her back to me. As Molly bent down over Sophie, grabbing her behind the knees and neck, arms spread apart like Christ on the Cross, I noticed that the two top buttons of her ruffled blouse were undone, and I was staring into an enticing cleft between Molly's breasts, bubbling up out of lacy bra cups. She noticed me noticing, and said, smiling, 'Go ahead.' How bizarre, ' the contrast between these two women. I had an urge to slip my penis into Molly's cleft. Potts popped his head in, and asked us if we knew where a Bible could be found.
'A Bible? What on earth for?' asked Molly.
'For pronouncing a patient dead,' said Potts, vanishing again.
I tried to recall how to do an LP. At BMS I had been particularly bad at these, and to do an LP on an old person was more difficult, for the ligaments in between the vertebrae are calcified, like guano on an old rock. And then there was the fat. Fat is death to a tern. All the anatomical landmarks get obliterated in fat, and as I tried to locate Sophie's midline, with my ill?fitting rubber gloves and the rolling fat, it was impossible. I thought I had it, and as I put the needle in, Sophie screamed and leaped, and as I advanced the needle further, she yelped and leaped again. Molly's hair came loose, a blond cascade over Sophie's old and sweaty torso. Every time I looked into Molly's cleavage I got aroused, and every time Levy said something I got mad and wanted to slug him, and every time I advanced the needle Sophie leaped up in pain. I began to sweat. I tried another spot on Sophie's fat back. No luck. Another. Nothing. I noticed that blood was coming out of the spinal needle, so I knew it wasn't where it was supposed to be. Where was it? Lubricated by the sweat, my glasses fell off and contaminated the sterile field. Molly let go at the same time, Sophie uncoiled and looked like she was about to GO TO GROUND from just below the Orthopedic Height but we caught her in time. Embarrassed, my cockiness splattered in sweat all over Sophie, I told Levy to stop smirking and get the Fat Man. Fats came in, in two shakes had Molly expose herself and Sophie's porcine back, and, humming a TV commercial that sounded like 'I Wish I were an Oscar Weiner weiner,' with a smooth and effortless Sam Snead stroke sliced through the fat and popped into the subarachnoid space. I was amazed at his virtuosity. We watched the clear spinal fluid drip out. Fats took me aside, and like a coach put his arm around my shoulders and whispered:
'You were way off the midline. You hit either kidney or gut. Pray kidney, 'cause if it's gut, it's Infection City, and she may suffer the ultimate TURF, to Pathology.'
'Pathology?'
'The morgue. No BOUNCE. But I think it worked. Listen.'
'I WANT TO GO HOME I WANT TO GO HOME I WANT TO . . .'
I began to feel scared that I had started an infection that would send Sophie home for good. As if in confirmation, from the next bed, behind the curtain, Potts was dealing with his first death. His patient, the young father who'd dropped on the first?base line the day before, had died. Potts had been called to pronounce the patient dead, as required by law. We peeked through the curtain: Potts was standing at the foot of the bed, his BMS beside him holding a Bible, on which rested Potts's hand. His other hand was raised toward the body, which was lying there as white as a corpse, which was what it was. As we watched, Potts intoned:
'By the power vested in me by this great state and nation I hereby pronounce you, Elliot Reginald Needleman, dead.'
Molly, snuggling up to me so that her left breast brushed my arm, asked, 'Is that really necessary?' and I said I didn't know, and I asked Fats, who said, 'Of course not. The only federal regulation is that you take the two pennies out of your loafers and put them over the dead man's eyes.'
Potts, decimated, sat with us at the nursing station. Slurring his words, his eyes bloodshot, he said, 'He's dead. Maybe I shoulda shipped him to surgery sooner. I shoulda done something. But I was so tired when he came in, I couldn't even think.'
'You did all you could,' I said. 'He popped an aneurysm, nothing would have helped. The surgeons refused to operate.'
'Yeah, they said it was too late. If I had moved faster, maybe?'
'Enough of that,' said the Fat Man. 'Potts, you listen to me. There's a LAW you've gotta learn, LAW NUMBER FOUR: THE PATIENT IS THE ONE WITH THE DISEASE. Understand?'
Before he had a chance to understand, we were interrupted by the Chief Resident, the Fish. He had a concerned look on his face. It turned out that both Needleman and the Yellow Man were not Private patients, but House patients, and the Fish was partially responsible.
'Liver disease is a special interest of mine,' said the Fish, 'I've recently had the opportunity to review the world literature on fulminant necrotic hepatitis. Why, the case of Lazlow would make a very interesting research project. Perhaps the House Staff would wish at some point to undertake such a project?'
No one said he wanted to undertake such a project.
'However, both the Leggo and I feel, Dr. Potts, that you waited too long without giving steroids. Do you understand?'
Stabbed, Potts said, 'Yes, you're right. I understand.'
'I'm on my way to an impromptu colloquium on Lazlow. We've brought in the Australian, the world's expert on this disease. It does not look good. You waited too long. Oh, and one more thing,' said the Fish, looking at Chuck's dirty whites and unbuttoned shirt without a tie, 'the way you dress, Chuck. Not professional. Not enough for the House. Clean whites here, and a tie. Understand?'
'Fine, fine,' said Chuck.
'And you, Roy,' said the Fish, pointing to the cigarette I'd just lit up, 'enjoy that, because it will prove to be three minutes off your life.'
I saw red. The Fish slid off down the corridor to the colloquium. A morbid silence coated us. The Fat Man broke it, spitting out, 'Jerk! Now, just remember this, Potts, if you want to end up like that jerk, you'll believe him. If not, you'll listen to me: THE PATIENT IS THE ONE WITH THE DISEASE.'
'Are you really going to dress better?' I asked Chuck.
''Course not, man, 'course not. In Memphis, we don't even wear neckties to funerals. Man, these gomers are sumpthin' else. None of my four admissions so far believes I'm really their doctor. They all think am the hep.'
'Hep?'
'H?e?1?p. Hep. The colored hep. See you later.'
Staring out the window, Potts muttered to himself something about how he should have given the Yellow Man the roids, but the Fat Man stopped him, saying, 'Potts, go home.'
'Home? Charleston? You know, right now my brother?he's in construction?he's probably lying out in a hammock on Pawley's Island, sipping a fizz. Or maybe upcountry, where it's all green and cool. I never should have left. The Fish is right in what he said, but if this was the South, he never would have said it. Not like that. My mother has a word for him: 'common.' Guess I made my choice, though, didn't I? Well, I will go home. Thank God Otis is at home.'
'Where's your wife?'
'She's on call tonight at the MBH. It'll be just Otis and me. That's just fine, 'cause he loves me, too. He'll be lying there on the bed with his balls up in the air, snoring. It'll be good to go home to him. See you tomorrow.'
We watched Potts stumble on down the hallway. He came to the colloquium, outside the room containing the Yellow Man. Without looking in, as if ashamed, Potts slunk past them and out the door.
'This is crazy,' I said to the Fat Man, 'this internship is nothing like what I thought it would be. What do we do for these patients anyway? They either die or we BUFF and TURF them to some other part of the House.'
'That's not crazy, that's modern medicine.'
'I don't believe it. Not yet.' 'Of course you don't. You'd be crazy to. It's only
your second day. Wait till tomorrow, when you and
me are on call together. Well, I'm going home. Pray
for the Dow Jones, Basch, pray the fucker stays on up'
Who cared?
I finished my work and walked down the corridor toward the elevator. The crowd around the Australian expert was breaking up, and out of it rolled the Runt. He looked a lot worse. I asked him what was going on, and he said, 'The Australian said we should do an exchange transfusion, where you take all the old blood out and replace it
