by Allen Wyler
Alex continued toward the hospital, thinking the first thing he should do when he reached the office was to ask Kasey to obtain the necessary form to join the local Republican Party. Chances were Reynolds wouldn’t check, but if for some insane reason he did, Alex didn’t want to be caught lying. Signing up would make him feeling duplicitous and slimy, but he was stuck in a lose-lose situation. Then again, sometimes you had to do distasteful things to stay in the good graces of those to whom you are beholden.
Right?
Right.
Probably wouldn’t hurt to sign Lisa up too.
32
“He can’t possibly think you want to learn to fly. Or does he?” Lisa asked from the passenger seat. She held a map on her lap, open and folded to the section for Arlington—a small town some twenty miles to the east—and its airfield.
“Already told him a couple times I wasn’t interested.” He adjusted the visor to block out the glare from the blazing sun. He supposed the clear sky and lack of wind made for ideal flying weather, especially for aerobatics, but hey, what did he know? Next to nothing when it came to flying.
She turned toward him. “Then why did you order that computer program?”
“Flight Simulator?”
“Yes.”
“Looked like it’d be kind of fun,” he admitted sheepishly. “Didn’t cost much.” The new version of Microsoft’s DOS-based game had just been released for Windows 3.1. Alex bought it as a way to familiarize himself with flying so he wouldn’t look totally stupid in Garrison’s eyes. “Besides, I can at least show him I didn’t categorically reject the idea. He seems to be pretty gung ho on the subject.”
“And we’re driving all the way out here for what reason exactly?”
Farmland stretched as far as the eye could see to either side of the straight, two-lane highway, thick, green clumps of kudzu spiraling up wood telephone poles and power line towers and engulfing Burma Shave signs. Kudzu: another idea that sounded good at the time but ended up having nasty, unintended consequences.
“I could give you some inane answer, but the unvarnished truth is we’re doing it to suck up. He is, after all, clinic CEO, which makes him my other boss.”
The airfield was a large, flat, grassy field with one cracked cement landing strip and a Quonset hut at the terminus of the approach road. Brightly painted planes were parked at haphazard angles along the side of the runway with people milling around chatting and inspecting the machines. As soon as Alex killed the car motor, he could hear an airplane overhead. A handful of spectators peered skyward, hands shielding eyes from the baking sun. Alex looked down the runway and recognized what looked like Garrison’s red and white Pitts from the picture so proudly displayed on his desk.
“That could be his plane over there,” he said, pointing.
As they approached the aircraft, Alex spotted Garrison in suntans, a brown leather, fleece-lined aviator jacket, and a leather cap with goggles atop. If it wasn’t for Garrison’s slumped posture, he would have been the dashing image of the World War I flying ace. Alex waved and yelled a greeting.
Glancing their direction, Garrison’s face broke into a broad grin. He extended his hand to Alex. “Glad y’all could come on out. I’m up next, so y’all’s timing couldn’t be better to see me in action.” Garrison spoke with enthusiasm Alex hadn’t heard from him before. He nodded at Lisa as if she were an afterthought in a mano-a-mano discussion.
“Looking forward to it,” Alex said. Tell me I really didn’t just say that.
Just then, Linda Brown approached. She wore tight jeans, a denim shirt, and a Dallas Cowboys ball cap with her ponytail sticking out the back. Out of her usual white uniform, Alex didn’t immediately recognize her. Interesting seeing her here.
The four of them stood staring at each other for an awkward moment until Alex said, “Linda, I’d like you to meet my wife, Lisa. Lisa, Linda. Linda’s the nurse I’ve told you so much about.” Was the invitation to come watch the flying accidental or intentional? Was Garrison sharing something about his relationship with Linda? He knew the two were professionally close, but socially? Hmm.
Lisa flashed Alex an inquisitive expression, turned to Linda with hand extended. “Glad to meet you. Alex says you’ve really made his transition much easier than he expected. Thank you.”
Garrison was beginning to get antsy, patting his pockets and glancing around as if he’d lost something. He muttered to no one in particular, “Damn, forgot my ChapStick.”
Linda snaked fingers into the front pocket of her tight jeans. “Brought it for you,” she said, handing a tube to him. Garrison quickly applied the lip balm, capped the tube, and started to hand it back to her.
“No, keep it. I’ll get it from you later.”
He zipped up his jacket. “All right then, better get ready.” He pointed at an area next to the Quonset hut. “Best place to watch is over yonder.”
Ninety minutes and a mild sunburn later, Alex and Lisa retraced their route back to town, Alex driving again, Lisa navigating. After a prolonged silence, Lisa said, “Something’s going on between them.”
“Between who?” He realized how lame that had to sound, but for some undefined reason, he felt slightly defensive of Garrison.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Alex. Garrison and Linda. Who else would I be talking about?”
Point taken. Still, he hated personal intrigue. If they had something going on, well … “None of our business.”
“Maybe, maybe not. But have no doubt he’s messing around with her. Question is, why would he ask you to come out if he knew she’d be there? Or does he seriously think we can’t see what’s going on? I don’t get it.”
Alex decelerated as they came up behind a faded red Chevy pickup stacked high with bales of livestock hay, fenders dented from years of abuse. As soon as they came to a straight section of road, he’d pass it. “Honey, what he chooses to do outside the office doesn’t affect me. But I kind of have to admit, if I were married to Anne, I’d probably fool around, too.”
She stabbed a finger against his ribs. “Not nice, bad puppy! But Linda? I mean why fool around someone you work with? That’s a classic recipe for disaster. And why her? She really doesn’t have a lot going for her in the looks department.”
“Jesus, speak about bad puppies! Not nice at all. To tell you the truth, she’s a real sweetheart. Besides, he probably doesn’t have the time, personality, or inclination to look elsewhere. They’ve been working together for God-knows-how-long and probably have grown quite close. Just makes you wonder what’s going on in the Majors’s household. Obviously they have problems.”
“Obviously. But look out, Alex. I’m telling you—this isn’t good for you or the clinic. He’s vulnerable.”
“How so?”
“You have to be kidding me, right?”
33
Tuesday morning Alex pulled into the airfield lot and parked next to Garrison’s lime green Chevy station wagon. Alex doubted many people would go out of their way to drive one of those, but for some strange reason it seemed to fit Garrison’s personality. This part of the airport serviced private planes and charters; the big terminal for commercial airlines could be seen a half mile away. Having not been given specific instructions on where to go or what to look for, he could’ve easily missed the single-story rectangular hunk of fading red clapboard that served as the terminal. The wall facing the small asphalt parking lot displayed various signs advertising charter and maintenance services: Bardall, Penzoil, Mid South Charters. His dash clock showed 6:25. Five minutes early.
He opened the door into a tired lobby of five ratty leather armchairs, a cracked brown leather couch, and a wall map of the region with concentrically expanding mileage rings centered on the airfield. A chipped faux-walnut laminate counter separated the waiting area from two equally second-hand empty desks. Linda Brown and one other familiar clinic nurse were waiting by the door to the runway. Linda noticed him and smiled. “He’s outside doing the preflight.
We should be ready to take off in two, three minutes, so if you need to use the bathroom, better do it now. Hope you’re prepared for a long day. These always are.”
Alex nodded. These Tuesday trips would chew up one more weekday that he preferred be spent on research. But his paycheck came from the clinic, so …
At ten thousand feet with Garrison at the controls and Alex riding shotgun, the nurses in the back two seats, Garrison said over the headphones, “Why don’t you take her for a bit?” This sounded like a statement not up for negotiation. Was he serious? A bolt of terror struck as Garrison lifted his hands from the control yoke and pointed for Alex to assume the slave controls.
“Go ahead,” Garrison said, grinning. “Steers just like a car, except you got foot controls too. But don’t worry about those none, I’ll handle that part for now. Oh, a word of advice: don’t lean into the yoke. That’s a normal tendency to do. Keep it neutral.”
Alex didn’t touch the damn controls and wasn’t about to start. “No, hey, wait a sec. I don’t have the slightest idea what I’m doing.”
The plane continued to fly with both sets of controls abandoned, the sight making Alex nauseous.
Garrison pointed to the compass on the front panel. “Just keep a heading of 320.”
Gingerly, Alex took hold of the yoke with his fingertips but kept his feet as far from the pedals as possible.
“Don’t look at the ground. Just look straight ahead or at the altimeter and compass.”
After five terrorizing minutes Alex couldn’t handle the gut-churning anxiety any longer. And if Garrison didn’t like it, too bad. “Can’t do it. I’m getting dizzy.” True. He was feeling the same weird empty-stomach butterflies as when atop a high building or bridge. In concert with the dizziness was an odd suicidal urge to jump. If the clinic required him to fly this trip every Tuesday simply to scrounge up a few extra patients, then he’d make damn sure to build such a vibrant surgical practice that the clinic would choose to keep him in the OR instead of doing this shit. He resented Garrison’s repeated attempts to interest him in flying, especially by forcing him to take control of the plane.
“Sweetie, I’m home,” Alex called out as he came through the back door from the carport. 7:30 p.m. He’d walked out this same door at 6:00 a.m. and was now exhausted.
Minutes later, after changing into jeans and a T-shirt, he and Lisa sat at the kitchen table enjoying a glass of wine and exchanging accounts of their day. Lisa liked her involvement in the two organizations she volunteered for and had developed friendships with several other women. They both, Alex reflected, were living very different lives from what they’d left. He thought back to the leisurely pace of academics where his long hours in the lab paled in comparison to the present grind. And although he enjoyed the challenge of building a practice, he still missed the intellectual challenge of research. The phone rang. Alex glanced at Lisa. With no inpatients that night and not being on call, he’d anticipated a relaxing evening of mindless television. With a feeling of dread, he reached for the telephone. “Cutter here.”
“Doctor Cutter, Steve Stein.”
“Can I have a word with you, Jim?” Luckily, Alex caught Reynolds in the lounge between cases, sitting with two scrub-clad men, Reynolds howling as if one of them had just cracked the funniest joke in the history of the world.
Couches and chairs lined three of the four walls, the fourth wall featuring a built-in counter on which sat a three-burner coffee maker with all pots miraculously and constantly full of freshly brewed coffee during the usual surgery day. These bountiful pots were, Alex believed, the eighth wonder of the world. He suspected that whoever was in charge of surgery made sure fresh coffee was available twenty-four hours a day as a courtesy to the surgeons. The diagonal corner from the hall door featured a large TV perpetually tuned to CNN. Weekday mornings, before the day’s first cases kicked off, two large boxes of maple bars, doughnuts, and other sugary treats mysteriously appeared—another perk that didn’t exist at his previous practice. The university didn’t bother with things like that because the university surgeons were held captive to the system, having no other place to operate. Here, surgeons could just as easily practice at the methodist hospital across town. “Please your customer” being a prime rule for running any business.
“Yeah, sure,” Reynolds said, then turned to the others. “Y’all’ve met Alex Cutter? Alex, this here’s Johnny Kirk and his brother Ralph, two world-class heart surgeons. Alex’s my new second-in-command.” Smiling, they nodded at each other as Reynolds pushed wearily off the worn leather couch.
They took their conversation out to the hallway that separated the hospital’s two wings like the center of a large H. Reynolds removed his glasses to polish them with his green scrub shirt. “What’s on your mind?”
“Got called last night from a kid who worked in my lab during summer breaks. Good kid, did good work. Ended up at Vanderbilt for med school. Stayed on for a straight surgical internship with a verbal assurance of being their pick for the neurosurgery residency when his internship finished. Then Pendergrass, the chairman at the time, retired for health reasons, and the dean brought in McNamee from Hopkins.”
“I know.” Reynolds held up his glasses to inspect in the overhead fluorescents. “Surprised the hell out of everyone. Dan Sugar was the heir apparent for the job. Reckon it’s sorta reminiscent of what happened at your old place.”
“The long and short of it is the kid was passed over for a guy McNamee brought with him.”
Reynolds anticipated the punch line. “That program’s accredited for only one slot a year.”
Alex nodded. “Stein called me at home last night for advice. I was thinking that with Slater”—a first-year resident—“being fired last month, we might want to consider bringing him on.” Night call depended so heavily on a full complement of residents that unexpected holes in the rotation rippled back on all of them, producing hardships.
“Room’s ready, Dr. Reynolds,” a nurse called from down the hall. Reynolds returned a just-a-minute signal and slipped his glasses back on. “What’d you tell him?”
“Said I’d talk to you about it.”
Reynolds tossed his old, balled-up mask at the wastebasket and started to tie a new one around his neck. “See if he can get on down here Friday. We’ll have a couple of the seniors give him a sniff test, see what they think. After all, the residents are the ones who’ll work with him. We sure could use another good resident. Good thinking.”
“I can’t thank you enough, Doctor Cutter. I’ll never forget this.”
Alex was leading Stein back through the maze of halls and stairs to the garage where he had parked when he rolled into town in the middle of the night. The hospital maintained small, utilitarian hotel rooms in one of the three professional office towers for family members in need of lodging. Alex had arranged one for Stein with instructions to meet for breakfast in the cafeteria.
“Glad it worked out for you. How soon you think it’ll take to close up your apartment and move here?”
Stein scratched his prematurely balding head. “May have to forfeit the deposit, but I’ll come soon as I can. Don’t have much other than my clothes and a guitar. The place came furnished. Late next week, I suppose.”
“Don’t worry about the deposit. I’ll reimburse you.” He suspected Stein, like most med students, was in the hole several hundred thousand dollars in student loans.
They pushed through the aluminum and glass doors from the sky bridge into the parking garage, the abrupt switch from the A/C chill to hot, thick humidity as acute as running into a wall. Having arrived at such an early hour, Stein scored a prime spot on the second floor where the “Doctors Only” slots ended. Stein stopped next to a faded red Toyota beater. “This one’s mine.” For a moment the tired young man stood, one hand on the driver’s door, the other at his side, overnight bag in hand. He seemed to wrestle with finding his words. Finally he said, “Thanks again, Doctor Cutter.”
�
��Hey, you’re doing everyone a favor, especially the junior residents. You’ll patch a hole in the rotation. Doubt you’ll hear any complaints about that.”
Stein unlocked the door, wearily tossed his bag into the passenger seat, and sighed. “Better start back. Long drive and lots of work to do.”
Alex shook his hand, pleased at seeing a friend from his previous life. He felt a connectedness to the kid that was more than just memories of times shared in the lab. For whatever reason, he lacked the same degree of resonance with people from the South. The contrast made him aware of his doubts of ever being able to adapt to this culture.
“Good. See you in a week.”
34
“I never realized there were so many ways to prepare catfish,” Lisa said. “We never had it before coming here.”
It was Friday evening; Alex, Lisa, Garrison, Anne, and the Canters sat at a round table with a white linen tablecloth in the University Club dining room. Every Friday, Alex learned, the club offered a themed buffet, and that evening was Catfish Night. Large stainless-steel serving dishes filled a buffet table with seven different catfish preparations: barbecue, teriyaki, fried, Cajun, on and on.
“They’re very tasty fish, long as you don’t have to see their heads,” Diana Canter said.
“Ugly devils, they are,” Andrew added.
“You’re a member here,” Alex said to Andrew. “How long did you have to wait before you were allowed to join? I submitted my application over two months ago and still haven’t heard a word from whoever handles memberships. I’ve called and left messages, but not one of my inquiries have been returned.” He popped the last bite of Cajun catfish into his mouth.
Andrew delicately set down his fork on his plate and clasped his hands together as if preparing to say something earth-shaking. “Have you been interviewed by the membership committee yet?”