In Stitches

by Anthony Youn

  “My eyes have been closed,” Amy says. “I’m curious. How much did this set you back?”

  “That’s the amazing part. Forty bucks, including tax.”

  “Amazing, all right. I think you got ripped off.”

  “It can’t be as bad inside. Let’s try it.”

  “You go,” Amy says. “I might bump into people I know.”

  I stare at her.

  “I’m kidding.”

  “I knew that. I think. I’m going in.” I peer around for potential murderers, see no one suspicious, ease out of the car, and run to the front door. “Cover me,” I call back.

  Five minutes later, room key in hand, the Ford Tempo stashed in a leaky carport a floor below our room, we push open the door to our Jacuzzi suite. We step a foot into the room and nearly ram into a filthy oversize bathtub slathered on all sides with a brown residue resembling chocolate pudding. A flickering floor lamp with a family of buzzing flies trapped inside the lamp shade teeters next to it. The stench of dirty gym clothes wafts from the bedsheets.

  “Aren’t you going to carry me over the threshold?” Amy says.

  “You’re so romantic.”

  “Actually, my feet are sticking to the floor. Not sure what the sticky stuff is, but I’m not walking in it.”

  I swoop her off her feet and cradle her in my arms. I take a step and pretend to drop her. She squeals, laughs.

  “Amy,” I say.

  “Yes, Romeo?”

  “I love you.”

  She yanks her head back and looks at me dead-on. For a moment I think she is going to leap out of my arms and sprint out of this room, out of my life.

  “I know,” she says. “And I love you.”

  In that moment everything changes, and settles, and soars, and shakes us up. But a weight lifts off my heart.

  We kiss. Lips locked, eyes closed, we lurch in the direction of the bed. I know we’re getting close because the sour smell that I usually associate with an open PE hamper hits us right between the eyes.

  “Put it in reverse, big boy,” Amy says, her eyes still closed. “Now slowly, back up to the door, put me down outside, and let’s get the hell out of here.”

  15

  Shrink Rap

  Clinical rotation four.

  Psychiatry.

  I fear this rotation. The thought of sitting in an office from nine to five every day, listening to people drone on about their awful parents, inconsiderate children, intolerable husbands, bitchy wives, and boring jobs fills me with terror, the terror that as they reveal their innermost secrets and kinky fantasies, I will fall dead asleep.

  “Happens all the time,” Shelly the gunner warns me. “You gotta watch yourself. Some poor schmuck’s whining about how much his life sucks and you nod off? You will be marked down.”

  “Tim says shrinks call those people the worried well.”

  “I call them cash cows. Whatever. Anyway, if you can stay awake, psychiatry is the cushiest rotation. Sign up early tomorrow, try to get Lindstrom, my guy. The best. We both fell asleep. So embarrassing. He snores.”

  I wake up the next morning with a record-breaking dose of diarrhea. I spend the entire day in a fetal position on the floor of our phone-booth-size bathroom on Flower Street. Note to self. Never eat another bean burrito from a vending machine.

  The next day, recovered, I arrive in administration eager to receive my psychiatry rotation assignment and prepare for two months of rest, if not sleep. To my horror, I have been matched with Dr. Levine, the only shrink left, a psychiatrist in private practice with whom I’ll be covering the maximum-security prison in Ionia.

  This can’t be right. What happened to listening to the worried well and their boring problems? What happened to cushy? I have to get out of this. I try to get people to switch with me. I find no takers. For some reason they seem put off by the words maximum-security prison. I’m stuck. I resign myself. I will be traveling with Dr. Levine to administer antidepressants and provide therapy to hard-core prisoners, the worst of the worst—murderers, rapists, child molesters, and money managers.

  “Word of advice,” Tim says. “Do not fall asleep.”

  He smiles smugly.

  DAY ONE.

  I drop my car off at Dr. Levine’s condo, and we drive in his car to Ionia maximum-security prison, known as I-Max, thirty miles away. Dr. Levine is a runner, short, trim, and jittery, with a manicured orange Afro and a face flecked with freckles, a cross between Alfred E. Neuman and Carrot Top. But Dr. Levine is anything but a cartoon character or raving comedian. He wears thick horn-rims and speaks quietly and kindly and without a trace of humor.

  On the drive up, he tries to put me at ease. “Basically, I listen, say very little, write medications. That’s about it.”

  “Doesn’t sound bad.”

  “It’s not, really. I ask how the prisoners are feeling, if they’re hearing any voices—”

  “Wait. If they’re hearing voices?”

  “Yeah. Pretty common. Among murderers, especially.”

  “Uh-huh. I’m just going to be a fly on the wall.”

  “I would. Oh, and avoid looking the murderers in the eye.”

  We drive the rest of the way in silence. I look out the window and flash on a picture of Shelly and Dr. Lindstrom snoring away in their leather chairs while a member of the worried well whines about her difficult mother. And I have to worry about an ax murderer hearing voices?

  How is this fair?

  FROM A DISTANCE, you might mistake the cluster of nondescript buildings for a military barracks or boarding school. Closer in, you notice the fence that surrounds the buildings, and as you get closer still, you see not only the added mesh of barbed wire that sits on top of the fence but the mesh on top of that, consisting of rows and rows of ferocious, glittering razor blades. In my imagination, fueled by years and years of comic-book reading, I-Max looks like a lumbering, sleeping beast with a mane of gunmetal hair.

  Once Dr. Levine announces our names into a call box, the first of what will be three gates clanks open. We drive to gate number two, manned by guards who inspect the car and wave us through to yet another gate, where more guards inspect the car again, even more thoroughly. One slides under the car, holding a taut vibrating wire attached to a small box. I hear him grunting and scraping at the belly of Dr. Levine’s dusty Camry. Eventually, he slides out and, from his back, waggles a thumbs-up.

  Admitted onto the prison grounds, we pass through several more checkpoints, this time on foot, where we empty our pockets and various guards, male and female, search us, pat us down, feel us up, and electric-baton us. Each checkpoint requires us to show two forms of ID and our medical credentials. At last, searched, scoured, and plucked clean, we walk into an open area somewhere in the center of I-Max, where I feel watched, as if I’m prey.

  We head to the medical center, walking across a prison yard where ten inmates play basketball, others lift weights, some play chess, and one lone orange-suited inmate with scraggly blond hair strums a guitar. If I hadn’t gone through eight checkpoints, been identified and searched, and seen the razor wire on the fence that surrounds us, I might think I had wandered into an urban park in any city in the United States. The idea that these basketball players, weight lifters, chess players, and guitarist have all committed heinous crimes beyond my imagination and yet are allowed this seemingly carefree time for relaxation, even fun, unnerves me. Their victims will never again play hoops, pump iron, play chess, or hear music. I have no answer and offer no moral judgment. It simply feels unsettling and out of whack.

  We spend the bulk of the day in the medical center—a metal table and chair facing two more metal chairs, where Dr. Levine and I sit and talk to inmates. The day passes slowly. The inmates speak softly, sullenly. Most are heavily medicated, their conversations detached. Late in the afternoon, the nurse on duty leads in a slight, frail-looking guy, no more than five-six and 135 pounds. He wears leather restraints on his wrists and steps deliberately and lightly
, almost on tiptoe. He twitches and smiles sadly, revealing a smattering of small yellow teeth and wide gaps in his mouth. His thinning hair lies like strings of hay across the top of his head. His forehead is long and goes on forever and is lined with what look like tread marks. He keeps his red face puckered tight, like a weasel’s. He sits down at the desk across from me and Dr. Levine. Dr. Levine flips through his chart.

  “So, Raymond, how you doing?”

  Raymond shrugs, twitches. “Doing fine,” he says. “Really well.”

  “Good,” Dr. Levine says. “And the meds?”

  “Fine.” Raymond twitches again. He pulls his leather-shackled wrists up above the table so he can scratch his nose. “Yeah, working fine since you changed them. I’m not hearing any voices.”

  “That’s good,” Dr. Levine says.

  “Yeah,” Raymond says. “It is.”

  Twitch . . . twitch . . . twitch.

  “Is there anything you want to talk about?” Dr. Levine says. “Anything on your mind?”

  Raymond looks at me for the first time. His face goes dark, almost as if a cloud passes over him. His eyes flutter, then open wide. He keeps looking at me, unblinking.

  “So, anything you want to discuss?” Dr. Levine asks.

  A calm descends over Raymond like a window shade dropping. He pinches his eyes and looks at me, harder. He stares. I squirm. Look away. When I look back, he’s still staring.

  What do I do? Where do I look? Don’t stare at him. Do I pretend to look up something in my notes? Do I flip through his chart and pretend I’m reading? Look away.

  He keeps staring.

  “Raymond?” Dr. Levine says.

  He keeps staring.

  “Raymond, what’s going on?”

  He keeps staring.

  “How are you feeling? Talk to me.”

  He keeps staring.

  “It’s okay, Raymond, you can tell me. What’s on your mind? What’s going on? What are you feeling right now?”

  A beat.

  Raymond lunges at me, leaping over the table.

  “I’M COMING HOME WITH YOU, PRETTY BOY!” he screams.

  I shoot out of my chair. “GAAAAA!” I shout, slamming myself back against the wall.

  “I’M COMING HOME WITH YOU!”

  I see then that his legs are chained to the table and the leather restraints hold back his hands so he can’t get close to me. The door flies open, two guards grab Raymond on either side, unchain his legs, lift him off his feet, and carry him out of the room. My entire body, flat against the wall, quivers. My throat is caked shut.

  “How did you—?” I croak to Dr. Levine.

  “Panic button. Under the table. You okay?”

  After a moment I feel the blood return to my face, the quivering stops, and I nod. I stagger away from the wall and sit down.

  “You want some water?”

  “That would be great. Dr. Levine?”

  “Yeah, Tony?”

  “This is my first day in this rotation, and I’m just a medical student, but I’m not sure the new meds are working.”

  For the first time—and only time—in our two-month rotation, Dr. Levine smiles.

  Then the door flies open and Raymond, eyes aflame, stands in the doorway. He punches his shackled hands at me.

  “I’LL BE WAITING FOR YOU IN THE CAR, CHINA MAN!” Twitch. Twitch. Twitch.

  16

  This Is Spinal Tap

  Third year. Clinical rotation five.

  My last one.

  Pediatrics.

  The rotation that changes my life.

  My attending physician, Dr. Jay Pyle, wears his silver hair long, either flowing down to his shoulders or knotted into a ponytail. His face, lean and red from a lifetime of too much sun and red wine, is cut with kindness and laugh lines. His nose, sharp and strong, veers crookedly to the left, the result of blocking a punt in high school with his face. He played cornerback and ran back kickoffs and made All-City. When he smiles, which is often, he squints and his pale blue eyes twinkle. He was raised in Manhattan, and his accent comes at you hard, with a touch of a patrician lilt; he was a kid of both the Harlem playgrounds, where he played street ball, and the halls of Dalton and the brownstones of the Upper East Side.

  We hit it off the first day.

  “You’re good with your hands,” he says, a smile panning from cheek to cheek. “The word’s out.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, yeah. I may have to take advantage of you. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do? Take advantage of my third-years?”

  “Absolutely. I’m here to serve.”

  He grins again. “I’m liking this. All right. Let’s begin a little rounding. Watch out for room 223. Baby with strep. FLK.”

  “FLK?”

  “Take a shot. You won’t offend.”

  I picture the letters. “Wild guess. Funny-looking kid?”

  Dr. Jay Pyle steps back. “Tony Youn, you have a future in medicine.”

  He slings an arm over my shoulder.

  THREE WEEKS IN.

  One morning I arrive a half hour before rounds. As I sign in, the charge nurse tells me that Dr. Pyle is already in with a patient on the ward.

  “You should get down there,” she says. “There’s going to be a spinal tap. Something to see.”

  I enter the room and find Dr. Pyle sitting with a young, frightened couple. The dad holds the mom’s hands. They are nodding numbly. Their faces have gone the color of chalk.

  “We have to take a sample of the spinal fluid,” Dr. Pyle says. “It’s the only way to test for meningitis.”

  The parents look up as I step farther into the room. I half-smile, wave. The parents sit up straighter, wave back.

  “There he is,” Dr. Pyle says. “So I want to explain what he’s going to do. I want you to know exactly what to expect. No surprises.” More nodding. These poor people look as white as mimes. “He’s going to stick a four-inch-long needle into your baby’s back, right between the bones of the spine, and he’s gonna draw out a small sample of spinal fluid. We send it right down to the lab, they do a culture, and we’ll find out what’s going on.”

  Wait a minute.

  Did Dr. Pyle just say he?

  He’s going to stick a four-inch needle into your baby’s spine?

  He as in . . . me?

  “How you feeling, Tony?”

  “Good. Great. I feel great.”

  I think I’m going to be sick.

  I feel warm and my head is spinning.

  I’m actually doing this?

  My first medical procedure ever is going to be a spinal tap on a four-month-old?

  What doctor in the world would trust a third-year medical student to perform a spinal tap? Dr. Pyle has to be nuts. If I were a doctor—when I’m a doctor—would I ever let a medical student do this? Hell, no.

  “Tony is unbelievable,” Dr. Pyle says. “He’s gifted. You’re in great hands. I’d trust him with my own kid.”

  My emotions begin to swirl, switching back and forth. Simultaneously, I’m—

  Nervous as hell. Immensely proud. Nervous as hell. Incredibly excited. Nervous as hell. Unspeakably thrilled. Nervous as hell. Amazingly pumped. And—

  NERVOUS AS HELL.

  “Let’s scrub up and do this. It’s all you, Tone.”

  Dr. Pyle puts a charge of confidence in me that I have not felt from anyone. It fills me up, seeps into me, pushes under my skin.

  I’m still a wreck.

  I have no time to picture the procedure in my head, to see myself inserting the needle, drawing out the fluid. I have no time to prepare.

  Okay, what’s the worst that can happen?

  I can miss, puncture a blood vessel or hit a vertebra, causing permanent paralysis—

  This is not helping.

  I feel light-headed. Dizzy. Nauseated. Like I’m going to faint. Yep. I’m going to pass out. The medical student doing the spinal tap is going to fall, boink, right onto the floor. Perfect.
Dr. Pyle is going to look like a total and complete jerk. And I will end up failing out and sharing a shrink practice with Tim.

  Tony, get ahold of yourself. You can do this. This is your moment.

  I look at Dr. Pyle.

  He grins. I want to say to him, “Seriously? You trust me to do this?”, but the look on his face tells me everything. He has no doubt. I think about Frank Fremont and how I convinced him to have the surgery that saved his life, and I think about suturing up the episiotomy and practicing for months before that with a pig’s foot, and I know I’m ready. I know I can perform this spinal tap, that I can perform it well, and that I will perform many more procedures in my lifetime; this is merely the first. I no longer feel flush and unsteady, and nervous as hell leaves, replaced by a sort of adrenaline-pumping nervousness bordering right on the edge of something I might actually call . . . a rush.

  Dr. Pyle holds the baby. He lays his tiny body down in perfect position, and I insert the needle into his back and pull it out, and the fluid we see is clear, and the baby is crying, but I’m grinning and Dr. Pyle shrugs proudly, as if he had no worries, none, ever, and all I feel is total and complete exhilaration. I want to shout in triumph, but I see the terrified looks on these young parents’ faces, kids really, only slightly older than me, people who might someday be me, and maybe Amy, too, and all I hope for is that the culture comes back clean and shows no meningitis and that their baby will be all right.

  And when the result does come back negative, I feel for one fleeting moment as if I’m on the team, as if I belong.

  AS SOON AS my shift is over, I call Amy and tell her about my surprise spinal tap and the rush I felt. She whoops into the phone, then after we talk for a while, she goes silent and I can tell she’s crying. I want to celebrate with her, but I know she has a brutal PBL domain exam on Monday and an inhumane amount of material to digest before then. Been there. With a day off, I decide to fire up the old Ford Tempo, hit the road to Greenville, and spend some quality time at home with the ’rents.

  The truth is that while I’m flying high at this moment, overall, I feel lost. I’m in the middle of my fifth and final clinical rotation and I have no idea what kind of doctor I want to be. Our school designs the rotations to allow us to sample the possibilities, to set us on a path so that in fourth year, we can “choose our own adventure.” But I’m more confused now than ever.