“’Morning, Diane,” Walt smiled sleepily to the lead ER nurse as he strolled through the front doors with the sun rising behind him. After the kid had returned from delivering Larry and disappeared into the night with his money, Walt had gone across the street to Rocky’s and picked nervously at his breakfast until he knew the ER would be clearing out.
Every conceivable body odor hung in the air, undercut by disinfectant and rubbing alcohol. The last untreated patients slept uncomfortably in waiting room chairs as a janitor mopped up a pool of vomit.
The gaunt, sixtyish nurse, up all night and long ago hardened to the carnival of injury and despair that was her responsibility, reacted with the instinctive fear of a snap inspection at seeing Walt Bolger so early on a Sunday morning.
“Dr. Bolger,” she said with a curious, husky rattle. “What brings you into my torture chamber this time of day?”
He smiled as he approached the admitting desk. “I have a patient up on six who had a bad night. Judy asked me to come in and see if I can do anything for him, get him to eat something.
“Rough night?” Walt asked with well-earned empathy as he looked around the waiting room.
“Fellah brought his special lady friend in around two thirty when their night of passion hit a snag. We took one of those Sesame Street puppet things out of her rectum,” she drawled matter-of-factly as she tended to paperwork. “Plastic, maybe eight inches tall. Really big head.
“It was still smiling when it finally yanked loose. She wasn’t.”
Walt smiled sympathetically, then nodded toward the corner. “What’s the story with this one? Someone admitted him yet?”
She looked to the other side of the waiting room and saw Larry slumped over in his chair, hidden behind a ficus.
“Oh, Jesus,” she sighed. “Bonnie! Bring the cart.”
A bleary-eyed young nurse emerged from the exam rooms pushing a rolling intake unit. She followed Diane toward Larry, while Walt trailed behind.
Diane reached Larry and studied his face closely as Walt held his breath. He thought Diane’s time at Holt City dated back to Larry’s reign there. If so, she didn’t recognize him.
She looked around the near-empty lobby as the nurse methodically began to check Larry’s blood pressure and other vitals.
“Mark,” Diane called, “did you see who brought this man in?”
The janitor shrugged.
“Check the bathrooms, send security out to the parking lot,” she instructed him. “They probably just got tired of waiting and went out for a smoke.”
Her frustration rising, Diane went through the pocket of Larry’s thin robe but found nothing.
“How is he?” she asked the nurse, who had just taken Larry’s pulse.
“He’s fine,” the young nurse said with surprise. “Blood pressure steady, temperature normal. Somebody’s been taking good care of him.”
Diane turned to Walt, her wry attitude gone. “I’m sorry, doctor,” she said soberly. “We’ll take him back, give him a thorough workup. If no one claims him, I’ll call the police and hope that he matches up with a missing persons report.”
She stepped behind Larry’s chair to wheel him to an exam room.
“Hang on,” Walt said. The red folder he had slipped down the back of Larry’s robe was visible by just an edge. He pulled it out and read from its meager contents:
“‘My father’s name is Peter. I have done all I can to help him for almost twelve years. He doesn’t die and I cannot afford to help him anymore. I’m sorry. Please take good care of him.’”
Walt looked to the only other page in the file, where in a handwriting he had labored to fake he wrote all that was needed to be known about Larry’s care.
“No last name,” he said convincingly, checking both sides of the pages and the file folder. He feigned contemplation for a moment as he reread the instructions.
“Let’s admit him, as a John Doe,” he said, adding with a smile. “Peter Doe.
“Put him on the B wing with the others, get a drip going. Looks like he’s been in this chair for a while, so make sure his pressure points are treated. I’ll check in on him later.”
For all her gruffness, Walt knew Diane cared about her job. “I try to monitor everything that goes on out here,” she said defensively. “But when it all hits the fan, it’s just too much to stay on top of.
“If this turns into a big investigation…” She trailed off with concern.
“Tell you what,” Walt said with a comforting smile. “Let’s just keep this to ourselves.”
He squatted down with his hands on his knees to study Larry closely.
“I think the best we can do is make our friend here as comfortable as possible. To look at him, I can’t imagine he’ll be with us for very long.”
* * *
With Larry settled onto the B wing with the hospital’s other unclaimed patients, Walt provided his friend’s care while tending to his diminishing medical practice. Nurses stuck on weekend and graveyard shifts were glumly content to do the rest for Larry, barely bothering to learn his false name, let alone questioning his identity. The hospital’s nursing staff was either young and fresh out of school, or old and going through the motions. They monitored his feeding supply, changed his diaper and warded off his bedsores with all the engagement they gave watering the potted plants in the break room.
It was the same rote, antiseptic attention that Walt and his wife had provided in their home for over twenty years. Now sustained by expert, government-financed indigent care, Larry’s rugged constitution ground on in the B wing for another seven years.
God abided.