Flavian Mark Lupinetti
Hurricane Katrina blew a hundred evacuees to the Texas town of Poca City, but today Sara Kinney can remember only three. Everyone in town remembers DuWayne Ray, an all-state running back in Louisiana who led the Poca City Cowpokes to the 2A finals before leaving for LSU, never to return. Most also recall Clum Dubose, whose arrival coincided with the disappearance of several pickup trucks. Clum’s thriving enterprise in the secondary auto parts market was tragically abbreviated when he expanded his business plan to include methamphetamines, leading to conflict with indigenous producers.
The third was Joe-Claude Gautreaux. Although he is less well remembered than DuWayne and Clum by the rest of Poca City, Joe-Claude is the one that Dr. Sara Kinney–and Father Frank Mickle—will never forget.
Father Frank Mickle was a newcomer himself, a replacement for Father Vitalli, whose past activities with altar boys in Baltimore caught up with him. Father Mickle was happy to escape the New England winters, and for three years he worked hard to ingratiate himself with the Catholics of Poca City. His name and former location made many believe he was an authentic Irish priest along the lines of Pat O’Brien in Angels with Dirty Faces, a cultural reference reflecting the isolation and the advanced age of the flock. Father Mickle (neé Micklyz) responded by affecting a Boston Irish accent. The effort was appreciated but not convincing to the parishioners of St. Catherine’s.
Joe-Claude Gautreaux was not a parishioner of St. Catherine’s. Nor did he attend Trinity Methodist, Calvary Bible, Victory Baptist, Bethany Baptist, Crossroads Baptist, or the new megachurch out by the Home Depot. Newcomers to Poca City, where the churches outnumbered the bars, were expected to join some congregation, if only for the softball league. People cut Joe-Claude a lot of slack, however. One reason is that displacement from their homes earned all the evacuees a certain forbearance. The other reason was that Dr. Joe-Claude Gautreaux was the most amazing healer the town’s doctors ever saw.
That included Sara Kinney, who had seen some pretty good doctors herself. Before her divorce and her mother’s insistence on helping with child care drew her back home, Sara trained in some big medical centers in Chicago and Houston. She was a fine general surgeon in her own right and maintained high standards for herself and others, but she wasn’t counting on Joe-Claude to be a superstar. In Poca City, as in many small towns, clinical brilliance was to be hoped for, but a doctor with halfway decent skills who avoided substance abuse and felony convictions would suffice. Thus, when Joe-Claude got off the bus from New Orleans and offered his services, Sara was pleased to receive his application for hospital privileges.
Joe-Claude was a small man, shorter and slighter than Sara. He was probably younger, too, maybe forty-five. His appearance reflected a heritage as varied and complex as an etouffé: dark skin with generally Caucasoid features and a nose that projected like a monument over a thin mustache. His manner of speaking flowed straight from the bayou. Sara initially thought he was exaggerating it for her benefit—if he did, it sure worked—but later concluded that it was too consistent to be less than genuine.
“Trained in internal medicine, Dr. Kinney,” he began. “Did fellowship time in intensive care, emergency. A little OB. Had me an office in Saint Laurent, down by the Gulf. ’Nother one in Beaupre. Practice included some of everything, for true.”
As the president of the medical staff, Sara knew it was unorthodox to grant hospital privileges without evidence of training, recommendations… hell, at least a license. Fortunately, other hospitals were encountering the same problem as Poca City General, and a consensus had emerged. All around the Gulf docs displaced by Katrina obtained provisional staff membership pending credential verification after the emergency passed.
Sara took a last puff from her cigarette and put the butt in a plastic bag in her desk drawer, the better to conceal the evidence in this non-smoking facility. “Dr. Gautreaux, are you willing to cover the ER one night a week? And to cover the ICU one other night a week?” She knew it was a reach, but if he went for it, she and the other doctors now carrying those burdens would each be on call only one night out of seven, and Sara would be a hero to her colleagues.
“Be glad to, Chere. In my practice, don’t—didn’t—have any coverage. On call all the time. Two nights a week on call be a rest for me.”
She signed the papers granting temporary privileges. She was pleased by Joe-Claude’s enthusiasm and pleased even more by the positive reviews he received from patients and from other doctors as his practice became established. That was nothing, however, compared to what happened three weeks later on a Sunday night. Shortly before midnight Sara was called to the ER to deal with the badly broken body of Micah O’Neill. The orthopedic surgeon applied some hardware, but it was up to Sara as the general surgeon on call to manage the shock, the fluids, the blood transfusions, the respiratory insufficiency, the renal impairment, the cardiac output, and any other issue that might arise. While Micah was in the CT scanner, she and Lurleen, the charge nurse, walked to the ambulance dock for a smoke and some conversation. On their way they passed Dolly O’Neill in the waiting room, her running mascara poorly camouflaging the bruises surrounding her eye sockets.
“Hear the story?” Lurleen asked.
“I’m gonna take a wild guess two-carbon fragments were involved. Always figured that one day Micah’d get drunk enough to beat the shit out of his truck and drive Dolly into a bridge abutment.”
“Good guess. He drove through the front wall of La Cantina. Blood alcohol was point four two.”
“Point four two? That’s only point oh two less than the cantina.”
Raj, the radiologist, stuck his head out the door. “Not quite done, Sara, but figured you’d want to know. Head’s okay. Spleen’s busted up bad. You can come see the pictures, but I bet it needs to come out.”
“Shit.” Sara ground out the cigarette on the concrete.
“Whatcha gonna do?” Lurleen asked. “Send him up to Houston?”
Sara grimaced. “Pretty unstable. Have to use the copter. Tack on twenty thou to the bill, and he probably won’t make it anyway. Pretty dirty trick to play on Dolly.”
“Dirtier trick would be if you get him through this. I take it you’re operatin’?”
She nodded. In the OR Raj’s assessment was proven correct. The spleen looked like someone let the dog play with it, and it came out in bloody fragments. The liver was lacerated as well. It was dawn before Sara finished removing what needed to come out and repairing what could be salvaged. She was realistic about Micah’s odds. This much shock and blood loss pretty much punched his ticket. As she helped to roll him into the ICU with its customary aromas of burnt popcorn and stale coffee, Sara was tired, pissed off, and in need of a cigarette. She wasn’t surprised to see Father Mickle there, preparing to administer last rites, but she didn’t expect to find Joe-Claude brightly awaiting them.
“You go home, Chere,” Joe-Claude said. “You done your thing. Let me take him from here.”
She thought for a moment. It wasn’t her way to pass off postop care to anyone, not that there was anyone else on the medical staff capable of taking care of someone this fragile. It was pessimism more than fatigue that got the better of her. “Sure,” she said. “Thanks, Joe-Claude.”
She lingered a few minutes and watched Joe-Claude scurry around the bed, listening to the heart, feeling the pulses, directing the nurses in a quiet but systematic fashion. She noticed that somehow Father Mickle couldn’t administer the sacraments without tripping over Joe-Claude time and again, bringing a smile to her face for the first time this long night.
She awoke at ten, gratified that she had not received the inevitable phone call to inform her of Micah’s death. She attributed it to either the nursing staff’s thoughtfulness in letting her sleep or some unexpected reserve in Micah O’Neill that would keep him alive for a few more hours before his certain demise. Thus when she arrived at the hospital she was astounded to see that Micah had not merely survived. He was awake and focused on the television hanging from the ceiling, cheering for a car driven by one infinitely more skilled and sober than himself.
Micah briefly nodded at Sara, as if lying in a hospital bed with an incision from breastbone to belly button and legs in traction was a typical state. Sara stared, open mouthed. It was Micah who broke the silence, inclining his head toward the screen. “Junior’s gonna git ’im. You watch.”
To see Micah watching yesterday’s race on tape, oblivious as to why the boys were running on a Monday morning, was strangely calming to Sara. It made the scene less… eerie. Still, she did not, could not, respond to Micah. She merely stared at the nurses’ flow sheets and the lab tests. From the moment of his arrival in the unit, he had gone from a state of multiple organ failure to one of perfect biological homeostasis.
She rounded on her other patients, still in a state of bewilderment, before wandering into the cafeteria. She drew a cup of black sludge from the industrial-size boiler and started to walk outdoors. Then she noticed Joe-Claude in the very back of the room. She pulled an orange plastic chair to the small table and sat across from him.
“Nice work with Micah. Thought his ass was toast.”
He played plate hockey with the remains of an omelet. “Ain’ no thing, Chere.”
“Bullshit. Massive trauma like that? His risk of dying was ninety percent, easy. And the son of a bitch is awake! Don’t know how you did it.”
Father Mickle interrupted them. “Micah O’Neill is alive. Praise Jesus.”
Joe-Claude smiled at him. “Give praise to Dr. Kinney, Padre. Jesus, he wasn’t doin too good by his own self.”
Father Mickle bristled. “No need to be sacrilegious, Doctor. We all appreciate Dr. Kinney’s skills, but I think she would agree that this is nothing short of a miracle, wouldn’t you Sara?”
Joe-Claude didn’t give her a chance to answer. “Miracle, Padre? Don’t know about miracles. Guess that’s your department. So answer me this: How unlikely—mathematically speaking—does a thing have to be to make it a miracle? If you have one chance in ten of surviving and you make it, is that a miracle? Cause Chere here, she say the man have that good a chance. How about if you have one chance in a hundred? No? Maybe one chance in a thousand? If you have one chance in a thousand, and you make it, that’s a miracle for true. Is. It. Not?”
Father Mickle’s only response was a cold stare.
“I’ll take that as a yes, Padre. So hear me out. If one chance in a thousand makes it a miracle, and y’all do two or three thousand operations here every year, that means there oughta be two or three miracles a year in the operatin’ room alone.”
As Father Mickle’s face became redder, Sara bit her lip with increasing force.
“And I bet you that about right. I bet you that two or three times a year, someone like ol’ Micah come in. Come in here bout dead, one chance in a thousand, walk out alive. Guess you can call it a miracle if you are so inclined. Know what would really be a miracle, Padre? If they could teach someone in this cafeteria to cook eggs.”
Father Mickle rose abruptly and walked away muttering, leaving Sara finally able to smile without inhibition. “Don’t be too hard on him, Joe-Claude. Miracles are all he’s got. Besides, he’s on the board of the hospital. You don’t want to get crosswise with him.”
Joe-Claude nodded, but she could see that he didn’t take the caution to heart. Sara thanked him again for his care of Micah but had to rush back to the office. Dolph McCray was her one o’clock, and she needed to see his films before he arrived. Slumping into her chair she logged on and called up Dolph’s MRIs from yesterday and from last month. Just what she feared. The liver tumor, which already was too big to cut out in September, was getting bigger. The chemotherapy was a complete failure.
The old rancher hobbled into the exam room. The sun streaming through the window made his color look a little better, but his shadow was even smaller than last time. “You don’t have to tell me, Sara. I knowed what they found from the looks on their faces. Them technicians. Them ones makin’ the pitchers.”
She sighed and nodded. “I already called some folks up in Houston to see if there’s anything new. You know, experimental? They got nothin’.”
“I woulda gone for it. Don’t feel like givin’ up. Never gave up on anything so far.”
“Wanna consider hospice, Dolph? They do some real good for people with terminal illnesses. Help with pain control, other things.”
He shrugged. “Kinda like givin up, ain’t it?”
“No, not at all. It’s more like… It’s like dealing with death the best way you can. It’s different for everybody, so they’d ask what works for you.”
“My daughter gave me a bunch of that Kubler-Ross stuff to read. Stages of dying. Maria figures a rancher should be able to relate to death. Maria says death can be a beautiful thing.”
“What do you think about that?”
“I think death hurts like a bastard. That’s what makes everything, cowboy and cow, try so hard to stay alive. It’s what makes a coyote chew its leg off when it’s caught in a trap. Somethin’ says ‘Stay alive, cause the alternative is a sonofabitch.’ I don’t mean like hell or nothin’. I mean the body knows, so it makes our hearts beat the next beat and our lungs take the next breath. The body knows that death hurts.”
He dropped his head and started to sob. She put her arm around the bony shoulders when the inspiration struck. “If you like, Dolph, I can ask for a second opinion. Dr. Gautreaux is new here. Came from Louisiana. Maybe he’ll have an idea.”
“One of them refugees? Ever since they come here, been havin’ more of my chickens killed. Just butchered right there in the field, nothin’ but feathers left. Prolly one of them voodoo rituals.”
“You sure it’s not coyotes, Dolph?”
“I know what coyotes do, Sara. This ain’t coyotes.” He paused. “Well, if you think Dr. Gautreaux might have somethin’ to offer, I’ll go see him.”
She escorted Dolph to the waiting room. While she told her secretary Vickie to call for an appointment with Joe-Claude, her eyes were on Father Mickle fidgeting on the Naugahyde sofa.
“You want something, Frank?”
In the privacy of Sara’s office, Father Mickle came to the point. “This Joe-Claude Gautreaux. You put him on the hospital staff without checking any of his credentials.”
“I acted according to guidelines under these exceptional circumstances.”
“For all we know, he isn’t even a doctor. He might be an impostor. There’s something… unnatural about him.”
“Haven’t had any complaints about his performance. Patients like him. The other doctors say he does good consultations. And as for Micah O’Neill, well…”
“Well, somebody needed to check him out. He told me he trained at Charity. I tried calling there to see if it’s true. Couldn’t get a response. I even called other doctors around here who trained at Charity. Nobody ever heard of a Joe-Claude Gautreaux.”
“Charity’s an awfully big place. It’s not surprising that some people from there didn’t know him. And you called the hospital? They’re still under water. Didn’t you see the pictures on TV, Frank? Jesus Christ!”
Father Mickle gasped. “Never heard you take the Lord’s name in vain like that, Sara. Well, Doctor—so called Doctor—Gautreaux better have some credentials here soon.”
Fortunately, Joe-Claude’s clinical competence was evident to everyone. Lucy Hathaway went to Joe-Claude for her arthritis that was refractory to treatment by every other physician in Poca City. Within a week she shed her walker and was pain free for the first time in decades. Joe-Claude also began seeing Arturo Perez for his Parkinson’s disease, and Arturo’s tremor nearly disappeared. Joe-Claude turned out to be a remarkable diagnostician as well. Willy Ray Meacham had a colonoscopy last summer that was completely clean, but Joe-Claude swore that Willy Ray had an early stage carcinoma. Sara’s exploratory laparotomy proved Joe-Claude correct and probably saved Willy Ray’s life.
Sara didn’t expect Father Mickle to be impressed by Joe-Claude’s expertise, but neither did she expect him to hold a grudge like he did. The ferocity of the priest’s vendetta became evident to Sara a week later when he stopped her outside intensive care.
“Sara, there’s no evidence of Gautreaux at Charity Hospital.”
“How do you know, Frank?”
“Went to New Orleans myself to check the records. They never had a resident named Gautreaux. Ever.”
“You went there yourself? This is becoming an obsession with you.”
“Are you going to terminate his privileges, or do I need to bring the issue of Dr. Gautreaux before the hospital board? I’ll tell them what kind of unholy practices he conducts, what kind of—“
“You do that, Frank. Next meeting isn’t until November. By then, we should be able to get Dr. Gautreaux’s entire life story.”
She was irritated by the encounter and by Father Mickle’s bluster but decided it would be wise to take precautions. “Drop everything you’re doing, Vickie. We need to get all the documentation we can on Dr. Gautreaux. Start with the Louisiana Medical Board and check for a license. See if he has a narcotics certificate. I don’t know if the parish medical societies are up and running yet, but try them, too—Plaquemine, Lafourche, Jefferson, Terrebonne. He said he had an office in Saint Laurent.”
Vickie giggled. “SAWN LuRAWN. Like how you say that. You starting to talk like him, boss.”
She was suddenly curious how much Vickie had talked with Joe-Claude. “He also practiced in Beaupre. Excuse me, Bo PRAY. See if you can find something from the hospitals he’s staffed, anything. Shit, right now I’ll settle for some patient he’s treated.”
When the following week came and went and Vickie’s efforts bore no fruit, Sara decided to pay a call. Joe-Claude had hung his shingle outside a former dentist’s office in Poca City’s decaying downtown. Sara would have gladly found him office space near her own, the medical office building having numerous vacancies. His was not the only physician’s office away from the hospital campus, however, and she assumed he selected this site because of its proximity to the temporary housing of his fellow evacuees. It figured that he could expect a burgeoning practice by appealing to his homeys, although reimbursement was sure to be a problem.
Sara walked through the front door, wondering if she should have phoned first, and was struck by two things. First, although the room had the typical doctor’s office complement of cheap chairs, battered coffee tables, and vintage magazines, it also had some peculiar ornamentation. There were candles, for starters, and wall hangings with curious faces and designs. More striking than the appearance was the aroma. Unlike her own office, with its fragrance of floor cleaner and disinfectant, this place smelled foreign, fiery, pungent…
Joe-Claude entered, not appearing surprised in the least to see her. “Good afternoon, Dr. Kinney. To what do I owe the honor?” Sara looked nervous and her nostrils twitched involuntarily. Joe-Claude did not miss the gesture. “Chicken Tchoupitoulas. Want some, Chere?”
“No thanks, Joe-Claude. I just wanted to give you a heads up. Father Mickle has it in for you. He’s going to ask the board of the hospital to revoke your privileges. He even went to New Orleans to prove that you didn’t train at Charity.”
“Charity? He went to Big Charity? In Norlins?”
“Yeah. You told him that’s where you trained, right?”
“No, Chere, not Big Charity. I trained at Little Charity. Charity Mereauxville. Down south. They still diggin’ out most likely. But they have paper on me, for true.”
Sara wanted to believe Joe-Claude, she really did, but she was bothered all the way back to her office. It would have preyed on her more had she not walked into her waiting room to see the bright eyes of Dolph McCray, who was leaning easily against the reception counter and talking trash to Vickie.
“Dolph, is that you?”
“Can’t believe it myself, Sara. Dr. Gautreaux’s got some kind of magic. Sent me for a repeat MRI. Told me to come over and see you and have you check it out.”
Sara rushed to the computer and summoned the images. She checked the date twice. Then a third time. It couldn’t be right. Liver tumors don’t shrink like that.
“Dolph, what kind of treatment does Dr. Gautreaux have you on?”
“Don’t know ’zactly. Some green pills. Has me take them with some chicken cha… chap… choup somethin’.”
“Tchoupitoulas.”
“That’s it. Them pills done me a world of good. I’m ’bout ready to get back to work. Them refugees are killin’ more chickens every night.”
Sara made further inquiries to discover that chicken Tchoupitoulas was a major weapon in Joe-Claude’s therapeutic arsenal. It was an adjuvant treatment to the white capsule Lucy Hathaway took and the yellow liquid he gave to Arturo Perez. Sara was all for good nutrition, but she couldn’t imagine a cuisine-based approach to all the diseases he treated, conditions as disparate as lupus, lung cancer, and thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. Still, the improvement in Joe-Claude’s patients was unarguable.
It was during this time that the very atmosphere at Poca City General underwent a subtle change. A vague sense of confidence, comfort, and easy rapport grew among the doctors. Almost imperceptibly, the internists started making more accurate diagnoses, the surgeons began having fewer complications, and the ER docs got patients stabilized faster. Coverage and call schedules became less contentious; cooperation was up; competition was down.
Things might have remained on this positive course were it not for the incident in Paco’s Diner. It started when Sal and Daisy Lapierre asked Joe-Claude to be their baby’s godfather. Daisy was seven months pregnant when she and Sal left Gulfport, Mississippi, one step ahead of Katrina, and little Evangeline was the first newborn in the community of the displaced. Their request to Joe-Claude, who performed the delivery, might not have proved so contentious if it occurred in private. Instead, the diner was filled with people, including the mayor, the high school principal, and Father Mickle.
The religious practices of the evacuees were a sore point with Father Mickle. Initially, the arrival of the tempest tossed thrilled him with the prospect of additional English speaking Catholics for St. Catherine’s, a congregation that over the years was skewing more and more Hispanic. This demographic shift placed a heavy burden on Father Mickle’s high school Spanish and made his penance calculations quite the random number generator. Thus, Father Mickle was most disappointed when the surge in church attendance proved far less substantial than the surge against the levees.
The Lapierre’s invitation put a big smile on Joe-Claude’s face, and several other customers offered their congratulations. Father Mickle was in a nearby booth, so he couldn’t pretend not to overhear, and he asked Joe-Claude if he was in a state of grace.
“Can’t dance quite the way I use to, Padre. Still pretty graceful, though.”
Father Mickle put down his cup of coffee and rose from his booth to approach the counter where Joe-Claude sat. “What I mean, sir, is do you have sins on your soul? Have you even been baptized a Catholic?”
“Pretty sure that, Padre. My mamere—my grandma—she baptize me Catholic. My papere baptize me Baptist. I think maybe I baptized Jewish and Muslim, too. My family so coonass we need to get all the gods covered, case we pick the wrong one.”
Father Mickle couldn’t stop. “Dr. Gautreaux, in order to be that baby’s godfather, you must renounce Satan and all his works. Can you do that in good conscience, sir?”
The diner fell silent. Every eye in the place locked on to Joe-Claude as he stood and placed a five dollar bill next to his plate. “Renounce Satan, Padre? He don’t mess with me, I don’t mess with him.”
In the end, Evangeline was baptized down at the lake, presided over by Mamere Lafitte, another evacuee. The ceremony would scarcely have been approved by a certain institution headquartered in Rome. Further aggravating matters was the scheduling of the festivities on Sunday morning, reducing the attendance at St. Catherine’s high mass to a small number of true faithful and truly befuddled.
Two days later, by coincidence the three month anniversary of Katrina, Sara sat in the hospital board room. Her trembling hands betrayed her as they held the agenda for the evening. As promised, Father Mickle placed the matter of Joe-Claude on the program. Sara flipped open her cell phone to call Vickie. “Anything arrive yet?”
“Called UPS five minutes ago, boss. Say there’s something comin’ from Terrebonne Parish. Be here any minute.”
“Soon as it gets here, bring it to the conference room.”
Sara did her best to stall. She asked for the minutes of last month’s meeting to be reread. She talked at great length about the operating room statistics and encouraged the chief of the ER to elaborate on the need for extra nurses on weekends. Vickie still did not arrive, and Les Dombro, the board president, finally recognized Father Mickle.
Father Mickle didn’t waste time. “Joe-Claude Gautreaux has come to this community with no evidence of medical training, experience, or licensure. He has engaged in unproven treatments of dubious medical value. His lack of medical credentials is evident by the fact that he is not approved by any insurance company or government program. His office does not even have the software for billing and collections. And I believe—” he raised his eyebrows theatrically, ”—there may be an even more sinister aspect to his character.”
“Character assassination aside, Frank, how did you know about his office?” Sara asked.
“I checked with the payors. He hasn’t submitted a single bill.”
“Just so I understand this. You’re upset because he’s working for free? WWJB, Frank. Who would Jesus bill?”
Father Mickle looked like he was ready to explode, but when Les called for the vote it was four to three in favor of suspending Joe-Claude’s privileges. It was only seconds after Les adjourned the meeting that Vickie burst through the door, frantically waving the envelope.
“Hold up, everybody!” Sara shouted. She ripped open the wrapping, and a solitary fragment of newspaper fluttered onto the table. It was a clipping from the Delacroix News dated this past July. It had a picture of Joe-Claude and an elderly gentleman. The words described Joe-Claude’s treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma—liver cancer. The patient was apparently written off by doctors in New Orleans but was getting better under Joe-Claude’s care. The article quoted Joe-Claude, who was “still refining the treatment. I have a lot of work to do. I’m getting closer, but—” The article continued on page 14, not included in the mailing.
“Les, everyone needs to read this,” Sara insisted. “I’ll grant you it’s not real credentials, but Dr. Gautreaux obviously is a respected member of the medical community in his home area. He’s not an impostor and he’s not a fake.”
The other board members stopped in their tracks, but Father Mickle continued toward the exit. “Meeting’s adjourned, Les. You can raise the issue at next month’s meeting, Sara.”
Les looked sheepish. “Guess he’s right, Sara.”
Sara would not let Les get away that easily. She backed him into a corner of the conference room while the remainder of the board beat a hasty retreat. “What the fuck is going on, Les? Since when do you take marching orders from Frank?”
Les couldn’t look her in the eye. “Frank’s a member of the board, Sara. We’ve always had a slot for community representatives, and by tradition it’s rotated among the town’s clergy.”
“But the fix is in on this one. Why?” Sara wasn’t sure she was capable of physical violence, but she was getting ready to find out.
“Calm down, Sara. Look, there’s some stuff you don’t know about.”
“What? Medical stuff? Hospital politics?”
Les tugged at his collar. “More like… personal things.”
“Les, is Frank blackmailing you?”
“Careful, Sara. You don’t want to get some innocent people hurt over some stranger.”
“I don’t want some innocent patients to get hurt because this stranger isn’t allowed to help ’em!” Sara grabbed Les’s chambray shirt and twisted the fabric. She could feel the pounding of her own heart as well as his.
Les was a big man, but he looked helpless under Sara’s firm gaze and grip. “Okay, Sara, but this doesn’t leave the room.”
She nodded without speaking and let Les sink back into a chair.
Les’s eyes were red. “Frank has something on us, on all of us who voted with them there. I figger for Wilson, it’s about screwing his secretary. Hell, most of the town knows that, but his wife is in the minority. Don’t know what Frank has on Charley. As for me, well… my kid sold some cocaine to an undercover deputy. Had to make a payoff to get it dropped.”
“How does he know all this?” Sara asked.
Les shrugged. “Small town. He is the priest. Reckon he hears things.” He could see that if he expected Sara to understand the situation, he was sadly mistaken. “Come on, Sara, give us a break. Get Dr. Gautreaux’s credentials and we’ll approve him next month.”
She didn’t answer. She stomped out of the room and walked all the way to Joe-Claude’s office. He had seen his last patient of the day, and was blowing out the candles. The smell of spices remained strong as she told him the story. “Can’t tell you how disappointed I am, Joe-Claude.”
“Why, Chere? Because of that couyon? Stupid person like that? Lotta them in this world. They can’t help but make the misere. I’ve had my share of disappointments in life. Remember the ‘80s?”
She nodded.
“Nasty decade. Reagan, disco, and bad Super Bowls. But I recollect one time going to New York City. Saw all the girls wearing those wooly leg warmers over their tight jeans? Remember that?”
She guffawed. “Never part of my sartorial repertoire, even in my younger days. Anything that attracted attention to my thighs woulda been like a neon sign directing traffic to the landfill.”
“Always wanted a girlfriend who wore those. But I don’t see that style coming back, so I reckon it’s never gonna happen. That’s my biggest disappointment in life.”
She put her arm around him. He felt even smaller than he looked, and it brought back memories of hugging her little brother. “Don’t sweat it, Joe-Claude. We’ll get your paper soon enough. You’ll get your privileges. For true.”
He smiled sadly at her, and she knew that this was the last time she would see him. Joe-Claude disappeared by the next morning. When they went through his office they found no supplies, equipment, or patient records. The wall decorations and candles were gone. The only trace that he was ever there was some leftover chicken Tchoupitoulas in the refrigerator.
Poca City quickly reestablished its previous equilibrium. Sara and her colleagues were back to covering the ER one night in six. The petty arguments and pointless rancor among the doctors had resumed in parallel with a general decline in physician performance. Lucy Hathaway’s arthritis had her bent over almost double, and Arturo Perez’s tremor worsened every day. It was a week to the day after the board meeting that Micah O’Neill found the bridge abutment with his name on it. Ying Chen was the doctor covering the ER that night, and he worked his ass off, but by the next morning Micah wasn’t even a candidate for organ donation.
The following Friday found Father Mickle in Sara’s waiting room, uncomfortable under Vickie’s withering glare. Sara would have made him sit there a long time anyway, but she did need to spend the extra time with Dolph McCray. The previous day’s MRI showed that green bananas were now an unwise investment for Dolph. “Now you give those hospice people a call,” she said as she escorted him to the door. The old man nodded, sniffing back a tear as he shuffled out. Sara was misting up herself, so she said nothing more. She jerked her thumb over her shoulder to order Father Mickle into her office.
“I… they said you wanted to talk to me, Sara.”
“Have a seat, Frank. Thought you’d want to see these.” She lit a cigarette and blew the smoke toward the pile of papers on her desk. “Been getting paper every day this week on Joe-Claude Gautreaux.”
Father Mickle pawed gingerly at the two-inch high pile of papers, poorly collated, many sheets frayed at the edges.
“Take a good look. Padre. License in Louisiana, current. Board certification, current. DEA license, current. Certificate of internship from LSU. Residency, Charity Mereauxville. Paper he wrote about ICU management of massive trauma, published in American Journal of Surgery. Papers he wrote about arthritis, Parkinson’s, and the early diagnosis of colon cancer.”
Father Mickle lowered his head.
“I’ve talked to the board members, Frank. I’m moving to change the bylaws. The community position on the board will no longer rotate among the clergy. Anyone can fill it. Your term expires January 1, and I’m nominating Lucy Hathaway. I have the votes.”
Father Mickle held his silence while Vickie came in without knocking, an overnight mail parcel in her hand.
“What do you bet, Frank? I’ll bet it’s more of Joe-Claude Gautreaux’s credentials.” She zipped the parcel open and thumbed through the contents to see that she won the wager.
She waved these latest papers in Father Mickle’s face. She crinkled them and crushed them while she hollered, finally driving him out of her office. It was several minutes later, after she calmed down a bit, that Sara actually looked at them, the last documents ever to reach Poca City regarding Joe-Claude Gautreaux. She scanned the strong recommendation from his residency director, his certificates of continuing medical education, and his medical school diploma. She put aside to read later the paper he wrote in the Southern Medical Journal about the treatment of liver tumors. She almost missed the last piece of paper, one that fell out of the envelope as she tossed it into the recycle bin. Sara stopped in the middle of striking a match as she read it, the page from September fifth’s Delacroix News that included Joe-Claude Gautreaux’s obituary.
© Copyright 2008 Flavian Mark Lupinetti