The Doctor's Tale (17 page)

“Cherise,” I said, “where’s Dr. Kinney?”

“He with a code.” Cherise gulped, and stole another bite of licorice. “’An Dr. Moberly, he went home sick.”

“Page Dr. Freeman right away. Now!”

“I can hear,” Cherise said. She picked up the receiver and punched some buttons. “You don’t have to holler at me like that.”

“I’m sorry, Cherise. I am. It’s just tension.”

“People and they nerves getting to be a problem ‘round here,” Cherise said.

“Mary, let’s get your daughter in the big room over here,” I said. “Now tell me what happened.”

Mary’s eyes brimmed with tears of fright and frustration. Still, I saw a faint flicker of hope hiding deep inside, stifled by years of disillusionment. “My baby fell down the steps, and now she’s bleeding. She’s p-p—pregnant!”

“Get her on the bed,” I said. “Get oxygen on her. I need a blood pressure. Drop her head. Drop the head of the bed into Trendelenberg.” At the foot of the bed, I raised the young woman’s skirts. Dark blood gushed and pooled between her legs. “Page the OB Resident STAT. And she needs blood. Now! Get two units of O POS blood STAT.”

I turned to Mary. “She’s going to need a Central Line. I’ll get everything ready for Dr. Freeman.” I opened the tray and plucked a 14 gauge central catheter from the interior. “Anybody know where Freeman is? This case can’t wait.”

“He didn’t answer his page, Dr. Spezia.”

“Great.” I took a deep breath. “Okay, give me some Betadine. Please.” I knew my voice sounded hoarse. I felt tense and more than a little nervous, but I knew I had to keep going. Somewhere, I heard a radio playing “Born to be Wild”.

Brown Betadine splashed into a bowl on the surgical tray. I painted D’Yan’s neck with the antiseptic, and jammed towels around the puncture site. Finally, I glanced up at Mary and the orderly. “Where is Freeman?”

“Still not here, Dr. Spezia,” the orderly said.

“Nurse, what’s her blood pressure?”

“I’ve lost her blood pressure, Dr. Spezia.”

I had to insert the catheter into the jugular vein in D’Yan’s neck. Without blood and IV fluids, D’Yan would most certainly die, probably in the next few minutes. I glanced at Mary. The expression on her face sparked a sudden realization: I was her only hope.

“You ever done one a these before?” she asked. I knew that she already knew the answer.

I took a deep breath. “Mary, I know I can do this.”

“Doctor, I’m losing her,” the nurse said.

“Do it,” Mary said.

Hope blazed like a bonfire.

I jammed my gloved finger over D’Yan’s neck and pushed, searching, searching…

“What you doing?”

“I’m feeling for the carotid artery. There it is. There.”

“What?”

“Her pulse. Here we go. Hold on, D’Yan. I’m sorry about this.” I jabbed the needle into her jugular vein. Dark blood flowed into the syringe. I sighed with relief. “Got it. Give me a liter of normal saline. You okay, D’Yan?”

Mary stood at the other end of the bed. “She’s okay,” she said. She nodded her head and studied D’Yan’s face, already etched with worry lines. “Yeah, she’s all right.”

“Doctor, the blood’s here,” the orderly said. “You want it?”

“Yes. Right here, please.” I connected the blood and began to squeeze the bag. “Where’s Freeman?” I knew my voice sounded angry, but considering the rage bubbling inside of me, that somehow seemed appropriate.

“Still no answer, Doctor.”

“Page the OB resident STAT. This is inexcusable.”

“What’s inexcusable?” An older man with white hair strode into the room. Despite the time and place, he appeared alert and dapper. “I heard your STAT page, but I was running a code. What’s up here?”

“My baby was bleeding to death, Dr. Kinney,” Mary said, “but she gonna make it now. Thanks to Dr. Spezia. No thanks to Dr. Freeman, wherever he is.”

“What’s her blood pressure, nurse?” I said.

“60 palpable.”

“Relax, Spezia,” Dr. Kinney said. “I’ll take it from here.”

A young man rushed into the room. “Someone page the OB resident?”

Dr. Kinney answered him. “This woman has a uterine hemorrhage. Where is Dr. Freeman?”

“I’m going to find out.” I jammed one arm into my white coat and stormed out of the examination room.

“He’ll find him,” Mary said. “And when he does, it ain’t going to be pretty.”

Dr. Freeman felt a bit dizzy, sure. Didn’t everyone? After all, he’d been at the hospital for what—two, three—days? He had to admit, he didn’t know how long he’d been anywhere. He remembered when his jaw felt numb and his knee began to wobble like an old card table. After that, he couldn’t recall what happened.

All he knew was that he woke up in a hospital bed without his wallet and his keys. He could replace those items, because he could talk about them—people empathized with victims. In his experience, nobody cared about a guy who couldn’t find his dope. And that—that, is a major issue for a guy who needed dope, the way he did, right now.

He saw Nurse Potts at the end of the hall. He knew she could help him. He would help her, if she needed anything the way he needed it right now. One shot of morphine would get him back on his feet. A few of these pills and a handful of those, and he’d be back among the living again. Why did she look at him like that?

“Hey! It’s Dr. Freeman, Mary! I’m not feeling very good today. Think you could you help me out?” But, she walked away, almost as if she wanted to avoid him. Oh, now that wasn’t a good idea at all.

He was a doctor, first in his medical school class, going to be a surgeon in one short year, how about that? Get Mary over here and she’ll tell you. He just needed a shot of morphine to tide him over until he could get his hands on a decent number of Dilaudid, just enough to stop the itching. His stomach flip-flopped. The room spun around his head. The next thing he knew, a crazy man that looked like Spezia was up in his face, screeching like a fire alarm—

“As long as no one got hurt, I tolerated your sarcasm, your arrogance and your insults.” I grabbed the front of Freeman’s scrub suit, and twisted the fabric until it ripped. “But now, things are gonna change.”

“Frankly, Spezia, until now, I didn’t think you could open a jar of mayonnaise. Didn’t think you cared that much about anything either. So, what changed, huh Babyface? Why the attitude? This is no five alarm fire drill. You seriously need to chill, man. Look at me. I can smell this corpse in the bed next to me, and you don’t see me getting all picky and stuff. Why are you so bent out of shape?”

I held up a spent syringe. “What is this?”

Freeman grinned. “You know damn well what it is. So it’s the maid’s day off. Why’d you have to rip my last clean shirt?”

“I paged you. You didn’t answer.”

He grinned like a barracuda. “Maybe I didn’t hear you.”

“Yeah. Well, maybe that’s right. Maybe Mary’s daughter shouldn’t have needed a doctor tonight, huh? But she did, and you weren’t, shall we say,
available.”

“So what happened?”

“I took care of it.”

“Nice.”

“You sack of shit. She almost died.” My mouth trembled for a moment. Fury and rage racked my body. “I know…I know, I am going to lose patients from time to time, but it’s not going to be because I didn’t try to save them. And, it’s not going to be because of you. You, and your arrogance and your ego.”

“Yeah, I heard about the stellar job you did with Lori Raines. You’ve really got the nerve, you know that, Spezia? She up and f---ing escaped! Do you know where she is? Yeah, that’s what I thought. So, don’t come in here all high and mighty telling me what I already know about myself. Yeah, I like to zone out every now and then. I need to be able to stay up when I need to and sleep when it’s time to sleep. And I’ve found a way to do it. If you got a taste of my life, all I can say is, welcome to my private hell.”

“You talking ‘bout hell, Dr. Freeman?” Mary stood in the doorway, her hands folded across her broad chest. Her eyes resembled black marbles. “Let me tell you a little bit about that. My daughter done lost her baby.”

“Her baby? Did you say her baby?” Freeman said. “Didn’t she just have one?”

Mary stared at him with the icy demeanor of an executioner. “I could kill you now and never look back.”

“Mary, no…” I said.

“But, no—I don’t think I will. Matter of fact, I think I’ll stick around and watch the people at the State Board yank your license, you junkie.”

“I need a shot, Mary.” Freeman writhed as if he was in pain. “Don’t you have a heart anywhere in that body?”

“Yeah. I got one.” She shrugged and glanced at Spezia. “Kinda broke about now, but it’s in there.”

Freeman grinned. “Maybe you need a shot, too.”

“What’s that about a shot, Dr. Freeman? Hmm?” A voice boomed from the hallway. Spezia recognized it all too well. He’d know Dr. Skelton’s voice anywhere—but, especially in here. Looking fresh and dapper in a crisp white coat, Dr. Skelton strolled into the room. “Perhaps I need to speak with the patient. Alone. Is that all right with you?”

I almost laughed out loud. I felt delirious with victory. “It’s more than all right. “Come on, Mary,” I said. We’ll be in the ER.”

Mary turned and winked at Freeman. “In case you need someone to tell you what to do. Hear?”

“I need to see you in my office, Dr. Spezia,” Dr. Skelton said. “Tomorrow. Noon, hmm? I believe we have much to discuss.”

Eddie noticed it for a couple of months, but he never told anyone. He figured, what would be the point? Just a little blood when he coughed, that’s all. Folks would just say, Eddie, why don’t you knock off the smoking? Fact was, he’d given up about all that a man could and stay alive. Maybe nobody else thought so; but, as far as he was concerned, it was the God’s truth. He stared at the droplets of blood on his rumpled handkerchief and tossed it into the trash with the eggshells and coffee grounds.

“Eddie, when you going to stop hacking like that? Keeps me up when I’m tryin’ to sleep.” Starr’s raspy voice echoed from the back bedroom.

Eddie heard the click of her lighter. Must be time to bless the first smoke of the day. “Keeps me up too, Starr,” he said. He strolled over to the wide window and gazed at nothing in particular. Suddenly, a cardinal flitted from the tree branch to the windowsill. It fluffed its scarlet feathers and stared at Eddie. “Lookee here, Starr. She’s looking at me. I bet she’s looking for Lori.”

“Oh right. I feel certain, Eddie. You hear anything from the Princess of Pain?”

Eddie stared into the distance. “Didn’t really expect to, darling. ‘Cause I know how she is when her mind’s made up. Woman’s like a mule in a harness that’s too tight. Makes a man hurry up and wait. That’s what a man’ll do.”

“Wait for what?” Starr’s eyes narrowed with suspicion.

Eddie jabbed his finger in front of her face. “You got no room to talk about Lori. Nope.”

“Lori? What you talking about?”

“I’m talking about your Dr. Freeman.”

“What about him? He’s a good doctor.”

Eddie glared at Starr. Before he could speak, a cough rattled in his throat like a pile of rusty cans blowing in the rain.

Starr gasped at the droplets of blood that sprinkled the wall. “Eddie, is that…that blood?”

When Eddie opened his mouth, a vicious cough racked his body. He heaved and heaved. Again, a spray of blood covered his handkerchief.

“There you go again,” Starr said. “Seems like ever since Lori left, you been too sick to talk to me”

“Have not. Just haven’t much felt like it, that’s all. You want to go for some pancakes or something?”

Starr lit another cigarette and blew a puff into the air. “Sounds like the phone. Awful early for phone calls. You have an appointment somewhere darlin’?”

“Nope.” Starr sure was in a funny mood this morning. Been that way a lot lately. Must be her hormones or something. Eddie hustled down the hall to the kitchen and lifted the receiver.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Edward Raines?”

“Speaking.”

“This is Sergeant Reggie Combs with the St. Louis Police Department. I have a police officer from Las Vegas on the line, Mr. Raines. He would like to speak with you regarding your wife.”

Eddie coughed, and a spray of blood sprinkled his sleeve. He rummaged on the kitchen counter for a paper towel.