The Doctor's Tale Read online

  “Excellent. Starting tomorrow morning, Mrs. Raines will become your patient.” A smile plumped his thin lips, though his eyes remained grim. “I hope the prospect doesn’t frighten you, Spezia. Tell me, does it?”

  “No. No sir, it does not.”

  “Well then,” Dr. Skelton’s eyes gleamed with excitement. “Excellent.”

  I could tell that he liked decisive people, especially decisive doctors. “Dr. Skelton,” I said, “will you be available for consultation on this case?”

  Dr. Skelton flipped the grimy switch on the wall. He grazed the tip of a cigarette with a Zippo lighter, and an orange glow smoldered in the shadows. “Apparently, Dr. Spezia, you are unaware of a recent development with major implications for the entire medical community. That is unfortunate, but I will update you with the unbelievably fantastic news. You see, I have been promoted to the position of Dean of the School of Medicine, which is the pinnacle of my so far illustrious career. Obviously, the transition to such a prominent position will demand my strongest efforts. I thought it prudent to reassign some of my more demanding cases. This case is quite the challenge, Spezia. I know you will manage it conscientiously. Remember, always give your best, and you will have no regrets.”

  “Of course, Dr. Skelton, sir.” When I reached to shake his hand, I almost lost my balance.

  “Are you feeling all right, Spezia?” Dr. Skelton said. “Did you understand everything?”

  “Oh, yes sir.”

  “Tomorrow, you might want to wear more comfortable shoes. You’re going to be on your feet, you know, and you’ve got to be able to move.” For a moment, Dr. Skelton stared at my right foot. “I realize the Raines case may have been a bit of a surprise. Are you feeling up to the challenge, Dr. Spezia?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Well, then. Excellent. Meet me at the hospital tomorrow morning, around 6:30 or so. Perhaps Mrs. Raines’s husband, Eddie, will be with her in her room. As much as possible, Spezia, keep him involved in her care. Family support is so vital to a patient’s recovery. Always remember that.” Dr. Skelton opened the door and stepped into the cavernous hall. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Oh, and Spezia? See to it that you are on time, hmm?”

  TWO

  About an hour later, I stood in the drafty foyer of my apartment building, and decided to check my mailbox. Recessed in a plaster wall, the worn brass boxes waited. While I scooped up bills and catalogues, angry voices in 1-A intensified. The sounds of clinking beer bottles and bitter accusations echoed in the foyer.

  “You said you quit!”

  “I’ll quit when you quit!”

  “Cynda, sweetheart, love of my life, I am bound for greatness! All actors—and actresses, by the way—drink a little something to clear their head before a stellar performance. That, by the way, describes me, Cynda. Stellar. Yeah, look in the dictionary under ‘S’ there. I promise you, there you will find my name.”

  “Oh, I’ll find Sol Freeman all right, listed next to ‘starving.’ How long do you expect me to wait for you to make it, huh?”

  I glanced at the names on the mailboxes: Cynda and Sol Freeman, 1-A.

  The voices sounded like they belonged to a couple in their thirties, but right now, their ages didn’t matter. Right now, thoughts of Mrs. Raines filled my mind.

  I opened the door to 2-B, located on the second floor, and faced a rumpled bed, a pile of laundry and a stack of crusty dishes. My grandmother’s clock stood in what I loosely termed my “living room.” In fact, it was a “grandmother” clock, a smaller version of the traditional grandfather clock. The predictable chimes lulled me to sleep in my childhood. Now, while I sipped a beer and downed part of a turkey TV dinner, the clock worked its magic. Across the hall, a door opened and slammed. Outside, footsteps pounded the sidewalk. Before I drifted off to sleep, the chimes bonged eleven times.

  The phone rang in the middle of the night. When I answered the call, no one answered. I replaced the receiver and stared at the ceiling. Minutes passed and once again, I drifted into a troubled slumber.

  Sometime later, an insistent knock rattled the door. I grabbed a robe from the cluttered closet and groped my way to the living room. The doorknob jiggled. A loud voice shouted, “Police! Open up! Police!” I squinted through the peephole in the door. A shiny gold shield gleamed in the shadows. “Police! Open up!”

  I opened the door and faced a long, tall woman in uniform. Under different circumstances, I might have asked her if she wanted to have a beer and talk. Yeah, she was that pretty.

  “Good evening,” she said. “Or, should I say Good Morning?” Her cordial greetings surprised me. She flashed the shiny shield. “Everything all right up here?”

  “As far as I know,” I said. “Is something wrong?”

  She glanced over her shoulder. “A cop’s been shot in the next block. We’re checking the neighborhood for leads.” She opened a notebook and stared at my forehead. “Name?”

  “Thomas Spezia.”

  “You have a job, Mr. Spezia?”

  “I’m an intern at City Hospital.”

  “Oh yeah? Good for you. You alone tonight, Mr. Intern?”

  “Yes. It’s almost three o’clock in the morning.”

  “I can tell time, Doc.” She lowered her voice. “Heard or seen anything unusual?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You know anything about the guy that lived here before you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I do. So, in case you happen to remember something, call me. Got that? Because the guy didn’t have any friends. Which to me, means he had enemies. You have a gun in there somewhere?”

  “I don’t believe in guns.”

  “Oh good for you, Doc. Will you do me a favor? Keep your doors locked. Bad guys just love unlocked doors.”

  I nodded. Behind me, the clock chimed three times.

  “Have yourself a good rest of the evening, Mr. Intern,” the cop said. She actually winked at me. “I’ll be waiting for that call.” Her footsteps echoed in the musty hall. The front door slammed. I heard the roar of an engine, the squeal of tires, and then, nothing at all. All at once, I realized that I never got her name or her phone number.

  Alone in the darkness, I tossed against the sheets. I hadn’t been completely honest with the cop, and that bothered me. A couple of nights after I moved in, I discovered a .38 revolver beneath the floorboards in the bedroom closet. At the time, it didn’t seem significant—and, maybe it wasn’t. After all, I didn’t have any plans to use it. I didn’t even know if it was loaded. I supposed I should find out, when I get a little time. The truth was, I wasn’t that interested in guns. I planned to become a doctor.

  I decided to try to get some sleep. I wouldn’t be making any phone calls tonight.

  The next morning, I trailed Dr. Skelton to the nurses’ station. Would I ever achieve his level of judgment or professional expertise? Honed by self-discipline and soul searching, polished by personal and professional triumphs, his confidence both awed and inspired me.

  At the end of the wide hall, I noticed a slim blonde in tight pants. With her hand poised on a swayed hip, the woman resembled a mannequin. At first glance, she seemed intriguing, perhaps even attractive. I wandered to the end of the hall to get a better look.

  “I already told you,” the blonde said. “Lori’s my neighbor.”

  Her raspy voice grated on my ears. When she spoke, it sounded like her throat was lined with gravel.

  “I know her, I’m telling you!”

  A stocky nurse peered over her reading glasses, fastened to a long, silver chain tucked behind each ear. “Well now gorgeous, she says she don’t want to see you. Ya’ll get back to your crib, hear?” She scribbled on a paper clipped to a metal chart. “I said move it!”

  The blonde stamped her foot and pointed a finger at the nurse. “Some nurse you are! You’re rude, you know that? I’ll have you reported.”

  “Reported?” The nurse tossed her head and laughed until her whole
body shook. “You want to report me? To who? I’m the one be in charge here, Skinny Legs. You go right ahead and try to find somebody who’ll listen to your bony self. Tell ‘em you want to complain about Nurse Potts, hear? We’ll see how far you go with that. Now, you go on. Eat a cream puff or something. Wait up! Here comes Dr. Skelton. You can explain to him why you be up here, trying your bestest to get yourself into Miz Raines’ room. ‘Cause I’m going to take care of my patients. I don’t want no part of you.” She turned on the heel of her scuffed white shoe and hustled down the hall.

  Dr. Skelton rapped on a half-closed door, and motioned at me to follow him. When we strolled into the somber shadows, a wiry man rose from a wooden chair. Minus the furrows on his wan face, I thought he could have been handsome, in a rugged sort of way. I could barely distinguish the faces of the other people in the room.

  “Doc Skelton?” the man said. “Good morning! Remember me? It’s Eddie. Eddie Raines.” His limp hand clung to Dr. Skelton’s palm like a damp sponge on a porcelain sink. I noticed that.

  “Yes, well. It’s good to see you again, Eddie.” Dr. Skelton gazed over Eddie’s head at the blonde in the corner. He continued his monologue, though his gaze never wavered from Starr’s face. “This, sir, is Dr. Spezia. I wanted to introduce him to you. After today, he will be the physician in charge.”

  “Thank the Lord!” the blonde said. Her eyes flitted from the top of my white coat to the tips of my running shoes. “You married, Dr. Pizza?”

  “Starr, please,” Eddie said. He pointed in my direction. “How old are you?” He turned to Dr. Skelton. “Doc, he doesn’t look old enough to drive. You think he can he take care of my wife?”

  “Hmm.” Dr. Skelton frowned. “Mr. Raines, I’d like to have a word with you. Alone, if you don’t mind.” He glanced at Starr. “Miss, would you please step into the hall for a few minutes?”

  “You want me to leave now?” The blonde simpered like a spoiled child. “Eddie doesn’t want me to leave. Do you, Eddie?”

  The sound of footsteps, heavy and ponderous, echoed in the hall. Nurse Potts’s profile darkened the doorway. A fire-breathing voice bellowed in the stillness, frosted with a stare that could melt diamonds. “Now, I done tole you Missy, and I mean business. This is the last warning you’re going to get before I call Security. You take your skinny self down and out to the parkin’ lot where you belong.”

  Eddie raised his voice. “Doc Skelton, this is my, um… our neighbor, Starr Hixson. She’s a family friend.”

  Lori Raines struggled to raise her frail body. “I’d best be going home.”

  “Mrs. Raines,” Dr. Skelton said, “that would not be a good idea. You need at least another day here, maybe two. I cannot, and I will not, send you home before I receive your final test results.”

  “But Doctor, Eddie needs someone to take care of him.” Her weary eyes pleaded for her release. She reached for Eddie’s clammy hand. “I take real good care of Eddie. Next time you see him, he’ll be all slicked up, just like old times. Isn’t that right, Eddie?”

  “Next time I see him,” Nurse Potts said. “He better be all by hisself.” She stepped into the room and glared at Starr.

  “Eddie,” Dr. Skelton said, “I would like to have a few words with you. Is that possible?”

  Eddie nodded at Starr and shrugged. “Sure, Doc. What’s on your mind?”

  “I’d like to speak with you, Eddie. Alone. Perhaps Miss Hixson can allow us some privacy, hmm?”

  “I’m going all right, but I’ll be back,” Starr said. “You can count on that, Jemima.”

  Starr tossed her blond mane and strutted towards the open door. “I have never been so insulted in my life,” she said. “Oh, and, there’s something ya’ll should know. Ya’ll can’t get rid of Starr Hixson that easy. I promise you, I will be back. See you later, Eddie.”

  Dr. Skelton gazed at Lori Raines, pallid and weak beneath the glare of harsh fluorescent light. He shook his head. “This can be such a sad business,” he said. “Sad business, indeed.”

  The nurse turned, and scowled at me. “Don’t you be looking at me like that. I got to put up wid you, but I don’t got to like it.” She spat on the floor. “And like it, I don’t. Now, get to work. I can’t do everything all by myself.”

  “Nurse Potts, Dr. Spezia is unavailable,” Dr. Skelton said. “I need him to speak to Mr. Raines in a conference room, please.” He turned to me. “Tell me, Doctor, will that bother you?”

  “No, of course not,” I said.

  “Excellent,” Dr. Skelton said. “Let’s have a word with Eddie Raines.”

  At best, this confrontation shocked me. Certainly, I knew nothing of marriage, and even less of its peaks and valleys. The biggest surprise for everyone, including Eddie, was the depth of his confusion.

  Eddie said he thought maybe the whole thing started about four, maybe five months ago. He wasn’t exactly sure how long he’d been seeing Starr Hixson. Well, he said, her real name was Francine. She named herself “Starr” because she thought it suited her much better. He agreed.

  Eddie told us how he didn’t like to think about details. Still, he did think about the day it all started with Starr—a whole lot, and all the time. Plain truth was, he never meant to hurt anyone. From the second things started heating up between him and Starr, he promised himself that he would never let anyone, especially Lori, know the truth about him and Starr. Ever. But, dang it all, it sure seemed to him like God knew exactly what he needed to keep going during Lori’s cancer, so He sent Starr to help him get through it. Yeah, that was it, Eddie said. Starr fell straight out of the sky, just like one of them fallen angels.

  Well now, he said, don’t read him wrong. He didn’t mean to say that Starr was a fallen angel. Not exactly. But, in a funny kind of way, he guessed that, yeah, that is exactly what he meant to say. Starr fell for him and she was his angel. He fell—and hard—for her too, the day he and Starr first met, he said, oh about four, maybe five months ago now…

  The first time Eddie noticed Starr’s legs, she was picking tomatoes in her garden next door. He leaned on the painted white fence and asked her if she needed anything from the grocery store. Starr said she wanted some new brand of detergent she saw on television, the kind that worked in cold water. Eddie said he needed some Turtle Wax for the Pontiac. “We might as well go together,” he said. Starr said she thought that made good sense.

  The smells of smoky barbecue, chlorine, and freshly mowed grass wafted on the summer breeze. Cicadas chirped to the shrieks of giggling girls, and pop tunes blared through open car windows. Eddie thought a lot about barbecues and swimming pools these days—those were the good times, baby—but he never went to any no more. Not the way they used to, him and Lori.

  While he drove, Eddie thought about those long, tanned legs beside him. Ever since Lori up and got sick, sometime last year, he stopped thinking about such things. At least he thought he did. He barely recognized this surge of desire bubbling inside of him, like steaming lava in a dormant volcano. A spicy smell, reminiscent of cinnamon, tickled his nose. The last time he felt like this was about eight years ago, when he fell so hard for Lori and—

  “Eddie,” Starr said, “it’s just so nice of you to give me a lift like this. Why don’t we stop and get us a little something to eat?” Starr pointed at a rambling motel in the distance. “I hear they make good fried okra in there. I like mine deep-fried.” Starr smacked her bright pink lips, lined in a darker shade of temptation. “How ‘bout you, Eddie? How do you like it?”

  Despite the sun’s glare, Eddie could see her lips, all full and glossy. He focused on the road. Lori must be on her way home from the doctor’s office about now. He knew he should keep on driving and reading the signs.

  “Starr,” he said, “I got to be honest with you. I ain’t never tried okra, so I wouldn’t know nothing ‘bout the deep-fried part.”

  There it was, that girly giggle of hers, the one that made him feel so young, so alive, so…
r />   “Well, Eddie Raines, if you haven’t tried fried okra, you haven’t lived. Now, boy, you just listen to me. Pull off this highway.” She crossed her long, tanned legs and turned to face him. “And I’ll show you what life’s about.”

  Eddie felt flushed and hot. He took a deep breath. Until today, he didn’t believe in magic. Now, he decided it might feel like whatever it was that he was feeling right about now. While the lazy afternoon breeze wafted through the open window, Starr’s chatter and the throbbing music resurrected some latent appetites Eddie forgot he had. A sudden and ravenous hunger pulsed through his body.

  “You know something, Starr?” he said. “Fried okra might be just what I need.”

  Starr giggled like a teenager. “I believe you’re right. Here we go, Eddie, there’s the exit. Just turn at the top of the ramp over there, honey.”

  “Honey?” Exactly how the Pontiac rolled up the ramp and onto the gravel parking lot, well, Eddie never quite understood how or when that happened. Every time he thought about that first time with Starr, the details eluded him.

  And he thought about it, well…a lot, and every day.

  “That’s all I got to say,” Eddie said. “I just wish things could be the way they used to be, you know, before Lori up and got so sick. I just can’t forget those times. And, I don’t want to neither.”

  I knew what Eddie was trying to say, but unlike him, I did want to forget his story.

  I simply couldn’t.

  The moment I hustled through the door of the Emergency Room, I spotted them: a statuesque beauty clad in a St. Louis Police Department uniform, accompanied by—no, handcuffed to—a woman with brassy blond hair and an attitude to match. The blonde strained against the handcuffs. “These be cutting off my blood! Let…me…go!”

  The tall woman looked very familiar.

  “Hey there,” I said, “don’t I know you?”

  I know, I know. My social skills need work. Rosa tells me the same thing, all the time.