The Ninth Wave (43 page)

"Why? Every intern must make mistakes at first," Georgia said. "That's
what internships are for. So you make your mistakes under supervision."
"I wasn't afraid of making mistakes," Hank said. "But later, after she had
committed suicide, I went over my notes. And it all became clear. There
was nothing wrong with the woman; not at first. She just wanted to talk
to the nice young doctor and it didn't cost her anything and it kept
her out of the house. It gave her a nice break. She kept changing the
symptoms on me, just to keep my interest up. But at some point the whole
thing changed. The more I talked the more she became apprehensive and
frightened. And in the end I drove her to the bridge."
"Oh, Hank, that's silly. She must have been way off base before she ever
came to you."
"But she wasn't," Hank said. "She just wanted a chance to get out of
the house for a few hours a week and she liked to have someone to talk
to. But at some point I got the thin end of the wedge into her brain.
And every word I said drove it in farther. See, I really drove her to
suicide. She was just a normal, whining, fat, bored housewife. And I,
Hank the wonder intern, was clever enough to drive her nuts; I got her
so worked up that she committed suicide."
"Is surgery better?" Georgia asked.
Hank sat up. He rolled down the window and spat a mouthful of crackers
out onto the highway. He rolled the window up.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm talking too much. Also I'm trying to be smart
and flip. I don't feel that way about it. Really I liked psychiatry, but
I just couldn't do it. Too chancy."
"Too chancy?"
"Yes. Too chancy. Too much guesswork. Too much opinion. Too much wild
imagination. Too much of something that I don't have."
"Are you a good surgeon?"
"No. Just average, but I'll get better."
"Well, why did you pick surgery then?"
"Because it's sure. Absolutely, positively sure. If you're a surgeon, a
cancer specialist brings in a patient and tells you that he's got a patient
with a cancer in the cortex of the brain. He makes the diagnosis. It's
all his responsibility. All the surgeon does is operate. The other guy
takes all the responsibility."
"But that's part of being a doctor," Georgia protested. "You have to be
willing to make a diagnosis."
"Not if you're a surgeon. They bring the patient in with the diagnosis
already made. All you have to do is operate. They bring him in with
his head shaved so close that it gleams like brass. You caliper off the
distance, make a mark on the skull . . . it's all exact, precise, with
instruments that measure the same thing on every person. No guesswork. You
sponge off the skull with alcohol that kills the same kind of germs on
every kind of head. You take a scalpel and cut and elevate and reflect
a flap of skin. Same size on every head; same place; same problem. You
clamp off the blood vessels. They're always in the same position in every
person's head. Once in a while one vessel bleeds a little more than most
and then you just electrocoagulate it. That's the only difference. Then
you cut through the skullbone with a trephine; five holes, each exactly
the same. You cut between them with a special stainless-steel wire saw.
You elevate the flap of dura and gently explore the brain. And either
it's there or it's not. Either you see a little yellow growth spreading
across the surface, sending tiny ramifications into the healthy tissue,
crowding against the sulci and causing the memory lapse and gradually
killing the patient -- it's either there or it isn't. If it isn't you
back out of the skull, sew the skin back over and the internist was
wrong. Not you."
"And if he was right?"
"Then the operating nurse slaps an electric knife in your hand and slowly,
gently, holding your breath, sweating, you cut it out. The curious little
piece of flesh falls away from the brain, the electric knife seals off the
blood vessels and, finally, it's just lying there . . . an ounce or two of
crazy flesh. You pick the growth up with a forceps and start backing out.
And you feel as good as if you'd done something really important. And no
responsibility."
"But somebody has to do the diagnosis, someone has to take the risk."
Hank opened his eyes a slit, glanced down the long shiny hood of the car,
down the rushing strip of black asphalt, saw dimly the beetlelike rush
of the other cars, the green foliage alongside the highway. He smiled
and closed his eyes.
"Sure. Someone has to do it. Let someone do it that likes to take a chance,
that likes guessing. I don't like it."
Georgia drove a few more-miles without speaking and Hank almost fell asleep.
"Is it worthwhile studying surgery, Hank, if you're not very good at it?"
"Good question. First, I'm not bad at it. I'm just not gifted in the
fingers the way some of the surgeons are. But you can improve yourself by
practice and so I do that. When I was at medical school I used to practice
on old cadavers; the ones that were so sliced up they were about to send
them away to wherever they send used-up cadavers. Sometimes I practiced
on beef. I never told anyone about that. I'd get a big roast of beef,
take it to my apartment, lay out the instruments and practice. Practice
at tying knots with two fingers in a deep bloody cut; practice at feeling
things with the tips of my fingers; practice at thin cuts . . . so thin
that a hundred of them wouldn't cut through more than a quarter inch of
flesh." Hank waved his hand in the air. "Don't worry. I'm good enough
and I'm getting better. I'll be one of the best someday. Not right away,
but someday."
Hank opened his eyes again, looked sideways at Georgia. She was looking
straight ahead, sitting easily in the seat. The speedometer held exactly
at 60, not falling or rising a hair.
"The only thing I saved from psychiatry is a name for what I'm feeling
right now," Hank said. "Parorexia."
"What's that?" Georgia asked, laughing.
"Perverted appetite," Hank said. "I'm hungry for something else. Fried
eggs. Stop at the next restaurant."
They stopped and Hank ate four fried eggs and some toast. When they got
back in the car, they drove through the mountain meadows -- on top of the
Ridge Route. The lupin was turning brown and great patches of the flower
marched over the hillsides. In a few places, deep gullies and ravines,
there were still streaks of brown winter snow. Trucks crawled up the
grade, their wheels barely turning, the diesel smoke hanging motionless
in the air.
"You were mad at Mike during the convention, weren't you?" Georgia asked.
"For a little while. Then I got over it. I was really mad about him giving
Moon's name to Cromwell. That was a hell of a thing. But last night when
I was out on the town I thought it all out. I'm not sore anymore."
"I'm glad. I wouldn't feel good if you were mad at Mike."
"Well, I'm not mad anymore. I figured it doesn't make any difference. The
Moon thing won't amount to anything. It'll just blow over. If I really
thought that it would hurt Moon any, I'd have really given Mike hell
. . . made Cromwell retract the statement or something. But it won't
matter. Everyone will just forget it. Think it's a political attack and
forget it."
"Isn't Professor Moon a Communist?"
"He's not a member of the Communist Party. He's one of those oddballs
who likes to startle his students, and he's convinced himself that he
believes in some special obscure aspects of primitive communism. But he's
not a member of the Party. I'll bet he doesn't even know that there is
a Communist Party."
"I'm not so sure that everyone is going to forget it, Hank. People are
worked up these days about Communism. What if the newspapers pick it up?"
"They won't. Everyone knows that it was just politics. They'll forget
about it." Hank leaned back in the seat and yawned. He rubbed his
hands across his eyes. "That was a neat job that Mike pulled on the
convention. I wonder if any of them realize what happened?"
"What did he do to them, Hank?" Georgia asked. "Why did they all switch
so easily from Gutler to Cromwell?"
"Because they were a middle-class crowd," Hank said. "All clever,
well-educated people. They all knew about mob psychology and emotionalism
and they know it's not nice for respectable people to get too excited.
They're stiff with respectability; really proper people. But they all
thought that a political convention is different. There you can get
excited and yell and parade around and it's all right. You're doing it
in the interest of good government, for the state. But then Mike pulled
a switch on them. After they had paraded around and acted foolish, they
sat down; all feeling righteous and spent. And then the minister stands
up and gives them hell. Suddenly they're all embarrassed sick. They
hated the minister and Cromwell for reminding them of how foolish they'd
been. Hell hath no fury like an embarrassed respectable person."
"If they hated the minister and Cromwell, why did they go along with
them?" Georgia asked.
"Because they couldn't admit they hated the people that scotded them,"
Hank said. "They had to turn their hatred on the guy that made fools
out of them . . . and that guy was Cutler. And the cards helped. They
looked spontaneous, homemade, crude. Not like Cutler's slick, high-powered
buttons and posters and photographs. Everyone thought the person next to
him had scribbled out the cards. So they turned on Cutler, tore off his
buttons and put on the hand-written cards for Cromwell. That was pretty
clever of Mike. Really clever."
"Mike was right," Georgia said. "The problem is not so much to get them
to like your candidate as to persuade them to hate the other candidate."
"Sure, he was right for a little group like a convention," Hank said. "But
it's just a trick. You couldn't pull it on the whole voting public."
Georgia glanced at Hank and her face was relieved; almost smiling.
"But why can't Mike work a couple of tricks and win the election?"
"Because you can't manipulate five million people the way you manipulate
a few hundred people that are all gathered together in one hall. The mass
of voters is just too big. That's their protection from people like Mike.
Just their great big bulk makes them difficult to persuade and handle.
Wait until Mike starts trying to manipulate five million people. Then
you'll see. He'll get smothered. And it's a damn good thing."
"That's funny, Hank, I just don't see Mike being wrong on this. I'd like
to see him lose. But I don't think he will."
The relief was still there on her face, but she wanted more assurance.
"Well, he's going to lose the primary. If the Republicans run Daigh, he
will take both nominations in the primary. My God, Georgia, nobody even
knows who Cromwell is. He's just a man with some inherited money who
likes to talk to people. He's good at it. In a way he's superb. But
he'll never be governor."
They came to the Santa Paula cutoff. A huge gas station glittered at the
intersection. A single great truck came powerfully down Highway 126 and
swung into the traffic. From the hills above Chatsworth, they could see
an occasional glimpse of the sprawling geometry of Los Angeles.
"But Mike's so sure he can do it," Georgia said.
"He could be sure and still be wrong," Hank said.
"Maybe," Georgia said.
They came to Sepulveda and swung right. They went past the glittering
expanse of the reservoir and then, far ahead of them, the first traffic
light blinked red. The flicking, fast-moving, atomized cars slowed down,
formed into bunches. Tamely, they moved into Los Angeles.
Hank waited for a few moments. He closed his eyes and leaned back in
the corner of the seat.
"Georgia, why do you hang around with Mike?" he asked and his voice was
tough and determined. "Nothing can come out of it. There's nothing in it
for you."
The car spurted forward, whined down the road. Hank had a brief flash
of memory: he remembered the time when he was taking the pulse of a man
after a long diagnosis. Hank told the man he had incurable cancer and
at once the pulse grew thick, enormous, thudding; as if the artery would
burst under his fingers. "Why do you hang around Mike?" Georgia asked.
"Because I've known him for a long time and I like him," Hank said. "I
don't know why, but I do. I like him and there's something curious,
attractive about him. I keep thinking if I hang around I'll find out some
answer that will make the whole thing sensible." How can I tell her,
he thought? He felt dull, used up. "With you it's different. You want
something he can't give."
"I'm not sure, Hank," Georgia said and her voice was only a whisper;
almost frightened. "At first I thought it was because he was so certain;
always sure of everything. No doubts. No hesitations. But now I've
changed. It's different. I think I make it too complicated. Maybe it's
just as simple as the fact that I . . . " She paused. "Just as simple
as . . . "
"Don't talk about it," Hank said harshly, quickly. He was suddenly
desperate. not to have her say it. He wanted, with a dead anxiousness,
not to have her uncover herself; to speak the final words. "Shut up."
He opened his eyes. She was looking straight down the highway, her eyes
distended. On her arms the flesh was puckered and he realized that she
was shivering slightly; almost invisibly.
CHAPTER 27
Election Year
The California gold had been there for ages. It was washed down out
of the hills in shining flakes that gathered at the bottom of river
beds. Sometimes it came down in dull and tiny pieces as big as peas. Once
or twice, no one knows how, it stayed in the hills in chunks as big as a
boulder; heavy enough to make a man's arms strain when he tried to lift
it. And heavy enough to make him scream with joy when he hefted it.
They took it out first with iron pans. Three handfuls of black sand,
wash it with river water, let the black silt sluice over the edges. Then
tilt and tip, wash again and again and again. And finally the streak at
the bottom: thin, yellow and heavy. Scrape it, along with the black mud,
into the leather bag and to assay.
Later came surface diggings, wet diggings, crude flumes, cradles, riffles,
tailings, leads, coyotes, and each of them took some gold and left the
land unchanged.