The house of God

I went to see an abusive drunk who said, 'I was by a pushcart in the garment district and I've got a problem with my legs.'

'When were you hit?'

'Six years ago:'

'It's not an emergency. Come back to the clinic Monday.'

He wouldn't leave, and I called Gath, and together we tried to convince him to leave, but instead he began to unwrap his right leg, saying, 'Here, just look at this, eh?' As the yellow bloodstained rags began to unwind, my stomach turned, and Gath screamed, 'DON'T TAKE THAT OFF!'

'Why not?' asked the drunk gleefully. 'You're doctors. Look.'

The pus?yellow rags slipped away, and we were faced with the most foul?smelling, ugly, oozing ulcers down to bone that either of us had ever seen. I felt sick. Gath went red and livid, sticking his face smack up against the drunk's and yelling, 'YOU HAD TO DO THAT, DIDN'T YOU, YOU BASTARD!'

From there things went downhill. All joined in the chorale of abuse. Underdoses, overdoses, drunks, psychopaths, whores, V.D., and vagitch, providing me with the pleasure of sitting between the gynecology stirrups, looking down the diseased barrel of the Holiday world. My attempts at sleep were constantly interrupted. At three A.M. I saw a suburban housewife brought in by her husband.

'I can't stand up straight,' she said, leaning.

'How long have you had this problem?' I asked, sleepy?eyed.

'Three months'

'Then why did you come in tonight?'

'It's worse tonight. See, I can stand like this,' she said, leaning, 'but I can't stand like this,' she said, standing up straight.

'You are standing like that,' I pointed out.

'I know, but I prefer to stand like this.'

I TURFED her out and she abused me some, and left. At four?thirty I was awakened by a refrain of OIY OIY OIY and I knew that a medical admission had arrived. The nurse handed me the clipboard, saying, 'Don't worry, it's hopeless: end?stage breast cancer, metastatic throughout pelvis, abdomen, and spine.'

'It was awful. A scoliotic wreck of a woman, bent into an ungodly shape, demented from the spread of the cancer to her brain, fighting like an animal in pain against my doing anything for her. Two sisters hovered, demanding I do everything. The disease was disgusting and painful. These sisters were irritating in their absurd hope. This was no live thing, no hope. This was death. This was despair, that rare look into the mirror at first twinkle, at first graying, at gray. This was the bottomless panic at the lost smooth cheek of childhood, at no longer being young. I was angry at this woman because this, the beginning of her end, meant work for me. Sick at heart, I admitted her. The sun rose on this pivotal night shift of mine; and to me the sun seemed defective, a second, a lightweight and tired speck at the edge of a vast unseen interstellar, black. On the way out of the E.W. I was the recipient, of Abe's abuse, heaped like shit on my head. Suspicious and angry, I felt the world too depleted to wash away my bitterness. A child's rocking horse was rotting in the snow. For all I knew, the first cells of a cancer were budding in my bladder. My own crab, lost on a winter?dusk shore, scuttling among the lifeless debris, asearch with timeless confidence in my ultimate ebb, for food.

'Stand up, Roy,' someone said harshly, shaking me 'Roy?oy . . .'

It was Berry. All around me were well?dressed peon ple, standing up, and Berry said, 'Come on, Roy, it's the Hallelujah Chorus, stand up.'

I stood up where was I Symphony Hall. I was listening to that penultimate grenade, The Messiah, performed by the lonely and ratchet?voiced members of the Handel Society. Another matinee. As usual with any activity?outside the House of God, The Messiah had put me right to sleep. FOR THE LORD GOD OMNIPOTENT REIGNETH! HALLELUJAH! Sing it, boys. How could you know that He doesn't seem to reigneth much in the House of God E.W. AND HE SHALL REIGN FOREVER AND EVER. FOREVER! AND EVER! HALLELUJAH! HALLELUJAH! It wasn't a bad grenade, this Messiah, really. I looked around at the audience, stretching from the giant double organ onstage, back in row on row of creaky benches. Many gomers and gomeres, especially toward the front. Tufts of gray, hyperemic flesh over sallow cheek. GOMERES DON'T DIE! HALLELUJAH! HALLELUJAH! FOREVER! THEY LIVE FOREVER! The price of the seats had the rich gomers in front, the kids in the rear. Berry and I were halfway to being rich gomers.

'Roy, sit down. Now you sit, see?'

Some sharp?toothed woman let out with a menstrual I KNOW THAT MY REDEEMER LIVETH and Berry and I left. Our feet got soaked in the slushy snow, and I said, 'I feel sick. I can't seem to get this heaviness out of my chest, and I don't know what to do.'

'It sounds congested,' said Berry.

'Yeah, what do you think I should do? I don't even cough.'

'That's your trouble. You're not coughing. You need something to break it up. A tussive.'

'You think so? I never thought of that. What do you suggest?'

'Roy, what is this? You're the doctor, not me.'

'You're right. I never thought of that.'

'Dissociation. You're dissociating yourself from everything. You must be really depressed.'

'Didn't I tell you? The policemen say I've become paranoid. They've seen it happen to interns before. It comes from working in the E.W.'

'I thought you liked the E.W.'

'I used to. It had been fun. It wasn't all gomers. There were people whose lives I saved, I actually

saved.'

'What happened?'

'I got competent to handle the big stuff, and the other stuff is just one abusive person after another. It shits. Addicts trying to dupe you for dope, drunks, the poor, the clap, the lonelier?I hate 'em all. I don't trust anyone. It comes from being vomited on and spit at and yelled at and conned. Everyone's out to get me to do something for them, for their fake disease. The first thing I look for now is how they're trying to take me for a ride. It's paranoia, see?'

'Paranoia's OK,' said Berry, 'it's just a more primitive defense. If you think someone's watching you, you think you're not alone. It keeps the desperation of loneliness out of your mind. And the rage. You're so depressed, Roy, you've been so far down lately, it's horrible to see. You've changed.'

At that I got tears in my eyes. The gap between what was human, with this smart, caring woman, an dwhat was inhuman, with the gomers and the abuse became too much. Choked up, I hung my head, found myself blurting out that I had something to tell her and that I was screwing around with a nurse. I awaited the explosion.

'You don't think I knew that?' asked Berry.

'You did?' I said, surprised.

'Sure. Floozies and oysters and all the rest, remember? I know you pretty well. It's all right with

Roy. As long as it goes both ways.''

'It is? You mean that?'

'Yeah,' she said, and then, looking me square in the eye she went on, 'with the internship wrecking you, we can't keep on just as we were. That's been obvious for months. We'll keep this love going, Roy, I'm going to fight for it. Just remember, though your freedom means my freedom too. OK, buddy?'

Crunching down the jealousy, I said, 'Sure, buddy . . . sure, love,' and I hugged her and kiss and with tears in my eyes I said, 'There's only a week to go in the E.W, and I'm really worried what's going to happen. I might not make it. I'm scared that of these nights, with nobody else around, when someone starts to abuse me, I'm going to lose control and beat the shit out of some poor bastard'

'Let me warn you, Roy: in psychiatry, this week coming up, the one between Christmas and New Year's, is the worst. It's a week of death. Be careful, get ready. It's going to be terrible.'

'A Holocaust.'

'Exactly. Savage.'

'How am I going to survive?'