Hot Lights, Cold Steel

by Michael J. Collins

  Patti shook her head. She wondered if it was because the crippled force us to confront our own human frailty. “Maybe they make us realize how fragile our hold on life is. Maybe we resent them for reminding us of truths we would prefer to ignore.”

  I thought of the festering sore on Jane’s knee, and that queasy feeling came back again. Why? I had seen scores, hundreds of worse sights in the last four years. What had that gnarled piece of hardware rubbing away on Jane’s withered leg been trying to tell me?

  Jane and I fought the good fight, but to no avail. I took her to the operating room four times, but her infection wouldn’t heal. Every time she put on the brace it rubbed off the newly formed scab, and the wound would become infected all over again. Finally I told Jane that if she didn’t stop using the brace she was going to wind up with an amputation.

  Reluctantly, she agreed to use a wheelchair temporarily. It took two months but we finally got the sore on her leg to heal. But two months was all it took for Jane to lose what little leg strength she had left.

  She never walked again.

  Not for the first time in the last four years, I asked myself what went wrong. I did the best I could, but things didn’t turn out right.

  “But it’s not my fault!” I wanted to scream at the world. “I did what I could. Yes, it’s a shame Jane can’t walk anymore, but what was I supposed to do, ignore her infection and let her die of sepsis?”

  The problem, I realized, lay in my conception of what a doctor should be. I wanted to be the guy people came to when life dealt with them unfairly. I wanted to be the guy who confronted the arbitrariness of life and strangled the unfairness out of it.

  Jane knew before she ever met me that life was offering her a choice: die of infection or be stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. She already knew that. She came to me holding that knowledge in her outstretched hands, begging me to make it go away, begging me to make things fair.

  I tried, Jane. I tried.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  May

  Pay to the order of Patricia Collins

  One Mother’s Day

  with all the benefits normally associated therewith

  Signed, MJ Collins MD

  The sun wasn’t even up yet. Patti lay propped in bed opening her Mother’s Day cards. The IOU card wasn’t that funny. I had done the same thing when I left her alone last Mother’s Day.

  Our financial situation remained precarious. I had five, soon to be six, mouths to feed, and a chief resident’s salary just didn’t cut it. I had to moonlight, but it was harder to arrange coverage at work, and it was harder to leave Patti. She was nine months pregnant and had three other kids to deal with.

  “Sweetheart,” I said, taking her hand, “I’m really sorry. I hate to leave you.” She grunted and heaved herself up to give me a hug.

  “What if I go into labor?” she asked. She was already ten days overdue.

  “You call me and I’ll get right home. Jack said he’d cover for me if I had to leave.”

  “Why didn’t you ask Jack to take the whole day?”

  I got up and began to pace around the room. “Aw, hon, you know why. We need the money. How are we going to pay our bills? How are we going to pay for this baby?”

  “It’s not fair. The baby keeps kicking me in the ribs, my legs are killing me, and the other kids have been awful—”

  “And today is Mother’s Day,” I said, hoping she could see how ashamed I was to leave her.

  “Well, whoop-dee-doo. Happy Mother’s Day.”

  “Patti, I don’t know what else to do.”

  “So you take off and I’m stuck bringing the kids to Mass all by myself.”

  “I’m not going on a picnic, you know.”

  She rolled away from me and began to cry. “Oh, I know. But why today? Couldn’t you have stayed home this one day?”

  “I wish I could stay home every day, but I can’t. You know that.”

  “Then just go,” she said.

  “I’m not going like this, with you mad at me.”

  “I’m not mad at you,” she said, her voice muffled in the pillow.

  I came around and lay on the bed next to her. “Patti, I’m so sorry,” I said, running my hand through her hair. “To leave you, nine months pregnant, on Mother’s Day…” I was close to tears myself.

  We held each other for several minutes. “I’d better go, sweetheart,” I said finally.

  “I know.”

  I kissed her and turned to go.

  “See you Monday night?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I called over my shoulder, “Monday night.”

  Three nights later Patti finally went into labor. I had been playing hockey and didn’t get home until almost midnight. I showered and went into our bedroom where Patti was lying on her side, both hands on her belly. The light on her side of the bed was on.

  “I think I’m going to have our baby,” she said quietly as I slipped into bed with her.

  She was always so calm, so ready.

  “Have our baby—like now?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “All right,” I said, springing to my feet and pacing around the room. “Hold on. Just take it easy. Everything’s going to be fine.” I pointed at the telephone. “I’ll call Dawn.” Dawn was the nursing student who lived next door. She had agreed to stay with the kids when the time came to have the baby.

  “I already called her.”

  “You did? When?”

  “A half hour ago. I told her you would be home from hockey around midnight. She was going to watch for your car.”

  A minute later the doorbell rang. I let Dawn in and then asked Pat what I should pack for her.

  “I already packed everything. It’s by the back door,” she said, struggling to her feet.

  I rushed to her side. “Are you having contractions?” I asked.

  “Yes, dear. That’s how women have babies.”

  “Well,” I said, reaching for her arm, “is there anything I can do?”

  “You already did it,” she said, managing a smile.

  Two hours later Maureen was born. Kenny Billings, our obstetrician, made it just in time. When it was all over, Jack Manning, who was on call that night, stuck his head in the delivery room, said congratulations, and asked, “Is Patti pregnant again yet?”

  Patti said if she could get off the table she would kill him with her bare hands.

  Four kids under five. They all thought we were nuts. Maybe we were, but we loved it.

  Years later, after Patti almost died giving birth to our twelfth child, her obstetrician told us that was it; that was our last child. “You can have twelve kids and two parents,” he said, “or thirteen kids and one. Take your pick.”

  For years afterward, whenever we would see a couple with a little baby, Patti would put her hand on my arm, tears in her eyes, and we would share the same unspoken wish. If only we could have one more—just one more. We would be so grateful. Just to hold one of those sweet little things in our arms, to feel her skin, to smell her baby smell. We knew we had been lucky. We knew we had been blessed. But if we could just have one more…

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  May

  All of a sudden I was homesick. I had been on the phone talking to my brother Tim. He’d been at Aunt Liz’s seventieth birthday party and told me how our cousin Eddie had chugged a beer while standing on his head. He was the hit of the party. We had cousins who were pilots, cops, soldiers, politicians, and lawyers, but no one cared about them. Everyone wanted to see Eddie chug a beer upside down—again, and again, and again.

  “About the sixth time,” Tim told me, “Eddie’s standing there, upside down, when Denny pours a glass of ice water down his pant leg. Eddie gasps and sucks half a beer up his nose. The next day he has the worst headache in the history of mankind.”

  “Worse than yours the day after Sean Walsh’s bachelor party?”

  “I told you never to mention that day again. Anyway,
Eddie goes to the doctor and finds out he’s got a sinus infection. Eddie says it’s too bad he wasn’t drinking flaming shots: they might have cleared his sinuses right out. The doctor is some Czechoslovakian or Nicaraguan or something. He isn’t used to the Irish. He says Eddie is an idiot and needs to see a psychiatrist. Eddie tells him he is a psychiatrist and can he have a professional discount? The doctor gives him a prescription for an antibiotic and tells him next time he gets an infection from drinking beer upside down he should find another doctor. Eddie says, ‘Thanks, Einstein.’”

  As Tim told the story I could see the party: my brothers standing together, beers in their hands, heads thrown back, laughing; my aunts with their fox stoles wrapped around their necks and glasses of Old Fashioneds or Rob Roys on the table in front of them; two dozen little kids running around the house dodging between the clumps of adults scattered throughout the kitchen and dining room.

  I hadn’t seen Aunt Liz in two years, hadn’t seen Eddie in four. When we moved to Rochester, Patti and I had left behind ten brothers, three sisters, nineteen aunts, fourteen uncles, and almost a hundred cousins. It had taken me a while, but I was finally starting to understand that the most important things in my life were back in Chicago. Patti had known this all along and had been waiting patiently for me to reach the same conclusion.

  Back in January I had begun writing letters to orthopedic surgeons in Chicago. I called the chairman of orthopedics at Loyola where I went to medical school. I contacted several former Mayo residents who were now practicing in Chicago. Gradually we narrowed our choices down to two: a practice in Oak Park, where we both had been raised, or a practice a little farther west, in Hinsdale.

  The Hinsdale practice was preferable in every way but one: the starting salary was terrible. If I accepted their offer I would be the lowest-paid resident to come out of Mayo that year. But what made the practice desirable was the opportunity it offered. For the first year I would still be an indentured servant, but after that I would be an equal partner, free to grow my practice as I saw fit. Ultimately we decided to ignore the lousy pay and accept the Hinsdale offer. We had been poor for so long that one more year of poverty didn’t really matter to us.

  We had a “new” car, an eight-year-old, wood-paneled Ford station wagon. We had purchased it two weeks earlier from Brian Quinn, a general surgery resident who was moving back to Ireland. The old Battleship, after surviving so many Minnesota winters, had died of spontaneous combustion in our garage one Friday morning. Mr. Jensen came over, looked at the charred mess where the engine used to be, slammed the hood, and “pronounced” it for us.

  “It’s over,” he said. “This thing has burnt its last quart of oil. It’s about time you got a new beater anyway. Hell, it’s been almost two years now. You’ve got an image to keep up.”

  I thanked him and went in and called the junkyard.

  “Jeez, Doc,” Ernie Hausfeld said, “ain’t heard from you in a while. Lemme guess, your new Mercedes’s ashtray is full and you want to trade it in.”

  I told him no, I had another car for him.

  “You’re the damnedest doctor I’ve ever seen—driving all those junkers. Don’t they pay you guys at Mayo?”

  “Yeah, but I spend it all on whiskey and loose women.”

  Patti heard this and threw a stick of celery at me. “As if they’d have you,” she said.

  “Well,” Ernie said, “it’s the same deal. If you drive it in, you get thirty-five bucks. If we tow it in, you get twenty-five.”

  “Come on over,” I said. “The old Battleship has set sail for the last time.”

  “It’s called ‘swallowing the anchor,’ Doc.”

  “What?”

  “Swallowing the anchor. It’s an old Navy term. That’s what we’d say when someone retired: they swallowed the anchor.”

  “Yeah, well swallow the anchor, gargle the bilge water, sleep wit’ da fishes, whatever you want to call it, the old girl is dead.”

  Four hours later Jimmy pulled into our driveway. He had a big grin on his face.

  “How’s it going, Doc? Good t’see ya.”

  We shook hands.

  “Ernie told me you’re moving to Chicago. That’s too bad. Hell, it won’t be the same around here when you’re gone.” He hitched the winch to the front of the Battleship. “You’re Ernie’s best customer.”

  That’s great. That will be my claim to fame: the resident who holds the all-time Mayo record for most cars towed to the junkyard. My parents will be so proud.

  When Jimmy had the front of the Battleship off the ground and ready to go he turned to me. “See ya, Doc,” he said. “Too bad we don’t make house calls to Chicago. Guess you’ll have to find a new junkyard.” He waved a hand, hopped in the truck, and pulled out of the driveway, the old, rusted Battleship dangling from the crane.

  Eileen watched him drive away. “Why is the man taking our car?” she asked.

  “The car doesn’t work anymore, honey,” Patti told her.

  “Can’t the man fix it?”

  “No, sweetie, the car is dead.”

  “Dead,” she repeated. “Dead like Gramma?”

  “Yes, like Gramma.”

  “Oh, goodie! Can we go to Chicago and have another party when they put the car in the ground?”

  “No, Eileen, they don’t put cars in the ground like they do people.”

  “Do they just put ’em in a box?”

  “No, they don’t put them in a box, either. They just leave them in a junkyard.”

  “Did they leave Gramma in—”

  “No! Now go talk to your father.”

  Eileen looked inquiringly at me.

  “Eileen,” I said patiently, “you see, the car is not a person.”

  She nodded. “No, it’s a sonna bitch.”

  “Eileen! That’s a terrible thing to say,” Patti said. “Where did you hear words like that?”

  “That’s what Daddy said yesterday when the car was making the smoke and bad noises.”

  Patti looked at me like I had just made smoke and bad noises. “Sometimes Daddy says things he shouldn’t.”

  “Like when Notre Dame loses?”

  God, the kid didn’t forget anything.

  “Yes. Sometimes Daddy says bad things then, too.”

  “We should wash his mouth out with soap.”

  “Well, maybe we should give Daddy another chance.”

  “Maybe Daddy should take this little squealer and drop her in a garbage can.” I grabbed her and lifted her over my head. Eileen screamed and laughed as I held her poised over the garbage can. Mary Kate clapped and said Patrick was a stupid idiot and I should drop him in the garbage can, too. Patrick said Mary Kate was dog poop. Patti asked where we were going to get the money to buy another car. Jimmy came back and said I forgot to give him the title to the Battleship. Eileen saw the tow truck and said our dead car was back and maybe the man would bring our dead Gramma back, too. Mary Kate said Patrick put syrup in the toaster again. Jimmy took the title and said no one ever believes him when he tells them the things that go on at our house. Patti took the screwdriver out of Patrick’s hand and pointed it at Jimmy. I told Jimmy he better take the title and leave before Patti’s parole officer got there. Jimmy walked away, looking back over his shoulder every few steps. Patti told me it wasn’t funny and people like Jimmy should mind their own business. Eileen told Mary Kate that Jimmy was a sonna bitch. Patti turned to me and said, “See what you started?”

  It was a warm evening in late May, just past sunset. We had driven to Chicago for a dinner to meet my new partners. We had taken Maureen, who was only two weeks old, with us, but left her with Patti’s sister for a few hours. We were cruising slowly down a two-lane road in Hinsdale, looking for the address on the invitation, when we saw the sign “3400” with an arrow pointing left. I turned down a dark, narrow road with huge, gnarled trees rising on either side, arching over the road and blotting out what little daylight was left. Ahead and to our right we c
ould see lights.

  “There,” she pointed. “That must be it.”

  We came around the last curve, and there, on the crest of the hill before us, stood a brilliantly lit, stately, white-pillared home. I stopped the car and the two of us stared in disbelief. The home was splendid, magnificent, overwhelming. Neither of us had ever seen a home like that. It was like something out of the movies. We turned and looked at each other and then at this mansion in front of us.

  “Are you sure this is the place?” Patti whispered, obviously afraid that Thurston Howell III was going to come out dressed in his silk smoking jacket and ascot. “Lovey,” he would call over his shoulder, “some peasants are trespassing on our property.” He would take a sip of his martini and, with a deprecating flick of the wrist, order us to remove ourselves, “and that thing you are driving,” immediately.

  “Look,” I said, pointing at the small wooden sign next to the mailbox, “Thirty-four hundred. This is it.”

  Patti immediately started smoothing out her dress. She tilted the rearview mirror and checked her hair. “God, I look awful.”

  “Sure do,” I said, trying not to laugh.

  She slapped me on the shoulder and told me to shut up, that it wasn’t funny, that there was no reason she should have to come to this stupid dinner anyway, that she never should have pulled her hair back that way in the first place, and that she could just kill Eileen for getting purple Magic Marker on her dress.

  “You can’t even see it,” I said.

  “You can too see it.”

  “Then perhaps Madame would like to slip into something more comfortable, oui?” I asked, raising my eyebrows and reaching for her.

  “You stay away from me.”

  I patted her hand. “You look fine, hon. Stop worrying.” I put the car back in gear and headed up the drive. “Now let’s go meet everyone.”

  My new partners couldn’t have been nicer. Their wives were equally gracious and welcoming. Within ten minutes Patti was laughing and chatting away with them like they had grown up together. We had a delightful dinner.