The Anatomy of Perception

by AJ Rose

  “You know I don’t like getting hammered. I’m just tired. It’s been a long day and I’m ready to go home.” To keep from sounding like a total whiner, I grinned wickedly and pinched the side of Craig’s leg where no one would see. He nudged me with his hip in response. “Plus, I have other, more personal revelries in mind.”

  Braden pointed the mouth of his bottle at me. “How relieved are you not to be moving out of the city for your internship? Would you have gone with him, Craig? Wherever he’d been accepted?”

  Craig bumped me with his elbow and answered for us both. “I keep telling him I’d have gone where he got in and I could have worked freelance jobs, advertising or whatever, but he gets this look on his face when it comes up. See?” He pointed to my forehead and poked the furrow between my brows that I couldn’t stop. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe him, but he was where he needed to be for his art and his job. I would have hated if he’d had to make that choice.

  “Moot point now,” I said. “I start Elijah Hope in a month and I plan to do nothing until that day. Lay on my ass on a towel on the balcony. I’m going nowhere. I’m growing a beard. I’m going to wear the same shorts for five days in a row. Hell, I’m not going to wear clothes. Call before you come over.”

  I winked at Holly, even though the swampy heat of the bar made me uncomfortably hot, I was becoming ever more aware of the press of the bodies, and my mood was rapidly deteriorating. The air conditioning was on, but with this many people on a Saturday night in such a small room, there would be no relief until we left. I dragged in a breath and blew it out, calming down as best I could. Braden and Holly weren’t to blame for my hatred of crowds. Craig’s hand on the small of my back both helped and made my nerves worse. He was my rock, as always, but we were also in public, and because of how we’d come into the bar, my back was to the door. I didn’t like how vulnerable that made me. What if my dad walked in and saw me all snuggled up with my boyfriend? Dylan said he was still on the couch blowing his disability pay on booze, having graduated from beer to harder stuff. I rarely heard from Dylan, but he’d texted to congratulate me two weeks prior.

  Dylan: This is the year, right? You’re finishing med school? Congrats, Dr. Perry.

  I’d smiled and replied my thank yous and asked how he was.

  Dylan: Same old, same old. Hanging in. Btw, he hasn’t moved, though he’s moved on from beer. His new best friends are Jim, Jack, and José.

  Me: Why do you bother?

  Dylan: Because I can’t just leave him to die like he did us.

  So, my father was no better, and it seemed he’d let go of his obsession with finding me again. Six years of coming up empty-handed had probably used up all his give a damn, and if it cut into the booze budget, of course the booze won. Where once I’d resented that, now I was grateful. Meant I was free. Even if I rarely felt it.

  “Where’d you go?” Craig asked in my ear.

  God, I need to chill. This is supposed to be fun. I just graduated. I should be on top of the world. I made my shoulders relax as Craig squeezed my elbow and let go.

  “Brain went on vacation already,” I said, smiling. I leaned close, wearing my tenderness for him on my face. “I don’t deserve you.” Wishing I could kiss him, I resented the public venue for a whole new reason. Holly had wanted to check out this new bar instead of going to one of our usual places, where I’d have been comfortable being a little more affectionate with Craig in front of others. Somewhere I knew my father wouldn’t deign to enter.

  “Yes, you do.” He scowled, dipping his head close like he was saying something in my ear over the noise, but he really dropped a kiss on my ear. I closed my eyes and breathed him in, literally taking in his soothing presence. Then I straightened and turned back to Holly and Braden.

  “Holly, next year, when Braden goes through this, are you moving with him if he gets called away?”

  Braden shook his head and swallowed his gulp of beer, pointing a finger in the air adamantly. “I’m only applying in New York. No way am I giving her a choice to stay here without me. I’m not stupid.”

  Holly laughed and draped herself across her boyfriend. For a minute, I envied their ease and the lack of any attention anyone paid them. But I was also glad for them. I kind of wished I had my beer back. I snagged one of the empties off the table and raised it to them as if in toast before setting it back down, hoping my ricocheting mood wasn’t a sign I was about to hit the wall and absolutely need to leave, no matter how rude an exit I made.

  “You guys and your school,” Craig said, shaking his head and putting his half-finished beer on the table with an air of finality. “If I hadn’t gone trekking across Europe after high school, I’d have seriously missed out. I loved living like a heathen, showering randomly and glorying in my man-stink.” Holly wrinkled her nose and Braden laughed. I smiled indulgently. I’d heard all the stories and we had the paintings hanging around the loft as proof of his adventures. “There’s more to life than books, oscopy this and itis that, or where you’ll apply and get your internships and residencies.” The language of my life rolled familiarly off his tongue, bringing a wave of affection that swelled in my chest, even though his soapbox was tired and long-winded. “You haven’t done anything until you’ve seen the sun rise on the Med, slept on a beach, or had your wallet stolen by a French con artist with an accent like butter.”

  “Okay, okay,” I interrupted, raising my hands in abject surrender. “We know, we know. We’ve held a human heart in our hands, but we haven’t lived.”

  “It wasn’t beating,” Craig said tauntingly. “It was a dead guy’s heart.”

  “Wait until the day I tell you I’ve held a beating one while assisting a surgeon with a bypass graft.”

  “And on that day,” he began, donning a healthy dose of drama and striking a pose, “I will throw you a party and suck your brains through your dick while you’re wearing your stethoscope.” I couldn’t help but peek to see if nearby bar goers had heard. Craig’s eyes flickered in recognition, going momentarily flinty, then quickly clearing. Not before I’d seen and inwardly braced myself for an argument, but he surprised me with his easy words. I should have known Craig wouldn’t let it get to him today. “Until then, relax and just be, okay, Dane? No one is going to blame you for celebrating graduating med school, no matter what form that celebration takes.” He gripped my neck, kneading. The gesture could have been platonic to people who didn’t know us, so I smiled and tried to let it go.

  “Are you almost finished?” I asked, gesturing to his beer. “I’m kind of tired, and I’m ready to turn our apartment into a nudist colony.” Of course, I lowered my voice so he had to read my lips to get my drift. He glanced at our companions. Braden and Holly were in their own world, ignoring the bar and everyone in it, and they probably weren’t long for this celebration either.

  “I’m finished. We can go. But let’s share a cab, okay? If they make out too long on the train and miss their subway stop, I’d hate to think of them wandering drunkenly all over the city.”

  I waved at our friends to get their attention. “‘Bout ready? We’ll split a taxi.”

  “Oh, yes,” Holly agreed gamely.

  The air outside the bar was a relief after the claustrophobia indoors. I raised a hand to flag a passing cab, happy but feeling a touch maudlin and unable to shake it. Big changes were coming. My hours were about to get crazier, and I was scared, quite frankly. Plus, there was a nag in the back of my head I couldn’t talk about with anyone but Holly. It had been six years since my dad had given me a concussion. I’d thought I wanted him to disappear forever, but it was almost worse not knowing what was going on with him. The update from Dylan had helped more than I wanted to admit in case it was misconstrued as giving a damn about the old man. But it was more like keeping my friends close and my enemies closer. Thank God Dylan kept tabs, though I felt bad for leaving the job to him.

  As we got in the cab, Holly perching on Braden’s lap without a second thought,
I linked pinkies with Craig between our thighs so the driver wouldn’t see. The whole ride home, I considered the wisdom of keeping in better touch with my brother. Just to make sure everything was okay.

  Elijah Hope Medical Center stood proud, a leviathan disguised as a complex of buildings in Manhattan, its doors whispering open and closed as people entered and exited. They reminded me of lazily blinking eyes, all-knowing and watchful. How had five weeks off gone so fast between graduation and my first day? The pre-dawn July heat made me sweat already, and I hadn’t done anything difficult yet—except show up. I swallowed, eyeing the doors again. If I walked in there, would the building swallow me whole? Chew me up and spit me out? Or would I skate by undetected until I could conquer it from within and learn to tame the beast known as surgical residency?

  “You look a little green.” A woman I didn’t recognize stopped beside me, crossing her arms over her slender middle and eyeing the entrance to the hospital with as much trepidation as I. “You an intern?”

  “Yep,” I said, emphasizing the ‘p’ as though being emphatic would make this any easier. “You?”

  “Uh-huh,” she answered. “Are we lambs going to the slaughter, or are we the wolves?”

  I tore my eyes from the building façade and took in her high cheekbones, dark green eyes, and her black hair pulled tightly into a ponytail with the curls trailing down her neck. This girl was pretty, of the stunning variety, and I kind of doubted she’d ever been a lamb marching toward slaughter. Down a red carpet, sure, but to her own demise, doubtful.

  “I kind of hope we’re neither.” I turned to her fully. “I hope we go in there as doctors with something to learn, and maybe we can help some people get better and be called by our names. Mine is Dane.” I held out my hand for her to shake. She had very dry palms, an assured and steady grip, and despite her wide, trepidatious eyes, she seemed fairly calm. Courageous in the face of danger. Or, well, in the face of performing a surgery.

  “Sabrina. We can do this, right, Dane?” she asked, a tremor in her words. “Can I call you Dane, or do you want me to call you Doctor? Because we earned it, we should own it.”

  “Dane’s fine. Of course we can do this,” I assured, hoping she didn’t hear me swallow. “Do you know who your resident is?”

  “I got Dr. Kingsley. You?”

  “Same. Know anything about him?”

  She eyed me sideways. “I know she is one of the best residents on staff, and I’ve heard she’s fair but doesn’t take anyone’s crap.”

  “Do you know where we’re supposed to go?”

  “We meet in the presentation conference room and our residents will claim us from there.”

  I stared at the hospital, eyes flitting from window to window. What awaited us inside? I’d been excited for this day from the minute I’d been accepted to med school, but nothing I’d done had prepared me for the lead butterflies careening around my belly, lurching into my soft tissues and making me think perhaps I needed to vomit before even considering a cup of coffee. The sun had just risen, and time waited for no one. If I didn’t want to miss the 5:00 a.m. call time, I had a decision to make: stay out here wringing my hands and blow it all, or put one foot in front of the other and see if the title of Doctor fit on me as well as on the degree I still needed to frame and hang on the wall.

  “We have to go in there,” I said.

  “Yep,” Sabrina agreed.

  “Okay, you first.” I grinned, and she rolled her eyes. “Hey, at least we know one other person assigned to the same resident. We’re not complete strangers.”

  “This is true.” She squared her shoulders and began to walk, chin held high and bag banging against her thigh with each step.

  “Hey!” I called. “I wasn’t ready.”

  “Catch up, Dane, or eat my dust.”

  The challenge made me smile. Yeah, I could do this. I was so gonna do this. Elijah Hope, meet Dane Perry. No, meet Dr. Dane Perry.

  The conference room was abuzz with activity, and my curiosity at who Dr. Kingsley’s other interns might be had me peering at the twenty or so faces mingling around the U-shape of the tables. No one sat, all of us too hyped to be still, no one yet dressed in scrubs.

  “They all look so sure of themselves,” Sabrina murmured, leaning close so she could stare from behind the safety of my shoulder. She was five-six to my six-two, but she had a presence. Even nervous, she didn’t seem fragile at all.

  “Nah,” I argued softly, more to bolster myself than her. “Look at that guy. Doesn’t know what to do with his hands. That girl keeps staring at the door like she’s trying to figure out if she can run without being noticed. Or maybe she’s mentally mapping where the nearest bathroom is to toss her breakfast.” I pointed as surreptitiously as I could. “That guy probably got no sleep last night, because he can’t stop yawning. And that one looks cool and collected, but she’s probably so cocky she’ll overestimate herself and fuck up first thing.” Across the room, I spotted Carrie, a fellow student from school. I pointed her out. “That’s Carrie. She was at NYU with me.”

  “Do you know her?”

  “No. Just her name and her reputation, which is good.”

  Before Sabrina could say anything, the door opened and six doctors in blue scrubs and white coats filed in and stood in the mouth of the U of tables.

  “Good morning,” the tall black man with graying temples greeted. He exuded authority and, though he hadn’t spoken loudly, the din of chatter immediately quieted down as we all turned to face our future mentors. “I’m Dr. Noble, your Chair of the Department of Surgery. Welcome to Elijah Hope Medical Center, one of the best hospitals in the country. These are your residents,” he gestured to the white coats flanking him. “You will be answering to all of them during your internship year. They are here to teach you, so even if the resident giving orders is not the resident to whom you’re assigned, you will still use the opportunity to learn. There are twenty of you in this program, four interns per resident.

  “Statistically, in the seven years of your residency, seven of you will opt out of surgery and choose an easier specialty, four will not be able to take the pressure and will change careers altogether, and two will be asked to leave. Two more will move to a smaller hospital in a more rural area. That leaves five. Five of you will be surgeons in a major metropolitan hospital on the cutting edge of research and technology, called upon to make decisions in seconds that will determine if someone lives or dies. Look around. Who’s it gonna be?”

  The interns studied each other, glints in every one of our eyes, silently promising the competition, I will be one of the five. Seven years from now, I will still be standing. I felt it too, in the individual beats of my heart, steady and measured. I hadn’t dragged myself from the cesspool of my father’s house, proven time and again I wasn’t too stupid to live and that I would, in fact, amount to something, only to be left staring at the outside of the operating room doors. No siree. I was here. I was prepared. And I was one of the twenty-five percent who would remain in the program.

  “Follow me, please,” Chief Noble said, striding to the door, his coat hem flaring like a superhero cape. We filed out after the residents, a mass of bodies in the wide hallways, taking up all the room while the nurses, other doctors, and various professionals who made the hospital crank smoothly stood aside and let us pass. Some smiled. Some seemed irritated to wait for us to get out of their way. Most just remained impassive, moving on when the coast was clear.

  Through four sets of double doors, which were opened by automatic metal plates on the walls, three hallways, and past a set of stairs, we were led into an operating room. It was freezing, the overhead lights turned low and the bright, adjustable surgical lights illuminating the empty operating table, a tray of gleaming instruments beside it.

  “This room is your goal. Every day, when you walk through the doors, you want to be in here observing, assisting, or practicing any and every surgery you can, from a simple appendectomy all the way
up to pericardiotomy or decompressive craniectomy. But at Elijah Hope, we don’t let just anyone in our operating rooms. You have to earn it. Prove your capabilities. Show us you can apply what you learned in the books. You must show your resident you’re competent, that you can handle the decisions your patients will require. When you prove it, your resident will bring you in here, give you a scalpel, and walk you through each and every surgical procedure they can, so when you’re through with residency, you can take that knowledge and be the best surgeons possible. Five of you will accomplish this. Tell me.” Chief Noble took a moment to meet all twenty pairs of eager eyes. “Are you one of my five?”

  The silence in the OR was oppressive, the import of our futures palpable in the dimly lit room, until one of the residents stepped forward and called out the last names of his four interns. They scrambled to his side, and when they’d gathered, the next resident began roll call. Once we were divided, with Carrie being assigned to Dr. Kingsley as well, Chief Noble stood in the middle of the room, arms spread wide.

  “This is your theater, doctors. Let your performances begin.”

  Dr. Kingsley turned and took each of us in, her expression shrewd and assessing while we squirmed uncomfortably under her scrutiny. She wasn’t an unattractive woman but was fairly plain, her brown hair pulled back in a twist and secured with a clip, and brown eyes assisted by glasses that added to her scholarly air. She wasn’t tall, nor was she short, and when she pointed to the darkened glass above us and spoke, I noticed one of her incisors crowded into the tooth next to it.

  “The gallery is where you’ll spend most of your time when it comes to my surgeries. I know they call you doctors already, but you are only doctors because you paid your tuition and passed a few tests.” I suppressed a snort. Med school was hardly a few tests, but I dared not contradict her. She continued, “You are doctors only on paper. Right now, you’re interns, and you will run labs, write orders, and answer my questions the first time I ask. You do no procedures, order no tests, and touch no medical instrument unless I give the okay to do so.” She shouldered through the middle of us and led us back into the maze of corridors, walking briskly enough we had to hurry to keep up. “Locker room is this way. You should all have your locker numbers and combinations from your acceptance packets, as well as all the supplies you were instructed to bring. Inside each locker, you will find a hospital-issued lab coat, one set of scrubs, and a pager. From now on, you are responsible for your scrubs, coat, and pager. You will wear the most comfortable shoes you can because you will be on your feet for days at a time. Your pager goes off, you answer it at a run, and you can’t do that in fancy shoes designed for corporate bigwigs who sit at desks all day. You will be performing surgeries that take many hours, and I can’t have you grunts calling in sick because you’ve abused your feet and can hardly stand.” She looked at her watch. “You have five minutes to change and get back out here before we begin rounds. Go.”