The
Chickasaw
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Chapter 3 of a work in progress by John R. Guthrie
Chickasaw:
The Good Times and Hard Life of Doctor Christopher Jacques
Chapter
3: The Casting Room Pas de Deux
Leaving Christopher Jacques behind, Lilith rushed across the hospital
parking lot, knowing that she was already late. She pulled the hood of her
parka up as the snow angled down, pelting her nose and cheeks. Lilith knew that
she’d be understaffed, at least for a while, as those of the nursing staff who
lived in outlying areas fought their way through the storm. Horrendous snowstorms
were rare in Austerity, so it wasn’t cost-effective to pay for efficient snow
removal. Snow storms then were all the more disruptive when they did
occur.
When she arrived at
the green steel door marked “EMPLOYEES ONLY,” though, rushed or not, she
stopped as she pulled open the door and looked back. Christopher Jacques, still
in his car, was twisted around, getting something from the back seat. Well, I could have waved bye, just to be
polite. That wouldn’t signify anything beyond courtesy, but he’s not looking
anyway. Maybe that’s better. Her hesitation lasted only for a moment. Then, remembering she was already late, she
turned back and entered as the door shoosh-clattered shut behind her.
***
Jacques entered his
four hospital patients’ rooms in sequence, snow like white petals still
floating down outside the wide windows of each room. Once rounds were done, he
left by way of medical records. Not bothering to sit, in the room lined with
cubicles for dictation and steel shelves stacked with charts, he picked up his
charts from the shelf and. Entering the first cubicle, he leaned over the desk
and signed off on a dozen typed-up discharge summaries for patients who had
recently left the hospital.
Within minutes of
his arrival at his clinic, three blocks and three minutes away from the
hospital, Jacques and Nurse Anna Jolley had fallen into the rhythm of the
morning, going from room to room and seeing each patient in turn. It was nearly
lunch time when the pager clipped to his belt sounded its alarm and then
squawked “Dr, Jacques, please call the switchboard at Austerity Regional.” Anna
stepped out to answer the call while he continued seeing patients. She returned
shortly, knocking before entering the exam room, then sticking her head in
through the partly opened door and saying, “It’s the emergency room. Grady
O’Toole fell into the grease pit at his station. Vitals look good, but he’s
hurting bad.”
“Anna. I’m done
with Mr. Eubanks here. If you’ll keep an eye on things, I’ll go see Grady.
Hopefully it won’t be too long.” Dr. Jacques was soon out the back door of the
clinic, arms out for balance as he advanced cautiously on the deepening snow
toward his car. He soon pulled into the physician’s lot adjacent to the
Emergency Room, got out and entered, the automatic doors clanking smartly
sideways on his approach.
“Room three,” the
nurse at the triage desk said. He picked up Grady’s chart as he proceeded
through the wooden double doors to the patient exam area, each scarred by a
million gurney strikes despite the protective aluminum bumper in the
middle.
As he approached
Grady’s cubicle, Lilith McGee brushed aside the privacy curtain and stepped out.
In spite of whatever resolve the two of them had on parting earlier to act with
reserve toward the other, both beamed like the summer sun as they saw each
other.
Dr. Jacques spoke
first. “Lil! Nurse McGee, we can’t go on meeting like this. Besides, I thought
you were First South Charge Nurse today.”
“I was,” Lilith
replied, one hand sliding the curtain shut behind her. She lowered her voice
here. “But we had a mess come in from an accident on 19 South. A
tractor-trailer jackknifed and turned over on a vanload of Mexican construction
workers. Bad, Dr. Jacques, really bad. Of ones that came in alive, one died
right after. Five have major trauma. The last one just went to the floor. Then
there were two that weren't hurt bad at all. We were short-handed on First
South, but the nursing supervisor sent me here because I can interpret Spanish.
I like working emergency better anyway, though. I’ll be here all the time after
this week.”
“Yeah, I like ER
stuff too. Keeps you hopping when it’s busy. Makes the time pass by. How’s
Grady?”
“Oh, my. He’s
hurting so bad he’s on the verge of tears.”
Dr. Jacques nodded
and brushed aside the beige curtain that fronted the cubicle and they stepped
in. Grady lay on his side on the gurney, his left arm splinted and bound to his
chest, and both legs splinted.
“What happened, my friend?” Jacques queried.
He stepped over and placed his hand on Grady’s shoulder.
Hi s brow knitted
as he spoke. “Doc, Lil, Shirley came by. I’d just changed the oil in a car in
the bay with the grease pit in it, and me still trying to get chains on every
car in Austerity at the same time. She came walking in, snow still coming down.
She didn’t even have a coat or a hat on, just a little button up sweater. She
started right in, divorce is a sin, and we ain’t going to have one.”
“She didn’t cut you
again?” Dr. Jacques scanned his uniform for bloodstains.
He shook his head.
“No, she left her box cutter at home this time. I said I ain’t got no time for
this, and she said, you better make time. Don’t you know I love you, you
bastard? Then she picked up a claw hammer and swung it at me. I stepped back,
and I forgot the grease pit was right behind me, and fell in. Landed worse on
this left leg and hand. I was a barely able to breath. Thought I was dying.
“Then she leaned
over the edge of the grease pit, an’ looked down at me and she said, ‘scuse my
language, Lilith, now fool with another woman you motherfucker. Lordy,
this arm sure does hurt.”
Lilith, putting her
hand on the injured man’s arm and shaking her head, said, “Oh, Grady.”
Dr. Jacques, thin
lipped and grim at hearing Grady’s story, looked away from his patient and
scribbled an order for 100 mg of Demerol by injection for Grady, with repeats
available every four hours for twenty-four hours. Lilith stepped out to get
Grady’s shot.
Grady gestured
toward his right leg. ”Besides my arm, this knee’s the worst. Foot’s bad, too.
Other leg and back hurt a little bit, but not near as bad. And I hit my
shoulder on the rim of the grease pit. It’s sore as the dickens. And I think I
might’ve broke my arm when I hit the floor.”
Dr. Jacques glanced
again at the angulated wrist that was splinted against Grady’s chest. He and
Lilith helped Grady to roll onto his back, then Jacques lifted his blue
work-shirt with due deference to the splinted arm and palpated Grady’s abdomen
checking for tender spots that could indicate internal injuries. Chris then
hooked his stethoscope into his ears and placed the bell on Grady’s white chest
where blond hairs sprouted here and there. He listened for the tell-tell
grating that can indicate a broken rib, didn’t hear it, then turned his
attention to the sounds of the heart and lungs.
Dr. Jacques was
still standing, writing on the chart, when Lilith returned with the Demerol loaded
syringe. Jacques stood aside for her. The smell of alcohol filled the air as
she ripped the foil packet with the swab to clean the injection site. Jacques
stopped and watched her. She bit down on the needle cap and pulled the syringe
free. She asked Grady to roll back on his left side and helped him do so with a
push on his hip. Pulling his belted waistband downward, she bared just the rim
of hip, even whiter than his chest, below the waistline. She swabbed a spot
with the alcohol patch, her movements as practiced and poised as those of a
ballerina. He twitched just a little as she drove the needle home, drew back
slightly on the plunger, then injected. Withdrawing the needle, she applied a
Band-Aid, then looked, her gaze lingering a bit on Dr. Jacques, the slightest
of smiles on her face. Was that a
righteous injection or what, Christopher Jacques? I mean, not that I have any
need to impress this doctor. No, I don’t. Not much anyway. As a matter of fact,
if he knew how little I care if he’s impressed, he might die of a broken
heart.
Christopher was
guarded, a little confused. Was she looking for approval? Further instructions?
But maybe, just maybe, because she saw something she liked in him? Still
watching her, he said, “thanks.”
She tilted her
head, smiled slightly, and nodded in reply. Jacques inhaled sharply. Her
cheekbones, already fine, were dramatized by the overhead light, her eyes clear
and steady. In this light, the color of violets. Skin the finest ivory. The
red blaze of her hair was as lovely as a desert sunset. She withdrew the
needle cap from her lips, licked where it had rested with the strawberry tip of
her tongue. She then reached over and dropped it and the empty syringe into the
red container, bolted to the wall, that had the word SHARPS and a demonical
biohazard symbol emblazoned on the front.
Dr. Jacques
realized that he had looked too long at Lilith. Like a besotted schoolboy,
one who’s already made himself seem foolish with this woman. He looked
quickly to his charting again as Lilith busied herself rearranging Grady’s
blanket.
Dr. Jacques, in the
meantime, though he seemed to be focused intently on the chart he held,
continued to admonish himself. Don’t even think about it, Chris Jacques! She
didn’t look at anybody in any way or for any purpose except to consummate the
business at hand, which was to insure the proper care of Grady O’Toole…”
They stepped over
to the desk outside the cubicle and Dr. Jacques leaned over and punched in
Grady’s patient number to call up the ghostly digital images of his arms and
leg.
Dr. Jacques
indicated the break in both bones of the forearm and one at the base of the
hand, visible as dark and irregular lines near the wrist.
“Yep,” Lilith
replied crisply, intent on the Halloweenish images on the screen.
Returning to the
cubicle where Grady, his eyes closed now, lay, Dr. Jacques placed his hand on
Grady’s shoulder to rouse him. “Grady, we need to take you for a little ride.
The bones in your right forearm and one in your hand are broken. You’ll need to
have a cast on that for awhile.”
Grady struggled to
break through the Demerol haze and slurred, “Mmmf. Cash?”
“No, cast. Fiberglass. Just up above your
elbow. Six weeks.”
Grady, eyelids at
half mast, replied from the distant shore of the land of Demerol Dreams, “Well,
whatever y’all think, 'cause I’m in the Lord’s hands. And I’m in yours.”
Dr. Jacques started
to respond, but Grady’s snoring was like the purring of a cat --a two hundred
and twenty-five-pound cat. Dr. Jacques chuckled, and adopting a phony German
accent, said, “Mein Gott, Frau McGee. Such confidence this patient has despite
his dreadful plight. How reassured he is simply by virtue our august presences.
Surely ve must be great healers.”
Lilith replied in
similar tones. “Ja! It’s actually quite simple, isn’t it, Herr Doctor? Demerol!
A true miracle drug! Ve haf perhaps found quite serendipitously the solution to
human suffering!” She delivered her lines deadpan, then laughed our loud in
spite of herself.
Chris, laughing
himself, found great pleasure in this, the spontaneous laugh of a beautiful
woman laughing in spite of herself.
Trying to regain a
serious demeanor but chuckling anyway, they wheeled Grady into the casting
room, Lilith pushing on the nether end of the gurney, Dr. Jacques pulling on a
front corner, looking down to watch the castor wheels shimmy and squeal along.
Once in the yellow-walled and windowless room where casting supplies were
stored in tiers of blue cabinets, their work in applying the fiberglass cast to
Grady’s arm was a seamless pas de deux. Jacques finally wiped his forehead with the
back of his forearm and surveyed their work. He looked up and nodded at Lilith.
“You know your orthopedics, Lil. I’m glad you could be here.”
She smiled at this.
Dr. Jacques shook Grady’s shoulder again to rouse him.
Grady opened one
eye and cleared his throat. “Hmmph?”
“Grady, my friend,
you’ll be better soon. Could’ve been lots worse, 6 feet into that grease pit.
You’re tough, you know. If you need something more for pain, let the nurse
know. The porter will take you up to your room soon. I’ll see you in the
morning.”
“Thanks…” He began
snoring once more, softly at first, but in a steady crescendo as his breathing
deepened.
Dr. Jacques looked
up at Lil again and spoke rather stiffly. “Nurse McGee, as I was saying, I’d of
been in the cast room twice as long without you. Righteous work, just
righteous.”
“Thanks, but hey,
this’s what I get paid for, Doc. I worked in the ortho clinic at MLK-Drew in
Los Angeles. It’s in Watts, you know. Good experience. You see everything
there. When the residents get backed up, if they know you can do it you can do
a lot of things on your own. That includes casting straight forward fractures
yourself after the doc checks them out. You can do that twenty four-seven if
you want to.”
“Busy hospital,” Dr. Jacques replied as he
looked at her. Despite Lilith’s exquisite loveliness, though, for one brief,
unhappy moment, the image of Jacques’ former wife appeared once more. She was
tall and angular, like a model, which she had been in Atlanta. Her face was
contorted with anger as she announced her departure.
“But why?” he
queried.
“Because you don’t
have time for me. And you don’t need me. You’ve got your practice.” With that last scowling look, she slammed the
kitchen door behind her as she left, the engine of her car roaring to life.
She’d backed out of the carport and left, heading he knew, back to her parents’
home in Atlanta’s Buckhead community where she’d grown up, the community of
massive and elegant ante-bellum homes that stood in the vicinity of the world
class shopping at Phipps Mall. He heard from her attorney a week later.
“I’ll work
harder,” he’d vowed, “much harder, just keep my mind off of her.”
The whole thing,
her departure, the ensuing legal battle, all devastating. It was failure,
publicly and shamefully, on a grand scale, grist for the gossip mill that was
Austerity. And failure had never been a part of my vocabulary. Never, never will I let this happen to me
again. Never!
And what a dreadful,
often made affirmation that is; the determination of the wounded self never to
love again, and to live in splendid loneliness in the cold and wind swept
aeries of the soul. And in such vows, as well as much else, Lilith and Chris
were much alike. And yet what few vows are more often made by injured spirits,
and what few and less seldom kept.
Chris turned
quickly and wrote an order on the chart for Grady’s left arm and leg were to be
suspended from a trapeze above his bed to ease the considerable swelling.
But then again, the
countenance of his former wife melted away like frost on a windowpane warmed by
the sun, and Lilith stood before him. Her teeth were even and white against the
carmine of her lips. Her wide and generous smile illuminated the room. As he
looked at her, Christopher recalled for a brief moment Alice’s Cheshire cat,
that entirely lovely cat that had so pleased him as a child as it became naught
but smile.
Neat person for sure, but a neat person I don’t need
right now. I swore off men, after all, when everything went downhill for me in
that respect. And it’s for his sake as much as mine that I don’t need
involvements, not with everything else going on; the California baggage that
still haunts me like a poltergeist. It seems like I ought to be able to just
talk to him, to explain that life goes on, that neither one of us can get on
with our lives until he lets go. Of course, I tried that. Got a black eye out
of it. “I’ll see you dead first,” he said, me lying in the floor, him looking
down at me, “you and anybody you mess around with.” Why? I never wanted all
that much, just to have a decent profession, to help out, to make things
better, to have a husband who was friend and lover and confidant all in one.
Why couldn’t I just tell him that and go my way instead of having to secretly
buy airline tickets and leave LA for the middle of nowhere like a thief in the night.
Chris, though,
he’s different, decent, caring,
competent. He makes me feel happy, silly happy, like the bluebirds flittering
around in a Disney movie I saw as a kid. And more important, he can make me
laugh. And there hasn’t been that much to laugh about for ever so long. Maybe
some day, if he’s still around-- which he won’t be. I don’t think he realizes
how available he really is. Tough guy, he thinks, but lonely as a solitary
cloud. I guess, when you come down to it, so am I. But this Chris’s kind’s
never available too long.
Whatever Lilith’s
yearnings, her inner traffic cop, hand outstretched, firmly signaled “STOP!”
She looked away from Chris quickly, casting her eyes down, spotting her
scissors and picking them up from the stainless steel tray.
Dr. Jacques
abruptly shifted his gaze to the chart he held, studying it as if the two names
written on it in Magic Marker on a piece of tape at the top were revealed
truth. She already told me, after all, that she isn’t interested, that she’s
busy. And I am very, very busy, too.
So that brief instant of truth
between them, of perception and recognition that had illumined them both
vanished like drops of water sucked up by the sun. The two of them went there
separate ways.
The
Chickasaw Plum - Volume III - Number
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