His Revenge Baby: 50 Loving States, Washington

by Theodora Taylor

  As a general rule, Ken doesn’t bring anyone but his most depressed patients down here. It’s his way of reminding them, “Hey, look, all this PT isn’t so bad. At least you’re not a child with cancer.”

  But Free Bird doesn’t look as fragile as most of the accident victims Ken brings in to watch us perform during the kids-only chemo. For one thing, he’s still in fantastic shape. Tall and wiry, with lean muscles roping both of the forearms encased by the Lofstrand arm cuffs.

  For another, he doesn’t look at all depressed. In fact, he’s staring down at me with his head tilted to the side and a very amused glint in his eyes.

  I cut my eyes to Ken and ask, “’Free Bird’? Is this guy serious?”

  “Completely,” the patient answers before Ken can. “Hey, it’s a good song!”

  I glare at him and slightly raise the hand holding my guitar. “Hear these words, sir. No classic rock will ever, ever be played on this guitar.”

  A lazy grin spreads across Free Bird’s boyishly handsome face. And though he’s a patient, and most likely severely injured, I can’t help but notice that grin makes him look way more cocksure than a man wearing a boot and standing on Lofstrand crutches in hospital issue clothing should.

  “Well, that is by far the most inhospitable thing I’ve heard come out of a nurse’s mouth,” he says, his blue eyes twinkling despite his words.

  “I’m a doctor,” I answer, pointing to the DR. ANITRA DUNHILL badge on my white coat. My response is a pretty automatic reaction these days. People have been mistaking me for a nurse since I first set foot in this hospital as a medical student. UWV/Mercy isn’t exactly a Shonda Rhimes show. I’m the only black female doctor on staff, and only about five percent of the rest of the staff are people of color. So it’s a correction I now deliver without much thought.

  But the blond man leaning into his Lofstrands continues to lazily grin down at me. “Still mighty inhospitable if you ask me,” he says, his light blue eyes lazy and self-assured underneath his hooded gaze.

  He’s not intimidated by my credentials, I realize, not one iota. And again, even though I’m a pediatric resident, I find myself way more curious about this adult male patient than I should be.

  Even so, I must inform him, “Look here, it’s one thing to come down here to watch the kids sing. It’s quite another to start making such inappropriate suggestions.”

  “You think ‘Free Bird’ is inappropriate?” he says, tone disbelieving, even as his eyes keep me trapped in his lazy blue gaze.

  “Sir, these children have been through enough already,” I whisper dramatically. “Why would I want to expose them to southern mullet rock?”

  He squints, his lazy grin finally wavering, if only a little. “Mullet?”

  It takes me a moment to realize he’s not sure what a mullet is.

  “It’s a haircut,” I quickly explain. “Short on the sides and top, long in the back. It’s pretty much the worst thing that’s ever happened to hair.”

  And just like that, the lazy grin is back at full tilt. “Is that right?”

  “That is exactly right,” I assure him with the conviction of someone who’s played guitar since the age of six, but has never once let a mullet rock anthem cross her strings. “And if I were you, I’d reconsider any Lynyrd Skynyrd songs on your playlist.”

  He makes a considering sound, somewhere between a ‘hmphh’ and a grunt. Then he says, “Maybe you can visit me on the eighth floor, Doc. Let me know what I should be listening to instead of the songs I’ve been hearing on the radio. I liked that one you just did with the kids.”

  On one hand, I’m alarmed by his blatant invitation for me to pay him a visit on the rehab floor. And I’m deeply aware of Ken’s curious stare as I continue to talk to his rehab case.

  On the other hand, the decent human being in me can’t stand the thought of someone being confined to listen to the limited number of stations on the clock radios in the patient rooms.

  I don’t want to call UWV/Mercy backwoods exactly, but I did come here on a scholarship program intended to bring talent from all over the country to work in one of West Virginia’s most rural counties. Located at the very top handle of the state, we’re designated to serve the populace who live within the mid-sized city triangle of Wheeling, West Virginia; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Cleveland, Ohio. Which pretty much means we’re in a radio no man’s land.

  “How about if you give me your email address and I’ll send you a Spotify list?” I answer Mr. Tall, Blond, and Broken.

  Once again his smile sags. “Only problem with that is I don’t have an email address that I know of…or a phone number.”

  I raise my eyebrows, wondering if he’s visiting us from higher up in the nearby Appalachians, where it’s not unusual to come across technology-free households. But those folks usually stare openly at me since so few have ever met a real doctor, much less a black lady one.

  This guy is staring at me, too. But not like that. The way he studies me with his lazy blues, I have to fight the urge to do a million things that would reveal how self-conscious his attention makes me.

  No, I think, as I get a little lost in his gaze. This fellow might have a scraggly beard and an accent that cuts the “g” out of words that end with “ing.” But he is definitely not from around here. I’ve been in West Virginia for seven years, and I’ve never, ever encountered someone who speaks like he does: deep and melodious. And I’ve definitely never come across someone who looks at me the way he does.

  Like I’m not a complete freak who has no business being here.

  “So you don’t have email or a phone number,” I say consideringly. “How about a name? I can drop a CD mix or something off with Ken. And he can give it to you at your next session.”

  But Free Bird shakes his head again and the smile drops all the way off his face. “I don’t have one of those either.”

  “What? A CD player?” I ask, not really that surprised. I’m not even sure my laptop has a CD player. And come to think of it, I don’t really know how I’d go about burning a mix tape onto a CD with the technology I have on hand…

  But then he says, “Afraid I don’t exactly have a name at the moment either.”

  Chapter Two

  Doctors can be the worst gossips, often using patient files as stories in the break room. But unfortunately UWV/Mercy’s only neuro attending, Dr. Raj Pawar, isn’t one of those doctors. Stiff and easily irritated, he’s known around the hospital as a brilliant cutter with zero bedside manner. And I’ve consulted with him on enough brain tumor cases to know he’s completely uninterested in contributing to patient gossip. In fact, I doubt he’d say hello to me in the hallway, much less give me information on a patient who falls nowhere near my jurisdiction. Which is as it should be.

  I’ve been working my ass off to prove that me getting into this combined med school/residency program wasn’t a joke on the University of West Virginia’s part. After seven years in the program, I’ve finally managed to garner the respect of the hospital staff and my peers. So I have no business wondering about the sexy head trauma patient, much less seeking out more information about him.

  I know that.

  I know that.

  Yet somehow, I find myself rushing into work two hours early on Wednesday to attend Ken’s bi-weekly staff yoga class.

  What are you doing? What are you doing?! I shriek at myself through all the up and down dogs I could be doing just as easily at home.

  You are an idiot and you need to stop this right now, I tell myself even as I pretend to stay in savasana way longer than I need to, just to allow all the other students to file out before I finally sit up.

  “You were really feeling it today, huh?” Ken says with a sympathetic smile as I roll up my mat. “Hard week?”

  I nod, because that much is true. Today’s the day I have to sit in on a consult with Ronnie and her mother, regarding a new palliative care plan. Which is the nicest way of saying Ronnie’s leukemia has progre
ssed to the point that chemo is no longer working, and it’s time to start thinking more about her quality of life than trying to sustain it.

  Yet another reason I shouldn’t be here. But I smile back at Ken and answer, “I don’t know why I don’t come every Monday and Wednesday.” Because I know how much my fellow yogi appreciates any feedback on his sparsely attended classes.

  “I keep telling Dushner we should make it an official hospital requirement,” Ken complains as we leave the activity room, “But he said no, because then he’d have to attend.”

  Dushner is the hospital administrator. A number of staff members refer to him as Douche-ner behind his back, which should give you an idea of his charming personality.

  “Speaking of Dushner,” I say as a way to transition into what I’m really after. “How does he feel about this amnesia case of yours?”

  And that’s how—a few minutes later—I find myself in Ken’s closet-turned-office, leafing through his scant file on the John Doe. I was right about the head injury. After losing a fight with a drunk driver going the wrong way on a back country road, John Doe was knocked off his motorcycle. Now that would have been bad enough. But apparently he hadn’t bothered to secure the strap on his helmet, so hello traumatic brain injury.

  Fortunately, the drunk driver had been enough of a good Samaritan to call 9-1-1. But the hospital in Wheeling was full and diverting cases that night, so John Doe ended up at our humble patchwork of departments, and just in time, too. He’d had a few hematomas on his brain, which explained the surgery.

  And the retrograde amnesia.

  But that’s where John’s case stops making sense.

  He’d had no ID on him, and when the police attempted to trace the bike’s plates, it led to an abandoned coal mining town in the middle of the state.

  “So he’s like in a motorcycle gang or something?”

  Ken considers my question with a tilt of his head. “Well, that’s what the police wondered. And they’ve been by a few times to question him. But I’ve seen my share of bikers around here, and he doesn’t have the usual tells. No tats, and according to Glenna, his rehabilitation nurse, he was a whole lot prettier when he came in here. Clean-shaven and, well, you’ve seen those eyes—kind of dreamy, right?”

  That they were, though I doubted Ken’s “roommate,” a nerdy Lockheed Martin aerospace engineer, would appreciate hearing Ken describe his current patient like that. After all, he had absolutely no reason other than love to share a house with Ken, or live in Wheeling, which was halfway between the towns where they both worked. But I kept that observation to myself.

  Like me, Ken prefers to keep his private life very private, which was one of the reasons we got along so well.

  Ken strokes his chin thoughtfully. “A few of our organ donors have found abandoned motorcycles and fixed them up as projects. Maybe this was a home project gone really, really wrong?”

  Organ donors were what most of the staff called motorcycle riders, but in this instance, the term made my heart clench. Looking at John Doe’s PT case file, which I knew wouldn’t be nearly as grisly as his patient file, I couldn’t help but think how close this guy had come to dying.

  If the drunk driver hadn’t gotten out of his car, or hadn’t had enough presence of mind left to call 9-1-1. If Dr. Pawar hadn’t been on hand that night to take John Doe straight into surgery. Well, those dreamy blue eyes would most likely be six feet under right now.

  But I force myself to stop thinking about that as I observe, “Maybe, but he doesn’t exactly sound like he’s from around here.”

  Ken greets my observation with a huge smile. “Oh my! Look at Ms. Nitra, finally learning to tell us West Virginia folk apart from everybody else.”

  I roll my eyes. My continued inability to distinguish between Pittsburgh, Ohio, and West Virginia accents after living my entire life in California, was a constant source of amusement around the hospital. Right along with the past I was still trying to live down.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I say to Ken. “But seriously, he’s from the South, right? I mean deeper South than here?”

  Ken picks an invisible piece of lint off his t-shirt. “Well…I may or may not have put $10 down on Arkansas in the pool me and some of the nurses got going.”

  “Seriously? The poor guy’s in here with amnesia and you’ve created a betting pool on him? Real professional,” I say, shaking my head as I continue to flip through his file. The file I’m technically not supposed to have access to. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

  Before Ken can comment, I quickly circle back to the main reason I’m in his makeshift office. “How about fingerprints?”

  “The police ran them but nothing came back.”

  I thought of the family I’d left behind in California and asked, “And no one’s stepped forward to claim him? No family or maybe a girlfriend? Kind of finding it hard to believe this guy doesn’t have a girlfriend out there somewhere.”

  “Me, too,” Ken answered. “It’s a real struggle to keep it professional, especially when he gets all sweaty while he’s lifting…” Ken gets a faraway look in his eyes, which I once again doubt his nerdy boyfriend would appreciate. “But so far no one’s contacted us. We’ve called in social services, and they’re still working on it. But for now, the guy’s a complete mystery, and he’s here on nobody’s dime since we don’t have a social security number on file. So we’re already getting pressure from Douche-ner to release him sooner rather than later.”

  “What?! But he has a traumatic brain injury!” I protest on the John Doe’s behalf, and because I’ve had more than one run in with Douche-ner over his bad habit of focusing on the bottom line rather than on patient needs. I can’t even count the number of times he’s tried to push me to release the kids with shitty insurance sooner than anyone with a conscience would recommend.

  “Actually, John Doe is recovering faster than you’d expect—at least from the physical stuff…”

  Ken looks over both shoulders as if we’re on some sort of reality show, before leaning in to impart, “But the traumatic brain injury is turning into something else. I’m not exactly a doctor here, but at the last team meeting about John Doe’s case, Dr. Pawar and the psych team went on for a while with the social worker. Pawar’s saying his head scans are checking out, but then psych’s concerned because he’s still got amnesia, yet he knows a lot of general stuff, and check this out…”

  Ken takes the file and flips through a number of typed documents to a page of handwritten notes from the last meeting of John Doe’s team.

  “One of the third-year med students decided to run a Neuropsych Evaluation on him for one of her class projects. Look at these scores.”

  My eyes widen when I see the numbers, some in the three digits. Except for his complete lack of historical and cultural memory, there’s nothing on this report to indicate these scores belong to someone with a TBI, rather than, say, someone looking to get into medical school. Or become a rocket scientist.

  “So he’s close to being a genius even after the TBI?” I murmur. “That’s a seriously unexpected result.”

  “Right?” Ken agrees, nodding. “The team is having a real hard time figuring it out, so now they’re calling it Focal Autobiographical Amnesia. I haven’t had time to look it up on Wikipedia, but best I can tell, they’re saying there might be something more than a hit to the head going on here.”

  It takes me a moment of mulling over Ken’s words and comparing them to what I learned during my fourth year psych rotation to figure out, “They think he’s not remembering on purpose?”

  “Or that something traumatic happened before his accident. He’s got a few older fractures according to the x-rays. The kind of ribs and arm stuff you see when Mom doesn’t bring her kid in after Dad’s had too many and decides to downsize his beating victims…”

  Hearing this, my heart pangs for the John Doe. “All the more reason not to release him. I mean, where is he going to go if he doesn’
t have anybody to help with his recovery?”

  Ken nods. “That’s the only thing keeping him in here considering he has no insurance to bill. Truth is, we don’t have anywhere to send him.”

  I shake my head in disgust. “So we’re just going to kick him out? When?”

  Ken thinks about it and shrugs. “Now that he’s pretty much healed…I’d say he’s here one or two more weeks, tops. Since his injury is no longer looking like a neuro case, Pawar doesn’t care too much, and psych’s psych—already too overwhelmed to take on any new cases—especially the ones without insurance. Social’s looking for a men’s shelter who can take him in.”

  “Okay…okay…” I say, getting it. John Doe has no name so every minute he spends here is costing our already over-stretched regional hospital money.

  “But there’s got to be some way to help him,” I say to Ken. “I mean, we just can’t kick him out...”

  I gaze down at the linoleum, trying to figure out a solution to this dilemma, only to find Ken smiling when I look back up at him.

  “What?” I ask him.

  “I haven’t seen one of your kind in quite a while. A doctor who cares more about the patient than the patient’s condition. Pawar and psych have spent more time tangling over his official diagnosis than worrying that this guy is going to end up in a homeless shelter in a couple of weeks if no one steps up to claim him. But you really care about his well-being, and not just because he’s cute, but because underneath that medical degree, you’re a decent person.”

  A small smile whispers across my lips. “Well, I did get into UWV-Med off the wait list.”

  Ken lifts his eyebrows. “Then maybe they should let more people in off the wait list.”

  I’m not sure how to respond. I know a few of my fellow program mates, many of whom are now fellow residents, think I was let into the program for not the best reasons. One guy outright asked if this was a joke when I walked into Brain and Behavior on the first day of winter semester and it was announced I’d be taking the place of a med student who’d dropped out.