Reading a Man

Judy Melinek is a medical examiner for New York City. She autopsies dead bodies. 

On this day off she’s just seen a movie with her husband, T. J. They are enthusing about the movie while waiting in line at a taqueria. Judy casually looks at the back of the man in front of them in line. I love the way what she observes begins to come together for her into a portrait not just of the man’s lifestyle but in particular something that happened to him. Any of us could have picked up on the man’s sex, age, clothes, but it’s the thing at the back of the man’s head that Judy recognizes from her job. 

He was a huge man — six two easily — in his midtwenties, with a shaved head and nickel-sized black lacquer plugs piercing both earlobes. His forearms were covered with the sort of tattoos I had seen on drug users as a way of camouflaging needle tracks. Some of them I recognized as prison badges. The thing that really startled me, though, was the back of the man’s neck. He had a perfectly circular scar at the base of his skull just to the left of midline, and a vertical, linear, well-healed surgical cicatrice extending down his cervical spine. …

This man had done something awhile ago that had induced somebody to shoot him carefully in the back of the head. Based on the rough diameter of the scar, the shooter probably used a .22 or other small-caliber weapon at close range. The blow had knocked the tattooed man down and probably out, but the bullet lodged in the thick bulb of bone at the butt of the skull and didn’t penetrate. A skilled surgeon had extracted the slug, stemmed the bleeding and saved [the man’s] life. I could even see the textbook pinprick scars of the suture staples on either side of the old incision going down his neck.

As they are eating, Judy and her husband notice the man is sitting nearby. Is he casing them? T. J. begins talking loudly about Judy’s police colleagues, naming them, wondering who is on duty in this precinct. The man with the scar abruptly gets up, leaving his drink unfinished on his table.

Based on her expertise Judy Melinek could read a lot more here than the average person. She is humble enough to say that she could have been misreading the situation, that the man may not have been looking to rob them. 

I love the way people with a particular expertise can see through things that to the untrained eye would be opaque. This doesn’t mean they always get it right. But their education gives them access to information that they just might be able to use. 

source: Working Stiff: two years, 262 bodies, and the making of medical examiner

by Judy Melinek, M.D., and T. J. Mitchell