The house of God

by Samuel Shem

  "Why a bullet?" asked Hyper Hooper. "Wire his sigmoidoscope: when he presses the starter button, it explodes!"

  "Listen to me, you guys," you've got to lay off Putzel. Kill this rumor right here and now."

  "You worried about your fellowship?," I asked, taunting him.

  "I'm worried about my A Team. If you keep doing what you are doing, you're not going to make it through. Believe me, I know. I was there."

  "Go for the jugular," said Eat My Dust, as if he hadn't heard a word Fats had said, "go for the boobytrapped scope. Ka?boom." As he thought it over, Eddies eyes got big, and he licked his lips, and then he yelled, "KAA?BOOOMM!"

  Two nights later, when I was on call again, Berry insisted on coming in. Concerned with what she called my "manic" behavior and my "borderline" descriptions of what the gomers were doing to me and I to them, she thought that seeing for herself might help. She also wanted to meet Fats. Humberto and I took her around Gomer City. She saw them all. At first she tried to talk with the gomers as she would human beings, but recognizing the futility, she soon became silent. After our last stop, the Rose Room, where I insisted she listen through my stethoscope to the asthmatic breathing of a Rose, she looked shell?shocked.

  "Hey, a great case, that last Rose, eh?" I said sarcastically.

  "It makes me sad," said Berry.

  "Well, the ten?o'clock meal will cheer you right up."

  At the ten?o'clock meal she watched as we interns played "The Gomer Game," where someone would call out an answer, like "Nineteen hundred and twelve," an answer given by a gomer, and the rest of us would try to come up with questions to the gomer that might have produced that answer, such as, "When was your last bowel movement?" or "How many times have you been admitted here?" or "How old are you?" or "What year is it?" or even "Who are you?" "Who am I?" and "Yippeee?"

  "Sick," Berry said afterward in a somber, almost angry tone, "it's sick."

  "I told you the gomers were awful."

  "Not them, you. They make me sad, but the way you treat them, making fun of them, like they were animals, in sick. You guys are sick."

  "Ah, you're just not used to it," I said.

  "You think that if I were in your shoes I'd get that way too?"

  "Yup."

  "Maybe. Well, let's get it over with. Take me to your leader."

  We found Fats on Gomer City doing a manual disimpaction of Max the Parkinsonian. Double?gloved and surgically masked to filter out the smell, Teddy and Fats were digging at the endless stream of feces in Max's megacolon, while from Max's huge purple-scarred bald head came an endless stream of FIX THE LUMP FIX THE LUMP FIX THE LUMP. From Teddy's radio poured Brahms. The smell was overpoweringly fresh shit.

  "Fats," I said from the doorway, "meet Berry:"

  "What?" asked Fats, surprised. "Oh, no. Hello Berry. Basch, you schlemiel, you don't want her to see this. Get out of here. I'll be with you in a minute."

  "I'm here to see," said Berry, "tell me what you're doing."

  She went in. Fats began to tell her what they were doing, but when the waves of smell hit her, Berry covered her mouth and rushed out of the room.

  Fats turned on me angrily. "Basch, sometimes you act like a marine at `brain rest,' a retard. Teddy, finish up. I've got to talk to the poor woman saddled with young numbskull Basch."

  When Berry came out of the Ladies', she looked like she'd been crying. Seeing Fats, she said, "How . . . how can you? It's disgusting."

  "Yeah," said Fats, "it is. How can I? Well, Berry, when we get old and disgusting, who's gonna doctor us? Who's gonna care? Someone's got to do it. We can't just walk away." Looking sad, he said, "Seeing you react this way brings back just how disgusting it is. It's awful; we're forced to forget. So? So come on," he said, putting his thick arm around her shoulders, "come on into my office. I got a special stash of Dr. Pepper. At times like this, a Dr. Pepper helps."

  They started for the on?call room, and I followed, saying, "Great case, Fats. You know, Berry, most people are like you and me, they hate shit, but Fats loves it. Going into GI work himself."

  "Stop it, Roy," Berry snapped.

  "When a GI man is looking up the barrel of a sigmoidoscope, you know what you got?"

  "STOP IT! Go away. I want to talk with Fats alone."

  "Alone? Why?"

  "Never mind. Go away"

  Angry and jealous, I watched them walk off, and I yelled after them, "You got shit looking at shit, that's what!"

  Fats turned and angrily said, "Don't talk like that."

  "Hurt your feelings, Fats?"

  "No, but it hurts hers. You can't use our inside jokes with the ones outside all this, the ones like her."

  "Sure you can," I said, "they need to see?"

  "THEY DON'T!" yelled Fats. "They don't need to, and they don't want to. Some things have to be kept private, Basch. You think parents want to hear schoolteachers making fun of their kids? Use your damn head. You got a good woman here, and believe me they're not easy to find and keep, especially if you're a doctor. It makes me angry to see the way you treat her."

  An hour later they paged me to come in. It felt like a military tribunal. Berry said she and Fats were worried about me, about my bitter sarcasm and rage.

  "I thought you told me to express what I feel," I said.

  "In words," said Berry, "not in acts. Not in taking it out on patients and doctors-Fats told me about your rumor about Dr. Putzel."

  "They'll get you, Roy," said Fats, "you'll get it in the neck."

  "They can't do anything to me. They can't run the House without interns. I can do whatever I want. I'm indispensable. Invulnerable"

  "It's dangerous. Externalization is a brittle defense."

  "Here we go again," I said. "What's externalization?"

  "Seeing the conflict as outside of you. The problem isn't outside of you, it's inside. When you see that, something's going to snap:"

  "That's the way it's gotta be, to survive."

  "It's not. Look at Fats?he's got a healthy way of dealing with this incredible situation. He uses compassion, humor. He can laugh."

  "I can laugh," I said, "I laugh too:"

  "No you don't. You scream."

  "You're the one who used to call him cynical, sick. And he's the one who taught me to call these nice of people 'gomers.' "

  "He hasn't killed off the caring part of himself. You have."

  "Look," said Fats seriously, "let's stop, eh? We can't tell him what to do. If you can imagine it, last year, I was a helluva lot worse than him, and nobody could tell me anything. Even last July I was worse. This year is yours, Roy. I know how it is?it's hell."

  "This Putzel thing scares me," said Berry.

  "Because every day he stands in front of his mirror and straightening his bowtie, he says to himself: You know, Putzie?poops, you are one great physician. Not a good physician, no. A great physician.' I hate him. You think you're scared? You should see him. Shaking in his shoes! Ready to crackl HA!"

  "It's not Putzel, it's you," said Berry. "You hate something inside of you. Get it?"

  "I don't, and it's not. Fats knows what an asshole Putzel is."

  "Don't do it, Roy," said Berry, "you'll only hurt yourself."

  "Fats?"

  "Putzel's a turkey," said Fats, "a money?grubbing, incompetent piece of dreck. True. But he's not the monster you make him out to be. He's a harmless wimp. I feel sorry for him. Lay off. Whatever you're planning, don't do it."

  I did it. I'd given the rumor a week to gnaw on Putzel. My time had come. I found Putzel holding a Rose's hand, and I crept up in back of him. I whispered in his ear: "I've had it with you, Putzel. Within the next twenty?four hours, I swear it, I'm going to do you in."

  Putzel leaped up off the bed, gave me a panic-stricken look, and ran out of the room. I walked out into the corridor and watched the little emperor of the bowel run, keeping his back to the walls and intermittently ducking into doorways as if he were afraid of a bullet, race off down the hall. I
ambled off toward rounds.

  I never made it. Two Bouncers from House Security attacked me, twisted my arms behind me, and carried me into the on?call room. They stood me up against the wall and frisked me for a weapon and sat me down facing Lionel, the Fish, Fats, and, quaking in a corner, Putzel. "Hey, what the hell's going on?" I asked. Everyone looked at Putzel until he said, "I heard a rumor about some intern was going to kill me and then . . . and then he whispered in my ear that in the next twenty?four hours he was going to do me in."

  I waited until the silence had become unbearable and then in a calm voice I said, "What did you say?"

  "You said you were going to . . . to do me in."

  "Dr. Putzel," I asked incredulously, "have you gone mad?"

  "You said it! I heard you say it! Don't deny it to me!"

  I denied it to him, said that anyone who thought that an intern in the Hous of God would threaten to kill a Private Doctor of the House of God had gone mad and told the Bouncers to let me go.

  "No! Don't let him go!" screamed Putzel, hugging the wall like a terrified maniac.

  "Look," I said, "I'm just an intern trying to do my job. I can't take responsibility for that nut. See you later, eh?"

  "NO! NOOooo!" wailed Putzel, rolling his eyes like a nut.

  "What do you think we should do?" the Bouncers asked the Fish.

  "I don't know," said the Fish. "Fats?"

  "I've never seen anything like this," said Fats. "One thing's for sure: Dr. Putzel is acting mighty strange."

  "It's the strangest thing," said the Leggo, as I sat in his office, which was the only place they'd decided it was safe to send me, "yes, the strangest . . :" and he drifted off into that place out his window where the answers to strange things might be found. "I mean, you didn't in fact threaten to kill?no, of course you didn't!" said the Leggo, his consternation turning his horrific birthmark even more purple.

  "How could I have, sir?"

  "Exactly. It's extraordinary."

  "Can I speak in confidence?"

  "Fire away," he said, bracing himself for yet another shock.

  "To me, this means that Dr. Putzel is a sick man:"

  "Sick? A House Private sick, Roy?"

  "Overworked. Needs a rest. And who doesn't, sir? Who doesn't?"

  The Chief paused, as if perplexed, and then brightened and came up with the answer: "Why, no one doesn't. No one doesn't at all. I'll tell Dr. Putzel he needs a rest just like everyone else. Thanks, Roy, and keep right on in there plugging."

  "Plugging? For what?"

  "For what? Why . . . why, for the Awards. Yes, keep plugging for the Awards."

  I felt good. Maybe I even felt grand. My only twinge of regret was that I had stepped out on my own, leaving behind Berry and Fats, the ones who claimed to care, the ones I'd counted on to save me.

  17

  It was all the rage, that Watergate March, and many Great Americans took the opportunity to explode. Jane Doe, bloated and floated by the infusion of that VA antibiotic, started with a little squeeping fart caught on the Fat Man's alert stopwatch, and then with the rest of us watching, went on to rage at us with a great cacophony of orchestrated farts and then liquid farts and finally a blasting of her bowels and a continual gushing of what seemed like eternal stool. Richard Nixon, bloated by power and doubt, started with a little bark when named by Judge Sirica as unindicted co?conspirator of the Watergate Boys, went on to rage in a farting cornucopia on national TV, convincing almost every Great American by overreaction and gushing paranoiac railing at other Great Americans that he was as guilty as anyone imagined. We were all much relieved that no matter what else, we'd all have Nixon to laugh at and kick around for quite a good while longer. In some ways, after Vietnam, it was just what the country needed: a President so lacking in grace.

  In Gomer City, we terns exploded as well. First to go was Eat My Dust Eddie. Bent under his own sado-masochism, he broke. He took himself OTC on every gomer until his service was being run by his BMS, and Eddie would talk about gomers only in terms of "can I hurt this guy today?" or "Some of them us to kill them and some of them don't, and I wish they'd make up their minds 'cause it gets confusing." The BMS couldn't stand the strain and soon gave in to Eddies perverted thoughts, and one day when a particularly recalcitrant gomere shrieked PO?LICEI! PO?LICE! for several hours, Eddie and his BMS borrowed uniforms and appeared at the bedside and said, "Yes, madam, this is Patrolman Eddie and Officer Katz. What can we do to help?"

  "Why are you tormenting them?" Fats would ask.

  "'Cause they're tormenting me," Eddie would say, "they've got me on my knees, do you hear me? ON MY KNEES!"

  When his wife started to have labor pains, all hell broke loose. The day his wife delivered, Eddie showed up dressed in his black motorcycle gear: hat and boots and black wraparound reflecting sunglasses and black leather jacket with

  ***EAT MY DUST***

  ***EDDIE***

  in silver studs on the back, and went around to see his gomers with his flash camera taking portraits "to remember them by." The place came apart. Terrified, the gomers began to shriek. The ward began to sound and smell like a zoo. Every House Hierarchy sent a representative and we found Eddie sitting calmly in the on?call room, boots up on the desk, grinning ear to ear and reading Rolling Stone. To any inquiries all he would say was, "They've broken me. I'm OTC." Later, when he asked me if I thought he was being unreasonable, against my better judgment, thinking of what he'd said to me when I was banging on the elevator door, I said, "Unreasonable? Hal I think you were giving them just what they always deserved."

  "He's crazy," I said to Fats.

  "Yeah. Delusional. A paranoid psychosis. It's terrible to watch. Ah, well, Basch, they'll have to give him a rest."

  "They can't," I said. "There's no one to fill in for him."

  "No one doesn't need a rest," said the Leggo to the Fish, as they discussed what to do about Eddie. "No one at all. Why, look at poor Dr. Putzel. I'll tell Eddie he needs a rest just like everyone else."

  "And who will fill in for him?" asked the Fish.

  "Who? Why, the others. My boys will all pitch in and help."

  The next day Eddie was not at the cardflip, and when I called him at home he said, "I'm OTC for a while. I'm sorry to do this to you guys, but the Leggo won't let me back into the House. He thinks if I stayed there any longer I might kill one of the gomers and the House would get sued. He might just be right."

  "Yeah," I said, "let's face it: you were getting close."

  "Wouldn't be a bad idea, though, would it?"

  "It's illegal. How's the baby?"

  "Oh, you mean the gomere?" Eddie said.

  "The gomere?"

  "Yeah, the gomere: incontinent of feces and urine, unable to walk or talk, not oriented, and sleeping in restraints at night. The gomere. Room 811. I don't know how she is 'cause they won't let me into the House to see her."

  "They won't let you see your own baby?"

  "Yeah. I told them I wanted to take some pictures and they took away my camera, so I'm temporarily OTC with my own baby gomere, too."

  The Fish told Hooper and me that to pitch in and help take up the slack created by Eddies snapping, he and the Leggo had decided that we would be on call every other night for our last weeks on Gomer City but that we get special consideration.

  "Oh, Christ," I said, "I hope it's not 'the toughies' again."

  "Not the toughies," said the Fish. "The 'preferential treatment! "

  Preferential treatment was being skipped in the admission rotation once per day. This sounded good until it turned out that skipping a daytime admission resulted in our being awakened at three A.M. for the gomer beelining it in from the Mt. St. Elsewhere via the Grenade Room to Gomer City, courtesy of Marvin and the Blazers. Every other night, this three?A.M. special was the worst. After a week of the preferential treatment Humberto and Teddy and I were going almost as mad as Eddie. Teddy was first to go. His ulcer had started to act up. Muttering somet
hing about "the cramps," or maybe "the camps," he left.

  Next to go, for me, was Molly. Strained by Gomer City, my thing with Molly had been fading for months, and when the preferential treatment had me on call for thirty-six hours and off for twelve, outside the House all I did was sleep. Once in a while I'd see Molly on the upstairs ward, and it was clear that she was losing interest in me. One day I found Howard helping her to make up a bed. I was shocked. Hot oil and myrrh for Howie? I asked Molly what was going on.

  "Well, yes, I've been seeing Howard Greenspoon. He's the tern on this ward now. I guess I can't understand you anymore, Roy:"

  "What do you mean?"

  "You've become so cynical. You make fun of these poor patients."

  "Everyone makes fun of these poor patients."

  "Not Howard Greenspoon. He treats them with respect. I mean, it's like you're making fun of what I do. Remember how you walked out of that arrest on the man dying from multiple myeloma?"

  "Yeah, but it was a big mess."

  "Maybe, but Howard stayed right until the end."

  "Howie? You and me used to make fun of Howie!" I said.

  "Maybe so, but people change, you know. Look: I've had to work hard to get where I am. I can't help it if things always came easy to you, and you just coasted into medicine. When you were getting patted on the head, I was getting whacked by the nuns. Do you know how big and scary a nun all in black is to a little girl? Probably not. Well, Howard says he does."

  "He does?" I said, thinking maybe Howie wasn't a dumb shnook after all.

  "He certainly does. He's sincere. No one could call you that."

  "So I've got to hand in my gold cleats, eh?"

  "Oh, Roy," she said, remembering the loving, snuggling up to me, "I don't know. I still care. I guess it depends on what Howie says: "

  Jesus! My myrrh depended on Howie! Howie, the tern who felt like a hero every time he put a feeding tube down someone's demented grandmother, who puffed up with pride when he marched into an elevator filled with nondoctors and heard the whispers, "There's one of them, a doctor." Howie, who bought the fantasy that doctors weren't just people, doctors were "better" people. Howie, who would woo Molly and do all those sexual things he'd only imagined doing, with Molly, and think he loved Molly and get back at his parents by marrying Molly the shiksa nurse and have three kids and then, and then, fifteen years down the pike when Molly awoke and realized that by marrying Howie she was only getting back at the nuns, and what the hell, why not fuck with the macho guy who came to repair her washer?dryer and why not leave Howie, and then, fifteen years down the pike, Howie, awakening to the notion that as a husband-father?lover he'd been screwed by his fanatic dedication to medicine and that even in medicine he couldn't "cure" anyone of anything, he'd check into the motel room alone and for the first time in his life, in shock, have to haggle out his one real decision: whether or not to peg out painlessly with the five grams of phenobarb he'd lifted from the hospital pharmacy when he'd found out that his wife and kids had left. Should I fight? Should I challenge Howie for Molly? Nah, it was too much of an effort now, and she was right: I'd become too cynical, too destructive for her.