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specialist to do a procedure tomorrow. It’s called bronchoscopy. He’ll pass a little tube down your throat and into your lungs to take a tiny piece of tissue that we can look at under the microscope.”
    â€œOuch!”
    â€œYou’ll get a sedative. You’ll hardly be awake. It’ll be over in a few minutes.”
    â€œHey, I’m all for finding out why I can’t breathe.”
    â€œThen you’ve come to the right place. I think we can make you better—once we figure out what’s causing the problem.”
    Larry took note of Kevin’s New England accent. He suspected frankness would go over better than good-old-boy palaver. He offered his hand, and Kevin shook it.
    â€œSave me, Jesus!” pierced through the emergency room. None of the doctors or nurses seemed to notice, though Kevin did roll his eyes. Shrieking must go with the territory here, Larry supposed, like the Baptist church his parents had sporadically dragged him to.
    He recalled the day before he turned sixteen. His father had made him meet with their pastor.
    Wouldn’t that bastard love to hear me screaming “Save me, Jesus,” he thought. Well, fuck him.
    Larry could still see the scowling, weather-beaten face, the knobby finger poking his chest. He still remembered the man’s exact words.
    â€œSodomy is a mortal sin, son. You’ll be condemned to eternal damnation in hell unless you accept Christ and pray for forgiveness.”
    The next day, Larry bought a one-way bus ticket to San Francisco.

III
    O N THE OTHER SIDE of the ER, Kevin checked in with the nurses and reviewed notes and orders. He found his two interns had risen to the occasion and were competently managing the team’s other six admissions, which left Kevin free to call the Haight-Ashbury clinic.
    â€œDr. Howard?” Kevin said, once connected to the physician Larry had told him about. “This is Kevin Bartholomew. I’m a medicine resident at City Hospital.”
    He liked the cheerful, rich alto voice that replied without condescension, “Call me Gwen.”
    She recognized Larry Winton’s name instantly and lost her good humor on hearing he was being admitted to intensive care.
    â€œShit! I just saw him two weeks ago. He was complaining of cough and night sweats. I sent him to City Hospital for a sputum induction and x-ray. He never came back. Does he have TB?”
    â€œChest film doesn’t look like it, and the AFB stain I did was negative.”
    â€œSo what do you think is going on?”
    â€œDon’t know yet, but I’m covering him with antibiotics.”
    â€œHow bad off is he?”
    â€œWith nasal prongs, I can barely get his arterial oxygen to seventy.”
    â€œOh, no,” she moaned, her voice nearly breaking.
    Was she going to cry, Kevin worried. He chewed his lower lip and punched the plunger of his ballpoint pen, waiting for her to calm down. He guessed she wasn’t much older than him. Perhaps a dyed-in-the-wool hippy? She did work in Haight-Ashbury.
    â€œI’m coming over to see him. Damn! No, I can’t today. I have to pick up my kid in an hour. I’ll be there tomorrow morning, OK?”
    â€œSure. Don’t worry. We’re on it. He’s going to the ICU. The pulmonary attending will bronch him in the morning. It’s gonna be pedal to the metal here.”
    â€œOh my God...”
    â€œI’m sorry,” he apologized, concerned he may have come across as condescending. “I didn’t mean…”
    â€œI know you’ll do a full court press,” she interrupted. “This is my screw-up. I should have found out what happened when he didn’t come back to clinic.”
    Kevin was astonished. He had never heard anyone senior to him give a mea culpa like this. And there was no way Winton’s predicament could be her fault. If he followed up on every patient who didn’t return to his continuity clinic,