The Heart Does Not Grow Back: A Novel by Fred Venturini

saw my tonsils had returned.

 
    TEN
    Doc Venhaus wasn’t the man I remembered. He hadn’t aged well, his face crinkling into folds and creases when he peered down his nose and through his glasses. His hair was gone on top and cropped close on the sides, a reddish-brown dusted with gray.
    “I’m having a problem with my tonsils,” I told him.
    He smiled, never once looking up from the chart. The flesh below his eyes sagged below the rim of his glasses. He had jowls.
    “That’s interesting,” he said. “I remember you, actually. Sounds to me like you need a different type of doctor, Dale, since your tonsils are gone. They haunting your dreams, son?”
    I opened wide. He paused awkwardly, but clicked his pen light on and took a look. He clicked his light off and stared at me. “What is this?” he asked.
    “I need you to remove one of my kidneys to see if it’ll grow back.”
    “Is this a prank?”
    “I think I can snag twenty grand for one, but I want to know if I can make a career out of this.”
    “I don’t think this is funny,” he said.
    “I don’t either.” I held up my hand. “My fingers have grown back twice. Check my medical records. St. Mary’s Hospital down south. You’ll see I had most of my right hand shot off.”
    He clicked his pen a few times. We both stared at the wall. “I’m fuckin’ starving,” I said, snakes of hunger rolling and flopping in my midsection.
    “Your tonsils are clearly there,” he said, more to himself than to me.
    “You got any food around here? I haven’t been home all day. Skipped lunch.”
    “Let me look again,” he said, clicking on his penlight. I opened wide. He stared into the back of my mouth until the joints of my jaw ached.
    “I must have … made a mistake. It was a long time ago. I’ll have you know, son, I’ve been through far too much to have a prank like this played on me.”
    “Why do doctors always think it’s a mistake when something strange happens?”
    “Because I’ve made mistakes before,” he said, then jotted something on his clipboard. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
    The jotting was a signature. He was done. “I’ve got patients to see. Take this to the front desk. I’m supposed to be off on Monday, but we’ll keep the whole day open. Run some tests. That sound okay?”
    He handed me a piece of paper. I looked where he had circled my condition—infection. Antibiotics prescribed. He handed me a slip of paper with the prescription. “Don’t fill this,” he said. “It’s a ruse. I don’t want my staff involved with what we’re dealing with here. Not yet, anyway.”
    Ah, the good doctor, keeping his little medical freak to himself. Monday I would be his own personal playground.
    “How much is this going to cost me? I don’t have insurance.”
    “My treat,” he said.
    “As long as we test my kidney.”
    “Selling organs is against the law.”
    “So is writing fake prescriptions.”
    “See you next week, Mr. Sampson. And if you’re hungry, drug reps bring food here all the damn time. I’ll tell Grace to give you a sandwich to go.”
    Grace stuck my next appointment in the computer. She was an older woman with thin, yellow hair. She had big moles on her arms. I realized that it had been a long time since a woman talked to me who wasn’t wearing a name tag. She closed out my non-insured billing and I headed for the door with a turkey-and-Swiss sandwich.
    *   *   *
    When I got home, I checked my landline and saw six missed calls from Mack. That was a year’s worth within one hour, so I figured something was up.
    I collected myself, drank a glass of water, and called him back.
    We started with the usual chatter about female conquests, only this timeline had a purpose, since the trail of girls was taking him away from Carbondale, crossing the state lines, heading west, and ending in California.
    He was devoid of true excitement, as if giving a police statement.
    His tone brightened when he talked