He looked at the chart and saw that Dr. Kender was attempting to abort the rejection by administering Prednisone and Imuran.

The crowning touch to garnish the day, he told himself.

He thought briefly of going to the animal lab and working but could not force himself to do it. He had had enough of dogs and women and surgery for the moment. Instead he went upstairs anxious to take sleep as though it were a healing draught, relishing the prospect of unconsciousness.

8: Spurgeon Robinson

8

Spurgeon Robinson

Spurgeon Robinson spent a good deal of his time worrying.

If one of your cases had to be presented to the Mortality Conference, he reasoned, it should be when things were going well. At a time like this, with a kidney transplant showing an increasing number of rejection signs and with the Old Man beginning to look like hell, there would be staff people at the meeting in a mood to tear somebody apart.

He began to wonder what he would do if he were thrown out.

When he should have been sleeping he found himself thinking of Mrs. Donnelly’s riddles. One night he dreamed the incident in the Emergency Room occurred again, only this time instead of releasing the woman from the hospital and sending her home to die, his great skill as a physician allowed him to realize instantly that there was a fracture of the odontoid process. He awoke that morning with happiness in every cell, and for a while he lay there and wondered why, and then he remembered it was because he had saved Mrs. Donnelly. Finally, of course, he knew it had been a dream and nothing would alter the reality that he had killed her. He lay in his misery, unable to get out of bed.

He was a Doctor of Medicine. They couldn’t take that away.

If he were dropped from internship, the only thing open would be a salaried position somewhere. Uncle Calvin would dearly love to give him a medical appointment with American Eagle Life, advancement guaranteed. And some of the large drug manufacturers hired Negro M.D.s. But he knew if they fired him from the house staff, if he couldn’t have medicine the way he wanted it, he would go back to where he’d been a few years ago and try to have music the way he wanted it.

He began to make excuses to go to Peggy Weld’s room, to draw the singer into conversations about music.

At first he could see that she considered him another young guy who played a little and thought he was a musician, but then they discovered a name they knew in common.

“You mean you played Dino’s on 52nd Street. In Manhattan?”

“My little group. Three other guys, me on piano.”

“Who’s the manager?” she challenged.

“Vin Scarlotti.”