The Reincarnation of Peter Proud Read Online Free PDF

eyes.
    Score Two for Edna
.

Chapter 4
    A nurse led him into one of the cubbyhole examination rooms, Finally Dr. Charles Tanner carne in. He was a few years older than Peter, a friend, and also a tennis buff.
    “Hello, Pete. Back again, I see.”
    “And sitting here like a dummy for half an hour.”
    “Sorry. Heavy traffic today. I understand it’s the hip again.”
    “Yes.”
    “Bad?”
    “Murder.”
    “Let’s have a look.”
    He probed the area in and around the hip with his fingers.
    “Any reaction to this? More pain? Or less?”
    “No. Just the same.”
    He put Peter through a series of bending and leg-raising exercises. “Any new strain?”
    “No. Just the same.”
    He looked at the folder. “Let’s see. You first came in with this about six months ago. Then two more visits. Two x-rays, the last one taken only a month ago. Negative. No evidence of any intrinsic pathology. No objective evidence of any disease. All good healthy bone and tissue.”
    “Then why the pain?”
    Tanner looked puzzled. “I’m damned if I know. There’s no history of previous injury in the area. It doesn’t occur during, or as a result of, any active exercise,” He looked at the folder again. “Just comes and goes at random. Duration, one to three hours. And then,suddenly, it isn’t there anymore.” He stared at Peter. “How did it happen this time?”
    “I was just sitting at my desk. Talking to someone. Hung up the phone. And bang.”
    “And that’s all?”
    “That’s all.”
    Tanner shook his head. “Look, this may sound like some kind of cop-out. It’s barely possible the pain could be psychosomatic. But this particular area would be a very unusual place to get a reaction of this kind. People usually get psychosomatic pains in the back or legs. Or they suffer from headaches, stomachaches, chest pains, ulcers. Still, I suppose any area of the body is vulnerable.” He laughed. “Now, if you had a wooden leg, I could come up with a
real
diagnosis.”
    “Yes?”
    “Amputees sometimes feel pain. In a phantom limb. A leg they don’t have anymore. Their experience has been so traumatic that they imagine they have the same kind of pain they’d have in a real leg. The same with women, in post-mastectomy breast phantoms. But hell, Pete. I don’t know what to tell you. Except that you’re absolutely sound, organically, in that particular area. Look, I’ll give you a shot. Maybe it’ll relieve the pain.” Then, as he prepared the needle: “How about some tennis this coming week?”
    “Okay. When?”
    “Wednesday. Doctor’s day off. When else?”
    He walked out of the office and got into the elevator. Going down, he suddenly remembered the scar on X’s hip.
    He lay back in the dentist’s chair.
    His mouth gaped open like that of a dead fish. His jaw was numb from the Novocain. He kept his eyes closed as the drill burred into his tooth. The fingers of Martin Stein, DDS, smelled antiseptic, slightly peppermint, as they pried into his mouth. The burring stopped.
    “All right, Pete. You can rinse now.”
    He had almost canceled this appointment. But the pain in his side had vanished ten minutes after he had left Charlie Tanner’s office, and he had decided to keep it after all. This, apparently, was his day for the doctors.
    Before the injection, Stein had given him a liquid tranquilizer, some pink stuff in a paper cup. Now he felt relaxed, a little sleepy.
    “Open wide.”
    He felt his mouth being stuffed with hardware. The plastic saliva drain, some cotton batting, something metallic, a clamp. Finally Stein told him to bite down and hold it. It would take a while, he said, before it hardened.
    The dentist walked out to attend to another patient in the next room. Peter suspected that there was still another in a third room. Probably had everything timed perfectly. Inject one, drill two, fill three. And be sure and send out all the bills on the first of the month, Miss Delaney.
    The sound of Muzak filtered