'Where the hell did you learn that?' I blurted out, without thinking, and then blushed at the implication that these policemen were just two dumb lanky Irishmen.
'Our source for this was a remarkable firebrand of a minuscule Jew. A veritable Herzl,' said Gilheeny, ignoring my rudeness.
'His name will be familiar, it is inscribed in the hearts of all, and above the lintel of room 116, the room named after him.'
'Grenade Room Dubler?' I asked.
'The complete intern. Dubler knew all the fundamentals and tricky shortcuts that made him a medical wizard. Without question, in our knowledge of twenty years in God's House, Dubler was the best'
'Well, I'd like to hear about him, but I've got to go see that gomere,' I said, picking up my bag to go, yet wanting to hear more about this enticing and eccentric Dubler.
'No need, man,' said Gilheeny, putting a fat hand on mine, 'no need. We all know her?Ina Goober, an archetype, and we have already put on as much of a BUFF as we could. She is with your pal Chuck at this very moment.'
'You treated her?' I asked in some amazement.
'She is beyond treatment. She needs nothing but a new nursing?home bed, as hers has been sold. There is no need for you to see her, for she is virtually on her elevator ride up.'
They were right. Chuck came out of room 116, put his bag down on the desk, and said, 'Hey, Roy. how you doin'? Great case, eh?'
'Terrific. How'd it go with her?'
'Just great. She thought I was Jackson, the black tern she had last year. Not only that, she sees LeRoy; in Outpatient Clinic, and she thinks I'm him too:'
'LeRoy is another person of the black skin color?' asked Quick.
'No foolin'. So she has us all, and she gets us all confused. That's OK, man, 'cause I. never did meet a gomer who could tell two black doctors apart. You know how it is. So long. An' be a WALL.'
'Before we hit the beat tonight,' said Gilheeny, 'there is time to tell one further story of Grenade Room Dubler. After making ties of axial friendship with us, in repayment for the transfer of knowledge from his brain to ours on an encyclopedic range of subjects, Quick and myself offered to educate your man Dubler in the more pornographic side of our beat. He became excited in the sexual anticipation, and one night we picked him up at midnight at these very doors telling him that we had arranged for him to do all manner of dirty things with a 'woman of the night,' if you get my meaning?'
'The great Gilheeny was at the wheel, and I was in the shotgun seat,' said Quick, 'and Dubler in the back, when in the area called the Strip, amidst the sailors and the seamen, we stopped the car and let an acquaintance of ours, one Lulu, jump into the back seat with Dubler. Lulu was the epitome of hot sex and cheap thrills.'
'Instructing Dubler beforehand that he could do anything he wanted with Lulu and that the rearview mirror was not to be used by us, we turned on the radio and drove randomly about, our eyeballs blinking back at the bright lights.'
'Dubler and Lulu began to go at it,' said Quick. 'His hand went to a breast, which responded in banner fashion. After much hesitation, the New Jersey Grenade bolstered up the courage to slip a hot hand up under a high skirt. Up and up and up the thigh it went, as we watched in the rearview mirror.'
'Suddenly it hit something hard,' said Gilheeny, 'hard and long, in the shape of an erect male organ of the XY?chromosome species.'
'There was a sharp explosion from the little Grenade. We stopped the car, Lulu jumped out one side, Dubler out the other. It was days before we could cease to do the only human thing, laugh.'
'Dubler forgave us, but slowly.'
'And only after we suggested that this had been part of our education of him, since we are, in some sense, textbooks, of a different sort, in ourselves.'
'For what is learning if not the exchange of ideas?' asked the redhead cheerily. 'Now we must go. For your willing ear and prospectus of what you might teach us, we will make sure, on your eight?hour shift, that we take all drunks, accidents, gunshots, and abusive hookers away from the House of God and across town to the E.W. at Man's Best Hospital, MBH. You should have an easy night, and good night.'
'Why do you hang out here instead of at the MBH?' I asked. 'And why are you being so nice to me?'
'Man's Best Hospital is not a friendly place. It is filled with overachievers lacking in the human qualityof humor. In an instant it would commit a Crazy Abe. As a Jew, you know it is filled with red?hot and serious Gentiles. As Catholic policemen, we know it is filled with red?hot and serious Protestants. The odd Jewish tern there is a discredit to his roots. We know, for example, that Grenade Room Dubler, as well as yourself, were rejected by MBH for internship slots, in spite of your highest qualities on paper and in the flesh, and each rejected because of your 'attitude'.'
'How do you know that much about me?' I called after them as they were disappearing through the automatic doors, thinking that only the computer that matched me for my ternship knew that I'd listed the: MBH ahead of the House of God, and had gotten turned down there. The computer matching was reknowned for its secrecy. 'How come you're so sure?' '
Gently, wafting back through the whoosh of closing doors and settling on an imaginary hook in air as gracefully as a magician's silk scarf, came the reply:
'Would we be policemen if we were not?'
12
Santas were everywhere, punctuating the real world of welfare and mugging with commas of fantasy and remembrance. There was a Salvation Army Santa, a militant clanging his bell in front of the rnaridatory tubercular trombonist; there was a rich Rubensian pasha of a Santa in a chauffeured Caddy at rush hour; there was even a Santa, a schizoid?looking Santa but a Santa nonetheless, riding a chilly elephant through the park. And of course there was a Santa in the House of God, spritzing joy amidst. the horror and the pain.
The best Santa was the Fat Man. To his gaggle of outpatients in his Clinic, he was a Fat Messiah. Given his brusque manner and raucous laugh, it was a surprise to me to find out how much his patients loved him. One afternoon before Christmas, I was walking with him to our Clinics.
'Sure they love me,' said Fats, 'doesn't everyone? All my life?except for the ones who were jealous everyone has always loved me. You know the kid in the center of the kids on the playground? The kid whose house the others come over to? Fats in Flatbush, always. So now it's kids we call 'patients.' Same thing. They all love me. It's great!'
'As crass and as cynical as you are?'
'Who said? And so what?'
'So why do they love you?'
'That's why: I'm straight with 'em and I make 'em laugh at themselves. Instead of the Leggo's grim self- righteousness or Putzel's whimpering hand?holding that makes them feel like they're about to die, I make them feel like they're still part of life, part of some grand nutty scheme instead of alone with their diseases, which, most of the time and especially in the Clinic, don't hardly exist at all. With me, they feel they're still part of the human race.'
'But what about your sarcasm?'
'So who isn't sarcastic? Does are no different from anyone else, they just pretend they're different, to feel big. Jesus, I'm worried about this research project, though you know my trouble?'
'No, what?'
'Conscience. Would you believe it? Even ripping off the federal government at the VA Hospital makes me shiver. It's loony. I'm only making forty percent of what I could. It's awful.'
'Too bad,' I said, and then, as we approached the Clinic, I felt that sinking feeling of having to deal with, these husbandless hypertensive LOLs in NAD with their asinine demands for my care, and I groaned.
'What's the matter?' asked Fats.
