A White Coat Is My Closet (47 page)

Dr. Klein looked at me like he’d just swallowed drain cleaner, but he didn’t have an opportunity to respond—I was already practically sprinting away in the other direction.

My anger was so intense it gave me a feeling of indigestion. I was not only repulsed by Dr. Klein’s hateful vitriol, I was angry at myself for being so spineless. It didn’t take a gay man to protest his remarks; it just took someone who was intolerant of bigots. Arguing with him wouldn’t have outed me. An open-minded straight man with an ounce of integrity and a refusal to be bullied would have challenged him without hesitation. I shook my head in frustration. In that instant, I wasn’t so bothered by being gay, I was bothered by being such a pussy.

It took me about thirty minutes to go through all the pediatric X-rays I needed to look at. I just couldn’t concentrate. I kept going back to Dr. Klein’s tirade, and my stomach churned. This wasn’t the first time he’d demonstrated the depth of his prejudice. Given an opportunity, he’d unleash his moronic opinions on anyone forced to listen.

I had just about given up on trying to make any sense of the X-rays when my beeper went off. I hoped no one needed me for anything important. I was too distracted to think. I looked at the read out on the beeper’s display and recognized the number to the ER. “Shit.” My first thought was that Dr. Klein had stabilized the patient and had found the time to reprimand me. Initially, my heart sank, but then I found myself thinking,
Bring it on.

I grabbed the phone, dialed the number, and the ER receptionist picked up after only two rings. “ER, Cynthia.”

I realized I was holding my breath when, after a long silence, I heard her impatiently repeat, “ER, may I help you?”

“Hey, Cynthia, it’s Dr. Sheldon. Someone paged me”

“Are you on for Pediatrics?”

“Yeah, I drew the short straw tonight.” I tried to inject a little humor to prevent her from thinking I was a complete idiot for taking so long to reply when she had first answered the phone.

“Dr. Simson is looking for you. Please hold. I’ll transfer you to his phone.” The line went quiet before I could respond.

A few seconds later I heard it ringing and was greeted with an efficient, “Dr. Simson.”

“Hey, it’s Zack Sheldon from Pediatrics. You were looking for me?”

“Oh yeah, hi, Zack, it’s Mike. Thanks for calling back. Listen, I have a six-week-old baby boy down here brought in from home by his parents. They report having seen him turn slightly blue. They were feeding him at the time, so I initially would have guessed that he had just had a choking episode. When I examined him, however, I discovered he had a fever of 101. Neonate, fever, dusky episode.” He listed three criteria I knew would result in the baby being admitted. Mike continued, “Things are pretty crazy down here, so I was hoping I might convince you to come down and do the lumbar puncture. He’ll need it before we can start antibiotics.”

I cursed under my breath but responded affirmatively. Any baby less than two months of age with a documented fever was sick until proven otherwise. The safest, most conservative course of action was to proactively start IV antibiotics and admit the baby to the hospital for observation. No one was willing to risk sending such a small baby home. There was just too great a chance a fever in such a small infant was an indication the baby was beginning to get seriously ill. “Okay, Mike, I’m on the first floor anyway. I’ll come right over.”

“Great, Zack. I owe you. Thanks a lot. I’ve already ordered the other lab tests. Hopefully, they’ll be drawn soon. I’ll talk to you more when you get here.” The line went dead.

Only my concern for a sick infant pushed me in the direction of the emergency room. I dreaded going over there, certain I would run into Dr. Klein and he would use it as an opportunity to eviscerate me. With significant trepidation, I began walking. If I mustered enough mental fortitude, I might successfully dispel the notion in my brain that I had begun my own death march.

I slapped the silver pad mounted ten feet away from the doors to the ER, and they opened automatically. I saw Mike Simson on the far side of the room and knew that in order to reach him I’d have to pass by the trauma rooms. Fortunately, a cursory survey assured me that Dr. Klein wasn’t in my immediate path, so I started to navigate my way through the room.

I had made it as far as the central desk when I saw a team of nurses circling the baby and making preparations to draw blood and start an IV. It would have been pointless to try to examine the baby while they were busy with him, but at the same time, I didn’t want to wait where I would be so clearly visible. Why invite an altercation with Dr. Klein? There was a small room behind the desk that served as storage but also had a coffeepot that ended up being replenished hourly. I decided to discreetly creep into it. From its vantage point, I could continue to observe the baby but remain relatively hidden.

I was so confident going into the storage room would succeed in making me invisible, I was surprised that when I entered, I immediately ran into two policemen. Grateful I hadn’t inadvertently run into Dr. Klein, I recovered quickly. “Good evening, gentleman. Did someone finally report that this coffee was poison?” I smiled.

“Not this time.” One of them returned my grin. “Though this stuff even makes the coffee down at the station seem delicious by comparison, and it’s crap.” His smile widened. “We’re just waiting to get some information on the shooting victim brought in earlier.”

“Oh yeah, I heard about that.” Of course, I didn’t volunteer Dr. Klein’s rendition of the evening’s events. “What happened?”

“From talking to witnesses, it seems the victim had eaten dinner with a group of friends”—he referred briefly to his notepad—at a restaurant called Cables. He had apparently left his car parked in one of the back alleys and was returning to it when he was accosted. It was initially called in as having been a gay-bashing incident, but our suspicion now is that the motivation was robbery. We found the victim’s wallet fifty yards away. It was empty except for an ID and a couple of pictures. Cash and credit cards were missing. We figure the victim resisted the attack and was subsequently shot in the chest.”

The policeman I was talking to suddenly looked anxious. He lost his relaxed, congenial look, and began to study my face more thoroughly. His inspection of my features made me extremely uncomfortable. My mouth became immediately dry, and my tongue felt like sandpaper against its roof. Inexplicably, the way he scrutinized me made me feel he had concluded I was guilty of the crime. I tried to dodge his intense stare and couldn’t resist an impulse to exonerate myself. “Why are you looking at me like that? I assure you I can’t be a suspect; I’ve been here in the hospital since seven in the morning. I haven’t left for even a second. You can ask anyone.”

“It’s not that, Doc. It’s just… it occurred to me that you look like the guy from one of the pictures in the victim’s wallet. Do you happen to know….” He again consulted the pad he had taken notes on. “Sergio Quartulli?”

My blood ran cold. The Styrofoam cup I had been holding crashed to the floor and sent coffee spilling over my shoes. My knees felt weak and threatened to buckle under my weight. The indigestion I had felt an hour before threatened an encore that this time would assuredly include violent vomiting. I backed up until I felt my shoulders touch the wall, then slid down it until I was sitting on the floor. I put my head between my knees and tried to steady my breathing. I was vaguely aware that the policeman had his hand on my back and was trying to get the attention of one of the nurses. He was standing right above me, but his voice sounded muffled, like he was talking through a tunnel from a great distance. “Can we get a little help in here?”

The room was spinning around me. When the fog began to slowly lift, I was aware that Patty was kneeling next to me, holding a cool washcloth against the back of my neck. “Hey, Zack,” she was whispering softly, “just take a few slow, deep breaths. Keep your head right where it is. You’ll be okay.” She gently rubbed my back.

The daze was short-lived, but I still felt nauseous, and my ears continued to ring like a firecracker had gone off right next to them. I slowly lifted my head and realized no fewer than six people were staring at me intently. I recognized the two policemen, then noticed three other nurses had gathered in the doorframe, eager to assist. Patty continued to kneel by my side. She took my chin, slowly pulled it toward her so she could see my eyes, and then ran the washcloth across my forehead. I was aware she had my wrist in her other hand and was taking my pulse. Apparently convinced I would be okay, she whispered softly, “I was teasing about the colonic, Zack. It would have been okay to just drink the cup of coffee. It wasn’t necessary to throw it on the ground.”

I looked down and noticed that much of it had pooled on the floor and was soaking into my pant leg. At the same time, the memory of what the policeman had said came crashing back into my head like a freight train, and I felt another surge of panic.

I grabbed Patty by the arm and looked desperately into her eyes. “How is Sergio?” I forced my stomach contents back down. “Is he dead?”

My question brought a look of complete confusion to Patty’s face, and she bewilderedly asked, “Who is Sergio?”

The policeman standing behind her interjected, “We believe the shooting victim we just brought in is named Sergio Quartulli.”

His answer did nothing to alleviate Patty’s confusion. “Do you know him?”

Now everyone’s eyes were focused on me expectantly. I swallowed. This was going to be a defining moment. In many respects, it represented one of my greatest fears coming to fruition. I was going to be outed. Not only to a few trusted friends, but to the entire hospital staff. Visions of my career being flushed down the toilet came briefly to mind but were instantaneously overridden by my concern for Sergio. I wouldn’t let him die on a hospital gurney, not twenty feet away from me, and deny to the world his significance in my life.

The magnitude of the realization not only shook me to the core, it also provided me with immediate clarity. Sergio needed me, and I wouldn’t for one second allow my personal shame to prevent me from being there for him. In the game of life, one might choose to play his cards carefully, but at the end of the day, love trumped everything.

I stared only at Patty but answered loudly enough to be heard by everyone, “He’s my partner.”

Initially, my explanation did little to relieve Patty’s confusion. “Your partner? Does he work here too?”

“No,” I said. Surprisingly, my voice strengthened with conviction. “He’s my lover.”

Patty’s expression registered bewilderment for just a split second, then transformed into one of complete acceptance. She kissed the top of my head. “You wait here; I’ll go check on him. Kelly,” she said as she motioned to one of the other nurses standing there, “you stay with him. Don’t let him try to get up until I get back.”

Kelly knelt next to me and immediately laced her fingers through mine. Her voice was both gentle and genuine, devoid of any judgment. “Hang in there, Dr. Sheldon. The last thing I heard when I passed the trauma room was that he was doing okay.”

I continued to sit on the floor. Ironically, I didn’t feel self-conscious because I’d just announced to an entire audience that I was gay; I felt self-conscious because everyone continued to stare at me. I kept my eyes focused on the floor in front of me and felt tears begin to spill down my cheeks. I refused to accept the possibility that Sergio might be dead. My heart felt like it was being compressed within my chest by a vise. He couldn’t die without knowing I was proud to be his partner. I was proud he loved me. I exhaled and heard the quiver in my breath. More importantly, I was proud to love him.

As I started to feel suffocated, another thought pushed instinctively into my head. It was a defense mechanism, a distraction to prevent me from being consumed by grief. If my brain could find another focus, if only for an instant, it might not completely implode and I would be relieved from having to consider that if I was told Sergio had been killed, I might never be able to get off the floor. I looked up and composed myself enough to say, “Dr. McClure is upstairs. Would you please call her and ask if she’d see that baby. I don’t think I’m up to it.”

One of the other nurses crouched in front of me and rested her hand gently on my shoulder. “She’s already been called. She’s on her way down.”

At that very instant, Diane burst into the room and practically threw herself into my arms. She was crying harder than I was. Apparently, news traveled fast. “Zack,” she sobbed. “Are you okay? Have you heard anything? How is Sergio?”

Seeing her wracked with emotion caused another wave of sadness to course through my body, and my vision again blurred with tears. I didn’t trust myself to speak without crying but was somehow able to choke out a few words. “Patty went to check on him. I don’t know anything yet.” She threw her arms around me, held me in a tight embrace, and wept quietly onto my shoulder.

It seemed like it was quiet for the longest time. The policemen shuffled restlessly from one foot to another and occasionally barked single-word responses into their walkie-talkies. The other nurses had already busied themselves cleaning up the spilled coffee, and Kelly had released my hand when Diane had thrown herself into my arms.

The silence became even more deafening when Patty returned. She again crouched down next to me, and both Diane and I turned to face her. She began speaking slowly, her voice calm and gentle. Her demeanor didn’t betray whether she intended to deliver good news or horrible news. “Sergio was shot in the upper left chest.” A mournful gasp escaped my lips. “But,” she said as she grabbed my hand and squeezed it to convey a sense of assurance, “Dr. Klein is confident the bullet missed any major blood vessels. They put a chest tube in his left side, and now that his lung is functioning better, Sergio is relatively stable. They’re going to take him up to the operating room in a few minutes to explore the wound.”

The relief that surged through me was indescribable. Not only had a weight been lifted off my chest, but I felt suddenly light-headed with optimism. For the first time since the policeman had uttered Sergio’s name, I felt like I could breathe. I leapt to my feet, carrying Diane up with me. Unwilling to release me from her grip, however, Diane embraced my shoulders even more tightly. If anything, her weeping became slightly more audible. Between sobs, she whispered in my ear, “He’s going to be okay, Zack, he’s going to be okay.”