From March, 2017
It was warm in Boston for a Monday in November. The heliotrope in the back yard were in bloom, confused by a series of days with the temperature in the upper fifties. In one sense the unseasonably warm weather was a gift because, as usual, he was late putting his garden away for the end of the season. He had also just finished breaking up a cement retaining wall beside the driveway, one which had started to crumble years ago.
She left their house and headed to the blue Acura in front, rushing to get to the hospital in time. “That bastard blocked me in again” she said half to herself and half out loud.
Working the car back and forth in the early morning fog inch by inch she finally managed to pull past the red pickup truck. Pulling abreast of her former captor, she groped into the backseat, feeling for any of the gardening or construction tools he might have left there. Fingering the cold stone chisel, she deftly raised it, the strong hands of a surgeon, wielding it like a scalpel she smashed it into the truck’s side view mirror, sending shards of glass spraying all over the street.
Turning right onto Glencoe Street, she felt strangely fulfilled: “I’d like to see her face when she gets in that truck” she thought to herself.
Lynne had left at 5:30, while he was still in bed, not totally asleep but in a groggy half sleep. He had told her that he loved her; asked if she’d like to go out for Chinese that evening; rolled over and mumbled something that sounded vaguely like “Have a good day.”
The fog was rolling in as she drove up North Beacon Street heading toward Longwood Ave, the hospital district that treated the sick and injured from around New England and the world.
Before she scrubbed she wanted to take another look at the chart. There was something in her that kept flashing, suggesting that this was not the routine surgery that all of the tests had pointed to.
“Good morning Doctor.”
The guard standing at the door to the staff parking lot looked more alert than any human had a right to be at this time of day. Of course, he’d be going off duty in about another hour after working the eleven to seven shift.
“Hi Frank… Busy night?”
“Not bad just the usual street surgery. They called Doctor Steele in to repair a torn esophagus, from a knife fight. The kid is still in Recovery and from what Sammy on the fourth floor desk told me it’s going to be touch and go for awhile.”
“Have a good day Frank. ”
“Thanks; you too Doctor.”
Looking at the chipping and peeling light green institutional paint as she entered the hospital she was silently grateful that she’d not been on call last night.
“Steele must be pissed having to come in at three in the morning” she thought.
“Another kid whose life is probably ruined; a victim of being born at the wrong time in the wrong place and to the wrong parents. Steele is probably still here.”
She had to pee and went into the small bathroom off the physicians lounge, rushing past Doctor Steele who was sitting at one of the tables still in his scrubs over a cup of coffee smoking a cigarette.
The cracked tile floor, the noisy exhaust fan in the bathroom and the grime around the sink reminded her of nothing so much as a bus station, a memory from her youth, a memory she didn’t nourish or encourage.
Washing her hands and walking back into the lounge she approached the graying Doctor Steele, twenty five years her senior and looking like he had just come out of central casting for some medical movie.
“Good morning Michael ” Then she saw the bleary unfocused bloodshot eyes that looked up at her.
“For Christ’s sake Michael, you’re fucking shitfaced.”
“Yesh… Doctor… I am… I am somewhat incapacitated.”
“What happened to your patient, the esophagus?”
“Oh… another masterful intervention that may manage to keep the kid alive till someone is more successful in terminating his time on this earth.”
The Formica table in the lounge was on the verge of receiving yet another branding as Doctor Steele’s cigarette, resting precariously in the bean bag ashtray, was about to flip. Just before that could happen the older man snatched it up pinching it between his thumb and forefinger, flicked the long ash and raised it to his pursed lips to take one final drag before snuffing it out.
Going on, Steele complained: “It’s one thing to get rousted out of bed at an ungodly hour to try to save the life of one of these young men who are intent on killing each other; it’s another thing to have to fight with the City of Boston to get paid for this privilege, ungrateful wretch that I am.”
“You complain too much Michael. Where’s the patient?”
“He’s still in recovery, fighting to make it. The cops want to talk with him but I told them no. This one detective though, he’s a persistent son of a bitch, pushing; pushing; pushing…”
Lynne turned out into the corridor walking along the heavily polished brown and cream colored floor tiles, worn in many places. She noticed this: “worn and beat up like Steele” she thought to herself; beat up old tiles… beat up old doc. Both had seen too much, been through too much and were now, both of them, well past their prime. Their days of glory long over, they were both waiting for someone to come along and throw them out; replace them with newer fresher… better successors.
She thought of Jim and wondered if he were even out of bed yet. He was almost sound asleep when she was walking out the door. Living with a lawyer and thinking about getting married was pretty far from her mind just then, but he did, ever so slightly, and every so often creep into her consciousness. And, she usually smiled to herself when that happened, but not this time.
Rounding the corner and heading toward the Recovery room, Lynne was accosted by a man in a blue pinstripe suit. He looked to be at the top of his game at this unlikely hour. “I wonder if he’s related to Frank the guard” she thought to herself.
“Excuse me Miss… er… Doctor, I wonder if you could help me.” Saying this he pulled a black leather credentials case from his inner coat pocket, at the same time revealing the pistol he was wearing strapped into a shoulder holster. Opening the case he showed her his detective badge and removed a business card. Handing it to her he said: “Ma’m I’m Detective Walkowski from the first precinct. Could I have a few words with you?”
“I’m sorry Detective but I’m due in surgery in an hour and I’ve got to gown and scrub after I check on a very tough case in the recovery room.”
“I’ll only be a minute…”
“What is it you don’t understand about ‘no’ Detective?”
As she said this she stepped around him and pressed the proximity card hanging on the lanyard around her neck against the wall mounted reader, opening the double doors to the recovery room.
She knew he wouldn’t follow her in and he didn’t.
“Good morning Mary.”
“Hi Lynne; you’re looking chipper this morning.”
“I’m on at 7:00. I had checked with Admitting and the patient is here just roaring to go. But before I scrub in I wanted to check on Steele’s overnight wonder.”
“Steele was tough. I heard from the OR nurses that when he eventually did show up he was so drunk that they had to pump him full of coffee before he could even get dressed. From what I understand, the senior resident did almost the whole thing… just pushed Steele out of the way.”
“How’s the patient doing?”
His O2 sat is low but starting to come up. He’s struggling but over the last twenty minutes or so he seems to have turned a corner, more in spite of your colleague rather than because of him.
What are they going to do with that guy? It’s just a matter of time till he kills someone. There’ve been more than a couple of anonymous letters to the Chairman of the board complaining about him but I’ve heard that the two of them are tight.”
As the nurse was talking, the intercom came on: “Doctor Standstill… Doctor Standstill report to Room 426 on Four West.”
“Bye Lynne.”
Turning and running through the double doors, she almost knocked the police detective over.
“Doctor… Doctor can I have a minute to talk with…”
Lynne never heard the rest of his sentence as she raced to Room 426 where someone’s heart had stopped beating.
The crash cart was already there and one of the medical residents was attaching the paddles of the defibrillator to the patient’s chest. Lynne stood back. The dead man’s body jumped from the shock of the electric pulse.
Lynn didn’t know the resident who was in charge of the situation. “I’m a surgeon Doctor if I can help.”
Ignoring her, the resident said “OK, let’s do it again. Everybody back!”
Again the dead man’sr body responded in unison by lifting off the bed board the nurses had slid under him to give him CPR which had been to no avail.
The mood in the room was turning from professional to somber as the seconds kept ticking away and the patient’s chances of recovery were getting less and less. They were all standing there watching another young man dying before his time.
There was a flurry as Steele broke through the crowd, a charged presence larger than life.
“Gimme a scalpel!” he commanded one of the nurses and then proceeded to cut into the dying man’s chest. Then, cracking the man’s ribs, he grabbed his heart and started squeezing, manually pumping blood through his system.”
Nothing happened. Every so often Steele would stop and then resume again. The other actors in the room were in a state of frozen animation waiting, watching for some miracle, some slight chance to beat the power of death.
He continued squeezing and pumping, long after standard medical training and practice would have told him to stop.
They all continued to wait and watch, as a one, convinced of the futility of the situation.
Then, having paused for the fifth time, there was a brief flutter of the heart muscle… than another… and another… Intermittent and weak, but operating on it’s own. Slowly… gradually… the beat got stronger…
Color started to return to the formerly dead man’s face, replacing the ashen gray that moments before seemed to be riding with him to his grave.
Steele hadn’t had time to put on gloves and his nicotine stained hands and the scrubs he was still wearing from his earlier operation were covered with blood.
Turning to Lynne, who by this time had gowned and gloved, and in the same authoritative voice he said: “You close him up. I’ve got to sit down.”
Then turning he walked through the crowd of people who had, up to this very moment, held him in contempt.
“Does anyone have a cigarette?”