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The Leper’s Burlesque, Part I. A novella
by John R. Guthrie
Part
II in April, part III in the May Chickasaw Plum
With appreciation to first publisher,
.
The Leper’s Burlesque
Prologue
1987-- Aaron Payne stepped out of the
funeral chapel and into the parking lot where he stood at the edge of the
pavement. In the distance, he saw a hawk that rode the cold currents high above
the earth. It was winging its solitary
way toward the rounded summits of the Great Smoky Mountains that climbed up
from the Piedmont hills of Austerity. That lone hawk approximated the way Aaron
felt at that moment; terribly alone. Like always when he lost a patient, he had
a sense of not only sadness, but failure. He kicked a stone the size of a
ping-pong ball, sending it skittering across the parking lot and scuffing the
toe of his wing-tip shoe in the process.
Chapter
I.
And the LORD said unto Satan,
Whence comest
thou?
Then Satan answered the LORD, and said,
From going to and fro in the earth,
and from
walking up and down in it.
Job 1:7
Austerity is a verdant place of rolling
hillsides tucked away in the northwest corner of the state of South Carolina.
Aaron Payne, D.O., was a family physician there. On a clear day from his home
on the west side of town, you could see the Great Smoky Mountain chain of the
Appalachians, ancient, somnolent and mysterious. The view pleased him. It
reminded him of the San Bernardino Mountains visible from his Loma Linda,
California birthplace. He’d found an opportunity to go into practice with an
older doc in Austerity while he was doing a rotating internship in Atlanta
eight years before.
Aaron
was tall and lean, his russet hair with just enough dusting of gray at the
temples to give him an air of distinction.
His blue eyes were clear and steady. Should you ask him what the pivotal
factors in his life were, he would list the Marine Corps, the Seventh Day
Adventist Church, the practice of
medicine, his mother, then add quietly, “though not necessarily in that order,
and not necessarily in the ways you might expect.”
His life in Austerity was good. He had
graduated with honors from the University of California Riverside and then the
renowned and historic Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine. He was
independent. His practice thrived. For one thing, he was realistic. A former
Marine rifleman, he’d fought in the war in Vietnam before he went to college.
It gave him, not cynicism, for he was by nature hopeful, but he had learned to
limit his expectations. He considered “Doctor’s orders” to be a misnomer,
because as he’d learned, there were limits to all power, even the life-or-death
authority of the officers he’d served under in the Marine Corps. Mrs. Smith
would not or could not lose the weight. Mr. Jones didn’t take his blood
pressure medicine because he felt good and really didn’t think he needed it.
Mr. Samuels didn’t take his pills because he couldn’t afford them. Aaron gave
him sample meds when he had them.
He urged his patients. He shared experience
and expertise. But only rarely did he cajole. When his best advice was shunned,
he didn’t take it personally. And when he was able to help, occasionally a
great deal, it pleased him.
He lived alone in what had once been a
farmhouse, a two-story frame structure with a wide front porch shaded by white
oaks whose trunks exceeded the circumference of a hefty man’s midsection. He prized
it as a place of respite and resurrection, though of necessity he had phones to
facilitate calls from the hospital and from patients in practically every room,
including two lines in his bathroom. A cleaning lady, Mrs. Humphreys, a widow
of middle years, arrived promptly in her blue and white Ford Falcon station
wagon twice a week. She was a plump and pleasant woman who was proud of the
work she did for several clients. She also was talkative. She loved to chat
with Dr. Payne when he was there as she continued to dust, clean, and bring
order to his household. Aaron prized her. She freed him to do what he did best;
practice medicine.
Payne was the plant doctor for a number of
the local industries, companies that fled northern rust belt cities for the milder
climate and more compliant labor force of the Palmetto State. One such company
was Gleason Industrial Abrasives Company, Inc. The company dealt in materials
the names of which sounded like poetry to Aaron Payne’s ear: Sodablast and bauxite; carborundum,
brown and black; alumina and silicon.
Gleason’s had moved to Austerity from Pittsburgh two years before.
One new hire at the Gleason Company was a
slender young man with shoulder length hair the color of corn silk and a cubic
zirconium stud in his right ear lobe. His name was Damien Frey. He’d taken
leave after two years at Brevard College where he majored in music. He was a
competent student, well liked and pleased with his studies. He took a job at
Gleason’s with the ambition of saving money to finance a long-standing ambition
to study at a conservatory in Milan during his junior year. Damien and his
family were members of Austerity’s First Baptist Church; First Church as people
say. The church has a fine music program. Damien was
skilled enough that he had filled in from time-to-time for the pianist there.
His arrival as a patient at Aaron Payne’s Family Practice Clinic on that Monday
in the summer of 1985 sat off a chain of events that
would irrevocably alter the measured lives of both Dr. Payne and his head Nurse
Alice “Ali” Broome, R.N.,
The
smell of disinfectants and Betadine permeated the air, the linoleum tile of the floor was buffed and shining.
There was an air of busyness as the lab tech loaded the centrifuge. Glassware
tinkled in the background. Gloria Estefan’s song of passion and longing,
courtesy of a local FM station, was barely audible over the humming of the
transformer in the X-ray room. Ali approached Aaron as he stood reading the
next patient’s chart in the hall. She had an Italian grandmother, a war bride
from the World War II era, from whom she acquired a complexion like polished
ivory as well as large and expressive eyes as dark as obsidian. Her long hair
the color of mahogany was done up primly She wore no cosmetics, for she was
more concerned about looking professional at work then in being beautiful. She
was beautiful anyway.
For the sake of privacy, she spoke in a
subdued voice to Dr. Payne, “We have a walk-in from Gleason’s.”
Payne scowled. Monday was his busiest day. He
was already struggling to keep up. “Is it maybe something we can reschedule,
like an employment physical?”
“You
need to take a look, Doc,” she said. “This fellow’s bad off—got his arm caught
in an industrial abrasives roller last week, but didn’t see a doctor. It’s a
mess.” Dr. Payne nodded and took the
chart. “He’s also got a bad case of potty mouth,” Ali added.
Aaron nodded slightly, said “Thanks,” and
turned to read Ali’s efficient note;
Tuesday, 6.16.1985:
20 yo cau ♂, Temp 103, BP
146/76, P 110.
Pt’s flushed, appears
to be in considerable distress.
Chief Complaint;
caught left arm in an industrial abrasives machine at Gleason Abrasives 1 wk.
ago.
L. Axilla denuded, foul smelling, draining pus & serosanguinous fluid.
Aaron entered the exam room where Damien Frey
sat on the end of the exam table, shirt off.
“Hi, Mr. Frey.” Dr.
Payne noticed the accelerated pulse at the angle of Damien’s jaw. He extended
his hand to shake hands with the patient. Damien hesitated, just long enough to
make Dr. Payne wonder if he was refusing to shake hands. When he finally
extended his right hand, it was trembling. It felt hot and dry. “How are you
today?” Dr. Payne said.
With the sullenness of a viper, Frey said,
“Like shit. If I felt any good I wouldn’t be here, Doc. My left armpit is
fucked.”
Dr. Payne was nonplussed. He’d certainly
heard coarse language before, though seldom in this context. He pulled on Latex
exam gloves and lifted the patient’s left elbow to take a look at his armpit.
The skin of that area was largely gone. Muscle tissue was visible fore and aft.
“Damien, you have a serious infection. How
long’s it been this way?”
“I got hurt last week.”
“And you haven’t seen a doctor already?”
“No. I just took some sick days and hoped it
would heal up. Gleason doesn’t like employees that get hurt on the job. Anyway,
I have a life. If I wanted to spend it in a doctor’s office, maybe I’d get a
job in one.”
Dr.
Payne nodded. “A doctor visit’s no fun for lots of people.”
“Yeah,” he spat out the words. “You got that
straight, Doc.”
Watching him carefully, Dr. Payne said,
“Damien, you need to go in the hospital.”
“Well, how about tomorrow or next day?”
“You need to be on intravenous antibiotics
right away. I’m deeply concerned about this infection. It can spread through
your blood stream. That can cause vital organs to shut down, or abscesses in
difficult to reach places such as brain or kidneys.
Frowning, Damien said, “Now? Hospital?”
“Scar tissue can form causing you to be
unable to lift your arm. And this can be lethal, Damien,” Dr. Payne replied.
Damien managed one last expletive. “Jesus Fucking Christ!”
Dr. Payne cocked his head to the side and
said, “Damien, talk with Jesus about it later if that’s your thing. But right
now you need to go in the hospital.”
Damien looked up in surprise, then managed a tight little smile. “O.K. O.K. I’ll go. But I
don’t want to stay there a minute longer than I have to.”
“I’ll
gladly discharge you the moment it’s safe,” said Dr. Payne as he stepped
out of the room, scowling as he pulled the door shut behind him. In the
hallway, Ali looked his way. One eyebrow was raised, her expression quizzical
as she looked at him to gauge his reaction to the irascible and profane Mr.
Frey. Aaron smiled. He always found Ali’s occasional mimicry of utter
perplexity charming.
“I wonder,” Payne said, “if he’s a little
addled from his fever.”
”Maybe.
Then it could be he’s just mean as hell and happens to have a fever at the
moment.”
Payne chuckled out loud as Ali turned and
walked away.
Chapter
II.
As
he sat to write further on Damien’s orders, Aaron recalled how he met Ali. It
was at a called meeting the year before for local health care providers. The
meeting convened in Austerity Regional Medical Center’s Cafeteria. In that
time, the mid-eighties, the medical community hadn’t even agreed on a name for
the illness caused by HIV infection. Most physicians outside of New York and
Los Angeles had never seen a patient so afflicted, though that was rapidly
changing. The guest speaker was a high octane Ph.D. /
INCREASED
INCIDENCE
PNEUMOCYSTIS
PNEUMONIA
&
KAPOSI’S
SARCOMA
IN
SELECTED BICOASTAL
POPULATION
GROUPS
The lecturer was lean and tall, his neatly
trimmed and graying Van Dyke and hair contributed to his distinguished
appearance. His work, involving the minutiae of viral reproduction and
transformation, had appeared frequently in leading medical and scientific
journals in the U.S. and the U.K. When he began his presentation, he was
inaudible. He mumbled into his notes on the podium or toward the mobile screen
for a slide projector set up behind him, neither speaking loudly enough nor
using the portable sound system, its mike flopping off at an indifferent angle
on its flexible arm. Dr. Payne leaned forward, straining to make out the
speaker’s words. It did not help that the meeting room, a low ceilinged section
of the hospital cafeteria, was acoustically poor.
Finally, the woman next to Aaron, a woman in
mufti but wearing an American Nursing Association pen with a cloisonné
Nightingale lamp on her jacket lapel, raised her hand. The speaker didn’t
notice, for eye contact with his audience was not his thing. She waved her
hand. Still unrecognized, she said, “Sir?” There being no response, she stood
and said again, “SIR?” A large part of
the audience, including Aaron, looked her way. She was a tall woman, her long
dark hair done up in a French twist. Her
suit, two-piece wool in dove gray had the padded shoulders popular then. She
looked professional, and was an entirely attractive woman; dark eyes, sculpted
cheekbones. The speaker continued on autopilot, “…These phenomena are related
in a way ill understood to a previously unheard of virus called the Human
Immunodeficiency Virus.”
“DOCTOR,” she said. He finally looked up, as
mystified as if someone had interrupted a sound sleep. “Yes, Miss?”
“Please Sir, I’m really intrigued by your
subject matter, but it’s very difficult to hear. Could you possibly use the
microphone?”
“Oh,” the speaker said looking surprised. “Anyone else having problems?” Nearly everyone in the
audience nodded and there smattering of applause.
“Woops,” the speaker said. “Thank you,
Ma’am.” He adjusted the microphone and spoke toward it. His voice was now
comprehensible. The audience applauded more vigorously. He continued:
“The virus is a string of ten thousand or so nucleic acids; code words
made of nucleotides strung together like a string of beads. Once in the host’s
body, this virus favors cells of the immune system. Like commandos taking over
a factory, the virus tricks the DNA of the host’s immune cells into making
copies of itself. Billions are churned out. The immune
system attempts to fight off the invader, but eventually the virus overwhelms
it, leaving the patient unprotected against cancers such as Kaposi’s Sarcoma as
well as bacterial pneumonia, especially that caused by Pneumocystis pneumonia….”
When the speaker finished, the audience
applauded enthusiastically, stood and drifted toward the back of the room for
refreshments and conversation. At the table where a coffee urn the size of a
nail keg sat, Aaron filled a Styrofoam cup. He reached for a packet of sugar.
At that moment, a cafeteria worker with a cart loaded with racks of clean
dinnerware for the serving line at the end of the cafeteria crashed the cart
against the other side of the table. Aaron and the woman who’d sat next to him
both dodged away, bumping into each other backwards. Coffee sloshed each of
them.
“Uh, oh,” he said, “So sorry.”
“Oh, me too,” the nurse said. They both
gabbed up a handful of paper napkins. In a classic approach withdrawal, Aaron
started to dab at the nurses’ suit, thought better of it and handed the wad of
napkins to her as she handed one to him. “Thanks,” she said, as she dabbed at
the brown stain on the midriff of her garment. Payne mopped the stained front
of his clinic coat. He glanced again
the nurse’s garment with dismay. “Oh, my. That’s a
lovely suit, now with that coffee stain on the front.”
She smiled, and said by way of reassurance,
“Thank goodness for good dry cleaning. If they can’t get the stain out, maybe
I’ll claim I paid extra for it. Besides, your clinic coat got coffee all over
it also.”
“No harm done. I'll send it to the laundry.
I’m Aaron Payne,” he added. “I’m a family doc.”
“Alice Broom; Ali, R.N.,” she replied. “What
did you think of the lecture?”
“Interesting. But
before you spoke up, I couldn’t hear a word he said.”
“I don’t think anyone did.” Ali replied. “I’m
especially interested in the subject. I worked in the Peace Corps in Ghana for
three years after graduate school. The incidence of HIV infection is remarkably
high there. They call it ‘slim disease’ because the patient wastes away before
death. More often than not it’s a heterosexual disease in that setting.”
“Really?”
Aaron replied. “I’ve never seen a case, and don’t know anyone in County Medical
Society who has.”
As the conversation evolved, Aaron learned
that Ali was between jobs, intent on interviewing for a position at Austerity’s
Regional Medical Center.
“My clinic nurse who’s been my good right arm
is leaving in less than a month,” he said. “If you feel you might be
interested, let’s talk.…”
Returning to the moment, Payne wrote out
Damien’s hospital orders:
Dx: Acute Cellulitis, L. Axilla due to
industrial injury.
R/O
bacteremia.
Isolation
protocol
Stat
culture & sensitivity, wound left axilla x 3.
Blood and
urine culture and sensitivity….
He ordered antibiotics by IV every six hours,
then handed the chart to Ali saying, “Additional diagnosis: Angry young man.”
“Bitter as aloe,” she said.
“Unseemly in one so young,” Aaron said
solemnly.
Ali smiled that lovely smile again
then turned and walked away to see that the admission was called in. Aaron
watched her for a brief moment. Despite her innate dignity and professionalism,
she had a sense of fun that made her eyes sparkle when she saw humor in
something, which was often.
Aaron was studying the chart for the
next patient when the door to Damien’s room opened. “Doc, please come back in
for a minute.”
Ali joined him as Payne stepped back
in, holding the next patient’s chart in his hands.
“Doc, there’s something I should’ve
told you.”
“What’s that, Damien?”
Damien shrank back a little. “I’m HIV
positive.”
“You’re what?”
“HIV positive.”
“How do you know that, Damien?”
“I went to Arborville
and got tested at the health department.”
The room was silent for a moment. Damien
looked expectantly at Dr. Payne who took a deep breath and finally said,
“Thanks for telling us, Damien. I’ll have to modify your orders a little. We’ll
need to talk further about this later, get a better understanding….” Ali handed
the hospital orders back to him.
Damien’s eyes were brimming now. “Sure.
There’s not much to tell about it. I pretty well know who I caught it from. He
glanced at Ali, looked suddenly uncomfortable and said, "Yeah. We need to
talk about it later. Privately. That’s why I didn’t
want to come to the doctor. I just don’t want everyone in Chickasaw County to
know. I really don’t know what to do right now.”
Payne said softly, “Hey, Pal, take your time.
You’ll figure it out. And we’re glad to help.”
Damien’s face paled suddenly. He collapsed against
the table, then fell to his knees. Aaron and Ali both
grabbed him and helped him lie recumbent on the exam table again. After a few
seconds, he started crying in great wracking sobs. “Oh, man,” he said, “I can’t
even fucking stand up.”
“You’ve got a lot going on,” Ali said. “And
Damien,” she added, her eyes brimming also now. “We’ll be here for you. We
really will.”
Chapter III
After working late, Aaron and Ali often stopped on the
way home at Papa Cristo’s, a Greek restaurant in a modest
white painted brick building across from Austerity’s regional medical center.
Inside the air was fragrant with the enticing aroma of food from the kitchen.
Framed pictures of scenes from Greek mythology decorated the walls. Papa Cristo
himself, white-aproned and rotund with an impressive
mustache, stood by the brick planter near the entrance and greeted his
customers.
“Welcome, Welcome! Zee Doctor and zee
lovely nurse.” Gesturing towards an empty booth, he proclaimed the glory
of his menu offerings. “It would be a sin if I didn’t tell you zee gyros
are delicious, that zee avgolemono soup served with a
slice of lemon fresh as a sunrise is sublime. My baklava, you may weep for
joy.”
The first time they met there, it was by accident, then occasionally they both stopped there by prearrangement.
They chitchatted only about the practice at first, then eventually about other
things.
“What did your Mom and Dad do?” Aaron asked on one such
evening.
Between spoons of her lemon-chicken soup, she said, “Mom
taught American history and civics in high school. She taught, by choice, in
some of the most difficult schools in coastal South Carolina. I think she
really made a difference in some of those kid’s lives. She was a good mom, too.
She encouraged my brother and me academically and otherwise.”
“Sounds good,” Aaron said, taking another bite of his
gyro and nodding. “My mom was a stay-at-home mom, and really stood by me also.”
Ali said, “Oops, you have yogurt sauce on your chin. May
I?”
Aaron nodded and she wiped the corner of his mouth with
her napkin.
“Thanks,” Aaron said, rubbing the spot she’d dabbed with
his index finger.
“Sure,” she said, and continued, “Dad was great too. He
was so handsome and clever. He tended to dress, look and act like the
absent-minded professor. He had a doctoral degree from Harvard in medieval
studies. Chaucer especially fascinated him. He liked Shakespeare also, and
could quote long passages from both by heart. I can still recite some of them
myself. We resided in Charleston, but he lived a great deal of the time in 15th
Century England. He could tell those tales from literature, all modified for a
child’s ears, so that you felt like you really knew
the characters.”
Smiling, Payne nodded, “Sounds like you had fine parents.
Are they still in Charleston?”
Ali’s face clouded. She paused for a moment, clenched her
napkin in her hand, then continued. “They were in an
accident. My little brother too. I was a sophomore at
Duke. The three of them drove to a convention in New Orleans. It was exam week,
so I stayed behind in the dorm booking it and feeling sorry for myself. I was
getting ready to go to class. I looked out the window of my dorm room. Two
campus security officers and the chaplain pulled into the parking lot behind Alspaugh dorm and got out of their cars. I thought right
away about my family traveling. I though they were
coming to tell me my parents had been hurt. I went down to the parlor and
waited. I knew the chaplain, because she had spoken to one of my classes. She
spotted me when they entered, came over, sat down on the couch beside me. They
told me that on the way back on Highway 95 near Savannah, the chains on a flat
bed trailer in front of them broke. The ‘I’ beams on the truck crashed back
through their windshield. Mom and Dad died instantly, decapitated, actually. My
brother took was severely brain damaged. It took him nearly three months to
die.”
Payne shook his head, brow wrinkled, “Oh, boy. What a
shame, Ali. You must have been devastated.”
She nodded, swallowed and said “Yeah. I was a mess.
Couldn’t study. Didn’t go to class for a week.
Finally, with a lot of help from my friends including student mental health, I
decided either I had to deal with it or it would deal with me. I
compartmentalized it. I went back to class and worked harder than I ever had.
Before the accident, I was majoring in literature with a minor in government.
My brother's prolonged death made me decide to switch to nursing.”
Aaron had quit eating, and listened with rapt attention.
“You must miss them a lot.”
Her eyes brimmed. “Terribly.
There was a wrongful death lawsuit. It didn’t bring my family back, but the
settlement made me feel pretty secure, like I had a full array of
choices.” She dabbed at her eyes with her napkin and sniffed. Aaron watched
as she paused for a moment to regain her composure.
She said, “Before too much time goes by I hope too go back to school and become either a nurse
practitioner or a physician. Both have their attractions.”
“Good choices,” Aaron said. “You’d be great as either
one.”
“I also would like to go back and complete a
graduate degree in lit some day. I graduated from Duke, Summa Cum Laude,
unbelievably, and then went into the MSN program at Johns Hopkins. But enough about me. What about you?”
Ice tinkled in their glasses as the waitress refilled
their iced tea. Aaron tore open another packet of sugar, dumped it in his glass
and stirred it with the straw. Looking thoughtful, he said, “Not much to tell.
My dad kicked me out when I was 17.”
Ali looked at him, brow wrinkled in surprise. “Kicked you
out at 17? How on earth could he justify that?”
Aaron looked into the distance, then
gazed at Ali again.
“I was really a bad actor Ali, the bad seed. Bad to the bone.”
“Bad seed?
What do you mean?”
Eyes fixed on some point in the distance, brow wrinkled
in concentration, Aaron began in a rough imitation of
a mobster’s argot. “Well, I was just pretty much your ordinary 14-year-old.
First were the grand theft auto charges. I’d never driven a cop car, see, and
really, really wanted too. The only way they caught me was those spike strips
and then ramming the cruiser, which I think was brutal of them. I could’ve been
hurt, see? I had a lawyer with connections, so I beat the rap in juvie court because he had the judge in his pocket. He
claimed police brutality. I had to snatch a few purses and do a couple of
convenience stores to pay him, but it was worth it. At 18, more bad
luck. They nabbed me for grand larceny, mayhem and rape. The cops caught me in
the act, but still I would have skated if I’d had my old mouthpiece. However,
my old lawyer was already doing time at San Quentin for embezzlement and
murder. Twenty years, the judge told me, slamming that gavel down. But I was
able to smuggle a hacksaw blade in a shipment of communion wafers, like this.”
He wrapped his knife in his white cloth napkin and held
it up between his thumbs and index fingers.
She half laughed as she looked at him. “Doctor Payne!
You’re making that up. Not one word of it’s true, now
is it?”
Payne hesitated for a beat took a deep breath, then said solemnly, “You’re right. Caught
me, Ali. I am truly contrite.”
“You certainly should be,” she said primly.
“Actually,” he continued, “it’s
much, much worse.”
She punched him on the arm and leaning toward him, staring
intently, said, “Tell me the truth, you fibber.”
Payne shrugged, then said,
holding his right hand up as if taking an oath, “Truth is Ali, I told my family
and my entire congregation that I was an absolute nonbeliever, an atheist, and
that the Seventh Day Adventist doctrine didn’t make a lick of sense. So help
me.”
“Oh, sweet Jesus,” she said, shrinking back, holding both
hands defensively in front of herself. “Would that it was
something as simple and uncomplicated as grand larceny and the occasional rape.
But now I find that you’re godless? I’m not sure I can handle that, Doctor!”
He stared at her for a moment, mouth slightly open. She
folded her hands prayerfully in front of her, her nose in the air. She was
leaning back away from him. Disdainful, judgmental, but
still too lovely for words. Then the merest quiver of a smile played
at the corner of her mouth as she tried to keep from laughing. Then the
laughter broke through, that absolutely stunningly lovely laugh of hers. Nearby
diners smiled as they looked her way.
Dr. Payne spoke mournfully, shaking his head, “Ali, now
who’s putting who on?”
“Actually Aaron, I mean Dr. Payne…”
“Please, Ali, call me Aaron,” he said.
“Aaron.” she said, “Let me tell you
another story of godlessness. We lived not too far from the College of
Charleston in one of those ancient houses on Tradd
Street: My mother and father and brother were all in that long narrow living
room that evening. Mom was correcting papers, Dad puffing his pipe and reading.
I was a skinny, long-legged pre-teen. I had just finished reading Sir Bertrand
Russell’s “Why I am not a Christian.“
Ali could see that distant scene again as 12-year-old Ali
spoke. “I said, May I have every one’s attention? I have a significant
announcement to make.”
“My mother and father paused and looked at me. My brother
didn’t bother. I said, I am officially announcing that from this day forward, I
am and shall be an atheist!
“I looked around, expecting shock, indignation, horror.
My brother shrugged and kept doing his homework. Mom,
smiling, as she returned to grading papers saying, ‘That’s fine, dear.
Study hard, be dependable and remember to vote when you’re old enough. Be the
very best atheist you can.’
“Amazing,” Aaron said, shaking his head and chuckling.
Ali continued, “My father, a nominal Catholic, had
abandoned any pretense of religiosity years before. Even then, when he spoke of
it at all, he characterized the Catholic Church as ‘the world’s biggest
international pedophile organization.’
Chuckling, Aaron said, “I’ve gotta
remember that line.”
Ali continued. “Little pitchers have big ears. I knew
even then that he’d been seduced by a nun when he was 15. Some friend would
always ask about that incident. He would feign bewilderment, then put his index
finger to his temple and proclaim, “Uh, well, all I can say is Holy Fuck!”
Everyone would laugh uproariously, father included.
Aaron, laughed out loud, saying “Oh, no--that’s too much,
Ali!”
She continued, “I once heard him tell two math professors
that Sister Hortense, though a bit chunky, was
attractive enough that having lost one eye in a childhood accident involving a
BB gun detracted only slightly from her appearance. She used the altar cloth to
keep her well-rounded buttocks off the cold stone of the sacristy floor. She
insisted on massaging his organ gently with holy oil. ‘I’m very small,’ she
explained. ‘Then,’ he said, ‘My youthful and slender form was lost between
those great and dimpled thighs.’
Aaron was laughing uproariously how.
Ali continued, “But anyway, as I stood there on that day
of my grand revelation, he puffed on his pipe and nodded, ‘Atheist? Why not,
Ali? Keep thinking for yourself, absolutely. I hope this also means you’ll
never allow yourself to be alone with any priest or nun.’ He went back to
his reading.
“When I realized my explosive revelation had sputtered
and died, I was crestfallen. I half opened my mouth to say something, then
thought better of it and marched off to my room and banged the door shut.”
Aaron threw his head back and laughed aloud again, then
said, “Different context, I guess. You were part of an academic community and
family. My parents were big on the SDA church. Dad worked maintenance at Loma
Linda University, but always viewed higher education in general with suspicion.
He was an elder in the church, and that was the high point of his life. His
father and two of my uncles were SDA ministers. I went to SDA schools in Loma
Linda through high school. I made my statement to the congregation on
graduation Saturday, standing up in front of the church with the other
graduates.”
The waitress returned with baklava and coffee. “I’ll
bring your check, Sir,” she said, looking at Aaron.”
Ali spoke up, “Please give us separate checks.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” she replied and left.
Ali cocked her head to the side, and addressed Aaron. “So
just what did you say?”
Aaron cleared his throat and began, “There was a big
banner tacked to the dais that Saturday. It said, ‘CONGRATS, CLASS OF ’64.’ All
of us graduates, 12 of us, were called to the front. I was tall kid with a
Beatles mop top. The minister said a prayer, consecrating each of us to a life
of service to the Seventh Day Adventist Church. All heads were bowed, except
mine. After the Ah-men, each graduate in turn was recognized and spoke briefly;
the usual inanities; ‘I thank Jesus, the church family and my parents for
bringing me up in the fear and admonition of the Lord.’
Ali nodded, “The fear and admonition of the Lord. Certainly.”
Aaron shrugged and continued. “I was last. I was silent
for a moment, sizing up the congregants. My parents were sitting near the
front, smiling big time. With all the gravitas a skinny 17-year-old could
summon, I said, everyone must choose their own way to be in this world. I
choose to no longer believe SDA teachings. There was a collective gasp from the
congregation. My father’s jaw dropped open. I stared hard at the minister for a
moment, then said, part of the reason for me thinking
this through for myself, some of you know better than I.”
“What did you mean by that?” Ali said.
“My mother and I walked in on the pastor engaged in overt
sexual behavior with my baby sister.”
“Dear me,” Ali said.
“Yep.
When I spoke to the congregation, the preacher had a frozen, tight little smile
on his face. One could be characterize it as an expression of sheer terror. I
imagine he prayed the most fervent of silent prayers, something along the line
of ‘Oh God, shut this little bastard up by whatever means necessary before he
starts talking about what I did with his little sister. Lord, you and I both
know that she really wanted it anyway.’”
Ali shook her head at this as Aaron continued.
“I turned to the audience again and said, once I started
thinking it through, I realized that our church has some good people, but it
also has some beliefs that totally weird me out. Remember how many Adventist
missionaries died miserable deaths from malaria in Africa in times past because
they had been told by our ‘prophetess’ Ellen White, not to take quinine?
It’s obvious to me that Ellen White had something very wrong with her, maybe
because that stone that struck in the head and left her unconscious for three
weeks when she was nine. She had hallucinations. The church called them
prophecies. She repeatedly named the exact date the world was going to
end. Someone in the congregation cried out, ‘Hush, you hippy!’ A more
articulate parishioner cried, ‘Heresy!’
“So you really got to them?” Ali said.
“It gets worse. Then I said, she
obviously didn’t know what she was talking about. People in
our church made excuses for her and kept on going. In addition a god
that says I am love, don’t forget to send a nice check and love me or I’ll
torture you forever makes no sense whatsoever.”
Ali said, “Aaron, It’s fortunate that you chose medicine
instead of the diplomatic corps.”
He chuckled. “I’ve mellowed with age. There was more
angry murmuring in the congregation. Someone said, ‘He’s crazy! Shut him up!
Make him sit down! Someone call the authorities!’
“My voice was shaking as I said, then
there was Ellen White’s campaign against ‘the secret vice.’ She devoted
endless pages to the assertions that ‘the secret vice’ was responsible
for heart disease, blindness, mental illness, bleeding in the lungs, diabetes,
urinary incontinence, indigestion, rheumatism, bone disease, fevers, and sudden
death. The tragic part is that a considerable number of people believed her,
and still do.”
Ali said, “Jeez, Doc, your family and church kicked you
out for not believing such crapola? Anyway, I thought
the family that prays together stays together.”
Aaron chuckled at this. ”It didn’t go at all well.”
“What did you expect?” Ali said.
““I’m not sure what I expected. We rode home in silence.
Once home my dad said, ‘You can’t blaspheme and go on living in my house.’
“I said, Dad, I simply told the truth. Hurts to hear
someone say you’ve been living a lie, doesn’t it?
“He came back with, ‘You little sonofabitch.’
“I said, Look, fucker, if I’m a sonofabitch
does that make you a bitch?
Ali shook her head, “Oh, no! Bad move Aaron. Very bad. ”
“Yeah. He
turned red and took a roundhouse swing calculated to knock my block off. I’d
always been afraid of him. He’d been heavier and stronger, but I was catching
up and was quicker. He barely brushed the tip of my nose as I dodged back. I
caught him with a good left jab right in the mouth. Split his lip and my
knuckles. Knocked him sprawling.
“I said, Keep on living your lies. You’re as stupid and
superstitious as a medieval peasant anyway. My uncles walked in just in time to
witness this entire scene. Each of them tried to outdo the other in quoting
scripture about how a parent should put a child who strikes or curses his
parent to death. They looked like they just might carry out that biblical
edict. I grabbed my suitcase and got out of there.”
“Wow, Aaron” Ali said shaking her head.
“I was full of bluster about it, but was really
devastated at the time. I felt that though I won the battle yet lost the war.
In retrospect, it’s one of the better things that ever happened to me. It was
tough, but it was also a defining and liberating moment. In my case, being an
apostate, the prodigal who never returned, I’m no longer in bondage to any cult
or sect, or anything else; no longer enthralled to the fear-mongering and
guilt-inducing nonsense of any priest or preacher. I have my work, my
friends and associates, a good life, strong values. And as a bonus, I get to
sleep in on Sabbath Day.”
Ali smiled and said, “It took gonads for you to stand up
for yourself like that.”
Payne nodded, a wry smile on his
face. “Really, more so than fighting in Vietnam. I
spent 13 of my 36 Marine Corps months there, a grunt—rifleman. In Vietnam,
things were pretty simple. It was ‘the enemy’ that wanted me out of there by
whatever means necessary. I returned the favor, with interest. Back home,
though, it was my family and friends who wanted me gone, and that was
devastating at the time.”
“I can imagine,” Ali said.
“When my family kicked me out, I crashed with some
friends in Malibu for a week or two. I got a job in a seafood restaurant as a
waitperson. I was a lost soul, though. I really didn’t know what else to do. I
went to San Bernadino on the Greyhound bus and joined
the Marine Corps. I guess I was, like you, in the process of creating my own
family.”
Ali said, “Wow! What a story. I feel like I have some
sense of the devastation you felt, though for different reasons. When the
accident swept my family-of-origin away, I thought about everything from
jumping off the bell tower of the Duke Chapel to dropping out of school for a
long-term pity party. Then I realized that despite my sorrow, I had to create
my own family, one that was of my own choosing.” She paused to sip her tea.
Aaron considered this, then
said, “How did you do that?”
“I have professors, the best of which I cultivated
and still keep in touch with loosely. There were fellow students also that I
still love dearly, including a couple of my roommates at Duke who were there
for me through it all. We still stay in touch. Then there’s my apartment mate
from when I was in grad school at Johns Hopkins. She
was a trip, a physiologist by training, and so smart and funny.” Thoughtful,
immersed in her own reminiscence, she continued, “There was one close Peace
Corps friend when I was in Ghana, Elliott Seymour. He was the cutest
thing. A real hunk. We write occasionally.”
Without realizing it, Payne frowned as she continued.
“I thought for a while he was the love of my life.
Eventually, though, I realized cute only goes so far. He has a bead and bong
shop in San Francisco now.” She smiled, “And there’s
you, of course.”
Aaron’s smile returned. “Yep!”
She reddened slightly. “Oh, crap. That sounded so, so
presumptuous. I’m embarrassed. It’s like, in a sense, I mean. That is, I take
my work very seriously. You’re part of my work family, like the lab tech and
the X-ray tech, and the receptionist, the insurance clerk. Everyone
there. All of them, including housekeeping,” she added a little too
quickly.
Shaking his head, Aaron said, “Not presumptuous. My
work is my mainstay and my anchor. And you’re certainly a very important
part of that.”
Overly decorousness now, she said, “Yes, of course.
That’s actually is what I meant. You said it better than I. I do love my work.
It’s a source of real satisfaction, perhaps like church is for some.” She
nodded, brow wrinkled slightly as she considered this. After a beat she said,
“How’d you like the Marine Corps?”
Memories flooded Aaron as he told Ali of that time. He
could see again Gunnery Sergeant Zimbroski, the
recruiter at his gray government issued metal desk. A great grizzly of a man,
he had at least one wrinkle on his sunburned face for every iniquity in the
unabridged catalogue of human sin. His rows of medals and badges weighted his
khaki shirt, a shirt neatly bloused into dress blue trousers with the red
stripe blazing down the leg.
Aaron heard himself saying once again, with all the
earnestness and idealism with which 17-year-olds are want to embrace a cause,
“I’d really, really like to be where the action is.”
Gunnery Sergeant Zimbroski
looked closely at him, blue eyes so light, as if faded by too many tropical
suns. He picked up the phone and called the colonel who was the
commanding officer of Southern California Marine recruiters.
‘Colonel, he’s a good kid,’ the gunny said. ‘Clean cut. Squared away-- for a civilian. Really
motivated to be an infantry rifleman. He doesn't want his high test
scores to sideline him. No, Sir, Colonel. He’s not crazy, at least not more
than ordinary’ He winked toward Aaron. ‘Sir, we get the civilian shit out
of this kid’s system, he might even be an officer some day.’
“I bought the entire military mind-set at first,” Aaron
continued, “lean, mean, trying my best to be a bad-ass Marine, though I don’t
know that I was all that good at it. At that age, though, wow, I was so young,
I had a lot of growing up to do. I have some remarkable memories from those
three years. Some are very good. Some aren’t so hot.
“What is your worst memory?” Ali asked.
Aaron hesitated for a beat, raised his eye brows, sucked
in a breath and said, “The sniper.”
“The sniper?”
Here he stopped and looked into the distance, then
continued. “I’ve never told anyone this before. My squad was on patrol. We came
under fire from a bombed out building. While the squad returned fire, I made my
way around and tossed a grenade through a window, then went in shooting.
“She was lying in the middle of the floor. She had bloody
holes all over her NVA uniform where the fragments struck. Her Russian Dragunov sniper rifle seemed as long as she was tall. She
was whispering in perfect English. ‘Shoot me. Please….kill me’
Ali said, “Oh, my. What happened?”
Tense now, Aaron said, “I shot her. The shot blew the top
of her skull off. When I got a good look at her, she looked barely old enough
to be in junior high. I’ve never been quite sure how to feel about it. I
remember saying to myself, this isn’t why I’m here. It’s not supposed to be
this way.”
Ali was silent as she digested this. Aaron watched
closely to see her reaction. Finally, she said, “I’m glad you made it home. Lot’s of people didn’t.”
Aaron said, “I still think about those who didn’t,
including several of my buddies. When I do, it’s like the poem: ‘If ye break
faith with us who die / We shall not sleep, though poppies
bloom in Flanders field.’ I resent the hell out of the great bloviating pols and their enablers; Lyndon Johnson, Robert S.
McNamara, and others who sent us there under false pretenses, then lied about
it further when we got there. I value my Marine Corps service and that of
others. But I feel now if we had to be there, we were probably on the wrong
side.”
Shifting in her chair, leaning on elbow on the table and
propping her chin on her hand, Ali said, “It was a constant topic of concern
and conversation with my parents and their friends then. I though
about it more than one might think for someone who was 9 or 10. But you have
good memories also?”
“Sure. I’d never been out of Southern California. In the
Corps, I steamed across the Pacific on a troop ship. As cramped and crowded as
it was, I had for the first time a sense of adventure
and purpose, of being a part of something bigger than myself.”
“I can imagine,” Ali said.
“During the night I saw the phosphorescence of a million
tiny sea creatures in the wake. The stars looked so close that it seemed you
could reach up and pluck them from the sky. We weathered a typhoon in the South
China Sea before landing on a sugar white beach. I think the feeling must be
the same as that of the soldiers of Carthage and Rome and Greece experienced as
they traversed the Aegean and Tyrrhen “Interesting,”
Ali said, smiling.
“My best buddy there was Doc Fletcher, a navy
corpsman. At the end of the first week, the rifleman beside me, Galen
‘Dutch’ Vandenbosch, impaled his left leg on a feces
coated punjee stick. Fletcher was right on top of it,
an ampoule of morphine, a tourniquet. Doc Fletcher and
I formed a seat with our forearms arms and moved Dutch to the periphery of a
nearby clearing as the radioman called for the dust-off. Within minutes, the
chopper came whump-whump-whumping
in like a huge dragonfly. Fletcher popped smoke. The pop-pop-pop of
Kalashnikovs sounded somewhere in the distance, trying to get the lucky shot
off that would bring the chopper down. One of the two navy corpsman sitting in
the door was soon descending, a spider on a thread of steel. The chopper, nose
angled down, was already fighting for altitude with Dutch aboard within
seconds. It was then,” Aaron concluded, “that I knew for sure I wanted to go
into medicine.”
“One good thing,” Ali said. “After the Vietnam
experience, at least we’re never again likely to get involved in a needless war
based on false pretenses against some small and impoverished country.”
Chapter
IV
They both lived on the West Side of Austerity on opposite
sides of the Arborville Highway. On the drive from
Papa Cristo’s home, Ali’s left turn came first. She
gave the horn a little tap and waved as Aaron continued down the highway.
Payne smiled and waved back as he drove on toward his own
residence. He was soon lost in thought as he drove: I always feel better
around Ali. She’s so smart and so well packaged also. One has to be careful,
though, mixing professional life and social life. Anyway, anyone that pretty
and smart, you’d think she’d be married. Maybe she’s so committed to her
profession that she wishes to spend her energies there. She’s the best nurse
I’ve ever worked with. I don’t want to lose her because of making some
unwelcome overture. Besides, I’m too busy for some unprofessional workplace
involvement.
When I got out of the Corps, I
had it all planned. I’d go into medicine. Get married, have a couple of kids. I
imagined a son being maybe an officer in the Corps. A
daughter going into medicine or nursing. Most things have worked out,
except the family part. I haven’t been a hermit, but I never met the right
person. Then maybe I’ve let myself be too busy.
He soon turned into the long drive to his house.
As Ali drove toward home, she too was lost in
thought: A workplace romance? Been there, done that, that last summer
at Duke. What a disaster. Thank goodness for Roe vs. Wade. Never, never again!
In the end, there was no one but me to pick up the pieces and get on with life.
I ended up with neither romance nor workplace, ‘cause
I quit the lab job to get away from him.
Aaron’s a sweet man and a fine doc, though. Surprising
he’s never married. I wonder why. It’s nice to share a meal with him
occasionally, though. Nothing wrong with it since I pay my
own check.
She soon turned into her drive, and stopped before her
house, a 1950s tri-level ranch that stood in the center of the three wooded
acres.
During Damien’s hospitalization, Dr. Payne had a surgical
tray brought in daily. Double gloved and extra cautious, he worked at removing
the slough of putrid tissues with scissors, forceps, gauze, and a scalpel. This
was time consuming and tedious, so he typically went in the evenings after
office hours. On one particular evening, the sun was setting when Payne arrived
at the hospital and sat to work on Damien’s injury.
The scissors clanked down on the stainless steel surgical
tray as Dr. Payne said, “Did you talk to your parents about being HIV positive
yet?”
His left arm extended above his head as Payne worked, Damien
said, “I haven’t gotten up the nerve quite yet. My parents and I and just about
everyone I know go to Austerity’s First Church. The church will probably kick
me out or make it so miserable for me I couldn’t stay. Preacher MacLeash said again and again that HIV is God’s punishment
for an un-Godly life style.”
Payne hesitated, thought for a moment, then
said, nodding slowly, “Preacher MacLeash speaks with
the same absolute certainty with which all fundamentalists speak, whether they
are Jews, Muslims or Christians. Did he say anything about the children and
accident victims infected from tainted blood, or the women and men in Africa
and Asia where it’s primarily a heterosexual disease? Or are they just God’s
collateral damage?”
“Ouch,” Damien said, wincing as Payne removed a stubborn
bit of scab. “I see what you mean. But still, it’s hard to deal with all this.
I had such a good life – was having so much fun and learning so much at
Brevard. Not to brag, Doc, but I am – was – in the music honors society,
Pi Kappa Lambda. I also got a Community Service award for things like
volunteering to play and helping with the choir in rural churches. It was so
fine; hard work but my friends and I would go and really enjoy it. We made it
fun. Sometimes we went rafting on the Nantahalla, or went over to Pigeon Forge.We rented one log
cabin for the whole crowd of us.
Dr. Payne dabbed at the wound with a bit of sterile
gauze. “You did have a great time there, didn’t you? “
“Yeah, maybe I’m still living there instead of dealing
with current realities—like telling my parents.”
Payne nodded, still working. “You don’t have to yet, but
probably the sooner the better. I can speak with your parents if you prefer.”
Damien’s brow furrowed. “Let me just think about it for a
while, Doc. I know I need to get it done; probably I'll talk to them as soon as
I get out of the hospital. I’ve always tried so hard to please them. My Dad,
the church, it’s hard to think about….”
Payne replied, “Your church has meant a lot to you,
hasn’t it?”
Damien’s eyes lit up. “Yeah. I
love the music program. Even when I was just a little kid, I used to sing in
the children’s choir, then the youth choir. It was great.”
“Yep. I
like church music also,” Payne said. “Even though I’m not a church person, that
doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy Bach’s 'Jesu Joy of Man’s
Desiring' or a spirited version of 'Shall we Gather at the River,' for that
matter.”
“Jesus, Doc. Not a church person?”
Payne shook his head, “Not at all.”
“Not even spiritual or ethical or anything?”
He continued working as he said, “Ethical, certainly. Spiritual, no.”
Damien looked at him with one eyebrow raised, “Are you an
atheist?”
“Yes, thank god. Since I was about 12.”
“Doc!
That’s worse than being queer.”
They both laughed at this, then Dr. Payne continued,
“Thomas Jefferson said something to the effect that it doesn’t hurt me for my
neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket
nor breaks my leg.’ This is what works for me. Even so, when I was in medical
school in Chicago I used to go to the Catholic chapel at Cook County Hospital
and sit there alone for a few minutes just to get away from some of the misery
for a bit. Nothing supernatural about it, but it was quiet, peaceful, a way of
recharging my batteries.”
“Did you go to church when you were a kid?” Damien asked.
Still focusing on his work, Payne nodded, “Every Saturday
the Lord sent. Seventh Day Adventist. But that’s
ancient history now.”
Damien continued, “The people in the music program at
First Church are – were, I guess-- my best friends in Austerity. I never paid
much attention to the other stuff there until recently. I knew even when I was
twelve or so that a lot of the ideas, like people rising from the dead and some
of those Bible stories like Noah getting all those animals in his one little
boat, I knew that was a lot of bunk. Some people there believe in faith healing
in one form or another. I watched preachers like Oral Roberts on TV and noticed
that whomever they healed, they never even tried to heal an amputee. I always
just kept my mouth shut. I guess I was afraid not to.”
Nodding as he continued to work, Payne said, “Lots of
people just keep their mouths shut though they know better. In small towns like
this, often if you don’t have a church life, often you don’t have a social
life.”
Damien, thoughtful now, said, “Once I started to realize
that I was attracted to men, I really kept quiet about that. There were women
there who were my buddies. They liked me a lot. Maybe somehow down deep, the
girls realized that I could be a good friend but would not be a lover.”
“Steady now,” Payne said as Damien moved suddenly as he
dabbed at the wound with sterile gauze. “So they felt safe in that respect?”
“I guess.”
It
was late when Payne left the hospital. He was weary, so he steered his Jeep Wagoneer toward the Chickasaw Country Club to have a drink
and a meal in the dining room there.
Once inside the club, he entered the Jasmine Room, the
informal dining room and bar. The walls were hunter green decorated with
English antique paintings of hunting scenes and country estates. The corners of
the mirror behind the bar along the sidewall exhibited an etched palmetto tree
medallion in the center and fleurs de lis in the corners.
Aaron found the atmosphere relaxing. He sat where he
could look through the immense plate glass windows to where floodlights
illuminated the greensward and a pond where once-wild ducks now lived year
round.
The waitress soon returned with the Scotch and water he
ordered. He took a sip and continued to study the menu.
“The salmon is excellent,” a woman’s voice behind him
said.
Aaron turned in his seat and said, “Dr. Rosenblaum. How good to see you. Please join me if you
can.” He stood.
“Love to if you’re sure it’s convenient,” she said.
Rosenblaum, a handsome woman approaching sixty, had
neatly swept up short black hair with a swath of gray on either side. He
enjoyed the times they visited over a cup of coffee in the hospital cafeteria
and especially appreciated the rare occasions when they had visited, usually
after or during some function at the Chickasaw Country Club.
In the hospital setting, she was all business. Being
female in a nearly exclusively male club generated a certain amount of
prejudice and resentment toward her. When she was the first and only woman in
county medical society, some said that she was, “Just a woman. Husband shopping probably.” Aaron knew Dr. Rosenblaum to be as competent and conscientious a general
surgeon as could be found.
Payne pulled out a chair for Dr. Rosenblaum
who sat and said, “What a day. I didn’t even have the energy left to punch a
button on the microwave.” She scuffed off the black lace-up oxfords she wore,
leaving them to lie beside her chair.
Aaron smiled. “Same here.”
The waitress took Dr. Rosenblaum’s
drink order, the vodka martini she always ordered, and left a menu.
They both ordered the dilled Norwegian salmon. While they
waited, Aaron said, “Jackie, I think that martini did you good. May I buy you
another?”
Smiling, she said, “One more, Aaron, and I’m yours
forever.”
“What a bargain!” They both laughed at this, their
recurrent private joke. He signaled the waitress. “I wrote a consult for you
today,” he continued, outlining Damien’s plight.
After
three days, Damien was afebrile. His white blood cell
count had returned to normal. He now took his antibiotics by mouth, so
the IV line was removed.
Jacquie Rosenblaum,
Aaron nodded, returning to Damien’s bedside with Dr. Rosenblaum. Damien’s left armpit was unbandaged,
revealing a pink, clean surface. “Ready for skin graft,” she said to Dr. Payne.
She turned to the patient, “Damien, Dr. Payne’s done a
good job of getting this ready, as I knew he would. Let’s get the skin graft
done in the morning, bright and early. We’ll take extra precautions in surgery:
We may look a bit like aliens, because we’re going to be wearing face shields
and such to protect everyone, including you, from infection.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Damien said with the studied politeness of
that place.
After she left, Dr. Payne sat at Damien’s bedside
completing the note documenting that from a medical point of view, he was a
good candidate for surgery.
Damien spoke, “Think I’ll make it through surgery,
Doc?”
Payne looked up quizzically. Damien looked frightened.
“I sure do, Damien,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I’d
be terribly surprised and disappointed if you didn’t.”
Damien smiled. “That’s encouraging, but how can you be so
sure?”
“Well, the odds are so much against things like, say, a
bad reaction to anesthesia. There’s been steady progress in the art and science
of surgery and anesthesia. These days, the odds against anesthesia death, for
instance, are significantly better than 10.000 to one, especially for someone
in your age group. Infections occasionally occur, but medical and scientific
researchers have better sterile techniques for surgery and powerful antibiotics
fight them when they do occur. Also, your HIV virus is quiescent now.”
Damien was quiet a moment before he said, “Dr. Payne,
you’ve been really decent to me. So has Nurse Broome. I overheard Ali say,
first time I came to see you that I had… a bad case of potty mouth. I did. If
by some chance I don’t make it this time, tell her I know I acted like a shit at first. It was all BS, though. Truth is I was
scared, that’s all. Ever since I knew what I had, I’ve been scared.”
Dr. Payne’s brow was wrinkled and he nodded he said, “I
figured something was out of kilter. That high fever didn’t help either,
Damien.”
“I still feel badly about it.”
“It’s kind of you to say that, Damien. And please, don’t
worry about it. We both know sick people are sometimes angry and cranky. It
goes with the territory.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
Payne’s pager squawked, the voice pagers in vogue
at that time on which the hospital operator’s voice said, “Dr. Payne, call
emergency. Dr. Payne…”
“Damien, maybe you should tell Ali that yourself
when you’re back on your feet. She’ll appreciate it. You know. She’s a sweet
person as well as a fine and professional nurse. We’re both quite lucky to have
her involved.”
“Ha!” Damien said, more lively now. “I knew it, Doc. You
have a thing for her, don’t you? It shows.”
Dr. Payne reddened. Sweet Jesus.
I haven’t blushed since high school. He cleared his throat
officiously. “Well, Damien, maybe a little teensy weensy bit, I do. I find her
very… dependable, uh, efficient… and, well, knowledgeable. Yes, knowledgeable.”
Damien laughed aloud at Dr. Payne’s discomfiture. Despite
realizing that he had in some degree lost his cool with this patient, it was OK
with Aaron. It was the first time he’d ever seen Damien laugh, and that pleased
him, even if Damien was being impertinent and even if it was at his expense.
“Efficient? Knowledgeable? She’s
a Fox, Doc! Ali is a stone cold Fox,” he said. “If I went for women, I could go
for her.” Still smiling, he said “Don’t worry, Doc. I want tell your
secret as long as you don’t tell mine.”
"O.K. O.K. However, I am too busy for any hanky panky at work. It’s really …really…not good… not professional…to
get involved with someone at work. For God’s sake don’t tell Ali all this. It
would embarrass the crap out of her. I don’t want the best nurse I’ve ever
worked with quitting on me.”
The pager on Dr. Payne’s belt squawked again. He said.
“Hey, fellow, I’ve got an E.R. call. Let’s talk further tomorrow?”
“Sure, Doc. Come back by when you can.”
Payne replied, “Will do. Damien, remember, you’re going to do well in the morning. Dr. Rosenblaum’s the surgeon I would pick for myself.”
He punched Damien lightly on his good shoulder and turned
to leave.
“She’s Jewish, isn’t she Doc?”
Payne turned back to him. “Jewish as
Jesus. But unlike Jesus, Jackie Rosenblaum is
board certified by the American College of Surgeons.”
Damien laughed aloud again.
As he walked briskly toward the E.R., Dr. Payne continued
to think of Damien. He's probably better off to enunciate his
fears. The pager squawked to summon him to the E.R. He said, “Hold on!”
--Part II next Month--
The
Chickasaw Plum - Volume VI - Number 3 - March 2009
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