The Sandman Read Free

begin?”
    “Certainly,” Cross said, and he liked the sound of his voice when he said it. Crisp, in control.
    Dios wasted no time. He accepted the scalpel from Debby and made the first incision on the belly. His assistant, Dr. Black, clamped the skin off, and the operation was underway. It would take a while to find the obstruction in Lorraine’s bowel. Since she couldn’t tell them where she hurt, the obstruction could be practically anywhere. Dios had made the incision where another incision had already been made. Cross thought of the old adage he’d learned in medical school: “See an abdominal scar; think of obstruction due to adhesions.” Surgery from the world of the blind. The patients knew nothing, the surgeon little more.
    Cross was certain that Dios hadn’t bothered to tell Lorraine Bell’s children, if she had any, or if they had bothered to ask him. Probably they had not. Probably they had sent her off to a nursing home years ago, going out every week at first, then every couple of weeks, and finally once a month. By the second year they would call on her birthday and talk to a nurse, who would tell them she was doing quite well and “had taken her medication. Wouldn’t it be a shame to wake her?” And, of course, they would agree … it would be too bad … ridiculous to wake a now senile woman out of a good dreamy sleep. And so she would waste away until one day when everything had fallen in—her cheeks, her nose, her eyes, one vast sag of wrinkles—everything gone except the mouth, as if it were fighting the battle all by itself, the battle to remain young and beautiful. Such a futile battle it was, too. Cross knew that. He was only thirty-five, but already in himself he could see the signs of decay. He stared over at Debby Hunter. God, she was beautiful.
    He watched Dios and his assistant, Black, kneading Lorraine Bell’s intestines, looking for fluid or gas trapped in the loops of the distended bowel. He watched as they shook their heads.
    “It’s not there,” Dios said.
    “I don’t see any adhesions,” Black said.
    “This is so frustrating,” Dios said. “If we can’t find it, we’ll have to open her up again.”
    “I know,” said Black wearily, as if he had already given up hope.
    Cross watched as she lay there; then he checked her heart, her blood pressure, her breathing. All okay, but then there was a sickening stench and the scrub nurse held her fingers over her nose.
    “God,” she said, “she’s done it. She smells like dead fish.”
    The room reeked of Lorraine Bell’s shit, and the circulating nurse, Mrs. Martin, looked as though she were going to pass out.
    Now they were working on her abdominal wall, Dr. Black using the rakes and Kocher clamps to keep the wall open. Cross watched, still stunned, his left hand preparing to inject her with a slight taste more of anesthetic, this time curare if she became too light and began feeling the pain. (And also to allow her to stay at that great place he had put her. Yes, he was growing excited again, reaching for the syringe labeled Curare.) He watched as they freed the small bowel from the anterior abdominal wall, dividing the adhesions which they found with dissecting scissors.
    “Maybe these are it,” said Dios. “Two adhesions. God, the last guy butchered her with the stitching …”
    “Yeah,” said Black, “but it didn’t stop her from butchering us. Christ, that odor.”
    Cross watched as they began to cut through the adhesions. He knew that these two adhesions wouldn’t be the last of Lorraine Bell’s problems. Sure, they got rid of them, but from the looks of her, some young resident had been practicing carving turkey on her. How many more adhesions did she have inside the loops of bowel that Dios and Black didn’t bother to plunge into because of the smell? It was clear from the speed at which they worked that they were doing their best to get out as fast as possible. Not that they were bad doctors—Dios