Blood Test by Kellerman, Jonathan

platonic that for the first time all day I felt like

smiling. They were sleeping together and it was

supposed to be a secret. Without a doubt everyone

in the department knew about it.

“I’ve got to get going,” I said.

“Yes, I understand. Thank you for everything. I

may call you to discuss this further. In the meantime,

send your bill to my secretary.”

As I walked out the door they were gazing into

each other’s eyes and discussing the wonders of

osmotic equilibrium.

On the way out I stopped in the hospital cafeteria

for a cup of coffee. It was after seven and the

dining room was sparsely populated. A tall Mexican

man wearing a hair net and blue scrubs ran a

dry mop over the floor. A *trio of nurses laughed

and ate doughnuts. I lidded the coffee ar/d was

preparing to leave when movement fluttered in the

corner of my eye.

118

Jonathan Kellerman

It was Valcroix and he was waving me over. I

walked to his table.

“Care to join me?”

“All right.” I put down my cup and took a chair

facing him. The remains of a giant salad sat on his

tray along with two glasses of water. He used his

fork to move a tumbleweed of alfalfa sprouts around

the bowl.

He’d traded his psychedelic sport shirt for a black

Grateful Dead T-shirt and had tossed his white

coat over the chair next to him. From up close I

could see that the long hair was thinning on top. He

needed a shave but his beard growth was sparse,

spotting only the mustache and chin areas. The

drooping face had been worked over by a bad cold;

he sniffled, red-nosed and bleary-eyed.

“Any news on the Swopes?” he asked.

I was tired of telling the story but he’d been their

doctor and deserved to know. I gave him a brief

summary.

He listened with equanimity, no emotion registering

in the hooded eyes. When I was finished he

coughed and dabbed at his nose with a napkin.

“For some reason I feel an urge to proclaim my

innocence to you,” he said.

“That’s hardly necessary,” I assured him. I drank

some coffee and put it down quicklY, having forgotten

how awful it was.

His eyes took on a faraway look and for a moment

I thought he was meditating, retreating to an internal

world as he’d done during Raoul’s harangue. I

found my attention wandering.

“I4mow Melendez-Lynch blames me for this. He’s

blamed me for everything that’s gone wrong in the

BLOODTEST . 119

department since I

that way when you worked

“Let’s just say t took a while to develop

working relationship.”

–

He nodded solemnly, picked some strands from

the ball of sprouts and chewed on them.

“Why do you think they ran away?” I asked him.

He shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“No insights at all ?”

“None. Why should l’have, any more than anyone

else ?”

“I was under the impression they related well to

you.”

“Who told you that?”

“Raoul.”

“He wouldn’t recognize relating if it bit him in

the ass.”

“He felt you’d developed especially good rapport

with the mother.”

His hands were scrubbed and pink. They tightened

around the salad fork.

“l was a nurse before I became a doctor,” he said.

“Interesting.”

“Is it?”

“Nurses are always complaining about their lack

of status and money and threatening to quit and go

to reed sc’hooi You’re the first I’ve met who actuo

ally did it.”

“Nurses gripe because their lot in life is shit. But

there are insights to be learned at the bottom of the

ladder. Like the value of talking to patients and

families. I did it as a nurse but now that I’m a doc

it makes me a deviate. What’s pathetic is that it’s

viewed as sufficiently deviant to be noticed. Bap-port?

Hell, no. I barely knew them. Sure I spoke to

120 Jonathan ellerman

the mother. I was sticking her son every day with

needles, puncturing his bone and sucking out mar-

row. How could I not speak to her ?

He gazed into the salad bowl.

“Melendez-Lynch can’t understand that, my wanting