The Donors

by Jeffrey Wilson

  “Well, Mr. Prescott,” Clark sounded excited. “I see from your idiotic and ignorant expression that you are not sorry for the pain you have caused. So we’ll begin.”

  Again Steve heard the sounds of muted activity from all around him. He heard the clatter of metal on metal, like tools being assembled. What in hell was going on? The muffled chatter and a flurry of activity around the room disoriented him. He heard more clinking of… surgical instruments?

  Oh my god, No! Surely not. Oh God, please help me!

  Steve stared at the ceiling, his ceiling as he thought of it now, and listened to the clatter of the unseen crowd. He occasionally struggled out a slow, hard blink when the dryness of his eyes became unbearable. A pale halo surrounded the white of the ceiling. With all of his concentration, he tried desperately to decipher the incoherent conversations. His face was hot and his heart felt like it might jump out of his chest. The beeping sounded very fast now, marching out the staccato rhythm of his elevated heart-beat.

  Please…!

  “What size gloves?”

  “Seven and a half.”

  “Just one suction.”

  “Is there blood available?”

  “We’re going to need epi-soaked gauze at the donor site.”

  “I’ll set up the electric cutter. Do you need the mesher?”

  “No, but make sure the bovie is at 30.”

  “Go ahead and prep.”

  Steve felt a sudden shock of cold liquid on his right thigh and groin. Hands began to scrub his leg with the freezing solution. He felt it dribble down the inside of his thigh. There was a tug and then a burning in his dick. He tried desperately to shift his eyes downward, to see what was going on, but they only obeyed his command briefly. Nowhere near long enough to see anything. He really wanted to know what they were doing to his dick. The beeping sound of his heartbeat accelerated.

  What the hell is happening? If I’m about to get an operation, why am I awake? Christ, I can feel everything! Don’t they know that? How can I tell them?

  The beeping banged into his head like a nail.

  “Wow, he is really tachycardic.”

  “Well, go figure.”

  “Towels please.”

  “Towel clips?”

  “No, thanks.”

  He felt warm towels laid across his crotch, then on his thigh, just above his knee. Then more on his inner and outer thigh.

  “Ok, let’s get it done. Two pairs of pick-ups please. Thanks.”

  Steve could not contain his terror but he had no way to release it. He heard a clinking of instruments and felt a hand pressing on his skin.

  My god, this can’t be happening. Please fucking stop. Please, please, please…

  “Ok, hold the skin taunt right there. That’s it.” He felt the metal instrument pulling both up and down on his thigh, the skin between stretching tight. A tear trickled down his cheek into his ear.

  “Electric blade.”

  Blade? BLADE? Please, god, NO! NO! NO!

  A mechanical whirring sound, like a power tool spooling up, echoed in the room. He felt like he might vomit again; his stomach tightened. A flash of cool pressure on his leg startled him and then…

  An explosion of pain jolted low on his leg. It spread upward as the pitch of the tool became lower, slower. When the whirring sound sped up again, the pressure stopped and the piercing torture relented, replaced by an unbelievable burning over his entire lower body. The sensation of being lit on fire was so overwhelming that Steve expected at any moment to smell smoke. Never in his life had he imagined anything so excruciating. Every nerve fired, trying to mobilize his muscles, to get him to move away from the source, but he remained still. He tried to scream, but the agony echoed silently in his mind instead. He looked in vain for any outlet.

  “That’s a good piece. Put that in some saline.”

  “There you are.”

  “Right here?”

  “That’s it, right next to the first cut.”

  Pressure on his thigh again. This time more to the inside. The horrible whirring sound.

  Please, stop! For god’s sake, not again!

  The vacuous screams inside his head were followed again by the pressure and then by the sharp, ripping up the inside of his thigh and the terrible burning.

  “Another good one.”

  “Man, he’s really bleeding.”

  “Get some epi-soaked sponges on the site.”

  “Want me to hold pressure?”

  “Guess you better.”

  A hand pressed roughly right where his leg burned. His pain ratcheted up two notches, the beeping boomed louder, and Steve felt sure that his brain would explode if he couldn’t move immediately. But only his chest moved, outside of his control, with each HISS of the breathing machine.

  “Here’s the epi.”

  He heard a sound, like the pump of a squirt bottle, and then a cool wetness on his thigh. For a second it soothed the pain, but then the fire rose in intensity, and the room went black. Steve drifted. The voices around him became faint, the beeping softer and softer and softer…

  * * *

  Jason looked at the clock for the tenth time in eight minutes. His almost feverish desire to get out of the ER did nothing to make the damn thing go any faster. He stood next to the patient board and scribbled a final few notes in the last two charts of patients with pending items. He repeatedly looked down the hall for his relief; the infamous Dr. Dietrich. Jason didn’t know if it was a desire to see (and maybe talk to) Jenny or his nearly desperate need to check on Nathan that drove his manic desire.

  There was something very different about Nathan, something they shared other than scars. The afternoon had been tough on their new friendship (or whatever it was). It had been easy to talk Sheila Katzen, the General Surgery third year resident on the burn service, into letting him do Nathan’s debridement. Hell, Sheila didn’t want to do it any more than he did. Scraping and scrubbing dead skin off someone held no glamour or glory, and anyone who didn’t feel agony when that patient was a crying child should probably not be allowed to mingle in a civilized society.

  You couldn’t give enough Morphine to make the pain go away without stopping their breathing. All you could do was hope that the little bit of Versed you gave would keep the little guy from remembering why he should hate you.

  But Nathan had been a real trooper. He sobbed almost silently as Jason removed the dead skin on the sensitive palm of his hand and up the side of his index finger. Jason tried to talk to him at first, searched for consoling words, but it felt ridiculous. He finally tried to just finish as quickly as possible.

  The hand itself looked remarkably good and could probably have a skin graft in another day or so (during which Nathan would get to have general anesthesia—thank god). When he finished he realized he had cried more than Nathan. He had nearly burst when his new buddy looked up at him between sobs and said, “Thanks for taking care of me, Jason.”

  Jason looked again at the painfully slow clock and his gaze caught Dietrich coming up the hallway from the magnetized doors. He walked slowly and whispered something to a pretty girl in scrubs, who looked familiar—someone from X-Ray, he thought. She blushed and glanced at her own feet, then put a hand on Dietrich’s chest to push him away. The push held an intimacy that made it clear she had not shunned him earlier. Jason chuckled and shook his head.

  “Hey there, big guy,” Dietrich said as he breezed up beside him. “How’s the nut house?”

  “About average.” Jason knew Rich wanted him to ask about the girl, so naturally, he refused. “Ready to get going?”

  “Yeah,” Dietrich said with an exaggerated stretch and yawn. “Pretty worn out this evening, I don’t mind tellin’ ya’,” he baited.

  “No doubt,” Jason answered, feigning disinterest. “I have one sickie pending and another that might be a discharge.”

  “She might be Miss Right,” Rich said and looked longingly down the hall at miss-right-now. She winked and
waved with two fingers just before the magnetic doors shut. Jason felt a tug of jealousy, not at the parade of meaningless sex in his friend’s life (he really didn’t have more than a passing curiosity about that), but at the ease with which Rich talked to everyone, women included. Jason would have given about anything to be that comfortable.

  Jason shook the thought off; they were pointless at best and distracting enough to keep him from talking to Jenny at worst.

  “Ready?” he demanded, more irritably than he intended. Not Rich’s fault he had what Jason needed.

  “Yeah, sorry,” Rich said and let himself get drawn into the somewhat boring tale of the very sick Mrs. Cathcart and the very annoying (and probably drug-seeking) Mr. Griffey.

  Fifteen minutes later, Jason stood at the elevators, his back-pack over one shoulder, and stared at the button instead of pushing it. He didn’t want to rehearse what he would say to Jenny and sound stilted and… well, rehearsed. But on the other hand, he couldn’t just walk up unprepared and stammer at her like a choking victim (as he had done once already). He felt a familiar dread grow inside of him and rubbed his face with both hands.

  “God, don’t be such an asshole,” he said to himself quietly. Then he looked up and saw an old man. The guy stared with a gaze usually reserved for a half-naked man on a street corner holding a “The End Is Coming” sign. “Good morning,” Jason said, looking directly at him. The man only nodded in response and moved slowly away.

  He mashed the up button with some irritation and one of the elevator doors swooshed open. Inside, he pushed the number six, then crossed his arms across his chest in defiance. He had to go up, for Christ’s sake. He had to see Nathan in any case. For all he knew Jenny wouldn’t even be there. He had no idea what her work schedule was.

  Jenny sat at a round table looking through a chart. She looked beautiful. Jason stood at the doorway to the ICU for a moment and just watched her. She twirled her hair with one hand, the other resting on the clipboard. When she looked up and saw him, a smile lit her face. Instead of just smiling back, Jason walked over to her with a casualness he didn’t feel, hoping he didn’t look stupid. Hi, I’m Larry…

  “Hi, I’m Jason,” he said awkwardly and then felt so foolish he almost turned around.

  “I know who you are, Dr. Gelman,” Jenny said with a little chuckle. She held his eyes, his smile, and waited expectantly.

  Jason took a deep breath and dove right in. “So how is our little guy this evening?” he asked and boldly sat down in the empty chair next to her.

  “He’s doing fine,” Jenny said cheerfully. “I actually have him tonight, so I’ll be looking after him. Listen…” She leaned forward, putting her warm hand on his wrist. Her hand felt smooth, soft on his skin and he worried he might actually give off a contented sigh. “I heard what you did earlier this afternoon, and, well, I just wanted to tell you I think you’re great. I wish you were his doctor all the time instead of the Burn Service Team.”

  She looked down the hall at a group of retreating white coats with poorly veiled disappointment. “I’m sure they’re all good, but they barely even talk to the poor kid.” Her hand squeezed his wrist and he felt a little dizzy. “He’s lucky to have met you,” she said and then pulled her hand away.

  “Well,” Jason replied when he could speak. His face felt hot and he knew it was red. “Thanks. I mean—well, thanks a lot.” He started to reach out to touch her hand and decided against it, though he desperately wanted to feel her skin again.

  “I’m glad you’ll be his nurse tonight,” Jason said awkwardly. Jenny showed no signs of discomfort whatsoever. Probably because she was just being professional and polite and had no idea he was interested in being more colleagues.

  “Oh, I asked to be,” she said and he thought he saw a little blush, which to him looked more like hope. “I think Nathan is just great,” she continued and looked down. She seemed to be gathering her courage for something. “And I like his doctor, too.”

  Jason felt a wave of nausea burning in his throat. Was it one of the Surgery Residents? Maybe an attending from the Pediatric ICU service? Holy shit, he was such an idiot. Why would a gorgeous woman like this be interested in him?

  “You know I mean you, right?” Jenny asked. Her voice sounded nervous. When he looked at her, relief washed over him.

  Wow. Shit, now what?

  “Look,” he said with a sigh. Being himself would probably be easier than trying to be Dietrich. “Jenny, I suck at this. But…” He hesitated. But what? “But, I would really like to get to know you.” There, he said it. Go on. Get in there. No going back now anyway. “Do you want to grab some coffee or get breakfast or something in the morning after your shift?” He gazed expectantly into her beautiful green eyes.

  “I would love that,” she said and sighed, visibly relieved. “I thought I was going to look like an idiot here.” She touched his wrist again. “I can sneak away for five or ten minutes in just a little while if you want. We can make plans for tomorrow?”

  “That would be great,” he said louder than he intended.

  “I figured you were going to check on Nathan, right?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” Jason answered. He felt a twinge of guilt that Nathan waited in his room while he made time with his nurse. “Yeah, he had a tough day. I just want to spend a little time with him.” He realized he really did.

  “Great,” Jenny said, but left her hand on his arm this time. He wondered if she knew that. “How about we meet in thirty or forty minutes when I finish my other assessments?” She handed him the chart she had been looking at.

  The red tape on the front read “SMH Doe”—Nathan’s chart. Jason realized he didn’t really need the chart. He wasn’t there as a doctor.

  “Perfect,” he said, remembering that Jenny still waited for a reply. They smiled at each other as Jason rose and headed to Nathan’s room. He set the chart in the box by the door and quietly walked in.

  Nathan sat up in his bed where he watched a video on a small TV set on a rolling cart. Ice Age II. He watched for a moment as Nathan stared at the screen with all the interest of a cross-country trucker forced to see Cinderella when Monday night football was on. He wondered where his mind had taken him.

  “What’s up, kiddo?” Jason called from the door and screwed his biggest smile on his face. He noted that Nathan jumped a bit, startled away from wherever his thoughts had taken him. Jason hoped that Nathan had not been thinking about his earlier torture at the hands of Dr. Gelman. “How ya’ feelin’?” he asked as he sat on the edge of his bed. To his relief, Nathan smiled a huge five-year-old grin.

  “Hi, Jason,” he said warmly. “I feel pretty good.” He raised his bandaged arm a bit. “Hardly hurts at all.”

  Jason knew that if his hand felt better, it was because of the narcotics, not because of him. He nodded anyway. “Good,” he said. “What are we watching?”

  “Ice Age II: The Melt Down,” Nathan said. “I’ve already seen it but it’s really funny. Can you watch it with me?” he asked hopefully.

  “Absolutely,” Jason answered and settled more comfortably onto the bed beside his buddy. “Where’s your mom?” he asked.

  “Went to get some food,” Nathan said and Jason felt his heart warm when the boy scooted over so he would be right next to him. “She’s gonna bring me back some ice cream, but you can share if you want.” He seemed engrossed in the movie now, though he had been barely watching it when Jason came in.

  Jason smiled at the warm feeling he had for this boy. He tried to watch the movie with Nathan and managed to laugh at Nathan giggling, but his mind remained consumed with thoughts about the boy’s nightmares. He wanted so much to ask him about what he saw when he closed his eyes. He especially wanted to hear more about the Lizard Men. He saw a mental image of two tall men in trench coats in the alley, wide-brimmed hats low over their faces, and orange-yellow orbs peering from the shadows.

  Remember me, Jason?

  He shuddered uncontroll
ably. Nathan looked at him for a moment with uncertainty. Jason smiled back which seemed to be enough for his buddy, who returned eagerly to the movie.

  “The big elephant is gonna help him,” he chattered excitedly and pointed at the TV.

  Jason knew he couldn’t take Nathan to the nightmares. Not right now. He needed to just be a little boy for a while. He did his best to get into the movie, but mostly enjoyed hearing Nathan laugh and tell him what was going to happen next.

  When Jenny tapped lightly on the door, he found himself a little disappointed to be pulled away. Then again, Jenny did smile at him beautifully from the doorway.

  “Hi, Nathan,” she said warmly. “Can I steal Dr. Gelman for a quick minute?”

  “Okay,” Nathan answered, but he held up the remote and pointed it at the TV. “I’ll pause it for ya, Jason.”

  Jason smiled. “Sounds great,” he said as he got up from the hospital bed, ruffling Nathan’s mop of hair as he did. “I’ll just be a minute,” he said and slipped out the door with Jenny.

  “Wow, you’re so great with him,” Jenny said warmly.

  “Thanks,” Jason replied. “You want a coffee?”

  “No, thanks,” she answered. “I like to wait until I need it in a few hours. Can we just sit in the staff lounge for a minute?”

  “Sure,” he answered. He followed her to the small kitchen-like lounge and enjoyed the pleasure of being beside her. They sat at the little table together and she seemed to gather her thoughts.

  “Look,” she said staring at her own hands. Her eyes seemed clouded.

  Uh-oh. This doesn’t look good. This could be a new personal record—a break up before the first date.

  He swallowed hard and let her continue.

  “I’m really excited about seeing you in the morning,” she said.

  But?

  “But,” she continued and then paused. To his relief she put her soft hand on his again and went on. “It’s just that I have a rule about dating guys at work, or before that, at school.” She stopped and looked to be in deep thought. “Actually,” she said and smiled at him, “it seems I usually set up lots of rules to not date guys that would be worth dating. I just…” She looked at him as if searching for words.