Private Practices

by Linda Wolfe

  She was silent. He perceived her stubbornness as a barrier he could surely topple, if only he was clever enough, and wondered that he had not really put his mind to it before.

  “I’m not asking you, Claudia, I’m telling you,” he announced, remembering how easily Sidney used to command her to do his bidding. But a moment later he lightened his tone, and added, “And who knows? It might be just the thing to help him. I thought that’s what you wanted. To see him helped.”

  When at last Claudia said she might come over when she got back from St. Louis, he was unsure whether she had been responding to his harshness or to his last-minute suggestion that a visit from her would help Sidney. But it didn’t matter. All he wanted was for her to have a good, long look at her husband.

  Afterward, he lay on his bed, legs crossed, arms behind his head, and, feeling uncommonly pleased with himself, began to stroke his ardent penis. He was just about to come when his excitement was interrupted by the ringing of the other extension of his phone.

  Grudgingly, he picked it up. A high-voiced, harried obstetrical resident was calling Sidney from the Emergency Room. “We’ve got one of his patients down here,” he rattled. “She’s bleeding quite a bit. Looks like placenta previa.” He lowered his voice. “There’s nothing to do yet except send her upstairs and watch her. But the husband’s a real pain in the ass. He wants Dr. Zauber to come right over and look at her. I told him that Dr. Zauber was—was probably out of town.” The young man’s voice, whispering, was filled with innuendo. “I said at best you’d be coming in his stead. Then the asshole says it’s Sidney Zauber they’ve been paying for and he doesn’t want any substitutes.” The resident’s voice rose to a normal level. “But of course, if he’s out of town—”

  “That’s okay,” Ben said coolly, cutting him off. He had lost his erection. “He’s here. I’ll tell him. He’ll be over as quickly as he can get there.”

  Sidney seemed to be drowning in sleep. He was having a nightmare and his arms and legs were thrashing. When Ben turned on the overhead light and touched him on the shoulder, Sidney pulled on him with all the desperate strength of a panicked swimmer. He kept trying to drag Ben down onto the bed alongside him. Ben gave him a shove, and Sidney sprawled away, his eyes still closed, but his mouth open, agape, as if the air were water forcing its way into his lungs.

  “Wake up, wake up,” Ben demanded. “Wake up now. Get up!” At last Sidney rose to consciousness and came awake, shuddering. “There’s a call for you from Emergency. Do you want to go?”

  Sidney grasped what Ben was saying only slowly. First he rolled onto his side, shielding his eyes from the light, then he nursed his forehead with his hands, then at last he said, “Yeah, sure I want to go.”

  “So go.”

  Sidney sat up and reached for his jacket from the end of the bed and began pulling it over his pajama top. Then he reached for his pills, knocking several vials off the night table before getting one firmly in his hand.

  Ben went back to his room.

  It couldn’t have been more than twenty-five minutes later when the phone rang again. He had just shut off his reading lamp, hoping to regain his earlier feelings of delicious arousal. He picked up the phone in the dark, but snapped on the light as soon as he heard the voice on the other end of the wire. It was the same high-voiced, harried resident he had spoken to earlier and he was rattling, “Doctor, can you get over here quickly? There’s been some trouble.”

  He felt his breath seem to stop for a second. He had to wrestle to regain it before he could speak and for a moment he remembered his childhood panic at being asked to say words he couldn’t force up from inside himself. But at last he had both breath and words. “What trouble? What’s happened?” He waited, steady. Whatever it was, Sidney would have deserved it. He tried not to think about Sidney’s patient.

  “Your brother’s been hurt,” the resident said.

  “My brother?” Astonished, he floundered for words again. He had been anticipating different information. “Sidney? You sure?”

  “It’s not too serious. That patient he came to see—her husband jumped Dr. Zauber in the corridor. Knocked him flat.” The resident’s speech was hurtling.

  “Knocked him flat?”

  “Socked him. But he’s all right. Just a bit dazed. We didn’t think he could make it home on his own, though. Thought you’d better come for him.”

  “Yes, of course.” He was in full control now. “I’ll be right over.” He started to put down the phone but the harried resident was saying, “You can’t really blame the husband. Your brother examined the woman and told the guy he could take her home, there was nothing wrong. But she was bleeding a lot. And Dr. Zauber was staggering. He practically sat down on the woman when he examined her.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Ben said curtly. “I’ll be right over.”

  “The guy began yelling that your brother was an incompetent drunk,” the resident raced on. “And Dr. Zauber just walked right past him. Stumbled past him. You can’t really blame the husband. His wife was hemorrhaging and Dr. Zauber was just telling him to take her home.”

  Ben hung up and dashed out the door of the apartment. Sidney was waiting for him in the doctors’ lounge. His jacket was ripped, his nose was bleeding, and one of his eyes was shut tight, the skin above it just starting to purple.

  Sidney’s hospital privileges were revoked the next morning. Alithorn demanded to see both Ben and Sidney in his office at ten o’clock on Sunday morning and announced without ceremony, as soon as they were seated, “We can’t keep carrying you anymore, Sid. I’m sorry. I did it as long as I could, out of respect for the man you used to be. But you’re not the same man anymore.”

  Ben felt immensely relieved. He had taken great risks all month by ceasing to supervise Sidney. He had thought he might have to take still others before managing to get him suspended. But now the suspension was accomplished. And no one but Sidney had been hurt in any way. To himself, he whispered, “Thank God.” He had not wanted to see any of Sidney’s patients injured through his brother’s incompetence. He had wanted only to achieve Sidney’s suspension. To have Sidney receive this ultimate blow to his pride.

  If Sidney had reacted to the loss of his research grant by nursing his disappointment in himself with increasingly high dosages of barbiturates, surely this second professional catastrophe would stimulate him to take even greater quantities. He would withdraw further and further into sedation. Become even more hermitlike and eccentric than he already was. Claudia would run from the sight of him, and even her fantasies would skitter and scramble away.

  Already the news of his suspension was making Sidney behave more inappropriately than usual. Instead of apologizing for his condition last night, he was regarding Alithorn with a fierce, paranoid glare. At last he muttered, “But I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t hurt anyone. In fact, I’m the guy who got hurt.”

  Alithorn had kept his eyes averted, looking at neither Ben nor Sidney. Now he observed Sidney coldly and said, “You got hurt by the wrong guy. The fellow who punched you is with the News. A reporter.”

  Sidney, not yet grasping the implication of Alithorn’s information, continued argumentatively, “So what? He punched me. I haven’t done anything wrong.” Tilting his chin defiantly, he pointed to his bruised eye.

  Alithorn bent and opened the file drawer of his desk. “But you have, Sid. Lots of things. Little things. I’ve got a whole list of them.” Extracting a sheet of paper from the drawer, he glanced at it and said, “Staff conferences you failed to attend. Patient records you failed to write up. A circumcision you started but failed to complete. That sort of thing.”

  Sidney pulled himself to his feet, outraged. For a moment Ben felt almost sorry for him. His mind was so befuddled that he couldn’t understand why he was being suspended. He had never accepted the idea that drugs could alter his competence and he still believed himself to be as good a doctor as he had ever been. From his point of view, the sus
pension was undeserved and Alithorn was betraying him. After all, he and Alithorn had frequently entertained each other at their homes. “You can’t suspend a doctor unless he’s incompetent,” Sidney was shouting. But although his response made some kind of bizarre sense to Ben, he was sure that to Alithorn it must seem totally irrational.

  “You are incompetent,” Alithorn said, growing increasingly alienated as Sidney acted more and more uncontrolled.

  “How? When? Where?” Sidney demanded. “Where’s your proof? There’s nothing you can use as proof against me.”

  “Not coming to meetings,” Alithorn repeated dully. “Not keeping proper records.”

  “Technicalities,” Sidney said.

  “Telling that woman to go home last night.”

  “A matter of medical opinion,” Sidney was on his feet, but he was swaying. “I’m calling my lawyer. I’ll sue you, Tom.”

  Alithorn sighed and drew one of his netsuke figurines from the pocket of his sports jacket. He was clearly being made nervous by Sidney, Ben thought. Or else feeling guilty about him. He had stopped looking at Sidney altogether and was keeping his eyes on his tiny carving.

  “I told you back in June I’d sue you if you made a move against me,” Sidney shouted.

  Alithorn, his head bent, said softly, “I believed you then. I don’t believe you any longer. I don’t think you’re capable of organizing yourself enough to call your lawyer.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Sidney went on threateningly. “You won’t like the publicity, Tom.” But although his words were harsh, his voice was beginning to lose its conviction. It was dawning on him that Alithorn meant to screen him out of his vision, and thus his regard, utterly.

  “I’m not worried about bad publicity anymore,” Alithorn said, still looking down. “Not from you and your lawyer.” But the carving wasn’t giving him the distance from Sidney he wanted. For the first time since the meeting had begun he turned and looked at Ben. “The man who punched Sid has already convinced his editor to start a series on incompetent doctors. It’s a subject the papers have been trying to get a lead on for years. There were two reporters over at the residents’ apartments early this morning, asking questions about Sidney. You’ve got to keep him away from the hospital. You understand, don’t you, Ben?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Ben said, and at last Sidney too seemed finally to understand. When Alithorn continued, “I don’t want him anywhere near here,” addressing his remarks to Ben as if Sidney himself could no longer be expected to make decisions, Sidney sat down heavily in his chair and bowed his head into his hands. “I don’t care if you have to tie him down to make him stay home,” Alithorn finished. “If he admits a patient, we’ll put her out on the street.”

  Sidney, his words muffled behind his hands answered, “Don’t worry. I’ll stay away. I’ll let you have your way.”

  Alithorn raised his shoulders and looked helplessly at Ben. “He thinks it’s some kind of personal vendetta.” Then, turning back to his figurine, he said softly, “It’s funny. Harry Mulenberg once said to me that when a man who doesn’t like to be asked questions starts screwing up, he won’t answer to anybody. I didn’t know what the hell Harry was talking about. But I do now. Sid, this isn’t my fault! It’s yours!”

  Sidney shook his head stubbornly.

  It made Alithorn begin to defend himself. “Jesus, Sid, you know how much I always respected you. Everyone did. Everyone around here.” He shook his head, his eyes on his own hands. “That’s how come I kept you on as long as I did. I figured—everyone figured—that you’d snap out of your—your personality problem. Get over your emotional difficulties. Give up—give up—” he hesitated and then at last said, his voice almost inaudible, “—the barbiturates.”

  Sidney murmured, “I told you back in June I wasn’t taking barbiturates.”

  Alithorn said, “I know you did. But let’s face it, Sid. You were. You are.” For a coward, Ben thought, Alithorn was at last displaying some nerve.

  Sidney shook his head, melancholy. “You can’t prove it.”

  “I don’t want to prove it. I don’t need to prove it. I’m suspending you for missing meetings. But there’s a chance, just a chance, mind you, that if you were clean, I could get you back on staff. When all of this dies down.” Alithorn suddenly sounded cheerful, happier than he had been all through the discussion. He put the carving back into his pocket and moved from behind his desk to stand in front of Sidney. Then he laid a paternal hand on Sidney’s shoulder.

  “You think I like this? You think I like being dictated to by outside pressures? If you got clean, if you went over to Downstate and let them withdraw you, then I’d do whatever I could. I swear I would, Sid.” Having made this offer, Alithorn smiled, pleased at his own generosity.

  Sidney, shook his head. “That would be an admission. There’d be records,” he said suspiciously.

  Alithorn backed away, holding his hands out as if he were offering something tangible. “It’s the only thing I can suggest, Sid. The suspension is definite. It’s got to be.”

  Sidney stood up slowly. He looked like an old man. So thin that his flesh was turning transparent. So weak that he had to lean on the arm of the chair to lift himself. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

  Ben offered Sidney his arm. He took it gratefully and, head bowed, began shuffling toward the door.

  Alithorn repeated, “Go to Downstate.” But Sidney, head bent, shuffled right past him.

  At home that afternoon, Sidney drugged himself heavily and went right to bed. It was just what Ben had expected him to do. He himself watched the Sunday ball game on TV, happy to be seeing it indoors in the luxury of air conditioning, and felt more relaxed and comfortable than he had in weeks. But when the game was over, Sidney was still in bed and he grew worried. Suppose he had overdosed?

  He hurried to Sidney’s room, suddenly anxious. The TV next to the bed was blaring as usual and he snapped it off. Bending over Sidney, he listened for his breath. Then at last he heard it and stepped back, relieved. He didn’t want any harm to come to Sidney. No physical harm. He had no intention of reneging on his promise to Sidney to safeguard him from the dangers of overdosing. Indeed, he felt more than willing to watch over him as long as he stayed drugged and defeated. In fact, he rather liked being his brother’s keeper. Covering Sidney with a blanket, he went into the kitchen to prepare himself something to eat for dinner.

  “Have an affair,” Bootie was saying as she and Claudia sat in the warm darkness alongside her pool. Bootie had swum for over an hour, her sleek body tireless, her long, black hair trailing like seaweed behind her. Claudia had merely watched, envious of Bootie’s energy.

  Ever since the party last night, her back had been aching, and although she had remembered that swimming was good for back pain, just the effort of getting into a bathing suit had seemed too great for her this evening. She listened to Bootie inattentively at first, preoccupied by her body. Pregnancy had given it speech. It was so alive with whispers, nuances and insistences that often she could barely concentrate on what was being said beyond the confines of her own flesh and blood. But she knew that Bootie had been looking forward to their time alone together. All day yesterday, before the party, they had been swamped with chores, and today they had had to accompany Bootie’s daughter and her friends on a noisy picnic. Claudia tried to ignore her body and be a companionable guest.

  “I’m eight months pregnant,” she giggled. “Hardly the time to start an affair.”

  “It’s been known to happen,” Bootie argued earnestly. “There were two men at the party last night who kept talking about you obsessively. But you were so standoffish.”

  “I didn’t like either of them,” Claudia sighed.

  “You don’t like anyone,” Bootie expostulated. Even before you got so big you were standoffish. I introduced you to half a dozen men and you didn’t make a move toward any of them.”

  “I couldn’t help it. I’m just not interested in men these da
ys.” Nor was she interested in much of anything, she thought, except the constant secret communications deep within herself.

  “Isn’t there anyone you like?” Bootie was probing. “What about your brother-in-law?”

  Claudia shifted on the plastic lounge chair, raising herself up onto an elbow to relieve the pressure on the small of her back. “My brother-in-law. You must be joking.”

  “You certainly spend a lot of time talking to him.”

  Claudia laughed again. “I like him, but not in the way you mean. He’s the soul of kindness. But he’s very boring.”

  “I met him at your wedding but I don’t really remember him.”

  “He never makes a lasting impression. He’s sweet, but terribly uptight and passive. I used to think he was impotent except that he managed to find himself a girlfriend this year. Oh, and one time, when he and I were alone together, I turned him on.” Gossiping was helping her forget the ache in the small of her back. She leaned forward enthusiastically.

  “What happened then?”

  “Nothing. He got all flustered and looked as if he wanted to die of embarrassment.”

  “That’s not for you,” Bootie nodded. “What you need is somebody assertive. Somebody who’s sure of himself.”

  “Somebody like Sidney,” Claudia mused.

  “God, no. Not a controlling son of a bitch. I’m talking about self-confidence, not solipsism.”

  Claudia frowned, displeased by Bootie’s outburst. Sidney was the one subject she and her oldest friend could not discuss without growing short with one another. “Frankly, I’ve never understood what you saw in Sidney,” Bootie went on, as if she hadn’t already said it a dozen times previously.