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"Rrhhmmmmm rhmmmm, well, then, give her milk and 'lasses, down her mouth and up her direcshum hole, the both at once."
"Milk and 'lasses?"
"Right. Milk and mo?lasses. Both ends. She go
Inevitably, during our ginger?ale rounds, like a floorwalker, the Fish would appear. He walked up and, avoiding our eyes, asked, "Hey, guys, how's it going?" and then, without waiting to hear how it was going, said, "You know, don't you, that that looks unprofessional."
"Fine, fine," said Chuck, lifting his feet down off the counter.
To irritate the Fish, I lit a cigarette.
"I hear from Jo that you've been coming in late:"
"Oh, yeah," said Chuck. "Well, the thing is my car. Keeps breakin' down and I gotta keep takin' it to the garage."
"Oh, well, that's different. Got a good mechanic? You could use mine if you like. Get the damn thing fixed right once and for all, so you don't have to worry about it. Yes, and another thing: your spelling is atrocious. We'll go over a few of your write?ups together, OK?"
"Fine, fine."
"But there's one thing I don't understand," I said "I can't figure out if I drink cause I pee or I pee 'cause I drink."
"Stop drinking and see what happens."
"I tried that. I get thirsty."
"Perhaps you have Addison's disease," said the Fish, and his attention shifted to my cigarette until he couldn't stand it any longer and said, "I don't understand how, knowing what you know about lung cancer, you continue to smoke. Maybe you don't inhale?"
I did not inhale, and so I said. "I inhale."
"Why do you do it?"
"It feels good."
"If everyone did what feels good, where would we all be?"
"Feeling good."
"You're too loose," said the Fish, "I don't know how you do such good work, being that loose. Enjoy that cigarette, Dr. Basch, for it's three more minutes off your life."
Just then Little Otto marched in, went to the blackboard to leave a note for me, saw the space taken up with a fresh ripe
***
***MVI***
***
let out a sharp bark which turned all our heads toward him, and finding no eraser handy, spat on the board and wiped the thing off with his sleeve, snarling.
"Now, that's just the kind of thing I resent," I said to the Fish, "having that damn ***MVI*** smeared all over the House under my name. Your kinky bouncers haven't done anything. Can't you stop it?"
"I tried," said the Fish, "but it didn't do any good. The damn thing may all be a practical joke anyway."
"That's not what I heard. I heard that the prize for the ***MVI*** is a free trip for two to Atlantic City for the AMA meetings in June, with you and the Leggo.
"I didn't hear that," said the Fish, begi
"Damn!" said Chuck. "Man, would you look at that!"
The Fish and I and Towl and Little Otto looked at that, which was, somehow, under my name on the blackboard, in all colors of the rainbow, that neat yet ornate insignia:
***
***ROY G. BASCH***
***
***MVI***
***
Later that week the Leggo and the Fish called a B?M Deli luncheon to a
Eat My Dust Eddie, being run ragged in the deathhouse, the MICU, looked awful, and was talking about his previous night on call: "I was admitting my sixth cardiac arrest and I got this call from the E.W.?Hooper, it was you?saying that there was a guy down there who'd arrested and you were thinking of sending him to me if he survived. I hung up the phone, got down on my knees, and prayed: Please, God, kill that guy! I was on my knees, I mean ON MY KNEES!"
"He died," said Hooper. "Jo was the resident, and she wanted to keep pumping his chest, but I said, 'As far as I'm concerned, this guy was dead ten minutes ago,' and I left."
"Hooper, you're a great man," said EMD. "I feel like kissing you."
"Kiss me you can, kiss me if you like, but all I know is that if a human disaster like that had shown up in Sausalito, he'd have had to sign his own postmortem permission slip to be admitted at all:"
"I think that's a bit crass," said Howie, gri
"Stay out of Sausalito when you're having your cardiac arrest."
Potts came in, late, made a thin sandwich, and sat down, and I was reminded that the Yellow Man had yet to die. Potts was haunted by him, linked with him, and whenever we saw Potts, we saw the Yellow Man. Potts was becoming more withdrawn. He hadn't come out for our touch?football game. He was a tree with a limb ripped off, the pulp a harsh raw white. No one ever mentioned the Yellow Man to him. Or to the Runt. But if the Runt was infected, at least he'd have done some snazzy dirty things with Angel before he died. I asked Potts how he was.
"I don't know. OK, I guess. Otis loves the fall, the leaves. I keep thinking I'm not doing a good job here, you know."
"You're all doing a good job," said the Leggo, standing before us, "but you as a group have not been getting enough postmortem permissions. It's hard to describe the importance of the autopsy. Why, the autopsy is the heart?no, the flower, the red rose?of medicine. Yes, the great Virchow, the Father of Pathology, performed twenty?five thousand autopsies with his own two hands. It's crucial to our understanding of disease. For instance, that Czech, nicknamed?what was he called, Dr. Fishberg?"
"Not was called, sir, is called. The Yellow Man, Sir."
"Yes, take the Yellow Man. . :"
The Leggo went on to take the Yellow Man, stressing how important it would be for us to get the post when he died, and as he spoke, each word seemed to rip into poor quiet Potts.
"When I was an intern," said the Leggo cheerily, "we got seventy?five percent post permissions. Of course, in those days we did the autopsies ourselves, but you know something, we didn't mind. Because we were helping to advance the science of medicine:"
The Leggo said that the terns were not getting enough postmortem permissions, and since he knew "how hard it is to approach the family for permission in their hour of need," he thought of "a way to raise the incentive: an award. The award will go to the intern with the most postmortem permissions for the year. The prize will be a free trip for two to Atlantic City for the AMA in June, with Dr. Fishberg and myself."
There was dead silence. No one knew what to say, until Howie, puffing and smiling, said, "Damn good idea, Chief, but maybe it should be a trip to the American Pathological instead."
"I don't think it should be the most posts," I said, sure that the Leggo was joking, "I mean, after all, wouldn't that put a premium on death? The tern with the most deaths would probably win, and that would make us lay off treatment, or, even worse, kill off patents to win the prize."
"Yeah," said Eddie, "why not make it a percentage of deaths?"
The Leggo and the Fish didn't laugh, and as the meeting broke up, no one was sure whether they'd been serious or not.