Mercies

Mercies

Mercy: 5. kind or compassionate treatment; relief from suffering

- Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language, Second College Edition

"All right. Shit! Time?" Dr. Janet "J.T." Monroe was exhausted, her scrubs soaked with sweat, the blood of her patient splashed on her lab coat. A head injury patient she had treated intensively for five days had coded in the Neuro Intensive Care Unit just after one in the afternoon.

"1537," said one of the nurses.

"Time of death is 1537. Is the family here?"

"They're in the quiet room."

"Okay. Lisa," J.T. said to her P.A., "everyone else stable?"

"Yeah, J.T., I rounded on everyone before Mr. Jenkins coded. Everyone else is okay."

"Go on back to the office then and send everyone home. Who's got the service tonight?"

The Physician's Assistant spoke slowly, unsure of what was going on. "Uh, little early in the day to be knocking off, isn't boss? Dr. Bryce is on the service tonight and tomorrow."

J.T. pulled off her gloves, ran her hands through her hair and was looking at the floor, moving a foot idly back and forth among the debris from the code, "Will you call Bryce and ask him if he'll round for me tonight? And no, everyone's been working hard, maybe too hard. I know I've been a royal bitch lately so send everyone home. A little stress breaker, you know? Uh, tell the hourlies that they'll get a full day on their checks."

"Sure boss. Um, you okay?"

J.T. looked up at her P.A. and smiled a weary smile. "I will be. Go home Lisa. I'll need you sharp for Mrs. Collins and her blastoma in the morning."

The P.A. smiled cautiously, a strange feeling that something wasn't quite right with her boss, and left. J.T. stripped off her bloody coat and grabbed a surgical gown then headed toward the quiet room to meet Mr. Jenkins' family. The meeting with the family went better than J.T. had expected.

J.T. was determined that the star high school fullback was going to make it. She could save him, she was sure of it. She was sure that his family would blame her for his death. And she dreaded having to tell his family he was gone.

Brian Jenkins, trying to get into the end zone from the two-yard line, on the last play of the game, to win the State regional quarter final, tucked the ball under his arm and lowered his head and sped full speed for the end zone. Just as he crossed the line of scrimmage, a linebacker, moving equally fast, with his head down, hit Jenkins head on. The sound of Brian Jenkins' helmet shattering could be heard in the press box of the stadium and a hush fell over the stadium as Brian Jenkins lay still on the ground, his skull fractured and his neck broken.

J.T. Monroe seemed to be the only person in town who didn't know Brian Jenkins wasn't going to live.

Brian Jenkins' family quietly and earnestly thanked the neurosurgeon for all her efforts and then quietly left to make funeral arrangements.

J.T. sat alone in the quiet room, put her face in her hands and wept bitterly.

She startled when she felt a hand gently touch her shoulder. "You know J.T., you've got to stop getting so involved in your cases. It's going to kill you."

J.T. wiped tears from her eyes and looked up at Christopher Dunn, the Vice President for Medical Staff Affairs. "I really did think I could pull him through, Chris."

"Yeah, I know. But Bryce told me when Jenkins came in that he was glad he wasn't on call. Now, not to be insulting - I know you're not a big fan of Bryce's - but he's good and if he could see a lost cause..."

"Oh," she sobbed and took a deep breath, getting herself somewhat under control, "I know. It's just I've been working a lot and he's the fourth tough case I've lost in the past 4 weeks. I think I kinda needed a win, you know?"

"Yeah." Chris put his arms around J.T.'s shoulders and hugged her. "Why don't you take some time off, hey?"

He held her a moment longer and then a pager went off. They both reached for their pagers to see whose it was. Chris smiled sadly, "It's me. Gotta problem down stairs I need to attend to. You gonna be okay?"

"Sure."

Two hours later as he was heading for the parking lot Dunn decided to go through the medical arts building and check on J.T. in her office. He noticed the office curiously empty. Even though it was going on six there were usually several people in the waiting room and some front office staff behind the desk.

He pushed on the office door. It was unlocked. He went inside and went to J.T.'s private office. The neurosurgeon sat behind her desk holding a stainless steel 9mm pistol in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

"Teaching your gun how to smoke, J.T.?"

J.T. looked up, "You don't want to be here Chris. I'm in a pretty bad mood," she said flatly.

Chris cautiously sat down on the sofa, "Looks like you're in a suicidal mood to me. I think I'll stick around a while."

"Yeah? Where'd you get your medical degree?" She squinted at him through a cloud of smoke.

"I don't need a degree, doctor. The office is deserted. You look like shit. You just lost a patient that you were sure you were going to save. You're concentrating on that pistol intently. You're smoking in a hospital building, tsk, tsk. The only thing I don't get is that statistically most women commit suicide with pills not guns."

"See," she said mirthlessly, "there you go. I'm not suicidal. I'm just looking over my gun. Fondling it, actually, see?" She rubbed the muzzle of the pistol over her breasts and then up the side of her neck.

"So, all you need is to get laid then?"

"Oh, no; at least not with a human. I think I had my fill, oh six or eight weeks ago. I think I'm swearing off sex with men."

"Going over to the other side, eh?" He winced inside at his use of 'the other side.'

She stared at him, her eyes empty, and ran the muzzle of the gun over her chin. She reached out with her tongue and licked the muzzle. She took the pistol down and paused, "No women either."

Chris started to jump up from the sofa to try and wrestle the gun from her but in a flash she straightened her arm and pointed the gun at him. "Huh uh, Chris. Sit your ass down or go with me. I've actually shot someone up close. Kinda enjoyed it. Sit. NOW!"

"Okay, J.T., okay. Just, uh, be cool. I'm sitting back down. See? Sitting down."

She put her arm down and looked at the gun, ignoring him.

"J.T., what's going on? Talk to me, please." His voice was quiet and, he hoped, as calming as it could be.

J.T. threw her head back against her chair and looked up at the ceiling. "It's all the fucking bullshit around here, you know?"

"Well...there's a lot of that going around J.T., any specifics?"

"You missed the last staff meeting. Old Guernsey Miller took an hour and a fucking half bitching about parking space assignments in the new garage. Where the hell were you, by the way? You wouldn't have let him go on like that. I was damn near ready to lobotomize him.

Jesus H. Christ!

"I had an appointment out of town. So is old Doc Miller the only bullshit? Christ, I can exempt you from staff meetings. Problem solved."

"No." She was suddenly very sullen. She looked at the gun and then it seemed like her eyes defocused. She spoke quietly, flatly. "There are people dying. I mean, shit, in all my years of practice I've lost a bunch of people but lately..." she let her voice trail off.

"And there are people betraying you. There are people you thought were your friends and they're fucking you over - literally. There are the fucking insurance companies trying to second-guess my every move.

"I had to actually

explain

to someone doing pre-cert what a

glioma

was and why it was necessary to operate!

"It's...You know Chris, I'm just tired. I am so very, very tired. I just want things to stop, you know?"

"I know J.T., really I know." Chris thought she was distracted and he made it half the distance to the desk when she brought the pistol up and fired five shots in rapid succession, all missing him and hitting the sofa exactly where he had been sitting. The shots were deafening but no one likely heard; the building was closed now and J.T.'s office was on the top floor in a corner.

After the smoke cleared and the ringing in Chris's ears started to go down, J.T. said, "I got a high capacity mag. Still twelve more shots left. Next time I won't miss. Sit down and don't try that shit again." Her voice was calm and yet angry. Very angry.

"Well, uh, J.T., you and Michael still have a good marriage, right?"

"You're fairly dense for a guy in your position, you know that? I've never noticed that before. Bucko, all that about betrayal, getting fucked over - that's my marriage and my friends, you fucking moron!"

"Okay, so I'm a moron..."

"A fucking moron," she interjected.

"All right, so I'm a fucking moron, you want to talk about it?"

J.T. snorted. "Sure. Why the hell not? I get more pissed off every time I tell it.

"Six or eight weeks ago, give or take, I come home late and find Jimmy Byrd and his 22-year-old graduate nurse/wife/bimbo - you know she's younger than his daughter? - well, anyway, they were all sitting in my living room drinking with Michael. I'm tired. They offer me a drink. Like an idiot I take it. They never told me what they put in it. It felt good whatever the hell it was.

"Michael's kissing me," she smiled at the memory and her voice took on a pleasant tone as she talked, "getting me out of my clothes. This incredible wave of lust comes over me. I feel someone tugging at my scrub pants so I lift my hips, the pants come off and I feel the most divine feeling - soft, wet lips on my vulva - and I look down and it's Sally Byrd licking me. I put my hands in her hair and hold her against me while I hump her face. It was soooo nice.

"I'm coming along nicely, her doing my cunt, Michael sucking my tits and then Jimmy takes me by the chin, turns my face to him and sticks his cock in my mouth. It's got Sally's musk on it like he'd already fucked her.

"Michael moves up on the other side of me and slaps his cock on my cheek - you know like you see in those cheesy porn movies. I let Jimmy slide out of my mouth and take Michael. After a while then Jimmy's slapping my cheek and I go back to him. God I felt like such an absolute slut.

"Everybody has a round with me. I forget how many times I came - of course most of it was from whatever drug they doped me up with.

"We're all mellow. We're lying around like a bunch of lions that are stuffed from their kill. It was my first time at group sex. Then Jimmy flips me onto my belly, pulls me up on all fours by my

hips

and proceeds to fuck the daylights out of me. Sally crawls under me and is sucking my tits and fingering my clit." She pauses a moments, laughs softly, smiles. "God damn it all felt so good. When Jimmy got tired of my cunt he took my ass; I'd never let Michael do more than finger my ass. It hurt like hell for a few minutes but then it felt good; felt fun to just let go and, of course, in my state of intoxication, I didn't give a rat's ass that Jimmy was doing me bareback.

"It was a strange feeling, a pleasantly

nasty

feeling to have another man's sperm literally all over me. When Jimmy finished in my ass and I collapsed onto my belly, Sally rolls me over and straddles my face. Another first. She leaned forward a little and put her

hands on my belly as I licked her. Her cum and the guy's cum were dripping on my face and tongue. God...I always thought, uh, face sitting was so stupid when I saw it when Michael wanted me to porn surf with him but...shit, I thought I was in heaven."

Then her smile went away and her voice took on a hard, angry tone, "A week later I've got a sore throat and discharge from my cunt and ass. I've got the fucking

Clap

! In my cunt, ass and throat! The only guy who came in all three places that night? Jimmy."

"Uh, what was Michael doing that night?" Chris inquired hesitantly. He was fascinated and despite himself and the dire situation, quite aroused now.

"Ah, well my faithful husband of 26 years. He was banging the daylights out of Sally. Second youth for him I guess. 52 years old making a 22 year old squeal in delight. Must have been a great boost for his ego.

"Well, after I confront him with the clap issue, he comes clean - sort of. Jimmy had the hots for me. Michael had the hots for Sally. It was a straight trade he said. He was banging Sally while the penultimate pervert, Jimmy, stuck his germ-infested dick in all my available holes. It was Jimmy's idea to drug me too, by the way.

"Well, I accepted that up to a point. I knew whoring me out like that was a long-standing fantasy of Michaels' - so okay. I never told him but it sort of excited me too. But, it wasn't a straight trade. I suppose I should be flattered. Except I felt very betrayed. Michael traded me for Sally

and

her girlfriend, Jimmy's 23 year-old daughter, Kendra.

"I came home early one day a week or so later - I'm still taking the fucking antibiotics - and caught Michael and Kendra in our bed. She was sucking him off. In a magnanimous gesture of love or some shit, Michael offered to let me fuck Kendra with a strap-on dildo that Kendra just happened to have. When Kendra raised her head, turned, smiled at me - drool and pre- cum on her chin - and said, 'Come on Janet. I've always wanted to get fucked by a hard, old bitch,' well," J.T. paused, her eyebrows arched and she was picking idly at her scrub pants, "I just left. I just fucking left."

"I filed for divorce the next day. I found out Michael had been very busy among my female friends. Spreading the word that I'm a frigid, controlling bitch while getting sympathy fucks. I just found out he was banging Sheila Macon from Public Relations. You wanna know how? She came to me all pissed, she had the clap too - and she gave it to her husband who's some big cheese in the First Baptist Church. Michael gave it to her. When she confronted him he swore I gave it to him. I guess in addition to being frigid, I'm a whore too.

"So that's my life, Chris. Sucks pretty bad. But I bet this won't be bad..." her voice trailed off into almost a whisper. She put the pistol in her mouth, sliding her lips over the first two or three inches of the frame and barrel.

She pumped it in her mouth like she was sucking cock. Slowly. Sensually. Terribly. Morbidly. Chris saw her thumb move toward the trigger saw her finger pulling back the hammer and then heard the hammer come back slowly and lock with a snick. She closed her eyes and moaned as if she was in some sort of sexual ecstasy. It was going to be now or never, Chris thought.

Chris bounded over the desk and threw his entire body weight on J.T. while grabbing the gun with both hands, wresting it away from her.

Her desk chair tipped over, Chris rolled away from her with the gun and she lay, stunned, on her back, still in the chair. He came to her, pulled her into a sitting position on the floor and cradled her body with his.

She was shaking; her lips and mouth were bleeding from his jerking the gun away. She just sat in numb silence while he held her, wiped her lips and chin and murmured things to her to try to calm her.

But J.T. Monroe was not an insubstantial woman; she went to the gym three times a week and boxed. She came around enough to keep Chris from getting her from her office. So they sat on the floor, alternately sitting apart and holding her. She ranted and raved, sobbed, cried, poured out everything to Chris.

She was incoherent at times. Three times during the course of the night she physically assaulted him and tried to kill them both. The last attempt was with a letter opener. It was sharp enough to stab Chris in the shoulder but too dull to slit her wrists. By the time she decided to try stabbing her throat Chris had recovered enough to wrest it away from her.

At 5:30AM, Lisa, the P.A., came in. She gasped when she entered Monroe's office and saw the ransacked office. She didn't immediately see Chris and J.T. because they were on the floor behind the desk.

"Lisa!"

Lisa jumped when Dunn yelled. "Chris?"

"Lisa, behind the desk. Help me to get J.T. up. We need to get her over to psych."

"Oh, Jesus, she tried to kill herself. I was afraid something was wrong yesterday."

J.T. looked like she was in shock. She didn't acknowledge Lisa's presence, she didn't say anything; she just allowed herself to be lead to the hospital. An hour later, she was given an electro shock treatment and sent to a private room in full restraints.

Chris was at her bedside gently rubbing the electrode gel from her hair when she woke up.

"Chris?"

"Yeah?"

"What...?"

"You got a little Empire Electric current compliments of Dr. Chandra's little ECT machine. Feel better?"

"Yeah," she whispered.

"Rough night we had."

"I'm sorry, really."

"Don't mention it." Chris smiled at her and rubbed the cool washcloth softly around her face. "Lisa's lining up all your urgent surgery with Bryce and postponing the rest until you're better. Dr. Ezra is going to be seeing you later when you're more alert. Now why don't you go back to sleep? I'll be right here when you wake up."

"Chris," she whispered.

"Yeah?"

"Come closer, I want to whisper something to you."

Chris raised his eyebrows and lowered his head. She moved her head up and kissed him gently on the cheek. "Thank you."

Dr. Ezra treated J.T. for major depression for about eight weeks and then let her go back to practice. Chris managed to keep the bizarre details of the night in J.T.'s office suppressed and six months later convinced the medical staff executive committee to name J.T. Monroe as chief of neurosurgery.

Chris moved to Kansas City to take a better job.

~~~~~~~~~~

Two Years Later...

J.T. looked at her watch, frowned and stuck her hands in the pockets of her lab coat. She was standing by the doors to the ambulance bay, looking outside. The big snowstorm hadn't started yet; it was still in Oklahoma moving northeast at about 10 miles per hour. If it kept its current course and speed the leading edge of the storm would hit Joplin about 5 AM. J.T. looked at her watch again; it was 11:30 PM.

She had a patient in the Neuro Intensive Care Unit who she was betting would need surgery first thing in the morning, if not sooner. She lived on a small farm in rural Newton County. She knew she could make it home but making it back was going probably to be a problem. So, reluctantly, she decided she'd stay at the hospital.

"J.T.?" The House nursing supervisor was at J.T.'s elbow.

"What is it, Joyce?" she asked in that weary, "what now" tone of voice.

"I just got off the phone with Phil about the coming storm."

"And what did our illustrious Chief of Staff have to say?" J.T. asked wearily.

"He's in Kansas City. He told me to find the senior House medical officer and ask them if we should implement the snow plan. And you're it."

Dr. Monroe moved to the door, "Come on, let's have a smoke." The doctor and nurse stepped out into the ambulance bay.

"I'm out," Joyce said.

"Here," J.T. flipped a cigarette from her pack. J.T. lit both their cigarettes and then shook her head as she was blowing out her first drag. "I saw Mike Skelly rounding in ICU about 20 minutes ago. He's senior."

"Not to you. Skelly's an attending but not a chief of service and the policy says when there's a chief of service..."

J.T. cut her off, "...yeah, yeah. All right. What's your call?"

"I think it's gonna be hell in the morning if we get as much as the weather service is predicting. You got that head injury that's going to need surgery..." the nursing supervisor let her voice trail off.

"Okay, the

Senior House Officer

has invoked the emergency snow plan as of, what the fuck time is it anyway?"