Pt 1: Dr Zoptic: Infallibility
A burley fireman bounding out of the boxy Rescue Ambulance left the motor running. Though dazed and unable to move, I managed to hold an arm up, but found I couldn't climb to my feet. I expected he'd grab my arm and lift me to my feet. Instead, he grabbed a leg and flipped me onto my belly. I tried to protest but could make no sound. I was about to face something I feared more than ridicule. I was about to be raped.
My brain was beclouded. Who was I? Why was I lying naked sprawled on the cold, hard concrete sidewalk in the Central Avenue Urban renewal district? As my brain fog cleared, I was Erica Ehrlich, a law student third year at Capitalland University. I had come to the urban renewal area to pick up my friend and roommate Dr Rebecca Barton who was now director of Instruction in Emergency Response to the Sick and Injured. The push - ahead - program had catapulted her to that august directorate in the University Hospital after her graduation from medical school.
She seemed little jittery when I dropped her off this morning.
Together since I started law school here in Capitalland, I behind her back, had a secret pet name for my roommate. I called her Zaftig, my plump little butterball. She would have been a little too stuck - up to appreciate the endearment intended by the Zaftig loan word, pronounced Zoptic which embraces the idea of her eye-catching rounded proportions. As interesting as that is, at the moment I had more to worry about than etymology.
I had walked in on an emergency response exercise. Mistaken for a crisis actress, I had been pummeled to the ground and injected with a sedative by med students.
Shadows were growing and streetlights were coming on when I parked my dented up blue junk heap around the corner from the disaster exercise site. As I exited my car, I slung the red scarf over my neck. Looking around I was spooked. The area was desolate broken glass everywhere as I walked by boarded up brick buildings whose walls abutted the sidewalk.
Turning the corner onto Central Avenue, I was blinded for an instant by the last burst of light from the setting sun cresting over a rise in the street. Suddenly out of the shadows, a burly man held one arm. When I struggled, I saw his fist fly up in my face. I was knocked off balance and fell to the pavement. I felt a tingle when a scissors cut away the sleeve of my red sweater.
Stupid thoughts came to mind. Damn, I pondered, that sweater was expensive. When Zaftig chided me about the expense, I told her "A red sweater, Dolly, I use to symbolize the passion I feel for my chosen profession."
Zaftig shook her head. "You have such interesting ways to string sentences together that I can never tell when you're putting me on."
A blond haired woman, kneeling over me, mumbled some words of assurance, as she tore open the sleeve of my red sweater to bare my arm. I felt the pin prick of a needle in my arm. I found myself in a cloudy world on the edge of consciousness. I could see and feel everything around me, the cool air hardening my nipples, the course broken up sidewalk against my butt. I was unable to move a muscle.
I felt my penny loafers whisked off. While the obese man held my shoulders down, the blond female wielding sheep shears cut up the inside leg of my blue jeans on one side, then the other and swept dungarees and panties away. Then, she cut my red sweater down the middle. In a wink of an eye, with my sweater, camisole and bra cut off, except for the scarf, I lay naked on the cold hard sidewalk.
The curly dark hair of the male standing over me looking down came into focus. Leaning over to run a fingernail along the scar that went down the hollow of my breastbone, he grimaced, "I didn't expect a freak show. I don't remember examining any mutations this morning. Do you?"
Still kneeling at my side, the female mumbled some comforting words before she turned to lecture the male, "Pectoral excavatum occurs in every 300 -- 400 births, mostly observed in males rather than females, possibly because the condition might be concealed by the development of female breast tissue. The condition warrants surgical intervention in extreme cases. This vertical surgical wound eh--healed well."
Geeze, tonight, I didn't expect to be dissected and put on display as part of a medical presentation I had heard before. I was looking forward to a pleasant dinner with Zaftig which would melt some of the icy frost that crept in between us and lead to some kiss and make up. Instead, I was stripped naked and treated to a medical lecture.
The man's haughty voice boomed, "Are you some kind of medical encyclopedia?"
Called to the scene Zaftig, Dr Baton, fell to her knees crying, "How did I get a real casualty in a play mass disaster drill? Why is this happening to me?"
Happening to her? I wondered, but I'm the one whose clothes were cut away and left naked on the sidewalk.
Standing behind Zaftig, a tall thin woman, my size and weight, hands on her hips wearing a bright red scarf and sweater demanded payment. "I showed up and was on hand, even if Emergency Response hadn't used this mutant," the woman pointed at me, "instead of me."
To either side of Dr Barton the two first year med students were babbling that "we couldn't have known, she wasn't an actor in the mass catastrophe in a bright red sweater and crimson scarf when she came out of nowhere at the corner. 'The victim' put up resistance. So, we cold -- conked her."
On the street Central Avenue, coming up behind Dr Barton, a burly capitol land firefighter in a blue utility uniform took charge, gruffly dismissed the med students, "I'm sure Dr Barton will give you ugh -- an A+ for courage in face of adversity."
Turning to the shrieking actress, the fireman ordered her to go up Central Avenue to the command center to collect her pay. "You got a free ride," he told the actress as he squatted to take my pulse with his hand, "on someone else's ticket. Collect your pay before I change my mind."
Rising Zaftig thanked the fireman. "My head was about to burst from the cacophony of the blathering medical students, pleading innocence, ignorance and inexperience."
Looking into my eyes, the fireman diagnosed, "no serious injuries. She'll ache and be groggy for quite awhile." Shaking his head, the firefighter, grunted, "Veteran's Day Holiday weekend -- I heard they're returning Veterans Day to November 11th -- next year, year after. Regardless, people, even in emergency services or medicine, like everybody else, get sloppy a - trying to stretch that three -- day weekend into four days."
"Bob, I'm a newly appointed director. In my job, there is no A+ for the effort in showing a brave face against adversity. I really can't afford this on my record," Zaftig pled, "What do we do now?"
Looking around, the Fireman sighed, "Everyone else took off. Time to scoot. We'll call a report in anonymously. She'll get picked up right away. We have to bury this story. Rescue service's positive public image might be destroyed by an incident like this."
As Zaftig walked away with the firefighter, she turned to look around before she asked, "What happened to her purse?"
"How long have you been around hospitals?" the firefighter snickered, "Everyone in a hospital is an opportunist. Forget it! You have to be more concerned with preserving the," he snorted, "godly image of medicine. Remember, you're supposed to be Dr Do -- good -- bee, the guy on TV. The doctor is always right!"
I might have interjected `or is that Dr Fair -- Weathers -- bee?' if I could. Sprawled naked on the ground, woozy with a blow to my head and reeling from drugs that I had been injected with, I found myself gripped in laughter, though I couldn't make any sounds.
The interchange reminded me of a discussion I had with Zaftig I called her, "Naïve!" I exclaimed, "It's all about money. Your august medical profession even more so than mine. The Medical Establishment nests itself in its own charade." With a smile, I tenderly touched her cheek, "Not to worry, we're part of the same pretense. The money governs, Dolly."
"What happened to her purse? Are you sure you didn't see it?" Dr Barton repeated her question. The fireman waved a hand contemptuously to brush her off as they walked toward the boxy Rescue vehicle. A few instants later, the boxy Rescue ambulance paused near me. From the passenger side Zaftig peered out and sighed. Then, the vehicle took off.
I lay there in a daze. The Indian summer October sun was gone. The grey light of twilight dissolved into night. I was aware of everything going on around me -- every distant footfall, every car whizzing by, but had no sense of time.
I expected that the whole charade was a prank. The emergency vehicle that had carried Zaftig away would return. She would hop down and throw a blanket on me, help me up, bring me home and we'd have a good yuck -- yuck laugh about it. Our friend who fancies himself a director will use the incident to inspire a skin flick about this.
My relationship with Zaftig had bloomed so much so I allowed Zaftig to lick my hollow chest -- "I never allowed anyone, to touch me there," I cooed. Less self -- conscious I with Zaftig's help got a job at the hospital as an anatomical model.
Toward the end of second year, when stag-flation, spiralling rents and other prices forced me to contemplate cutting back from a full-time programme, Zaftig called to my attention pay given anatomical models. "I couldn't," I winced, "You don't understand. I'm deformed. That's why I work hard flipping burgers to pay you rent. I don't want to live in a dorm, share a room and bathe in a communal shower."
"You're embarrassed," Zaftig reminded me, "As a doctor I see naked people all day. Let me be the judge of whether your body is so grotesque that you need to be in a freak show. Make yourself comfortable. Disrobe! Take off your clothes -- all of them," She ordered, pointing to a chair, "Fold them neatly and stand tall." She chuckled, "Didn't your mother teach you: listen to the doctor? She's always right!"
Mechanically obeying undressing to exhibit myself, I laughed. Despite her claims of professionalism, Zaftig's focus locked upon my deep crevice in my chest bisected by a vertical surgical incision.
"Pectoral excavatum," I winced as Zaftig, recovering from a pause, lectured running a fingernail along the scar from my belly button to my neck, "occurs in every 300 -- 400 births, mostly observed in males rather than females, possibly because the condition might be concealed by the development of female breast tissue. The condition warrants surgical intervention in extreme cases. Your vertical surgical wound eh--healed well."
