Know who's calling the shots
The surgeon, the good one, Dr. Casino (for real), glides into your room eyeing her hands, nodding in approval (still godlike). She checks the post-surgical wound, inspects the two drain bags (fluid collection still high). This is five months after the partial nephrectomy, after your left flank, formerly known as "your left side", had hardened (again), then volcanoed. A thing you learned about your body: it has a rich interior world.
Casino, surgical innovator, chief of urology, steeped in prestige, takes the situation personally, her interest beyond academic (though you've been assured you'll almost certainly star in at least one obscure medical journal). You can't help feeling like everyone here already knows this is your fault. It's only a matter of how. Casino mutters, "Never in 30 years."
She steps back, takes you in, shrugs. "I need to take care of something. You want to go for a walk?" It's not really a question.
She waits patiently for you to work your way out of bed. You grab the IV pole on wheels. She leads you to the door. You pause. You haven't left the room in four days. She offers her hand. You didn't realize hands came this soft. You feel itchy all over. She gives your hand a squeeze that says, It’s ok. Her mouth says, “You may not like this." That's not an apology. What she understands: you've learned enough sub-specialties to know that whatever this is, it will hurt. The only questions: where, how much, how long.
She guides you down several halls, through several turns, through several double doors, in one side of an elevator then out the other, until you emerge into the mall portion of the hospital. Third floor.
The two of you walk. Outside Wilson's Leather, something catches Casino’s eye across the way. She steps to the railing, gazes a long time at the CVS across the mall and down a floor, her look inscrutable, the muscles in her jaw working out the math. She pulls the crossbow off her back. Through the binoculars she hands you, you realize the tip of her arrow tracks an old man near the front to the store, dapper but ancient. Tight curls white against his dark skin, white beard curly and neatly trimmed. He picks up Kellog’s Fun Paks, inspects them, shakes his head, puts them back. He doesn’t seem to realize they're all the same.
Casino marks his progress. It’s not hard. The old man is slow. The old man has to be at least ninety.
Casino makes her call, “Left hand. Through the Froot Loops.”
She pulls the trigger. The arrow pierces the back of the man’s hand as he puts another Fun Pak back on the shelf. Through the hand, through Toucan Sam’s eyeball, out the back of the package, now pinned to the old man’s palm.
He leans hard into the shelf as he takes a few deep breaths. He turns his hand over, studies the tip of the arrow through the back of the small cereal box, admires it, like Not bad, then seems to realize. He looks straight over at us, like he knew we'd be there. Casino reluctantly, haltingly, lowers the crossbow. The old man raises his hand shot through with the arrow and Fun Pak and waves shyly, blood seeping down the sleeve of his tan suede jacket.
Casino curses under her breath.
“Why?” I ask.
“Why,” Casino replies to no one in particular.
They stare at each other. The old man's posture crooked with sadness and waiting, regret. He knows Casino will never give him what he's hoping for, but still, he gives it a beat longer before he nods once and turns back down the aisle.
Casino sighs, looks to the ceiling then back to the old man, closes her eyes, makes her call again, “Left flank,” though her heart isn’t in it. She doesn’t even open her eyes when she pulls the trigger.
The arrow crumples the old man. It takes an eternity for him to grunt and clutch his way back to standing. He's listing hard to his left. Still facing away from us, he waves with the back of his empty hand like, Ok, ok, and disappears into the incontinence supplies.
“What did he do?” you ask.
“Quota. Bonus for nonagenarians. Don’t judge me. Epic, medical software, runs the show.”
“But what did he do?”
She looks at you like you're the dumbest person she's ever seen. “He's my father.”
She goes into Wilson's Leather, comes out a few minutes later with a jacket on a hanger draped in plastic. She folds it over her left arm, tan suede poking out the bottom.
When she sees the question on your face, she half rolls her eyes, says, "He'll survive. Probably be out of here before you," and squeezes your shoulder as she walks by.
She pauses, takes a breath. "He'll be cold otherwise."