Requiem for the Bone Man

by R. A. Comunale

  “And that,” Dave said, “was when I knew I wanted to be a doctor.”

  A strange Mutt-and-Jeff relationship had developed between the city boy and the country boy.

  Galen remembered the day they met, two days before medical school classes began. He had just settled into his assigned dorm room and started out for a walk around campus. Like a restless animal, he needed to stake out his territory.

  He had stepped into the hallway and was headed toward the door when he heard the noise of suitcases being dropped. He turned and saw a scarecrow-tall kid, surrounded by luggage, getting ready to use the water fountain. Not a good idea, as he had found out earlier when he had turned the knob and just barely avoided damaging an eye from the powerful flow shooting up to the ceiling.

  “Wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he called out.

  “Who are you?” a soft, nasal Southern accent came back.

  “I’m your guardian angel.”

  He approached the thin kid and held out his hand.

  “I’m Bob Galen, room 103.”

  “David Allen Nash,” came the reply, “and it looks like were gonna be roommates.”

  It had become routine. Whenever they had that rare free day-and-a-half weekend, they would drive to Dave’s farm. The country boy’s clunker of a Volkswagen bug froze their butts in cold weather and cooked them in the heat, but it ate up the miles of highway between Richmond and Lynchburg like a magic carpet.

  It was worth it to get away once in a while from the never-ending grind of pounding large amounts of facts into their heads. They spent their first two years as bookworms, poring over the dense small-print texts in their monastic cinderblock-walled room, so Dave’s VW bug always seemed like a deluxe escape vehicle.

  From the start they had sounded each other out, trying to comprehend the vast differences in their prior lives. They talked hour after hour about life, career goals, girls, family, girls, and girls, especially on the long drives to their country getaway.

  When they arrived at the farm that November afternoon of freshman year, it was a Halloween day. The air was crisp and clean, and the leaves were turning kaleidoscopic from the effects of waning sunlight and dropping temperatures. The yearly cycle of death and resurrection had brought out the underlying russets, scarlets, and yellows hidden behind the now-dead chlorophyll-green cells, all part of nature’s mystical fall magic show.

  Mary, Dave’s mother, was busy in the kitchen fixing piles of homegrown fresh food for “her boys,” now including Galen. Big Dave was whittling a piece of tree limb, occasionally stopping to rub what he called “the rheumatism” from his hands in front of the antique cast-iron wood-burning stove.

  “Ever meet a conjer lady, Bob?”

  Uh-oh, Galen thought. Roommate’s got that glint in his eyes, the one that appears just before he tries to play a joke. Okay, he’d take the bait.

  “What the hell’s a conjer lady?”

  “Come on, we’ve got some time before Mom’s ready with dinner. City Boy, you’re in for a treat! You’re gonna meet Aunt Hattie!”

  Galen felt the tension of the unknown as he and Dave trudged down the dirt road about a mile and came upon a weather-beaten clapboard shack, no bigger than a one-car garage, with an aluminum stovepipe sticking out the side. A small outhouse sat about twenty feet away.

  “Aunt Hattie is the local witch lady, Bob. All the women come to her for potions, herbs, and women’s advice. She’s really nobody’s aunt and she’s been here so long no one even remembers when she came or how old she is. Even Doc Stevens gives her her due. But whatever happens, whatever she says to you don’t treat it as a joke.”

  Dave knocked on the short, time-warped door. The voice from inside was high-pitched but strong.

  “Come in, young David Allen. Bring yer friend in, too.”

  How did she do that? There are no windows on this shack.

  He felt as Hansel and Gretel must have, but this decaying hovel wasn’t made of gingerbread. They stooped down to enter the dark room lit only by a single kerosene lamp sitting on a small, handmade table and light seeping through cracks in the walls. Galen could make out various smells but couldn’t place what they were. He saw sheaves of different plants, tied together, hanging from the low ceiling rafters. Must be the herbs she uses, he thought. Then he heard the raspy breathing and turned.

  The old woman was ebony black. Spikes of white hair radiated from her scalp in a static electricity free-form sculpture. Her skin, drawn tight over swollen arthritic bones, glistened like black marble. Two eyes, catlike, shone above the surrounding room light. Yellow-white piano-key teeth stood at attention. She sat there in a makeshift rocker and seemed to be mumbling softly to herself.

  Is that a corncob pipe on the table? I didn’t think they were real, just something people wrote about in books!

  “How yer folks, young David? Big David and Mary fit?”

  “Yes, Aunt Hattie. This is my friend Bob, from school.”

  She eyed Galen, and he suddenly felt naked and exposed as she motioned him to draw closer to her.

  “Come heah, chile. Let me git a good look at ye.”

  As he approached she took hold of both his hands and stared harder. In the closeness of the small room Galen felt chilled as she spoke, slowly, each word, each sentence a penetrating arrow.

  “I bin waitin’ fer ye, boy … Bone Man be comin’ fer me soon … you ‘n’ him’ll ha’ some mighty fierce fights … you gon’ win some, but you gon’ get bit, too, speshully when you done try ta do gud.”

  She paused a little longer.

  “Thas when it hurt da mos’.”

  Galen pulled his hands away and took an involuntary step backward, as Dave stepped forward.

  “Aunt Hattie, what about me? You told me I would be a doctor when I was just a little boy.”

  He looked at her as she turned toward him, her brow creased in sorrow.

  “Bone Man ha’ plans fer ye … Jes’ remember, not e’en da Bone Man’ll separate ye from yer friend.”

  Another sharp chill climbed up Galen’s spine. He lived in a world of concrete reality and felt annoyed at both himself and the old lady for the irrational fear she had elicited in him. He turned impatiently to his friend.

  “Come on, Dave, it’s getting late. I think your mom will have dinner ready by now.”

  He turned to leave when the wind sighed through the chinks in the ramshackle shanty—and he could swear he heard the woman say to him in a low voice:

  “Yo’ papa, boy. He wan’ ye to fo’give him.”

  The telegram with his name on it was sticking in the door when they arrived back at the dorm that Sunday evening. It was the first of two he would get that year summoning him home to say a final good-bye to each of his parents.

  ...

  Sophomore year was pathology year, and it was also the year when familiarity led to meeting and talking with the distaff side of the class. There were fewer girls than boys, but a number of his classmates were already married or spoken for, so the field had some grazing room.

  Galen and Dave tried to be eclectic in using what spare time they had for dating, but it soon became apparent that Dave was smitten with Connie Matricardi. Connie had arrived from Florida after spending some post- college time teaching elementary school. That was fine with Dave. As he put it, “A good farm boy is always willing to learn, so who better than a teacher?”

  “City Boy, I seen you staring at that Ross girl. What’s the mystery with her?”

  Galen blushed. He didn’t know the answer, but he knew he was fascinated by the girl from upper New York State, with her aquiline nose, lean face framed by auburn hair, and what his roommate—country boy that he was—called a racehorse figure. He wasn’t sure how to approach her, or even if he should try. He thought that, maybe, sitting next to her in the cafeteria would be a good opening gambit. Then it hit him.

  Good lord, I’m acting like a high school kid. Is it that bad?

  Just as Dave had open
ed that acceptance letter for him, he solved this problem when he picked up the food tray that Galen had just loaded up and paid for and walked over to the girl still standing in line. The scarecrow loudly announced that the gentleman sitting over at the table wanted to buy her lunch. Galen was mortified as half the cafeteria turned to look at him. Then Dave, grinning from ear to ear, escorted her to his table.

  “Ah, Bob, I think Connie is waiting for me over there. I’ll just leave the two of you here.”

  He made a fast exit as Galen rose, not knowing whether to go strangle his roommate or pull out a chair for the girl standing there. He chose the latter.

  “I’m sorry about that,” he mumbled, “but I certainly would like you to enjoy that meal.”

  “By any chance, is your name Miles Standish?”

  Her long eyelashes flashed as they reflected the ceiling fluorescent lights. Her smile outshone them.

  They both laughed as he looked at her directly and said, “No, but I know a certain guy role-playing John Alden who’s going to get scalped when we get back to our room later.”

  They stared at each other, both blushing like kids.

  “Bob Galen.”

  “June Ross. Are you the one who keeps breaking the class grading curve?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t pay any attention to that stuff. It’s hard enough to keep stuffing our brains without having to worry about class rank. But I bet you’re no slouch with the grades, either. I’ve heard your presentations and they’re darned good.”

  He hoped that hadn’t come off too corny. He was starting to sound like Dave, his New Jersey accent now softened by the beginnings of a Virginia twang.

  “As are yours.”

  She smiled at him and the lights became even dimmer.

  Strange how things get started. If Dave hadn’t pulled that stunt, he probably never would have gathered enough courage to approach June. And if that hadn’t happened, Dave and he probably never would have moved out of the dorm into their own apartment.

  At the end of sophomore year, the city boy and the country boy moved to a townhouse on Church Hill. It was in a poor, totally black area of the city and was all the two could afford; the money each earned by tutoring freshmen and doing scut work on the wards only went so far. Neither man had wealthy parents to pick up the tab.

  June and Connie also had moved, but their finances were much better, so they had found a nice apartment in one of the old antebellum brownstones in the better section of town called The Fan. Boys being boys, the roommates spent time there as well.

  Then the pair of girls became a trio, and June and Connie’s other roommate, Peggy Dalton, had latched onto someone she kept calling Babyface.

  “He’s the sweetest thing you could evah imagine. He’s a real s’uthern gentleman,” she would repeat over and over in her North Carolina accent.

  They knew immediately who she was talking about. It had to be Bill, Bill Crowley. Stocky, maybe five feet seven on a good day, he really was a gentleman. And, with his rounded visage and hair that tended to either stick straight up or come out in a cowlick, a definite baby face.

  “Hey,” Dave asked one day, “if he’s Baby Face, then what do you call me and City Boy?”

  The three girls giggled, looked at each other, and giggled again.

  “Scarecrow and The Bear!” they shouted in unison.

  June looked at the two guys, who blushed.

  “And what do you gentlemen call us ladies?”

  June arched her perfectly formed eyebrows and other parts of her anatomy at the roommates in catlike grace.

  Galen looked at Dave. The farm boy knew what side of the nest he was on. Turnaround was fair play. They had to take up the defense, even though Bill wasn’t there to join in. And knowing Bill, he probably wouldn’t have said a word anyway.

  Dave looked at Connie.

  “I’ll be darned if you ain’t The Teacher. Sure enough, you are. And you,” he said, looking at Peggy, “well, you gotta be The Southern Belle. Ain’t that so?”

  Galen had been holding back, but he finally looked at June. Without blinking, he said, “And you, dear lady, are The Model.”

  At that, both guys ran behind the couch to escape the onslaught they knew was coming. Except that they weren’t very good at escaping—and they really didn’t want to be.

  ...

  It made life easier that third and all-important year for each to know that he or she had five other friends, with one even more special. Now they wore whites, with the guys in trousers and either long- or short-sleeve shirts depending on the rotation they were in, while the girls nicely filled out their skirts and blouses. It was only on surgical floors that the difference in the sexes became blurred as they all wore the shapeless blue scrub pants and tops, their heads covered in hair-confining caps, their faces concealed by the ever-necessary masks.

  Galen had just begun his first rotation, a six-week stint on general medicine. Here patients from the emergency room who had been determined to need admission for further evaluation and treatment were assigned to the newly minted third-year students.

  “Mr. Galen, you have a patient. Please do the initial workup and be prepared to present the case to Dr. Stottler.”

  The resident tossed him the admissions file, grinned, and walked away.

  Whoa, hey, wait a minute! What the hell do I do now?

  This was not like in the books and pictures. He saw the nurses watching him, so he kept a straight face. He picked up his little black bag, the one that all of the students had received their freshman year and had longed to carry for real.

  He began reading the file.

  Room 506. Patient’s name is Johnny Mangold. What did the ER intern write?

  “Twenty-year-old white male, history of metastatic bone cancer of the jaw, admitted for stabilization. Possible brain involvement now. Probable etiology: chewing snuff.”

  Dear Lord, twenty years old, younger than I am.

  He walked into the semi-private room now occupied by one patient. The lights weren’t bright and it was already 10 p.m.

  Great, I’m supposed to work in the dark.

  He moved to the window-side bed and started the spiel he and his classmates had practiced since day one.

  “Hi, I’m Dr. Galen. May I sit and talk with you? We need to get a bit more information and take a quick look at things before letting you sleep.”

  God, what a damned liar he had become. For one thing, he wasn’t a doctor yet. For another, it would probably take him at least an hour to do the student physical, which required every tiny bit of information and a full-body examination.

  The biggest lie of all was the bit about sleep.

  Yeah, right, with noises, footsteps, and all the other background sounds that made hospitals so restful. Wake up and take this pill so you can sleep. Real restful!

  He sat next to the bed. His patient was no more than a boy, but he was dying. They talked about his condition—the tumor found growing in the bone at the back of his nose and jaw. Galen went through all the memorized questions he had to ask and then said, “Johnny, I need to look at you. Is that okay?”

  The boy smiled and Galen heard something from out in the hallway near the door.

  He looked up to see some of the nurses seeming to stand around a medication cart but peering into the room. They quickly moved away when they saw him looking.

  “Doc, hold on a second, I just need to remove this,” Johnny said.

  While Galen watched, the boy reached up to his face. Galen heard the snick-snick of latches as the boy removed the entire left side of his face and skull. It was a prosthetic, a synthetic replacement covering the surgically removed cancerous bone and tissue cut away in an attempt to save Johnny Mangold’s life.

  He stared at the boy, now half-human, half-skeleton.

  “That’s a very nice piece of prosthetic work, Johnny.”

  He couldn’t think of anything else to say. He picked up his light and began to examine the boy.
Exposed blood vessels pulsated in time with his heartbeats. From the corner of his eye, Galen saw the nurses furtively watching him again.

  Now he understood.

  Okay, ladies, did I pass your test?

  He finished, thanked his patient for the time spent and began to put his equipment back in his bag. But something wasn’t right. In the shadow-filled room he sensed a palpable darkness hanging over the boy’s bed.

  It was 3 a.m. by the time he had written up the extensive paperwork he had been warned Dr. Stottler would expect. He had heard through the grapevine that Stottler was a tough taskmaster. He dozed sitting up, his head propped on his medical textbook. Next thing he knew, his managing intern was shaking him awake.

  “Come on, that kid in 506 is going sour!”

  He awoke with a start. He had just been talking with Johnny.

  They ran down the corridor. The nurses had lined up the crash carts filled with medications to use in an emergency. The resident was already there, pounding on the boy’s chest as the floor nurse attempted to increase oxygen flow through a nasal cannula in the remnant of the boy’s face. Student and intern stood by, watching the final struggle.

  The resident, two years post graduation, stopped, looked at the nurse, and shook his head.

  “Time of death: oh-four-thirty,” he called out, and the nurse recorded it on the chart.

  CHAPTER 6

  Bittersweet

  “Annie, who do we have to baby-sit tonight?”

  The emergency room floor nurse picked up the assignment sheet, which listed the fourth-year medical students rotating on ER service. She handed it to the nursing supervisor, who quickly scanned the names under the day’s date.

  “We got Baby Face and The Bear. Should be okay.”

  “Yeah, compassion and competence, a good pairing.”

  “Hi, I’m Bill Crowley.”

  He held his hand out to the heavyset character leaning against the wall. The room was crowded with all his future classmates trying to introduce themselves to one another. This one was different.