response from Olive, the Leggo proceeded to physical exam. In hushed expectation we watched him gently peel back the bedsheet and then pause. It was not clear if he'd caught sight of the humps. As if communing with the dead, he rolled up the nightie, and there, suddenly, were the two homungus, smooth, fluctulant, translucent, greeny?veined, and mysterious, almost cabalistic humps. Did the Leggo so much as bat an eyelash, no. Many eyes focused on him, and none could detect any reaction at all. Even well?prepared strong-gutted terns had felt the queasy slosh of nausea on first sighting the humps, but our Chief never turned a follicle. And then what did he do? Silently, as cautiously as a cat around food, didn't he take his right hand and put it on her right hump and then take his left hand and put it on her left hump, and it was all we could do to keep from screaming DON'T DO THAT! in amazement, revulsion, and disdain. And what did our Chief say was in them? Well, he didn't say. He just stood there straight?legged palming her humps for two minutes or more, and no one could figure out what for, but the only things we'd ever seen him go after like that were Moe the Toe's toe and God?given things filled with piss.
And then it was the last day. Relieved, happy, we bopped around the House saying good?bye, doing loopy nutty things, a carnival of interns. I searched out the Fat Man, and found him in an on?call room standing at a blackboard in front of three new terns, talking into the telephone:
'Hi, Murray, what's new? Hey, great! What? A name? Sure, yeah, no problem, hang on.' Turning to the terns, Fats saw me, winked, and then asked, 'OK, you turkeys, what's a catchy doctor's name for an invention? I'll be with you in a minute, Dr. Basch.'
So that was it: the reality of his inventions was only that they involved us with him, showing us that someone could stand outside the drudgery of the Hierarchies and create. He'd given us his inventions as a, way of helping us through. How I would miss him! More than anyone else, he knew how to be with patients, how to be with us. Finally I understood why he stayed in medicine: only medicine could take him. Burdened by his precocity, all his life Fats had hurt people by being too much. From his puzzled parents through his grade?school teachers and chums to his college and med?school classmates who'd gather at dinner, where he'd scribble notes and equations with such prodigal brilliance that as he rose to leave there'd be a mad dash for the napkins, the Fat Man had found himself separated from others by his power and his genius. All his life, he'd had to hold himself back. Finally, after two years of testing it at the House, he knew that here at last was something even he couldn't dent, that would not, in awe, in jealous anger, reject him and play with somebody else. He could dish out anything and not hurt anyone. He was safe. He would flourish. He would bloom.
Fats finished, escaped from the throng wanting to say good?bye to him, grabbed me and rushed me into the Men's Room, locking the door. He was beaming: 'Isn't this great! I love itl It's like being at Coney Island on the Fourth! And tomorrow, Basch, it's the STARS!'
'Fats, I figured out why you stay in medicine.'
'Terrific!' he said. 'Hit me while I'm hot!'
'It's the only profession that's big enough for you.'
'Yeah, and you know what the damn thing is, Basch?'
'What?'
'It might not be, after all'
We were interrupted by a banging on the door and the cries of the Fat Man fan club, and feeling rushed, I asked, 'Really?'
'Sure. But that's the game, isn't it?'
'What is?' I asked, feeling that this wily fatso had foxed me again.
'To find out. To see if it matches our dreams'
The noise at the door grew louder, more insistent and, panicky, I felt in my gut that this?right now!-was our good?bye.
'This is it,' said Fats, 'for now.'
'Fats, thanks. I'll never forget?'
Big fat arms hugged me, and the smiling fat face said, 'Basch, come to L.A. Be 'beautiful' like all the rest of us Californians. Even car crashes and rectums are 'beautiful' out there. So? So listen, Roy Gee Basch, Emm Dee: do good, support your AMA, and once a while, to remember where you come from, put money in the
He unlocked the door, was embraced by his crowd and was gone.
I went to the Telephone and Beeper Operators and handed in my beeper. Walking down the long fourt floor corridor, I passed Jane Doe and ignored Henry the Horse's HEY DOC WAIT. I found Chuck doing an invasive procedure on a gomere. He was wearin a bright orange shirt and a green tie with a heart of gold in the middle of which was the word LOVE. I asked how he felt and he said, 'Man, it's been pitiful but like this tie says, I loved it. C'mon, Roy, there somethin' I want to show you.' We went into the on call room, sat, and poured ourselves shots from bottle in his bag.
'You know, man, I been thinkin' about what to do next year.'
'You mean tomorrow?'
'Right. I keep gettin' these postcards, see;' he said showing me the pile he'd collected, 'and I been puzzling out what to do. I come a long way from Memphis. I could keep right on goin', startin' tomorrow, again. But look where it got me, huh? You know what, Roy?'
'What?'
'I figure I gone about as white as I can go. Watch this.' He took the postcards and one by one ripped them to shreds. He finished and looked at me. For once his eyes weren't that fake dull soft, no. They were sharp. They were proud.
'Good for you, baby,' I said, full of pride, 'good for you.'
'An look at this, he said, handing me a piece of paper.
'A bus ticket?'
'No foolin', man. Tomorrow mornin'. Back to Memphis. Back home.'
'Great!' I said, grabbing him. 'Great!'
'Yup. It ain't gonna be easy, it's a whole differn' worl down there, and I been away since that bus ride to Oberlin, Iemmee see, yeah, nine years ago. Folks are differn' there, and, well, man, the only cotton I ever picked was out of a aspirin bottle. But I'm gonna try. I'm gonna get back in shape, find a black woman, be a regular old black doc with a lotta money and a big bad lim?O?zeene. And that'll jes' about do it for old me.'
'Can I come visit you?'
'I be theah, darlin'. Don't you fret none, 'cause I be theah.'
Getting up to go, feeling sad and happy both at once, I asked him: 'Hey, ace intern, notice anything different about me?'
He looked me up and down and then said, 'Damn, Basch! NO BEEPERI'
'They can't hurt me now:'
'There it is, man.'
'There it is.'
I walked out of the on?call room, down the corridor, down the stairs. I stopped, feeling uneasy. Something had been left undone. The Leggo. He had never called me in. For reasons I didn't understand, I had to see him before I left. I went to his office. Through the open door I saw him staring out his window. Separated from the happy bustle in the rest of his House, he looked lonesome, a kid not invited to play. Surprised to see me, he nodded hello.
'I just thought I'd say good?bye,' I said.
'Yes, good. You're starting psychiatry?' he asked nervously.
'After I take a year off, yes'
'So I heard. Three of you leaving this year, yes.'
'Five if you count the policemen.'
'Of course. You know, you may find this hard to believe, but I had the same thought once, to take a year off. Even to try psychiatry.'
'Really?' I said, surprised. 'What happened?'
'Don't know. I'd invested too much by then, and and I guess it seemed like a risk,' he said in an almost quavering voice.
'A risk?'
