arms--joined by tubes of pliable glass, transparent so the bubbling flow of blood and yellow body juices could be studied. The impression was upon him before he could avert his eyes. Incapable of any retreat he looked on the floor, fearful above all of accidentally finding among the composed faces of these ailing and doomed the face of an acquaintance, someone with whom he had shared a talk on the sunporch, or walked into Andrews with. On the floor his helpless eyes noticed the marks made by the soft wheels of the stretcher-wagon. Even more than black death he dreaded the gaudy gate: the mask of sweet red rubber, the violet overhead lights, the rattling ride through washed corridors, the steaming, breathing, percolating apparatus, basins of pink sterilizer, the firm straps binding every limb, the sacred pure garb of the surgeons, their eyes alone showing, the cute knives and angled scissors, the beat of your own heart pounding through the burnished machinery, the green color of the surgeon's enormous compassionate eyes, framed, his quick breath sucking and billowing the gauze of his mask as he carved. Carved. Surgeons bent over you like lions gnawing the bowels of a deer. Lucas had watched his father die of cancer of the bowel. It was the family death, for males.
Many of the heads suspended on the white waves were turned to him by now. Lucas, with his big body and strange skin, was not inconspicuous. Dr. Angelo came up to him silently. "Yes?"
The doctor was a middle-aged Italian, highly handsome, though his head was a bit too big for his body, and his eyes for his head. It was as if the years of service and fatigue that had subdued his Latin mannerliness to mere staring, indeed dazed, gentleness had also been a drag on his lower lids: his green irises rode a boat of milk, under a white sky. Thus his eyes were targets.
"Conner thought I should come here."
"Why did Conner think that?"
"No reason, except to get me out of his way."
Angelo waited, the beautiful mouth smiling regretfully beneath the two ovals of gray hair symmetric on his upper lip. He held some cards in his hands but showed no sign of being interrupted. "Is the difficulty rectal?" he at last suggested.
"Oh, hell, no. No. It's just my ear. A little itching that comes and goes now and then."
"Could we have a look? Come over here, Mr--?"
"Lucas. George R."
"Yes. You have a wife. Did her legs improve?"
"Wonderfully. We're both wonderful. The ear doesn't pain at all now, but I guess that's always the way."
"Mm." Angelo led the way to his office, a brown desk shielded by frosted glass partitions, but open in the front. One entire pane was papered with licenses, permits and certificates of authority from state and federal bureaus.
"This ear?"
"The other."
Angelo inserted the nozzle of a brass funnel painfully deep into Lucas's head and murmured with a trace of pride, "Definitely inflamed. How have you been irritating this canal?"
"I try to keep it clear of wax," Lucas admitted, Ms voice made flat, loud, and hollow by the cold metal in his ear.
"How is the other?"
"First-rate. Never a twinge or anything."
"May we see?" And the frightening operation was repeated. Lucas wanted all metal to keep away from his body. With a certain brutality the icy intruder in his head squirmed, and Angelo's wet breath beat on the side of his neck. "Nothing," Angelo decided finally.
Lucas was sufficiently relieved to observe across the aisle from the office a gaunt woman, of seemingly prodigious length, switching her head back and forth on the pillow, as regular as a pendulum.
"Let's try this," Angelo said. A soft rubber mask was clapped over the bad ear; he winced. "Tender?" Angelo asked.
"A little, but you know ... nothing." It occurred to him, with a muffled inner jolt, that his ear was quite badly off; would have to be lanced. He had heard rumors all his life of this operation; nothing was more painful. It was brief, they said, a mere moment, an atom of pain, but of
Many of the heads suspended on the white waves were turned to him by now. Lucas, with his big body and strange skin, was not inconspicuous. Dr. Angelo came up to him silently. "Yes?"
The doctor was a middle-aged Italian, highly handsome, though his head was a bit too big for his body, and his eyes for his head. It was as if the years of service and fatigue that had subdued his Latin mannerliness to mere staring, indeed dazed, gentleness had also been a drag on his lower lids: his green irises rode a boat of milk, under a white sky. Thus his eyes were targets.
"Conner thought I should come here."
"Why did Conner think that?"
"No reason, except to get me out of his way."
Angelo waited, the beautiful mouth smiling regretfully beneath the two ovals of gray hair symmetric on his upper lip. He held some cards in his hands but showed no sign of being interrupted. "Is the difficulty rectal?" he at last suggested.
"Oh, hell, no. No. It's just my ear. A little itching that comes and goes now and then."
"Could we have a look? Come over here, Mr--?"
"Lucas. George R."
"Yes. You have a wife. Did her legs improve?"
"Wonderfully. We're both wonderful. The ear doesn't pain at all now, but I guess that's always the way."
"Mm." Angelo led the way to his office, a brown desk shielded by frosted glass partitions, but open in the front. One entire pane was papered with licenses, permits and certificates of authority from state and federal bureaus.
"This ear?"
"The other."
Angelo inserted the nozzle of a brass funnel painfully deep into Lucas's head and murmured with a trace of pride, "Definitely inflamed. How have you been irritating this canal?"
"I try to keep it clear of wax," Lucas admitted, Ms voice made flat, loud, and hollow by the cold metal in his ear.
"How is the other?"
"First-rate. Never a twinge or anything."
"May we see?" And the frightening operation was repeated. Lucas wanted all metal to keep away from his body. With a certain brutality the icy intruder in his head squirmed, and Angelo's wet breath beat on the side of his neck. "Nothing," Angelo decided finally.
Lucas was sufficiently relieved to observe across the aisle from the office a gaunt woman, of seemingly prodigious length, switching her head back and forth on the pillow, as regular as a pendulum.
"Let's try this," Angelo said. A soft rubber mask was clapped over the bad ear; he winced. "Tender?" Angelo asked.
"A little, but you know ... nothing." It occurred to him, with a muffled inner jolt, that his ear was quite badly off; would have to be lanced. He had heard rumors all his life of this operation; nothing was more painful. It was brief, they said, a mere moment, an atom of pain, but of
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