Hot Lights, Cold Steel

by Michael J. Collins

  I laid my head on hers and stroked her hair. “Long day?” I asked.

  “Long life,” she said with a laugh. “When do I become the rich doctor’s wife lounging at country clubs, getting my nails done, and having maids make my bed?”

  “Any day now.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  Just then Eileen came into the kitchen. “Daddy’s home!” she shouted. Mary Kate pounded up the stairs and the two of them ran over and hugged my leg. I bent down, kissed them both, tickled them in the armpit, and said I was glad to be home because I hadn’t spanked a kid in two days.

  “Where’s the baby?” I said to Pat who had been wedged aside by the two little girls.

  “He’s asleep in the crib.”

  “Let’s go see your brother,” I told the girls.

  “Yay! Yay!” they said, clapping their hands. He was their favorite toy. They liked to poke and prod and pull at him like he was one of their Barbies.

  “You stay away from that baby,” Patti said. “If you wake him, I’ll murder all of you. The poor thing needs his rest.”

  The poor thing needs his rest—and this from a woman who had just given birth to her third baby in three years, a woman who had defied her parents to marry a guy with no money, a guy who then tore her away from home, moved her four hundred miles away, and then left her alone for days at a time.

  Patti was at the sink again, her back to me. I watched as she wiped away a wisp of hair with the back of her hand. Overcome with a sudden feeling of tenderness, I came up behind her and put my arms around her.

  She could tell by the way I held her something was wrong. “What’s the matter?” she asked, trying to turn around and face me.

  But I held her tighter and bent my head down closer to hers. “I’m what’s the matter,” I whispered in her ear, “and you’re what’s not.”

  “What are you talking about?” She wiggled free and turned to face me.

  I smiled sheepishly and held out my arms to her. “I was just thinking that for a guy who works a hundred hours a week at two different jobs and who has a wife, three kids, and no money, I’m a pretty lucky guy.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  January

  On January 4, the day I started as senior resident on Marty Shaw’s hand service, our financial situation became even more precarious. When I went out to start the old Pontiac that morning it made a terrible grinding noise, shuddered once, and was still. I tried everything, but I couldn’t get it to start. Finally I phoned Mr. Jensen at the Standard station. He grumbled that the damn thing probably died of carbon monoxide poisoning. He said with the junk heaps I drove he wasn’t sure if I was studying to be a surgeon or an undertaker.

  For Patti’s sake he agreed to come and take a look. He checked under the hood, turned the key, and spat when he heard the groaning sound the car made. He told us to forget it. The car was dead. Totally and irrevocably dead. Brain dead. Flat line. Elvis had left the building.

  “Thanks for the coffee and sweet roll, Mrs. C.,” he said to Patti.

  Patti smiled and thanked him for coming.

  “Splurge, Doc,” he told me as he climbed back in his truck. “See if you can get something with less than 150,000 miles on it this time.”

  When he had gone, I siphoned the gas, removed the spare tire, and called Ernie Hausfeld at the junkyard again.

  “Collins. Oh, yeah. Aren’t you the Mayo doctor?”

  “Yep. That’s me.”

  “You’re getting to be a regular customer, Doc.”

  He didn’t have to rub it in.

  “You know the routine. You drive it in, you get thirty-five. We tow it in, it’s only twenty-five.”

  “It’s not going to start, Ernie. You’ll have to come and pick it up.”

  “No problem. Jimmy’ll be there in half an hour. Be sure you have the title ready.”

  Three hours later the tow truck pulled up in front. “Hey, Doc,” Jimmy said as he hopped out of the cab. “Nice t’see ya again.” He walked around to the back of the truck, yanked at the hitch, and slipped it under the front bumper. He leaned inside the back of the truck and pressed a button to raise the front of the car. There was a snap and the bumper fell off.

  “Jesus Christ,” Jimmy said. He stood there, hands on his hip, staring with disgust at the car. Then he looked at me. “So, what kind of doctor did you say you were?”

  I knew where this was coming from. How could I be a real doctor when I drove nothing but clunkers that got towed to the junkyard?

  “I’m a veterinary gynecologist,” I told him.

  “Figures.”

  He picked up the bumper and tossed it in the back of the truck. Then he crawled under the Ponch and secured the hitch to the frame. When he was done he stood up and slapped the dirt and snow from the seat of his pants.

  “You got the title, Doc?”

  I handed it to him and he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out two tens and a five. “Here,” he said. “Don’t spend it all in one place.”

  A week later I bought an old Chevy wagon from a dairy farmer in Zumbrota. The car was another rust bucket. Someone had spray-painted it a flat gray color that made it look like a battleship. It had no muffler and the dull roar of its engine made it sound like a battleship, too.

  My first stop was at Jensen’s Standard station to fill it up. Blackie, Jensen’s old Lab, shuffled over to lick my hand.

  “Hey, Doc,” Mr. Jensen said, walking out from the garage and wiping his hands on an old shammy. He looked at my car and stopped smiling. “You got a license for that boat?” he asked. He waved his hand back and forth in front of his face. “Phew. Turn the damn thing off before we all choke to death.”

  “So,” I said, gesturing at the car with my open hand, “what do you think? Not bad, huh?”

  Jensen walked slowly around the car, eyeing it with disgust.

  “You’re actually going to let your wife and those poor kids ride around in this damn thing?”

  Apparently he didn’t care that I was going to ride around in this damn thing. He opened the front door and looked inside. Then he turned and spat. “Fer Chrissake you can see the street right through the floor.”

  “Well, it’s—”

  “You shouldn’ta paid more than five hundred for this bucket of bolts.”

  “Yeah, but our other—”

  “Poor Mrs. C.,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “The things you do to that woman.”

  Like the mailman, the garbageman, the ladies at the grocery store, and every shopkeeper in Rochester, he loved Patti. They all did. And they all felt responsible for her. They all harbored the sneaking suspicion that her husband wasn’t quite worthy of her (a suspicion her husband also harbored).

  When I finally got the car home and showed it to Patti, she put on a brave face.

  “It’s, uh…nice,” she said. “But how come it looks like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “That gray color. It looks like a battleship, or something.”

  “It’s coated with a special rust preventative,” I lied. “And, really, it’s not bad for seven hundred bucks, don’t you think?”

  “It’s just that…well, it doesn’t look like a car.”

  It didn’t sound like a car or drive like a car either. When I took it to work the following Monday, Jack Manning saw me pull into the parking lot and yelled, “Fleet’s in!”

  “Hey, sailor, want a good time?” someone else called.

  But still, it ran. The main problem with it was neither the noise nor the appearance. It had a temperamental heater. For as long as we owned the Battleship I could never figure out why sometimes the heater worked and other times it didn’t.

  A week after we bought the Battleship I was scheduled to moonlight. The temperature hadn’t climbed out of the single digits in ten days. As I sat on the edge of the bed trying to figure out how early I had to get up the next morning, I could hear the wind moaning through the fir tree outside our bedroom win
dow.

  It was easier to work backward.

  I have to be in Mankato by seven, I thought. The roads should be plowed, so that means I can leave Rochester about 5:30. Rounds’ll take an hour, so that’s 4:30, plus ten minutes to drop the beeper at Bill’s. That makes it about 4:15.

  I never allowed time for showering, shaving, or brushing teeth. I just hoped things would be quiet when I got to Mankato so I could shower and shave there. I set the alarm, turned out the light, and snuggled in next to Patti. But before I could settle in I remembered the weather forecast.

  Shit, I thought. It’s supposed to be twenty below tonight. I’d better get up at two and start the car. I’m screwed if it won’t start in the morning.

  I rolled over, turned on the light, and reset the alarm.

  At two o’clock I groaned and shut off the alarm. I sat up, rubbed a hand across my face, sighed, and pulled on a pair of sweatpants. As I shuffled toward the kitchen, I could hear Mary Kate’s rattley breathing in the room next to ours. I pulled on my parka, and then stepped into the Sorrels I had left inside the back door. I didn’t bother to lace them.

  I opened the door and stepped into a clear, frigid night. The wind was gusting over the rooftops and rushing through the deserted backyards. I could see the skeletal frame of our swing set, legs planted deep in the crusted snow. One of the swings, its seat covered with an inch of frozen snow, was twisting in the wind. As I crunched through the snow to the garage I could feel the hairs in my nose freeze with each breath.

  I heaved up the garage door, flicked on the light, and lifted the hood. I needed to take off the air filter, but the upraised hood blocked the light, and left the engine in shadows. Largely by feel, I undid the wing nut and removed the filter. I blew on my fingers and then held them under my armpits. When a little feeling came back in them, I bent over and gave the carburetor a couple flips. Finally I came around, got in the driver’s seat, gave the accelerator two quick jabs, and turned the key. The starter groaned once, twice, and the car kicked into life. I held my breath. This was when the engine would sometimes quit on me. But the steady rumble continued.

  I got out, replaced the air filter, slammed the hood, and scrambled back in the car. I scrunched down, head on my chest, hands under my thighs, waiting for the engine to warm up. Finally, after ten minutes, I gave it a couple revs and shut it off.

  I pulled down the garage door and staggered back into the house. I tossed my coat on the chair next to the heat duct, kicked off my boots, and felt my way through the dark house to our bedroom.

  I sat shivering on the edge of the bed as I reset the alarm for 4:15. I could hear Patti’s slow, regular breathing from the other side of the bed. I could feel the warmth coming off her. I was so cold. If I could just slowly inch right up next to her…

  “Oh, God!” Patti screamed. She jumped a foot off the bed.

  “Sorry, hon,” I murmured contritely.

  “You’re freezing. You are absolutely freezing. You’re like an iceberg.” She was flopping around, jerking covers every which way, trying to interpose as much material between our two bodies as possible.

  “I was out starting the car.”

  “Naked?”

  “No, but it’s twenty below out there.”

  She said it felt like it was twenty below in here, and rolled away from me. I lay quietly on my side of the bed.

  A minute later she relented. “All right,” she whispered, “come on.” She lifted the covers and I scooted over. She was on her back. I draped my right leg over her thighs and my right arm across her chest. I pressed as much of my flesh against hers as nature would allow. She gave a little gasp. “Oh, my God,” she said. I felt a shiver run through her.

  I lay still, listening to the branches of the fir tree scrape against our window, feeling the house tremble slightly with each gust of wind. I was safe. I was warm. I was under four covers with my hand on the warm breast of the woman I loved. I was in heaven.

  “Mr. Jenin?” I said softly. It was ten after five. I had already seen the other ten patients on our service. Mr. Jenin, who had a wrist fusion the day before, was the last one. I turned on the lights. “Mr. Jenin?” I said, a little louder.

  “Huh?”

  “Good morning. It’s Dr. Collins.”

  “Oh. Hi, Dr. Connolly. Is anything wrong?”

  “No, sir. I just wanted to see how things are going.”

  He looked at the clock next to his bed. “Things?” he said hoarsely. “Going?”

  I laid the chart on the chair next to his bed. He winced slightly as I peeled back the dressings from his arm. “Looks good,” I said, replacing the bandages.

  “Do you feel this?” I asked, running a finger along the side of his hand.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Can you move your fingers, like this?”

  He did.

  “Good. Have you had much pain since surgery?”

  “Yes, but the medicine helps.”

  I talked to him about the physical therapy he would have later that day, apologized for waking him so early, and told him Dr. Chapin would be by to see him later that day.

  It was still dark when I pulled up in front of Bill’s house. It seemed every other weekend Bill, Frank, or Jack was stuck holding my beeper for me. They must have taken pity on me since they never refused. Bill had agreed to do it this time. I told him I would leave my beeper in his mailbox rather than wake him up.

  God, it’s cold, I thought as I trotted up the sidewalk to Bill’s front door. I wonder if beepers can freeze?

  I laid the beeper in the bottom of the mailbox. I also left a note thanking Bill and listing all the patients.

  It must be 5:30 by now, I thought. I walked around to the front of the car so I could read my watch in the headlights. 5:36 A.M. Well, I’d have to hurry.

  As I pulled away from Bill Chapin’s house, the announcer on KROC said it was nineteen below. I prayed this would be one of the days when the Battleship’s heater would work.

  Highway 14 was deserted at that hour and I kept the Battleship cruising along at seventy. The car had no dashboard light, and since it was still dark, I occasionally had to turn on the overhead light to see how fast I was going.

  The wind was streaming in through the holes in the floor. At seventy miles an hour and the temperature near twenty below, the windchill had to be approaching a couple hundred below. There was a four-day-old copy of the Post-Bulletin on the seat next to me. I spread it across my lap and started fiddling with the heater. I turned it off and on. I pounded my fist on the dashboard. I jiggled the control knob. But, after fifteen minutes, as I passed Mantorville, I realized there would be no heat on this trip.

  I had another seventy-five miles to go. My legs were shaking and I was starting to lose feeling in my feet. In desperation I looked into the backseat. Next to the car seat I saw Mooey, Mary Kate’s brown-and-white, stuffed cow. The car swerved onto the shoulder as I stretched behind me and grabbed the cow.

  Poor Mooey. There would be no coming back from this mission. I wedged her into the largest hole in the floor. Immediately the cold draft up my pant leg diminished noticeably. “’Tis a far, far better thing you do than you have ever done before,” I recited.

  Mooey seemed unimpressed.

  When I finally got to Mankato I had a hard time getting out of the car. My knees and ankles were stiff like an old man’s. I stumbled into the ER and waved a hand at the nurses. Thank God the place was empty.

  “Gonna shower,” I said, my teeth chattering.

  After ten minutes in the shower I was finally warm enough to get out and shave. When I pushed my shaving cream dispenser, it made a guttural, groaning noise. A small wad of snow plopped from the nozzle. It was frozen solid. I tossed it back into my shaving kit and shaved with soap instead.

  It was a wonderful day to be at Mankato. The high temperature was forecast to be around ten below. It was just too cold to go out, so the ER was empty for most of the day. The hospital paid me by the h
our, so whether I saw a hundred people or three I made the same.

  I spent most of the afternoon in the doctors’ lounge watching the Canadiens play the Bruins. Every couple hours I went out and started the Battleship. I had parked it against the wall outside the ER. Around four o’clock I turned off the hockey game, went to the call room, and took a nap. An hour later the nurses called to say we had a patient, a Mankato cop with frostbitten ears. He had spent the last hour at Mt. Kato, Mankato’s one and only ski hill, looking for a missing skier who turned up later in one of the local bars.

  “There’s not a lot we can do for this,” I told the cop as I lathered ointment on the tips of his ears. “Just be sure you keep them covered so they don’t get damaged any further.”

  When he had gone, I went to the cafeteria and had dinner. I sat alone in the corner, a plateful of pork roast, corn, mashed potatoes, and gravy in front of me. For once I was conscious of being alone. Around me, in groups of twos and threes, nurses and techs were talking and laughing. I worked away at my meal, listening to them talk about bridal showers and car problems and TV shows.

  One of the nurses at the table next to me saw me laugh at a story she was telling. She flashed me a smile, letting me know that she didn’t mind my listening. But I was embarrassed all the same. I finished my meal and wandered back to the call room. I lay down, took out Campbell’s Operative Orthopaedics, and started to read about ankle arthrodeses. I was sound asleep at eight o’clock, the book lying on my chest, when the phone rang.

  “We need you,” Connie said. “An ambulance just called. They’re on their way in with a guy in full arrest.”

  I grabbed my coat and sprinted down to the ER. Over the loudspeaker came the call, “Emergency room! Emergency room! Emergency room!”

  Within three minutes all the ER nurses, the respiratory tech, the lab tech, and a pharmacist were waiting with me. I calmly checked the crash cart and waited for the ambulance. I had run enough codes by this time that they were becoming almost routine.