Doctors (60 page)

Thank heaven she would be leaving in a few months, and
he would no longer have to endure her murderous stares at the hospital.

Meanwhile, he was taking childish delight in his own continuing ascent in the world of literary freebies. The pinnacle was an invitation to dine at Lutèce (where the cost of the wine exceeded his monthly salary as a resident). His host was Bill Chaplin, senior editor at Berkeley House, an imprint so distinguished that its very name was an imprimatur of quality.

And Barney found Chaplin enormously well-read, equally at home discussing Plato or the
nouveau roman.
But he admired even more the quality and flair of the assistant Chaplin had brought along—a willowy nymph with long genuinely blond tresses.

They were already at the table when Barney arrived.

“Sally is just going to sit in while we chat, if you don’t mind,” Bill said deferentially.

Somehow Barney
knew
with certitude that Sally Sheffield (Bryn Mawr ’63) had fantastic legs even though they were underneath her skirt, which itself was underneath the table.

Though relatively inexperienced, Barney was not naive. He knew that Chaplin had not invited him to discuss Flaubert or Proust or Faulkner—though all of them did come up in the course of conversation. But he had to wait until after the soufflé, the brandy, and the (contraband) Havana cigars before they got down to business.

Barney knew that it was nitty-gritty time when the lissome Miss Sheffield excused herself for leaving early, charmingly explaining “My boss is a slave-driver, and he’s given me a pile of homework. Nice meeting you, Dr. Livingston.”

Barney’s eyes were fixed on the golden tresses disappearing across the room. God, he thought to himself, she’s even blonder than Laura.

“Barney,” Chaplin began, rediverting his attention, “I hope I’ve conveyed to you how impressed I am by your work. It’s fresh. It makes exciting reading because you don’t use psychiatric mumbo-jumbo.”

“I’m flattered, Bill,” he answered sincerely.

The editor smiled. “I’d very much like to publish you, Barney.”

“I’d very much like to be published
by
you,” Barney replied.

“Have you been kicking around any ideas?”

“As a matter of fact I have. Ever since I was a kid I’ve
been fascinated by sports. I think practically everyone in the world at one time or another has fantasized about being a champion.”

Bill nodded. “I was going to be an All-American halfback. Unfortunately, I stopped growing at five-six.”

“I always dreamed of playing pro ball for the Knicks,” Barney continued. “But the fact is, some people actually get to
live
this fantasy. A runner like Emil Zatopek—the Czech “Ironman”—there’s got to be something special in his head that drives him beyond human limits. But there are literally dozens of examples.”

“The Brown Bomber would be another logical choice,” Bill offered.

“Absolutely. Joe Louis is a fascinating case. There’s a guy who couldn’t even
talk
till he was seven, ending up the Heavyweight Champion of the World—

“—and then there’s a whole category of athletes who started out with crippling handicaps. Hal Connolly, for example. Imagine—he’s born with a bum left arm and, of all things, chooses the hammer throw, an event which
emphasizes
his disability. He ends up winning the Olympic Gold in ’56 and breaking the world record seven times.”

“That would be terrific,” Bill agreed, warming to the idea.

The maître d’ arrived with the check, which Barney’s host quickly signed and returned.

“Thank you, Mr. Chaplin,” said the maître d’ with a little bow and genuflection in his voice. In an instant the two men were alone again.

“Well,” said Bill in summation, “I think you’ve got a wonderful idea. And I’m certain we’ll be able to arrange something that will satisfy your people.”

People? Barney said to himself. What the hell does he mean?

Chaplin’s next utterance clarified the matter.

“Have them call me in the morning. Listen, I’m sorry to leave you like this, but I’ve still got a long manuscript to get through tonight. But do stay and have another brandy or whatever. By the way, who does represent you?”

Barney dredged his Bordeaux-logged memory and, after what seemed to him an eternity, replied, “Uh—Chapman, Rutledge, and Strauss—”

“Ah, attorneys,” said Bill approvingly. “Thank heaven we don’t have to deal with those wretched ten-percenters. Ciao.”

The maître d’ groveled up again. “May I get you something, Dr. Livingston?”

“Uh, yes, matter of fact, I’d be grateful for a glass of mineral water. And do you have a phone?”

“Right away, sir.” The genie vanished.

This guy is going to carry a phone to me? Me, Barney Livingston, late of Brooklyn, New York, who’s been stuffing nickels and dimes into slots all his life, now gets a phone served on a silver platter? God, I can’t wait to tell Fritz about this.

But there was more pressing business at hand. He dialed the number.

“Who’s this?” said a sleepy voice.

“Warren, it’s me—I’m sorry to wake you.”

“Barn? Are you in some kind of trouble?”

“Sort of. But it’s nice trouble. I need ‘people.’ ”

“Are you sure you haven’t flipped from lack of sleep?”

“No, no, but I think I forgot the name of the firm you work for.”

“Chapman, Rutledge, and—”

“Good, good,” Barney interrupted. “My brain is still slightly intact. Listen, Warren, find out who the best contracts guy in your office is and ask him to call me at the hospital. I’ve just sold a book!”

“Hey, wow! Congratulations, Barn! Wait till Mom hears about this. You must be in seventh heaven.”

“Actually I’m in Lutèce. But that’s as close as I’ve ever been. ’Night, kiddo. Thanks.”

It had been a relatively quiet night in the pit, as doctors often referred to the E.R.—the usual broken bones, febrile babies, car crash victims, etc.—until the police suddenly alerted the Admissions nurse that two victims of a particularly brutal mugging, both of whom had received multiple stab wounds and were bleeding badly, were on their way to the hospital.

In a matter of minutes Seth heard ambulances and police cars and a split second later there was bedlam in the E.R. There may have been only two patients, but the attendants and policemen rushing them in on stretchers were themselves smeared with blood.

“Who’s in charge here?” barked a police sergeant.

“I am,” Seth said. “Tell me quickly, I don’t think we have much time to lose.”

“Sorry, Doc, sorry. From what I could see the woman got
the worst of it. She seems to have more wounds—and I think she’s been raped, too.”

“Thanks, Sergeant,” Seth said quickly. “I’ll take care of her myself.”

He motioned to a pair of nurses and Tim Bluestone, an intern, to take the man into the second Trauma room. Meanwhile he, another intern, and a third nurse would work on the woman in Room 1.

Before the wheels of the trolley had even stopped revolving, Seth’s assistant was starting an I.V. in one arm while he himself started a second and began transfusing blood.

The nurse had stripped off what was left of the woman’s torn garments. Though she was spouting blood everywhere, the patient lay so comatose with shock that she seemed beyond pain.

As he tried to gauge the quantity and severity of her wounds, Seth heard angry and indignant voices around the table saying, “Animals, absolute animals. How could
anybody
do a thing like that?”

“She obviously put up a hell of a fight,” Seth remarked quietly. “She’s mostly cut up on her arms and shoulders. There are only two lacerations on her abdomen and they’re well below the heart and too superficial to have damaged an organ.”

He looked at the younger doctor. “Check her for internal bleeding and start sewing. I’ll give you a hand as soon as I see how Tim is doing.”

He walked quickly across the corridor and opened the door to find the other E.R. team strangely motionless.

“What’s happening?” Seth asked.

Tim Bluestone answered hoarsely, “He was knifed right in the heart. He’s dead.”

Seth looked at the cardiac monitor: the printout looked like a straight line. The victim lay immobile on the table, a small red stream leaking slowly from a cut on the left side of his chest.

“Take his blood pressure again,” Seth ordered as he withdrew a tiny flashlight from his pocket to peer into the man’s eyes.

“I’ve already checked them,” Bluestone commented. “His pupils were dilated and didn’t react at all.”

Almost as if he had not heard, Seth asked, “What’s the blood pressure?”

“Zero,” Bluestone answered. “I told you, he’s dead.”

Again Seth seemed to ignore his colleague’s verdict. “Give me a needle and a syringe stat.”

“With what, Doctor?” the head nurse inquired.

“Just a hypodermic,” he snapped.

The syringe was placed in his hand. To the astonishment of all present—especially young Dr. Bluestone—Seth swiftly plunged the needle into the man’s chest, almost as close to the heart as the wound itself. Slowly he let the syringe fill with blood, relieving pressure from around the man’s heart.

“I’m starting to get a heartbeat,” said the incredulous nurse at the monitor.

Seth nodded slightly to acknowledge her report and turned to the other nurse. “Give Dr. Bluestone ten mils of epinephrine.” He then glanced at the younger doctor and said, “Put it straight into his heart, Tim.”

Without another word, Seth reached into the instrument tray, withdrew a scalpel, slit open the man’s chest, and with a wide retractor snapped two of his ribs. Now there for all eyes to see was the heart—beating.

Seth covered the knife wound with one hand and squeezed the heart with the other. The head nurse dashed out to see if the surgeons on call had arrived to complete the work Seth had already begun.

Bluestone was speechless. All he could manage was, “Jesus, that was quick thinking.” And then it occured to him. “But it’s against hospital rules for anyone but a surgeon to open a patient’s chest.”

“I know,” Seth replied in quiet annoyance. “But try telling that to his widow.”

Seth’s hands continued to pulsate the heart, his eyes fixed on the man’s face.

After a few minutes the patient began to groan, “Ellen, where’s my Ellen?”

“She’s all right,” Seth whispered. “I’m Dr. Lazarus and your wife’s in the other room. You’re both going to be all right.”

An hour later, when the two doctors had managed to wash the blood off their hands (though their jackets were still streaked with red), they had a chance to reflect on what had happened.

“I don’t know what to say, Seth. I feel so goddamn guilty. If you hadn’t come in—”

“Forget it, Tim. We all screw up sometimes.”

“Not you. I’ve been watching you for a whole year now and I’ve not seen you miss a single thing.”

Seth smiled. “That’s a procedure they never teach you in Med School, Tim. It’s called C.Y.A.”

“What?”

“Covering Your Ass.”

I
t was a year of rebellion. In 1966, America was scorched by no fewer than forty-three race riots.

And the black community in New Haven was making plans to assert its own identity and demand its inalienable rights. Yet, sadly, Martin Luther King would have been an unwelcome guest at their planning sessions. For the struggle here, as in most northern cities, was going to be blazing and bloody.

And Bennett Landsmann would inevitably be caught up in the whirlwind.

As a junior surgery resident, he now had increased responsibilities and even an office (if one could flatter his cubbyhole by calling it that).

He was busy writing up a patient he had just admitted for an inguinal hernia when there was a knock at his door. His visitor was a muscular black orderly he knew only as Jack.

“Am I interrupting, Doc?”

“No, not at all. Come in and sit down.”

Jack entered but did not sit. Bennett returned to his desk, looked up at the younger man’s worried expression and asked, “Is there something wrong?”

“You might put it that way, Doc.”

“Please call me Ben. Now, what’s the problem?”

“It’s about all of us,” the orderly answered with diffidence. “I’ve been sort of deputized to sound out the brothers and sisters on the hospital staff. By that I mean the non-janitorial and non-menial.”

“That’s quite a job.”

“Not really, Ben. Do you wanna know how many black doctors and interns there are?”

Bennett smiled. “I’ve a feeling I wouldn’t run out of fingers and toes.”

“You wouldn’t run out of fingers, period. Listen, Ben, a lot of us are sick of sitting on our asses writing letters to Congressmen—or marching like Boy Scouts around New Haven Green. There’s a group getting together for some heavier action. We want what’s coming to us—and we want it now. Do you fathom?”

“I fathom,” Bennett replied.

“We’re having a kinda rap session Thursday night. Can you make seven-thirty?”

“I think so. What’s the address?”

Jack stood up, withdrew a slip of paper from his pocket, and handed it to Bennett. “I reckon you’ll find it an eye-opening experience.” He turned to leave.

“By the way,” Bennett called after him, “does this group have a name?”

“Yeah,” Jack replied, “we call ourselves the Black Panthers.”

He raised his arm in a clenched-fist salute and left the room.

“I’ve got it all figured out, Fritz,” Barney explained to the analyst he hoped was awake and listening. “My father was away in the war, so naturally I fantasized about him and probably wondered now and then if it wasn’t maybe because of me he went away.”

The doctor did not affirm or deny.

“You know, Fritz, I keep telling you it would be a great help if you’d just let me know if I’m right or wrong.” He paused. “I’m sorry, Doctor, I shouldn’t take out my frustrations on you. I do understand that what I say is right because it’s what I’m really thinking. Isn’t that right?”

The doctor still did not reply.

“Naturally I went through my early childhood looking for a father figure. And Luis Castellano was right there, fifty feet away. Great big, bearlike, paternal. I guess there’s a part of me that became a doctor just to be like him—although he didn’t have much faith in psychiatry. He used to joke that it was just ‘confession without absolution.’ ”