Flashback (1988) Read online

  “Do you have a phone, Chris?”

  Again, the man laughed.

  “How did you get here?”

  “How do you think?”

  “A trucker found him sitting by the highway and brought him in,” Marshfield explained. “Chris is no stranger here. He’s a woodcutter. Periodically, he goes on a toot and cuts up himself instead of the wood.” He laughed at his own humor and seemed not to notice that no one else joined in. “We sew him up and ship him back home until the next time.”

  Zack looked down at the old man. Could there be any sadder state than being sick or badly hurt, and being alone—of hoping, against hope, for someone to come and help, but knowing that no one would?

  “Why can’t he just be admitted for a day or two?” he asked. “Are there empty beds in the house?”

  “Oh, we have beds,” Marshfield said, “but ol’ Chris here doesn’t have any kind of insurance, and unless his problem is life-threatening, which it isn’t, he either goes to Clarion County, if we want to ship him out there, or he goes home.”

  “What if a staff doctor insists on admitting someone who can’t pay?”

  Marshfield shrugged. “It doesn’t happen. If it did, I guess the physician would have to answer to the administration. Look, Iverson, you weren’t around when this hospital admitted every Tom, Dick, and Harry who came down the pike, regardless of whether they could pay or not, but I’m here to tell you, it was one helluva mess. There were some weeks when the goddamn place couldn’t even meet its payroll, let alone buy any new equipment.”

  “This man’s staying,” Zack said.

  The emergency physician reddened. “I told you we had things under control,” he said.

  Zachary glanced down at the old man. Sending him home to an isolated shack with no phone and, as likely as not, no food, went against his every instinct as a physician.

  “Under control or not,” he said evenly, “he’s staying. Admit him to me as … malnutrition and syncope I’ll write orders.”

  Marshfield’s jowly cheeks were now crimson. “It’s your goddamn funeral,” he said. “You’re the one who’s going to get called on the carpet by the administration.”

  “I think Frank will understand,” Zack said.

  This time, Marshfield laughed out loud. “There are a few docs beating the bushes out there for a job because they thought the same thing, Iverson.”

  “Like I said, he’s being admitted.”

  “And like I said, it’s your funeral. It’s okay, Tommy,” he said to the guard. “You can go on about your rounds. Dr. Social Service, here is hell-bent on learning things the hard way.”

  He turned on his heels and stalked away.

  “Chris, you’re going to stay, at least for the night,” Zack said, taking the old mans good hand in his. “I’ll be back to check you over in a few minutes.”

  The man, bewildered by the sudden change in his fortune, could only stare up at him and nod. But the corners of his eyes were glistening.

  Zack turned to Suzanne. “Come on,” he said, “I’ll walk you outside. I can use the fresh air.”

  They walked through the electronically opened doorway and out onto the ambulance platform. A steady, windblown rain swept across the coal-black pavement.

  “I guess I have a few adjustments to make if I’m to survive here,” he said, shivering momentarily against the chill.

  Suzanne flipped the hood of her trench coat over her head. “Do us all a favor,” she said, “and don’t make any ones you don’t absolutely have to. That was a very kind thing you did in there.”

  “Insurance or not, that old guys paid his dues.”

  “Perhaps,” Suzanne said. “Yes, perhaps he has. Well, I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Yeah.”

  She turned and took several steps, then turned back. “Zack, about that dinner. How about Wednesday night? My place.”

  Zack felt his pulse skip. “I thought you didn’t date men you worked with?”

  “No policy should be without exceptions,” she said. “You just made that point in there yourself, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. Yes, I suppose I did. But how about your … other involvement?”

  She pushed her hood back from her forehead and smiled at him, first with her eyes, then with her lips.

  “I lied,” she said.

  4

  Lisette Iverson stood by the glass doors of her bedroom balcony, wincing as half a dozen spears of lightning crackled through the jet sky over the Androscoggin River Valley. Far below and to the south, Sterling incandesced eerily beneath the strobe. A cannonade of thunder rumbled, then exploded, shaking the tall, hillside A-frame like a toy.

  She tightened her robe and then tiptoed down the hall to check on the girls. Mercifully, after two fitful hours battling the ghosts of the storm, both were asleep. Lisette had never done well with thunderstorms herself, and felt no small guilt at having passed those fears on to her children.

  God, how she wished Frank would come to bed, or at least talk to her. It was nearly one in the morning, and he was still downstairs in “his” den, staring, she knew, at the embers in “his” fireplace, and listening over and over to the album of morose, progressive jazz he favored when he was angry at her.

  And as usual, she also knew, he would take his own sweet time in telling her why.

  It was the job, the hospital, that kept him so tense. Lisette felt certain of it. For a year—no, much longer than that now, two at least—he had been a bear to live with. And with each passing week, each passing month, there seemed to be less and less she could do to please him. Silently, she cursed the day he had closed his business in Concord and moved back to Sterling, even if the little electronics firm was on the ropes.

  To be sure, his success with Ultramed had given them more than she could ever have imagined. But as she reflected on the dashing dreamer she had fallen in love with and married, Lisette told herself the price they were paying was far too high.

  For a time, she debated simply going to bed. If she did, of course, Frank would never come up. He would spend the night on the sofa in his den and would be in his office at the hospital by the time she and the twins awoke. With a sigh of resignation, she stepped into her slippers and headed down the stairs. There was no way she could outlast him. She cared, and he, for the moment at least, did not.

  The situation was as simple as that.

  GARFIELD MOUNTAIN

  JUNIOR OLYMPIC TIME TRIALS

  Sparkling like neon against the sunlit snow, the crimson and white banner said it all.

  From his spot at the base of the main slope, Frankie Iverson squinted up at the giant slalom course—a rugged series of two-dozen gates marked with red and blue flags. One more run, he told himself. Just one more run like the last, and he would be on his way to Colorado.

  The trip, the trophy, everything. After years of practice, years of frustration, they were so close now he could taste them.

  “Next year will be yours,” the Judge had told him during the agony and tears that had followed last years race. “Next year Tyler will be too old to compete, and you’ll be number one.”

  Tyler. What a joke. Why couldn’t his father understand that it was the shitty way the slope had been groomed—the goddamn ruts that had caught his skis—that had caused him to lose by half a second. Not Tyler.

  One more run.

  “Hey, Frankie, you sleeping or what?”

  Startled, Frank whirled. His brother, Zack, wearing black boots and a black racing suit, ambled toward him over a small mound of packed snow.

  “Just studying the course, Zack-o,” Frank said.

  “As if you needed to. You could ski backward and there’s still no one in this field who could catch you.”

  Frank jabbed a thumb toward the huge board where the times for the first run were posted. “You could.”

  Zack laughed out loud. “Make up three seconds on you when I’ve never once beaten you on a run? You’ve got to be kiddi
ng. Listen, all I want to do is stay on my feet and get that second place trophy. There’ll be plenty of time for me next year when you’re racing Seniors.”

  “Sure, Zack-o, sure. Lay it on any thicker and I’ll slip on it. Since when did you get off thinking you could psych me?”

  And psyching he was, too, the little worm, Frank thought.

  They were just about two years apart in age, but Zack had hit a growth spurt just after his thirteenth birthday, and suddenly, over the year that had followed, the competition between them had intensified in all sports—especially in skiing, where the gap separating them had been narrowing all winter.

  Again, Frank glanced at the time board. There was a wide margin between Zack and the boy in third place. The final run was a two-man race, and his brother knew it as well as he did. He was being psyched, all right. Zack would be skiing second, right after him, and he was getting set to pull out all the stops.

  “Listen, Frankie,” Zack said, with that note of sincerity that Frank knew was a crock of shit, “I mean it. I’ll try my best, sure. But I’ll be pulling for you, too. Believe me I will.” He reached out his hand. “Good luck.”

  Frank looked at his brothers hand and then at his face. There was something in Zack’s eyes that made him almost shudder—a confidence, a determination he had never seen in them before. It was a look, though, that he knew well—a look he had faced many times in the eyes of their father. Frank hesitated for a fraction of a second and then pulled off his glove and gripped Zack’s hand tightly.

  “Go for it,” he said.

  “I will. See you up top.”

  Zack smiled at him, nodded, and wandered off to join a group of racers waiting for word that the second run was to begin.

  Frank glanced over at the crowd of parents preparing to make their way to vantage points along the course. At that instant, the Judge, who was chatting with several friends, looked over. Frank smiled thinly, and his father responded with a hearty thumbs-up sign.

  One more run.

  Restless to get it over with, Frank crossed to retrieve his skis from the rack where they and those of the other competitors were lined up on end like pickets in a fence. He knew he was shaken by the brief encounter with his younger brother and by the look in his eyes. And that knowledge upset him even more.

  Three seconds was a lot, true, but the way Zack had been coming on over the past few weeks, anything was possible. For a moment, Frank even toyed with the notion of asking him to back off, to wait his turn.

  It wasn’t fair, he thought. First that goddamn rut, now this. It was his year. The Judge had said so himself. Nothing was going to keep him from that trophy, that trip—nothing and no one.

  He pulled his skis from the rack and ran his hand along the bottom, testing the wax.

  Relax, he pleaded with himself. Relax, but keep that edge the Judge is always talking about. That winning edge.

  It was then that he noticed Zack’s black Rossignols, resting in the slot next to where his own skis had been. Trancelike, he set his skis back in their place and then took a coin—a dime—from his pocket.

  This would be his year. Next year would be Zack’s. That was the way it was meant to be.

  He glanced about. No one was watching. Using the coin, he loosened the toe-binding screws on one of Zack’s skis two turns—not enough to really feel different, just enough to lessen control a bit, to widen each turn a few inches, to preserve his three-second edge.

  It was his year. His last chance. In fact, he was doing Zack a favor, ensuring that should he fall, the ski would come free and help keep him from a serious ankle injury.

  But there would be no fall. No injury. Just a few inches at each gate. Just a few fractions of a second. Just enough. Next year was time enough for Zack. Then the Judge would have two Junior Olympians to boast about. It was the best way for everyone. The way things were meant to be. It was his year … his year.…

  “Frank?”

  The colors and sensations of that day faded as Lisette’s voice nudged its way into the scene.

  Frank rubbed at his eyes and then pushed himself upright on the sofa. The fire he had built against the chill of the summer storm had dwindled to a few smoldering embers. His mouth tasted foul from the two scotches—or was it three?—he had buried, and his head was pounding at the temples.

  “Honey, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” he mumbled, pawing at his eyes. “Just great.” It had been years since he had had that nightmare. Years.

  “Frank, please, come to bed. It’s after one-thirty.”

  “I’m not tired.”

  “You were sleeping.”

  “I wasn’t fucking sleeping. I was thinking.”

  “Do you want anything? Some milk? A sandwich?”

  “I told you, I’m fine. Just leave me alone.”

  It was going to be bad, he thought. He had fought the whole thing from the very beginning, but he hadn’t fought hard enough. The last thing he needed in life was his brother moving back to Sterling. And now, thanks to the Judge and goddamn Leigh Baron, here Zack was, and already playing hero. He should have fought harder. Baron ran Ultramed, but Davis was still his goddamn hospital, and he should have fought harder.

  “Frank, honey,” Lisette said, “you say you’re fine, but I know that’s not true. You haven’t said a decent word to me all night

  She tried to sweep his hair from his forehead, but he brushed her hand aside. Then he crossed unsteadily to the hearth, threw a log on the embers, and jabbed at it with the poker.

  “That was quite a little show you put on this evening, Lisette,” he said thickly. “Quite a little show,”

  “I don’t know what you’re: talking about. Really I don’t.”

  “Oh, give me a break. I saw you standing back there mooning over my brother. And I’m sure I wasn’t the only one, either.”

  “Honey, that’s crazy. I never …”

  “Sure, like you never made love with him, either. Christ, it’s a wonder you didn’t rip your dress off right then and there in the kitchen.”

  “Frank, please. You’ve been drinking. You only say things like that to me when you’ve been drinking. What you know about me and Zack is all there ever was. Nothing more. And certainly nothing that didn’t burn out years ago. I was excited about what he did for Annie, but so was everyone. Besides that I didn’t say three words to him all night. Now please, come to bed. Let me rub your back or something.”

  “You go to bed. I’ll be up when I’m ready.”

  “Frank, you believe ine, don’t you? I love you.”

  “There’s only one reason, one explanation why he would have passed up all those big-time job opportunities to come back here,” he said, more to himself than to her. “One reason. And that’s to rub it in to me.”

  He splashed more scotch into his glass and downed it immediately.

  “Frank, please don’t have any more to—”

  “He’s a vindictive son of a bitch, Lisette. Beneath that mellow, do-gooder image of his, he’s as vindictive as they come. And whether he admits it or not, he’s got a score to settle for all those years he had to watch from the stands while everyone was cheering for me. He’s got points he wants to make with Mom, with the Judge, with everyone in this damn town—even you.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “Yeah? Well, we’ll see what’s crazy.” He stumbled against the side of the sofa and then dropped heavily onto it. “He can have this place. The hospital, the Judge, Leigh Baron, all of it except you—but only when I say so. Only after I’ve done what I’ve set out to do. Only after I’ve …”

  His eyes closed and his head slumped to one side. In seconds, he was snoring.

  Lisette took a blanket and drew it over him. It was the liquor talking. Nothing more. By morning it would be a wonder if Frank remembered anything of what he had just said. He loved his brother. Just as he loved her and the twins.

  He just wasn’t very good at showing it, that was
all.

  There was something tearing at him—something that had nothing to do with Zack.

  Only after I’ve done what I set out to do. What in God’s name had he meant by that?

  Silently vowing to do whatever she could to get her husband through whatever it was that had him so on edge, Lisette turned and headed back up the stairs.

  5

  The Carter Conference Room of Ultramed-Davis, refurbished by Ultramed but originally donated to the hospital by the paper company, was a large, all-purpose space, with deep-pile carpeting, a speakers table and podium at one end, and seating for close to one hundred. Metal-framed, full-color lithographs of significant moments in medical history lined the room on either side, and photographic portraits of past presidents of the medical staff filled the rear wall by the door. Beneath each portrait was a small gold plaque engraved with the officers name, year of birth and year of death. Beneath those photographs of past presidents still living, the date of birth had already been engraved, followed by a hyphen and a ghoulishly expectant space.

  It was seven-thirty in the morning of Wednesday, July 3. The medical staff usually met on the first Thursday of the month, but because of the holiday, the staff had voted to hold its July session on Wednesday instead. The heated debate on the subject, typical for any group of MDs, had taken up more than half of its June meeting.

  Forty physicians, nearly the whole staff of Ultramed-Davis, milled about the room, some exchanging pleasantries or bawdy stories, others obtaining “curbside consultations” from various specialists. A few merely stood by a window, staring wistfully at the brilliant summer day they would never have the opportunity to enjoy.

  Zack Iverson sat alone toward the back of the room, mentally trying to match the faces and demeanors of various doctors with their medical specialties (gray crew cut, red bow tie … pediatrician; forty-four long sportcoat, thirty-four-inch waist, slightly crooked nose … orthopedist), and musing on his first two days in practice.

  They had gone quite smoothly, with a number of consultations in the office and several in the hospital. He had even spent a brief stretch in the operating room, assisting one of the orthopedists in the removal of a large calcium deposit that had entrapped a young carpenters right ulnar nerve at the elbow.