“I may want to look at the bug bites after the gross autopsy,” she says, “although if we’re right about his heart, there’ll be no need. Or do you want me to look now? They worrying you?”
“Nope, they’re pretty clearly mosquito bites,” Gimpel the Fool says. “They grow ’em big over on the west side. He’s got five .
. . seven … eight … jeez, almost a dozen on his left leg alone.”
“He forgot his Deep Woods Off.”
“Never mind the Off, he forgot his digitalin,” he says, and they have a nice little yock together, autopsy room humor.
This time he flips me by himself, probably happy to use those gym-grown Mr. Strongboy muscles of his, hiding the
snakebites and the mosquito bites all around them, camouflaging them. I’m staring up into the bank of fluorescents again.
Pete steps backward, out of my view. There’s a humming noise. The table begins to slant, and I know why. When they cut me
open, the fluids will run downhill to collection points at its base. Plenty of samples for the state lab in Augusta, should there be any questions raised by the autopsy.
I focus all my will and effort on closing my eyes while he’s looking down into my face, and cannot produce even a tie. All I wanted was eighteen holes of golf on Saturday afternoon, and instead I turned into Snow White with hair on my chest. And I
can’t stop wondering what it’s going to feel like when those poultry shears go sliding into my midsection.
Pete has a clipboard in one hand. He consults it, sets it aside, then speaks into the mike. His voice is a lot less stilted now. He has just made the most hideous misdiagnosis of his life, but he doesn’t know it, and so he’s starting to warm up.
.II am commencing the autopsy at five forty-nine P.M.,” he says, “on Saturday, August twenty, nineteen ninety-four.”
He lifts my. lips, looks at my teeth like a man thinking about buying a horse, then pulls my jaw down. Good color,” he says,
“and no petechiae on the cheeks.” The current tune is fading out of the speakers and I hear a click as he steps on the foot pedal which pauses the recording tape. “Man, this guy really could still be alive!”
AUTOPSY ROOM FOUR
Page 12 of 15
I hum frantically, and at that same moment Dr. Arlen drops something that sounds like a bedpan. “Doesn’t he wish,” she says, laughing. He joins in and this time it’s cancer I wish on them, some kind that is inoperable and lasts a long time. –
He goes quickly down my body, feeling up my chest (“No bruising, swelling, or other exterior signs of cardiac arrest,” he says, and what a big fucking surprise that is), then palpates my belly.
I burp.
He looks at me, eyes widening, mouth dropping open a little, and again I try desperately to hum, knowing he won’t hear it
over “Start Me Up” but thinking that maybe, along with the burp, he’ll finally be ready to see what’s right in front of him.
“Excuse yourself, Howie,” Dr. Arlen, that bitch, says from behind me, and chuckles, “Better watch out, Pete those postmortem belches are the worst.”
He theatrically fans the air in front of his face, then goes back to what he’s doing. He barely touches my groin, although he remarks that the scar on the back of my right leg continues around to the front.
Missed the big one, though, I think, maybe because it’s a little higher than you’re looking. No big deal, my little Baywatch buddy, but you also missed the fact that I’M STILL ALIVE, and that IS a big deal!
He goes on chanting into the microphone, sounding more and more at ease (sounding, in fact, a little like Jack Klugman on
Quincy, ME.), and I know his partner over there behind me, the Pollyanna of the medical community, isn’t thinking she’ll
have to roll the tape back over this part of the exam. Other than missing the fact that his first pericardial is still alive, the kid’s doing a great job.