thirty seconds long.
“Thirty seconds is a long time to be engaged in losing your hand, if it’s your hand,” Patrick had said.
People meeting Wal ingford, especial y for the first time, would never fail to comment on his boyish charm. Women would remark on his eyes. Whereas Wal ingford had formerly been envied by men, the way in which he was maimed had put an end to that; not even men, the gender more prone to envy, could be jealous of him anymore. Now me n and women found him irresistible. Dr. Zajac hadn’t needed the Internet to find Patrick Wal ingford, who had been the first choice of the Boston surgical team from the start. More interesting was that www.needahand.com had turned up a surprising candidate in the field of potential donors. (What Zajac meant by a donor was a fresh cadaver.) This donor was not only alive—he wasn’t even dying!
His wife wrote Schatzman, Gingeleskie, Mengerink & Associates from Wisconsin.
“My husband has got the idea that he wants to leave his left hand to Patrick Wal ingford—you know, the lion guy,” Mrs.
Otto Clausen wrote. Her letter caught Dr. Zajac in the middle of a bad day with the dog. Medea had ingested a sizable section of lawn hose and had required stomach surgery. The miserable dog should have spent the weekend recovering at the vet’s, but it was one of those weekends when young Rudy visited his father; the six-year-old divorce survivor might have reverted to his former inconsolable self without Medea’s company. Even a drugged dog was better than no dog. There would be no dog-turd lacrosse for the weekend, but it would be a chal enge to prevent Medea from eating her stitches, and there was always the reliable stove-timer game and the more reliable genius of E. B. White. It would certainly be a good time to devote some constructive reinforcement to Rudy’s ever-experimental diet. In short, the hand surgeon was a trifle distracted. If there was something disingenuous about the charm of Mrs. Otto Clausen’s letter, Zajac didn’t catch it. His eagerness for the media possibilities overrode al else, and the Wisconsin couple’s unabashed choice of Patrick Wal ingford as a worthy recipient of Otto Clausen’s hand would make a good story.
Zajac didn’t find it at al odd that Mrs. Clausen, instead of Otto himself, had written to offer her husband’s hand. Al Otto had done was sign a brief statement; his wife had composed the accompanying letter.
Mrs. Clausen hailed from Appleton, and she proudly mentioned that Otto was already registered with the Wisconsin Organ Donor Affiliates. “But this hand business is a little different—I mean different from organs,” she observed. Hands were indeed different from organs, Dr.
Zajac knew. But Otto Clausen was only thirty-nine and in no apparent proximity to death’s door. Zajac believed that a fresh cadaver with a suitable donor hand would show up long before Otto’s. As for Patrick Wal ingford, his desire and need for a new left hand might possibly have put him at the top of Dr. Zajac’s list of wannabe recipients even if he hadn’t been famous. Zajac was not a thoroughly unsympathetic man. But he was also among the mil ions who’d taped the three-minute lion story. To Dr. Zajac, the footage was a combination of a hand surgeon’s favorite horror film and the precursor of his future fame.
It suffices to say that Patrick Wal ingford and Dr. Nicholas M. Zajac were on a col ision course, which didn’t bode wel from the start.
CHAPTER THREE
Before Meeting Mrs. Clausen
T RY BEING AN ANCHORwho hides the evidence of his missing hand under the news desk—see what that gets you. The earliest letters of protest were from amputees.
What was Patrick Wal ingford ashamed of?
Even two-handed people complained. “Be a man, Patrick,”
one woman wrote.
“Show us.”
When he had problems with his first prosthesis, wearers of artificial limbs criticized him for using it incorrectly. He was equal y clumsy with an array
“Thirty seconds is a long time to be engaged in losing your hand, if it’s your hand,” Patrick had said.
People meeting Wal ingford, especial y for the first time, would never fail to comment on his boyish charm. Women would remark on his eyes. Whereas Wal ingford had formerly been envied by men, the way in which he was maimed had put an end to that; not even men, the gender more prone to envy, could be jealous of him anymore. Now me n and women found him irresistible. Dr. Zajac hadn’t needed the Internet to find Patrick Wal ingford, who had been the first choice of the Boston surgical team from the start. More interesting was that www.needahand.com had turned up a surprising candidate in the field of potential donors. (What Zajac meant by a donor was a fresh cadaver.) This donor was not only alive—he wasn’t even dying!
His wife wrote Schatzman, Gingeleskie, Mengerink & Associates from Wisconsin.
“My husband has got the idea that he wants to leave his left hand to Patrick Wal ingford—you know, the lion guy,” Mrs.
Otto Clausen wrote. Her letter caught Dr. Zajac in the middle of a bad day with the dog. Medea had ingested a sizable section of lawn hose and had required stomach surgery. The miserable dog should have spent the weekend recovering at the vet’s, but it was one of those weekends when young Rudy visited his father; the six-year-old divorce survivor might have reverted to his former inconsolable self without Medea’s company. Even a drugged dog was better than no dog. There would be no dog-turd lacrosse for the weekend, but it would be a chal enge to prevent Medea from eating her stitches, and there was always the reliable stove-timer game and the more reliable genius of E. B. White. It would certainly be a good time to devote some constructive reinforcement to Rudy’s ever-experimental diet. In short, the hand surgeon was a trifle distracted. If there was something disingenuous about the charm of Mrs. Otto Clausen’s letter, Zajac didn’t catch it. His eagerness for the media possibilities overrode al else, and the Wisconsin couple’s unabashed choice of Patrick Wal ingford as a worthy recipient of Otto Clausen’s hand would make a good story.
Zajac didn’t find it at al odd that Mrs. Clausen, instead of Otto himself, had written to offer her husband’s hand. Al Otto had done was sign a brief statement; his wife had composed the accompanying letter.
Mrs. Clausen hailed from Appleton, and she proudly mentioned that Otto was already registered with the Wisconsin Organ Donor Affiliates. “But this hand business is a little different—I mean different from organs,” she observed. Hands were indeed different from organs, Dr.
Zajac knew. But Otto Clausen was only thirty-nine and in no apparent proximity to death’s door. Zajac believed that a fresh cadaver with a suitable donor hand would show up long before Otto’s. As for Patrick Wal ingford, his desire and need for a new left hand might possibly have put him at the top of Dr. Zajac’s list of wannabe recipients even if he hadn’t been famous. Zajac was not a thoroughly unsympathetic man. But he was also among the mil ions who’d taped the three-minute lion story. To Dr. Zajac, the footage was a combination of a hand surgeon’s favorite horror film and the precursor of his future fame.
It suffices to say that Patrick Wal ingford and Dr. Nicholas M. Zajac were on a col ision course, which didn’t bode wel from the start.
CHAPTER THREE
Before Meeting Mrs. Clausen
T RY BEING AN ANCHORwho hides the evidence of his missing hand under the news desk—see what that gets you. The earliest letters of protest were from amputees.
What was Patrick Wal ingford ashamed of?
Even two-handed people complained. “Be a man, Patrick,”
one woman wrote.
“Show us.”
When he had problems with his first prosthesis, wearers of artificial limbs criticized him for using it incorrectly. He was equal y clumsy with an array
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