Recessional: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  As they ate, Taggart said: ‘If you listened closely just now, I did not actually offer you a job. I said you seemed to be qualified. At this stage you know a great deal about me, or at least my operations, but I don’t know enough about you. Are you ready to field some direct questions?’

  ‘I want this job. Shoot.’

  ‘What are the facts about your two lawsuits?’

  ‘I helped a woman give birth to a fine, normal, no-complications son. Five years later something went wrong with the boy, and she hired a lawyer who convinced the jury that five years earlier I had failed to perform properly. No evidence, just persuasive guesswork.’ He winced remembering the case: ‘Jury found me guilty, big award to her and a warning from my insurance company that I was under surveillance.’

  ‘The second?’

  ‘Same lawyer, but this time the time span was eight years. He proved I’d been deficient, won a big award and my insurance company wanted to cancel my policy. When I begged them to keep me on their rolls, they tripled my yearly fees, and I said: “To hell with it!” and that’s when I applied to your people.’

  ‘Are you sorry to be giving up your practice?’

  ‘Heartsick. I was meant to be a baby doctor, and I was a good one. But when shyster lawyers can twist the truth and your best work becomes your worst enemy—enough.’

  ‘Were you good at doctoring?’

  ‘Yes. Ask the five others, obstetricians and pediatricians, who were part of our little clinic.’

  ‘We did. They agreed that you were first-class. Didn’t want to see you leave.’ Taggart looked at some papers he had brought to the dining table and asked: ‘When I used the phrase “good at doctoring” I meant also “good at handling the business details.” That would be important to us.’

  ‘Did my team tell you that they chose me to run the business details of our clinic?’

  ‘They did,’ Taggart said. ‘I wanted to get a complete picture of your own commitment.’

  ‘It’s intense, Mr. Taggart. I despise failing. I like to keep things in order.’

  Taggart obviously liked this response, but other questions remained: ‘Did the lawsuits embitter you so much that you’d have trouble working cooperatively with other people?’

  Zorn almost lost his temper but at the last moment modified his voice and said softly: ‘Screw the lawsuits. Screw the insurance company. I applied to you for a job because I’m fully prepared to start over.’

  ‘Do you mean that, or are you just saying it?’

  For the first time since he left his miserable hotel room to brave the blizzard, Andy Zorn smiled, then chuckled and then laughed: ‘Mr. Taggart, I’m aware that if you get me you get a two-fer. A man you can refer to in your ads as “our resident physician,” and also a fellow who can run an orderly shop. Two for the price of one. You’d be crazy if you didn’t grab me, and from this conversation I know we can work together.’ The smile, the laughter transformed him. He was no longer just a thirty-five-year-old doctor who had been sorely battered by the courts; he was a lively, sharp-witted man in maximum possession of his powers, and obviously a highly skilled physician whom Taggart liked increasingly.

  Andy, leaning back and looking out a different window, which revealed the inner heart of Chicago where he had established his clinic, said reflectively and without animosity: ‘It’s really bewildering, that our society will allow or even encourage an unprincipled system to drive young doctors like me out of a field like obstetrics where we’re so badly needed. Right here in Chicago six men about my age have simply quit. They’re either leaving medicine altogether or qualifying themselves for other specialist fields. Many women can’t find a baby doctor. What a hell of a way to run a medical system—through fear, and lies, and perjured testimony.’

  ‘I had your two cases carefully researched, Andy. Being in the health business we couldn’t run risks. The evidence against you was perjured. The judge was biased in everything he did. And the jury awards were scandalous. I think you’re wise to quit.’ But then his voice changed again: ‘Your divorce. I hear it was rocky.’

  ‘She had her reasons. The fault was mainly mine. I had my eye only on the success of our clinic.’

  ‘There are good divorces and bad divorces. I’ve been there myself. And the good ones are those that explode in venom. It proves they ought to occur.’

  ‘Classify mine as good.’

  ‘Did it leave you hating women? You mustn’t take the job in Florida if you despise women. Two thirds of your clientele will be widows.’

  ‘When the monkey climbed off my back, he didn’t take my brains with him.’

  ‘Will you marry again? We find that our managers do better if they’re married.’

  ‘Too soon. But I’d never rule it out.’

  Suddenly Taggart became the philosopher of the retirement profession: ‘We have solid statistics from our centers. Men aged seventy who come into our system with a wife live an average of three years longer than grouchy widowers.’ He fell silent for a moment, then said gravely: ‘I suppose you know that the kinds of questions I’ve been asking are illegal. A potential employer is not allowed to probe so personally when considering someone for a job.’

  ‘We were warned about that at the clinic. Race, religion, marital status, all verboten. But for a job like the one you’re considering me for, if you didn’t ask you’d be delinquent.’

  ‘So I have your permission?’

  ‘Shoot. I want the job.’

  Taggart shuffled some papers, studied one, and said: ‘Could you tell me something about your family background?’

  ‘Mother’s sentimental Irish Catholic from County Kerry. Dad’s a tough-minded German Lutheran from Swabia.’

  ‘How do they get along?’

  ‘Famously. You’d like them. Mom named me after two Catholic saints, Mark Andrew, but Pop insisted on calling me Andy. I graduated from college under that name and also took my doctor’s degree with the same. It’s my name.’

  ‘And where does that leave you?’

  ‘Religiously?’ Zorn considered this improper intrusion for some moments, then said simply: ‘I strive to be a moral man—a Christian.’

  Taggart reached out a pawlike right hand: ‘Andy, you have the job—director of the Palms. I can’t see any chance of your failing. Your salary will be sixty-five to start, and the month you report that you’ve turned red to black, you get a raise.’

  ‘Whom do I report to in Tampa?’

  ‘Kenneth Krenek, our number two man. He’s been in charge during the transition.’

  ‘Is he going to resent my arrival?’

  ‘Ken?’ Taggart leaned back and a beatific smile covered his big face: ‘Ken Krenek is a teddy bear. Lovable guy, born to play second fiddle. Oppose you? Dr. Zorn, Ken has phoned me constantly: “When do we get our new manager, Mr. Taggart? We’re waiting.” He’s hungry for you to take over, so he can avoid making important decisions.’

  ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘About my age, crop of sandy hair that makes him look like a little boy, pudgy and with an optimism that can’t be defeated. Make him your man and maybe the three of us—you, him, me—can turn our Tampa center around.’

  ‘It’ll mean a great deal to me. Being a real doctor again.’

  Taggart frowned and got to his feet, their lunch completed. Taking Andy by the arm, he led him to a couch where they could sit side by side: ‘Now we come to the difficult part, Andy. My aides were not authorized to discuss this matter, but I must. We won’t be hiring you to be the medical doctor at the Palms, even though you are a doctor. And we don’t want you to take any exams to qualify for your license in Florida. You’re to be our director and officer in charge of medical services, nothing more. We need you to give our operation down there a touch of class: “Dr. Zorn in charge of our medical facilities.” But if a resident needs an aspirin or sprains a finger, you don’t even look at the problem. You refer the patient to a local physician.’

  ‘
Even in Assisted Living and Extended Care?’ Zorn replied, trying to hide his disappointment.

  ‘Especially there, and for a reason you’ll appreciate. It’s obligatory that we stay on the good side of the local doctors, because they’re the ones who advise patients who need help to enter our two health centers. Always keep in mind that more than seventy percent of our patients in those two units come in off the street. And more than seventy percent of our profits that enable us to keep the whole complex going come from them.’

  ‘Then why do you bother with the retirement center?’

  ‘Because it gives us prestige. And for another damned good reason. Across this nation, outfits that run only nursing homes do a lousy job, treat their patients inhumanely, and ultimately go broke. We’ve proved in eighty-seven instances that the ideal mix is people in their sixties and seventies coexisting with older ones in their eighties and nineties. One group helps inspirit the other, one helps pay for the other.’

  As the men watched the storm below it behaved as Taggart had predicted: at a quarter to twelve the blizzard abated, the sleet stopped, the streets below became passable and even Boul Mich along the lake front seemed becalmed. ‘I’m glad to see that,’ Zorn said. ‘I planned to leave Chicago this afternoon. Have my little trailer packed.’

  ‘To drive where?’

  ‘Wherever you sent me.’

  ‘You knew I’d hire you?’

  ‘Yes. I have a great deal to offer you, Mr. Taggart.’ Again, that three-step process: a smile, a chuckle, a laugh: ‘But I never dreamed I was to be a doctor without a medical kit,’ he added ruefully.

  ‘The lawyers made that decision for you. When I learned of your plight I determined to use you at your maximum capacity. Besides, at the Palms you’ll have little use for your obstetrical skills. Average age of our women guests, seventy-two.’ When Andy laughed, Taggart asked: ‘Are you starting your drive south now? On these icy roads?’

  ‘Look. Traffic’s resumed. On the main highways I’ll be using, the sleet will be gone by one o’clock because the big trucks will melt it off. A doctor like me who drives a lot does appreciate those big trucks that clear the way for us.’

  He intended leaving at this point, but Taggart detained him a few more minutes, going back to the alcove, where he picked up the three blocks. Returning with them he said: ‘Your job will be to keep these three properly in the air.’ And as he tossed aloft first one block then another he said: ‘Retirement, Assisted Living, Extended. Keep them in balance and always heading up,’ and with that he juggled the blocks adeptly, keeping them all in the air at the same time while Andy promised from the elevator: ‘I’ll try.’

  When Andy returned to the miserable hotel to which he had moved after the closing of his medical practice and the settlement of his divorce, he went to the desk, closed out his account and said good-bye to the kindly proprietress, who had looked after him. He then went out into the parking lot to check for the third time the condition of the intricate coupling that would hitch his rented trailer to his sedan, one of the few things left him after his divorce. As meticulous in such mechanical matters as he had been in his medical practice, where he left nothing to sudden unprepared decisions, he kicked each of the six tires that must carry him to Florida and concluded that they were properly inflated: On icy roads it’s better to be just a little soft. Gives better traction.

  Taking his place in the driver’s seat, he announced aloud: ‘Here we go.’ Gingerly he eased his tandem out of the icy parking lot and onto wide Jackson Boulevard, where traffic had already cleared off most of the sleet. He drove cautiously eastward to Lake Shore Drive, which would also be fairly clear of ice, and as he was about to turn right into its growling traffic he had a moment of exhilaration comparable to those he had known as a boy when starting an important trip: ‘How appropriate! My map shows that the moment I get my wheels on old Route 41 I stay on it and never turn left or right, straight to Tampa and my new home. Route 41, here I come! Be good to me.’

  The plan he had worked out hastily when he learned that he would be working in Florida required him to make Evansville, Indiana, this first night. It would be a drive of nearly three hundred miles, but since his days in high school he had been accustomed to covering five or six hundred miles a day and doing it alone if other young men in Denver had not been free to go along and share the driving. In those exciting days when he was fanning out to places like Seattle, Los Angeles and Chicago, if he did have to drive alone he did so until he felt the first signs of fatigue. He would then pull off to the side of the highway, lock all doors and roll up all the windows except for a little crack up front, and sleep crammed sideways for a couple of hours, awaking with such renewed energy that he tore along the next portion of his trip. He had formed the habit of using a motel only on the third night, when he judged that his body deserved total relaxation in a proper bed.

  Always a careful driver, he now tested the road that had been so heavily battered by the blizzard and found that his tandem responded properly when he applied the brakes, slowing to thirty or even twenty without excessive yawing. This is quite doable, he thought. Evansville well before midnight without straining the engine.

  When he reached the sign that said YOU ARE NOW ENTERING INDIANA he saluted and cried: ‘Chicago, farewell!’ Then he made an obscene gesture and added: ‘Up your bucket.’ He was on his way to Florida.

  But he was in Indiana only a few moments when he impulsively pulled off the highway, stopped his rig, and put his face in his hands. All bravado gone, he mumbled: ‘I lost a paradise in Chicago. A great job—one of the best clinics around. And the wonderful mothers and babies relying on me, trusting me. A growing bank account and a beautiful wife. How did it all vanish so soon?’

  Remaining frozen at the wheel, he pressed his temples and muttered: ‘A doctor without a kit. A specialist without a practice. No wife, and exactly a hundred and eighty dollars in my pocket. Zorn, you sure screwed up your life.’

  Then he suddenly tensed and his grip on the wheel tightened: Now, dammit, start rebuilding, or your life will begin to go downhill right now. By some miracle I’m getting a second chance. I’m earning good money, and—who knows?—maybe someday I’ll even practice as a doctor again.

  He restarted his motor, edged his rig back onto the highway and swore: ‘Start of a new year, start of a new life.’

  Fifty miles farther south on Route 41 all ice on the highway had been crushed and removed by heavy trucks, so that he felt safe in driving at sixty miles per hour. Even so, he kept careful watch on the car two ahead to make sure that if anything happened he would be able to slow down instantly. With the extra load in the trailer pushing him from behind, he must avoid sudden stops.

  Daylight was disappearing by the time he reached the cutoff for Interstate 65 that would sweep him around Terre Haute and put him on the road for the finishing kick into Evansville, where he felt confident that a motel bed would be waiting since the storm had kept traffic from the interstates. When it became clear that he would reach his destination well before midnight, he relaxed, leaned back in his seat, listened to the various FM stations as he entered their broadcast range and sang along when they played some song he knew.

  As he had expected, the first Evansville motel he approached had a room, and for thirty dollars he had a hot bath, a good sleep and complimentary coffee, so that when he headed south on New Year’s morning he had abundant energy. Ahead of him was a reasonably clear road and only four hundred miles or so to Atlanta. But as he approached Nashville on his run across Tennessee, he heard on his radio: ‘Motorists are advised to proceed cautiously on the hilly portions of Route 41 between Nashville and Chattanooga. Icy conditions prevail as a result of last night’s storm. Slow down!’ He chuckled at the warning, thinking: Till you’ve been on Boul Mich with the ropes in place to keep you from being blown away, you don’t know what ice is.

  Nevertheless he did slow down, for in recent years he had seen television news showing i
n sickening detail how, in an ice storm or a heavy fog, even cautious drivers could pile their cars into massive crashes on the freeways. He remembered one in California—sixty cars, smashing into each other.

  But even at his diminished speed, as he came around a bend in the hill country just west of Chattanooga he saw the car two ahead start slipping sideways and then, completely out of control, make a 180-degree turn so that it continued sliding, but backward. And as he watched in terror, the doomed car moved slowly but inexorably into a tangle of three others that had slid the same way, ending up in a huge pileup involving scores of cars. Cars heading west along the other side of Highway 41 were also piling up, with some crossing the median and smashing into the fronts of cars in his lane.

  In the same moment that Andy realized he was in danger, he also saw a possible escape route: off to the right of his side there was a moderate berm that sloped gently down. Convinced that he would surely, within the next few moments, crash into the pile ahead and at the same time be struck from behind, he wrenched his steering wheel sharply toward the berm, thinking to drift down the slope. His front wheels did not respond, and he continued moving relentlessly toward the pileup. Reversing direction for just a moment, he quickly swung the wheel back to the right, and this time, dangerously close to striking the car ahead, his sedan and its heavy trailer eased gently over the side of the road and slid slowly off the shoulder and down the bank, escaping disaster.

  But from his safety spot off the road he now watched the horror occurring on the highway a few yards above him, much worse now than anything he had ever seen on the news. A monstrous double trailer hauled by a massive six-wheel semi—the entire rig must have been eighty feet long—moved ponderously down the far side of the road, lost control and jackknifed into the eastbound cars, smashing some of them flat. His mouth agape, he mumbled: ‘Jesus! Just where I’d have been,’ but as a doctor he felt urgently that he should not be a mere spectator down below but up there in the midst of the carnage, helping to save lives.