Private Practices (32 page)

Suddenly he heard the screech of brakes behind him and his thoughts of Claudia vanished.

He was out in the middle of Park Avenue, and the light had turned red. He leaped nimbly onto the island in the middle of the street. But now there was a terrible blazoning of car horns. He turned and looked behind him and saw Sidney still striking out into the street. He was stumbling forward, swaying as he walked. A swirl of cars heading uptown on Park Avenue swerved to avoid hitting him, and still he moved forward, bemused.

Ben stood absolutely still, startled. A driver leaned out his window and shouted at Sidney, “What's the matter with you, you fucking drunk!” and a pedestrian, marooned on the island with Ben screamed, “Stand still! Stand still!” Yet Sidney kept walking, oblivious, miraculously escaping death.

It was only when he reached the island and Ben grabbed him and pulled him to safety that he at last seemed to understand the danger he had been in. Leaning heavily on Ben's arm, he broke out into a drenching sweat.

“I'd really like you to come and see Sidney when you get back,” Ben said to Claudia when she called from St. Louis that night. But she was dressing for Bootie's party—she was wearing the dress he had suggested, she said flirtatiously—and she didn't want to take the time to discuss anything serious. “I was just calling to check in. I'm terribly rushed. Besides, we've been over and over my feeling on that subject.”

“Just say yes, then.”

“Please, Ben. I don't want to do it.”

“And I want you to. He's worse. He's really got me worried.” He had made up his mind that this time he was going to persuade her, no matter how she resisted. Most likely in the long run it would make no difference. She would never turn to him. He wasn't her type. She obviously leaned toward more successful, imposing men than he. But he would never know unless he got her to see Sidney. If only she could smell him and visit his lair! If only she had seen him as he had stumbled blindly across Park Avenue this afternoon. “I won't take no for an answer,” he warned.

She was silent. He perceived her stubbornness as a barrier he could surely topple, if only he was clever enough, and wondered that he had not really put his mind to it before.

“I'm not asking you, Claudia, I'm telling you,” he announced, remembering how easily Sidney used to command her to do his bidding. But a moment later he lightened his tone, and added, “And who knows? It might be just the thing to help him. I thought that's what you wanted. To see him helped.”

When at last Claudia said she might come over when she got back from St. Louis, he was unsure whether she had been responding to his harshness or to his last-minute suggestion that a visit from her would help Sidney. But it didn't matter. All he wanted was for her to have a good, long look at her husband.

Afterward, he lay on his bed, legs crossed, arms behind his head, and, feeling uncommonly pleased with himself, began to stroke his ardent penis. He was just about to come when his excitement was interrupted by the ringing of the other extension of his phone.

Grudgingly, he picked it up. A high-voiced, harried obstetrical resident was calling Sidney from the Emergency Room. “We've got one of his patients down here,” he rattled. “She's bleeding quite a bit. Looks like placenta previa.” He lowered his voice. “There's nothing to do yet except send her upstairs and watch her. But the husband's a real pain in the ass. He wants Dr. Zauber to come right over and look at her. I told him that Dr. Zauber was—was probably out of town.” The young man's voice, whispering, was filled with innuendo. “I said at best you'd be coming in his stead. Then the asshole says it's Sidney Zauber they've been paying for and he doesn't want any substitutes.” The resident's voice rose to a normal level. “But of course, if he's out of town—”

“That's okay,” Ben said coolly, cutting him off. He had lost his erection. “He's here. I'll tell him. He'll be over as quickly as he can get there.”

Sidney seemed to be drowning in sleep. He was having a nightmare and his arms and legs were thrashing. When Ben turned on the overhead light and touched him on the shoulder, Sidney pulled on him with all the desperate strength of a panicked swimmer. He kept trying to drag Ben down onto the bed alongside him. Ben gave him a shove, and Sidney sprawled away, his eyes still closed, but his mouth open, agape, as if the air were water forcing its way into his lungs.

“Wake up, wake up,” Ben demanded. “Wake up now. Get
up!”
At last Sidney rose to consciousness and came awake, shuddering. “There's a call for you from Emergency. Do you want to go?”

Sidney grasped what Ben was saying only slowly. First he rolled onto his side, shielding his eyes from the light, then he nursed his forehead with his hands, then at last he said, “Yeah, sure I want to go.”

“So go.”

Sidney sat up and reached for his jacket from the end of the bed and began pulling it over his pajama top. Then he reached for his pills, knocking several vials off the night table before getting one firmly in his hand.

Ben went back to his room.

It couldn't have been more than twenty-five minutes later when the phone rang again. He had just shut off his reading lamp, hoping to regain his earlier feelings of delicious arousal. He picked up the phone in the dark, but snapped on the light as soon as he heard the voice on the other end of the wire. It was the same high-voiced, harried resident he had spoken to earlier and he was rattling, “Doctor, can you get over here quickly? There's been some trouble.”

He felt his breath seem to stop for a second. He had to wrestle to regain it before he could speak and for a moment he remembered his childhood panic at being asked to say words he couldn't force up from inside himself. But at last he had both breath and words. “What trouble? What's happened?” He waited, steady. Whatever it was, Sidney would have deserved it. He tried not to think about Sidney's patient.

“Your brother's been hurt,” the resident said.

“My brother?” Astonished, he floundered for words again. He had been anticipating different information. “Sidney? You sure?”

“It's not too serious. That patient he came to see—her husband jumped Dr. Zauber in the corridor. Knocked him flat.” The resident's speech was hurtling.

“Knocked him flat?”

“Socked him. But he's all right. Just a bit dazed. We didn't think he could make it home on his own, though. Thought you'd better come for him.”

“Yes, of course.” He was in full control now. “I'll be right over.” He started to put down the phone but the harried resident was saying, “You can't really blame the husband. Your brother examined the woman and told the guy he could take her home, there was nothing wrong. But she was bleeding a lot. And Dr. Zauber was staggering. He practically sat down on the woman when he examined her.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Ben said curtly. “I'll be right over.”

“The guy began yelling that your brother was an incompetent drunk,” the resident raced on. “And Dr. Zauber just walked right past him. Stumbled past him. You can't really blame the husband. His wife was hemorrhaging and Dr. Zauber was just telling him to take her home.”

Ben hung up and dashed out the door of the apartment. Sidney was waiting for him in the doctors' lounge. His jacket was ripped, his nose was bleeding, and one of his eyes was shut tight, the skin above it just starting to purple.

Sidney's hospital privileges were revoked the next morning. Alithorn demanded to see both Ben and Sidney in his office at ten o'clock on Sunday morning and announced without ceremony, as soon as they were seated, “We can't keep carrying you anymore, Sid. I'm sorry. I did it as long as I could, out of respect for the man you used to be. But you're not the same man anymore.”

Ben felt immensely relieved. He had taken great risks all month by ceasing to supervise Sidney. He had thought he might have to take still others before managing to get him suspended. But now the suspension was accomplished. And no one but Sidney had been hurt in any way. To himself, he whispered, “Thank God.” He had not wanted to see any of Sidney's patients injured through his brother's incompetence. He had wanted only to achieve Sidney's suspension. To have Sidney receive this ultimate blow to his pride.

If Sidney had reacted to the loss of his research grant by nursing his disappointment in himself with increasingly high dosages of barbiturates, surely this second professional catastrophe would stimulate him to take even greater quantities. He would withdraw further and further into sedation. Become even more hermitlike and eccentric than he already was. Claudia would run from the sight of him, and even her fantasies would skitter and scramble away.

Already the news of his suspension was making Sidney behave more inappropriately than usual. Instead of apologizing for his condition last night, he was regarding Alithorn with a fierce, paranoid glare. At last he muttered, “But I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't hurt anyone. In fact, I'm the guy who got hurt.”

Alithorn had kept his eyes averted, looking at neither Ben nor Sidney. Now he observed Sidney coldly and said, “You got hurt by the wrong guy. The fellow who punched you is with the
News
. A reporter.”

Sidney, not yet grasping the implication of Alithorn's information, continued argumentatively, “So what? He punched me. I haven't done anything wrong.” Tilting his chin defiantly, he pointed to his bruised eye.

Alithorn bent and opened the file drawer of his desk. “But you have, Sid. Lots of things. Little things. I've got a whole list of them.” Extracting a sheet of paper from the drawer, he glanced at it and said, “Staff conferences you failed to attend. Patient records you failed to write up. A circumcision you started but failed to complete. That sort of thing.”

Sidney pulled himself to his feet, outraged. For a moment Ben felt almost sorry for him. His mind was so befuddled that he couldn't understand why he was being suspended. He had never accepted the idea that drugs could alter his competence and he still believed himself to be as good a doctor as he had ever been. From his point of view, the suspension was undeserved and Alithorn was betraying him. After all, he and Alithorn had frequently entertained each other at their homes. “You can't suspend a doctor unless he's incompetent,” Sidney was shouting. But although his response made some kind of bizarre sense to Ben, he was sure that to Alithorn it must seem totally irrational.

“You are incompetent,” Alithorn said, growing increasingly alienated as Sidney acted more and more uncontrolled.

“How? When? Where?” Sidney demanded. “Where's your proof? There's nothing you can use as proof against me.”

“Not coming to meetings,” Alithorn repeated dully. “Not keeping proper records.”

“Technicalities,” Sidney said.

“Telling that woman to go home last night.”

“A matter of medical opinion,” Sidney was on his feet, but he was swaying. “I'm calling my lawyer. I'll sue you, Tom.”

Alithorn sighed and drew one of his netsuke figurines from the pocket of his sports jacket. He was clearly being made nervous by Sidney, Ben thought. Or else feeling guilty about him. He had stopped looking at Sidney altogether and was keeping his eyes on his tiny carving.

“I told you back in June I'd sue you if you made a move against me,” Sidney shouted.

Alithorn, his head bent, said softly, “I believed you then. I don't believe you any longer. I don't think you're capable of organizing yourself enough to call your lawyer.”

“We'll see about that,” Sidney went on threateningly. “You won't like the publicity, Tom.” But although his words were harsh, his voice was beginning to lose its conviction. It was dawning on him that Alithorn meant to screen him out of his vision, and thus his regard, utterly.

“I'm not worried about bad publicity anymore,” Alithorn said, still looking down. “Not from you and your lawyer.” But the carving wasn't giving him the distance from Sidney he wanted. For the first time since the meeting had begun he turned and looked at Ben. “The man who punched Sid has already convinced his editor to start a series on incompetent doctors. It's a subject the papers have been trying to get a lead on for years. There were two reporters over at the residents' apartments early this morning, asking questions about Sidney. You've got to keep him away from the hospital. You understand, don't you, Ben?”

“Yeah, sure,” Ben said, and at last Sidney too seemed finally to understand. When Alithorn continued, “I don't want him anywhere near here,” addressing his remarks to Ben as if Sidney himself could no longer be expected to make decisions, Sidney sat down heavily in his chair and bowed his head into his hands. “I don't care if you have to tie him down to make him stay home,” Alithorn finished. “If he admits a patient, we'll put her out on the street.”

Sidney, his words muffled behind his hands answered, “Don't worry. I'll stay away. I'll let you have your way.”

Alithorn raised his shoulders and looked helplessly at Ben. “He thinks it's some kind of personal vendetta.” Then, turning back to his figurine, he said softly, “It's funny. Harry Mulenberg once said to me that when a man who doesn't like to be asked questions starts screwing up, he won't answer to anybody. I didn't know what the hell Harry was talking about. But I do now. Sid, this isn't my fault! It's yours!”

Sidney shook his head stubbornly.

It made Alithorn begin to defend himself. “Jesus, Sid, you know how much I always respected you. Everyone did. Everyone around here.” He shook his head, his eyes on his own hands. “That's how come I kept you on as long as I did. I figured—everyone figured—that you'd snap out of your—your personality problem. Get over your emotional difficulties. Give up—give up—” he hesitated and then at last said, his voice almost inaudible, “—the barbiturates.”