Miracles in the ER (29 page)

“Oh yeah. You know about the ‘Friendship Nine’ problem we had here in Rock Hill? Happened back in the early ’60s.”

That sounded familiar, and I remembered hearing something about it. But I didn’t know much more than it involved the civil rights movement. I glanced up at the officer and studied his face. He wasn’t old enough to remember anything from the ’80s, much less the ’60s.

“Apparently it wasn’t Rock Hill’s most shining moment.” He leaned an elbow on the countertop and tapped his pen on the notepad in front of him. “Some of the older guys on the force used to talk about it. It was a sit-in at one of the diners downtown, with students from Friendship
College—that’s why they call it the ‘Friendship Nine’—and it ended with all of them being arrested.”

He looked down at the notepad, his pen now making lazy, looping circles.

“What does that have to do with Jasper Reynolds?”

“Chief Jones told me that Jasper was a troublemaker, and caused a lot of problems during that incident. Caused a lot of problems after that too. He was high up in the Klan, I think. Got into a lot of trouble in the ’60s and ’70s. If there was a rally going on or something being burned down, you could bet that Jasper was in on it.

“I know when I first came to town and started on the job, I arrested him a couple of times for disorderly conduct and inciting stuff. Always had some friends with him, never by himself it seemed. A gang, you could call it. He’s a small guy, can’t weigh more than a hundred and fifty, but they warned me he was quite a brawler. I know the first time I picked him up, he gave me all I could handle. After that, I would always call for backup. Like I said, he was mean.”

There was that past tense again. I glanced down the empty hallway to the doorway of minor trauma. Hard to imagine that the slumped-over, wheezing, and chronically short-of-breath Jasper Reynolds I knew could have such an infamous past. That’s what the officer must have meant. Jasper wasn’t much of a brawler anymore. He had a hard time just making it down our hall without having to stop and rest.

“Here’s the chart for minor trauma C.” Amy Connors slid the clipboard across the countertop. “The triage nurse thinks his wrist is broken, so I’ve filled out an X-ray request.”

“Thanks.” I picked up the chart and scanned the patient ID information.

Darnell Reynolds. 6 yr old male. Fell and injured right wrist.

Reynolds. Must be related to Jasper—maybe his grandson.

“See ya later, Doc.” The officer scooped up his notepad, tipped his hat to me and then to Amy, and turned and walked out of the department.

I was halfway to minor when James Green, one of our orderlies, turned the corner in the back hallway and headed straight toward me. He was humming a familiar tune—a hymn, I thought. James was in his early sixties and had been working at the hospital since finishing high school. His father had been an AME minister, and James had been singing in the church’s gospel group since he was able to hold a hymnbook.

“Hey, Dr. Lesslie.” His ever-present and infectious smile spread across his face and he almost skipped as he came up the hall. As he passed the doorway to minor trauma, he glanced into the room. And suddenly stopped, frozen where he stood. His mouth dropped and his fists clenched. I stopped and watched, never having seen him act like this before.

Finally, he took a deep breath, turned up the hallway again, and took slow, ponderous steps toward me.

He was still trembling, his smile replaced by an angry scowl.

“You know who that is back there, Doc?” He jerked his head behind him. “That’s…Jasper Reynolds.”

The name hung in the air, dripping with disgust and loathing. What had gotten into this gentle man?

“He and a bunch of his friends burned my family out of our house. Daddy had scars on his arms from pulling us kids out before the fire got us. I haven’t seen him in years and years, but that’s him, I know it. That man is just plain evil.”

I didn’t know what to say, and just stood there. James’s head slumped to his chest and his shoulders gradually relaxed. He slowly nodded his head, then began mumbling something I could barely make out. “I know it’s wrong to feel this way, to let that man get to me like this. I know it’s wrong.”

The moment passed, and James stood up straight. His smile hadn’t returned, but the scowl was gone.

“Got work to do, Doc. Got work to do.”

He stepped around me and walked up the hallway to the nurses’ station.

I glanced down at the chart in my hands. Jasper Reynolds. What manner of demon awaited me in minor trauma? My jaw tightened and my heart quickened, hardened first by what the young police officer had told me and then by James Green’s tragic story.

Bed C, in the back right corner, was the only occupied stretcher in the room. Jasper Reynolds was sitting on it. His scrawny legs dangled over the edge and his body was turned away from me, one arm draped over a little boy. I could see the child’s sneakered feet, but that was all.

“Papa, it hurts real bad,” the boy quietly sobbed.

“It’s gonna be okay, Darnell. We’re gonna get you fixed up.” Jasper’s voice was raspy from decades of smoking.

I walked across the room and the man looked up. “Hey, Doc, not me this time.” He managed an awkward smile and coughed twice. “It’s my grandson here. I think he broke his arm.”

Keeping one arm firmly around the boy’s shoulder, he turned and shifted a little on the stretcher. I saw Darnell leaning heavily into Jasper’s chest, and I froze, my feet anchored in the middle of the room.

The animosity I felt for this man disappeared, washed away in an instant.

It was obvious that Jasper loved this boy.

And the boy—Darnell looked up at his grandfather with large, trusting eyes. His hair, lustrous black with tight curls, brushed his grandpa’s sleeve. And his skin was a dark, rich shade of brown.

“Papa?” the little boy said quietly.

“It’s okay, Darnell. Dr. Lesslie is gonna take care of you.”

I walked over to the stretcher and sat down beside Jasper Reynolds.

This man was no longer a demon.

Joy to the World

“I love you, Dr. Rob.”

The last stitch was in place and I was dabbing some stray drops of blood from the twenty-year-old’s right eyebrow.

“I love you too, Manny.”

Manny was lying on a stretcher in minor trauma, smiling up at me with the innocent, loving face of a child with Down syndrome. He and his mother were regulars at our church’s Just Joy service.

She walked over beside me and put a hand on her boy’s shoulder.

“We’re going to have to be more careful when there’s ice on the sidewalk, aren’t we, son?”

Mid-January had gifted us with a late-night storm of ice and freezing rain, blanketing roads and sidewalks with a slippery sheet of shiny glass. Manny had bolted out the front of his house, down, down the steps, and into a lamppost. He was lucky he had only injured his eyebrow.

“Listen to your momma, Manny.” I stood up and stretched. “We’ll see you in a week to take these stitches out.”

Lori Davidson pulled the curtain closed behind me, filling the last of the four minor trauma beds.

“Have a seat on the stretcher, Mr. Conyers. One of the doctors will be with you in a few minutes.”

She was looking down, making a note on the man’s chart, and we almost collided in the doorway.

“Oh, excuse me.” She stepped back and adjusted her reading glasses.

“Here, let me take that.” I reached for the clipboard in her hand.

“Eighty-two year old gentleman,” she said quietly. “Another ice injury. Slipped on his front steps and fell. Looks like he’s broken his wrist.”

I glanced at the stretcher to my right. Jim Conyers slouched on the
bed, cradling a crudely splinted left wrist. It appeared he had rolled a copy of an old
National Geographic
around his forearm, then wrapped it with duct tape. Clever.

He looked up at me as I stepped over, his eyes scrunched up with pain.

Something behind me captured his attention and he leaned to one side, peering around me. His face broke into a wide grin and his eyes beamed.

With his good hand, he reached into a shirt pocket and took out a wrapped piece of peppermint candy. His eyebrows arched as he stretched out his hand. “Is it okay, ma’am?”

I turned around to find Manny and his mother standing behind me. His eyes were wide and his head bobbed up and down.

His mother looked at her son and then Mr. Conyers. “Sure. That’s fine.”

Manny sprang over to the man and happily took the piece of candy.

“What do you tell the nice gentleman?” she reminded him.

“Thank you.” Manny’s eyes were focused on the treasure in his hand. He struggled for a moment and finally managed to remove the wrapper. He popped the red-striped mint into his mouth. “Thank you.”

The bear hug startled me and I gasped for breath. Manny had walked up to the nurses’ station and grabbed me from behind.

“Let go of Dr. Rob.” His mother quickly stepped over and put a gentle hand on his shoulder.

He was strong, and the release was immediate. I twisted around and looked again into the smiling face of the young man. He nodded and stepped back a little.

“Wait just a minute.” I reached out and grabbed him. “I think I need another one of those hugs.”

He squeezed me again, with every bit of his heart and body and soul. When Manny hugs you, you know you’ve been hugged.

He could have stayed like that all day, but his mother said, “It’s time to go, son.”

“Just be careful out there, Manny,” I told him. “And don’t do any more ice-skating.”

He waved at everyone in the department as he and his mother disappeared through the triage door.

I heard the quiet, distinctive chuckle of Harriet Gray and spun around to face the grandmotherly nurse. She had been watching all of this from the other side of the counter.

“You know who that is, don’t you?” She folded her arms across her chest and rocked from side to side.

I glanced behind me at the triage entrance. “Manny?”

“No, the elderly man back in minor. The one on the stretcher
beside
Manny.”

I shook my head, confused.

Harriet smiled and nodded. “That’s Jim Conyers. Let me tell you about him.”

Jim and Gertrude Conyers had lived in a large antebellum house on Main Street, back when it
was
the main street. They had never had children of their own, and “adopted” those in the surrounding neighborhoods. “Aunt Gertie” always had fresh-baked cookies in her kitchen, and “Uncle Jim” would show the kids his long rows of muscadine vines in the backyard and let them take as many of the grapes as they could carry. Each Christmas, they could be counted on to have “a little something” for any child that happened to knock on their door. And there were a lot of knocks.

All that changed when Gertrude was diagnosed with cancer. She died slowly, and her last months were painful. The brightly lit house on the corner of Main Street darkened, as did Jim Conyers. He became sullen, withdrawn.

“He wasn’t mean or anything,” Harriet added quietly. “He just wasn’t…He wasn’t Uncle Jim anymore.” She paused and shook her head.