Flashback

by Michael Palmer

  There was laughter and applause from around the room. "Oh, one more thing, " Zack added as the reaction died away. "I expected there might be some unusual problems arising from my decision to return and set up shop in the town where I was born and raised. So I'd like to make it perfectly clear that there is absolutely no truth to the rumor-started, I believe, by Dr. Blunt over there, who delivered me and was my pediatrician-that I won't go into the operating room without the one-eyed teddy bear I insisted on clinging to during his examinations."

  Suzanne, with Jason Mainwaring in tow, caught up with Zack in the corridor. "Zack, hi, " she said. "Thanks for the laughs in there. Have you met Jason?"

  "I think briefly, a few months ago, " Zack said, shaking the surgeon's hand. "Nice to see you again."

  "Same here, " Mainwaring said, in a pronounced drawl. "That was a cute little speech, Iverson. I was especially partial to the line about the teddy bear."

  "Thanks, " Zack said, wondering if the man was being facetious. "I even liked that other one. About your next vacation being so far away. You're a funny man."

  "Thanks again."

  "However, " the surgeon continued, "I would caution you against makin' any more inflammatory statements about this Beaulieu business until you know all the facts. Y'see, Iverson, I'm the staff member Beaulieu alluded to in there-the one he's suin'. And noble as you tried to sound in your little pronouncement there, you and Beaulieu aren't the only ones who do charity work. I operate on plenty of folks who can't pay, too. Zack was startled by the man's rudeness. "Well, " he said, "I'm glad to hear that. I only hope they get their money's worth."

  "You know, " Mainwaring countered, "I've always heard that only the most arrogant and sadistic surgeons elect to spend their professional lives suckin' on brain…"

  "Hey, guys, what is this? " Suzanne cut in. "This sounds like the sort of exchange you both should have put behind you when you climbed down from your tree houses and started high school. Jason, what's with you?

  Were you attacked in your crib by a mad neurosurgeon or something?"

  Mainwaring smiled stiffly. "My apologies, Iverson, " he said. He extended his hand, but shielded from Suzanne the hostility in.. his eyes was lcy. "Hey, no big deal, Jason. No big deal."

  "Good. Well then, we'll have to see what we can do about drummin' up a little neurosurgical business for y'all."

  "Thanks."

  "Meanwhile, you might try to steer clear of politics around this place-at least until you've been here long enough to learn everyone's name." He checked his gold Rolex. "Suzanne, dear, I believe we still have time to complete our business. Nice to see you, Iverson. I'm sure you'll make the adjustment to this sleepy little place just fine."

  Without waiting for a response, he took Suzanne's arm and strode down the hallway. Andy O'Meara, red-cheeked, beer-bellied, and beaming, strolled among the tables of Gillie's Mountainside Tavern, shaking hands and exchanging slaps on the back with the twenty or so men enjoying their midday break in the smoky warmth. Over nearly twenty years he had come to know each and every one of them well, and was proud to call them his friends. "Andy O, you old fart. Welcome back! "… "Hey, it's Mighty Mick. Way to go, Andy. Way to go. We knew you'd beat it."

  First the cards and candy and flowers when he was in the hospital, and now this welcome back. They were a hell of a bunch. The very best. And at that moment, as far as Andy O'Meara was concerned, he was the luckiest man alive. Tomorrow would be Independence Day-the day for celebrating the birth of freedom. And this day was one for celebrating his own rebirth. "Hey, Gillie, " he called out, the lilt of a childhood in Kilkenny still coloring his speech. "Suds around, on me."

  After three months of pain and worry, after more than a dozen trips to Manchester for radiation therapy, after sitting time and again in the doctor's office, waiting for the other shoe to fall, waiting for-the news that "We can't get it all, " he was back on the road, cured. The bowel cancer that had threatened his very existence was in some jar in the pathology department at Ultramed-Davis Hospital, and whatever evil cells had remained in his body had been burnt to hell by the amazing X-ray machines. The backseat and trunk of his green Chevy were once again filled with the boxes of shoes and boots and sneakers that he loved to lay out for the merchants along route 16, and the rhythm of his life had at last been restored. "To the luck of the Irish, " he proclaimed as he hoisted the frosted mug over his head. "And to you, Andy O, " Gillie responded. "We're glad to have you back among the living."

  Andy O'Meara exchanged handshakes and hugs with each man in the place, and then set his half-filled tankard on the bar. It was his first frosty in more than twelve weeks, and with a full afternoon of calls ahead of him, there was no sense in putting his tolerance for the stuff to the test. He settled up with Gillie and stepped out of the dim, pine-paneled tavern, into the sparkling afternoon sunlight. He prided himself on never being late for a call, and Colson's Factory Outlet was nearly a thirty-minute drive through the mountains. He switched on the radio.

  Kenny Rogers was admonishing him to know when to hold and know when to fold. The country/western music, usually Andy's staple, seemed somehow out of keeping with the peace and serenity of this day. At the edge of the driveway he stopped and changed to a classical program on WEVO, the public station. Better, he thought. Much better. The tune was familiar.

  Almost instantly, it conjured up images in Andy's mind-softly falling snow… a stone hearth… a roaring fire… family. As he hummed along, Andy tried to remember where he had heard the haunting melody before."… What child is thi-is, who laid to re-est in Mary's la-ap, lay slee-eeping?…"

  He surprised himself by knowing many of the words. "This, thi-is is Christ the Ki-ing, whom shepherds gua-and and angels sing…"

  It was the Christmas carol, he suddenly realized. That was it. As a i child in Ireland it had been one of his favorites. How strange to hear it in the middle of summer. He paused to let a semi roar past. The noise of the truck was muted — almost as if it made no sound at all. Andy shrugged. As wonderful as it felt to be back on the road again, it also felt a little odd."… Haste, ha-aste to bring him lau-all-aud, the Ba-abe, the so-on of Mary…"

  He closed the windows, turned on the air conditioner, and swung out of the drive onto route 110. The green of the mountainside seemed uncomfortably bright. He squinted, then rubbed at his eyes and wondered if perhaps he should stop someplace to pick up a pair of sunglasses. No, he decided. No stops. At least not until after Colson's. Settle down, old boy, he said to himself. Just settle down. He adjusted the signal on the radio and settled back in his seat, humming once again. Route 110 was two lanes wide, with a narrow breakdown space on either side. It twisted and turned, rose and dropped like an amusement park ride, from Groveton on the Vermont border, along the ridge of the Ammonoosuc River Valley, to Sterling and Route 16. A scarred, low, white guardrail paralleled the road to Andy's right, and beyond the rail was the gorge, at places seven hundred feet deep. Andy's restless, ill-at-ease sensation was intensifying, and he knew he was having difficulty concentrating. He adjusted his seatback and checked his safety harness.

  The guardrail had become something of a blur, and the solid center line kept working its way beneath his left front tire. He tightened his grip on the wheel and checked the speedometer. Forty-five. Why did it feel like he was speeding?

  Subtly, he noticed, the trees on the mountainside had begun to darken-to develop a reddish tone. He rubbed at his eyes and, once again, forced the sedan back to the right-hand lane. Twenty-five years on the road without an accident. He was damned if he was going to have one now. Ahead of him, the scenery dimmed. A tractor trailor approached, sunlight sparking brilliantly off its windshield. Suddenly, Andy was aware of a voice echoing in his mind-a deep, slow, resonant, reassuring voice, at first too soft to understand, then louder… and louder still. "Okay, Andy, " it said, "now all I want you to do is count back from one hundred… count back from one hundred… count back from one hundred…"

&
nbsp; Out loud, Andy began to count. "One hundred… ninety-nine… ninety-eight…"

  A blue drape drifted above him, then floated down over his abdomen.

  "Ninety-seven… ninety-six…" e Hands, covered by rubber gloves, appeared in the space where the drape had been. "Ninety-five… ninety-four… Why aren't I asleep?" his mind asked. "Ninety-three… ninety-two."

  "Bove electrode, please, " the low voice said. "Set it for cut and cauterize."

  Another pair of gloved hands appeared, one of them holding a gauze sponge, and the other, a small rod with a metal tip. Slowly, they lowered the metal tip toward his belly. "Ninety-one… ninety-"

  Suddenly, a loud humming filled his mind. The metal tip of the rod touched his skin just below his navel, sending a searing, electric pain through to his back and down his legs. "Jesus Christ, stop! " Andy screamed. "I'm not asleep! I'm not asleep!"

  The wall of his lower abdomen parted beneath the electric blade, exposing a bright yellow layer of fat. "Eighty-nine!.. Eighty-eight! … For God's sake, stop! It's not working! I'm awake! I can feel that!

  I can feel everything! "

  "Metzenbaums and pick-ups, please."

  "No! Please, no!"

  The Metzenbaum scissors sheared across Andy's peritoneum, parting the shiny membrane like tissue paper and exposing the glistening pink rolls of his bowel. Again, he screamed. But this time, the sound came from his voice, as well as from within his mind. His vision cleared at the moment the right headlight of his automobile made contact with the guardrail.

  The Chevy, now traveling at nearly ninety miles an hour, tore through the protective steel as if it were cardboard, crossed a narrow stretch of grass and gravel, and then hurtled over the edge of the gorge.

  Strapped to his seat, Andy O'Meara watched the emerald trees flash past.

  In the fourth second of his fall, he realized what was happening. In the fifth, the Chevy shattered on the jagged rocks below and exploded. ill THE CAFETERIA OF Ultramed-Davis, like most of the facility, had been renovated in an airy and modern, though quite predictable, style. The interior featured a large, well-provisioned salad bar, and a wall of sliding glass doors opened onto a neat flagstone terrace with a half-dozen cement tables and benches. Pleasantly exhausted from his three-hour cervical disc case, Zack sat at the only table partially shaded by an overhanging tree and watched as Guy Beaulieu maneuvered toward him through the lunchtime crowd. During the summer Zack had spent as an extern at the then Davis Regional Hospital, Beaulieu had been extremely busy with his practice and with his duties as president of the medical staff. Still, the man always seemed to have enough time to stop and teach, or to reassure a frightened patient, or to console a bereaved family. And from that summer on, the surgeon's blend of skill and compassion had remained something of a role model for Zack. "So,"

  Beaulieu said as he set down his tray and slid onto the stone bench opposite Zack, "thank you for agreeing to dine with me."

  "Nonsense, " Zack replied. "I've been looking forward to seeing you ever since I got back to town. How is your wife doing? And Marie? "

  "Clothilde, bless her heart, is as good as can be expected, considering the filthy stories she has had to contend with these past two years. And as for Marie, as you may have heard, she grew weary waiting for you to propose and went ahead and married a writer-a poet of all things-from Quebec."

  Zack smiled. He and Marie Beaulieu had been friends from their earliest days in grammar school, but had never been sweethearts in any sense of the word. "Knowing Marie, I'm sure he's very special," he said. "You are correct. If she could not have you, then this man, Luc, is one I would have chosen for her. In an age when most young people seem to care for nothing but themselves, he is quite unique-consumed by the need to make a difference. He works for a village newss'der and crusades against all manner of social injustice while he waits for the world to discover his poems."

  "Kids?"

  "They have two children, and I don't know how on earth they manage to feed them. But manage they do."

  "And they're happy, " Zack said. "Yes. Poor and crusading, but happy, and as in love-more so, perhaps-than on the day they were married."

  Zack held his hands apart. "C'est tout ce que conte, n'est ce pas?"

  Beaulieu's smile was bittersweet. "Yes, " he said. "That is all that matters." He paused a beat for transition. "So, your old friend Guy Beaulieu is a little short of allies in this place."

  "So it sounds, " Zack said, picking absently at his salad. Beaulieu leaned forward, his eyes and his voice conspiratorial. "There is much going on here that is not right, Zachary, " he whispered. "Some of what is happening is simply wrong. Some of it is evil."

  Zack glanced about at the newly constructed west wing, at the helipad, at the clusters of nurses and doctors enjoying their noontime breaks on the terrace and inside the cafeteria. "You'll understand, I hope, if I say that I see little evidence of that around me. Could you be more specific?"

  "Your father spoke to you, yes?"

  "Briefly."

  "So you know about the lies."

  "I know something of the rumors, if that's what you mean."

  Beaulieu leaned even closer. "Zachary, I beg your confidence in this matter."

  "That goes without asking, " Zack said. "But I have to warn you of something. The Judge on Sunday, and you again this morning, suggested that at least some of your quarrel might be with Frank. You should know that I have absolutely no desire to take sides in that disagreement.

  Your friendship means a great deal to me. I don't know if I'd even be a surgeon today if it weren't for your influence. But Frank's my brother.

  I can't imagine lining up against him."

  "Even if he was in the wrong?"

  "In my experience, Guy, right and wrong are far more often shades of gray than black and white. Besides, I tried my hand at crusading during my years at Boston Muni. All it got me was a tension headache the size of Alaska. I should have bought stock in Tylenol before I took my first complaint to the Muni administration. I'll listen if you want to talk, but please don't expect anything."

  "Thank you for the warning, " Beaulieu said. "Even though I have a great fondness and respect for you, and even though, as you no doubt gathered, I haven't much support around this place, I was reluctant to share with you what I know, largely because of Frank. But then, when you said what you did at the meeting this morning-I mean about treating anyone, regardless of their ability to pay-well, I sort of took that as an invitation to talk." Zack sighed. "You thought correctly, " he said finally. "I fight it tooth and nail, but when I'm not looking, the part of me that can't stand seeing people get screwed always seems to sneak to the surface."

  "Yes, I heard what you did for that old woodcutter the other night."

  "You did?"

  "Don't be so surprised. This hospital, this entire town, in fact, has a communication system that would make the Department of Defense green with envy. You had best accept that fact and adjust to it if you're going to survive here. Drop a pebble in the lake and everyone-but everyone-will feel the ripple. That's why stories, such as those that have been spread about me, are so damning. In no time at all, everyone has heard a version."

  "Like that old game-telephone."

  "Pardon?"

  "It's a party game we used to play. Every one sits in a circle, and the first person whispers a secret to the one next to him. Then the secret goes all around the circle, and by the time it gets back to the one who started it, it has totally changed. It bothers me terribly to think that anyone would deliberately be doing anything to hurt you, especially making the sort of accusations the Judge says have been flying around."

  "They are lies, you know, Zachary. Every last one of them."

  Zack studied the Frenchman's face-the set of his jaw, the dark sadness engulfing his eyes. "I know, old friend, " he said at last. "I know they are."

  "So…" Beaulieu tapped his fingertips together, deciding where to begin. "What did you think
of my little prepared statement this morning?

  " he asked finally. "Well, the truth is, I thought you handled yourself, and expressed yourself, very well."

  Beaulieu smiled. "Diplomatically put, my boy. But please, continue, and remember, my feelings are quite beyond being hurt."

  Zack shrugged. "Okay, if you really want to know the truth, I kept thinking that all that was missing from the whole scenario was a horse, a lance, a shaving-bowl helment, and Sancho Panza."

  This time, the older surgeon laughed out loud "So, you think I am tilting at a windmill, is that it? Well, my young friend, let me give you a closer look at that windmill. Richard noulombe. Do you know him?"

  "The pharmacist? Of course I know him. I called in a prescription him just yesterday."

  "And did you know that he does not own his pharmacy anymore?"

  "The sign says Coulombe Drug."

  "I know what the sign says. I also know that Richard is now an employee, and not a proprietor. He sold his store nearly two years ago to a chain outfit named Eagle Pharmaceuticals and Surgical Supplies. I do not know how that particular deal, with that particular company, was brought about, but I can guess now that it was no accident. Richard did not want to sell, but he needed the money to pay an enormous debt-a hospital bill and a surgeon's bill, Zachary-run up by his wife, now his late wife, Yvette, during a series of cancer operations."

  Beaulieu chewed on a bite of sandwich as he gauged Zack's reaction.

  "Did you perform the operations? " Zack asked. The surgeon shook his head. "The Coulombes had been my patients for many years, but shortly before Yvette began having symptoms, the rumors about me began circulating. Like most of the other people in town, they decided, or were told-I'm still not exactly certain which-to go and see Jason Mainwaring, instead. They were also told that their insurance coverage was quite limited, but that barring complications, most of Yvette's bills would be covered."