‘I’ll have to talk with her, so make sure she’s lucid Sunday evening. I’ll be there at nine.’
It was a typical lower middle-class suburb with nearly identical two-family houses, each with the same shrubbery and a similar tree in front. It was 9:05 P.M. The road was pitch dark. And Tim Bluestone was pacing nervously in front of the Carson house when Seth suddenly materialized.
‘Bluestone?’ he said softly.
‘Hi, Seth. What happened to your car?’
‘Never mind. I’m parked in a suitable spot. Let’s go inside.’
Seth did not add that he had taken Judy’s station wagon – which lacked ‘M.D.’ plates.
From outside the front door they could hear the sounds of baseball on the TV. Seth suspected that the husband kept it loud to drown out – from his ears if not his mind – the sounds of his wife’s suffering.
‘Hello, Doctor,’ Irwin Carson said, in a voice drained of emotion. ‘Thank you for coming.’
‘Where’s Mrs Carson?’
‘She’s upstairs. Her bedroom’s upstairs. Uh – she’s expecting you.’
Seth merely nodded. ‘Would you like to go up and speak to her?’
Her husband thought for a moment and then replied, ‘We’ve done nothing all afternoon but talk. We’ve said goodbye, I don’t think I can …’ His voice trailed off.
The two doctors nodded and walked slowly up the stairs.
‘Good evening, Marge,’ Tim said, ‘this is Doctor Lazarus.’
The woman was barely a wraith, her face like a skull. An I. V. ran into her right arm, sustaining her life drop by little drop.
She reached out a bony hand toward Seth and, with effort, whispered, ‘Thank you for coming, Doctor.’
Seth nodded and sat down to exchange a few words with the pain-racked woman.
‘Mrs Carson, it must be hard for you to talk, but there are things I have to know. Are you aware of why we are here tonight?’
‘Yes, Doctor.’
‘Were you absolutely sure of what you asked Doctor Bluestone? I mean, have you had any second thoughts since then?’
‘No. I want to die.’ To which she added, almost in a moan, ‘Please, Doctor.’
At this moment Seth’s eyes hit upon a small replica of the crucified Christ on her night table. She was a Catholic, and yet by inviting him this evening, was she not committing a kind of suicide – a mortal sin? Marge answered the question before he could ask it.
‘Don’t worry, Doctor,’ she murmured, ‘do what you have to do. The rest will be for me to face. I’ve prayed to Him so often, I know He’ll understand.’
At this point Seth looked at Tim to see if he, as her family physician, wanted to say anything. But he seemed unable to speak. Seth turned again to Mrs Carson.
‘I’m just going to put some medicine into your I.V., Mrs Carson. In a few minutes you’ll go to sleep—’
‘– and no more pain?’
‘No, Mrs Carson,’ Seth answered softly, ‘no more pain.’
The woman began to cry, her tears zigzagging down the crevices that once were cheeks. ‘Oh, God,’ she murmured, ‘thank You for sending Your angel.’
Seth continued to talk calmly, conscious that his words were comforting her. As he inserted the small vial into the needle in her right arm, he noticed Tim Bluestone turn his back. He couldn’t even watch. Seth took hold of Mrs Carson’s hand and held it tightly as the life and pain ebbed out of her.
The two physicians left the room and rejoined Irwin Carson, who was staring unfocusedly at the tiny figures on the screen. He stood up.
‘She’s at peace,’ Seth replied to his unasked question.
Carson crossed himself and began to cry. Perhaps from sorrow, perhaps from relief. Perhaps both.
‘I … I don’t know what to say,’ he sobbed.
The younger doctor did not know how to respond.
As he was putting on his jacket Seth offered, ‘Mr Carson, I want you to know that the last thing Marge said was that she wanted this because she loved her family.’
Still weeping, Carson nodded, indicating that he understood.
‘Doctor Bluestone will come by in the morning to see how things are. Goodnight.’
Irwin Carson remained rooted where he stood, as the front door quietly closed.
The two doctors were once again outside in the darkness.
‘How can I thank you, Seth?’ Tim whispered with emotion.
Seth took him by the shoulder and replied, ‘Don’t call me again. Ever.’
And he disappeared into the night.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever been so depressed in my entire life.’
‘Statements like that could make people lose confidence in psychiatrists,’ Bill Chaplin said. He was trying to lift his author’s mood with a friendly dinner at Elaine’s.
Barney tried unsuccessfully to smile.
‘Bill, I’m only human. Besides, you don’t need to be happy to help other people – otherwise there wouldn’t be a single therapist in New York. I’ve got a lot of tangible things to be miserable about. For one, Emily’s left – she won’t even take my calls at SI. In fact, one of my so-called “well-wishing” friends has informed me that she’s getting involved with some guy from ABC Sports. My pal Laura’s somewhere in the wilds of Toronto two steps away from a nervous breakdown, and nobody wants to read my book, even in paperback.’
‘Come on, Barney,’ Bill urged, ‘quit mourning, it’s been long enough. Let’s talk about your next book.’
‘I haven’t got one,’ Barney replied disconsolately. ‘My cupboard’s bare. I mean, I thought I had a great idea in the sports book. I honestly believed that people wanted to know what goes on in the heads of heroic figures.’
Bill stared intensely at Barney. ‘You’re right, they do. And I don’t think you should change your approach one iota. Why not just focus on another type of heroic figure?’
‘No way, Bill. Achilles is dead, Sir Lancelot is dead – and the Beatles have broken up. You can’t have idols in an age of cynicism. I mean—’
Suddenly Chaplin interrupted:
‘Barney – I’ve got it!’
Bill, in fact, had gotten it so loud that half the restaurant turned to glare at him.
But Bill was too electrified by his own idea to care.
‘Barney,’ he continued, ‘there are all kinds of religions in America, but everybody agrees on one thing – God is a doctor or vice versa.’
‘What? Chaplin, you keep talking like this and I’ll have you certified. From my experience, doctors are as far from being heroes as any group I have ever known.’
‘You know that,’ Bill stated, ‘but the average person doesn’t. The man in the street thinks the doctor is a priest with a hotline to God. We worship them. We’re scared of them. If you can somehow convey what really goes on in doctors’ heads –’
Barney began to smile. ‘Bill, there’s no such thing as a collective medical psyche. Doctors come in more varieties than Heinz. But most of the ones I know are dedicated people struggling to do a Sisyphean task, just hoping that the rock won’t roll over them. It’s not as glamorous as Ben Casey and Doctor Kildare.’
‘You know that, Barney, but you’re on the inside. Doctors I’ve encountered are venal, insecure schmucks in white coats who use the letters M and D as crutches to hold them up in society. Am I right?’
‘No,’ Barney answered quietly. And then added, ‘But you’re not completely wrong, either. I’ve come across some of those characters – the kind who read Medical Economics instead of the American Journal – and they demean the reputation of our whole profession.’
Bill all but leaped across the table to grab Barney by the lapels. ‘Come on,’ he demanded, sounding like a drill sergeant. ‘Show me – show me what’s behind those masks, the minds inside those inflated heads. Show people what doctors really are.’
Barney pondered for a moment, and then calmly inquired, ‘Are you asking me for a hatchet job?’
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‘I’m just asking you for the truth, Barn. If the public image of doctors is distorted, set it straight.’
Bill’s voice lowered. ‘You listen to me, Livingston. We’ve tapped a nerve and you’re not leaving this upmarket McDonald’s without a signature, even if it’s on a napkin.’
And then, half to himself, Bill murmured, ‘Oh, Dr Jorgensen, for years I’ve been wishing you dead. But now I hope you live long enough to read this book!’
‘Who’s Dr Jorgensen?’
Bill suddenly grew somber.
‘The guy that killed my eye,’ he murmured. ‘I went in for a routine cataract job. This guy messed up and I walked out with a dead eye. I even sued and the bastard won.’
‘Come on, Bill. The chances of that happening are about a million to one.’
‘No, Barn, you don’t get the point. Some kind of incident like this has happened to almost everybody in the world. This topic hits everybody. I’ll bet even in your life you’ve had a bad experience with a doctor.’
Barney was suddenly jolted by the image of a scene he had never beheld and yet had conjured up in countless nightmares: his father lying face down in the garden, while his mother screamed and Warren ran …
And Dr Freeman didn’t come.
He did not realize how deep in reverie he was until he heard Bill say, ‘Okay, are you gonna write that book?’
Barney shook his head. ‘I don’t think you’d want to read what I’d produce, Bill. The majority of doctors are so dedicated and involved, their rate of suicide is something like ten times the norm.’
‘Is that really true?’ Chaplin exclaimed.
Barney nodded. ‘Their drug and alcohol addiction is a hundred times the norm.’ And Barney added, ‘Because caring takes a toll.’
‘So you want to write an apology, a defense?’ Bill inquired.
‘No,’ replied Barney, ‘just the truth: that doctors are like every other human being.’
‘Okay,’ Chaplin conceded, ‘write it any way you want. Only promise me you’ll write it.’
Barney looked at his watch and stood up. ‘Listen, if I don’t leave now I’ll be late for my three o’clock patient and I’ll have to include an exposé of myself in this damn thing. Thanks for lunch, Bill. I only wish to hell we’d talked about baseball.’
‘How come?’
‘Because now I have to write that goddamn book.’
As usual, Lance Mortimer had a mistress called Lady Luck. His mentor at Mount Hebron was a man regarded with awe by many of his colleagues. For Patrick Knowles was the first in the profession to reduce his entire hospital obligation to forty-eight hours a month.
What is more, these were forty-eight consecutive hours. There were some in the medical community who wondered how Knowles could remain alert throughout his arduous two-day stint. But then the specialty of this transplanted Englishman was waking people up as well as putting them to sleep.
He was a great teacher. He painstakingly instructed Lance in perhaps the most delicate maneuver required at the outset of an operation, namely getting an endotracheal tube down the patient’s throat and into the lungs, so the anesthesiologist could do the unconscious patient’s breathing for him.
(‘Here’s the whole trick, old boy,’ Knowles explained. ‘Remember that the trachea is in front of the esophagus. Be absolutely sure you see the tube passing through the vocal cords, then you should be able to hear breathing sounds over the anterior chest – which means you’re home and dry.’)
Lance also quickly learned how to avoid a common error of apprentice anesthesiologists – namely, knocking the patient’s teeth out while trying to insert the tube.
Fortunately, the one time he did this Knowles was at his side and quickly took over to aspirate the teeth before they could get stuck in a bronchus or a lung, where they might cause a nasty pneumonia or a still nastier death.
Lance was also blessed (Lady Luck showing unusual fidelity) in the fact that his victim – so to speak – was a charity patient and was overjoyed at the prospect of getting dentures that actually improved her smile.
There was another factor that contributed to his mentor’s extraordinary success in Tinseltown.
Not only was Knowles a rich and handsome man of many parts but he looked a full twenty years younger than he really was – and this without apparent surgical enhancement.
One night (i.e., one of his monthly two) he was on call with Lance and he imparted this secret as well. It was not merely the fact that he massaged his face with Dr Niehan’s magical formula, made from the embryos of sheep at the famous clinic in Switzerland, but that he knew enough to ‘avoid hassle with determination.’
‘If the surgeons – most of whom, as you’ve probably noticed, are prattish twits – think they know better, don’t argue. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred they take the rap if the patient doesn’t make it. And most of the time you don’t even have to show up for the ritual of telling the next of kin.
‘And – thanks to those lovely, efficient nurse-anesthetists – you can work three O.R.s at once, nipping back and forth to see how the patients are doing. And since we ‘gas passers’ don’t need to scrub up, you might even steal a sec to call your broker and see how you’re doing.’
Lance revered the man. Up to then, his dream had been only to work two operating rooms at once.
‘Hey, Bennett, I’ve got a patient in about ninety seconds. We’ve got to make this quick. What’s up?’
‘I’m up, Livingston. I just got the telegram saying I’ve been accepted for the heart transplant program in Houston.’
‘That’s great, Landsmann. You’ll be the first guy in medical history who can transfer a heart with a little soul!’
‘Hey, that was actually fairly witty.’
‘For that compliment, Ben, I’ll buy you the dinner I was going to buy you anyway, but you can have two desserts.’
‘When and where?’
‘Why don’t we meet halfway? There’s a steakhouse right off Exit Thirteen on the Connecticut turnpike. How about Friday night at around eight-thirty?’
‘Great. Go back to your shrinking, Barn.’
Two evenings later Barney pulled his new Ford Pinto into the parking lot of The Red Coach Grille and circled slowly, spied Bennett’s Jag, and parked a few spaces away.
Inside the restaurant it was loud and crowded. Still, there was no problem in finding Bennett, who was taller and of course darker than most of the clientele.
After greetings were exchanged and congratulations bestowed, they sat down and told each other how exhausted they looked. And speculated as to how many years this kind of schedule would take off their lives.
They ordered two T-bones and a bottle of Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon, then headed for the salad bar to overload their plates.
When they got back to their table, Bennett was eager to share the excitement of his new position with his best friend. But it was getting progressively more difficult for them to hear each other. There was a large table of noisy and jolly people nearby – getting noisier and jollier all the time. Finally Barney and Bennett were forced into silence.
Apparently it was some kind of family celebration and their leader, a balding, rotund little man, was telling anecdotes in a loud nasal voice.
The guy was actually amazing to watch. His effort to hold the limelight, not only of his table but of the entire restaurant, made it obvious to both doctors that he was trying to compensate for an inferiority complex.
This became ever more evident when the waiter, in a white cook’s hat, came by with a large wagon under whose massive egg-shaped stainless steel cover sat a long, succulent cut of London broil, waiting to be carved to the clients’ satisfaction.
‘Let’s hear it for the cows,’ squealed the roly-poly man. His clan applauded, whistled, and cheered.
Then the fat man made an astounding proposal.
‘Who bets I can swallow that whole roast in one gulp?’
‘No way, Carlo,’
said one of the male relatives dismissively. ‘Even a horse couldn’t do that.’
Carlo affected indignation.
‘Wanna put money on it, Chet?’ He reached in his pocket, withdrew a roll of bills, and peeled off a hundred dollars.
‘I got a C-note says I can swallow that roast beef whole. Put up or shut up.’
‘Okay,’ Chet replied with a laugh, ‘this will be the easiest “century” I’ve ever made. Let’s go.’
With all eyes in the restaurant upon him, Carlo had the carver stand aside and began to circle his prey like a matador.
Finally he stepped forward, grasped the roast in both hands, and held it above his head for all to see. There was applause and various encouraging sounds from what seemed like every table except that of the two doctors.
Barney heard one of Carlo’s relatives remark to a tablemate, ‘I seen him swallow big ones before, but this’ll make the Guinness Book of Records.’
Suddenly the crowd hushed and tension rose.
Carlo began to stuff the enormous roast into his mouth, as the crowd went wild.
A moment later he was on the brink of death.
His throat was completely blocked and he was unable even to draw breath. Clutching his gullet, he staggered, desperately trying to pull out the roast. All the while his face was turning a cyanotic blue.
His wife shrieked. Yet everyone in the restaurant seemed paralyzed.
Barney and Bennett reacted instinctively.
‘Heimlich Maneuver,’ said Bennett.
Barney shoved his way through the rapidly gathering crowd. He rushed toward the choking man.
Carlo’s wife was frantically trying to help her husband remove the roast when Barney arrived and brusquely pushed her aside.
‘What the hell – ?’ she screamed.
‘Give me room, give me room – I’m a doctor! Get out of my way,’ he shouted harshly. This was hardly a moment for bedside manner.
Barney began to apply the standard technique for removing a foreign body from the trachea, where it is preventing the flow of air to the lungs. He positioned himself behind Carlo, locked his arms around the victim’s chubby waist, making a fist with his right hand. Then he began to squeeze the abdomen between the navel and the ribcage with quick, forceful upper thrusts.