House of God

by Samuel Shem

  25

  Why, he would call an emergency B-M Deli lunch.

  On the morning of the emergency lunch, I walked into the House to find Howie, calm ‘Social Medicine’ Howie, the last tern to have gone to Gomer City, standing in front of the elevator door, IBM cards scattered at his feet, hair disheveled, biting on his pipe stem and kicking and pounding on the closed steel door, screaming, ‘GODDAMNIT, COME DOWN, COME DOWN!’ So, I thought, the last happy tern has been broken.

  The only patients I went to see were Nate Zock and Olive O. My relationship with Nate had rocketed along on a remarkable trajectory. All the Zocks—Nate, Trixie, the kids—suffered under the illusion that my ‘taking charge’ in the E.W. by kicking them all out of the room was what had saved Nate’s life. I did not relieve them of their suffering under this. For the first few days Trixie, thinking that Nate was at death’s door and that I had the key, had shadowed me all over the House. I’d shaken her only by mentioning that in fact Nate still did not have the best room in the House. Trixie had gone one-on-one with the daughter of the rich gomere who did have the best room and was never to give it up. Trixie had done a thumbnail calculation and ascertained that this gomere was not in the League of Zock, especially while the interior of the Wing of Zock was not quite finished. The major medical complication in Nate’s case had been how to implement what Nate needed, the Fat Mannish LAW: DO NOTHING. I’d encountered much resistance, and had had to use all my hard-earned House skills—lying, false-BUFFING the chart, keeping the Low Profile—to be sure of doing nothing on this important personage. I liked Nate, which made my holding on to doing nothing a little easier. And so the potentially lethal bleeding polyp of Zock had healed over, and he got better. That day, he was to go home, and wanted to talk to me.

  ‘You’re a good guy,’ Nate said. ‘I’m a real judge of talent. I look at a guy and I know if he’s got it or not. Know what I mean?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  ‘You got it. The Pearl warned me about you. The way you kicked my wife out of that room I’ll never forget. You and me are similar: started with nothing, and now . . .’ And Nate made a wavy motion with his hands, as if playing a huge accordian stuffed with money, expanding to fill the world. ‘Now, listen: I like you, Basch, and the people I like, I reward. I know you don’t make shit for money here, but now, with your internship almost over, you can start in private practice. I can help. You know the Pearl? With that ritzy office and the Muzak playing Fiddler? You know how he got started? My old man. So listen: your sneakers tell me you play tennis. Come to the house, play on my court, use my pool. Here’s the card: NATE ZOCK: NOT THE BEST BUT THE MOST. You call this weekend, OK?’

  I thanked him and started to leave.

  ‘Oh, and one more thing: I’m writing a letter to the Chief of Medicine, Dr. Leggo, with copies to the Chief Resident and the BMS and House Board of Trustees. I been a patient here eight times and I never been treated so good. Usually my intern is some whiny kid from the Bronx who’s so scared of a Zock pegging out that he’s in the room every ten minutes doing tests, taking blood, and I get worse before I get better. By the time I’m out of here I’m so exhausted I’ve got to fly straight to the condo in Palm Springs for a rest. Bad for business. But you—you had enough savvy to let me heal. And I knew you were there in case anything went wrong. Basch, you were with me man to man. You handled my wife, my fat kids, and you handled me. So I’m going to tell your bosses, eh? Give a call Saturday. I’ll send my man around.’

  A letter to the Leggo? Fight power with power! Not even the Leggo would be dumb enough to stand up to Zock, a family dealing in monstrous steel beams and knockwurst-sized nuts and bagel-sized bolts holding together the brand-new Wing of the House of God. Excited, I checked out humpy Olive O. She seemed to be doing just great.

  Yet LP Leon still refused to let me present the humps to the Leggo, and so I climbed into the top bunk, pried open my can of Freud, and soon found yet another Viennese bombshell recalling leaping into the sack with her pop. Chuck came in, took his bottle out of his bag, and began to sing. Hooper wandered in and opened a book called How to Pierce an Ear, which turned out to be not another quest for a post, but a requirement for a moonlighting job in a department store downtown. Eddie stopped by and started reading out loud from my old ‘internship novel’ How I Saved the World, but after a few passages that had us laughing at the idealized deception, the book sailed into the trashcan for good. The Runt ambled in and greeted 789 cheerfully: ‘749, how are you? Did you ever find out what was in those humps?’

  ‘Excuse me, but you misspelled my middle name,’ said Sev. ‘No, I have not yet found what is in “those humps.”’

  ‘Man, maybe they’re breasts,’ said Chuck. ‘Extra breasts.’

  ‘Doesn’t help,’ said 789, ‘no one knows what’s in breasts either.’

  ‘They’re spiritual humps,’ I said, ‘filled with the milk of human kindness.’

  ‘The leading theory,’ said Sev, ‘is that they’re filled with oxygen. It’s said that the oxygen in her humps is what’s keeping her alive.’

  ‘That’s it,’ I said, ‘she’s not human, she’s a plant. Her humps are cotyledons. In her altruism, she makes oxygen for us all.’

  ‘Nah, you’re all wrong,’ said the Runt, ‘I know what’s in the humps, and it’s not altruism or oxygen either.’

  ‘Well, man, what’s in ’em?’

  ‘Pimento. Olive’s humps are big pimentoes.’

  After the laughter had died down, Chuck drifted into a song by Mississippi John Hurt:

  When my earthly trials are over, cast my body down in the sea; Save all the undertaker’s bills, let the mermaids flirt with me.

  Each of us had heard another tern sing that song. The other tern had been Wayne Potts. We were ready. It was time for the B-M Deli lunch.

  Gilheeny and Quick stood by the door. As we entered, they sent back two winks: one fat, red, and bushy; the other thin, wiry, and black. Little did the Leggo realize whom he’d chosen to protect him. We dug into our B-M Deli sandwiches. The Leggo ate standing, in front. Sensing the tension in the room, and with only two weeks to go until his Chief Residency year was successfully completed and he would be assured a spot on the House Slurper staff, the Fish was determined to avoid an explosion. Standing before us, he began to announce the event that Hyper Hooper and Eat My Dust Eddie had been awaiting, the presentation of the Black Crow Award.

  ‘You mean the thing really exists?’ I asked Chuck.

  ‘If’n it don’t, it sure did fool the Leggo and the Fish.’

  ‘. . . and so, since there has already been one award this year, the * * * MVI * * * won by Dr. Roy G. Basch and symbolized by his silver tiepin, we’ve decided to have a tiepin for the Black Crow.’ The Fish held up a silver tiepin with a black crow perched on it, and said, ‘I know there’s been fierce competition, and right up until last night the contest was a dead heat between Hooper and Eddie for the most posts. In fact, it wasn’t until the early hours of the morning, with the death of Rose—’

  ‘KATZ! ROSE KATZ!’ screamed Hooper, leaping up. ‘YAYYY! I KNEW IT! ROSE KATZ PUT ME OVER THE TOP! I WON IT AT THE POST!’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Fish, ‘it was Mrs. Rose Katz, the postmortem was done this morning, and it gives me great pleasure to announce that the first annual House of God Black Crow Award goes to Dr. Hooper.’

  ‘YEE-AYY!’ said Hooper, running up to the front of the room to accept his tiepin and his free trip for two to Atlantic City. He did a little victory dance and burst out with ‘Underr the boo-arrd-walk, down by the seeeeeeeee—’

  ‘Wait just a second,’ said the Runt angrily. ‘Rose Katz was my LOL in NAD. I claim credit for the death and for the post. I worked hard for that death, and Hooper robbed me of it. He came in last night when he wasn’t even on call and I was home asleep. Eddie was on call, and since Rose died when Eddie was in charge, I know she’d want him to get credit for her post. Eddie’s the winner, not Hooper.’
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br />   ‘HEY HEY HEY!’ cried Eddie, standing, running up to the front. ‘HEY, GUYS, IT’S EDDIE! HOOPER, YOU CAN EAT MY DUST! I’M THE BLACK CROW, FAIR AND SQUARE! LET’S HEAR IT FOR EDDIE, EH? HEY HEY HEY!’

  Well, at that, all hell broke loose. Eddie and Hooper started arguing and then were pushing and shoving and then really started in swinging at each other, and with all of us screaming like at a prizefight, finally the policemen broke it up. The Leggo marched center-ring and said that unfortunately the decision of the judges was final and Hooper was the first House Black Crow. Hooper, relieved, shook hands with Eddie, and then, turning to the rest of us, with moisture in his eyes, said, ‘You know, guys. I just can’t believe it. This is like a dream come true. I want you to know I couldn’t have done it without your help, each and every one of you. You put me where I am today, and I’ll never forget it. From my heart, guys, thanks. YAY! Under the boo—’

  The Leggo and the Fish canned the second verse of Hooper’s song, and we settled down to the serious business of the day: ‘All of you, when you came here almost a year ago,’ said the Leggo, ‘agreed to do two years, and yet some of you are thinking of not going on in medicine. Boys, I’ll be frank: I’m banking on your being here with me for the rewarding House residency year. One year isn’t enough. One year is nothing, almost a waste. It’s the second year, built on the foundation of the first, that makes it all worthwhile.’ He paused. Angry silence filled the room. A waste? ‘Now, how many of you are considering psychiatry? Raise your hands.’

  Silently, five hands went up: the Runt, Chuck, Eddie, the Crow, the * * * MVI * * *. And then the Leggo’s eyes and the Fish’s eyes bugged out, staring at the back of the room. We turned. Both Gilheeny and Quick had raised their hands.

  ‘What?’ asked the Leggo. ‘You too? You’re policemen, not physicians. You can’t become psychiatrists on July the first.’

  ‘Policemen we are,’ said Gilheeny, ‘and strictly speaking, psychiatrists we cannot become. At first this seemed a singular limitation for us, so taken as we are with the warped and criminally perverted—’

  ‘Get on with it, man. What’s the point?’

  ‘The point is that we shall become lay analysts.’

  ‘Lay analysts? You cops are thinking of becoming lay analysts?’

  There was a pause, and then, out of it rolled a familiar question: ‘Would we be policemen if we were not?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Quick, ‘for lay analysis was introduced to our minds by our old friend Grenade Room Dubler. Dr. Jeffrey Cohen also—’

  ‘WHAT?!’ yelled the Leggo. ‘DUBLER A PSYCHIATRIST?’

  ‘Not just a psychiatrist, no,’ said Gilheeny, ‘a Freudian analyst.’

  ‘THAT MADMAN? A FREUDIAN PSYCHO-ANALYST?’

  ‘And not just a psychoanalyst,’ said Quick, ‘but the bearded President of the Psychoanalytic Institute, a preeminent humanist and scholar.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Gilheeny, ‘having left the House of God directly after his internship year, Dubler never looked back, and has risen to the very top. At this moment, he is pulling strings for us, giving us “a leg up.”’

  ‘And with Finton’s banjaxed leg anyway,’ said Quick, ‘it is time for us to change careers to a less ambulatory one. Lay analysis is perfect.’

  ‘For did not the great Sigmund Freud in 1912 conclude a symposium on masturbation with the statement: “the subject of onanism is inexhaustible”?’

  ‘And will it not take time to work out our Church dogma that masturbation will render the Catholic lad blind, hairy-palmed, insane, doomed, and with the leg bones bent like an orphan with the rickets?’

  ‘And so excuse us, Chief,’ said Gilheeny, folding his big arms across his chest and leaning back against the door, ‘we will now resume the free associations,’ and he closed his eyes and lapsed into silence again.

  The Leggo was shaken. Turning back to us, anxiously tugging the stethoscope deep-sixed in his trousers, he asked, ‘Psychiatry? All of you five? I don’t understand. Hooper?’

  ‘Well,’ said Hooper sheepishly, ‘I got to admit I was thinking Path most of the year, but for some reason, right now Psych seems a better deal. Lot to work through, Chief—the divorce, splitting up the furniture, saying good-bye to the wife’s old man, the works—anyway, the fiancée’s a pathologist, she’ll keep me up on the stiffs.’

  ‘Chuck? Even you?’ asked the Leggo.

  ‘You know how it is, man. I mean, just look at me. When I firs’ came here, I looked great, didn’t I, guys? I was thin, atha-letic, dressed like a Bluenote, remember? Now I’m fat, and I’m dressin’ like a janitor, a damn bum. Why? You dudes and them gomers, that’s why. And mostly you—you made me what I am today. Thanks, man, thanks a lot. I be good goddamned if I stay here for round two.’

  We were startled by Chuck’s outburst. The Leggo looked hurt and puzzled. He began to question Eddie, but the Runt, more and more angry, exploded: ‘Damnit, Leggo, you don’t realize what we’ve been going through this year. You don’t have a clue!’

  There was an ominous hush. The Runt, wild-eyed, looked like he was about to strangle the Leggo, and the Fish shielded his Chief with his body and gestured toward the policemen. Snarling, the Runt continued: ‘There’s some good news, there’s some bad news: the bad news is there’s shit around here; the good news is that there’s plenty of it. You’ve broken us this year, with your pious version of medical care. We hate this. We want out.’

  ‘What?’ asked the Leggo incredulously, ‘you mean you don’t enjoy doing medicine here at the House of God?’

  ‘Get it through your fucking skull!’ shouted the Runt at the Leggo, and, according to Freud, at his mom and pop in the Leggo, and sat down.

  ‘It’s just a small radical nucleus.’

  ‘Nope,’ I said in a somber tone. ‘It’s all of us. This morning I saw Howard Greenspoon bashing and screaming at the elevator door like a maniac.’

  ‘Howard? No!’ said the Leggo. ‘My Howie?’

  The attention turned to his Howie. Silence. The tension billowed out. Howie squirmed. The tension hung, taut. Howie cracked: ‘Y-y-yes, Chief, sir, I’m sorry, but it’s true. It was the gomers: one named Harry and a flatulent woman named Jane. See, it’s my admitting days that kill me. Each admitting day—knowing that the total age of my admissions will be in the four hundreds—I get depressed and I want to kill myself. The tension had been incredible: those M and M Conferences where I get roasted every two weeks for my mistakes—I can’t help making mistakes, can I, Chief?—and then Potts splattering and his mess being spread around so we had to park right on him, and all these gomers. And then the young patients dying no matter what we do. The truth is, Chief, well . . . well, since September I’ve been on antidepressants, Elavil. And I’m staying on here; imagine how the other guys feel. Like the Runt: he used to be a fun guy, and now . . . why, just look at him.’

  We all looked at him. The Runt was staring at the Leggo with a gaze as ferocious as Crazy Abe’s. The Runt looked extraordinarily mean.

  The Leggo, shocked, asked, ‘You mean you don’t look forward to your admitting days?’

  ‘Look forward?’ said Howie. ‘Chief, two days before my admitting day—just after my last admitting day—I’m nervous, and I up my dose of Elavil twenty-five milligrams. One day before my admitting day, I add fifty of Thorazine. On my admitting day, as I start to see the gomers, I start to shake, and . . .’ Shaking, Howie took out a silver pillbox faced with mother-of-pearl and popped a Valium into his mouth. ‘. . . and it’s Valium all the way. On real bad days . . . well, it’s hits of Dex.’

  So that was Howie’s smile: the guy was a walking pharmacopoeia.

  The Leggo had gotten stuck on something Howie had said, and asked the Fish: ‘Did they say they don’t enjoy their admitting days?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said the Fish, ‘I do believe they said that, sir.’

  ‘Strange. Boys, when I was an intern, I loved my admitting days. All of us did. We looked forward to them, we f
ought for those “toughies” so we could show our Chief what we could do. And we did damn well. What’s happened? What’s going on?’

  ‘Gomers,’ said Howie, ‘gomers are what’s going on.’

  ‘You mean old people? We took care of old people too.’

  ‘Gomers are different,’ said Eddie. ‘They didn’t exist when you were a tern, ’cause then they used to die. Now they don’t.’

  ‘Ridiculous,’ said the Leggo emphatically.

  ‘It is,’ I said, ‘and it’s true. How many guys have seen a gomer die under his own steam this year, without medical interference? Raise your hands.’

  No hands went up.

  ‘But surely we help them. Why, we even cure.’

  ‘Most of us wouldn’t know a cure if we found one in a Cracker Jack Box,’ said Eddie. ‘I haven’t cured anybody yet and I don’t know an intern who has. We’re all still waiting for number one.’

  ‘Oh, come, now. Surely. What about the young?’

  ‘They’re the ones who die,’ said the Crow. ‘Most of my posts were on guys my age. It was no picnic, Chief, winning your Award.’

  ‘Yes, well, you are all my boys,’ said the Leggo, as if he had forgotten to turn on his hearing aid that day, ‘and before I close this meeting I’d like to say a few words about the year. First, thanks for the terrific job. In many ways it’s been a great year, one of the best. You’ll never forget it. I’m proud of each and every one of you, and before I end, I’d just like to say a few words about one of you who isn’t here today, a physician with a tremendous potential, Dr. Wayne Potts.’

  We stiffened. Leggo was asking for trouble if he messed with Potts.

  ‘Yes, I’m proud of Potts. Except for some defect that led to his . . . accident, he was a fine young physician. Let me tell you about him . . .’

  I tuned out. Instead of anger, I felt sorry for the Leggo, so stiff and so clumsy, so out of touch with the human, with us, his boys. He was another generation, that of our fathers, who in restaurants before paying, added up the arithmetic of the check.