Страница 55 из 89
At the end of the day I went to sign out to EMD, who was on call. I asked how it was going.
"Compared to California, it sucks. My third admission is on her way. I'm already on my knees."
Why?"
"She's on her way from Albany. Three hundred miles. In a taxi."
"In a taxi?"
"In a taxi. A totally demented wiped?out gomere who, according to the scouting report, has not urinated in weeks and is too demented to sign her informed consent for dialysis, who tormented her family to the point where they surreptitiously TURFED her into a slow?moving cab in Albany and who's been making her way here since noon. She's being sent here for dialysis."
"If she won't sign there, what makes them think she'd sign here?"
"'Cause like you said: 'Sweetheart, here it's Gomer City.' She's go
On my drive home, the sun wore that harsh steely look of tired midwinter, slashing and aslant, enraged at the gray of the ice. I felt cold, unsheltered, perplexed. I had high hopes that the Fat Man would save me, and yet here he was telling me not to get angry at the Blazer.
"He told me to cool it, and I don't feel like cooling it," I told Berry. "I mean, you're always telling me to express my feelings, and I worry that if I cool it I'll it I'll go nuts. How can I listen to both of you?"
"Maybe there's some common ground," said Berry, "But I can see how you'd be scared to try and survive there if you and he are at odds. What does he say about all the gomers?"
Realizing with sadness that now even Berry had sucked into calling these pitiful old ones "gomers," said, "He says he loves 'em."
"That's just being counterphobic. Secondary narcissism."
"What's all that?"
"Counterphobic is when you do what you're most scared of doing, the guy who's afraid of heights becoming a bridge painter. Primary narcissism, like with Narcissus at the Pool, is when he tries to love himself but he can't embrace his own refection, and he fails. Secondary narcissism is where he embraces others; they love him for it, and he loves himself even more. The Fat Man is embracing the gomers:"
"He's embracing the gomers?"
"And everybody loves him for it."
. . . Everybody loves the doctor and I'm by now your patients do love you. Hope you busy and know you are doing a terrific job. Watched the Knicks on cable TV and they prove that basketball is essentially a team game . . .
Fats had called us his "A Team." And yet what kind of team would it be if its ***MVI*** began questioning its coach?
15
"I want to eat," said Tina, the woman sent in the taxi.
"You can't eat," said Eat My Dust Eddie.
"I want to eat."
"You can't eat."
"Why can't I eat?"
"Your kidneys don't work."
"They do."
"They don't."
"They do."
"They don't. When was the last time you peed?"
"I don't remember."
"See? They don't."
"I want to eat."
"If your kidneys don't work, you can't eat! You're go
"Then I want to die."
"Now you are talkin', lady, now you are talkin'!" said EMD, and slipping past the Albany cabbie, who was trying to collect his two?hundred?dollar?plus?tip fare, Eddie and I left Tina and sat down to the Fat Man's cardflip.
"Card one," said Fats, "Golda M.?"
"Great case," said Eddie, "the Lady of the Lice. Seventy?nine?year?old admitted from the floor of her room; found grimacing like The Exorcist version of a Barbie Doll. Plum?sized lymph nodes all over her body, thinks she's on the T?line in St. Louis, and has lice."
"Lice?"
"Right. The creeping cooties. Nurses refuse to enter her room."
"OK," said Fats, "no problem. The way to TURF her is to find the cancer or find the allergy. We need skin tests: TB, monilia, strep, flyshit, egg foo yong, the works. One positive skin test explains the nodes, and it's a TURF back to the floor of her room."
"Putzel, her Private, says he won't let this poor old lady go back there. He demands that we find placement."
"Swell," said Fats, "I'll call Selma. Next? Sam Levin?"
"By the way," said EMD, "I didn't have a chance to tell Putzel about the cooties. He's in there now."
A creeping coup.
"Sam's an eighty?two?year?old demented derelict living alone in a rooming house, picked up by the police for loitering. When the cops asked him where he lived, he said 'Jerusalem,' and then he pretended to faint, so they TURFED him here. Severe diabetes. He's a well-known pervert. Chief complaint is, 'I'm hungry."'
"Of course he's hungry," said Fats, "his diabetes is burning his own body for fuel. Lice and perversion? What are the Jews coming to?"
"To the Black Crow," said Hooper.
"Insulin City," said Fats. "Rough TURF. Next?"
"You should know," said Eddie, "that Sam Levin is a man who eats everything. Watch your food, Fats."
Fats got up and locked his locker, in which he kept a stash of food, including several prized Hebrew National salamis.
"Next is Fast Tina the Taxi Woman," said Eddie, "a private patient of the Leggo's." At that the cabbie started yelling about his fare, and Fats TURFED him to HELP. He left, cursing, and in walked Bo
"Tina," said Eddie.
"That's inappropriate. Now, about the lice: it's not our job to delouse, it is the intern's:"
"Crap," said EMD, "it's a nursing job, 'cause nurses already got lice."
"What?! Well! I'm calling my supervisor! And as for the lice, I'm dialing HELP! We're having problems in communication, good?bye."
"Anyway," Eddie went on, "there was Tina, and I thought, Hmm dementia, I'll go right for the money and invade. So first I did the LP."
"You did the LP first? Did you ask the Leggo before you did it?"
"Nope."
"A private patient of the Leggo's sent three hundred miles in a cab and you started with a painful invasive procedure without asking him first? Why?"
"Why? It was either her or me, that's why."
"Maybe she didn't mind it, right?" asked Fats.
"Oh, she minded it. She screamed bloody murder. And at three A.M. I heard some maniac whistling 'Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer troo.' " j
"Daisy, Daisy . . ." said Fats, looking out the window into the face of a hardhat hanging like a spider from the rising web of the Wing of Zock. "It wasn't really the Leggo who came in at that hour. Why should he? I mean, there's no Wing of Tokerman, is there?"
"Tina was so mad she smashed me in the nose and I got that stinging feeling all up and down my face and, tears in my eyes. I realized then that I needed a big CVP line in her internal jugular in her neck."
"You didn't put in a big CVP line, because you know that the Leggo hates them because they managed without them in his day and he can't understand them anyway, right?"
"Right, I didn't."
"Good, Eddie, good," said Fats.
"But I tried like hell to, and as I was trying, the Leggo came in and asked Tina, 'Is there anything' wrong, dearie?' and Tina screamed out 'Yes! This needle in my necks' and the Leggo turned to me and said 'We managed without those in my day. Take it out and come see me tomorrow morning.' And Tina refuses to sign for dialysis."
"Eddie," said Fats quietly, "don't do what you're doing. Believe me, it's not worth it to antagonize these guys. Go easy, it's better to go easy, see? Ah, it's a tough case: the only relief for her dementia is dialysis, but the thing that keeps her from signing for dialysis is her dementia. A real tough TURF."
"How about holding a pen in her hand and scribbling her name with it?" asked Hooper. "I do that to get my, gomers to sign for posts."