A Phrenologist's Dream

Working one Saturday night, I walk in to see a man whose face and chest is covered in blood.  I could see he was bleeding from multiple lacerations to his scalp and he was obviously intoxicated.  Drunk people tend to fall into two classes; the happy drunk or the angry, belligerent drunk.  Luckily for me, this was a happy drunk.

"Wow, what happened to you?", I said.

"My wife caught me with my girlfriend tonight and hit me with a hammer",  he said.

"Wives are funny that way, aren't they?  Most just don't like it when you have a girlfriend too. Did you get knocked out or are you hurt anywhere else?", I said.

"Nope.  Just my head." he said.

As I examine the man I'll call Leon, I find that he has a total of twelve lacerations to various places on his scalp.  Each laceration was about two centimeters long.  His head was a large tangle of hair, blood and large knots on his scalp.

"Man, a phrenologist would go crazy with you", I said to Leon.

"A what?"

"A phrenologist.  It's a person who is supposed to be able to tell you what kind of person you are, or what your future may hold, by reading the bumps on your scalp."

"That's funny doc!  Am I gonna be ok?"

"Yeah", I said.  "We just need to clean up your wounds and repair your lacerations.  You'll be fine."

In order to repair his lacerations, I had to try to wash all the blood out of his hair and then trim a little of the hair away from the edges of the lacerations.  After this was accomplished, the wounds were repaired.  Each wound was closed with two metallic skin staples.  After I had repaired his lacerations, the nurse took the patient to a decontamination shower in the ER so he could finish washing his hair and getting all the blood off himself.

We keep a closet full of donated clothing for people to wear if their clothes are ruined from blood, urine, excrement or whatever.  Leon went to the clothes closet and, of his own free-will, chose a stunning blue polyester leisure suit to wear home.  His clothes were completely ruined by his own blood and beer.  Leon slept off his alcohol in the ER for a few hours.  When he awoke, it was Sunday morning.

I will never forget the sight of Leon walking past me as he left the ER that Sunday morning.  He was quite a sight in his polyester powder blue suit with twelve small bald spots on his scalp; each one containing two metallic skin staples.  He could be off to church with Jim Jones or to some zombie prom.