Head Case

by Michael Wiley

  ‘I need to get to Little Village.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Unstrap me and I’m out of here.’

  ‘Oh,’ the doctor said, and left the room.

  Kelson shouted Rodman’s and Ed Davies’ names and numbers after him.

  As the others guided his stretcher into the corridor and toward a non-critical care room, the paramedic said, ‘You work against your own interests, buddy.’

  ‘That’s a correct diagnosis,’ Kelson said.

  He lay on the stretcher alone in the non-critical room for nearly an hour. They kept him hooked to the IV drip and a couple of monitors. Sounds came from outside the room – a screaming child, a hollering drunk, rushing footsteps, a siren from beyond the walls, more footsteps. Kelson spoke to them all, but none replied. Twice a nurse poked her head into the room, the first time saying nothing, the second asking, ‘Are you comfortable?’

  ‘Nope,’ Kelson said.

  Then the door swung open again, and Dr Jacobson came in.

  ‘Huh,’ Kelson said.

  The doctor gazed at him warmly. ‘When I arrived this afternoon, I heard we had you back with us, but I had to see for myself.’

  ‘And I heard you took a leave of absence after your son’s arrest.’

  ‘You heard right,’ the doctor said. ‘I lasted two days before coming back. I’ve always found that work gives me solace. It was true when my wife died, and I’m finding it true now. How are you feeling?’

  ‘Like a target,’ Kelson said. ‘Like I’m standing at the wrong end of a gun range. Like you’re standing at the other end.’

  ‘Well, then …’

  ‘And I’m more than a little pissed off about it. Will you take off these restraints?’

  ‘Do you need something to ease the pain?’ the doctor said. ‘I’ll be happy to give you something.’

  ‘I need to get out of here. No problem with the pain, no desire to stick around.’

  ‘I’m ordering X-rays of the shoulder. Let’s see where the bullet is and decide from there. We’d hate for you to walk out and collapse, if for no other reason than that the board of directors would worry about our public image.’ He smiled easily. ‘I’m joking, of course.’

  ‘Not at all like a man whose jailed son tried to kill himself last night,’ Kelson said.

  The doctor’s manner remained easy. ‘The truth is, when I walk into the hospital, my only concern is for patient wellbeing. I leave the rest of my life behind. That’s necessary to providing good care – the only way I know how to do it.’

  ‘That must make your patients feel good.’

  ‘To tell the truth, it makes me feel good. It’s nice to know that whatever’s happening in the world outside, I can do something valuable while I’m here. But the patients benefit, yes.’

  ‘I’ve heard you started off rough, when you were young – before you had your family.’

  ‘That’s what they say. To tell the truth, I don’t remember so well. I just know the man I’ve become. Should we see about those X-rays?’

  ‘I’d rather go.’

  ‘In all likelihood, we’ll leave the bullet in. There’s little chance of infection – did you know that a fired bullet gets so hot it self-sterilizes? But we’ll prescribe you antibiotics to be safe. Otherwise, we’ll go in for it only if it threatens a significant vein or artery. If it causes problems with a joint or nerves, we can worry about it later.’

  ‘I’ll sign any papers you need me to,’ Kelson said, ‘and I’ll do the X-ray later. But I’m leaving now …’

  ‘Then there’s also the matter of your talking to the police. I understand that when you were shot, you had a gun – with which you threatened bystanders. I’m certain the police will need your explanation – your version of events. I understand you became violent with the EMTs?’

  ‘No, I told them what I’m telling you – I need to go.’

  ‘I have the paramedics’ report on my desk. They say you became belligerent. They felt threatened.’

  ‘I never threatened anyone.’

  ‘I’m sure the bystanders will support your account,’ the doctor said. ‘In the meantime, I’ll do my best to keep the detectives away from you until we finish the X-rays and determine you’re in no danger. With that in mind, I’d like to give you something more to keep you calm. The EMTs just took the edge off. If you’re heavily sedated, the police will be unable to use anything you tell them against you or, for that matter, anyone else. That’ll be an incentive for them to wait to interview you until after we’ve finished together.’

  ‘I’ll pass,’ Kelson said.

  ‘Of course, I’ll give you nothing without your consent.’ The doctor’s fingers found the flap to his lab coat. He pulled out a plastic syringe case. ‘Have you ever had an adverse reaction to barbiturates?’ He opened the case, removed a full syringe, and flicked it with his middle fingernail. ‘I believe the EMTs took all the precautions that were practical at the moment – a man shot, violent, potentially causing himself and others serious harm. I believe no one will question their judgment.’ He hovered over Kelson. ‘Do you question it? When faced with either the small possibility of an adverse reaction or the near certainty of irreparable harm, how should a medical professional act? Should he address the circumstances as best he knows how?’

  Kelson struggled against the straps. ‘What irreparable harm are you thinking about?’

  ‘Only the most irreparable,’ the doctor said. He held the syringe for Kelson to see.

  Kelson yelled at the door.

  ‘A lot of people make noise around here,’ the doctor said. ‘They scream from pain, from fear, from insanity, from all three at once. The nature of the place. It takes special conditions for anyone to come running – particularly if a patient is already being attended by a doctor known for his comforting manner.’

  ‘You abused Scott,’ Kelson said. ‘You abused him and screwed up his head so bad he killed your wife.’

  ‘No, you stupid bastard, I didn’t abuse him.’

  ‘Rick did?’

  ‘You’re a damned fool.’ Pain showed on the doctor’s face. ‘My wife did. From the time Scott was twelve until he was fifteen. Then I found out – and she died. You’re right, though – the abuse screwed him up. You don’t recover from that. One thing the therapists succeeded in – Scott stayed gentle. He was a gentle boy. He’s a gentle man. He’s a shattered soul, but he never lost that gentleness.’

  ‘A gentle mother-killer,’ Kelson said.

  ‘No,’ the doctor said. ‘Not him. Not Scott ever.’

  Outside the room, there was another rushing of footsteps, louder than before – loud enough for Dr Jacobson to stop.

  ‘The cavalry?’ Kelson said.

  The doctor smiled. He’d heard such noises in the hospital before, often enough to know he shouldn’t worry about them. He said, ‘Let’s do it in your good arm.’ He brought the syringe to Kelson.

  Kelson yelled again.

  The door swung open. Rodman and Marty rushed in, followed by two uniformed cops – a woman and a man – with their guns drawn.

  ‘Huh,’ Kelson said.

  Dr Jacobson held the syringe – looking unsettled for the first time since he came into the room. He seemed to try to speak, but no words came. He seemed to be about to inject Kelson with the syringe, but he froze. He eyed the cops as if he feared they would shoot him.

  But the cops aimed their guns at Rodman and Marty.

  The woman cop said, ‘On the floor.’

  The man said, ‘Now.’

  Rodman lowered himself to the floor, favoring his injured leg, but kept his eyes on Kelson. ‘You all right?’

  ‘No,’ Kelson said. ‘Not in the least. Not at all.’

  The woman said to Marty, ‘You too – down on the floor.’

  Marty narrowed his eyes at her.

  ‘Get on the floor – now,’ she said.

  Marty looked like he wanted to tear her apart and eat her. He lay down on
the floor.

  Dr Jacobson set the syringe on a table and smiled. ‘What’s this about, officers?’

  The woman gestured at Marty. ‘This one came into the building and threatened a nurse.’

  ‘You’re nothing but trouble,’ Rodman said to Marty. ‘I told you to let me talk.’

  ‘Shut up,’ said the other cop.

  ‘Yeah,’ Marty said, ‘shut up.’

  ‘You too,’ the cop said to him.

  The woman said, ‘One of your security people called it in. When we confronted them, they ran this way.’

  ‘We walked,’ Marty said. ‘DeMarcus limped.’

  ‘Shut up,’ the other cop said.

  ‘Is that your job?’ Marty asked. ‘The lady explains things, and you’re the fucking idiot who says, “Shut up”?’

  ‘Marty—’ Rodman said.

  ‘I didn’t fucking bargain for this,’ Marty said.

  ‘I still don’t understand,’ Dr Jacobson said.

  ‘This one,’ said the woman, meaning Rodman, ‘thinks his friend’s in trouble. He got a call from one of your people here—’

  ‘A paramedic,’ Rodman said.

  ‘He got a call,’ she said. ‘He says it’s life or death.’

  ‘Mostly death,’ Kelson said.

  ‘He claims it’s an emergency,’ she said.

  Dr Jacobson smiled. ‘Ahh.’ As if this kind of thing happened all the time. ‘May I speak with you outside? I can show you an incident report from the EMTs who brought in the patient – and some other records involving his medical background. He has a history of neurocognitive disorders—’

  ‘Guilty as charged,’ Kelson said.

  ‘It seems that, along with his current injury, he may have suffered further psychological—’

  ‘Nope,’ Kelson said.

  ‘He must have asked an EMT to contact these men,’ Dr Jacobson said. ‘We have a misunderstanding – based on a miscommunication from …’ He gestured at Kelson. ‘May I show you?’

  The woman cop looked at her partner, uncertain. ‘You got this?’

  The other cop pointed his service pistol at Marty’s back. ‘Sure.’

  ‘Could you unstrap me first?’ Kelson said.

  Dr Jacobson led the woman out of the room, saying, ‘He’s mostly a threat to himself.’

  Marty eyed the remaining cop and said, ‘You little fucker.’

  ‘I’m warning you,’ the cop said.

  Then Rodman sat up on the floor.

  The cop jerked his gun so it aimed at his big chest.

  Rodman touched his thigh. ‘Bum leg.’ He raised his hands. ‘It’s cramping.’

  ‘Back on your belly,’ the cop said.

  ‘Because you’re going to shoot an unarmed man for sitting in a hospital room?’ Rodman said. ‘A man who never threatened you?’

  ‘Epinephrine,’ Kelson said.

  ‘I’m not screwing around,’ the cop said, gripping his pistol with both hands.

  ‘What?’ Rodman said to Kelson.

  ‘Epinephrine.’ He nodded at the syringe on the table.

  ‘Holy shit,’ Rodman said.

  ‘On your belly – now,’ the cop said.

  Marty grinned at him. ‘You’re pissing in your pants, aren’t you?’

  Rodman gazed at the cop with half-closed eyes. ‘I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.’ His voice couldn’t be gentler. ‘I’m going to stand up. You should back away a couple steps so you’re sure of yourself. If I come after you, you do what you’ve got to. If I try to leave the room, shoot me in the back. But I’m not coming after you, and I’m not leaving. I just want to help out my friend, you understand?’

  The cop aimed his gun at him. ‘Don’t move.’

  ‘Nice and easy now.’ Rodman lowered his hands, gazing at the cop’s scared eyes. ‘No reason for more blood – this place has enough.’ He got up, slowly straightening his legs. ‘You a religious man? I never did know what it meant to part the Red Sea.’

  Marty said from the floor, ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

  ‘But now I think I’ve got an idea,’ Rodman said. ‘It’s wading in where you don’t belong because you’ve got no choice. You think you’re going to drown if you step in that water, but you go in anyway – no way back, no other direction. That’s what we’ve got here. Our own Red Sea. Are you going to shoot me now? Do we need that blood?’

  He turned his back on the cop, went to the table, and picked up the syringe. He took it to the sink. He shot the drug into the drain. He looked around the room, avoiding the cop’s eyes.

  He gestured at the bag connected to Kelson’s IV. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Saline, I think,’ Kelson said.

  ‘Let’s hope so.’ Rodman punctured the top of the bag with the needle, dipped the tip into the solution, and drew it into the syringe. He snapped the cap over the needle and set the syringe on the table again.

  He looked the cop in the eyes. ‘Our secret, right? You don’t tell, I won’t.’

  He lowered himself to the floor and lay on his belly.

  Dr Jacobson and the woman cop came back, laughing. ‘No,’ the doctor said, ‘you scared me but not as bad as the first two did. Any time you want to chase trespassers into a room where I’m working, you’re welcome.’

  ‘Ha fucking ha,’ Marty said from the floor.

  ‘I’m sorry for all of this,’ the cop said. Her gun was back in her holster. ‘You understand …’

  ‘Of course,’ the doctor said. ‘I wouldn’t have you do any differently.’

  Kelson said to her, ‘Did you figure out Jacobson’s a lying psychopath?’

  The cop walked over and looked down at him. She seemed amused. ‘I don’t know what the technical term is, but I figured out you’re a nut job.’

  ‘That’s technical enough,’ Kelson said.

  She turned to her partner. ‘Everything all right here?’

  The partner seemed shell-shocked. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘no problem.’

  The woman pointed a thumb at Kelson. ‘This one – three years ago, a kid shot him in the head. Blew out a piece of his brain. He’s like a walking wonder – except he isn’t so wonderful since he keeps ending up in the hospital.’

  ‘Isn’t that confidential medical history?’ Kelson said.

  She grinned at him. ‘Nothing’s confidential when your friends threaten a nurse.’

  ‘They wouldn’t’ve hurt anyone,’ Kelson said.

  ‘I missed that change in the law,’ she said. ‘When did they switch threat of physical harm to threat of physical harm but didn’t really mean it?’

  ‘No harm done,’ Dr Jacobson said.

  ‘Guess not,’ she said. Then, to Rodman and Marty, ‘Up.’

  Rodman and Marty got up from the floor. Rodman looked at peace with the universe. Marty looked like he wanted to rip the universe apart. Marty said, ‘Can we go?’

  ‘What world do you live in?’ she said. ‘Put your hands behind your back.’

  When the cops took Rodman and Marty from the room in cuffs, the doctor gazed at Kelson on the stretcher. ‘That, I’ll admit, was unexpected,’ he said. ‘One plans for every contingency, or tries to, but life is like this, isn’t it? Throwing a knuckleball at your head when you expect a slider.’

  ‘Those guys are good friends,’ Kelson said.

  ‘But ultimately ineffectual, aren’t they?’ The doctor took the syringe from the table and removed the cap. ‘Your breathing will become labored,’ he said. ‘You’ll have a heart attack or stroke maybe. Maybe your lungs will fill with fluid and you’ll drown the way Josh Templeton did. You know who surprised me? Daryl Vaughn. I expected him to go out quick with a heart attack, but the man was a fighter. He went comatose and his kidneys got him.’

  ‘No wonder Scott’s in such bad shape,’ Kelson said. ‘Whatever his mom did to him, you did worse.’

  The doctor smiled. ‘I’m sorry to say you’ll feel some pain – quite a bit really. This isn’t an easy way to go
. When it hits, you’ll be unable to call for help.’ He squirted a drop from the syringe on to Kelson’s cheek. ‘Not that calling for help would do you any good.’

  ‘Once you do something like this, there’s no taking it back,’ Kelson said.

  The doctor leaned in, as if to share an intimate secret. ‘I’m a man of complete commitment.’

  Then he stuck the needle into Kelson. He took his time, then drew blood back into the syringe barrel and reinjected it.

  ‘I wasn’t there for the others,’ he said. ‘I regret missing their deaths, but practical considerations dictated that I be elsewhere.’

  He gazed at Kelson expectantly – at his face, his chest.

  ‘Do you feel it?’ He touched Kelson’s wrist. ‘It should come as an incredible rush to your brain, right about … now.’

  Kelson laughed at him.

  The doctor looked baffled. He watched Kelson. He checked the monitors, which recorded Kelson’s steady breathing, the steady beat of his heart. For a moment, the doctor seemed tiny in his lab coat.

  Kelson laughed, as if laughter could turn the vicious man to ash.

  A raking sound came from the doctor’s throat. He rapped on the heart monitor, as if willing it to register distress. When it didn’t, he looked as if he would break apart. But he had an insight. He was the kind of man for whom clarity always comes.

  He drew air into the empty syringe. He held the needle to Kelson’s neck.

  Kelson stopped laughing. ‘No.’

  The doctor was torn. He seemed to like the way the needle dimpled Kelson’s skin. ‘No, you’re right.’ He pulled the needle away. ‘That won’t do. Every contingency.’

  Kelson let out his breath. The last syllable of a laugh – sucked in when the doctor threatened him with the needle – escaped. ‘Good choice,’ he said.

  ‘It was a necessity, don’t you see?’ the doctor said. ‘Well, we’ll try again, won’t we? We have goddamned cabinets full of the stuff.’

  ‘Contingencies,’ Kelson said.

  The doctor smiled again. ‘You do understand.’ He went to the door. ‘I’ll be only a minute.’

  But once more there was a rushing of footsteps in the hall – voices shouting – and this time Dr Jacobson backed away, drifting toward Kelson on the stretcher.