THE PULMONARY FELLOW AND medical assistant transferred Larry to a recliner chair and proceeded to ignore him as they sorted through boxes of bottles and syringes. Herb, now gowned and masked too, entered the bronchoscopy suite. Larry grabbed the armrests and pushed himself back into the chair. His lips were trembling.
Like a caged rabbit, Herb thought. A tide of empathy rose. He fought it off and diverted his gaze. Maintaining cool objectivity was essential, he believed, for performing this procedure with minimal risk to the patient’s safety as well as to his own mental health.
“There’s nothing to be scared about, Mr. Winton.”
Herb balked. He couldn’t pretend the consequences of his being late were potentially disastrous. He had to be completely present, whatever the cost to his equilibrium.
He placed his hands on Larry’s shoulders and looked into his eyes.
“You’ll get through this just fine,” he vowed. “I promise.”
Saying those words stirred up memories he couldn’t suppress.
In seventh grade, during a field trip to Manhattan, Herb’s class traipsed across Madison Square Park to see the statues of famous Americans. Herb lingered too long in front of the Civil War admiral who had famously yelled, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.” On realizing his classmates were gone, he jogged in widening circles around the park until finally giving up. He trudged in search of a subway station and soon faced a massive stretch of identical, fifteen-story red-brick apartment buildings. Just beyond was the East River. He turned around and saw six rough-looking teenagers blocking his path.
“Whatchya doin’ here, chink?” shouted the gang’s apparent leader. “This ain’t Chinatown.”
“I’m lost,” Herb confessed. “How do I get to the Long Island Rail Road?”
“What! Peter Cooper Village ain’t good enough for you, chink? You wanta go to the suburbs?”
Herb retreated. He didn’t notice one of the boys creep behind him and crouch down. Falling backwards, Herb’s head slammed on the sidewalk. The leader lifted him by the collar and slugged him, splitting his lower lip.
“Get outta here you little shit,” he yelled as they ran away.
Too stunned to sit up, Herb lay patting his scalp and lip gashes in a feeble attempt to stanch the bleeding. Eventually, there were sirens. Herb was taken by ambulance to a hospital, propped up in a wheelchair, and rolled to an exam room where a pale, freckled, middle-aged man clad in green scrubs knelt down and looked into Herb’s eyes.
“I’m going make you numb, lad,” he said in an Irish accent, “Clean your cuts and sew them shut. Are you brave enough to lie still for that?”
Herb submitted willingly. No white adult had ever made such direct eye contact with him, not even a schoolteacher. That alone sufficed to convince him the man must be well-intentioned.
“You’ll get through it just fine,” the doctor promised.
Herb’s faith wavered when an anesthetic injected into the wounds burned hard enough to make him shed tears, but the warm, rinsing liquids that followed restored his trust, as did the doctor’s chipper apology, “Sorry, lad,” each time Herb felt a dull yank from sutures piercing and pulling his skin together. He had been given a pain pill that kicked in as the last thread was tied. The throbbing ceased, and true numbness came—a neutral buzz, constant, predictable, bearable.
Herb was asleep when his mother arrived. She bundled him into a taxi and brought him home. He spent the rest of the night buffeting between dreadful dreams and conscious pain. At some point during this fugue state, his father appeared, demanding information. Herb’s mouth was too swollen to make intelligible words.
His father returned at six in the morning. He made Herb get dressed and eat cereal. Though moving his lips was excruciating, Herb didn’t complain. He didn’t have to be told this was his own fault for not paying attention. His father drove them to a police station in lower Manhattan. They went from office to office through mustard-colored hallways reeking of stale tobacco smoke. Fluttering fluorescent lights made Herb dizzy. He found a bathroom and vomited.
His father insisted a criminal report be filed. Flash bulbs lacerated Herb’s headache as photographs were taken for evidence. The presiding officer was good-natured. Too good-natured. As his father filled out forms, the man grinned. Other policemen were smirking or outright laughing. Herb was incredulous his father couldn’t see he was the butt of their joke. Then he realized his father actually had noticed and was refusing to acknowledge the fact. Herb began to despise him.
Regaining self-control, Herb said, “You need to be relaxed for this. I’m going to give you a medication that’ll help. I’ll be surprised if you remember the experience afterwards. Ready?”
Larry nodded meekly. He watched Herb attach a syringe to his intravenous tubing and the fellow adjust dials on an ominous black box connected to a two foot length of cable.
“You’ll be getting sleepy soon.”
Alarmed by a burning sensation in his arm, Larry tensed. Pleasure suddenly bloomed in the back of his head. The fatigue, fear, and relentless labor of breathing dissipated.
Herb was speaking rapidly. Larry was unable to comprehend. Was it a foreign language? Latin? As the ceiling lights dimmed, Herb’s face was bathed by the glow emanating from the bronchoscope dials.
Now everything made sense to Larry. He remembered a priest, a regular on Haight Street, who wore a black Nehru jacket over his clerical collar. The man chatted with street people about hustling and drugs, but he didn’t proselytize. Instead, he helped them find housing, food, or a place to detox. He had never approached Larry until seeing him short of breath. When asked if he needed assistance, Larry declined. The priest gave him a card with the address of a local parish church. Once a half-block walk became the limit of his endurance, Larry reconsidered his options. He hoped Catholics had a different perspective on sin than Baptists.
The Sunday before he was admitted to City Hospital, Larry took a bus from Haight Street to Saint Ignatius. The street priest was at the pulpit, wrapped in a white robe, giving a sermon about purgatory. The term was vaguely familiar to Larry. He supposed it had something to do with suffering for your sins. The priest explained that individuals whose lives never strayed from virtue went straight to heaven while those who had never hesitated in being selfish went straight to hell. Purgatory was a waiting room for people who had made any effort to atone for their misdeeds.
“Mr. Winton,” said Herb. “You’re going to feel a tube go down your throat. Take in a long, slow breath.”
Larry did his best to cooperate. He understood what was happening. This doctor was Saint Peter. He had come to see Larry and decide whether to send him to heaven or hell. Fair enough, thought Larry, and he relaxed.