Beat the Reaper A Novel Josh Bazell

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.“Well I’m not filling out the certificate,” I say.“Sterling.And fuck the Pakistani, eh?” the Irish one says.Her face is remarkably close to the computer screen.“Akfal’s Egyptian,” I say.“And no, I’m not leaving it for him.I’m leaving it for your Latvian shitheels.Stat.”The Jamaican one shakes her head sadly.“Won’t bring the lady back,” she says.“You ask them to do the certificate, they’re just going to call a code.”*“I don’t give a fuck.”“Párnela?” the Jamaican one says.“I neither,” the Irish one says.“Dim bitch,” she adds, sort of under her breath.You can tell by the way the Jamaican one reacts to this that she knows the Irish one is talking about me, not her.“Just tell them to do it,” I say, leaving.I feel better already.But even after that I have to take a slight break.The Moxfane I chewed up half an hour ago, along with some Dexedrine I found in an envelope in my lab coat and ate in case the Moxfane took too long to kick in, is making it hard for me to concentrate.I’m peaking a little too sharply.I love Dexedrine.It’s shield-shaped, with a vertical line down the middle so it looks like some vulvae.† But even on its own, Dexedrine can sometimes make things too slippy to focus on, or even look at.On top of a Moxfane it can make things start to blur.So I go to the medicine residents’ call room to chill out, and maybe take some benzodiazapines I’ve got hidden in the bed frame.The second I open the door, though, I know there’s someone in there in the darkness.The room stinks like bad breath and body odor.“Akfal?” I say, though I know it can’t be Akfal.Akfal’s aroma I will take to my grave.This is worse.It’s worse than Duke Mosby’s feet.“No, man,” comes a weak voice from the corner with the bunk bed.“Then who the fuck are you?” I snarl.“Surgery ghost,”* the voice says.“Why are you in the Medicine call room?”“I.I needed a place to sleep, man.”He means, “Where no one would look for me.”Great.Not only is the guy stenching up the call room, he’s using the only available bunk, since the upper one is covered by a complete run of Oui magazine from 1978 to 1986, which I know from experience is too much of a pain in the ass to move.I consider just letting him stay.The room smells unusable for the foreseeable future anyway.But I’ve got that Moxfane Edge,™ and there’s always deterrence to think about.“I’ll give you five minutes to get the fuck out,” I tell him.“After that I’m dumping a bottle of urine on your head.”I turn the lights on as I go.I’m feeling slightly more focused now, but still not focused enough to talk to patients, so I go and check labs on the computer.Akfal has already copied most of them into the charts.But there’s a pathology report on a patient of Dr.Nordenskirk’s who actually has insurance, so Akfal hasn’t touched it.Dr.Nordenskirk doesn’t let anyone who’s not white or Asian interact with patients with insurance.So I scan the report on-screen.It’s a bunch of bad news for a man named Nicholas LoBrutto.The Italian name alarm in my head goes off, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard of this guy.And anyway mobsters—like most people with options—don’t come to Manhattan Catholic.It’s why I’m allowed to work here.The key phrase in the pathology report is “positive for signet cells.” A signet cell is a cell that looks like a ring with a diamond (or a signet, if you’re still sealing your letters with wax) on it, because its nucleus, which is supposed to be in the center, has been pushed to the wall by all the proteins the cell can’t stop making because it’s cancer.Specifically, either stomach cancer or cancer that was stomach cancer and has now metastasized, like to your brain, or your lungs.All stomach cancers suck, but signet cell is the worst.Where most stomach cancers just drill a hole through your stomach wall, so you can have half your stomach cut out and conceivably live, just not be able to shit solid, signet cell cancer infiltrates the stomach along the surface, producing a condition known as “leather bottle stomach.” The whole organ has to go.And even then, by the time you’re diagnosed it’s usually too late.The CT scan of Nicholas LoBrutto’s abdomen is inconclusive about whether his cancer has spread or not.(Although, helpfully, he now has a 1 in 1200 chance of contracting some other form of cancer just from the radiation of the scan.He should live so long.) Only surgery will say for sure.And in the meantime, at six thirty in the morning, I get to go tell him all of this.Mr.LoBrutto? There’s a call for you on line one.He didn’t say, but it sounded like the Reaper.Even for me, it’s early to be wanting a drink.LoBrutto is bedded down in the Anadale Wing, the tiny deluxe ward of the hospital.The Anadale Wing tries to look like a hotel.Its reception area has wood-patterned linoleum and a schmuck in a tuxedo playing a piano.If it really were a hotel, though, you’d get better healthcare.* The Anadale Wing actually does have hot 1960s nurses.I don’t mean they’re hot now.I mean they were hot in the 1960s, when they first started working at Manhattan Catholic.Now they’re mostly bitter and demented.One of them shouts out to ask where the hell I’m going as I pass the charge desk, but I ignore her on my way to LoBrutto’s “suite.”When I open the door I have to admit it’s pretty nice for a hospital room.It’s got an accordioning wall, now mostly retracted, that divides it into a “living room”—where your family can come eat dinner with you at an octagonal table covered with vinyl that looks easy to clean vomit off of—and a “bedroom” with the actual hospital bed.The whole thing has floor-to-ceiling windows, with a view, at the moment, of the Hudson River just starting to catch light from the east.It’s dazzling.They’re the first windows I’ve looked out since I got to work.And they backlight LoBrutto in his bed, so he recognizes me before I recognize him [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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