drug store, so I bought a bottle of B12 ($1.98) and a syringe ($3.00) and gave him his shot. He held my Boston Terrier, Bug, while I injected him. Bug tried to lick his face off. He tried to pay me, which I refused. I prayed he made it home okay driving 8 miles an hour. But this IS a small town. Everyone knows his car and gives him wide berth.

Once the office opened, I got a call from Archie. He was not really feeling better, and his car had quit running. I told him I'd come see him. Doc had known him for a long time, so I asked Doc what I ought to take on this visit. He suggested more B12, a decadron shot (a steroid, similar to prednisone), and an antibiotic shot. Thus supplied, I headed out.

Archie's house is surrounded with wrecks of old cars, dozens of them. (my pop has always said it is the hallmark of poverty to have several old cars littered in your yard.) Three small yapping dogs greeted me. There was roof all over the ground surrounding the house. As Mary let me in, Archie irritable told her, "Wait, wait, I'm not finished." He was vacuuming the rug.

I waited until he was done to his satisfaction and came in. There was a huge gaping hole in the ceiling, patched with green plastic garbage bags. There were several more little yappy dogs, apparently some odd mixture of Chihuahua, terrier and dachsund. There were more roaches than you could shake a stick at. There were some excellent drawings framed on the walls. The freshly vacuumed carpet now looked ready to be sown with grass seed. Oddly enough, it smelled pleasant. Not chemically pleasant like air fresheners or such, just -- nice. Like warm, clean humans and dogs.

I sat and was served with sweet tea. We chatted for quite a while, talked about the artist friend who had done the drawings they treasured, the dogs, (and Archie asked after Bug), about how hard times have been for the old couple since the contractor they hired to fix their roof tore off the old one, left it lying in the yard, and never completed the job of replacing it. Archie told me that rats come in sometimes through the hole in the ceiling and the biggest one he's shot was the size of a cat.

Finally, I was able to examine him. His heart was irregularly irregular (as opposed to regularly irregular). His lungs were clear. He had a little tenderness over his lower belly. I took a urine specimen and gave him the shots I had brought. He was pleased. I wasn't. I felt his heart was the reason he wasn't feeling up to snuff, but he refused to let me send him to the hospital. There would be no one to care for his old woman if he went. As gently as I could, I asked him who would care for her if he died. He said he knew he was going to die eventually, and in that case the lesbians would have to take care of her, but until he died he was going to do it himself. Period. No argument. I don't agree with him, but it is his decision. I left.

My next visit was because he still hadn't gotten his car running, and he wanted another few shots. He had offhandedly said something about not being able to get to the grocery store (the lesbians live in Las Vegas) so I stopped on the way and bought groceries. I was worried about him and Mary not having food. I bought toilet paper too. If you can't get out to get groceries, I don't suppose you are getting any TP either. And dog food. They have a lot of puppies.

They were pleased with the groceries. And I felt good about bringing them. I felt even better when, during my visit, the lady who owns the local Pizza Chef dropped off some lasagna and salads. Archie said to me, "It's amazing. People like you and that lady, and other people, they just BRING us stuff. I used to think we might starve without a car, but nobody'll let us do that."

Some things are right in the world.