The Art of Forgetting

by Peter Palmieri

  A few minutes later Lloyd was standing outside Lasko’s office inspecting photographs, plaques and certificates that adorned an entire wall of the waiting room. There was a photograph of Lasko receiving an award from a bearded, tall gentleman, both men wearing tuxedos. In another photograph Lasko stood among a half dozen serious-looking men (not a single woman) in front of a large sign with a logo consisting of an EKG tracing overlying a globe, with a large caption that read “CardioPrime Technologies Distinguished Lecture Series”. The most prominently displayed portrait, signed in black marker, had him shaking hands with a smiling Bill Clinton, a stocky woman by his side. A small engraved brass plate under the photo read, “President William Jefferson Clinton, Dr. George Lasko and Mrs. Virginia Hampton Lasko. Los Angeles, California. March 7, 1999.”

  Lasko opened the door to his office.

  “Hold my calls please, Mrs. Oliver,” he said in a dry voice, then turned to Lloyd and gave a slight nudge of his head to direct him into his office. Lloyd entered without saying a word and waited for Lasko to walk around his desk and sit before settling in the demi Lune chair.

  The two remained silent for about ten seconds. Lasko leaned with his elbows on the desk massaging his knuckles with alternating hands. Lloyd crossed his legs and inspected a silver name plate engraved with Lasko’s name and with the same EKG tracing hovering over a globe that he had seen in the photograph outside.

  “I don’t quite know how to begin,” Lasko said.

  “Nice pictures, you’ve got on your wall of fame.”

  Lasko’s lips stretched in a crooked smile. “Yes. I’m quite fond of them.”

  Lloyd nodded. “How couldn’t you be?”

  “Accomplishment. Respect. Recognition. That’s what men like us strive for. That’s what we live for, isn’t it?”

  “I didn’t realize we were in the same category of men,” Lloyd said.

  “Oh but we are. Yes indeed, we are. I see it in you – the hunger, the desire, the craving that is only natural in men like us. Men who – let’s be honest – are endowed with the gift of… intellectual superiority.”

  Lasko’s eyes beamed, as if he were sharing a great secret. Seeing no reaction, he began to speak again.

  “Let’s not confuse this with arrogance. It is our duty, our very burden to aspire to greater heights; to pursue, to achieve, to succeed. We don’t have the option to wallow in mediocrity because that would be immoral.” Lasko punctuated the phrase by landing a fist on his desk.

  “Don’t think I don’t understand you,” Lasko continued. “I was just like you in my youth. I too held intelligence as the most venerable human quality, the greatest of all virtues.” Lasko snorted, “To be surrounded by all those educated fools! And yet, as we gain life experience, we become more pragmatic, more aware of the ways of the world, and it became clear to me that intelligence by itself is like a boat with a motor but no rudder. Do you know what the rudder is, Dr. Copeland?”

  Lloyd stared at Lasko and didn’t say a word.

  “Authority.” Lasko said, his voice resonating. “Yes, authority. It brings order, it brings clarity, it is the whetstone that sharpens the blade and it is the blade itself.” Lasko raised his chin. “It pains me, Lloyd,” he placed his hand over his chest, “it truly pains me to see the path you have chosen to take.

  “And what path would that be?” Lloyd asked.

  “I know all about your philandering ways, Dr. Copeland. I don’t approve of your depravity, but I understand it. I understand that… certain appetites may take hold in men such as—”

  “I don’t think you understand a damn thing,” Lloyd said.

  Lasko pointed a finger to the sky. “I am not here to judge you for that. Not at all. Still, it makes one wonder, doesn’t it, about your sense of discipline. And where does lack of discipline lead, Dr. Copeland?”

  Lloyd shrugged. “You seem to know.”

  “It leads to vice, and vice leads to brutality.” Lasko leaned forward and murmured, “I can overlook a petty ruffian on my staff but I can’t tolerate a brute. I will not tolerate a brute!”

  Lloyd uncrossed his legs and straightened in his chair, “I hate to say this but you lost me a while ago.”

  “I’ve received complaints, Dr. Copeland – two complaints on the same day to be exact, if you can believe that.”

  “Complaints from whom?” Lloyd asked.

  “The first one came from a medical student who preferred to remain anonymous,” Lasko said. “The student claimed that she overheard you saying the following words while eating in the cafeteria.” Lasko slipped his reading glasses on and read from a notebook. “I quote, ‘I have a feeling Mr. Piazza is going to fail Neurology’”.

  “This is ridiculous,” Lloyd said.

  “Apparently, the words were spoken to our own Dr. Erin Kennedy.”

  “Leave her out of this.”

  Lasko peered at Lloyd over his reading glasses.

  “Look,” Lloyd said, “I might have said something along those lines purely in jest. I don’t even know this… Mr. Piazza.”

  Lasko picked up a pencil and scribbled in his notebook.

  “Interesting,” he said. “When I asked her, Dr. Kennedy said she had no recollection of the incident.” Lasko paused and smiled. “Forgive me, Dr. Copeland. I’m having a hard time reading that curious expression on your face. Is that surprise or relief?”

  Lloyd crossed his arms and said nothing but the thought of Lasko questioning Erin gnawed at him. What else had he asked her?

  “It might seem like a petty issue to you,” Lasko said. “But I must admonish you to be more prudent in the comments you make in the common areas of the hospital, whether it’s in regard to patient care or matters of student confidentiality. Really, Dr. Copeland,” Lasko knitted his brow, “as an attending physician, you should know better.”

  “The second complaint, I’m afraid, is of a decidedly more serious nature.” Lasko removed his spectacles and dropped them on the desk. “A Dr. Todd English, fellow in the Department of Pathology, claims you physically assaulted him on campus.”

  Lloyd kept his eyes locked on Lasko and tried to maintain an even expression.

  Lasko raised his eyebrows. “Well?”

  “You want me to comment?”

  “You’re in some hot water, Dr. Copeland. This is no time to be reticent.”

  “I had some strong words with him,” Lloyd said. “For a doctor-in-training he was extremely disrespectful of an attending physician. I could have written him up for insubordination. I should have, really, but I gave him a break. But physically assaulted? That’s… that’s a gross exaggeration.”

  “He claims you struck him and shoved him against a wall,” Lasko said.

  “What’s this all about really?”

  “You’re under investigation for misconduct. As of this moment, you’re on academic probation. In accordance to hospital bylaws, any other infraction may lead to the suspension of your hospital privileges.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Lloyd said. “My record at this institution is spotless. I’ve never received a complaint. I was twice voted teacher of the year by medical students and I always get top ratings from the residents in my department.”

  “And you’re fairly well published,” Lasko said. “And let’s not forget that you secured a rather generous grant for our institution from the NIH.”

  “I’m glad you’re aware of it.”

  “Yet, you’re still only an assistant professor, on the very same rung you started out the day you left residency, quite a few years ago, already. Now, why is that?”

  Lloyd shrugged.

  “Maybe your record is not so spotless,” Lasko said. He raised his palms in the air and tightened his shoulders in mock exasperation. “I just can’t explain it. Someone as promising as you, as bright as you are, as hard working as you are, with not a single promotion. It simply boggles the mind.”

  “Are we done?”

  “For now.” Lasko lea
ned back in his chair. “I will have my secretary send you written confirmation of your probationary status. One more infraction…” Lasko pointed a menacing index finger to the sky. “One more infraction and you’ll be in front of a disciplinary tribunal so fast you won’t know what hit you.”

  Lloyd got to his feet.

  “Lloyd,” Lasko said, “you’re an asset to the university. I would simply hate to lose you over something like this.” That crooked smile appeared on Lasko’s face again, showing just a gleam of an eye tooth.

  “I’m sure it would break your heart,” Lloyd said. He turned on his heels and marched out of the office.

  Chapter 20

  Lloyd returned to his office and slumped in his chair. His head was pounding. Just weeks ago he was poised to start human trials on the project he had invested years pursuing, a man in control of his destiny. He was on the verge of confirming a discovery that might put an end to a blight that imprisoned millions of people, which robbed countless of souls of their personhood. Now someone was making an issue of a little shove in the chest of a clueless Pathology fellow. Things were coming unglued. Nothing made sense.

  He thought about what Lasko said of his not so spotless record. Lloyd knew all too well what he was referring to. As a second year resident, he had faced what Bender would later refer to as “that bit of unpleasantness”: an incident involving a junior faculty member by the name of Derrick Killian, the only smudge on an otherwise pristine academic record.

  Dr. Killian was conducting ward rounds with residents and medical students in tow when the group stopped at the bedside of a reedy man with thinning hair – a retired army veteran who first suspected something might be wrong with him decades earlier when as a young driver of military transport vehicles he noticed that, after a long haul, he found himself unable to release his grip on the steering wheel.

  “Mr. Felty has Myotonic Muscular Dystrophy,” Killian said with carnivalesque flair. “You can immediately see some of the typical features of this condition: the receding hairline, the drooping eyes, the blank stare that in the past was mistaken as evidence of a subnormal IQ. But I must stress, despite their outward appearance, these people are not retarded.” He paused as the students stopped taking notes to bend forward and gawk at the bewildered gentleman’s face. “Now, I’m going to demonstrate some of the physical findings of the disease.” He turned to the helpless man and asked, in the loud doctor voice that assumes that all patients are deaf or slow or both, “May I see your hand, Mr. Felty?”

  The man held out his hand. Killian turned it palm up and said, “A key feature of Myotonic Muscular Dystrophy is the propensity for muscle spasms, followed by delayed muscular relaxation. This can be demonstrated at the bedside with the most rudimentary of tools.”

  He extracted a reflex hammer from his coat pocket and, holding Mr. Felty’s hand outstretched, tapped the fleshy pad at the base of the man’s thumb with a crisp flick of the wrist. The thumb contracted and remained in a stiff contorted position for several seconds before slowly relaxing. The medical students and interns crowded in uttering oohs and aahs while Killian smiled with the satisfaction of a birthday party magician.

  He turned to the patient and asked, “Mr. Felty, do you ever have trouble with your speech?”

  “Maybe, sometimes.”

  “Garbled speech?”

  “I guess so.”

  Dr. Killian pulled two tongue depressors from the vest pocket of a medical student whose white coat bulged, pockets stuffed with medical supplies, like the side saddles of a mule pack.

  “The tongue can also exhibit tonic contractions. Open wide.” He positioned the tongue depressors on the top and bottom of the patient’s tongue and delivered a light tap to the top blade.

  Nothing happened.

  He repositioned the tongue depressors and gave a slightly stronger jab.

  Still nothing.

  He hammered a third time, and harder still a fourth. Then he stopped. He withdrew the rounded blades, now speckled with blood. Mr. Felty sat with his mouth open, his tongue resting on his lower lip, a rivulet of blood emerging from where a lower incisor left a tiny gash.

  “You’re bleeding a little,” Killian whispered as he retreated.

  Lloyd pulled a couple of packages of sterile gauze from the mule pack’s pockets and as he stepped through the crowd of students to attend to the puzzled patient said something that became the main point of contention at his disciplinary hearing. Lloyd maintained that he simply said, “Way to go!” whereas Killian insisted that the phrase was punctuated by the word, “asshole.”

  To their credit, none of the interns and medical students could corroborate Dr. Killian’s version of the event – that is, they lied. Lloyd received a stern warning, was placed on probation, but no charge of insubordination was entered in his permanent record. Six months later, Dr. Killian’s contract was not renewed and he shipped out to Kentucky (or was it West Virginia?) proving to Lloyd that Uncle Marty’s influence was broad and deep, and that there was a bit of an edge lurking beneath that amiable smile of his.

  But how would Lasko have come to know of the incident? And how was it that he came to question Erin about their conversation in the cafeteria?

  Chapter 21

  By now, Lloyd became conscious that whenever his mind was not actively engaged on a matter that demanded his full concentration, his thoughts inevitably turned to Erin. He replayed conversations they had in his mind, wondered what she might be doing at that moment, if she might be thinking of him. He tried in vain to hold a precise image of her in his mind, able only to recreate a single feature at a time – her lips, her eyes, her fine nose, those playful eyebrows – somehow never able, in his mind’s eye, to herd the parts together in a unified whole.

  He wanted to be with her, craved her company. But there was more. As he analyzed the issue objectively he came to a perplexing realization: he cared for her. That is, her happiness mattered to him. But how could he contribute to her happiness? What sort of future would he be able to offer her?

  He thought of the Copeland wives who by all measure seemed to have been born to suffer. He thought of his grandmother and how mirthless her life must have been, caring for a husband who hardly recognized her for nearly three decades. And he thought of his mother.

  He picked up the phone and dialed his mom’s number.

  “Hello, Lloyd,” his mom answered in an apologetic voice.

  “Mom!”

  There was a prolonged pause.

  “Roy told me he talked to you,” she said.

  “Why didn’t you want to tell me?”

  “Did you call just to scold me?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Oh Lloyd, maybe one day you’ll understand.”

  “How are you, mom?”

  “That’s the crazy thing, I don’t feel sick. Sure, I get winded. My leg’s a little swollen, God only knows why. But otherwise I’m fine.”

  “I want to come and see you this weekend,” Lloyd said.

  “You don’t have to make a big fuss, son, honestly. I already have Roy fussing over me like a mother hen. He won’t let me carry a dirty dish to the sink, for crying out loud, as if I’m some… I don’t know.”

  “Won’t let you cook?” Lloyd said.

  “Not even a slice of toast!”

  “What a surprise.” Lloyd said.

  “Oh Lloyd, stop pestering your dying mother.”

  There was a sharp silence.

  “I’m sorry, mom.”

  “Oh dear, I’m so sorry. That was a terrible thing to say. Why would I say such a thing?”

  Lloyd didn’t know what to say. He felt a knot tighten in his throat.

  “I’m more worried about you, son.”

  “I’m doing fine, mom.”

  “I’m doing fine, mom. My swollen foot, you’re doing fine. I hear it in your voice, mister-know-it-all. I’m your mother!”

  “I sort of met a girl mom.”

  “
Don’t tease me, Lloyd.”

  “No, really. I met someone.”

  “Saint Cadfan, give me strength! Now you’re really going to give me a coronary. Please tell me she’s a nice girl.”

  “She’s amazing,” Lloyd said.

  “I thought I’d never see the day! So when do we get to meet her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Lloyd, the doctors say I don’t have much time.”

  “I told you I wanted to come see you this weekend.”

  “Well why didn’t you say so in the first place?” Ellen said. “Lloyd honey, she’s not one of those ethnic young ladies that are so picky about food, is she?”

  “She’s Irish. She eats everything.”

  “Oh Lord, she sounds too good to be true.”

  “She is,” Lloyd said.

  Lloyd hung up the phone. His head was buzzing. He was drifting into a mellow state of intoxication and it felt liberating and terrifying at the same time. Like the game he played as a child, swimming ever farther from the pier in the chilly lake waters of Door County, wondering if he’d be able to make it back to shore. But at this point, what was stopping him from swimming a few more strokes farther from land?

  Chapter 22

  Friday morning Lloyd was preparing to deliver a lecture to a group of second year medical students in the physical diagnosis course when his beeper went off. It was Kaz.

  “Where are you?” Kaz said.

  Lloyd heard a tightness in his voice.

  “I’m about to give a lesson,” Lloyd said.

  “There are men here, in our lab.”

  “What kind of men?”

  “Professors, with no white coats. They say they are with the Institutional Animals…”

  “Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee,” Lloyd said.

  “Yes, yes. Here for inspection… they have papers,” Kaz said.

  “Listen, Kaz, don’t worry. Show them what they want to see. We have nothing to hide.”

  “I hate inspections.”

  “Kaz, these are not officers of the Red Army. And we have nothing to hide. I’ll be there in a couple of hours.”