'Now, that's just the kind of thing I resent,' I said to the Fish, 'having that damn ***MVI*** smeared all over the House under my name. Your kinky bouncers haven't done anything. Can't you stop it?'
'I tried,' said the Fish, 'but it didn't do any good. The damn thing may all be a practical joke anyway.'
'That's not what I heard. I heard that the prize for the ***MVI*** is a free trip for two to Atlantic City for the AMA meetings in June, with you and the Leggo.
'I didn't hear that,' said the Fish, beginning to leave.
'Damn!' said Chuck. 'Man, would you look at that!'
The Fish and I and Towl and Little Otto looked at that, which was, somehow, under my name on the blackboard, in all colors of the rainbow, that neat yet ornate insignia:
***
***ROY G. BASCH***
***
***MVI***
***
Later that week the Leggo and the Fish called a B?M Deli luncheon to announce another award, which we were to nickname the Black Crow. Since this was the first time all the terns had been gathered together since July the first, we greeted each other warmly and with relief. Everything had happened. Most of us had learned enough medicine to worry less about saving patients and more about saving ourselves. Although some of our ways of saving ourselves were beginning to seem bizarre, they weren't so far?out, yet, as to be dangerous or intolerable. Looking around the room, hearing the simmering jokes and laughter and chatter that from time to time popped its lid and boiled over into a happy roar, I realized how much we'd grown to care about each other. We were developing a code of caring, helping each other leave early, not fucking each other over, tolerating each other's nuttiness, and listening to each other's groans. Each life was being twisted, branded. We were sharing something big and murderous and grand. Sensing that, I felt close to tears. We were becoming doctors.
Eat My Dust Eddie, being run ragged in the deathhouse, the MICU, looked awful, and was talking about his previous night on call: 'I was admitting my sixth cardiac arrest and I got this call from the E.W.?Hooper, it was you?saying that there was a guy down there who'd arrested and you were thinking of sending him to me if he survived. I hung up the phone, got down on my knees, and prayed: Please, God, kill that guy! I was on my knees, I mean ON MY KNEES!'
'He died,' said Hooper. 'Jo was the resident, and she wanted to keep pumping his chest, but I said, 'As far as I'm concerned, this guy was dead ten minutes ago,' and I left.'
'Hooper, you're a great man,' said EMD. 'I feel like kissing you.'
'Kiss me you can, kiss me if you like, but all I know is that if a human disaster like that had shown up in Sausalito, he'd have had to sign his own postmortem permission slip to be admitted at all:'
'I think that's a bit crass,' said Howie, grinning.
'Stay out of Sausalito when you're having your cardiac arrest.'
Potts came in, late, made a thin sandwich, and sat down, and I was reminded that the Yellow Man had yet to die. Potts was haunted by him, linked with him, and whenever we saw Potts, we saw the Yellow Man. Potts was becoming more withdrawn. He hadn't come out for our touch?football game. He was a tree with a limb ripped off, the pulp a harsh raw white. No one ever mentioned the Yellow Man to him. Or to the Runt. But if the Runt was infected, at least he'd have done some snazzy dirty things with Angel before he died. I asked Potts how he was.
'I don't know. OK, I guess. Otis loves the fall, the leaves. I keep thinking I'm not doing a good job here, you know.'
'You're all doing a good job,' said the Leggo, standing before us, 'but you as a group have not been getting enough postmortem permissions. It's hard to describe the importance of the autopsy. Why, the autopsy is the heart?no, the flower, the red rose?of medicine. Yes, the great Virchow, the Father of Pathology, performed twenty? five thousand autopsies with his own two hands. It's crucial to our understanding of disease. For instance, that Czech, nicknamed?what was he called, Dr. Fishberg?'
'Not was called, sir, is called. The Yellow Man, Sir.'
'Yes, take the Yellow Man. . :'
The Leggo went on to take the Yellow Man, stressing how important it would be for us to get the post when he died, and as he spoke, each word seemed to rip into poor quiet Potts.
'When I was an intern,' said the Leggo cheerily, 'we got seventy?five percent post permissions. Of course, in those days we did the autopsies ourselves, but you know something, we didn't mind. Because we were helping to advance the science of medicine:'
The Leggo said that the terns were not getting enough postmortem permissions, and since he knew 'how hard it is to approach the family for permission in their hour of need,' he thought of 'a way to raise the incentive: an award. The award will go to the intern with the most postmortem permissions for the year. The prize will be a free trip for two to Atlantic City for the AMA in June, with Dr. Fishberg and myself.'
There was dead silence. No one knew what to say, until Howie, puffing and smiling, said, 'Damn good idea, Chief, but maybe it should be a trip to the American Pathological instead.'
'I don't think it should be the most posts,' I said, sure that the Leggo was joking, 'I mean, after all, wouldn't that put a premium on death? The tern with the most deaths would probably win, and that would make us lay off treatment, or, even worse, kill off patents to win the prize.'
'Yeah,' said Eddie, 'why not make it a percentage of deaths?'
The Leggo and the Fish didn't laugh, and as the meeting broke up, no one was sure whether they'd been serious or not.
'Of course they're serious,' said Hyper Hooper, 'and I'm gonna win it. The Black Crow! Atlantic City, here I come. Salt?water taffy, strolling along the boardwalk.' He grinned, and started to sing to us. 'Under the bo?o? orrdwalk, down by the seee?eeee . . . '
And so if they were serious the Black Crow! Award came into being, at least as much being as the ***MVI***. Hyper Hooper, the tern who got off on death, really got off, and we others, who still didn't like death and were repulsed even more by autopsies, felt that once again the odds were getting stacked against the living, and that we had to work even harder to protect the poor unsuspecting patients who came, trusting, into the House of God oblivious to that incentive for their deaths and posts, the Black Crow. Hooper didn't waste any time, for the next afternoon as I was dictating a discharge summary, from the next cubicle I heard, his familiar voice: 'The patient was admitted in good health except for a urinary?tract infection . . .'
I went on dictating, but tuned back in a few seconds later:
'. . . the temperature rose to 107 and a resistant strain of
Spinal fluid? I thought it had started in the urinary tract?
'. . . the intern was called to see the patient and found her unresponsive. She expired three hours later. Permission for the postmortem was obtained Yahoo! This is H. Hooper, M.D.'
As he was rushing out I caught his arm and asked him what had happened, and he said, 'The usual, Death City. And I got the post. Atlantic City, here I come, Black Crow, Black Pants, and all.'
'But she came in healthy.'
'Yeah, and then she boxed, and I get credit for the post. The Black Crow's gotta go. So long.'
'That award's a joke. They couldn't mean it.'
'It's no joke. Autopsies are the flower?no, the red rose?of medicine. The Leggo wants more posts so he looks good.'
'To whom?'
'Who cares? With that awful birthmark, he'll try any cosmetic procedure. Hey, I gotta go. The little woman and I are going to the Eucalyptus Room again tonight. Trying to float the M off the R.
And so the intern first out of the starting blocks for the Black Crow Award sped off down the hallway, out of the House of God, with that same glitter in his eye that the Fat Man had had over his food and his Invention and that Chuck and I had seen in the Runt's eye when he talked pornographically about Thunder Thighs, and the same glitter that Chuck had had when he'd made mincemeat of Ernie on the court or talked about Hazel, and the same
