“Okay, tell me about the nice ladies.”
Antonio moved next to him, still clutching the stuffed toy and stroking it.
“There were two nice ladies. They were as tall as Tia Nancy. And they had the most beautiful colors in their eyes, Tio, like my purple crayons.”
“That’s very good, Tonio. You are a very observant boy. What did the two ladies do? Did they say anything to you?”
Galen reached over absent-mindedly and also started to stroke the sad-faced stuffed toy beagle dog. How many times had he sat holding it, doing the same thing?
“I don’t understand, Tio. The nice ladies didn’t talk to me. I mean, I didn’t see their lips move. But I could hear them—and the tall man. He was nice, too.”
Galen felt himself start to shake, but he tried to stay calm.
“What did the nice man look like, Tonio?”
“He had hair under his nose and he wore white clothes, like the pictures in the doctor book you gave me. He took my hand and told me to tell you that Country Boy was watching. What’s a country boy, Tio?”
The bear-sized man suddenly felt small and weak.
“Then the two ladies and the tall man told me to tell you to follow your heart. What does that mean, Tio?”
Galen just shook his head silently.
“Can I play with the doggy? Can I take him to bed with me, please? The two ladies and the man, who are they? Do they live here, too? I didn’t see them leave but then they were gone.”
Galen snapped himself out of his paralysis.
“It’s okay, little one. Do you want me to take you back to your brother and sister? Do you want to go back to your bed?”
“Can I stay here, Tio?”
“Yes, you can. Just let me get up so I can tuck you in.”
Galen slowly rose from the bed and the child curled himself up with the toy dog on the pillow as the old man pulled up the blankets to cover him. Antonio soon fell back to sleep, but Galen sat at his bedroom desk fighting for control of his emotions—and maybe his sanity.
After a while, he stood up and walked through the office area of his home. How many people, how many lives had he watched walk through those doors? The babies that turned into children and then adults and having children of their own, and the old, the ones he had watched deteriorate over time, going from active to inevitable decline.
Funny he should recall, just now, that first patient on the very first day he opened his office, the woman in her late sixties who had come to the door without an appointment.
...
She saw he was new to the neighborhood. She didn’t have a doctor and wondered if he could give her a quick checkup.
He wasn’t exactly busy. Actually he wasn’t doing anything, so he welcomed her himself because his newly hired secretary had not yet shown up.
He took the clipboard and began to ask for her name, address, all of the pertinent information for new patients. When he got to occupation, he had expected “retired,” but suddenly she began to laugh.
“I’m a white witch.”
He looked at her more carefully. She didn’t seem deranged. Well dressed in a mixed floral pattern with brown pumps and matching shoulder purse, her face remained unlined, even as it creased into a smile that highlighted the mixed silver-gold of formerly all-blond hair. Her blue, highly intelligent eyes framed what must have been an attractive pug nose when she was younger.
“That’s very interesting. What’s a white witch?”
“Young doctor, you don’t believe me, do you? You’ll see.”
As he started the exam, he very carefully covered each body system until he had reached the point where he normally would do a heart recording.
“You won’t be able to do that on me,” she smiled.
He hooked her up carefully to the EKG machine, turned it on and got … gibberish!
“Okay, now try it,” she said, and suddenly the machine’s printing arm moved normally, like a conductor’s baton, tracing out the electrical music of her heart.
She came back two days later to go over her test results. After they concluded and he had told her how healthy she was, she looked at him.
“Dr. Galen, let me give you a gift. Think of it as an office-warming gift.”
Carefully she set a dried floral arrangement on his desk.
“Keep it as long as you wish to continue working. When you are ready to quit, whether in retirement or a change of careers, and only then, burn it. Never throw it in the trash.”
...
He stared at the door, remembering her and the countless thousands of those who had passed through its portals. He walked into the living room/waiting room and opened the fireplace damper. Then he stood on a straight-backed chair to reach the high shelf and took down the small wicker basket with its badly aging dried flowers. Reverently he placed the basket on the log holder and lit a match. He suddenly yelped when a large flame jumped out at him, burning his flesh.
Galen sat up quickly as morning sunlight streamed through his bedroom window. He looked around then sighed as he got out of bed in the empty room.
Nancy had found pots and pans, long unused, in Galen’s kitchen, and she whipped up what for that house was an unusually great breakfast.
Then the kids played outside in the yard as the three adults did the dishes and packed the minivan for the day’s trip back to Pennsylvania.
Six hours later they pulled off the Pennsylvania highway onto a stretch of road that wound up the side of a mountain just outside of Scranton.
The wheels crunched on the gravel turnaround in front of the rustic ranch-style mountaintop house that Nancy and Edison had called home since their retirement.
Federico and Carmelita followed the couple into the house. Galen hung back to take in the scenery, and Antonio remained by his side.
“Don’t you want to go in, Tonio?”
“I want to stay with you, Tio.”
“Okay, let’s stretch our legs a bit.”
They found a narrow side path through the trees, and as they walked the large older man pointed out different colored birds and plants to the small boy, who seemed in awe of all the newness. And Galen felt something he hadn’t experienced since Leni was taken. Could it be the child needed him?
He paused, his eyes misting over.
Leni, Cathy, June!
The emotion overwhelmed him. He wanted to crouch down, to bury his head in his hands. But something tugged at his shirt sleeve. He opened his eyes and felt young hands on his arm.
“Why are you sad, Tio?”
Suddenly touched, he dropped to his knees—and lied.
“I’m not sad, Tonio. I’m just very happy to be here with you.”
The little boy smiled and threw his arms around the old man’s neck. Galen collected himself. He picked Tonio up and held him close for a moment then put him down again.
“Come on, let’s go inside. Your brother and sister are waiting for us. It will be dinnertime soon, and Tia Nancy will wonder where we went.”
They trudged back up the path leading to the house, bear and cub, one trying to walk in the footsteps of the other.
A few weeks passed. Galen remained deeply troubled by the recent events. Why do such bad things happen to such good people? Was it really a zero-sum game? Save three, lose three?
Maybe those religions that believe in capricious deities are right. Maybe Loki, Crow god, the Greek fates, and their ilk really do roll the dice and play with us like pawns.
One day he almost fell off the deck, so immersed was he in his thoughts.
Edison had been watching him carefully. Despite the years apart he understood his friend well enough to know he was still carrying the full load of the recent tragedies.
Talk about bad luck or no luck at all, he thought.
Three loves, three losses. It was almost as though Galen was meant to go through life alone.
Nancy was not so pessimistic. She had noticed how Tonio was following Galen around like a s
hadow—just as little Federico, who now wanted to be called Freddie, was doing with Bob. Truth be told, she had grown very happy, having quickly and comfortably bonded with Carmelita. The two of them would sit for hours reading aloud or take long walks in the woods.
The experience had planted a thought firmly inside her.
Maybe this is a second chance. Maybe in old age we’ve finally been blessed with the family we’ve always wanted.
“Dinner!” Nancy called. “Come on, guys and gals, wash up and take your places.”
One by one they squeezed around the circular mahogany table, which used to be more than big enough for two but now was overflowing with the three adults and three children.
It was early August, so there still was plenty of daylight as they began the evening meal. The sky had taken on an umber hue prefacing a storm, and flashes from distant lightning faintly illuminated the expansive window pane facing the valley below. They watched as the dark clouds rolled in and brighter streaks of light shot across the horizon. Then the rain began to shotgun-pellet its way to earth while the flashes increased in size and intensity.
The rain performed a steady tattoo on the picture window as they ate. Just the right background for Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain,” Edison thought, as he popped the CD into the player then rejoined his wife and friend and the children in the dining room, where the aroma of pot roast and jasmine tea filled the air.
Thunder rumbled again, a post-prandial celebration of Nancy’s good food. When a nearby lightning strike caused the power to wink out, she reflexively got up from the table and went to flip the light switch off and on. At her first try, the lights returned but only momentarily, and the ghostly flash of the light striking the table triggered a memory in the quietest member of the circle.
...
“Mr. Galen, hold that retractor more firmly, unless you want me to slice through this patient’s aorta.”
He was rotating through general surgery. Rounds—that military march of the attending surgeon, his chief resident, the other yearly residents, interns, seniors, and finally the lowest of the low, the third year students—began at 5 a.m.
The daily routine repeated over and over, grinding away at the determination and idealism of even the most dedicated among them. Endless presentations of patients with mild or mortal conditions elicited constant pimping, a game of one-upmanship among those rounding to see who could stump the others with the most obscure journal references.
And then, OR at 6 a.m. Hour after hour, standing in gown, cap, shoe and head coverings, having learned the sacerdotal rites of hand-and-forearm scrubbing under the hawk-eyed supervision of the OR nurse, whom the students assumed was really an escaped Nazi concentration-camp guard who enjoyed tormenting them.
“Hold the retractor” was the common command, extending an arm for excruciating lengths of time between the real players bent over the spécialité du jour lying naked and unconscious atop the brightly lit table. Galen often wondered, could he detach his arm and leave for a bathroom break without anyone knowing it?
How did the surgeons do it, standing there, hour after hour? By senior year he had the temerity to ask a chief resident that question. He blanched at the reply: “Depends on how tough the guy is. Some can hold it. Others use diapers, and the real masochists use catheters with bags strapped to their legs!”
...
Another zap of lightning briefly illuminated the still-darkened room.
...
“Galen, you have another patient to work up.” The intern had called him at 3 a.m. “Oh, by the way, it’s a LOL with no veins and totally out of her gourd. She’s an alcoholic with terminal liver disease, heart failure, kidney failure, bed sores, and contractures of her legs and arms.”
The nursing home had decided she needed help about two hours earlier. Some place, he thought. It looked as though they hadn’t given her a bath in a week.
...
The power flickered on and off once more. Again Nancy got up to flip the switch, and this time the lights returned.
Galen felt a strange epiphany as he watched her rejoin the group, precipitated by the recollection the power outage had elicited.
And there you stood, Galen old boy, looking down at what was once a human being who had loved, had family, and was now being plucked apart by time. Remember what you thought? “Why is there no on/off switch to help these people?” Is that the note your own life will end on—helpless, alone and unwanted? Have the deities rolled craps on your behalf?
The echoes became deafening.
“What’s your name?” … “Robert Galen.” … “No, kid. From now on, it’s Dottore Berto.” … “Why do you want to know, kid?” … “I want to be like you.” … “Non ho figlio!” … “Hi, I’m Bill Crowley.” … “David Allen Nash, and it looks like we’re gonna be roommates.” … “June Ross, will you marry me?” … “Will you marry me, Leni Jensen?” … “Yes, Tony.” … “Bob, Leni’s spirit wants me to call you Tony.” … “Cathy Welton, will you marry me?” … “Yes, Tony.” … “Are you going to live with us, Tio?”
“Tio?”
As the lightning and thunder matched the symphony almost beat for beat, he noticed Antonio had climbed onto his lap, his little arms clutching the old man tightly.
The long-forgotten warmth of being needed, a memory buried in grief and loss, suddenly erupted in Galen’s soul.
This was his family now.
R.A. Comunale is a semi-retired physician in family practice and specialist in aviation medicine who lives and works out of his home office in McLean, Virginia. He enjoys writing, gardening, electronics, pounding on a piano, and yelling at his dimwitted cat. He describes himself as an eccentric and iconoclast.
The cat has provided no comment.
Requiem for the Bone Man Page 22