office! Hard wooden chairs, wooden floor, lousy lighting, and ashtrays. Four of them.
One by one, the three before him disappeared into the back room, where they seemed to spend an eternity before finally emerging and passing him without so much as a wave of the hand or the courtesy of a nod.
“Next,” the voice called from the doorway of the back room.
“Have a seat,” the doctor said, motioning him into a cubicle and gesturing toward a chair. Gary took the room in at a glance. It looked primitive and reeked of medicine.
“Looks like you had a bad time,” the doctor said, taking up a high stool a few feet away. He had a smooth, boyish face, thinning blond hair and liver-spotted hands.
“It could have been worse, I guess. A gang jumped me.”
The doctor smiled knowingly. “Where does it hurt?” he asked, looking into his bruised eye.
“Mostly across here,” Gary said, laying a hand on his chest. “And I think my mouth is cut inside. I can still taste blood.”
The doctor reached for a tongue depressor and inserted it far enough into his throat to make him gag. “I don’t wonder,” he said. “Your teeth cut in pretty deep.” He stretched for a fat cotton swab, dipped it into a jar of foul-smelling stuff and rubbed it on the inside of his cheeks.
Gary winced with the sting.
“That should be taking care of that,” the doctor said, getting up. “Take off your sweater and shirt and give us a look-see.”
Gingerly, Gary maneuvered his arms out of his sweater sleeves and pulled his shirt over his head. He clenched his jaw as the doctor pressed and probed, not any too gently.
“I suspect a rib fracture or two, judging by these scrapes and bruises. X-rays will tell for sure.” The phone rang in another room and the doctor excused himself.
Gary felt disturbed. Things didn’t seem quite right, though he couldn’t tell why. Squinting at the framed diploma on the wall above a medicine stand, he moved closer to read it. So. The doctor was a surgeon as well as a general practitioner. He had to be one of the few general practitioners around; everybody seemed to be a specialist these days. Startled, he read the date again: May 18, 1926. Of course. It must have been the doctor’s father’s diploma, or his grandfather’s. Nice nostalgic touch for the patients, and clever way of showing that he was carrying on the family tradition. Must be quite a man, he thought, foregoing work in some affluent neighborhood to attend the poor like this.
Still…something had been unsettling him for the past hour or more, some idea trying to break through that he was reluctant to see, trying to assert itself. He glanced around the room, looking… looking for what? A plain room in what appeared to be an old converted house. Way behind the times with its green linoleum floor and, no doubt, original ceiling, a tin-like metal with a flower design stamped into it.
Moving over to the window and pushing the lace curtain aside, he took in the row of houses across the street, rather well-taken care of by their owners, he thought, and in surprisingly good condition for their age. No slum landlords here, obviously. A car scooted by down the street, black, with a high top, and another passed in the opposite direction… another old one… like the police car….
The sight of the cars jolted him. His eyes traveled around the room again…the plaster walls, porcelain sink…a radiator? Everything seemed made of wood. No plastic. He knew what he was seeing, couldn’t deny what he-- Could those blows to the head have affected his mind!
The door swung open and the doctor came in adjusting his stethoscope over his white jacket. “Sorry for the interruption,” he said, approaching Gary and pressing the cold metal against his chest. “Sounds fine. I think you should go over to the hospital for those x-rays. Just to make sure.”
“What if the x-rays show a cracked rib?” he asked. “What will they do for me at the hospital?”
“They’ll tape you up.”
“And if I don’t go, what will you do?”
“Tape you up.”
Gary checked a quick laugh and grabbed for his ribs as pain stabbed him. “In that case, Doctor Goldman, you know my answer.”
The doctor didn’t seem amused. “I don’t have to do it, you know. And without x-rays I’m not absolutely sure it’s necessary.”
“Can’t hurt me if it’s not, can it?”
“As you wish,” he grumped, his impatient hands rummaging through his medicine cabinet.
“Doctor, is there any chance, do you think, of an infection from these mouth cuts?”
“Infection is always possible,” he said, cutting a strip of tape.
Hesitating, instinctively apprehensive, he asked, “Don’t you think I should have a shot of penicillin?”
The doctor paused. “A shot of what?”
“Penicillin. You know, to fight off any infection.”
“It must be something brand new on the market. Or experimental. If it is you’re way ahead of me, lad. I haven’t heard or read of it yet.”
“Yes, right,” Gary said, puzzled, “I probably read about it…somewhere.”
“Those ribs will be uncomfortable for a while, but this should help,” the doctor said, snipping the tail off the last piece of tape. “And it might be a good idea to report this assault to the police if you haven’t already done so. Overall, you’re in excellent health, fortunately. You’ll heal quickly enough.” He gathered some papers. “You can put your clothes on now and come next door to my office.”
Gary slid one arm then the other into his shirt sleeves and painfully worked the shirt over his head. His sweater was too filthy to wear and he carried it with him to the next room, where the doctor was sitting at a roll-top desk filling out a form.
“Have a seat,” he said. “I just need a little information for my records.” He wrote down the nature of the injury and treatment, Gary’s name and the false address Gary gave him, while Gary’s curious eyes traveled around the room. Everything looked antique, from a dusty fan on a table to a coat rack that resembled antlers, to a tiny corner sink to a shelf with a brass, fist-sized bust of Hippocrates anchored to a cracked wooden base.
“What are you doing in this neck of the woods?” the doctor asked, looking up.
Did everybody say ‘this neck of the woods’? “Just running an errand.”
“You really ought to be x-rayed, Mr. Tyler. You could have some other damage.”
“I’ll take my chances, Doc,” he said, peeking over his shoulder and seeing the date on the form: April 15, 1939. And his desk calendar said ‘Friday.’ No wonder the cops…. His hair stood on end. My God!
The doctor swiveled in his chair. “Don’t do anything strenuous for at least six weeks. Until it heals completely,” he said. “That will be three dollars, please.”
