Berto's World_Stories

by R. A. Comunale M. D.

  I also heard Sister Dominic.

  “Who are you to question my authority, Mercy Grace?”

  I ran out into the cool air of the schoolyard, where I saw my friends waiting. Bernice was there. She came toward me, kissed me on the cheek, and whispered “thanks, white chocolate.”

  “See you at the movie house tomorrow?”

  I looked at her, my fingers mentally crossed.

  She grinned and nodded!

  I will never forget that Saturday

  True to his word, Thomas sprayed me with bay rum cologne. I could have been used as a Japanese beetle lure by the time he was done. I wore my “new” shoes and sported the “new” church-basement polo shirt and pants Mama had gotten me and lengthened to fit my growing legs.

  We met in front of the Empire Theater and, for the first time, I had the price of admission. I plunked down one of those silver certificates and got two quarters back. Then we spent the next three hours watching Bugs Bunny being stalked by and outwitting Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck doing his whacko stuff, and several Three Stooges shorts. I bought her popcorn and we munched away as Porky Pig stuttered himself into saying “That’s all, folks!”

  Afterwards we stopped by Bill’s Burger Joint for two milkshakes—hers vanilla, mine chocolate. Then we walked.

  Popcorn, milkshakes … those only last so long in a teenager’s body. That’s when I steered Bernice toward that little candy shop. I opened the door to go in then realized she was still standing outside.

  “Come on,” I said. “Pick your poison, whatever you want.”

  I was feeling generous with other people’s money.

  “Uh, let me wait out here, Berto.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  I walked in and surveyed the selections in the candy counter. I put my hands on the glass even though the sign said DON’T TOUCH and peered at the dentist’s delights within: chocolate kisses, Hershey bars, Mounds, a new square bar called Chunky, chewing gum, jelly beans … and something weird. I had never seen them before: little bottles shaped like musical instruments, zoo animals, and just bottle shapes. Within them were strange red, green, yellow, and even blue liquids. They lay next to the big red wax lips, bubblegum cigars, and boxes of sugar-molded candy cigarettes.

  I heard a rustle and looked up to see Mrs. Donnelly glaring at me from behind the counter. White-hairdo, fair skin still showing the remnants of youthful freckling, and a protruding jaw I would learn to call prognathic in medical school. Her blue, near-sighted eyes peered at me over wire-rimmed glasses, as she croaked out, “What do you want, boy?” Her ill-fitting dentures clicked and clacked as she spoke.

  I pointed at the Hershey Kisses.

  “Gimme ten a’ those, please.”

  As she reached for them, I asked for two of the new Chunky bars and two Hershey bars with almonds.

  If that wasn’t enough to set your teeth to aching, I also asked for a pack of the candy cigarettes and one wax lips. And then I pointed at those strangely fascinating little wax bottles.

  “Ma’am, what are those?”

  “They got sweet syrup in ‘em, boy.”

  “Gimme one a’ each flavor, ma’am.”

  “You got enough money, kid?”

  I held out the other dollar bill, and she snatched it out of my hand. A minute later she handed me a quarter, a nickel, and a dime, and a small, white, wax-paper bag filled with the goodies I had picked out.

  I think she short-changed me, but there were no prices marked on the case, so I couldn’t complain.

  I walked to the door, opened it, and then had a second thought.

  I called to Bernice, “Come on in, see if there’s anything else you want. Look what I got you!”

  She stuck her head in the door and suddenly I heard a yell bordering on a scream.

  “Get outta my shop! We don’t allow your kind in here.”

  I grabbed Bernice’s hand and ran out. We walked about twenty feet, then I opened the bag and saw her eyes light up as she saw the candy. I reached in, took out two chocolate kisses, removed the foil wrapping, and popped one in her mouth. I ate the other one. She laughed as some of the chocolate smeared my face.

  “Berto, now you look like me!”

  She kissed me on the cheek and I tingled all over.

  Back at the candy store, we heard the door open and then a familiar voice.

  “See you later, Mama.”

  Sister Mercy Grace left the shop and headed back to the school. We ducked into a doorway, so she couldn’t see us.

  Monday morning I felt great as I hopped out of bed. For the first time I actually was looking forward to school. But when I got there a new nun had taken over our class—and I couldn’t find Bernice.

  Sister Mercy Grace had been transferred to a convent in Selma, Alabama.

  Bernice Johnson, my beautiful wonderful Bernice, had been transferred out to “restore a semblance of discipline” at the school.

  Years later I saw her on TV, standing near Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Later still I read of a group of missing civil rights activists who had gone to Mississippi and suddenly disappeared. The newspaper article described the discovery of their mutilated bodies.

  Damn you to hell, Sister No!

  The Tin Man

  They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. (Mark 16:18)

  “Move it, Galen!”

  The emergency-room resident darted like a flickering flame, as he went from one patient to the next and drove me to keep up. He only knew two speeds—flat out and dead stop—which was why he was pushing even though it was a quiet Thursday night. Twenty unfortunate souls awaited our healing touch.

  “You’re okay, kid. You just ate too much. Take him home, Mom.”

  The resident winked at the boy, as his mother gathered him and departed.

  “Next!”

  “It’s not broken, just a bad sprain. Next time no hula-hoops. You’re a bit long in the tooth for that.”

  I was the only one to hear his sub-vocalized “idiot,” as the overweight, fiftysomething guy limped out.

  “Next!”

  We moved toward the patient-laden gurney when the ER doors burst open, and an ambulance driver and his helper wheeled in a stretcher at break-neck speed.

  “Snake bites, multiple! Not good,” the driver blurted out, as he slid the victim right under our noses.

  The unit clerk, a female Cerberus guarding the gates of emergency health care, entered huffing and loudly hurling imprecations at the breach of etiquette … until she saw the guy lying ashen and gasping, his right hand and arm a swollen cerulean blue. I could see multiple sets of double-puncture wounds on the top and side of the guy’s wrist. The poison’s enzymes were already breaking down his skin, and the discoloration was marching up the forearm to the elbow. The venom did its number despite the makeshift, torn-shirt tourniquet.

  The floor nurse and I began drawing blood and starting multiple IV sites. I heard the resident yell, “Cut-down tray! Looks like rattlesnake. Do we have any antivenin?”

  It was a calculated risk. It is not unusual for snake venom to cause changes in blood clotting and lead to heavy bleeding.

  He turned to me.

  “Give him a dose of tetanus antitoxin and tetanus immune globulin. Piggyback two grams cephalothin in his left arm.”

  He turned to the nurse.

  “I need a hundred milligrams solu-cortef four and point five cc’s epinephrine, subcu. Two milligrams morphine IM.”

  For all you medically savvy types, this episode happened long before you were born, so don’t snicker and think that poor resident was a quack. At the time, what he ordered up was state of the art.

  Snake bites are dirty. The poison can cause massive drops in blood pressure and the treatment itself can kill. It’s also not unusual for someone to be allergic to the antivenin.

  “Here, Galen, scrub his ventral (underside) forearm down wi
th betadine and alcohol then glove up.”

  I did, and what I saw next I will never forget.

  The resident took a scalpel with a number ten blade and split the snake handler’s forearm from top to bottom. The venom-swollen skin peeled back like an invisible zipper.

  Thank goodness the guy was not a bleeder, and thank God the morphine worked.

  “Okay, Galen, we just did an emergency fasciotomy. It’ll give his tissue breathing room.”

  Snake venom, especially rattlesnake venom, is powerful stuff. The snake has its own hypodermic needle fangs, and when it bites, the venom goes under the skin. Then chemicals in the venom start to digest and break down tissue. The more venom injected the more severe the effect.

  The body responds by releasing immune-system chemicals that cause swelling. Like the proverbial two quarts of water in a one-quart container, pressure builds up and cuts off needed blood flow to the muscle tissue—so it dies.

  By surgically splitting open the swollen limb, the resident gave the tissue room to expand, and blood flow resumes. Because of unintended consequences, it is not often recommended, but this time was an exception.

  The pharmacy tech ran down the hall with an ice bucket. Our patient was in luck. The hospital had enough vials of rattlesnake antivenin on hand. That was not often the case. Back then it was scarce. But the James River had overflowed during heavy rains two weeks before, and the health service had requested a hefty supply in case the snake population decided to greet humans foolish enough to walk along the river bank.

  “We need to do a quick skin test.”

  The resident carefully drew about a drop of the antivenin into a syringe normally used to give TB skin tests and went to the patient’s opposite side. He slipped the tiny needle just under the skin, and the injected droplet formed a tiny mound on the man’s upper arm.

  Then we waited.

  Skin testing is one of those medical roulette wheels. The gods decide—thumbs up or thumbs down. If the patient reacts to the tiny dose, life becomes more complicated for us—and him.

  No reaction! Lord Shiva and Lady Kali had blessed the moment.

  The resident injected the antivenin and the nurse prepared the patient for transport to a monitoring unit. He moved on to the next case, and I turned to the ambulance driver.

  “Rick, what’s the story?”

  I had noticed him standing in the corner watching us sweat and cuss … and hope. He was a young guy, probably a college student working part time for food money, and I saw the look in his eyes. I recognized the symptoms, because I have suffered from them my entire life: This one wanted to go to medical school.

  Rick Shepland stretched his rangy frame.

  “Whew, I didn’t think he’d survive the ride! Never saw anything like that before.”

  It was strange. Here I was, talking to a guy just a few years my junior, and I could spot the fire in him, the overwhelming drive. I didn’t have much time. I needed a minute to cool off, but I wanted to hear what the kid had to say.

  “Uh … Dr. Galen … well, we got this call from a church out in southeast Richmond. Good people from what I could see, but they were a little strange. The place was filled with baskets. The baskets were filled with rattlesnakes and copperheads. Seems they take a passage from the Bible literally. They express their belief and faith in God by handling poisonous snakes.”

  I had read about snake worshippers—actually, snake handlers—people very strong in their faith, an offshoot of a group of believers in West Virginia.

  “Well,” Rick continued, “apparently the congregation had had two worship services. This guy is their assistant pastor. Part of the ritual involves reaching into one of the baskets, picking up a snake from behind its head, and holding it up and … uh … I guess, caressing it.

  “The way the folks told it, the minister didn’t have any trouble at first. He kept picking out snakes, even passing them to the other faithful, while the music and singing kept going. Then, when he put his hand in another basket, he suddenly let out a scream. They said he kept saying ‘I believe, I believe,’ then let out another scream and fell to the floor, tipping over the basket. At least four, maybe five, rattlers had sunk their fangs into his hand.”

  “How long before you got there?”

  “That’s the other strange thing. This happened hours ago. The head pastor and the flock just kept praying over the guy until he started to have trouble breathing. That’s when we got called.”

  Rick shook his head. I think he wanted to cry. I understood. I put my hand on his shoulder.

  “Great job, kid.”

  He smiled at me, nodded, and then mumbled, “Gotta go now, Doc. Thanks. See ya ‘round.”

  I admit it. My student ego swelled a bit.

  That evening I walked into the townhouse apartment I shared with Dave, aka Country Boy. He had gotten there just a few minutes before and was padding around the kitchen in socks and jock.

  It was a bachelor pad, after all.

  “Guess what I saw today!”

  “Bet it doesn’t beat my patient, City Boy.”

  He stuffed one of his awful concoctions of pickles and canned beans on two-week-old bread into his mouth and grinned as I made pretend retching motions.

  We both got out “snake bite case” simultaneously.

  He was the student on call when my ER patient reached the monitor unit.

  We compared notes, and then he grinned.

  “You ever been to a snake-worship service?”

  He already knew the answer.

  “Good, we’re goin’ this weekend. We’re both off Sunday afternoon, right?”

  “Yeah,” I sighed.

  Naturally, I wasn’t enthusiastic. The last time he had shown me some of his down-home culture, we wound up at a Ku Klux Klan meeting.

  Dave was no snake handler. He was a fallen-away Southern Baptist, and he harbored just enough devil in him to tease and torment a city kid like me. Too bad I never had the chance to take him on a tour of my old neighborhood. He would have been eaten alive.

  Did I go? Yes.

  It could have been a scene right out of the National Geographic. But instead of Javan natives in grass skirts, these dancers were southern whites in various, go-to-Sunday-meeting clothes. Guitars, violins, and at least a half-dozen young women singing added to the cacophony of the head preacher and his acolytes speaking in tongues while doing a good imitation of whirling dervishes.

  As the fervor peaked the preacher and other members of the congregation reached into several wicker baskets and pulled out good-sized pit vipers. They continued their tarantella-like dance while kissing the snakes and waving them about. Some even wrapped them around their necks.

  Dave and I stood as far to the rear as possible. Even then we had to duck to avoid having a reptile shoved in our faces.

  We left early.

  “How’d ya like it, City Boy?”

  I had to clear my throat to avoid squeaking out a reply. I managed to say “pretty tame stuff.”

  Dave poked me in the gut and laughed.

  “Bullshit!”

  That night I hit the sack around midnight, after stuffing my head with textbook chapters and journal articles. Non-phallic images of snakes whirled around me, and my mind returned to the past.

  Berto’s young world had its share of ministers and tent revival meetings … and snakes.

  “Berto, take a look at this.”

  Dr. Agnelli had his new-fangled, wood-cased electrocardiogram machine hooked up to a man maybe in his late forties. The guy didn’t seem to be in any distress.

  “See?”

  My mentor had taught me some of the basics—how to name the little squiggles on the paper and what they meant. I had learned to recognize normal heart beats, but I had not seen these before.

  “You mean those big, tooth-shaped waves?”

  “Yes. That means the reverend here is putting out some extra beats. They’re called premature ventricular contractions.” />
  “You mean the big chambers of his heart are beating funny?”

  Score one for the kid.

  He patted me on the head.

  “Good boy, Berto. You got it. Now, what else can you tell me?”

  My ego swelled that day, too.

  “Uh … there’s only a few and they only happen every ten or so beats.”

  Not bad for an eleven-year-old tenement kid.

  “Let’s talk with our patient after he gets dressed.”

  The doctor and I sat in the small anteroom and waited for the man to put his shirt on. He was average height, about five-feet, ten inches, and a little stocky at one-hundred-ninety pounds. Laugh-line creases with some remnants of past grief webbed outward from his dark brown eyes and toward the thick sideburns hanging down from his shag haircut. He wore a vest and a jacket that didn’t match his pants.

  “Berto, this is the Reverend Donald Halloway. He’s visiting our little paradise and wants to save our souls.”

  I saw Corrado Agnelli’s eyes sparkle with mixed sarcasm and devil-may-care, don’t-give-a-damn laughter. It wasn’t until I left for medical school that I understood my mentor’s cynicism about the clergy. By then he knew he was dying.

  “I don’t feel right, Doc,” Halloway began. “I was in the middle of my sermon about the whiles of the Devil, and how we needed to cast the Foul Serpent from our souls, when my heart started to skip. I felt dizzy. I couldn’t breathe. I had to stop.”

  Reverend Halloway had one of those not-quite-tenor voices that could really do justice to the word “Gawd.” Despite that I could see that Dr. Agnelli considered the man sincere in his beliefs and genuinely wanting to help people.

  “Reverend, sometimes the heart gives out an extra beat, kinda like an extra drumbeat. That’s what shows on the paper here. It doesn’t look like a bad situation, but knowing how hard you work, I think you should see a good cardiologist, someone who specializes in these things.”

  Remember, this was back in the day when specialists and sub-specialists were rare creatures. So I could tell that Dr. Agnelli was concerned, even though the reverend’s heart tracings didn’t appear so bad. I learned it was the sign of a really good doctor: the gut feeling that the test wasn’t telling the whole story.