and I didn't know for sure what, but I knew that from taking the risks and learning and remembering Fats, I had pinned down my terror and exploded it to bits. From that night on, I might be everything else, but I'd never again be panicked in the House of God. It was a thrilling thought?almost like in the intern novels and in the inside of Howard's skull and in my father's letters?until I realized with alarm that I hadn't learned how to save anyone at all, not Dr. Sanders or Lazarus or Jimmy or Saul or Anna O., and that what I was thrilled about was learning how to save myself.
8
My mid?September, according to Jo's schedule, neither I nor any other tern was supposed to have learned how to save himself. That next morning, as the warmth of the fading summer percolated up through the crisp air, as the clear cirrus football weather blew into the ward through the skeleton of the Wing of Zock rising higher and higher like jail bars over our windows, I showed up for rounds a half?hour late, and I was the first tern there. Jo was furious, and when, an hour late, Chuck ambled in, wearing yet again the same dirty whites with the same fly open and the same no necktie, Jo exploded, saying, 'I told you, Chuck, that rounds start at six?thirty. Got it?'
'Fine, fine.'
'Where have you been?'
'Oh, well, I been getting my car fixed'
Just as rounds ended, in flew the Runt. His hair was frazzled, his belt undone, his shirt was hanging out, his stethoscope dragged from his back pocket, and he had a big smile plastered over his carnival of a face. He was sizzling.
'Are you sick?' asked Jo.
'Hell, no. I feel grrr?ate.'
'Where have you been?'
'I've been fucking my eyes out,' said the Runt, and then, roaring, clapped a hand on each of Chuck's and my shoulders, and with an idiotic rolls coasts of a grin, yelped.
'You've been what?' asked Jo.
'Fucking. Copulating. You know, vasodilation of the penile veins, it gets hard and the male sticks it into?'
'That's inappropriate?'
'Hey, Jo,' said the Runt, looking to us for support, and then, ignoring her fragility, 'go fuck yourself, huh?'
With that Chuck and I knew we had created a monster and felt real good about it, but Chuck pointed out that it was sort of like watching your mother?in?law drive your new Cadillac off a cliff, because we knew that Jo would not go fuck herself but would go talk to the Fish, who would go talk to the Leggo, who would get us back but good, since the essence of any hierarchy is retaliation. Jo led the rest of rounds in silence, until we got to the admission named Jimmy, who'd been TURFED to the SICU. Jo insisted we go see him, and as our caravan turned up the hall, Jo got excited about the case, and unable to contain herself any longer, blurted out, 'Hey, Roy, that sounds like a really great admission.'
Without thinking, remembering how Jimmy's decompensation had strung me out, as if from somewhere else than me, although I knew it did come from some bilious region within me, I heard myself create a new LAW NUMBER NINE: THE ONLY GOOD ADMISSION IS A DEAD ADMISSION, which stopped Jo in her tracks, the same way that, a few minutes later, when Chuck and the Runt and I were poodling around the SICU while Jo macerated Jimmy, we were stopped in our tracks when we saw, rigged up in an orthopedic apparatus, the remains of a human. Bandaged head to toe, it was clear that the patient had collided with something and that the point of impact had been his testicles. They were cantaloupe, even honeydew. Here we had an aberrant Hell's Angel who, on his Harley Hawg, had smashed head?on into a tree. A sign on the end of his bed read: IT TAKES BALLS TO RIDE A HARLEY.
None of us could have imagined what an ace auto mechanic Angel was until we heard from the Runt how, even the first time, she had fixed his compact car: 'Well, I was so upset at what was happening last night, I couldn't even talk straight by the time I got to her apartment. I don't know what you said to her on the phone, Roy, but when she hung up, things were a lot easier. She poured me a drink, but all I could think of was Lazarus and Risenshein and the graffiti above the urinal at the Chinese restaurant: STAND CLOSER, IT'S SHORTER THAN YOU THINK. Well, anyway, she asked if I'd??like to watch TV and I said sure. We were sitting on the couch, and I didn't know if she liked me, and then all of a sudden she's sort of leaning her boob against me and her red hair is unpinned and down to her scapula and I start to feel better. And she says It's kind of uncomfortable in here, why don't we watch inside, and unplugs the TV and carries it into the bedroom. I couldn't believe it. I start to nuzzle her neck and she says Clothes are such a hassle, and she takes off her sweater and her skirt. Well. She starts to make husky noises and since she's taken off her sweater, I take off her bra. Ha! Perfect! Big soft tits! Ha! I pull off her panties,' said the Runt, pulling off Angel's panties right before our eyes in the middle of the nursing station, 'and she pulls off my pants. Incredible!'
'What about her pubic hair?' I asked.
'Bright red!' said the Runt with a wild look in his eyes. 'Perfect! Ha! Well, then I kind of hesitated when I go to put it in, and I think of Lazarus dying and all and it . . . well, it dies too.'
'Damn!' said Chuck.
'But she's right there with her hand, and it raises right back up, and when I get if in, she's wet and ready, not like June or all the others my mother always liked. The first time I was a little off, and I came too soon, but before I knew it she had her hand between my legs and we're at it again. Ha! Hahaaa!
Twenty?three minutes. I timed it. And then when she was reaching orgasm she said something like This is terrii?fick! and her words were like a whip spurring me on. Bells rang and the earth shook. Yippeee! And then the next time?'
Chuck and I looked at each other.
'?she was sort of lying there with her back to me, and I thought she was asleep, but no, she kind of reached around and started pulling on my penis and the next thing I know she had kind of maneuvered it in and we were at it again and I think that was the time that did it. Yee?ow!'
'Did what?'
'Did what you guys said it would?made me a doc. We went on and on, her moaning and calling out things, and me sweating and grunting, and just before we came she started saying, at first in a whisper and then louder and then screaming it out so I was worried that someone might hear, DOCTOR RUNTSKY DOCTOR RUNTSKY DOCTOR RUNT?SKEEE! and when it was over, lying there, she snuggled up to me and sighed this wonderful satisfied sigh and said, Runt, you are a great doc, g'night, and the last thing I saw this morning was the sunlight on those fieryred pubic hairs. ha! i owe it all to you. There's nothing I won't try now, nothing!'
'Damn,' said Chuck, 'Runt you've become completely unnervous.'
'Right. I can't wait to tell that dry bitch June it's all over. Poetry? Ha! That ain't poetry, this is. You know what's coming next?'
Neither Chuck nor I knew what was coming next.
'I'm gonna taste her pubic hair, 'cause I know in my heart that it's strawberry red. Roy, I just want to say thanks. Thanks for taking over my service last night, for helping me out, and for kicking me out of the House and into bed with Angel.'
Such was the first installment of the Runt's relating to us, blow by blow, his love affair with Angel. While Chuck and I at first felt a little uncomfortable listening to the intimate details the morning after each thrilling episode, we didn't feel so bad that we couldn't listen, and we realized that the Runt was going through a healthy stage of development that we'd both passed about ten years before. Besides that, it was unctuous steamy stuff. In gratitude, we taught the Runt medicine, and each of us with a growing sense of camaraderie, helped each other do the work of the House of God.
Shortly after the Runt's first auto repair, Chuck's true greatness came out. First it was Lazarus. Chuck and I, in an effort to lighten the Runt's load, had flipped a coin for Lazarus, and he'd become Chuck's patient. One day
