were one day, my God, we're mamed. The biggest thing we
shared was, back then we had the same taste in men—bad. And when I decided women were really what it was all about for me,
we lost even that Though we held on awhile still. Had some romantic image of ourselves as outlaws, I think. United by that.
Pushing at the barricades. It all seemed quite daring at the time."
Her beeper sounded and she stepped to a phone on the wall by the OR doors to respond, was back within the minute.
"Anyway," she said. "Richard says you're trying to find yourself?"
"Aren't we all."
"Frankly, I don't think most of us ever even notice we're missing."
"I appreciate your seeing me, Dr. Park," I said.
"Lola. And believe me, seeing you is a welcome break. I spent the last forty-six hours peering into compound fractures, gunshot
wounds and eviscerations, gaping mouths, vacant eyes. Most of the rest of the time looking out the window, wondering at exactly
what point it was that I dropped out of anything resembling a real life."
"Can I buy you a coffee? Breakfast, maybe?"
"Breakfast would be nice. It'll have to be the cafeteria, though. Nothing down there you can recognize on sight They have
to put labels on it"
She reached down to push the button on the beeper clipped into her waistband. It gave off a single low-pitched squeal. She
would do this repeatedly, in the middle of sentences, between gulps of coffee, the whole time we were together. I don't think
she was even aware of it. This had become her connection to the world, her bridge. Instinctively she protected it.
"On into the belly of the whale, then. I warn you: you may want to leave a trail of bread crumbs. Or hack notches on the tunnel
walls as we turn."
We took a phone booth-sized elevator to the third floor, crossed through an uneven, close passway ("That's the new part of
the hospital back there," Lola told me, "now we're in the old") to a kind of enclosed platform where we had a choice of elevators,
stairs or emergency exits, picked one from among thefirst and again went down, debarking into a narrow chamber.
Now we confronted a dozen or more steel doors, single, double, most askew in frames and lacking elemental hardware (screws,
handle, hinge), none of them marked. We went through one, heard it slam and shudder into place behind us, into a maze of corridors
where floors sloped ever downwaitl and clusters of pipes and conduits paced our descent overhead.
At last we emerged into a long, cavelike room aflood with artificial light.
People sat slumped over trays of meat-and-two-vegetables, sandwiches assembled days before, prepackaged cookies, bags of chips
and candy, ice cream bars. Plastic glasses of iced tea with lemon slices like small rising suns on the horizons of their rims.
Waxed-cardboard cups of coffee. People themselves looking waxlike, plastic, and not at all like rising suns.
"Half a star for atmosphere," Lola said, "but the food's even worse."
"Then the stories are true. There is a whole population living down here beneath the city."
As I watched, sipping coffee, Lola devoured three fried eggs over easy, two servings of hash browns and another of buttered
grits, order of bacon, wheat toast. No inordinate fear of cholesterol here. But she wasn't an internist, after all; she was
a surgeon, with that mentality. Surgeons are technicians, sprinters. Friend of mine calls them slashers. Whatever the problem
is, you just hack it off or out, sew the hole shut. Your basic Republican solution.
Twice her beeper sounded, and she went to the phone on the wall by the cashier to answer.
Twice she came back, said No problem and went on eating.
Third time, she said, Break's over, I guess. Nothing gold can stay. Couple of street soldiers up there losing ground fast.
Think I might be able to find my way up and out without help?
Probably so.
"Richard said you'd want this. It's got your name and phone number inside the front cover. Only thing
shared was, back then we had the same taste in men—bad. And when I decided women were really what it was all about for me,
we lost even that Though we held on awhile still. Had some romantic image of ourselves as outlaws, I think. United by that.
Pushing at the barricades. It all seemed quite daring at the time."
Her beeper sounded and she stepped to a phone on the wall by the OR doors to respond, was back within the minute.
"Anyway," she said. "Richard says you're trying to find yourself?"
"Aren't we all."
"Frankly, I don't think most of us ever even notice we're missing."
"I appreciate your seeing me, Dr. Park," I said.
"Lola. And believe me, seeing you is a welcome break. I spent the last forty-six hours peering into compound fractures, gunshot
wounds and eviscerations, gaping mouths, vacant eyes. Most of the rest of the time looking out the window, wondering at exactly
what point it was that I dropped out of anything resembling a real life."
"Can I buy you a coffee? Breakfast, maybe?"
"Breakfast would be nice. It'll have to be the cafeteria, though. Nothing down there you can recognize on sight They have
to put labels on it"
She reached down to push the button on the beeper clipped into her waistband. It gave off a single low-pitched squeal. She
would do this repeatedly, in the middle of sentences, between gulps of coffee, the whole time we were together. I don't think
she was even aware of it. This had become her connection to the world, her bridge. Instinctively she protected it.
"On into the belly of the whale, then. I warn you: you may want to leave a trail of bread crumbs. Or hack notches on the tunnel
walls as we turn."
We took a phone booth-sized elevator to the third floor, crossed through an uneven, close passway ("That's the new part of
the hospital back there," Lola told me, "now we're in the old") to a kind of enclosed platform where we had a choice of elevators,
stairs or emergency exits, picked one from among thefirst and again went down, debarking into a narrow chamber.
Now we confronted a dozen or more steel doors, single, double, most askew in frames and lacking elemental hardware (screws,
handle, hinge), none of them marked. We went through one, heard it slam and shudder into place behind us, into a maze of corridors
where floors sloped ever downwaitl and clusters of pipes and conduits paced our descent overhead.
At last we emerged into a long, cavelike room aflood with artificial light.
People sat slumped over trays of meat-and-two-vegetables, sandwiches assembled days before, prepackaged cookies, bags of chips
and candy, ice cream bars. Plastic glasses of iced tea with lemon slices like small rising suns on the horizons of their rims.
Waxed-cardboard cups of coffee. People themselves looking waxlike, plastic, and not at all like rising suns.
"Half a star for atmosphere," Lola said, "but the food's even worse."
"Then the stories are true. There is a whole population living down here beneath the city."
As I watched, sipping coffee, Lola devoured three fried eggs over easy, two servings of hash browns and another of buttered
grits, order of bacon, wheat toast. No inordinate fear of cholesterol here. But she wasn't an internist, after all; she was
a surgeon, with that mentality. Surgeons are technicians, sprinters. Friend of mine calls them slashers. Whatever the problem
is, you just hack it off or out, sew the hole shut. Your basic Republican solution.
Twice her beeper sounded, and she went to the phone on the wall by the cashier to answer.
Twice she came back, said No problem and went on eating.
Third time, she said, Break's over, I guess. Nothing gold can stay. Couple of street soldiers up there losing ground fast.
Think I might be able to find my way up and out without help?
Probably so.
"Richard said you'd want this. It's got your name and phone number inside the front cover. Only thing
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