~*~
“Good morning, Doc. How’s the farm coming?” Mike said pleasantly into the phone receiver.
“Well, being as how I don’t grow nothing except some fruit in the orchard and I only got two cows, that ain’t really considered farming, I guess okay. How you doing, Mike and where in the world are you now?”
“Pretty good, Doc, pretty good, and I’m still in the United States.”
“How’d the phonics lessons work out?”
“Just fine and thanks. Now for the reason I called.”
“What do you need now, Mike?”
“You need a vacation, Doc.”
“What! You called me out of the blue from who knows where to tell me I need a vacation! I don’t work, Mike. I’m a retired country doctor. You need the vacation, or you did.”
“Then I need your help again, Doc. I want you to come to Idaho. A small isolated town high up in the mountains. I’ll buy and I’ll make all the arrangements, but the long and the short of it is that this town needs a doctor and I think you can help.”
Doc was flabbergasted, but after some hesitation he said, “Mike, I’m done full time doctoring. I could maybe find a doctor for them. Finding a doctor for a town is not as tough as one might think, but finding one who would go in cold without the assistance of a doctor who has been practicing there for a good while is something else entirely. A new doctor looks for an old doctor to associate with so that he can learn the territory firsthand.”
“So...can you help me out, Doc?” Mike asked innocently.
Too innocently. Doc knew Mike well enough to know there was more.
“I’m an old doctor alright, Mike and I could easily find a new doctor to associate with me, but I don’t know the territory and I’m not going back to doctoring full time for anyone.”
Mike clearly ignored the last and said, “You could learn it, Doc. Why, with your winning ways, inside of three or four months you would be a pillar of the community. You’d know all the secrets in less time than that,” Mike said slyly.
Doc thought about the situation for a few minutes. He was old and getting tired, but he had a desire to see some different country for a while. Plus, this situation intrigued him. He knew there was more to this story and that Mike was holding out on him. To find out he would have to go along.
“Okay, but not the way you are thinking. I’ll come out there, but not as a doctor. Not at first. And I’ll not bring a new doctor with me, either. I want a look at this place.
“You arrange my travel and I’ll arrange to have my house, animals, and fruit trees taken care of while I’m gone,” Doc stated flatly.
“No problem, Doc. I called Joe Ranney before I called you. He said he would be more than happy to take care of the place while you are on vacation,” Mike ended with a hearty laugh.
~*~
The town did not have a hotel, but it did have a Bed and Breakfast of sorts that was supposedly located on the east end of town on, what Doc now knew, to be East Main. He turned his rented Chevy Chevette to the right and drove slowly down the block looking for a sign indicating the Bed and Breakfast. He had called ahead to verify that Mike had lined up the correct accommodations and as usual he had. Doc was pretty sure Mike could get accommodations on the moon if there was a deal to be worked. He was hoping the Bed and Breakfast was not too far from Main and Main as he wanted to be able to watch the intersection from his room. He had specifically told Mike to request an upper level room on the street side, if at all possible. Doc knew that in a small town, sooner or later everyone passes through the main intersection to get somewhere and he wanted to be able to see them all, especially this Dirty Dan that Mike had told him about.
He found the Bed and Breakfast in the beginning of the second block. Just two houses down from the intersection of E. Main and Prairie which was the first street east of Main and Main. Not too bad, he thought, I guess it was too much to hope for that it would be in the first block and easily overlook the intersection. Now, he thought, if the room just fronts Main street. He found a parking place out front and walked up the board steps of the two-story frame house.
As he opened the front door a bell attached to the top of the doorframe jingled and a middle-aged man quickly appeared from somewhere in the back of the house.
“Yes, sir. May I help you?” the man asked pleasantly.
“My name is Bill Collins and I believe you have a room for me.”
“Oh, Yes, sir, Mr. Collins. I’ve been expecting you. Thought you might get in earlier than this.”
“Well, I didn’t get up too early this morning, because it was only a two-hour drive, but I wasn’t aware of the lay of the land and it actually took me four hours,” Doc responded just as pleasantly.
The man smiled a little and said, “Yeah, that is one crooked road up from the south. Doesn’t get any better north of town, either. In fact, I believe it is worse up north. Now, about that room. According to your travel agent...I believe you wanted a room fronting the street, correct?”
Doc smiled to himself. Mike must have phoned the Bed and Breakfast instead of stopping in or got someone else to call. Doc guessed he wasn’t the only one travelling incognito.
“Yes, if it’s no trouble,” Doc said and continued, “I like to see and hear the cars. Doesn’t seem so lonely in a strange town that way.”
“Travel a lot do you?” the man asked, clearly just making conversation and not being nosy.
“A little, but more so lately. I’m retired and I like to look around for likely places to spend the rest of my days,” Doc said simply.
“Well, this is a nice little town. That is, if you like to be away from it all. We are so far away that sometimes we get the news on the TV two days late,” the man ended with a laugh.
Doc smiled and chuckled at the man’s humorous remark, more out of politeness than sincerity.
“My name is Jim Shrock and I’m the owner, proprietor, chief cook, and laundry man around here,” the man said and extended his hand with another friendly smile.
Doc shook the hand and the man continued, “let me show you to your room and then I’ll come back down and help you upstairs with your things. Only one other guest right now. A motorcycle guy. He don’t say a lot and he looks kind of rugged, but he seems harmless enough.”
After Doc and Jim Shrock had carried all of the bags upstairs Doc started sorting things out. He had brought plenty of clothes, not knowing for sure how long he might have to be here.
He quickly arranged things and then decided he had better check the view from his room to the intersection. It was quite a ways down the street and it would be hard to recognize people from this distance with his old eyes. Then he noticed to his surprise that on the northeast corner, across from the filling station, a tree was planted right in the sidewalk. Around the tree was a large square of grass about the width of the double sidewalk and under the tree, to his complete satisfaction, was a long park bench.
He smiled to himself and thought, just like home. Who needs to sit in a dreary room and watch people when you can sit under a shade tree on a park bench and sip coffee? What a more natural place to be anyway. No one would think much about him sitting there all day long and watching traffic. Also, it would be a good way to meet people and find out about this town. He was willing to bet a lot of people passed that bench on the way in and out of the bank and that was exactly where he was going to be—starting right after a supper.
He hurried through the supper that contrary to what Shrock had said earlier about being the chief cook, his wife had fixed, without seeming to hurry. The supper wasn’t much anyway, the only people at supper were him, Jim Shrock, and his wife Betty. Just as soon as he had finished and expressed the normal gratitude and compliments, he excused himself, saying he thought a little walk around town was in order.
No one was at the park bench when he arrived and he took up a comfortable position. The night was cool and there was still two or three hours of daylight left, but he
stuck it out to watch the people and cars. The only problem was that there weren’t any cars or people to watch. Traffic didn’t exactly consist of too much in this town.
~*~
Two days passed before Doc saw the man he was really looking for, he left his room and slipped easily and nonchalantly up the street on the far side, opposite the Bed and Breakfast. As he reached the corner, he quietly and as indifferently as possible, eased up and sat on the opposite end of the park bench. Doc did not even look his way, being careful to stare straight ahead or toward the gas station, which was not open yet this morning.
This has to be Dirty Dan, he thought. Mike had described him and had said his smell kept most people away. He had to agree that it would. The wind was not blowing, but he could smell him from the other end of the bench. He was wishing for a breeze when Dan suddenly got up and started across the street toward the gas station.
“Nice morning, isn’t it?” Doc said to the man’s back.
Dan never even hesitated. He just kept walking and stepped out into the street to cross.
On impulse Doc yelled, “Wait, doctor!”
Dan stopped in mid stride and hesitated, but he did not turn and then started to walk again.
“You are a doctor, aren’t you!” Doc yelled loudly.
Dan stopped again, turned, and walked back to Doc’s side of the street and stood stock still on the edge of the curb, for what Doc thought was an eternity. Then he looked full at Doc and said, in a clear voice, with impeccable diction, “You look a little old to be a private investigator.”
Doc was taken aback by that comment and finally sputtered in response, “I’m not a private investigator.”
“Then why have you followed me to this town and why have you been asking so many questions about me?” Dan said smoothly, but firmly.
“I was curious, that’s all.”
“Curious why?”
“Curious to meet a doctor who wants to help the children of this town, but is satisfied to watch them pass this corner in a hearse.”
Dan took another step toward him and Doc could see that he was seething. He thought he might have pushed too far, too fast. This man could be mentally unbalanced and he had not been in a fistfight since his high school days—he had lost that fight.
But Dan stopped short of him and just stood there. Doc watched silently as the angry look on his face subsided and he noticed a glistening in Dan’s eyes. Dan turned silently to walk away again, but Doc was not going to let him go so easily. He knew he had reached him, but not enough—not yet.
“That’s it, Dan. Just turn and walk away. Cry about it, but just walk away. Maybe you ought to run, and when the next hearse passes this corner you tell yourself you did all you could. You tell yourself that wishing will make it all better. You don’t have to do anything, Dan, just wish it away!” he spat out with his heart racing. After all, he thought, this guy really could be dangerous.
Dan stopped and stooped over, as if struck by a club. His entire body visibly winced at the blow of the words and suddenly Doc wished he hadn’t said them. No, I’m glad I did it, he thought, it had to be said.
Dan slowly turned and Doc could see the glisten in the eyes was gone. Now the eyes held a fire, not anger, but determination and calculated steadiness. Dan said, “My name is not Dan, I’m not crazy and I gave up wishing years ago. Now all that I ask is to be left alone.”
“That won’t wash and you know it. We can’t hide from the world and we can’t hide from ourselves. You think you have done both, but all you have done is nearly destroy yourself and missed the opportunity to help a lot of your fellow men.”
“I can’t help my fellow men. Not anymore and if they knew why, they wouldn’t want my help anyway.”
“My name is Bill Collins and I’m a doctor, too. You are a doctor, aren’t you?”
Dirty Dan looked at Doc for the longest time and he was clearly calculating whether a response should be made and if so, what response. Then he said, “Yes, I’m a doctor, or at least, I used to be, but now I’m just Dirty Dan and I like it that way.”
“I doubt that’s true,” Doc said evenly and firmly.
“You doubt what is true?”
“I doubt you like being Dirty Dan or that you like the kids making fun of you and calling you crazy. I doubt that you like smelling like a sheep pen all of the time and living in that hovel across the street, but for some reason you feel it is necessary. Are you punishing yourself for some past short coming or are you on the run from the law?”
Dan walked slowly back to the bench and sat down heavily, staring blankly across the street, with his chin in his hands and his elbows on his knees. Doc figured he sat there for a good ten minutes before Dan finally said, “You are close on both counts, Doctor. My name is Jesse Blockman and I once was a doctor. A good one, I thought, but not anymore.
“You are right about the kids. It tears me up inside to hear them taunt me and know they think I am lower than dirt, which I may be. Still, I sit here on this bench almost all the time they are playing in the street and watch them. I love them, every last one of them and I would do anything I could to protect them all, from anything.”
“Not quite,” Doc put in, “You didn’t do all you could for the last little boy who passed this corner in a hearse. You knew he was suffering from classic shock. Your diagnosis was textbook, but you just stood and watched him die. Why?
“And don’t give me that bull about not being a doctor anymore. A doctor is a doctor until the day he dies. Maybe he stops practicing or slows down a little, like I did, but he never stops being a doctor. It gets in your blood. It becomes instinct. I heard about your instinct from a friend. I knew a doctor had spoken those words as soon as I heard the diagnosis. Only a doctor could say it the way you did. A doctor cries when he loses one and every time he loses one. Maybe only on the inside, but he cries just the same.”
Jesse sat for a long time staring out across the intersection and then he said, “You’re right, Doctor Collins, I could have saved him, but I didn’t. I hate myself more each day when I think of it, but if I had it to do all over again, I still wouldn’t save him. I can’t be a doctor anymore, not ever again. A long time ago, in another world, I killed a child not any older than the one who passed by here in the hearse and I will never be a doctor again.”
Now it was Doc’s turn to be silent and he was silent so long that Jesse began speaking again.
“Ten years ago I was a resident at St. Mary’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. I was a specialist in pediatric trauma. Generally, I dealt with the gravest of head injuries. I was good, very good, or so I thought. One night, after all day on the floor and countless emergency surgeries, I made an entry on a little five-year-old girl’s chart. I noted the medication she was to receive that night. The medication was given, as I had instructed, and she never woke up.
“She was beyond the worst of her injury after several hours in surgery and she should have made a good recovery with only partial loss of brain function at the worst, but I killed her. I was tired and groggy and I made the notation too fast, without enough thought to her age and condition. She overdosed.
“There was a full investigation and a civil trial for wrongful death. I was found guilty, rightfully. I was stripped of my medical license and hospital privileges. I was sued civilly by the little girl’s family and a judgment was placed against me for two hundred thousand dollars compensatory damages and two million dollars in punitive damages.
“It was bad enough that I had killed an innocent little girl, but without staff privileges I was unable to practice anymore. You know that a doctor who is not on staff at a hospital can’t admit patients and a doctor who can’t admit patients is dead in the medical profession. They really didn’t need to take my license, as a doctor I was dead anyway.”
Doc knew that. No doctor could survive for long without being able to admit patients to a hospital, but still he remained silent and then Jesse continued.
“The child’s family became unbearable in their quest for revenge by attempting to collect every penny of the judgment, just as quickly as they could. Every time I accumulated so much as a few hundred dollars they would drag me back into court and have it seized. I became a pauper and it was clear that the only reason I was working at all was to give what I earned to the girl’s family. I decided that I would be a pauper rather than slave for the rest of my life for their revenge.
“Had they needed the money I might have kept on working at odd jobs and let them keep taking my money, but they didn’t need it. The family was quite well off. They only wanted my money to take revenge on me. They wanted to make and keep me a pauper.
“If the money would have brought the little girl back I would have worked the rest of my life for it, but it wouldn’t.
“I decided that if I was going to be a pauper I might just as well do it of my own free will. I dropped out of the world and drifted all over the country accumulating no assets of any kind and barely existing. Still, they tracked me down at almost every turn and dragged me back in to court, not wanting to believe that I didn’t have some money or some asset hidden somewhere.
“Finally, I came to this town one late October night some four years ago. I was nearly frozen to death and couldn’t go any farther. I erected a makeshift shelter over there and I have been there ever since. When I heard that you were asking questions about me I assumed you were just another private investigator hired by the girl’s family to track me down so that they could drag me back into court.
“Now you know. I can’t be a doctor again. I could not trust myself to do it right and I can’t let my name or past become known or I will be tracked down again like the dog I have become,” he finished sadly.
“If you don’t care, then why worry about the children?”
“I never said I didn’t care! I said I couldn’t do anything to help. At least, in a doctoring way, but I thought I could help by watching the children.”