“It helps if you get on your knees,” Dr. Carroll said. “It’s safer that way.”
Brendan did, bowing before the toilet, and stared into the water, which actually started to make him feel sick, as though being in this position was a trick to induce vomiting.
The doc approached him with soft footsteps. “Regurgitation can be troublesome for many people. It is preceded by a racing heartbeat, extreme nausea, of course, and fear. The actual vomiting can be painful, especially if the sick one is dehydrated. But once it is over, most people invariably feel much better. Throwing up is a defense mechanism, designed by God to protect our bodies. There’s no reason to be afraid.”
Brendan turned back to the water and then the doc’s hand was on his shoulder. “I’ll be right here next to you. Then, after you’re done, I’ll give you something for your headaches and you can sleep a while.”
Tyler should have gotten whatever he was after from the doc’s bag at this point. Now all Brendan had to do was pretend the discomfort had passed and they could get out of this bathroom, but his body started to shake. The cold tile got into his legs and the subsequent chill rippled throughout his body like an electric current. He willed his body to stop shaking and that only made it worse. He grabbed the sides of the toilet bowl to stop the trembling but the bowl was cold too.
“It’s alright, son,” Dr. Carroll said. He got to one knee, very close to Brendan and then slipped his hand from Brendan’s near shoulder to his other, in effect hugging him. “Don’t fight it.”
“I’m okay.” Brendan’s voice betrayed him.
“There’s something I learned many years ago, something that has helped me through tough times.”
Brendan expected the typical adult rigamarole about enduring pain and maturing, but what he got was something so unexpected that he nearly made himself vomit just to end the awkwardness.
“The first year of medical school is tough, as you can probably imagine. There’s a lot of books to read and notes to take but that isn’t all of it. You see, the first semester of medical school is when the college tries to weed out the weak from the strong, to sort out who should really be there and who should go do something else.
“The first class you take is gross anatomy. That means it’s about all the parts of the human body. There’s fancy textbooks and large diagrams and pictures, all in wonderfully detailed color, but you can’t learn what you are truly made of from pictures in books. So, you go to anatomy lab, which is really an on-campus morgue. In fact, we medical students called it Cadaver City.
“Over the course of a semester, you dissect an entire human. You learn where the organs are, how the different parts of the body are connected. You learn more this way than you ever could through books. Besides, a doctor has to be made of sterner stuff; he has to not get sick at sea, which I’m sure you can appreciate right now.”
Is he trying to make me ill?
“These cadaver labs are run by the professors and the labs are taken very seriously. But the labs stay open late so the students can do additional work, improve their skills. People would normally go to these after-hours sessions in groups or pairs but not me. I preferred to be alone with the bodies. I liked the quiet. I liked the serenity.
“People spend much, if not all, of their lives complaining or weeping or cursing or just being loud and unpleasant. When we die, however, we are completely silent—inert. Our bodies are utterly vulnerable to the elements and to human hands, of course.
“It was during that first semester that I discovered not only did I enjoy being in Cadaver City with all those half-dissected corpses, but that I could find complete peace with them. I used to lay next to them on the dissection table. I would hold their hand, if it hadn’t been dissected yet. Sometimes I’d pet their hair, like you would a cat.”
The doc ran a hand from the top of Brendan’s head slowly down to his neck, where his fingers lightly tapped like a spider inspecting a new area.
“It’s standard that they keep the faces of the donated bodies covered for much of the semester. It’s easy to cut open arms, legs, stomachs, but most people find it particularly challenging to cut the face. It’s usually the last thing you do.”
Genuine nausea had gathered in Brendan’s gut and now he gripped the sides of the toilet harder and
“In my solitary sessions, I would uncover all the faces. I liked seeing the peacefulness that Death had left there. Sometimes, I would strip naked and stand before those bodies like an equal member, only living of course. I’d lay down naked with those bodies and then I’d start cutting up their faces.
“I cried for many of them as I did it, but it got easier and easier as I went along. Stripping the skin back, revealing layer and layer of fine muscle. The human face is extremely complicated. I’d work sometimes all night and only get half a face finished. But each slice of my scalpel and every new layer of discovery was an epiphany. I wasn’t merely discovering human anatomy, I was discovering God.”
What would Ellis and Dwayne say about that? How did the psycho doc’s medical school behavior fit into God’s Grand Plan?
He sounds empowered.
Dr. Carroll squeezed him with both hands, shoulder and neck. His beard prickled Brendan’s neck like pieces of dry hay. “I learned, son, that in the darkest corners of our minds there is a gateway to the illumination of the soul.” He let that piece of wisdom sit for a moment. His breath stuck to Brendan’s skin like slime. “Let that give you comfort if nothing else.”
He had to vomit, had to force out whatever was in his stomach, if anything, because he had to get out of this situation, get this weird fucker off of him and get the hell out of the house if that’s what it took.
The doc was almost on top of him, practically humping him. What if he was getting turned on? The doc’s crotch was right by Brendan’s ass; the doc could slip a hand down to Brendan’s belt buckle and then slide his pants right off. Bile came into his throat.
“Let me comfort you,” the doc whispered. “You’re a very special boy.”
Brendan couldn’t stop the tremors shaking his body. He gripped the edge of the bowl harder and imagined chunks of orange and red vomit floating before him.
“You remember when I gave you that myth book? Remember what I told you?”
It had been something about being strange and being a Greek or something.
“I told you not to worry about being weird. The Greeks would have thought you special, a gift—they would have made you a priest, a keeper of the peace between man and God. You are very special, indeed. Don’t be afraid.”
He saw maggots squirming in the chunks. Yet vomit did not usher up from his stomach. “That book is stupid,” Brendan said.
“Did you finish it?”
“I don’t need to.”
The doc’s hand gripped Brendan’s neck more tightly and then relaxed, his fingers sliding over the skin like worms. “That’s my boy,” he said.
Three thunderous knocks sent Dr. Carroll to his feet and quickly to the door. He wasn’t going to let Tyler in, no, he meant to lock the door and stay in here until Brendan finally spewed his guts or until the doc had his way with Brendan’s “dark hole,” as his friends called it. Tyler, however, had come to save the day; he burst into the bathroom and caught the doc mid-stride, arm extended toward the knob with a lost expression on his face as if he had forgotten where he was.
“My mom needs you,” Tyler said.
After a moment of indecision, Dr. Carroll told Brendan he’d be back to check on him and then went off to Mom’s bedroom.
“Sorry that took so long,” Tyler said. “But it’s done. You alright? You’re pale.”
Brendan couldn’t answer him. Was he alright? How could such an easy question be so hard to answer?
“You really sick?”
“I don’t know.”
They stayed like that for almost a minute before the grinding wine of the automatic garage door vibrated beneath them. Dad was finally home.
