Spirit of the Place (9781101617021) by Samuel Shem Page A

on Route 9 near the mall and seemed to have a body made all of pectorals and gluteals, a body that reminded Orville of the female athletes in Zeist and of the women leading the exercise shows on TV . She was wearing a silky, casually draped beige dress with a V-neck that both showed a necklace of significant diamonds and two un-bra’d nipples, which seemed, to the slightly drunk Orville, as big as muscat grapes.
    Just my luck, he thought. She goes to Dr. Edward R. the Sociopath Shapiro.
    â€œI mean,” Nelda Jo went on, “are we talkin’ Moby-damn-Dick?”
    â€œI was wondering, with whales being the logo of Columbia, why
whales?
”
    â€œOh, I get it,” Nelda Jo said. “You’re wondering
why
whales?”
    â€œColumbya wassa whalin’ port,” Faith said, slurring her words. “Caught ’em in the river.” Faith had recently come out of a nasty divorce from Mouse Schmerz but had not come out too sober.
    â€œBut whales live in seawater, right?” Orville asked. “The river is
freshwater, right?” Everybody said right. “So?” No one knew. The conversation veered back toward the known. Soon Orville got beeped out. Schooner accompanied him to the door.
    â€œI am sensing that you are not comfortable here tonight,” Henry said. “Ever since you’ve come back, you’ve been avoiding me, and I just want you to know two things. Number one, I understand why. Number two, I’m sorry.”
    â€œIt’s okay,” Orville said, “I really—”
    â€œNo, it is not okay, not okay at all. I have to earn your respect.”
    The beeper went off. “Gotta go.”
    â€œIt’s early. Hope you finish up quick, maybe you can come back?”
    â€œI’ll try.”
    â€œI believe it.” Henry was shaking Orville’s hand in the way experienced politicians do: one hand in the voter’s, the other clasping the elbow in the most friendly way. This reminded Orville of Bill showing him how the old docs also did this to palpate the olecranon fossa of the elbow in unsuspecting patients, searching for nodules of syphilis.
    â€œOne more thing,” Henry went on, “before you disappear for your noble rounds?”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œPeople change.”
    â€œSome don’t.”
    â€œAs Shakespeare said, ‘The past is past.’”
    â€œWhat he said, Henry,” Orville said, seeing in those eyes the sadist, “is, ‘the past is prologue.’”
    â€œAnd ‘the play’s the thing!’ I don’t want any more confrontations between the both of us.”
    Orville noted the lapse of grammar, the old Schooner slipping out. And then he was surprised to see that Henry was noting his noting something.
    â€œIt’ll take time, Orvy, to win your respect. I’m game if you are.” Orville said nothing. “We’re on the same team now.”
    â€œWhat team is that?”
    â€œColumbia. America. The world. We’re global now.” Schooner smiled. “You know, in the last couple of years I got close to your mom, real close. Great lady.”
    Orville had a sickening thought:
he’s mailing the letters.
    â€œI’d go over to the house from time to time, look in on her, have a cup of tea, chat. It’s okay if you don’t come back tonight. It already means a lot that you came at all.”

    The funny thing, Orville thought in the emergency room, trying to deal with the carnage of a Saturday night in Columbia, is that Schooner seemed to have meant it.
    Doctoring tipsily is like tightrope walking without a net. As Orville popped a peppermint Lifesaver and revived a teenage girl overdosed on her mom’s Valium and Barbados rum, he tried to wrestle his mind into balance.
    He moved on to a hysterical Mrs. Len Date, wife of the Columbia town lawyer. Len had come home drunk. Mrs. Len had confronted him in the driveway, berating him until