Authors: John Locke
Dr. Gideon Box
Friday, 8:45 a.m.
THE AUDITORIUM AT Wentworth Christian Academy is as packed as you’d expect on graduation day. I slip inside and try to blend in with the dads standing against the back wall. The principal introduces the faculty, and tells a lame joke that elicits polite chuckling.
The man on my right leans into my face space, practically touching my ear with his lips.
“Proud papa?”
“Friend of the family,” I say, staring straight ahead.
“Which one?”
“Excuse me?”
“Which kid are you here to see?”
Instead of answering, I say, “Which one’s yours?”
“The tall one, second row, all the way on the left.”
“Nice looking young lady,” I say.
“We’re going to keep her,” he says, chuckling.
Before he has a chance to annoy me further, the kids sing a song. Then another. Then the principal goes to the podium and announces the name of the little girl I came to see.
Shelby Lynn Meyers.
Valedictorian.
Who ever heard of a sixth-grade class having a valedictorian?
But Shelby’s special. She strolls to the podium full of life, and delivers a three-minute speech in a crisp, clear tone. She tells the audience how lucky she is to be alive, how seven years ago she came within an inch of dying. She talks about how she woke up in the hospital after her ordeal and realized every day is a precious blessing, a gift from God.
Little Shelby and I have a connection. It’s why I’m standing here, transfixed by her presence. She’s the reason I traveled all the way from Manhattan, where I live and work.
I wanted to see her.
Had to see her.
Shelby’s the first kid I saved, and the least likely to survive.
After eight hours of what can best be described as a surgical cluster fuck the two surgeons charged with assisting me attempted to pronounce Shelby dead.
I told them to fuck themselves. One gave me a stern warning, the other left the room in a huff.
But I was on a roll.
I cursed the surgeon who left and the one who remained equally. I cursed the nurses and called them terrible names. I even cursed Shelby Lynn, the little dead kid on my table. I made fun of her blue body and rotten internal organs. Called her a freak, a monster, and every other horrific name I could think of. I cursed her parents, her friends, relatives, and ancestors.
After calling her every name in the book, I yelled, “Don’t die on me, you little muff-munching bitch. If you even
try
to die I’ll set your parents on fire! I’ll kill your friends! I’ll celebrate your birthday each year by bludgeoning a child to death.”
You know, stuff like that.
Before you get all bent out of shape, remember, she was only five. There’s no way she could know what bludgeoning meant.
But the medical staff thought I was suffering a meltdown. They stayed in the room to chronicle my behavior so they could report me later. That changed when I poked Shelby’s dead body and slapped the bottoms of her feet while screaming at her. At that point the room cleared, save for the gas guy and a nurse, both of whom were yelling their own threats at me.
I didn’t care. This kid was simply not going to die on my watch.
I felt it.
I
knew
it.
I just figured I hadn’t put together the right combination of words yet.
I was right.
Because when I yelled, “Fine! Die on me, you little shit! I’m going to throw you in the trash and feed you to my dog for supper!”—her heart started beating.
From that day to this, I cussed every nurse, anesthesiologist, surgeon, robot, and child who entered my OR. The doctors and nurses don’t care for it, but the kids seem to respond.
Eventually.
Shelby Lynn responded, and now here she is, alive, standing before me, a valedictorian. She’s winding down her speech. There’s her smile, and her final words, “Thank you!”
A split-second pause occurs.
In that quiet moment after the end of her speech, before the audience rises to give her a standing ovation, she spots me in the back of the auditorium.
We lock eyes.
In that scant second of time I see her little mouth break into a grin, and suddenly my view and hers is blocked by three hundred cheering adults.
I don’t want to take the spotlight away from Shelby, or piss off her parents, who at one time threatened to kill me. I wouldn’t have come if they invited me, but it was Shelby who wrote the letter, and that made all the difference. Seeing her letter in my hands made me realize something important.
If I had allowed the other surgeons to pronounce her dead seven years ago, the world would still be spinning, but it wouldn’t be as special. Someone less deserving would be delivering the speech today, and someone else would marry the man Shelby’s meant to marry, and no one on earth would be here to create the amazing kids Shelby would have birthed.
Shelby lived.
And someday she’ll have children of her own, and her children will have children, and…
Yes, I’m a shitty person. I break into houses and fuck lap dancers and no one likes me, and yes, I poked five-year-old Shelby’s dead body around the table and slapped her feet and threatened to kill her parents and cussed her till my voice went hoarse.
But I saved Shelby’s life, and she’s going to make the world a better place to be.
I slip out the back and rush to my car before anyone else recognizes me.
SHELBY’S RIGHT, SHE
is
lucky to be alive. But the stress and pressure of saving her nearly did me in. I went on a drunk fest and woke up three days later in a stranger’s garage, with a cat licking blood off my forehead.
I’ve got issues.
In the early days, I only got one or two impossible cases each year, so the stress was spaced out. Now that I’m internationally known, I’ve become the St. Jude of pediatrics, the surgeon of last resort, relegated to hopeless, desperate causes.
While I sometimes go weeks without operating, every morning I wake up knowing I could face an emergency situation. You’d think every day without one would be a day of relief, but I never know if a day’s over till the next one dawns, because emergency surgery often requires me to be ready on an hours’ notice. It’s the reason they placed my OR near the maternity ward.
When I don my scrubs I walk a tightrope of perfection. The slightest twitch, the smallest bead of sweat that hits the corner of my eye…can kill a child. I’m stressed like a postal worker on steroids, with an Uzi in one hand and a pink slip in the other.
Multiplied by ten.
To cope with this debilitating pressure, I’ve become an adrenalin junkie. It’s why I do insane things, like take off from work, fly to Cincinnati and break into some guy’s house, a guy so stupid he posted his vacation itinerary on Facebook!
It used to be enough to fly to Atlantic City for a few hours and drop five thousand dollar chips on numbers seventeen and twenty on the roulette wheel every spin until I’d won or lost a quarter million dollars. Win or lose, I’d relieve enough stress to handle a few more weeks of forced perfection.
But the rush from gambling faded.
I went through a phase where I’d break into homes and pretend I’m someone else for a few days. I’d go through their belongings, their mail, try to tap into their computers, view their photos and videos.
It’s a thrill to know you’re in someone else’s house illegally.
A friend or relative might swing by unexpectedly to check on the place, a neighbor might see lights or movement...
It happened to me once. During a routine check, the neighbors found me in Mike and Chrissy’s house. I gave them a bullshit story about how Mike and Chrissy called me at the last minute and asked me to stay there till they got back on Sunday, and how Chrissy’s sister, Ethel, was married to my brother, Mark, and so forth. I invited them in for coffee, and by the time they left, we were best friends.
Of course, I hauled ass out of there before they had time to call Mike and Chrissy!
My condition’s getting worse. What’s really scary, I’m developing a death wish.
This time it wasn’t enough to break into Chris Fowler’s house and pretend I’m him. This time I found myself in a biker bar, buying premium drinks for a primitive redneck named Bobby Mitchell, who told me all about his beautiful girlfriend who gives lap dances at a strip joint downtown on Barmeade. He said his girlfriend, Willow, has only been with one man in the world, and I was looking at him. Said if Willow ever decides to stray, he’ll hunt down the bastard that did her, cut his dick off, and sew it into Willow’s mouth.
“It wouldn’t be the first time I killed a guy,” he said, winking, and I believed him.
At that moment the only important thing in my world was Willow.
I had to meet her, had to have her!
It was a case of fuck Willow or go insane.
Now that I’ve made my conquest and cheated Bobby Mitchell out of killing me for fucking his girlfriend, I’m recharged, rejuvenated, and ready to head back to Manhattan to save some more lives.
I fire up the rental car and wonder how many of the kids I save will grow up to be like Shelby, and how many will grow up to be Willows or Camerons? How many will grow up to be Bobby Mitchells, Chuckies, or Dr. Gideon Boxes, for that matter? As long as the kids I save turn out better than me, I’m earning my keep.
I fish the two thick envelopes from the side pocket of my suit jacket and look at them. Each envelope contains sixty hundreds. My plane isn’t scheduled to leave for hours, so I’ll swing by the strip club and leave these envelopes for Willow and Cameron. It should more than cover what I owe, including the blow I forgot to flush down the toilet.
The club looks twice as filthy by day, and there are two cars parked by the front door. I go inside and hear a vacuum cleaner running, but it’s so dark I can’t see who’s operating it. I stand in the doorway and wait for my eyes to adjust.
The vacuum cleaner stops.
From across the room a woman’s voice hollers, “Sir? We don’t open till four.”
“Is the manager in?” I yell.
“Hang on a sec,” she says.
By the time the manager comes out, my eyes are working again.
“What can I do for you?” he says.
“If I give you something to hold for two of your dancers, will they get it?”
He sizes me up.
“You’re the guy from last night.”
I don’t respond.
He says, “Willow and Cameron.”
I shrug.
He says, “You can’t see the girls outside the club.”
“I know. I’m leaving town and wanted to give them a gift.”
He holds his hand out. “Give it to me, I’ll see they get it.”
Something in his manner tells me the girls will never see the money, and something in his look makes me very uncomfortable. I hear the roar of a motorcycle outside, and realize I’m standing in a strip club holding two envelopes containing twelve thousand in cash, and no one on earth knows I’m here.
“That’s okay,” I say. “I’ll give it to them next time.”
“You sure about that?”
As I turn to leave, the door opens and Bobby Mitchell walks in.
Knowing it’ll take a few seconds for his eyes to adjust, I shield my face and try to work my way around him.
Maybe it’s the lifestyle, but Bobby’s eyes have no problem adjusting to the light.
“Whoa,” he says, putting an arm out to stop me. You’re the guy from last night.”
“Nice to see you again,” I say, noting my voice sounds like I’m twelve years old again, in the shower with Joe and his piss buddies.
Bobby says, “What the fuck’re
you
doing here?”
“You mentioned the place last night, thought I’d check it out.”
“In the middle of the morning?”
“I wanted to get the feel of the place. Maybe come back tonight.”
Bobby looks at the manager. “Does that make sense to you, Gary?”
Gary says, “He came in last night. Bought a dozen lap dances from two of the girls.”
“A dozen each?”
“All together.”
“Which two?”
My eyes search the immediate area for any type of weapon I can use against this beastly man, but nothing looks remotely possible.
“Ask
him
,” Gary says.
Bobby moves closer. He’s practically on top of me. There’s no way out of this.
“Which two girls?” Bobby says.
“Uh, Cameron?” I say.
“Cameron?”
“I might not have her name right.”
Bobby glances at Gary. “Was Stringbean one of them?”
He nods.
Bobby turns back to me. So you bought a dozen lap dances from Cameron and another girl?”
I nod.
He says, “Which other girl?”