Deadline (6 page)

The chair near Doc surprised Jake. Doctors and nurses didn’t sit, he thought, and visitors weren’t allowed. He sat down gratefully, needing the rest. His hospital gown embarrassingly displayed some of his white parts. He pulled and tucked it, barely enough to avoid arrest for indecent exposure. Tentatively, with slight embarrassment, he reached out his hand to Doc’s. Slap Doc on the back, kick him in the rear, punch him in the stomach, grab his hand to get up from the basketball court, yes. But Jake didn’t ever remember holding Doc’s hand, not like this. It felt cold and clammy, drained of life. None of Doc’s strength was in this hand. It frightened Jake.

The face in front of him slowly resolved into Doc’s face. Gazing at him took. Jake back forty years to a younger, more pudgy face, with all the cuts and bruises of careless little boys. Jake eagerly recalled Doc’s youthful escapades, knowing he deserved to be thought of in ways different than this.

Doc had been a Type A personality before anyone knew what that was, goal oriented and highly motivated. If Ulysses S. Grant High School had voted “Most Likely to Succeed” (it didn’t), Doc would have won. Finney might come away with the silver, Jake maybe the bronze. But the gold medals always belonged to Doc.

One memory led to the next, like beads on a chain. Jake grunted out loud as he thought of Doc’s homework. It had always been neat as a pin, rows lined up as if designed in drafting class rather than scrawled out early that morning. A left hander with an impossible wrist-breaking upside down writing posture, Doc produced manuscripts worthy of framing. Mr. Fieldstein, their seventh grade English teacher, joked that Doc’s homework should be put in clay jars and set aside in a cave so future civilizations would be as impressed with mid-twentieth century America as scholars are with the Dead Sea Scroll community at Qumran. The kids didn’t know anything about Qumran, but they were impressed. Everyone was always impressed with Doc. His handwriting remained meticulous, surviving the ultimate challenge—twenty years as a doctor. Doc was one of a kind.

Jake looked again at the chart hanging next to the bed. “Gregory Victor Lowell.” The few who called him Doc were those who knew him long before he was a doctor. Jake remembered the day in eighth grade when Mr. Bailey asked everyone in the class to write down three possible future vocations in order of preference. Jake wrote down professional basketball player, ambassador to Australia, and writer. Beautiful blonde Joanie Miller, Jake’s first girlfriend, wrote gymnast, teacher, and dress designer. The rest of the class spouted similar combinations of wishful and unlikely professions. But Gregory Victor Lowell simply wrote “Doctor.” When Mr. Bailey pointed out he must write three vocations, Gregory promptly wrote “Doctor” two more times. Old man Bailey acted indignant, but Jake saw the corners of his mouth turn up in a suppressed smile. Teachers always seemed pleased with Doc. He always knew exactly what he wanted to be, and no more doubted whether he’d be a doctor than the rest of the class doubted whether they’d ride the school bus home that afternoon.

From that day forward Jake and Finney called their best friend “Doc.” Students who wouldn’t remember what they wrote down that day would never forget what Doc wrote. By taking home every academic award, as well as the “all around” awards because he was a great athlete, Doc reminded himself and everyone else he was the best. Jake and Finney collected a few awards themselves, but Jake always thought this was only because those in charge felt they couldn’t give everything to Doc.

Jake straightened the top sheet on the hanging clipboard. Doc would want his little room here to look just right. He was meticulous not only in his homework, but—and this was most shocking to anyone who knew adolescent boys—his room was always immaculate. Every sock was matched in his drawers, and not because his mother did it. In fact, he had told her not to do it because so often she got it wrong. (At least, Doc recited two occasions when she had.) Jake and Finney always ribbed Doc that he didn’t do a lick of work around the rest of the house, inside or outside, but poured all his efforts into his own room. Doc unapologetically said, “I don’t care about the rest of the house. I care about my room.” Once when Finney and Jake trashed his room as a joke, they found out the hard way how much he meant it.

Jake’s own room had been such a pigsty it now left only a general nondescript image in his mind. He remembered what happened there, but it was all in the form of snapshots with no depth of field, where he didn’t recall the details of the room’s appearance. But Doc’s room was so clean, the angles so sharp, everything so perfectly in place, it was forever etched in Jake’s mind as a still picture, an ageless Ansel Adams photograph.

Jake remembered Doc walking tall, back straight, years before the military. He was always trying to stretch his 6’1” to 6’2”. That posture made every step he took look purposeful. There was a measured and almost mechanical sense to his stride. Doc was a man of discipline and purpose. He was also a man who knew how to party. Doc once told Jake, “Put that on my tombstone, ol’ buddy—‘He knew how to party.’”
No, Doc. You’ll make it. Hang in there—you’ve got to make it.

The three musketeers went together to Bosworth College. Small college, high standards, great pride. You could play two sports. You had to be good, but not great. It was the Vietnam era, and something drew Jake and Finney to join ROTC. It wasn’t just the rightness of the cause, though as America’s brightest and best they cherished freedom and hated communism. They were competitors, fighters eager to stand for something, to test their mettle. Doc was in pre-med and figured to go straight to medical school from college, continuing his student deferment status. Their junior year Doc saw Jake and Finney’s attentions move more and more to an exciting four years of proving their manhood in the military. Doc quietly weighed the fact that even with scholarships he’d have to work his way through med school, and face the distractions. He secretly talked to a recruiter. When he found out the GI Bill would help with medical school, he surprised and delighted his friends by joining them in ROTC, preparing to enter the army as an officer.

Initially they were stationed places far apart, one in the U.S., one in Germany, and one in Korea. They stayed in touch, any two of them intersecting on their leaves whenever they could. And then came the year in Vietnam. All three had gone in as second lieutenants, received the customary one-year promotion to first lieutenant, and were given their platoons of some thirty men. All three had excelled, each making captain by the time they left the army.

Jake’s thoughts hovered a moment, then landed squarely on Finney. He always looked like a farm boy, strong and disciplined, built like a fire plug, but quick and agile. His 5’10” frame carried 190 pounds like it was 150. He knew how to drink, how to fight, and he knew all about loyalty. In Nam you had to trust guys with your life. Jake often wished he could pull Finney into his own company, and Doc too. Yet coming together to share their stories and out drink each other a few times at Division headquarters—and above all that glorious week in Bangkok—was somehow even better. It was a way of proving themselves, each as leaders in their own right, as equals understanding the responsibilities and privileges of command.

Finney and Doc. Doc and Finney.
Finney
! Suddenly Jake realized he’d been daydreaming, forgetting part two of his mission. He had to find Finney. He felt like the plate spinner at the circus, hoping that if he could go back and forth between his friends perhaps he could keep either from dying.

Jake squeezed Doc’s hand. He could almost hear him say, “Don’t get weird on me now, Buddy,” or, “Save your affection for the ladies, will ya?” Jake smiled the numb smile of crisis, and quickly left the room to find Finney. His head spinning, side aching, and feeling nausea at his sudden movement, Jake turned into the hallway from Doc’s room and ran straight into a man in surgical blues, nearly knocking both of them to the floor.

“What’s going on? Who are you? What were you doing in there?”

“Sorry, doctor.” Jake didn’t feel repentant, but overtures of repentance seemed the best strategy to accomplish his goal. “Doc, I mean Greg Lowell, is one of my best friends. I just had to see him.”

The doctor studied Jake’s face. Then the light turned on.

“You’re Jake Woods, aren’t you? Greg introduced me to you at Halley’s Bar and Grill a few years ago, remember? Barry Simpson. We had some drinks together. I read your column.”

Jake didn’t remember, but then, Doc had introduced him to lots of people in lots of bars over lots of drinks, and bar memories were usually the most vague. “Sure, I remember you, Dr. Simpson.” Maybe Jake could trade that one night of bar bonding for a ticket to see Finney.

“I heard you were in the accident with Greg, you and another guy.”

“Yeah, that’s Finney. He’s in here too. He and Doc and I have always been thick, since we were kids. Played ball together. Same college. Same battalion in Nam.”

“Listen, I won’t say anything about you coming in here unauthorized, but you’ve really got to get out. You don’t look that great yourself. I’ll have you taken back to your room in a wheelchair.”

“Doctor, look, I know I’ve overstepped the boundaries, but I’ve got to ask a favor. Could you let me go see Finney just for a few minutes? Then I promise I’ll go right back to my room.”

“No way. I can’t let you in there.”

Jake tried to look pathetic enough to change the man’s mind, but he was already making plans to sneak back in if he had to. He’d borrow some surgical blues and come in undercover, if that’s what it took.

“Please, doctor. Only for a minute. It’s killing me not to see him.”

The doctor’s face softened. “Well, Greg was a colleague—I mean, is a colleague. And I suppose he’d bend the rules to let you see your friend.” Simpson said it as if Doc’s rule bending was legendary. “I guess I can do it, but let’s be quick about it. I think your friend’s in the next hall. Let’s go.”

Dr. Simpson started to escort Jake from the room, just as a nurse came around a corner to check in on Doc. Simpson stopped suddenly in front of the nurse, whose badge said “Robin.”

“Dr. Lowell’s fine, nurse. I just checked him. This guy was in his room. I want you to get on top of security in this whole unit! If he could just walk in, anybody could come in off the street!”

Nurse Robin gave a wide-eyed, “Yes, doctor” and marched to the nurses station to pass on his lecture on ICU security.

As they walked to Finney’s room, Jake now remembered Simpson. He’d come into the bar after Jake and Doc’s second or third beer. The three had swapped stories, impressed each other and complained about women. Especially about complaining women. And about how a lot of women seemed madder at men now than back in the seventies before men started trying so hard to please them. It went from what was it women wanted, anyway, to who gives a rip, to let’s have a few more beers. A typical happy hour with three modern professional males, as Jake recalled.

When they entered the room, both Jake and the doctor were surprised to see the petite brown-haired woman holding Finney’s hand. Sue turned to the men, raised her eyebrows admiringly at Jake, and said to Dr. Simpson, “I’m Sue Keels, Finney’s wife. I’m also an emergency room nurse. Dr. Milhall let me in. I’m not in the way, Doctor.”

“Yes, no doubt.” Dr. Simpson didn’t sound convinced. “Mr. Keels has persistent friends and family, I’ll say that for him. We can’t seem to keep them away regardless of the rules.”

“If you knew him, you’d understand why.” Sue looked at the bedraggled, scantily clad journalist, trying to keep from laughing. “Jake, good to see you. How are you?”

Before Jake could answer, Dr. Simpson said, “I caught him sneaking around ICU. He needs to get back to his room. We’re on our way.”

“Let him sit here with me, Doctor. I can take care of both of them. I’ve got eighteen years as a nurse, including a few in ICU.”

“I can see you’re as stubborn as Mr. Woods here.” Jake welcomed Simpson’s air of resignation.

“Yes, Doctor. Maybe more so.” Sue smiled, but she wasn’t kidding.

“All right, I’ve got surgery. No more time for this nonsense. I’ll tell the nurses to give you fifteen minutes, Mr. Woods. That’s all. Then they wheel you back to your own room. You try this again and we’ll strap you down. Deal?”

“Deal. Thanks.”

The doctor grabbed another chair from the corner of the room and set it down, not so gently, for Jake. “Don’t mention it. That’s what we’re here for, right? Who cares about rules and policies? Excuse me while I go try to be a doctor instead of a hall monitor!” He was gone.

Sue pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows at Jake. “I have this way with people,” he explained. Both chuckled, like people who needed to.

Jake eyed Sue’s big leather Bible in her hands. It always looked out of proportion, Sue so small and the book so big. She stood up and moved her chair so Jake could pull alongside her, closer to Finney. The two sat quietly, saying nothing and focusing their thoughts and hopes on Finney.

Finnegan Douglas Keels. Friendly to a fault. Open heart and open hand. A vagrant prospecting for a handout would always approach him first. Broad shoulders, the look of an athlete. No longer the washboard stomach he once had, but as fit as any fifty-year-old had the right to be. His hair hadn’t changed since high school, except the graying temples. Short, wavy, the straight cut of the ex-athlete, ex-soldier.

You’re an institution, Finn.
The Berlin Wall could come down, the Yankees could finish last, but Finney would always be there. Like the rising sun, like the stars, something you could set your watch by. A beacon. A lighthouse. And sometimes a major pain in the rear.

Finney’s laugh. That’s what was so conspicuously absent from this tomb-like room. Finney’s great, powerful, heartfelt laugh. A laugh that was always spontaneous, never self-conscious. He didn’t notice and didn’t seem to care if people turned and looked, as if a laugh was never something to apologize for. It was the laugh of someone who enjoyed life. But here he was, teetering on life’s edge, threatening to fall over the other side. Jake could sense it. Finney was further gone than Doc.