‘That’s totally unnecessary, Livingston. I’m extremely familiar with the procedure and in my view it was exactly what was indicated for the boy’s depression.’
It became increasingly evident to Barney that Dr Eastman was deliberately avoiding the use of the phrase ‘my son.’ As if to absolve himself of any responsibility for Maury’s unhappy state.
‘Doctor Eastman, I beg of you. Please don’t let them zap Maury anymore. He’ll be okay. Just let him heal in peace.’
There was a brief silence, punctuated only by slight transcontinental static.
‘Livingston, I’m grateful for your concern and I’ll certainly take up this matter with Doctor Cunningham. I hope you’ve had a good Thanks-giving …’
Barney was speechless.
‘Good afternoon, then,’ the doctor said in calm and frosty valediction.
Barney hung up and then leaned against the phone like a defeated boxer.
He returned to the medical stockade a little after eight. The library was still open, so he went over to search for the latest literature on ECT. He read feverishly, scribbling notes on index cards. Apparently the strongest indications for shock therapy were (a) immediate high risk of suicide, (b) depressive stupor, or (c) danger to physical health for a variety of reasons.
Granted, Maury was all of the above, but even the strongest advocates of this procedure emphasized that it should be used only when time was of the essence. What the hell was the rush? he asked himself. Maury was just sitting there on the porch, weaving metaphors like an old woman embroidering a sampler.
And there were side effects. In every case there was at least some memory loss, although the studies suggested that this was usually transient. But what if Maury didn’t happen to conform to the statistics? Would his powers of recollection be permanently impaired?
Wasn’t it Thomas Mann who defined genius as simply the ability to gain free psychic access to past experience? Was not memory the artist’s most precious possession?
Maury was an intelligent, sentient, creative guy who deserved at least a fair chance to develop into a full human being. At the very least, to stand or fall on his merits and not be struck down by the thunderbolts of an uncaring Zeus.
These zappers treat mental illness as if it were a gangrene of the brain – to be cut out. There is no human skill involved, Barney decided. When I’m a psychiatrist I’ll try to heal those inner wounds, make people whole. And no machine can do that.
Vanderbilt Hall swarmed with gaily chattering students. There was even a crowd around the piano singing Christmas carols. Maybe it would be business as usual tomorrow, but everyone seemed determined to savor this holiday break to the full.
In the cafeteria Barney caught sight of Grete Andersen carrying a tray with food that seemed composed of the same stuff as the linoleum floor. He marveled at the way she made even a camel’s hair coat seem like a tight sweater. She undulated over to a corner where Laura was already holding forth to a couple of interns.
He decided to join them.
‘Hi, guys,’ he greeted.
‘Ah,’ Laura called out, ‘the mysterious traveller. Is it still a state secret, or can you tell us where you’ve been?’
‘I was at Cape Canaveral, helping them put a turkey into orbit.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Livingston,’ Laura complained, ‘we’re not a Senate Investigating Committee.’
‘Let’s just say I was with a friend.’
‘I bet she was cute,’ Grete cooed, vouchsafing him one of her radiant smiles.
‘Okay,’ Barney said. ‘I confess. I spent the day with Jayne Mansfield, sort of going over … anatomy problems.’
‘You know,’ Grete murmured, ‘I’m almost prepared to believe you.’ And then she added as she moved off, ‘Maybe that’s why you never call me.’
The other students gradually peeled away to return to their cells and hit the books once again. Finally Laura and Barney were alone. She looked him in the eye. ‘You’re going to tell me the truth, aren’t you?’
‘Hey, look,’ he said uncomfortably, ‘I really can’t. I gave my word.’
She gestured histrionically. ‘Hey, once upon a time we used to be friends.’
Barney seized the moment.
‘Tell you what, Castellano, I’ll trade truth for truth. Okay?’
‘Sure.’
‘I’ll tell you where I was, if you tell me how you did in the Biochem exam.’
Laura hesitated, caught off-guard. Then, smiling sheepishly, she said in confidential tones, ‘Would you believe – eleven?’
‘No.’
She patted him on the shoulder and gave him a light-hearted. ‘’Night, Barn. Don’t forget tomorrow’s “The Big Day” in Anatomy. As Grete might say, you’ve gotta be “up” for that.’
‘The human penis …’
It was evident from the relish in Professor Lubar’s voice that this was one lecture he never tired of. As a pedagogical tool, he had a large-scale model of the organ before him. It had already stimulated much conversation among the students – all of whom were present – some having even arrived early.
‘This is the male organ of copulation and, in mammals, urination. It is cylindrical, pendulous, suspended from the front and side of the pubic arch. If you were to refer to it as a “phallus”, you would be incorrect, for that is only a valid description of the penis in its state of arousal.
‘The human penis can vary in length from five to eight inches, none of which has any physical bearing on the male or female enjoyment of sexual intercourse. Some of you may have heard talk of organs in excess of one foot, but this is mythology – or perhaps someone encountered a horse in the dark.’
No one laughed. They restrained their facial muscles out of respect for the professor, their cadavers’ genitals, and, most of all, their own.
Lubar held up his penile icon as he discoursed on its three columns of tissue: the urethral orifice, the prepuce, and the life-creating contents of the scrotal sac.
He paused to comment with a wry grin, ‘I hope you’re all following this.’ And then he asked a question. ‘Can anybody tell me what occurs when hyperemia of the genitals fills the corpora cavernosa with blood?’
For a moment no one reacted … overtly, that is. Could he actually be referring to? … Could he possibly mean? …
So for no apparent reason the professor called on Laura.
‘Yes, Miss Castellano. The result of hyperemia is –?’
‘An erection, sir.’
The class breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Why is it,’ Lubar asked, ‘that despite the preponderance of male members in this class only Miss Castellano is familiar with the well-known phenomenon of penile erection?’
No one responded.
Never one to lose the opportunity of cracking a joke at the expense of his female students, Lubar catechized Laura.
‘Can you think of any possible explanation, Miss Castellano?’
‘Perhaps I’ve just seen more of them, sir,’ she replied casually.
The professor circumspectly retreated into Gray’s Anatomy, suggesting that the class begin a careful dissection of the day’s featured organ. Those with female cadavers were told to visit a neighbor. And so they set to work.
It was curious. Though after nearly three months they thought they had become inured to the cutting of human flesh, most of the students winced at least inwardly as they began this dismemberment.
‘Jesus, Castellano,’ Barney murmured admiringly as they left the classroom several hours later. ‘You sure showed up all the guys in the class.’
‘It was nothing,’ she replied. ‘Why the hell didn’t you speak up?’
‘I don’t know. I guess I was afraid to stick my neck out.’
She fixed him with a mischievous gaze. ‘Neck, Livingston?’ Her eyes twinkled.
Just then Grete joined them.
‘Wasn’t that incredibly disgusting?’ she asked with a frown.
 
; ‘What’s the matter?’ Laura inquired.
‘All those innuendos, Lubar waving that thing around like it was some kind of holy object.’
‘Actually,’ Barney remarked casually, ‘it was to the ancient Greeks and Romans. They even worshipped it at festivals –’
‘Please, Barney, I’ve had quite enough for one afternoon. Frankly, I think Professor Lubar is a … a …’
‘A prick?’ Laura suggested.
Grete stormed off, flushed with indignation and embarrassment.
If ever proof were needed that the Pilgrim Fathers were truly ascetic Puritans, one would only have to consider the Boston winters. For with the approach of Christmas, the country-side freezes and a merciless wind whips the inhabitants like a penitent’s lash. The Pilgrims could, after all, have landed on the temperate shores of Virginia instead of the harsh Rock of Plymouth. They could even, as other Englishmen did, have emigrated to the West Indies, cast off their tightly buckled shoes, and cavorted in the sand.
But the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony wanted to suffer. And the New England weather gave them ample opportunity.
Even before the first blizzard, the residents of Vanderbilt Hall were snowed in by an avalanche of work. Time was reckoned not in ‘shopping days before—’ but in hours till the first set of Finals – four of them, right in a row: Anatomy, Histology, Physiology, and the dreaded fourth horseman of the Apoplex, Biochem.
Every dormitory window blazed all through the night. Passersby might perhaps have misconstrued it as a ritual to mark the festivals of light, celebrated by cultures throughout the world at the time of the winter solstice – the darkest days of the year. But inside there was no merrymaking, no caroling, and, most importantly, no sleep.
Things had come to such a pass that even Peter Wyman looked scared.
And Palmer Talbot, a medical student by association, also had to make sacrifices.
‘Not even Saturday night, Laura?’
‘Please try and understand. We’re like a city under siege here. People are actually freaking out from the tension. Believe me, it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced.’
‘Then why are you putting yourself through such torture, Laura? As far as I can see, everything you’ve done so far in Med School has been fraught with fear. Why would anyone in their right minds put up with it?’
‘That’s just the way it is. Sort of the price I have to pay.’
‘And I have to pay as well. How can you possibly expect to lead this kind of life and sustain a relationship?’
She sighed. ‘Palmer, right now the only relationships I can think of are between chemical compounds, cranial nerves, and histological specimens. All of a sudden I’m not a person, I’m a robot studying a human.’
‘Well, if you hate it so much, why don’t you quit?’
‘I never said anything about hating it, Palmer.’
Though it is a scientific fact that it is impossible for a human being to go without sleep and stay sane, the frenzied med students pathologically ignored this reality. Caffeine helped, of course, and many measured out the nights in plastic coffee cups.
A few were able to avail themselves of recent pharmaceutical advances. If they were lucky enough to know any upper-classmen or – still better – an intern, they could obtain one of the new ‘pep pills,’ amphetamine sulphates like Benzedrine to stimulate the nervous system and ‘conquer’ sleep. They were too busy poring over other texts to peruse the small print on the labels. Even the fastidious Alison Redmond neglected to question the safety of the tablets that were, so she felt, keeping her ‘mind as clear as the sky.’
Barney Livingston marched to a different drummer. His own way of vanquishing slumber was with periodic sets of push-ups followed by cold showers. He was regarded as a lunatic by everyone else – except Bennett, whom he had convinced to try the same method.
Laura stuck to cola, and before heading for Barney’s room, would fill a large Thermos at the Coke machine. Outside in the corridor students paced up and down, frantically trying to cram the material on countless index cards into their weary, worried brains.
Only Hank Dwyer was oblivious to all the inhuman pressure. While his fellow classmates thought they were in hell, he felt like a purified soul, who in a few brief days would leave this transient purgatory and soar up to be emparadised in Cheryl’s arms.
At three in the morning before ‘Inquisition I’ (Anatomy A) Laura and Barney agreed on a five-minute break. They lifted his window to invite the cold air to slap them awake and then opened the door to accelerate the breeze. The waking dead paid them no heed and continued to march, mumble, and memorize. March, mumble, memorize.
‘I’ve seen this sort of thing before,’ said Barney hoarsely. ‘This is just the way people move in a psycho ward.’
Neither of them laughed. They were too busy trying to remember the origin, insertion, and innervation of the bulbocavernosus muscle.
The tests themselves proved anticlimatic. And a kind of relief, since the freshmen were so exhausted after taking them they would grab a bite, go back to their rooms, and fall into deep and dreamless sleep. On the morrow they would walk into the exam rooms like automata and confront new examinations whose questions would make them so queasy that – almost as a reflex – they would regurgitate information.
At last, with only four shopping days left until Christmas, they were liberated. As she had promised, Laura spent the time at Palmer’s place on Beacon Hill. Although she wondered what joy she could bring him by sleeping eighteen hours a day, he seemed delighted to have her to himself – if only as an immobile object.
Meanwhile, Hank Dwyer became the first man in history to fly home on a bus. For he was en route to seventh heaven.
Grete bade farewell to everyone in the Deanery and hurried to the airport to board a student charter to the great Northwest. In the concluding days of the semester she had subtly hinted that there was Somebody Special waiting for her in Portland. This offered a possible explanation for her coyness and coquetry: she had just been practicing. No doubt her beau was tall, muscular, and Nordic and probably named Lars or Olaf. What need for an Eastern Adonis if you have a West Coast Thor?
Bennett came up to say goodbye to Barney the evening after their last exam.
‘Have a good holiday, Landsmann,’ Barney said. ‘I suppose you’ve got a different Cleveland beauty for every night of the twelve days of Christmas.’
‘I’m not going home, actually. I’ll be meeting my folks for a fortnight on the slopes.’
‘Aha, you mean le ski?’
Bennett nodded. ‘And l’après ski, which of course is the best part.’
‘Christ, Bennett, that probably means you’ll have two girls a day. Whereabouts are you doing your snow jobs?’
‘Montana.’
‘That’s pretty far.’
‘Well, after all, Livingston, I’m a far-out guy.’
Peter Wyman’s plans were the most ambitious of all. He was remaining in Boston to do lab research with none other than Professor Michael Pfeifer.
At seven on the evening of December twenty-third, Palmer drove Laura to Logan Airport where Barney was waiting to join her for the Eastern Airlines shuttle to New York (only fourteen bucks for a mere hour’s aerial roller coaster ride through the turbulent December winds between Beantown and Gotham).
Palmer embraced her warmly, reminded her to choose an early train to join him for the Hunt Club’s New Year’s Eve fête, and then zoomed off himself toward the ski trails of Vermont where, as he had told Laura, he would sublimate his need for her by schussing himself to exhaustion.
As Laura held their place in the serpentine queue of students waiting to board the flight, Barney excused himself and dashed to the newsstand to buy a Sports Illustrated.
He did not sprint back. Instead, he walked slowly in a state of mild shock. Only Laura’s voice roused him to action.
‘Shake ass, Livingston. We’re going to miss the goddamn plane.’
br /> He broke into a trot for the last fifty or so yards and joined her just as their turn came to hand their chits to the gate attendant.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ she inquired as they pushed their way into the crowded cabin.
‘Nothing, nothing. I guess I’m a little out of shape, that’s all.’
They found two seats together on the far right aisle, squeezed into them, and began to buckle up. Barney was strangely silent, merely staring at the bald spot of the man in front of them.
‘Livingston,’ Laura persisted, ‘you look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘I have – sort of.’
Just then the Lockheed Electra’s propellers emitted a deafening roar.
Laura fidgeted nervously as the plane sped down the runway and then lifted up over Boston Harbor into the wintry sky. At last the engine noise abated and Laura could again press for information.
‘What the hell happened, Barn?’
He shook his head in utter consternation. ‘I was just getting near the magazine racks when I saw Bennett standing in line for a flight.’
‘So?’
‘He was traveling First Class.’
‘Hey, we know he’s got bucks. It’s obvious by the way he dresses. What’s such a big deal?’
‘He told me he was going skiing in Montana,’ Barney replied. ‘But that sure as hell isn’t where he’s going. I mean, Castellano, the guy was getting on a Swissair flight to Zurich! Don’t you find that a little strange?’
‘No,’ she replied. ‘I find that extremely strange.’
13
The Swissair stewardess came by, offering champagne and hors d’oeuvres to the First Class passengers. Bennett Landsmann welcomed the caviar, but politely declined the beverage.
‘Danke, ich werde vielleicht später mit dem Abendessen ‘was trinken.’
‘You speak German very well,’ said the bejeweled gray-haired woman sitting next to him. ‘Where are you from?’
‘The exotic city of Cleveland, Ohio, madame.’
‘But surely you were not born there?’ she continued, obviously fascinated.