The Eve of the Dragon

by Michael Dunn

  “I heard you’re flying to Italy tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, later tonight,” he said and cleared his throat. He had spoken little in the past few hours.

  “How long is your vacation?”

  “A-a month.”

  “Wow. Nice,” Dr. Wu said, nodding with approval. “Where are you staying?”

  “I got us a penthouse in the Hilton on the beach in Naples.”

  Dr. Wu whistled. “Wow, Carter, you and your friends will never want to come back. You know, Dan, I had my doubts at first, but it turns out I was wrong about you. It appears you will have a long, distinguished career as a plastic surgeon at Miami General. I’m really proud of you for passing your boards. We make a great team.” Dr. Wu patted Dan on the back. Dr. Carter forced a smiled.

  Dan blinked several times as though he was coming out of a trance. He asked, “Can I get my bunny ears when I come back? I think they make me look sexier, très chic.”

  Dr. Wu stared at Dr. Carter for a moment. The mischievous child had returned, replacing the dutiful, focused, and often silent surgeon. Dr. Wu did not know which was the real Dr. Carter and had come to believe that they both were the real Dan Carter.

  Henry Wu stood up and left. On his way out, he said. “Have a nice trip, Dan. Try not to get yourself killed.”

  Dan stood up and headed to the showers.

  *

  At the end of their shifts, Garrett and John headed to the locker room to change into street clothes when they heard Dan showering while singing “Don’t Cha” by the Pussy Cat Dolls, which was not a typical song for a heterosexual man to be singing, especially sober.

  “You’re really going to Italy with him?” Garrett asked.

  John shook his head, sighed, and then nodded. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

  “Wow, you’re a courageous man. When are you guys going?”

  John glanced at his watch. “In about ten hours. Just long enough to go home, sleep, shower, pack, and head out to the airport.”

  Dan stepped from the shower with an unreasonably short towel wrapped around his waist and one wrapped around his hair.

  “Hey guys, taking a morning shower too?”

  “Uh, no,” Dr. Cheng said, a little uncomfortable with an almost naked Dan standing there.

  “No, Dr. Carter, I just came by and wish you a happy vacation. You deserve it.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Cheng,” Dan said, and as he shook the chief of surgery’s hand, Dan’s towel fell off.

  Dr. Cheng closed his eyes and sighed, “Enjoy your long vacation, Dr. Carter. I’m sure everyone here will too.”

  *

  Daniel Joshua Carter would have preferred to become a stand-up comic instead of a plastic surgeon. In fact, he made that bit part of his routine. He was doing well as a young up-and-comer. As a teenager, he wrote his own material in several scattered notebooks around his bedroom. He spent years reviewing the masters of stand-up comedy and rehearsed in his basement in front of a full-sized mirror. His stand-up heroes were Jim Carrey and classic Steve Martin. When his mother asked him what he was doing, he told her he was rehearsing.

  “Rehearsing for what?”

  “To be a comedian, mom.”

  “That’s nice, sweetheart.”

  At Florida State University, Dan found an agent who booked him at various venues around Miami and South Florida. He was doing well, keeping the balance between boosting his burgeoning career and staying on the dean’s list, but it did not last.

  His grandmother, Lydia Carter, the matriarch of the wealthy Carter family, held the purse strings, and there was a lot of money in that purse. She refused to let her grandson continue to make a fool of himself and the family while he chased fame on the stages of seedy bars.

  “You are far too smart to waste your gifts reaching for a recurring segment on some late night skit show.”

  Lydia, whose father had made his millions from several engineering patents in the early 20th Century, made intellectual conquest her passion. She had worked at NASA as an engineer in the 70s and 80s. Her three children were equally intellectual. Lydia’s oldest child, Pamela, was a physics professor at Emory University. Her next daughter, Grace, became a design engineer at Ford and Dan’s father, Josh was an executive in a software design company in Miami.

  Lydia Carter had worked hard to make sure her family had great genes. She had married a handsome man who had coached Bruce Jenner while he trained for the Olympics in the late 60s and early 70s. Grandpa Dan Carter was 1.5 seconds too slow to qualify for the Olympics.

  Dan Sr. was handsome, fast, and possessed a bizarre sense of humor, which he passed down to his favorite grandson. Lydia barely tolerated her husband’s weird and zany sense of humor but loved her husband’s movie star looks. Dan Sr. and Lydia bore handsome and rich children and Lydia wanted that to continue down the line as far as possible.

  The pediatricians and childhood therapists diagnosed young Dan Carter with severe ADHD and medicated him. School came easily for him. He often finished his work early and became bored and his boredom created the class clown. Daniel was also a gifted athlete like his namesake grandfather; the two Dans spent a lot of time together. The younger Dan inherited his grandfather’s bizarre sense of humor.

  Grandma Lydia called a family intervention one-day when Dan was an undergraduate and an up-and-coming comedian. The meeting included her son Josh’s family and Lydia’s two daughters, Pam and Grace, and their respective families. Pam brought her two eldest daughters, both of whom were working toward their respective master’s degrees in biology and chemistry, to make Dan feel bad about his career choice.

  Grandma Lydia stated, “We have decided, young man, that you will give up this insane pipe dream of being a stand-up comic and focus on becoming a doctor.”

  “Is that right? Is that so you can brag to all of your friends your grandson is a doctor?”

  “Hardly. Dan, er, Dan Sr, talk to him. You seem to be the only one who can reach him.”

  Before Grandpa Dan could speak, the rebellious boy spoke.

  “Doesn’t Dan Sr. sound like seeing Monsignor?” Then the young man tried a bad French accent. “Excuse me, Monsignor Dan Sr, but your table is ready.”

  The family was quiet. They all had blank stares on their respective faces, except Grandpa Dan, who roared with laughter, read the room, and hid his laughter behind his hand. Lydia glared at her husband who then stopped laughing.

  “Wow, tough room,” Dan whispered.

  Lydia slammed her fist on the table. “Will you be serious for once?”

  “Fine. Suppose I don’t want to be a doctor?” Her defiant grandson asked.

  “Then you will be disinherited from the family money. Good luck surviving as a starving artist.”

  “Can I at least choose what kind of doctor I want to be?”

  “Yes, as long it is an AMA-recognized board licensed medical doctor.”

  “Oh… well, there goes my plan of being a Dr. Pepper,” he said.

  The family members around the table stared at him in appalled disbelief. Only Grandpa Dan laughed, which made Dan feel better.

  “DANIEL! Will you take this seriously?” Lydia shouted.

  “Do I have to?” He whined.

  “Yes!”

  He sighed, and said, “Okay, I’ll be a medical doctor.”

  “Good. Now we can get down to business.”

  Lydia Carter set up a trust that decreed when Dan completed his chosen residency and earned his certification from the American Board of Plastic Surgeons, the trust would be his to do with as he pleased. This considerable sum of a graduation promise was paying for Dan and his friends to spend a month in Italy.

  Chapter Four: Dr. Steven Pierce

  “I realized the only difference between you and me is diagnosis,” Bethany Conrad told him. They were in the Holiday Inn Express located across the street from Miami General. Bethany started six months earlier as a pharmacist at the hospital.

  “Huh?” Steven Pierce as
ked.

  Steven and Bethany had become regulars at the hotel over the past few months. His thoughts were focused on his impending vacation. He needed this vacation; he had the accumulated time off, and it was a free trip, or as Dan put it, pretending to be an obnoxious game show host holding an invisible microphone, “Bob, tell us what else Dr. Pierce has won!”

  Then Dan spoke in a high, rapid, faux-Don Pardo-esque voice, “You have won an all-expense paid trip to the beaches of Italy. After flying first class, you will stay at the Hilton Plaza in Naples, Italy and spend four sun-filled weeks exploring the beaches of Southern Italy. You can explore ruins and ancient things on your own or you can try to pick up hot, Italian women waiting for vacationing handsome, American doctors to seduce them. I recommend the latter!”

  Steven often thought his friend was more of a cartoon than a real person. Dan was quiet when working and while working the class clown was spellbinding to watch.

  While his thoughts remained on the upcoming vacation, Steven heard her rant about working while she removed her clothes.

  “Ugh,” Bethany said. “I never imagined after four years of college and three years of medical school I’d tell people I work at Walmart. Talk about your self-esteem killer.”

  Steven never considered that. He wondered if other pharmacists experienced that scenario.

  Bethany continued, “You tell people you’re a surgeon and people know you work at a hospital. People automatically assume you do. There is no surgical department in Walmart. You don’t have to tell people, ‘I work in the surgical wing at Walmart.’ No customer will ever ask you, ‘Hey, I need to find towels, hairspray, and get a brain scan before I check out,’ during their so-called shopping experience. That’s the problem, for me anyway, working at a place like that. I‘m like a department specialist under the large conglomerate umbrella, you know, not unlike the photo department technician or the head of lawn and garden. Seeing trained medical professionals in places like that degrades the occupation, especially if stupid people think that any loser with a high school diploma can do my job. They don’t know you need an advanced medical degree called a Pharm D. which requires passing three levels of licenses before becoming a pharmacist. One of my pharmacist friends who works at Target had a customer ask her, ‘How come it takes you a half an hour to count thirty pills and put a sticker onto the bottle?’ Can you believe it? I would have thrown a complete shit fit if that happened to me. Also, a pharmacist who works there has to answer to a store manager who makes considerably less than you do as a pharmacist. Can you believe it?”

  Steven rolled his eyes during her rant. He allowed her to rant because he enjoyed sex with her. He stepped forward and kissed her. She kissed him back, and she undressed him and their lovemaking began.

  *

  “Huh? What?”

  “I said, “I’m leaving you, Steven.’ Weren’t you listening?” Bethany Conrad said. The twenty-something, fair-skinned brunette rolled out of the bed, picked up her scattered clothes, slipped on her panties and pulled up her pants.

  Steven dozed off for a couple of minutes and was grateful Bethany had awakened him. He had been dreaming of that large, blue demon chasing him again. Although it was an irregular, yet recurring dream, he had not dreamed of the blue demon in years.

  She scoffed, glared at Steven, and glanced at the time on her cell phone. “I gotta go,” she said. “This was the last time.”

  “Huh? What? Why? Why do you want to stop?” Steven asked. He was not pleading, but questioning and unemotional, not unlike determining the prognosis and treatment plan for a patient.

  “The sex is fun, true, but it has become routine, and it seems that’s all we do and maybe I want more, but obviously you don’t. Do you know what’s worse? You don’t listen to me. I need more than you will give and I deserve better.” Bethany put on her bra.

  “Yes, you do and I am sorry I cannot give you the time and attention that you deserve. I’m married to my work, which takes up most of my time.”

  “Yeah, but I am not. I worked hard to get my Pharm D. and passed the boards, so that I could earn a good paycheck. I need to start investing in my life. I need to find a partner who wants to get married, have a family -- those kinds of things.”

  “You are a really handsome guy and it was fun at first, but now it feels like a chore. I mean, there are better things I could do on my breaks than sneaking off to have sex with you.”

  “Ouch.” Steven sat up in bed.

  “Don’t get me wrong, you get me there. I have been getting off, but it’s no longer enough. I need an emotional connection and with you, well, I get more feelings from my B.O.B. at home.”

  “Who’s Bob?”

  “Battery operated boyfriend,” she said in a tone that meant, Duh. “I get it that we are not exclusive and I am not…”

  It sounded like a lie to Steven.

  “But I think we need to stop seeing each other.”

  Steven knew the break was a good idea, but that meant he would need to find another frequent sex partner. Most of them wanted a regular dating life, which Steven found boring. The dinner and the drinks prior to sex was fine; sometimes even the movies were okay. However, after a while came the couples’ trips and weekend events, sometimes involving her parents, which he found dull.

  Steven was a lazy dater. He did not enjoy Bethany’s personality and he was certain he could do better, but then he would have to put in the effort into changing his dating life and Steven would rather put his effort to be a great doctor.

  Steven was searching for a partner to quell a physiological need while he focused on his work. He could have had other, better “girlfriends” if he had put effort into finding them. Online dating sites were difficult because he did not know what to say in his profile. Steven told himself he was too busy to complete his profile, which was not untrue. He often spent more time at the hospital than his own apartment. He often dined at the cafeteria and worked out at the hospital gym when time permitted.

  When they needed sex, there was the Holiday Inn Express across from the hospital. It was a simple recipe: check in, relieve stress, go back to work. Sometimes Steven would return to the room later to sleep. It was closer than going back to the apartment he shared with John. He kept a change of clothes in his locker and paid a laundry service to take care of his clothing needs.

  “I want something you can’t give me, and that is why I don’t think we should do this again.”

  “Are you sure that is how you feel?” Steven asked.

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Okay… well, it was fun.”

  Bethany glared at Steven. She wanted him to beg her to stay and to tell her that he also wanted more. However, she wanted to feel powerful as he begged her to stay, but that was not Steven. He would not miss her as much as he would miss their regularly scheduled sex. He agreed this was a good thing to happen to him, but his ego and feelings said otherwise.

  Bethany groaned and stormed out of the hotel room - slamming the door on her way out.

  Steven stepped out of bed, and into the shower because he did not want to smell like Bethany or her. In a couple of hours, he would leave for a month-long vacation to Italy and leave Bethany behind.

  His parents had groomed Steven from the womb to be a doctor. His dad was a gastroenterologist and his mother was a gynecologist who met and married during medical school. Steven had aunts and uncles on both sides who had become doctors and his Thanksgivings and Christmases were more like small medical conferences than normal family holidays. His older brother became a pediatrician, his older sister became a research oncologist and his cousins became neurosurgeons.

  Medicine was the family business. He was the valedictorian of his high school and graduated magna cum laude during as an undergraduate at Yale. Steven would have stayed at Yale for medical school if his mother had not gotten sick. The oncologists had diagnosed his mother with ovarian cancer, which began a cycle of advancing and then retreating into remis
sion for a time. Her life ended two months after Steven became a surgeon in his own right.

  Steven did not regret attending the University of Florida for medical school instead of Yale, which allowed him to spend his time with his mother. Although she was ailing, she helped her youngest son pass his medical boards. By staying in Florida, Steven was by his mother’s bedside when she passed.

  Working with his friends, Dan and John, made his first days as a surgeon bearable; otherwise he might have crumbled under the almost insurmountable stress, which often destroyed new doctors and forces them to burn out. He had seen it happen up close and personal to a young doctor named Carol. She dropped out following her residency when her depression got the best of her. Two late-shift doctors and nurses found her hiding in a closet bawling and on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She nearly drank herself to death. Horrible as it was to witness, Carol’s nervous breakdown served as a powerful cautionary tale for Steven, who despite his mother’s recent passing, would keep going, telling himself that he was staying strong for her.

  Steven needed this relaxing vacation to step away from his life for a few weeks before his stress and anxieties crushed him. He saw the signs he was heading for a crash and Dan’s vacation sounded like a reprieve. Steven checked out of the room and returned to his apartment to pack for his Italian adventure.

  Chapter Five: The Airport

  John and Steven shared an Uber to the airport. They checked in, passed through security, and found Dan at an airport bar chatting up a flight attendant.

  Dan told her, “When I was a child, I decided to become a plastic surgeon because I had a friend who suffered from a facial affliction, which made her life difficult and she was unpopular. After seeing how she was treated, I vowed to devote my life to fight her affliction to try to make the world a better place.”

  “What was wrong with her?” The woman asked.

  “She was ugly.”

  The woman nearly spit out her drink from laughter. When the flight attendant calmed down, she told Dan, “You are such a good friend.”