by Caldon Mull
I would recognize that minute figure anywhere. “Doctor Mason, what brings you out here?” I called over to the wet, scampering man.”
“I need to use your shelter, Andronicus.” He called up, spectacles running with rain “The hospital has run out of p-power and I have something of an emergency.”
“Andronicus...?” Dean whispered behind me.
“Shhhh...” Michel whispered “Later.”
“What sort of emergency, Doctor?” I opened the door and walked out onto the lawn, meeting him half-way. “Is there anything I can help with?”
“It’s a breach birth. I need light and some strong hands, hot water and p-preferably someplace with p-power. I brought an incubator along... just in case, but I don’t think that’s necessary just yet. Will you help me, p-please? I need to get the mother and the incubator inside fairly quickly, she’s already been in labour for an hour, and I couldn’t think of anywhere else I could save them both.”
“I’ll help you with her,” Michel offered. “Kid, you get the stuff out the back of the car.” “Doctor, could you run ahead and find the best place for you while we carry her over.”
“Inside the house?” Doctor Mason. asked nervously.
“What’s the power requirement of an Incubator?” I did a quick calculation.
“I’m not sure.” Doctor Mason shrugged, clutching his bag. “Not too much, but it can’t be interrupted for very long.
“No, then we’ll move her to the shelter, near the batteries. It’s cleaner.”
“I remember where the hatch is, I’ll go open it.” He crouched down the gravel path clutching his bag while Michel and I lifted the groaning woman under the knees and on the shoulders.
Locking arms around her back, Dean following us hefting the chest-sized incubator we inched our way down the path to where Doctor Mason had opened the door and found the lights for us. The young woman -she wasn’t much older than a girl- wasn’t the best conversationalist around, but she gave a good indication of when she was comfortable enough and when she wasn’t. I don’t know, but screaming and panting are not considered ‘conversation’ in my book. Suddenly, she gave a loud yelp and I felt my hands getting slippery.
“Oh, shit!” I muttered, not wanting to look down at what it could be “she’s leaking.”
“Just hang on, buddy.” Michel grunted through clenched teeth. “Doc, her waters’ broke.”
“Oh, my!” His head bobbed through the hatch “Quickly now, there isn’t much time.”
We rushed through the hatch and up to the steel table-tops where we dumped her as quickly as possible, her groans started riding up the scale towards a shriek. I turned quickly where the small grunts from Dean followed us into the room. I strode over to him and helped him put the heavy plastic box near a plug.
“I’ll set this up kid, after this, though... I’m not sure what good I’ll be.” I licked my very dry lips “I... I never told you this, but I’m very... very... ah, squeamish.”
Dean blinked at me. “Just set up the damn machine, big guy. After that, I reckon we got most of the other stuff covered, yeah?”
“Ok, Ok... I’ll get cracking.” I busied myself, keeping half an ear open to what everyone else was doing, concentrating hard on the connectors and couplings. There were more than I thought. Main ones were easy, but there was an ancillary system that required a two-prong. I started to mutter to myself to keep focused. “Ok, yank out the modem bank, and put it in there. Lights, heat... what’s this...?”
In the background, the noise level was rising. I heard Michel’s voice rise above the shrieks of the girl “Oh, this is bad Doc, what’s happening?”
“Michel, it’s breached as well as the cord is snarled. I’m not strong enough to undo this...” “Doc, it’s just like a horse or a cow. If you can make that cut-thingy you guys make, I’m pretty sure I can pull through.” Dean’s voice rose “I done it before... on the ranch.”
“Cut-thingy?... Oh, epidural, yes, yes, of course.” Doctor Mason clucked to himself for seconds before he said “Michel, hold her p-please, you’ll need to be strong, this is going to hurt her... a lot.”
I swallowed thickly and clicked the last coupling into place. A switch later and the machine hummed into life. I stood as the girl let out a blood curdling scream. My mouth started sweating, my feet turned cold.
I turned and took two steps towards the group huddled over the counter. Time froze. Doctor Mason leaned away from the girl’s hips brandishing a bloodied scalpel. Dean’s face was a study in concentration as his hands and fore-arms pushed forward between the girls legs. I didn’t see them on top of her swollen belly, that meant... that meant...
“Doc, your machine is... Oh my ...” I realized halfway through what I wanted to say that my arms and thighs were covered in a bloody mixture of the contents of the girls womb and that Dean was tugging bloody dripping arms out of... I couldn’t feel anything below my collarbones and the settee cushions were hurtling towards my face and then...
“Hey... Hey, C’mon Andy.” Michel’s voice came from far away, getting closer. “Ungh... what?” I looked up at him, squinting him into focus. “My head hurts.”
“Well, you fainted and beaned yourself, that’s what.” Michel grinned broadly “So you aren’t perfect, after all, are you? I was beginning to worry that you had no weaknesses at all. Squeamish, huh? Who’da thunk?”
“It’s not blood, as long as it’s my own... its scalpels and girl stuff and gore and... Gah! I’m gonna stop now before I light out again.” I sat up, holding my ringing head. “How long I been down?”
“About ten minutes. Da Kid cleaned up the baby girl and let the new mom hold her while you were out cold. Doc put her in the ‘cubator a little while ago. Nothing more to be done, let’s go upstairs for some ice for that egg.”
“Yeah, let’s go. Please.” I struggled to my wobbly legs.
“Doc, Kid...” Michel called over his shoulder, “I’m gonna take Big Guy up to the kitchen, coffee is on as soon as things are settled. Join us, when you’re done.”
“Sure thing.” Dean piped up from the basin.
“Right.” Doctor Mason muttered, threading a rather large, curved needle with some serious looking twine. I gulped and staggered over to the hatch, Michel steadying me.
Half-hour later Dean and Doctor Mason ambled into the kitchen. Dean held a bundle of sheets and linen from the shelter wadded up in his arms “Andy... should I put this with the others?
“Yeah kid...” I grinned. We had a hell of a laundry basket today. I wondered dimly if I should just burn everything and buy a whole new set. Yeah, well whatever. “Just toss them all into the soak. Should be OK.”
“Doctor, you want a cup?” Michel strolled to the percolator.
“p-Please Michel. One sugar, no milk.” The tiny man pulled up a chair and sat down. His eyes showed dark bags of fatigue.
“How long since you slept, Doc?” I muttered feeling spare, angry, embarrassed... all these things at once.
“About eighteen hours.” He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Thank you, Michel.” He sipped at the dark brew. “If you hadn’t helped out, both those girls would be dead by now.” He sighed “I should have realized that even if we got them here, I wouldn’t have been able to extract the child on my own. I suppose that’s what happens when you put a dwarf into a hospital with no p-power and several emergencies racked and stacked.”
“You’re not a dwarf.” I sniffed “You’re a midget, and a fairly large one at that. There’s a difference.” Doctor Mason goggled at me for a few minutes, then rang out laughing, unable to stop until tears ran down his face. Somewhere along the line Michel and I joined in, all the tension and frustration of the last few hours drained out of us in a gut-wrenching, peal of good ol’ fashioned belly laugh. Finally, we all just sighed and sipped our coffee.
Dean chuckled softly, and left his leaning post by the door and joined us at the table. He’d been watching us and even joined in, laughing at us laugh
ing... not because he had been there at the trigger of the fit.
“Heh. You guys are a complete riot.” Dean joined us at the table “Real riot... is what. Funny guys.”
“Seriously, Andronicus.” Doctor Mason mashed his eyeballs with his thumbs and let his glasses drop back down onto the bridge of his nose “They would both have been dead if you hadn’t been here with your things, and Cain here with his long arms.”
“There’s that ‘Andronicus’ thing again.” Dean sniffed and sipped his coffee “What’s with that?”
I sighed. “It’s my real name, kid. I really prefer ‘Andy’. But now that it’s out, I guess it’s just one more thing I’ll have to get used to in future. I just don’t care anymore.”
“Is that a fact, now?” Dean looked up, dark eyebrows beetling to his hairline.
“Gets worse.” Michel smirked and dumped some of his butter cookies onto a plate and passed it around. “You know that ‘C’ initial on the post.”
“Yeah? No!” Dean blinked “Can’t be. Can’t possibly be worse...? How much worse?”
I folded my arms and rested my chin on my chest. Let them play this out, my head hurt and I still had to finish saying what I wanted to say.
“Lots.” Michel smiled and took his cue from my resigned posture.
“No! Can I guess?” Dean was all ears and puppy-dog attentive now. I remembered dimly that he couldn’t put a crossword down one he had picked it up. This was just like this, only worse.
“Nah, don’t think so.” Michel nibbled on a biscuit and looked at Doctor Mason “So, you were saying...”
“No! Nononono...” Dean grabbed Michel’s wrist and waggled his arm to and fro “Not like this, No... gotta tell me now.”
“Agck!” I spluttered in mock-disgust “Just tell him, won’t ya. Bullying the kid... you know his head is gonna explode if ya don’t.”
“Yeah.” Michel grinned “Another cup anyone?”
“Awww... please, Andy?” Dean’s eyes bored at my head, willing the information to appear on my forehead.
“No help here kid.” I shrugged, hoping he couldn’t see the faint smile I was trying to hide. “He brought it up, He’s gotta tell you the secret, not me.”
“C’mon, someone... Doc?” Dean whipped around and entreated the small, tired man.
“I only know him by his first name, he never put any initials on his blue cross.” Doctor
Mason swayed slightly “Sorry Cain, but I don’t know.”
“Ah, Doc I’m Dean.” The kid rolled his eyes, like he heard this a thousand times.
“Oh dear.” Doctor Mason blinked “I apologize, but I simply can’t...”
“... tell us apart. Yeah Doc, not to worry.” Dean sighed “So, no-one knows or is gonna tell me...? That sucks!”
“Tell you what, kid.” Michel took the doctors’ empty cup to the washbasin. “If I go and set up the other rooms in the shelter for the Doctor, and you make sure the jenny is full, I’ll tell ya, sometime.”
“Deal.” Dean bolted from the table and out the kitchen door.
“Thing is, Doctor.” I sighed, the distraction over for awhile. “It’s not that far back, but you look like death warmed up. You can sleep in one of the rooms in the shelter, near the girls, and then tomorrow you can head back. Feel free to come and go, and move them when they’re ready. Michel, what the other rooms need?”
“Nothing. Just the battery packs need to be connected to the other lights, is all. Don’t want to use up all the juice from the backup batteries. Ten minutes, all sorted.”
“I don’t mean to impose...” Doctor Mason started, then saw me glaring at him. “I guess I have already, haven’t I?”
“Yes, you have.” I grinned, finally. “I invited you to use the facility, consequently I do not consider this an imposition. Your politeness is inaccurate and somewhat untruthful.”
“More accuracy, less lies.” Doctor Mason nodded, his tired eyes narrowed quickly as he sensed my mood change. “Got it. It seems to be the key to working with you.”
“Hmmm. It’s quite comfortable down there. Enjoy your rest. I think you need it.” I stood, head pounding. “I am going to take some aspirin and turn in. There’s a sick kitten in my room doctor and the three of us are holding vigil. Don’t be surprised at our sleeping arrangements. Also, make sure your antibiotics for your patients include some scope for ‘wet kitten’, if that’s at all possible.”
“Yes, yes.” Doctor Mason smiled suddenly “I’ll do that. Good thing you told me. If there are any complications knowing this will be useful. Thank you... Andy.”
“It’s ‘Andronicus Caifus’ in case you were wondering.” I walked to the kitchen door.
“Good Lord! What were your p-parents thinking?” Doctor Mason yawned.
“I’m sure they had their reasons.” I yawned in sympathy “Lock up, Michel. I’ll see you later. Good night, Doctor Mason.”
“Good night... Andy. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Oh, I think I’ll shower.” I saw the drying mucus on my shorts. “I forgot how messy life gets, sometimes.”
I was just putting the kitten into his box, dutifully fed and cleaned when I heard my lovers leaving the bathroom.
“Cedric? Carlson? Colby?” Dean’s voice whispering.
“Nope. Nope, and nope.” Michel whispered back. The smug glee in his voice teased a smile out of me. I pulled back the covers and bounced my butt over into the middle of the bed. I had just turned onto my side when they crept into the room.
“S’ok.” I murmured “Not asleep yet.”
“Good, didn’t want to wake you if you were.” Dean climbed into the right side, snuggled my back. “Man, I’m bushed.” he said again, then he was asleep. Just like that.
“Shit!” Michel arranged himself over my arm and lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. “I wish I could do that.” I licked the top of his shoulder, idly. “Handy, ain’t it.” I smiled, my lips caressing his skin.
“Sure is.” He sighed, stretching his legs, toes rubbing my instep. “I’ll get the next shift on the kitten. You sleep through.”
“Thanks.” I tumbled off into a dreamless sleep.
The morning was grey and black. Whatever was looming had not yet broken, although the signs that it was soon going to break one way or the other were all there. Although it was rare that bad -dangerous bad- weather came this far north, it could still happen. There were only two more days of diesel in the jenny, and I would have to get some more soon if this was going to carry on this way. I had hauled some half dozen jerry cans into the back of Michel’s truck and was ready to go out as far as it took to get some more, when my morning vigil was interrupted by a small red-haired man scrunching gravel as he climbed up the steep slope to the top of the porch.
“Hello, Doctor.” I greeted the top of his head as he moved towards the wooden steps. “Sleep well?”
“Oh, good morning ...Andy.” he froze and stared up, smiled and continued on up the last few yards.
“Yes, I did. Everyone had a good night. I think there is little chance there will be any further complications. Both girls are resting and are going to be fine.”
“Coffee is on the brew.” I sipped another jolt of the mocca “Help yourself. Michel will be up and about soon, he’ll fix breakfast for you all down there.”
“Thanks, ...Andy.” Doctor Mason fidgeted at the door. I could feel him staring at the back of my dungarees. “About... About that other thing, I think I should tell you what I did with your tape, Androni... Andy.”
“Hmmm. I should get some more diesel. Perhaps a trip to Dry County...” I shrugged.
“You can go into denial if you want.” Doctor Mason snapped “The best thing I could do was to send the tape back to your head office, through my connections with their justice system. Even if there is nothing said about it to anyone else, you could rest assured the culprit of your ...assault will not go unpunished.”
“Kitten food. I’ll
need to get that too.” I turned to face him, my heart a stone in my chest, cold.
“You are not in a good place right now. I recognize all the symptoms, Andy.” Doctor Mason tugged off his glasses and wiped them on his undershirt. “It’s called a clinical depression. Your ego has received too many knocks in the last few months and I don’t know how you are coping, but you seem to be. Your coffee consumption is just one indication, there are many more.”
“I like coffee.” I sipped the dregs.
“Yes, it’s a comfort mechanism.” He sighed “But what I’m saying is that I don’t have to be your Doctor anymore. All the reasons I’m still here have gone away and I’m free to do what I want to, even leave here if it will make you more comfortable.” He placed his glasses back on the bridge of his nose, pushed them back up. “I just need some feedback on what your feelings are, Andy. In all the short time I’ve known you, I’m still trying to think if you have ever been open with your feelings. I’m sure you’ve never lied, I know you that well, but you are simply not forthcoming unless the precise, correct question is asked. You never have to lie if you don’t volunteer anything at all.”
“That’s about right.” I scowled.
“You are completely reactive!” Doctor Mason snapped back “What would you like me to do after I have broken patient-doctor confidentiality, abused every single principle in the Hippocratic Oath? In order to get my personal revenge on the man who has done this terrible thing, to so many people?”
“Whatever you think is best.” I shrugged, hearing his words, but storing them far away. I would try and feel something about them at another time. “I don’t have you beholden to me in any way and I would not want to dictate to you how you should react to anything.”
“So you don’t care and you don’t want to punish me any more than I am going to punish myself for my real and imagined transgressions.” Doctor Mason sighed.
“That’s accurate.”