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about it. Flail chest – all the ribs broken on one side – it must hurt like hell, but I know what to do about it, damn it, I know exactly how to put in the drain, and do it right away to lessen the stress on the lungs. That way, everything won’t just shut down while she’s out there lying on a gurney, waiting for somebody to get around to wheeling her down to x-ray. Enough blood inside the chest wall and the lungs collapse, away she goes, unable to evencall out to me for help. I don’t let it get that far, because I don’t second-guess, waiting on x-ray time.
    Miller was pissing me off. Maybe, I thought, maybe I’ll tell him he needs a rectal exam just for spite, or order up some particularly nasty diagnostics, just to get even for all the time he’s wasting – no, no, really, doctors don’t do things like that, no matter what kind of jerk you are.
    And then I realize he’s stopped talking, and he’s just sitting there staring at me, and he has to realize that I’m not paying attention at all. And that’s just about the worst thing I could do, because it’s feeding the pathology – the guy already thinks doctors are the enemy, unwilling to listen, and I’m proving the point. And it’s not even because I don’t care. It’s because I’m so damned tired that my eyes are starting to cross, and even I know that I’m a danger to patients when I’m like this.
    And now I’m a danger to myself as well. Miller has picked up the knife.
    The strange thing is, the only thing I can think is that I’m going to get stabbed because a trombone player wants to get a hard-on, and how fair is that?
    No one from the floor had been in to see if everything was all right – sooner or later, a nurse would have to poke her head in to tell me we had a cardiac on the way – Friday night, there’s always one or two, but it was near shift-change and they were probably all finishing up their paperwork.
    â€œYou should just tell him to stop,” Miller says, digging under his fingernails now with the tip of the knife. “Haven’t tried that, have you?”
    â€œWhat?” I wasn’t sure what he was talking about.
    â€œThe trombone player,” he said.
    I hadn’t told him a thing about the trombone player.
    â€œYou could ask him to stop. That is, if he’s really there at all.”
    I lost my temper then, and banged my hand flat and hard on the countertop, the noise loud enough to startle even me.
    â€œWhat the hell do you know about my life, buddy?” I shouted at him. “And what’s it matter anyway? I’ve got better things to be doing than dealing with you.”
    â€œI know you’re pretty out there, doc. I know you’re wound right up. And I don’t know if you’re in any shape to be treating patients.”
    I just stared at him. “Is that your diagnosis?” I said coldly.
    â€œI don’t know,” he said. “You’re the doc. At least I know what’s going on with me. How about you?”
    He grabbed his clothes with one hand, slouched down from the table, and touched me under the ear with the tip of the knife.
    â€œI think maybe you’re not a blue after all.”
    Then he walked out the door of the examining room and headed down the hall. I heard him whistling in the hallway, whistling
Blue Moon
, so I must have said something about my trombone neigh-bour, but I don’t remember when or what.
    â€œ
Without a dream in my heart
,
    Without a love of my own…”
    I sent Scott after him, the biggest orderly we have, and Scott likes to tussle. When he’s off shift with us, he works downtown as a bouncer, and I’ve seen his hands after some weekends, the knuckles ripped up and scabbed over. I told Scott that Miller had a knife, told him to get the cops. I felt under my ear, but there wasn’t any bleeding.
    When