Appalachian Intrigue

by Archie Meyers

  When Dex took the snap, he immediately realized that more than the corner was coming in the blitz. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the middle linebacker shoot the gap, and he knew he was in trouble. He rolled from the pocket to buy time. His primary receiver was covered, so he checked downfield for an alternate. Burl White, his wideout, had managed to get a step of separation from the strong safety and was streaking down the right sideline. Dex had to stop his scramble and firmly plant his right foot to gain the leverage he would need to make the long pass. He snapped his arm back and whipped it forward in the fluid motion that had made him so good at throwing the long ball. But before the ball cleared his hand, he felt a jarring impact. All his weight was on the right foot he had planted so solidly in the turf, and it didn’t move with the impact. He felt his leg snap with a sickening crack as pain washed over him.

  Dex collapsed. He was unaware that the ball had bounced on the turf only a few yards from where he was sprawled on the field. He fleetingly saw the shock on the face of Don Mason, his right guard. The pain kept pulsing in waves as he tried to reach for his leg. Rolling on his back in agony, the entire contents of his stomach exploded onto the turf and the unseasonably warm fall day seemed to suddenly turn cold as he shivered uncontrollably. Before he passed out, Dex looked down and saw the jagged end of a bone protruding from his leg between his knee and ankle.

  Dr. Jerome Adams, the team physician, was quickly on the field. One look at Dex’s leg and he instinctively knew that as the jagged end of the bone tore through the flesh, it had probably caused extensive collateral damage. He also knew that any fracture that created an open wound, particularly one exposed to the grunge of a football field, presented the risk of serious infection. He immediately removed his belt and used it as a tourniquet to stop the profuse bleeding.

  He stood up and yelled to the sideline, “Get the gurney out here right now, and have the ambulance stand by.”

  As soon as they had Dex loaded in the ambulance, Dr. Adams climbed in beside him.

  “Don’t stop at the local hospital. Let’s get him to Munson in Atlanta as soon as possible.”

  A hush had fallen over Sanford Stadium as the siren screamed from the speeding ambulance. The outcome of the game had suddenly become less important to the thousands of Georgia fans packed in the stadium. Many hardened football fans were seen with their heads bowed.

  Dr. Adams was not just the team physician, he was also an avid Bulldog fan, and he was going to make sure Dex was seen by the most skilled orthopedist available. His preferred surgeon worked at Munson Orthopedic Hospital in Atlanta, and that was where he directed the ambulance driver.

  Dex was conscious now but in such intense pain that he would later remember only snippets of the conversation with Dr. Adams during the trip that seemed to last forever. He overheard the cell phone conversation the doctor had with the Atlanta hospital.

  When the call was over he asked, “Will they be able to fix my leg?”

  “Dex, I know this doctor well, and in my opinion he’s the best around. Let us worry about your leg and you just try to stay positive.”

  Even in his condition, Dex realized that Dr. Adams had not actually answered his question, but he wasn’t in any state to follow up.

  The orthopedic surgeon met them in the emergency room, evaluated Dex, and rushed him directly to surgery. After the surgery was completed, Dex spent another hour in recovery before he was transferred to a private room.

  Dex’s head was still foggy from the heavy sedation, and although he realized he was in a hospital room and vaguely remembered the ambulance trip, he had no concept of elapsed time. He was having difficulty keeping his eyes open and focused as he slowly recovered from the anesthesia, but he sensed that someone was in the room with him. He thought he was hallucinating when he saw a beautiful woman standing beside his bed. But then the mirage said, “Hello, Dex,” and he realized it was not his imagination. The voice was strangely familiar and seemed to be coming from somewhere far away. He was struggling to overcome the anesthesia, and his eyelids were still fluttering as she leaned over the bed and held his hand between hers.

  “I was watching the game on TV, and when they announced where they were taking you, I beat the ambulance here. I’ve been in the waiting room with Dr. Adams, waiting for them to move you into a room.”

  Even before he could focus his eyes enough to see her clearly, her unique, husky voice triggered his recognition.

  “Marie, Marie Murphy, where… come from?” He was still having difficulty enunciating words, and his throat was so dry it felt like he had been eating sand. Although he was still not fully awake and was mumbling, she seemed to understand him because she smiled, squeezed his hand, and nodded.

  “Marie, haven’t seen… how long? Thanks. Still remember me.” He knew what he wanted to say but the words weren’t coming out right, and she couldn’t help but chuckle at his rambling speech.

  “Oh, come on, Dex, everybody in Georgia knows you, but I’m glad to see that celebrity hasn’t caused you to lose your modesty.”

  Recovery from the effects of the anesthesia wasn’t Dex’s only problem. He was also having difficulty reconciling his memory of Marie, the next-door tomboy, with the stunningly beautiful young woman standing beside his bed. A cloudlike mane of curls had replaced the familiar pigtails in her raven hair. Before tumbling onto her broad shoulders, the dark tresses caressed a face with coal-black eyes, full sensual lips, and a straight aristocratic nose. Her high cheekbones and jet-black hair pointed like a genealogical signpost to her distant Cherokee ancestors. These Native American features were still clinging for recognition even after the infusion of European DNA from several intervening generations.

  Since he was flat on his back, it was hard to estimate height, but Dex thought she must be almost six feet tall. He also noticed that the jeans and turtleneck sweater clearly indicated her once-skinny frame had filled out remarkably well. She would never again be mistaken for one of the boys.

  When Marie sat on the side of the bed, the movement caused Dex to grimace with pain. She noticed his reaction and walked around to the foot of the bed. He had a quizzical expression when he noticed her subconsciously adjusting the apparatus elevating his leg without even looking at the controls.

  Marie laughed and said, “Don’t worry, Dex. I’m a nurse, and I worked at this hospital for several months after I finished nursing school.”

  Dex was now fully awake, and they had been talking for about twenty minutes when Hoagie burst through the door. He had changed out of his band uniform into an old sweatshirt and ragged jeans that looked like Goodwill discards. Hoagie always perspired, even walking from the dorm to his classes, but his concern for Dex and the agitation of Atlanta traffic had caused his sweatshirt to become completely drenched. Sweat had also darkened his fiery red hair and caused it to lose any semblance of order as it flopped around his flushed face.

  Hoagie was focused on Dex and the equipment elevating his leg and didn’t even notice someone else was in the room. “Are you okay? What’d they say? How long you gonna be here? What’d they do to you?” The questions breathlessly tumbled out and all ran together.

  Dex managed a grin. “Hoagie, for God’s sake, calm down.” His efforts to calm his excitable friend had never worked before, and that day was no exception. Hoagie had run all the way from the parking lot, and when he started looking around the room for a place to sit, he saw Marie for the first time. He said hello but clearly didn’t recognize her.

  Marie smiled and said, “Hello, Hoagie.”

  The use of his name caused him to have a perplexed look as he glanced back and forth between Dex and Marie. They both smiled and enjoyed his confusion.

  “Hoagie, surely I haven’t changed that much since the last time I beat you arm wrestling.”

  “Marie, where the hell did you come from?” He grabbed her
in a bear hug and, despite being three inches shorter, lifted her completely off the floor.

  Chapter 5

  Moving to Atlanta when she was fifteen years old was a traumatic experience for Marie. She had lived in the same mountainside neighborhood her entire life, gone to school with the same friends since the first grade, and grown up with Dex, her best friend, living next door. Suddenly she was uprooted and found herself in a new city, neighborhood, and school where she didn’t know a single person.

  For weeks Marie sulked in school, staying to herself, and at home she made sure her parents didn’t forget how upset she was about the move. She was miserable the first few weeks, but eventually she met new friends and her outgoing personality returned.

  In high school, Marie played on the basketball team, wrote for the school paper, excelled academically, and made the National Honor Society. In the summer before her senior year, a friend talked her into volunteering at a hospital, and she soon began to explore the idea of becoming a nurse.

  As a volunteer, Marie was a gofer for the nurses, but while they were using her to do their grunt work, she probed them for information about their careers. Her questions were seemingly endless. “Why did you decide on nursing? How long did you have to go to school? What did you study? Would you do it again?”

  By the time she returned to school that fall, Marie had already made her career choice. She entered nursing school immediately after graduating from high school and completed her associate degree in two years. She finished second in her class, passed the national licensing exam, and was immediately hired as a registered nurse by Munson Hospital. Although she originally planned to attend night classes to also get a baccalaureate degree, fortuitous circumstances soon altered those plans. She had only been working in the hospital for about six months when a nursing friend, who was preparing to start a maternity leave, approached her about filling in for her on a private-duty assignment outside the hospital.

  “Marie, I’m going to have to have to take about a month before the baby is born and probably two months after that. I’m sitting with and caring for a lovely elderly lady whose only family lives several hundred miles away. Her son is paying me much more per hour than I’m making at the hospital, and I wish you would take over for me until I get through my maternity leave.”

  “It sounds interesting, but I need more details about what I would have to do.”

  Her friend explained the job and assured Marie that it would not interfere with her work at the hospital. She took over during her friend’s maternity leave and discovered that she enjoyed the freedom of working as a private-duty nurse more than she did in the hospital’s structured clinical setting. Over the next few months, Marie did a lot of research, asked a lot of questions, and discovered there was an immense demand for private-duty nurses. This was partially because of a shortage of qualified nurses, and also because a lot of nurses were not comfortable working in an unsupervised environment.

  Marie was both self-confident and self-motivated, and this seemed like a perfect opportunity to her. Her father, who was a CPA, helped her prepare a business plan for a start-up company to provide private-duty nurses to the public. The pro-forma outlined a plan for her to provide part-time nursing assistance for homebound elderly individuals who did not require full nursing home care. Her idea was that if a nurse regularly checked on elderly or disabled patients, it would allow these individuals to remain in their homes for years, in some instances, before they would have to transition to a nursing home.

  Marie envisioned making regular rounds at the patients’ homes to check vital signs, make sure prescriptions were filled and being taken properly, and make sure the patients were eating nutritionally. In some cases, a physician might require other services that she would be able to perform.

  Marie clearly wasn’t a pioneer in this field, but she planned to differentiate her company from the proliferation of run-of-the-mill home healthcare agencies by delivering specialized services that a client could choose from a menu of reasonably priced options. The services included scheduling medical appointments as well as providing nonmedical assistance like traveling with or for the patient on shopping trips to a pharmacy or supermarket.

  Marie’s plan was to promote the services to physicians rather than directly to the patients. The attending physician could determine what services were needed and check them off on the menu of services forms that she would provide to them. She could then approach the patients or their adult children and reach an agreement to provide the service prescribed by the physician. Her basic premise was that in an increasingly mobile society, children often didn’t live in the same city as their elderly parents and providing for their parents’ care was a heart-wrenching problem. Marie wanted to provide a dependable and affordable solution for this long-distance elder care dilemma.

  Marie’s father got her an appointment with a friend, who was in the commercial loan department at Proudland Bank & Trust Co. in Atlanta. The loan officer was impressed with Marie’s presentation and the originality of the plan she had developed and agreed to provide a start-up loan, which her father cosigned. Within a few weeks RN4U, Inc. was operational. Her letterhead spelled out “Registered Nurses for You” on the second line, in case someone failed to grasp the acronym she had cleverly selected for her new business.

  The business prospered almost immediately, and within a few months, Marie had to hire another nurse because she already had more patients than she could possibly handle alone. As she had correctly anticipated, the shortage of nurses in general, and particularly those who could function without constant supervision, created an ideal market for RN4U. Marie’s newly discovered entrepreneurial acumen also contributed to her rapid expansion. In less than a year, she had eight full-time nurses on her staff. The burgeoning business had forced her to give up her own hands-on nursing activities, and she was now devoting herself full time to the marketing, sales, and administration of RN4U. Direct referrals were coming from a growing number of physicians, and Marie was even beginning to furnish nurses on an hourly basis to several small clinics in the area.

  Marie’s sudden success left little time for her personal life. She didn’t date very often, and on the rare occasions when she did accept an invitation for a night out, it was usually with a doctor who referred patients to her. She thought of these as business meetings, although the doctors may not have thought of them that way.

  In the time she was at Munson Hospital, Dr. Bill Bishop, a young resident, was the only one she dated more than a couple of times. She went out with him fairly regularly for three tumultuous months and then broke it off because Bishop’s behavior had grown more and more bizarre.

  She had made no promises to him, but he started crowding her and acted as if they had some type of lifetime commitment. He wanted to be with her every hour when they were not on duty at the hospital. When he was on night duty, he would often call and wake her up after midnight. The calls were ostensibly to just talk, but it soon became obvious that he was checking up to see if she was dating someone else.

  Marie ended the casual relationship with Bishop the night he confronted her in front of her apartment and demanded to know where she had been. She had received a call from an old high-school friend who was in town for a meeting, and she met him for dinner at a downtown restaurant. They had both written for the high-school paper and were good friends, but they never dated. Marie enjoyed seeing her old friend again, and they sat and talked for several hours. When she got home, Bishop was sitting in his car in front of her apartment. He grabbed her arm as soon as she got out of her car and started to interrogate her.

  “Where the hell have you been all night?”

  She was shocked by the question and his apparent attitude. “It’s none of your business, but I had dinner with an old friend.”

  “You didn’t eat until midnight. You’ve been out with some old lover, and I’m not
going to stand by and let you get away with it.”

  “Wait just a minute. What I do with my time is none of your business. I don’t owe you an explanation for anything I do.”

  “As long as we’re together you’re not going to go out with other men, so you can tell whoever he is that he better stay away from now on.”

  “I don’t know where you got the idea that we are together. We have been to dinner a few times. From now on, you’re the one who is going to stay away. This ends right here. I don’t want to see you again, and if you keep calling to check up on me, I’m going to get a restraining order. Now get out of here.”

  Marie turned and walked up the steps to her front door, but Bishop was still yelling at her when she went in the apartment and locked the door. Within an hour he called to apologize.

  “Marie, I’m sorry. I just care so much for you that I go crazy thinking about you dating other men. I won’t do anything like that again, but please accept my apology. I want to continue seeing you.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, I’ll accept your apology, but I’m not going out with you again, and if you harass me at work, I’ll report it to the hospital administrator.” She hung up before he could reply.

  They both knew that she couldn’t help but see him daily because they worked in the same area at the hospital. But after that, Marie avoided all of Bishop’s attempts to engage her in a conversation. She saw his car following her on a couple of occasions, but he never again showed up at her apartment.

  Although Marie didn’t find out until later, she was not the only one who was having trouble with Bishop’s erratic behavior. He was being argumentative with the other physicians, and several nurses had accused him of being verbally abusive. After repeated warnings, he was placed on probation by the administration, ordered to undergo an examination by the staff psychiatrist, and told that any further problems would result in his termination.