Lou’s affiliation with the PWO went back nine years—to the day when his medical license was suspended for self-prescribing amphetamines. He had always been a heavier-than-average drinker, but speed, which he took to handle the sleep-deprivation of working two moonlighting jobs, quickly brought him to his knees. Enter the PWO, an organization devoted to helping doctors with mental illness, physical illness, substance abuse, and behavioral problems. The PWO director arranged for an immediate admission to a rehab facility in Georgia, and kept in close contact with Lou’s caseworkers and counselors until his discharge six months later. After that, a PWO monitor met with him weekly, then monthly, and supervised his recovery and urine screens for alcohol and other drugs of abuse. After a spotless year, his license was restored and he returned to work at Eisenhower Memorial. Three years after that, he was hired as the second of two PWO monitors. For the next year, things went perfectly. Then Walter Filstrup was brought in by the PWO board to head up the program.
“You know, bucko,” Lou said to his daughter, “sometimes you’re too smart for your own good.”
Although he seldom went out of his way to discuss his job frustrations with his child, neither was Lou ever one to measure his words. And the kid was a sponge.
“All right,” he said. “Consider my current position with PWO the exception that proves the law. Now, let’s get out there and see some patients. You ready to stay in school?”
Emily cocked her head thoughtfully. “For the moment,” she said.
“That’s all I can ask for. So, let’s not fall behind. In the ER business, you never know when something’s going to come out of left field and slam you against the wall.”
CHAPTER 2
With a nurse, the licensed nurse’s aide, and the resident busy with the old man in one of the back examining rooms, Lou handled an ear infection in a toddler, an upper respiratory virus in an elderly woman, and a cracked finger bone in a fifteen-year-old high school shortstop, who was dangerously close to losing an entire limb if he didn’t stop leering at the doctor’s daughter.
Sixty minutes to go.
It may have been a case of doing the right thing for the wrong reason, but Take Your Kid to Work Day was proving to be a total success.
The nurse clinician, a newlywed named Barbara Waldman, appeared behind a wheelchair at the door to the treatment room. The man in the chair was someone Lou knew well—a sixty-two-year-old who lived in various doorways near the Annex.
“Desmond!” Lou exclaimed, helping the man onto the examining table and out of his tattered air force jacket. “That gang again?”
Desmond Carter dabbed at his bleeding nostrils with a rag and nodded.
For most of the homeless in the area, being beaten for sport by any of several gangs who roamed the neighborhood was routine. Usually, though, the attacks occurred at night. Desmond, though black, was known for playing Irish tunes on a battered pennywhistle. When the music business was slow, he cashed in bottles. A Vietnam vet, he was rail thin, but with eyes that never betrayed the hardship of his life. Today, his face was swollen and bruised, with a split lip and the bloody nose. His oily trousers were shredded at the knees, revealing deep abrasions. One shoe was missing.