gone out on a limb for you, so act accordingly. Then after you see Stark, give this crusade up. You’ll ruin your career before you begin.”
“Are you worried about my career or your own?”
“Both, I guess,” said Bellows standing aside for the disembarking elevator passengers.
“At least you’re honest.”
Bellows squeezed into the elevator and waved to Susan, saying something about seven-thirty. Susan presumed he meant their dinner date. At that moment her watch said eleven forty-five.
Tuesday, February 24, 11:45 A.M.
Bellows looked up at the floor indicator above the door. He had to cock his head way back, as he was almost directly under it. He knew that he had to hustle in order to be on time for his case, a hemorrhoid operation on a sixty-two-year-old man. It wasn’t his idea of a fascinating case but he loved to operate. Once he got going and felt the strange sense of responsibility which the knife afforded, he didn’t really care where he was working, stomach or hand, mouth or asshole.
Bellows thought about seeing Susan that night, and he felt a sense of pleasurable anticipation. Everything would be fresh and unspoiled. Their conversation could range over any one of a thousand topics. And physically? Bellows had no idea what to expect. In fact he wondered how he would be able to bridge the colleaguelike rapport they had already established. Within himself he sensed a very positive physical reaction toward Susan but it began to trouble him. In a lot of ways, sex meant aggression to Bellows, and he didn’t feel any aggression toward Susan, not yet.
A smile crept over his face as he imagined himself kissing Susan impulsively. It made him remember those awkward adolescent moments in his early youth when he would continue some banal conversation with his pimpled date right up to her doorstep. Then without warning he would kiss the girl, hard and sloppy. Then he’d step back to see what happened, hoping for acceptance but fearing rejection. It had never ceased to amaze him when he found acceptance, because in many ways he didn’t know why he was kissing the girl in the first place.
The concept of seeing Susan socially reminded Bellows of those early years of dating because he felt an inner urge for physical contact yet did not expect it. Susan was obviously palpable and luscious, yet she was going to be a doctor, as he was. Hence she would have little appreciation for the trump card Bellows always felt in a social situation—most everyone was impressed when he said he was a doctor, a surgeon! It didn’t matter that Bellows himself knew that being a doctor did hot assure any special attributes, contrary to popular mythology. In fact, if he used many of the attending surgeons at the Memorial as examples, the effect of admitting such an association should have been a handicap.
But what really bothered Bellows was the knowledge that a penis would hold little fascination for Susan; in all probability she had dissected one.
Bellows did not reduce his own sexual urges and fantasies to anatomical and physiological realities, but what about Susan? She looked so normal with her smile, her soft skin, the hint of her breast gently rising with her breathing. But she had studied the parasympathetic reflexes, and the endocrine alterations that make sex possible, even enjoyable. Maybe she had studied too much, too much of the wrong thing. Maybe even if the occasion was auspicious, Bellows would find his penis limp, impotent.
The thought made Bellows doubtful about seeing Susan. After all, once away from the hospital, Bellows wanted to escape, and mindless sex was a superb method. With Susan, if it happened at all, it wasn’t going to be mindless. It couldn’t be. Finally there was the sticky question about the wisdom of dating a student currently under his supervision on the surgery rotation. Bellows was undoubtedly going to be called upon to evaluate Susan’s performance as a student. Dating her represented a ridiculous conflict of interest.
The elevator door opened on the OR floor and Bellows quickly crossed to the main OR desk. The clerk was preparing the OR schedule of the following day.
“What room is my case in? It’s a Mr. Barron, a hemorrhoid.”
The clerk looked up to see who it was, then down at the current schedule.
“You’re Dr. Bellows?”
“None other.”
“Well, you have been taken off that case.”
“Taken off? By whom?” Bellows was perplexed.
“By Dr. Chandler, and he left word for you to meet him in his office when you appeared.”
To be taken off one of his own cases was very strange for Bellows.
Certainly it was within George Chandler’s prerogative since he was the chief resident. But it was highly irregular. Occasionally Bellows had been removed from a scrub on which he was to assist, usually to help on some other case, and usually for purely logistic reasons. But to be removed from one of his own cases where the patient had been assigned to Beard 5 was a totally new experience.
Bellows thanked the OR clerk without bothering to hide his surprise and irritation. He turned and headed for George Chandler’s office.
The chief resident’s office was a windowless cubicle on 2. From this tiny area came the tactical edicts that ran the surgical department from day to day. Chandler was in charge of all the schedules for all the residents, including the on-call and weekend duty assignments. Chandler was also in charge of the operating room schedule, assigning the staff and clinic cases as well as the assists for the attending surgeons who asked for them.
Bellows knocked on the closed door, entering after hearing a muffled
“Come in.” George Chandler was sitting at his desk, which nearly filled the tiny room. The desk faced the door, and Chandler had to squeeze past to gain access to the seat. Behind him was a file cabinet. In front of the desk was a single wooden chair. The room was bare; only a bulletin board adorned the walls. Blank but neat, the room was somewhat like Chandler himself.
The chief resident had successfully risen up the competitive pyramidal power structure of the lower world of students and residents. Now he was the liaison between the upper world, the full-fledged surgeons certified by specialty boards, and the lower world. As such he was a member of neither class. This fact was the source of his power as well as his weakness and isolation. The years of competition had taken their inexorable toll. Chandler was still young by most standards: thirty-three years old. He was not tall: about five eight. His hair was half-heartedly combed in some sort of modern Caesar look. His face had a gentle pudginess that belied his easily aroused temper. In many ways Chandler represented the young boy who has been bullied too much.
Bellows took the wooden chair opposite Chandler. At first no words Were spoken. Chandler regarded a pencil he had in his fingers. His elbows were resting on the arms of his chair. He had rocked back from what he had been working on when Bellows knocked.
“Sorry about taking you off your case, Mark,” said Chandler without looking up.
“I can manage without another hemorrhoid,” said Bellows, maintaining a neutral tone.
There was another pause. Chandler tipped his chair forward to the level position and looked directly at Bellows. Bellows thought that he’d be a perfect individual to play Napoleon in a play.
“Mark, I’m going to assume you’re serious about surgery, surgery here at the Memorial, to be exact.”
“I think that’s a fair assumption.”
“Your record has been reasonable. In fact I’ve heard your name on several occasions in relation to possibly being considered for the chief residency. That leads me to one of the reasons I wanted to talk with you.
Harris gave me a call not too long ago and he was completely strung out. I wasn’t even sure what he was talking about for a few minutes. Apparently one of your students has been nosing around about these coma cases, and it’s got Harris bullshit. Now, I have no idea what’s going on, but he thinks that you might be behind getting the student interested and helping him.”
“It’s a her.”
“Him, her, I don’t give a damn.”
“Well, it might be significant. She happens to be a very well put-together specimen. As for my role in the matter, it’s a big fat zero! If anything, I have constantly tried to talk her out of the whole affair.”
“I’m not about to argue with you, Mark. All I wanted to do is warn you of the situation. I’d hate to have you gamble your chances on the chief residency because of some student’s activities.”
Mark looked at Chandler and wondered what Chandler would say if he told Chandler that he was going to see
