Requiem for the Bone Man

by R. A. Comunale

  “Okay, Dave, I know about jellyfish nematocysts that sting and release poisons and that stuff. Cut to the chase!”

  “Still the impatient one, O Bear Who Talks. In any event, I stop her from triggering more poison release and tell the boys to fill their sand buckets with hot water from the rinse-off tap. We pour the hot water to inactivate the poison, then I used some of the vinegar I carry in the emergency kit to neutralize the toxin even more. You do know the stuff is heat labile, right?”

  “Right, so you’re the greatest healer in the world.”

  “Glad you admit it, City Boy! It’s kinda funny. The guy couldn’t stop thanking me. His poor wife was standing there just shaking her head at him. He looked like a scared, cross-eyed rabbit holding its paw out. All he could keep saying was that he would never retire down here. Kept muttering about hurricanes and now jellyfish. Come to think of it, I think their car had a New Jersey license plate. Had a familiar name, too, but I can’t remember it right now.”

  “Hey, slackers, time to get to work!”

  Bill had entered the room and walked over to Galen, arms extended to hug his old friend. Babyface had yielded somewhat to a beard and his scalp hair was a defeated army against the onslaught of male hormones. But he was still the same Bill, open and extending himself. Galen looked at his old friend and saw that he was at peace. He truly had found a double calling in his work.

  “Come on, guys, let me show you how I’ve set things up. Peggy, can we get one of the helpers to look after the kids?”

  Three adults left the room to enter the clinic side while Peggy took hold of the two boys and took them to the housekeeper. Tommy kept nudging Andy, teasing the younger boy until Andy whacked him and he yelled, “Just for that I won’t tell you what the man’s name was.”

  Andy sniffled.

  “I know who the man is. We learned about him in school. He invented the light bulb. That was Mr. Edison.”

  “You have quite a setup here, Bill. How can you afford to run it? You must have, what, ten, twelve exam rooms, an operatory, even X-ray. How can you afford to do this?”

  Galen was impressed by the scope of his friend’s setup, but he also knew Bill and Peggy weren’t getting rich here. This was all pro bono, as the lawyers would say.

  “I managed to get some state and federal grants. At first neither wanted to have anything to do with me until they realized no one else would handle these people, and if I stopped it would cost them ten times more. Peggy and I don’t need much and we saved every penny when we first started. We were also not lucky enough to have kids, so …,” and he paused, “so here we are!”

  Loud, unmuffled car and truck engines caused the three to turn and look out the windows.

  “The local farmers are bringing in our first load of patients. There’re some extra lab coats in the closet there. Peggy and I can show you where to find anything you need. A Team, start your engines!”

  They worked steadily through the late morning, vaccinating crying children and babies, their ochre-brown skins glistening from the tears. Then they cared for the adults, the pregnant young wives who had received no prenatal care until today and the macho men with their gaping wounds from farm accidents and internecine knife fights.

  They saw malnutrition, parasites, and fear, but none of the wealthy suburban high-fat degenerative diseases of heart and bone. Heart attacks and arthritis were the least of these folks’ worries.

  The five worked the assembly line just like in the old days, until 6 p.m. No breaks, no stopping except for the bathroom as their energy reverberated throughout the clinic. But even the best intentions cannot sustain the flagging energies that affect the middle-aged. By seven o’clock they had dealt with the last stragglers and the very-weary-but-still-animated friends sat around the table in the main examining room comparing notes.

  “I don’t think we need to go jogging tonight, Bill, do you?” Peggy asked.

  The other four laughed and Dave added, “Tell me again, when did I enlist in the Marines?”

  “Is it like this every day, Bill?” Galen asked.

  “No, guys, today was busy because of the migrant workers. We have quiet spells, too.”

  “Outside of stuff like this, do you have any other big problems with the practice? Down where we live in Florida, sometimes, the gangs try to hold up small businesses.”

  Dave was getting that wistful look, Galen noted.

  I’ll bet he’s thinking he’d like to stay on here. Come to think of it, I probably would, too.

  Bill shrugged.

  “We haven’t had any break-ins or gangs yet, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time until civilization reaches us. We’re not that far off the main highway, so anyone can come by.”

  Almost on cue, they heard heavy engine noise pull into the lot. Bill peered out.

  “I don’t recognize that car. Must be strangers. I’ll go see what’s up. You folks just rest. We’ve got another busy day tomorrow.”

  “On Sunday?” Connie asked.

  Peggy told her about the Sunday services Bill convened for the migrants, before opening the clinic for abbreviated hours.

  Then the four heard loud noises coming from the entrance. The next thing they saw was Bill being frog-walked into the exam area, a knife held at his throat by a stocky Amerasian-looking man while his companion, a taller African American, .38 in hand, followed.

  “Wallets and jewelry, now! Where’s the drug cabinet? Hurry up or he’s dog food!”

  Galen knew that look: flat, dull eyed, very dangerous. The made men in his old neighborhood showed similar looks, but these two were more animated. They were druggies, probable stone killers if crossed. They weren’t going to take and leave without having some fun. He looked at the black man, calculating odds, weighing some of the old maneuvers from when he was a kid.

  Let’s try the insult route. Maybe rile the gun-holder into a rash action.

  If he was right, he might just pull them all out of trouble. But if he was wrong, Bill would die.

  “Su Madre!”

  He half shouted it out, and time seemed to stand still. Everyone looked at him, the women horrified, the men almost questioning, and then the two men faced him.

  “What did you say, Honkie?”

  He moved closer to Galen but kept the gun close to his chest.

  Still no leverage.

  If he remembered both his later training and his growing-up lessons, he had to get the aggressor both angry and distracted.

  “Su Madre.”

  Even with the walnut skin coloring, Galen could see the flush rising in his adversary’s face as he drew closer.

  “Go ahead, Honkie, say that one more time!”

  “Su Madre,” he repeated, almost snarling.

  That was enough. The man reflexively brought his arm forward aiming the gun at Galen’s head. But Galen was prepared. Using the extended arm as a lever, his own arms shot out, twisting then bending back the other man’s gun hand. The revolver discharged, sending a bullet into the floor and at the same time distracting the knife-holder, who relaxed his arm momentarily.

  Dave pushed Bill aside and grabbed the knife-wielder’s arm, also bringing it backward, but the Asian-looking man was slippery as an eel and managed to stab Dave along his left shoulder. Blood appeared on his shirt but he continued twisting the man’s arm until he heard an audible snap, followed by a loud scream as the assailant fell to the floor.

  Galen twisted harder on the other felon and a second shot rang out. The two men stood there, locked in combat until the dark man slid to the floor, blood pouring from his chest.

  “Back to your roots, eh, City Boy?” Dave gasped then started to fall forward. Galen caught his friend, held him up and carried him to the nearest examining table.

  Dear God, no, not Dave! If you really exist, don’t take him now. No more losses, please!

  He tried to stay calm and professional. He knew his friends were in a state of shock.

  “Peggy, call the
police! Connie, you and Bill get me a wound suture set. I’ve gotta put Scarecrow back together.”

  Bill was bending over the bullet-wounded attacker. No breathing, sphincters loosened, the man was dead. Then he examined the other attacker still writhing on the floor from the rotational fracture. This thug would live. He knelt back down over the dead man, gently closed the man’s eyes then prayed for forgiveness for his soul.

  Galen had cut off Dave’s shirt to examine the wound.

  Soft tissue penetration only. No retained debris.

  “Dave, I’m going to numb this up with lidocaine and irrigate it then we’ll close you up good as new.”

  His friend’s vital signs looked good. The fainting was just from the shock of being wounded. As the local anesthetic took hold, Galen examined the wound, decided on layered closure, irrigated it with saline then began the patchwork of closing it. Connie stood by on Dave’s right side, holding his hand.

  Galen suddenly felt the silence, his peripheral vision catching the side stares and eye contacts among his friends. He knew immediately what was wrong and why he now stood alone in the crowded room.

  “Hey, Dave, did I ever tell you about the first person I ever sewed up?”

  “At least ten times, Bob. Just get it over with so I can get up and punch your lights out for scaring us half to death.”

  “What, you didn’t like my movie-hero role?”

  Yeah, they’re reacting the same way Trish did.

  Connie shook her head and spoke up.

  “You took an awful chance, Bob.”

  “She’s right,” Bill added as Peggy walked back in, heard what was being said then agreed with the others.

  They really don’t understand. They’ve never had to fight for their lives or watch their friends get killed. I can’t blame them, but damn it hurts when my closest friends look at me like I’m some wild berserker.

  “Listen, guys, I grew up with people like this. I know what they do, how they behave. They wouldn’t have left here with just money and drugs. They would have laughed as they killed Bill, you, and me, then raped and killed the women. They probably would have killed the kids and housekeeper as well.”

  He paused to finish working on Dave.

  “There, that closes you up. Want me to work on the mouth next?”

  His friends stared at him, not sure whether they should accept his assessment of the situation or not. Medical professionals and hospital veterans all, but none of them had ever been confronted by anything like this and they just didn’t know what to do or say. They also had never seen Galen when he was truly angry. There is a natural guilt feeling among those who have never taken a life, even in self-defense. The limbic beast protects and shames all too well.

  Loud knocking at the door broke the silence. Bill went to open it, coming back with two highway patrol officers.

  “What happened, Doc?” the older one asked as the younger officer knelt down to look at the dead and injured assailants. Bill started to explain when the young officer let out an exclamation.

  “Jesus, Sarge! These are the Interstate Killers!”

  Galen looked at his suddenly wide-eyed friends then quietly asked, “What do you mean, Corporal?”

  The older officer cut in.

  “These two have been going up and down the interstate, finding small businesses open late. Their usual M.O. is either to break in if the place is unoccupied or, if the owner’s unlucky enough to be there, rob, torture, and kill him and whoever else is there. You folks are lucky they fouled up.”

  The Sergeant looked at them, silently counting out five people, then shaking his head. “If those two had succeeded, this would have been a massacre.”

  “Corporal, forgive me for asking,” Bill interjected, “but how can you be so sure these are the two men you say they are?”

  “Doc, one of the places they entered had a security camera. To my dying day, I will never forget the spattering of blood and the vicious raping that camera recorded.”

  An ambulance under police escort had carted away the wounded assailant, and the coroner’s truck picked up the dead man. Quiet descended once again on the clinic. Galen had taken off his bloodstained lab coat and was walking outside in the parking lot, looking up at the quarter moon. He felt someone’s hand fall on his shoulder and turned to see Dave, left arm in sling, standing next to him. Bill, Peggy, and Connie were just behind him. He looked at his friend and old roommate. What could he say? Then Dave said it for the four of them.

  “Hey, Bob, those were some mighty fierce-looking bulls you took out.”

  The other three had heard the story many times before about his visit to Dave’s home, but there was now something tender in the way Dave said it.

  Galen looked at his four classmates, hesitated for just a second, and then in his best imitation of Dave’s father’s voice, yelled out, “Sheeeeit, Boy! Bulls ain’t got teats!”

  Sunday passed quickly. The neighbors had heard by the grapevine and the migrant workers crowded into Bill’s Sunday services in unheard of numbers, just to be sure that Padre Bill and his friends were all right. The five worked the clinic to mid-afternoon then rested before splitting up to return home.

  “I wish you three could stay on. We’d have one hell of an operation here,” Bill said.

  “Did I just hear you cuss, Baby Face?”

  Dave and Connie had rounded up the two boys and were standing next to their car.

  “Hey, City Boy—or maybe it should be City Bear—did you just teach Bill some of your New Jersey words and manners?”

  Galen shook his head and laughed.

  “No, Dave, I think Bill just grew up a little.”

  He looked at his friend’s shoulder one last time.

  “Be sure you find a good doc back in Florida to follow up on that. Connie, do you accept perverse wounded farm boys as patients?”

  “What do you think I’ve been doing since school?”

  “Teacher has taught me more than you know, Bob,” Dave replied with a wink and then a wince as Connie hit him on the right shoulder.

  “Peggy, keep an eye on Bill. I’m afraid that Dave and I have warped him permanently now,” Galen added as he climbed into the Jeep.

  He headed out first, watching his friends in the rear view mirror as he headed back north. Must be a trick of the light, he thought, as he saw the shadow over Dave’s head.

  “Bob, this is perfect!”

  Nancy gazed down from the top of the mountain, the half-completed house sitting there like a giant rook.

  “We can do it,” he agreed, and put his arm around her.

  They stood there looking at their future and both of them felt that mixture of trepidation, relief, and completion. They were about to begin a new and exciting phase in their lives.

  CHAPTER 11

  Slippery Slope

  One morning he opened his morning paper and did something he swore he would never do: He turned to the obituary page.

  Half jokingly, he sometimes told his patients that every morning he scanned the names in the obituaries and, if his wasn’t there, he would proceed as usual with the day.

  Some of his patients joked back that even if he did discover his name there, he still probably would come upstairs and go about his usual duties. Now, looking through the obituaries, Galen began to wonder if that might not be true.

  The great philosophers have written volumes about youth and old age, and modern-day analysts meander over the middle. But there is a fourth niche, one of resignation and loss. It begins inserting its ugly head into that narrow notch of birthdays between the middle and the end. Some call it late middle age. Others cautiously label it “perigeriatric,” as if dancing around it in a tarantella of denial will forestall its onset. It is the time when children are grown, careers are winding down, retirement is truly imminent, and the genetic scythe starts thinning the human wheat field.

  Friends, acquaintances, neighbors, family members become sick and die. That, by itself, is th
e human condition. Until the genetic images can prevent the progressive shortening of the telomeres, which leads to cell death, and at the same time block the terrible cell immortality of cancer, those inevitable entropies will claim us all.

  Earlier that morning, Galen had stared at a street scene before him when the disruption of dawn had not yet broken the stillness of night. He already had begun his morning walk in a decidedly somber and contemplative mood, thinking about colleagues dying of sudden heart attacks or piecemeal from cancer, and of patients getting older and showing the wear of time. Was this happening to him, would it happen to him? He mentally shrugged. Of course it would. It probably already had. He wasn’t from Krypton.

  And then he saw her, the woman dancing on the sidewalk. She was elderly, doll-like, and ninety percent undressed. He watched her pirouette, extend her arms and bow gracefully in different directions, a grotesque ballet macabre. He continued to stare until he realized that he knew the woman. It was Lucille, Lucille Desmond.

  “Dr. Galen, my friends recommended me to you. Will you accept me as a patient?”

  The dignified woman sat in his examining room in a tailored dark dress suit, expensively cut, and with refined manners. She was a retired university dean, holder of several doctoral degrees in education and the arts. Now she had retired and moved into a townhouse just across the street from his office to be near “her family.” She was, she said, perfectly healthy, went to the local athletic center daily, read at least one new book per day, and could converse at length on just about any subject. To Galen’s eye, this was what growing older should be.