“Name?!” The dour faced nurse barked; not even looking up.
She exuded a sourness that immediately put him off. A cold, uncaring woman with short cut salt and pepper hair and what appeared to be a permanent sneer on her otherwise sour face. Her paintbrush applied make-up gave her the appearance of an evil clown. That was no way for anyone to be greeted. Especially not someone who may be sick or in pain, seeking help and compassion at a clinic to be treated for whatever ailed them.
“Hi. I’m Chase Brandt.”
“Good for you. I’ll alert the media. Fill this out, Your Majesty!” Again, no eye contact. Not even an inflection in her barked orders as she literally tossed a well-worn, doodle filled clipboard at him.
Chase took a deep breath, counted to ten and tried to explain, but she ignored him completely and slammed the cracked and dirty window closed; dismissing him like yesterday’s news.
A brief, uncharacteristic flash of anger shot through him. It was quickly mollified by the seed of an idea that brought a satisfied smile to his handsome face. He decided he’d play along.
At thirty-four, Chase Brandt was no stranger to the gym. His healthy lifestyle consisted of running at least five miles a day and an almost obsessive dedication to the martial arts. Those two passions kept him looking much younger than his thirty-four years. He could easily pass himself off as a grad student.
He sat, scheming, as he filled out the forms, complying to the rude, obnoxious orders so coldly given him by the gargoyle at the window.
As he hastily checked the boxes and gave his life history, the spark of the idea he’d originally had began to blossom.
When he finished, he returned the clipboard through the hole in the window, completely ignored again, checked his watch and sat back to wait.
As he glanced around the dank waiting room he was instantly disheartened. The entire room was filthy. Faded paint, torn wallpaper and the distinct smell of aged cheese. The ancient, threadbare carpet bore the appalling appearance and smell of a slaughter house. The crud building up in the corners of the room and the sticky arm rests on the torn, mismatched, ancient, waiting room chairs thoroughly disgusted him. It was obvious that the clinic hadn’t been updated or even cleaned in ages. He’d seen cleaner waiting rooms in rural, third world countries.
To say he was revolted would be an understatement. No one should have to sit and suffer; someone probably already ailing, in such filth while they waited to be treated. From the look of the shabby waiting room, he wouldn’t be surprised if someone coming in with a simple sore throat didn’t leave with bubonic plague-or worse.
A substantial number of students were just ambling around either listlessly or angrily. Most conversed with each other in harsh whispers. There was about an equal mix of frustrated and disgusted expressions on their forlorn faces. He listened closely, trying to overhear their grumbled exchanges.
The sizeable room was packed: nearly standing room only. And the disconnected staff didn’t even seem to give a damn. He hadn’t noticed anyone called inside to be seen since he arrived.
He initiated a light, friendly conversation with two very pretty young women sitting on either side of him. What he ascertained from the cordial conversation just confirmed the information he’d received from the regional collegiate medical director who’d hired him. There was an outbreak of the flu at the school; and the outbreak had been running rampant since October. A huge majority of the faculty and the student body had already been infected. That one fact instantly stuck in his craw as he read through the statistics he’d received from the regional director as he rested in his hotel room after his long flight the night before.
Most university clinics were very diligent about stressing flu vaccinations with mass emails, pamphlets and posters starting long before the regular flu season-usually at the start of the fall semester.
One of the pretty young girls sitting beside him confirmed his suspicions. She exasperatedly told him that they were all there for flu shots-those few who hadn’t yet contracted the bug-and all of them had been waiting for hours. Both assured him that they’d have gone to the walk-in clinic for the shots if they could afford it. Their limited funds were the only reason either of them would have dared step foot in the nasty clinic otherwise.
After another fifteen minutes or so, many of the disgruntled kids just up and left in defeat. Some even vocalized their displeasure to the deaf ears behind the window. Their complaints, like his arrival, were totally ignored. Chase just got angrier.
As he looked at the swarm of ambling students, he had to wonder whether the medical staff actually put up any posters around campus, or sent out any media or mass emails reminding the students of the need for a flu shot back in the fall. As a former college student himself, he remembered rarely stopping to read posters; and he usually just deleted school emails unless they were department related.
Looking around the clinic, and taking into consideration the treatment he’d just endured at the hands of that vile nurse at the window, he doubted whether the vaccinations had even been offered.
When the two girls he’d been chatting with had enough and they joined the retreating mob, he started reading an article in a very old, outdated, copy of one of the liberal rags; the only reading material in the filthy waiting room, when the door finally swung open.
“Those of you here for flu shots, follow me.”
Everyone but Chase whooped and hollered as if they were finally vindicated, then rose, theatrically, and followed the nurse inside; still grumbling. He couldn’t blame them.
The longer he sat there, totally ignored, the madder he got. Two hours and six minutes after he’d arrived, a harried looking, unkempt nurse swung the door open. “Brandt!”
“Right here.”
“Come on! Come on!” She was downright rude, waving him in like she was guiding a damaged jet onto an aircraft carrier in a storm.
As he followed her down the dimly lit hallway, she was almost at a trot. She swung open a grungy, stained, exam room door with a whoosh, causing it to hit the wall behind it, and waved him in impatiently. She acted as if she had more important things to tend to than a pesky student who was, ironically, her whole reason for being there in the first place.
“You’re a new patient. Everything off and put on the gown on the table.”
“But, but…” She was gone.
He decided then and there to see the ploy he’d been plotting as he fumed in the waiting room through to the bitter end. Nothing like taking over the management of a clinic like seeing it from a patient’s perspective. And given what he’d seen so far, heads were about to roll.
He undressed, slid on the stained gown and hopped up on the torn and tattered exam table. He was appalled. He rocked back and forth, cringing over the thought of what was causing his exposed ass cheeks to stick to the disgusting table.
And he waited in the nasty exam room. And waited.
Forty-five minutes later, an overwrought nurse practitioner knocked, then swept into the room.
Things were looking up. The woman was just plain hot. He guessed late twenties, very long brown hair, huge, piercing, brown eyes, and a drop dead gorgeous body-all compacted into a barely five foot, drool inspiring, package. The woman was fashion model hot.
“Mister Brandt. Hi, I’m Abby Fulbrock.” She extended her delicate little hand pleasantly. He shook it, smiling. “What are we seeing you for today?”
“Busy day out there?”
“No. Kind of slow, actually. All but the flu shot invasion that should have happened months ago. The nurses are handling that.”
“I’m sorry. Had I not seen you sitting out in the waiting room, I wouldn’t have even known you were here.” Chase made a mental note of that.
“So. You’re here for…” She was flipping through his forms.
Chase decided to see what he’d have to work with. “Sports physical,” he mumbled, trying to appear shy while stifling a grin. If there was one thing Chase Brandt wasn’t, it was shy.
“Oh boy. I’m afraid we have a problem. None of the male staff are here this afternoon, and the rest of the nurses are up to their ears in the flu shot melee. I’m afraid we’ll have to reschedule you.”
“But the sign on the door says sports physicals Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from nine AM till noon.”
“You’re right, Mister Brandt. But it’s twelve thirty now,” she sighed, exhaling slowly. He couldn’t tell whether she was mad at him, indignant, or just plain fed up.
“But I’ve been here since nine-thirty. Can’t you just go ahead and do it? The coach is really on my back hard. I got tied up studying for exams and didn’t get a chance to get over here before now.”
“Listen,” she sighed: defeated. “I know, ok. And it makes me madder than a wet cat; but I can’t legally examine a male without a chaperone in the room.”
“I won’t tell if you won’t. Honest.” He raised his hand as if he was swearing an oath, drooping his bedroom eyes to bolster his case.
“I really need to get this done before the coach cuts me from the team. My scholarship depends on it.”
“That bad, huh?”
She pondered for a few minutes, biting at her full, kissable bottom lip. That act was so alluring. He immediately felt the familiar rise under his gown. Abby Fulbrock was just plain beautiful. She could have easily had a career as a top fashion model.
“Oh boy. Ok, listen. All the nurses are tied up in that flu shot nightmare going on out there and probably will be for hours. Jeez. I certainly don’t want you to be cut from the team; or lose your scholarship. Believe me, Mister Brandt, I know this isn’t your fault,” she sighed. “And it’s certainly no way to run a clinic. Things around here are always in a constant state of chaos.”
She was deep in thought, twirling her long, beautiful brown hair around a tastefully manicured finger.
“Ok. Here goes. If you’ll give me your solemn word as a gentleman and a sportsman to behave and keep this to yourself, we’ll go ahead and knock this out and get you out there playing. Fair enough?”
Chase knew it was wrong, but he decided to see it through. It was a good opportunity to find out what the quality of the nurse practitioners he had to work with would be. He was praying they were nothing like what he’d seen from the others on the staff.
“You’re saving my life, Doc. I can’t thank you enough. And you have my word.”
“For the record, I’m not a doc. I’m a nurse practitioner. Now. Let’s see what you’ve got going on.
The beautiful Ms. Fulbrock had him stand on the wobbly scale and got his weight. He made another mental note that the height measuring bar on the aged scale was broken off.
She smiled pleasantly as she took his blood pressure in both arms, followed by his temperature. All things that flighty nurse should have done before Abby even came in to see him. His mental notebook was filling up as things progressed.
She felt along his head, then took the ophthalmoscope from the wall, turned off the lights and checked his eyes. Very thorough. He got a brief whiff of her subtle, enticing cologne. She smelled like a spring morning after a rain shower.
She turned the light back on and felt along his face, then got the otoscope from the wall and checked his ears, nostrils and throat, carefully guiding a tongue depressor around his cheeks to make sure nothing went unnoticed. So far she was impressing him. Sadly, he couldn’t help but cringe given the filth he’d seen so far. He was praying that the tongue depressor she was using wasn’t recycled.
“Can you drop the front of your gown for me please, Mister Brandt?” Her demure, sincere smile lit up the room. Her, he liked. He complied.
With the stethoscope in her ears, she carefully examined his chest, asked him to turn and thumped and listened to his back-taking her time, everything very by the book, never missing a step. He was getting more and more impressed with the lovely Ms. Fulbrock by the minute. Not to mention more and more turned on by the beautiful little woman.
As she listened intently to his chest, he glanced, nonchalantly, toward her left hand. No wedding ring. Not that that was a definite indicator. A lot of medical people didn’t wear their wedding rings because of the constant need to take gloves on and off. But he could hope.
“I’ll need to listen to your chest laying down and run an ECG, Mister Brandt. You’re young, and I don’t see any history of cardiac issues in your forms, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry. And the sports physical requires it. Can you lay back for me please?”
He complied, hoping to catch her with the oldest trick in the book. He was hoping that she’d forget and let the gown slide to the floor; but she held the stained, threadbare gown over his waist as he laid back. Her beaming smile never wavered.
She lifted the head of the table to the standard thirty degrees and listened to his chest again, having him roll to his side and listened further. The girl was thorough-and she was very good. Her easy style and grasp of the methods really impressed him.
She took her stethoscope from her ears and hung it around her neck. “I really don’t want to shave your chest unless we have to. Let’s see if we can’t get these antique pads to stick without having to resort to that,” she smiled, carefully placing the outdated , yellowing sticky pads to his twelve landmarks accurately, cleaning each site first. Abby was definitely working her way toward a raise. He smiled to himself: satisfied.
She ran the strip, watching it intently as it rolled from the ancient machine, then smiled. “No gremlins, Mister Brandt. So far so good. Now let me listen to those rippled abs of yours.”
Once again, there was that beautiful, blushing smile; and even a bashful wink. Chase was quickly becoming her biggest fan.
He couldn’t help staring into those big, beautiful brown eyes. The deep, flawless, mesmerizing shade of almond brown almost obliterated the whites. Small ephelis reflected the room light off of her stunning irises causing little rays to flash every time she blinked. Her long lashes just added to her stunning allure. He began to panic as the bunched gown starting to rise from his lap like a cobra coaxed from a flutist’s basket.
Thinking quickly, he started the almost impossible task of blocking out Abby’s angelic face and picturing the frumpy, haggish nurse who’d checked him in naked. Not surprisingly, the gown went south briskly.
Abby was text book. No rushing, no missed steps. She listened first, then tapped, then pressed and lifted over his solid six pack, taking her time, never missing a beat.
She grabbed the top of the gown and raised it to help him get his arms back inside, smiling the whole time. She even reached behind him to snap the neck snap. He got another brief nose full of that beautiful cologne and the gown started its’ upward rise yet again.
“Almost done, Mister Brandt. Can I get you to stand for me please?”
Chase slid off the table and stood beside it. She carefully turned him, her hands gently guiding his hips and pleasantly asked him to bend to allow her to check his spine while she held the gown closed over his ass. The beautiful girl was very thorough.
“A little further, please. You’re one big drink of water,” she chuckled. “How tall are you, anyway?”
“Six-four,” he smiled, returning her earlier wink. She just smiled that awesome, blushing smile, biting at that full, kissable lower lip. Those mesmerizing brown eyes were actually twinkling.
“Almost done, Mister Brandt,” she said, snapping on a pair of exam gloves. She sat on a rickety exam stool and rolled up beside him.
“Let’s make sure you don’t have any hernias. I’ll need you to lift your gown for me, please. Will that be a problem?”
“No. Do whatever you need to.”
He lifted his gown unashamedly; the effect the beautiful little woman had on him was waving before her shocked face in all its’ glory. Chase had absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. He’d been very, very blessed in that department. It had even been referred to as freakishly huge by his med school practice partner, Denise, during their practical labs. She’d jokingly named him Tripod.
He heard Abby gasp. He had to fight to keep from laughing. He got that reaction often.
When he looked down, she was blushing a deep shade of crimson. It was obvious that she was both shocked and impressed. She was chewing that full, luscious, lower lip for all she was worth.
She turned her head, reached blindly to rest her shaking hand on his thigh and felt her way to the top; refusing to look at the throbbing beast inches from her beautiful face.
“Can you…um…ah…spread your just legs a little more for me, please?”
He was killing himself trying not to laugh. She’d actually blushed herself into a deep, beautiful, shade of maroon.
He spread his legs as requested, her downcast eyes almost bringing the laughter he’d been vigorously subduing to the surface.
Abby slid her shaking hand up his thigh blindly and settled two fingers into his inguinal canal on each side in turn, asking him to bear down each time. He did.
“Um, you can drop the gown please, Mister…ah…Brandt.”
Now he was biting his lip to keep from laughing. He dropped the gown.
She turned back toward him and reached inside the gown and palpated his testicles. She may or may not have taken a little longer than necessary as she slowly fondled his large, swollen nads, but he’d gladly let that slide when he critiqued her.
“If you’ll hop back up on the table for me, Mister Brandt, we’ll finish up.” The rosy, beautiful blush still covering her angelic face just made her look that much more beguiling…if that was even possible.
She checked his reflexes and had him touch his nose with his eyes closed. Very professional. Very thorough. Chase was extremely impressed.
“Everything looks just fine, Mister Brandt. No worries. You’re medically fit to play sports.” She was writing her notes in his chart.
“Here’s your slip. Just give it to the coach. I’ll let you get dressed.”
“Um, Abby. Just a minute. Please.”
“Sure. Do you need something else?”
“Just to make a confession.”
All the chuckles Chase held back throughout the exam came to the surface in a torrent and blew from him in an explosion of laughter. He was laughing so hard he had to hold his sides.
“Well! I’ve seen a lot of patients happy to get a clean bill of health, but aren’t you carrying it a little far,” Abby asked: oblivious.
“Abby. Sit for a minute. Please.” He waved his hand toward the ancient stool. She did.
“Obviously, my name didn’t ring a bell with you. I’m Chase Brandt. Doctor Chase Brandt. I’m the new clinical director.”
“What?! Why…you…miserable sonofabitch!!!” She was growling. Her earlier beautiful blush turned a distinct shade of hell fire red.
Abby flew off her stool. It shot across the small exam room and exploded against the wall behind her with a loud crash, her beautiful face twisted in anger. She spun on her heel and stormed out of the exam room slamming the door, completely ignoring his calls to get her to let him finish what he was trying to say.
Chase jumped off the sticky table in a rush, threw on his briefs and pants in a flurry of arms and legs and chased her out into the hall, still buttoning his shirt single handedly: shoes and socks in his other hand.
He wasn’t familiar with the clinic yet, but when he heard a locker door slam down one of the numerous hallways, he assumed it was Abby. He followed the sound into a decrepit, nasty looking locker room that smelled like a fish truck that had been left in the broiling sun. He fought to hold his breath and breathe shallowly as he entered.
Abby was crying, leaning with her hand against a bent and filthy locker door.
“Abby. I’m sorry. And believe me, that wasn’t a set up.”
“What was it then?! Some sort of twisted performance review?! I suppose I’m fired?!”
“No, no, no. Quite the opposite, actually. Can we talk for a minute?
She wiped her beautiful eyes on the sleeve of her starched lab coat and gave him a long, evil, stare. Those light beams that he’d earlier equated to rays of sunshine were now daggers flying from those amazing eyes. She shrugged her tiny shoulders in capitulation.
“I suppose. But it better be good.” The look of total sadness on that beautiful face was breaking his heart.
“Let’s go outside. If what I think is going on around here, is going on around here, I don’t want to blow my conveniently acquired cover if we’re overheard.”
He finished buttoning his shirt, put on his socks and shoes and smiled at the beautiful Abby as he stood.
Holding his finger over his lips to signal for her to remain silent, he looked up and down the hall. When he saw it was clear, he gently placed his hand on Abby’s shoulder and led her the rest of the way down the dingy hall, opened the back door quietly and led Abby outside.
“Listen, Doctor Brandt, I know I screwed up back there.”
“That’s not why we’re talking, Abby. And it’s Chase.”
“Actually, I want to commend you for the way you dealt with me. Yes, it was a little unorthodox, and it was against standard protocol, but you thought I was in a bind and you took the patient’s needs into consideration. I only hope the rest of the medical staff are as conscientious and considerate as you are.”
“And, for the record, your exam skills are head and shoulders above most of the MD’s I know,” he laughed. “Relax. This isn’t a dressing down.”
“Well I have to say; you make one hell of a grand entrance.” Abby was exasperated. She was still wiping the tears from those beautiful eyes. He handed her his handkerchief. She took it briskly without a word. She was obviously still mad.
“It wasn’t intentional.” He went on to explain what he’d gone through to get into that exam room.
“Oh, boy! No surprises there. Sadly, that’s the way things are run around here, Doctor Brandt…Chase. That witch at the front desk has somehow usurped the keys to the kingdom from somewhere. No one knows how. If you complain, not only is nothing done about it, but she gets a detailed report on who told on her and what the complaint was. I’m currently reigning queen on her shit list.”
“Well I can assure you that will change expeditiously. Along with the filthy condition this disgusting clinic is in. All I ask is that you keep who I am to yourself for now until I get a better handle on things-or I get caught.”
“Well, sure. I mean; I want things to change around here, too. It’s gotten to the point where I can’t even stand coming into work anymore.”
“Trust me. Things will get better.”
“Now. I want to slip in there and see what more I can find out before I get found out. I’ll be calling all the staff in to talk with them individually before long so we’ll talk again soon. And wipe that sad frown off of that beautiful face. You done good, Kid.” He winked at her, rubbed her shoulder and snuck back inside.
***********************
The main hall was deserted as he cautiously looked up and down the dank, poorly lit, filthy corridors. He could smell various food aromas mingling with the mold and mildew smell and heard raucous laughter coming from far end of one of the numerous passages. He assumed it was coming from the break room. It angered him. Given what he’d seen so far, they had nothing to be cheerful about. He had a feeling the nurse who’d corralled him in that exam room rushed him in because she was in a hurry to join the frivolity. He’d deal with her later.
He went in the opposite direction and started going down random halls, opening doors and pulling back curtains.
He was utterly appalled. The entire clinic was a pigsty. He knew they’d hired him specifically, to do damage control and to clean the place up; but from the look of things, he’d be starting from ground zero. If the health department were to come in they’d close the place down in a heartbeat and hang a condemned sign on the dirty glass entrance door. He went from angered to enraged. And enraged was an emotion he rarely, if ever, experienced.
He found the lab and the trauma areas appalling. His anger was festering. He should have probably taken his tour of the shithole before he signed on to that obviously sinking ship. Unfortunately, if he had, they’d have been expecting him. Coming in a week early, unexpected and unannounced, achieved the desired result. He’d definitely caught them with their pants down. This job was going to be one hell of a challenge. But Chase loved a challenge.
The patient rooms in the infirmary smelled like feces. Unmade beds, filthy floors and privacy curtains that looked like they’d been used as hand towels in an auto repair shop.
He was just backing out of the infirmary, feeling as if he’d vomit, when he got busted.
“Hey! You! What are you doing in there! Get your fucking ass out of here! I’m calling campus police.”
“Good! Call them and tell them there’s a new sheriff in town and things are about to get mighty ugly around here. Tell them they’d better bring riot gear!”
“Who?! What?!”
“Surprise! I’m Doctor Brandt. Maybe you’ve heard of me? I’m the new chief medical officer.”
He almost laughed aloud. The shaken, foul mouthed nurse he was speaking to was the same one who’d treated him so rudely when he checked in. The same one Abby just warned him about. The look on her fear-scrunched face when she realized who he was, and the beads of sweat collecting on her pasty brow assured him that she’d need to change her adult diaper when their conversation ended.
“Oh. Doctor Brandt! But you’re not supposed to be here until next week. I’m so…”
“Save it! I’ll speak with you later. For now, I want to see the entire staff who aren’t currently seeing a patient out in that waiting room. Pronto!”
Chase stormed down the long main corridor and went out through the waiting room and locked the outside door. If there was any order at all in that circus, which he doubted, it wasn’t scheduled to open for afternoon appointments until one-thirty.
When he stormed back into the waiting room, the staff were filing in, languorously taking seats and chatting in hushed whispers amongst themselves. Every one of them looked lethargic. Defeated. Many unkempt. Like they’d rather be anywhere but there.
He leaned back against a barren, filthy information table that should have been filled with vaccine and medical information pamphlets, counting slowly to himself to calm down; but it wasn’t working.
“For those of you who haven’t gotten the word yet, I’m Doctor Chase Brandt. I’m the new medical director.”
“I had quite a different greeting prepared for my arrival, but seeing what I’ve seen in the few hours I’ve been here, that’s all gone out the window. To say I was disgusted by what I’ve seen would be an understatement.
“Well you have to understand…”
“I don’t have to understand anything!” He didn’t give Nurse Nasty an inch as he barked her into silence.
“All I can gather from what I’ve seen so far is that the staff of this clinic has no workplace pride whatsoever. And given the look of this clinic, and the way I was treated from the moment I tried to introduce myself at the sign in window, some of you had better go home tonight and start sprucing up your resumes.”
“I will not, under any circumstances, tolerate rude behavior toward the patients or the slovenly, disgusting way this clinic looks. This place is a shithole. If the health department were to come through here we’d be shut down in a New York minute.”
His initial outburst helped calm him somewhat.
“Now. I had no intention of coming in here and being a hard ass. That’s not how I operate. So I’m going to try my damndest to forget what I’ve seen today.”
“Who handles scheduling?” A slight, mousy little woman at the back of the room shyly raised her hand.
“Please go in there and call all this afternoon’s patients, and tomorrows patients, and reschedule them for another day. This clinic is officially closed until the day after tomorrow. We’re seeing emergencies only.”
“As for the rest of you, I want to see nothing but assholes and elbows cleaning and straightening this sewer up going on from now until end of business tomorrow. Everyone from lab techs and office staff to MD’s. Everyone! And if this clinic isn’t spic and span by five o’clock tomorrow afternoon there’ll be some major changes in staffing by five-oh-one.”
“From here on out, I don’t give a damn whether we’re seeing college students, homeless people, junkies or the President of these United States: everyone entering this clinic will be treated with a smile, kindness, understanding and respect. Every one of them is to be given the full attention and assistance from everyone they see from the moment they arrive until the moment they leave. Any deviations from that will be met with immediate and severe disciplinary action.”
“I’m appalled. I can’t believe I’m talking to medical professionals here. How you could actually profess to be practicing medicine in this festering pustule just makes my skin crawl. Dirty floors, used syringes on the counters in the lab, torn, filthy, exam tables with dirty, wrinkled, paper on them. Nasty exam gowns: the list is endless-and I haven’t even been here for a half day yet!”
“Now. If any of you have a problem with what I’ve just said, there’s the door.” He pointed intently. No one moved.
“Ok, then. Let’s get busy cleaning this petri dish. Who’s the clinic manager?” The same shy young lady raised her hand.
“Please call custodial services and have them send over a full cleaning crew with every vacuum, mop and disinfectant they have. Tell them they may need to be wearing hazmat gear.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Calming further, Chase let out a long breath, leaned back against a table, folded his arms and took on a more level tone. He was almost ashamed of his outburst; but there was no other way to deal with what he’d seen.
“Listen, People. Let’s drop the Sir, ok? I got enough of that in the Navy. I don’t usually even go by doctor. Most people just call me Chase.”
“This is definitely not the way I intended on introducing myself. We’ve gotten off to a very bad start. You’ll have to excuse me, but I was rudely stifled and basically ignored when I arrived, I waited over two hours to see a practitioner when the waiting room was empty; and then I was told that I couldn’t get a sports physical because it was a half an hour past the time physicals were done when I’d already been waiting for two hours and forty five minutes. Not exactly grounds for me to greet you with a song.”
“Ok. Let’s get to it. We’ll start fresh Wednesday. In the meantime, I’ll be reviewing your files and calling you in individually to speak with you.”
He heard the grumbling and griping as he went down the hall to his office. Tough shit. In this case, his rare flash of rage and thorough displeasure was justified.
As expected, his office was an unholy, shithouse mess. Clutter, dust and cobwebs as far as the eye could see. It looked like a Halloween haunted house and smelled like a landfill. The regional collegiate medical director told him that his predecessor was a nightmare on wheels who was rarely, if ever, on the property. He’d managed the clinic by phone for the prior ten years. It took a fatal overdose of opioids, with no doctor available, to finally wake someone up enough to realize the dire condition the clinic was in. So much so that they’d unceremoniously fired the last director on the spot and hunted Chase up personally.
“Chase was an active duty Navy doctor who’d been tasked with overseeing a failing base hospital that had suffered a fate similar to the one the university clinic had. There too, umpteen patient complaints went ignored for years. It took a commander, who was the cousin of a congresswoman, dying from a wrongly diagnosed case of meningitis-after he’d been left waiting on a gurney for hours-for someone to wake up and put out the red alert.
Coincidentally, Chase had just put his name in with a medical headhunting service His commitment obligation to the Navy was a month from its’ end. The hospital he was tasked with reviving was running pretty much on autopilot and he’d trained his successor well. His work there was done.
Within days after putting his name out there, the regional university medical director contacted him personally to ask him to whip the university clinic into shape. He’d been flown down to the director’s office at the state university in the capitol for dinner with some of this university’s hierarchy and an interview with the regional director and was hired on the spot.
A university clinic, at least he naively thought, would be far easier to manage than an entire military hospital: although the massive clinic he now stood in could qualify as a small, rural hospital: size and capability wise.
And if that wasn’t enough of an incentive, the money was almost triple. Not to mention that he was tiring of military life. He wanted to try his hand in the private sector. Looking around the cesspool he was now tasked with revitalizing, he started seriously questioning that decision.
He grabbed a handful of large trash bags from the almost barren janitor’s closet in the dank hall outside his office and just started emptying filthy shelves and book cases filled with nothing but junk into them. Long outdated, unread, medical journals, wank magazines and clutter filled the bags as he angrily ran his stiffened arm along shelves, sweeping them clean, then he dumped out desk drawers. He was tossing it all and starting from scratch. The university was founded in eighteen-ninety-four. It looked like some of the ancient handbills and memos from the clinic’s inception were stuck to, and rendered illegible by spilled coffee and God knew what festering inside the filthy desk drawers.
He laughed out loud when he found a wartime, nineteen forty something journal touting the benefits of penicillin and the miracle it was for our boys overseas. That one he saved as a souvenir. The distinct, cloying smell of ancient mold wafted out of every squeaky drawer that he had to literally force or jimmy open.
Three hours in and he was hauling twelve overstuffed lawn and leaf bags to the dumpster a few at a time: and he was nowhere near finished.
No one spoke to him on his many passes through the clinic to the dumpster out back-except for the maintenance guy he asked for some disinfectant and scrub brushes. All eyes dropped to the floor as he passed, ignoring his nods and hellos. Not the good foot he was hoping to start things off on, but he had a feeling moods and temperaments would level off after a few weeks. While he was used to working in the military system, he had no intention or desire to have anyone walk the plank. He was no Captain Bly.
His normally calm, rational approach to management went out the window that morning: but that too would pass. He’d quickly get over the shock and anger he’d originally experienced. He never stayed mad for long. But in the meantime, his six-foot-four muscular stature tended to intimidate some until they got to know him. He had no problem using that to his advantage-especially with Nurse Nasty. She was obviously a serious problem that he needed to deal with immediately.
The knock on the door startled him. “Come.”
“These are the staff files you requested, Doctor Brandt.”
“It’s Chase. And your name is?”
“Ann. Ann Michaels.”
“Any problems rescheduling the appointments, Ann?”
“Ha! Hardly! Um: I mean…no.” Her face immediately went from pasty to red and her eyes darted toward the floor. His initial assessment was right. Ann Michaels was obviously the meek and mild type.
“Sit for a minute, Ann. Please,” he smiled, standing, pointing to a freshly disinfected chair sitting in front of his desk.
“I’m not interrogating you, Ann. Just curious. What did you mean by hardly?”
“Can I be honest, Doctor?”
“I’m sure hoping so. I find honesty very refreshing.” He laughed, trying to ease her obvious discomfort.
“To be honest, I only had to reschedule two appointments. Most of the students refuse to come anywhere near this godforsaken clinic. We don’t see a whole lot of kids in here. This place is usually a ghost town.”
“As you know, college kids are pretty much indestructible. They don’t get sick very often; other than overdoses, hangovers, sports injuries and alcohol poisoning. On the rare occasions when they do, most of them go to the walk-in clinic on Chapman Street outside the stadium gate. They’d rather pay their parent’s copay; or have their parents pay the copay,” she chuckled “than have to endure the nightmare that is this place. I know first hand. My daughter’s a student here. She wouldn’t want to, and I wouldn’t let her step foot in this clinic if she ever got sick.”
“Did you ever mention any of this to my predecessor, Ann?”
“I never met him. And I’ve been here for five years.”
“Never?! In five years?!” Chase was appalled.
“No Sir. Jenny-she’s the head nurse-has pretty much run things since I’ve been here. And, as you can see, she hasn’t been doing a very good job of it. The NP’s hate her, the doctors hate her, and the rest of the staff avoid her like the plague. Basically, you’re walking into a never-ending pissing contest. Please don’t tell anyone I said that!”
“Your secret’s safe with me, Ann. What’s said in this office, stays in this office.”
“I’m afraid my bull in a China closet arrival may have ruffled a few feathers. That wasn’t my initial plan. But between you and me, who can I depend on? And, again, it stays in this room.”
“Oh, Abby for sure. She’s one of the NP’s. Tony, Barbara, me…the list goes on and on. Most of these people are good, kind, quality people. They’ve just been forced into submission and browbeaten into mediocrity.”
“Abby’s probably your best bet if you’re looking for an ally. And a very good one. I think she’s just gotten a little disheartened lately. She and Jenny go at it like cats and dogs. I just think the poor girl has finally said to hell with it, thrown up her hands and gone with the general, slack assed flow around here. Oops! I’m sorry.”
Chase was laughing. “Don’t be. I asked, you answered. And I really appreciate your candor. Thank you.”
“I better get back out there, Doctor. Jenny’s going to start browbeating me to find out what I said in here.”
“Ann. Things will get better around here. I promise. Just keep on keeping on and give me a little time. I can assure you that if it’s at all within my power, there’s going to be a lot of major league changes around here very soon.”
“I sure hope so. I was getting ready to turn in my resignation before I heard you were coming. I don’t do confrontation well. And this place is as confrontational as it gets.”
“You have my word. Thanks for the files, Ann. Have a good night.”
“Um, just one more thing, Doctor Brandt.” Ann was getting fidgety again, wondering whether to speak or not.
“Shoot.”
“Listen. I don’t mean to cause any trouble, and I hope you’ll keep this between us, but Jenny’s file there on your desk is her real file. There’s two. The one she keeps, and the one I’ve been keeping. The one she keeps kinda paints her in a whole lot more heroic, nurturing, Florence Nightingale light than her actual file does.”
“Why are there two files, Ann?”
“I just got so angry seeing her shredding the bad things so I started keeping a copy. No one but me and the director are supposed to have access to those files, but she just up and takes it upon herself to clean out any negative things I’m told to add.”
“As I’m sure you know, I’m required to put everything pertaining to the staff’s work performance in their file-good and bad. That’s part of my job. Complaints, good or bad reviews, absentees, the works. She just takes the file out of the rack after an incident, tears all the bad things out, shreds them and slides her version back in the rack.”
“And you brought me both files, Ann?”
“I did!” Ann was so proud of herself that her face lit up like a beacon and her chest puffed out with pride. “You can come to your own conclusions, Doctor.”
“You. I like, Ann,” Chase laughed. “And thank you for your honesty. I appreciate it.”
“You’re very welcome. Night, Doctor.”
Chase’s first act was to dig through the huge pile of staff folders and look for this Nurse Jenny’s files.
He kicked his feet up on the desk and began to read through both of them. His jaw hit the floor on the first page of the actual file. He laid the two side by side. And there were numerous pages in the file Ann kept-a big contrast from Nurse Jenny’s thin, heavily redacted version. A constant barrage of staff and patient complaints, poor reviews, unauthorized absences; the list went on and on. He was still shaking his head when his phone rang.
“Chase Brandt.”
“Hi, Doctor Brandt. This is Kay McMillan. I’m the vice chancellor and the head of human resources. I hate to welcome you aboard this way, Sailor, but I’m afraid I just received a very serious complaint about you.”
“Well! I’m honored. And only a few hours in, too. I beat my own record.”
“Don’t tell me. It was from…” He looked at the files again. “Sandler, Jennifer. Am I right?”
“I can’t tell you who levied the complaint, but if we were playing hot potato, your hand would be burning,” she laughed.
“Kay, aren’t you just across the quad from us?”
“We sure are. Addison Hall.”
“Will you be there for a while?”
“God, yes,” she sighed. “It’s been one of those days.”
“Would you mind if I came by to discuss this with you?”
“Not at all. Please do. I was hoping to meet you, face to face, when you got here next week,” she laughed. “I’m on the third floor. Last office down on the right when you get off the elevator.”
“Thank you. Be there in a few minutes. Bye.”
Chase picked up Jenny’s files and stuffed them in the backpack he carried wherever he went. It was, more than anything else, his medical bag. He always carried it wherever he went in case of emergencies. Sadly, its’ inception was the result of a very tragic event during a marathon run in his Navy days. The memory of that day still haunted him.
“Chase’s ship docked in Yokosuka, Japan for a liberty call. A very good friend, who he sadly learned too late had an undiagnosed, undetected heart condition fell out while he and Chase were out for an extreme run; far from the base hospital.
Chase did what he could, wearing himself out performing CPR, but without the proper medications and supplies, he was helpless.
In desperation, he threw his friend over his shoulder and carried him, running, back to the base hospital. Tragically, it was too late. Since then, his well-stocked medical bag went wherever he went.
As expected, he heard Nurse Nasty call to him as he rounded the corner into the waiting room.
“Have a meeting to go to, Doctor?” Smugness and assurance oozed from her mannish voice. A self-satisfied smirk spread across her thin lips.
“Why don’t you check with my publicist, Nurse Sandler. She keeps my itinerary.”
He could feel her beady eyes boring into his back as he went across the quad to the admin building. When he reached the door, he turned back quickly. Exaggeratedly. As expected, Nurse Nasty was glaring at him through the filthy clinic window. That same, self-satisfied smirk was still spread across her sour, wrinkled face. It was obvious that she was expecting him to be on his way to be put in his place after her complaint. She obviously knew nothing about Chase Brandt. He was laughing as he mounted the stairs to the third floor. He hadn’t been to the gym since he arrived in town. He bolted up the steps two at a time.
************************
His knock on the door was answered by a chipper, “Entree!”
“Hi, Kay. Chase Brandt.” He reached out to shake her hand.
He was expecting to meet the stereotypical librarian-type Ms. Crabtree vice chancellor when he walked in. He was pleasantly surprised. Kay was a tall, athletic, very beautiful woman who Chase could tell, was the spirited, spunky type from the animated look on her stunningly attractive face. She had that mischievous look in her beautiful blue eyes that just screamed hijinks.
“Wow! I think I’m coming down with something doctor,” she laughed, faking a cough. Her hand swooned to her forehead in an impressive Scarlet O’Hara impression “They didn’t tell me the new sawbones was a hunk.” She was so tickled she was snorting.
“And they didn’t tell me the vice chancellor was such a beautiful woman,” he smiled.
“Aw! Do go on,” she laughed, blushing, batting her eyelashes. “Do I get undressed now, Doctor?” Her laugh was contagious.
“I’m sorry, Doctor Brandt. You’ll have to forgive me. I’ve had this political correctness bullshit shoved down my throat for so long, sometimes you just have to blow off steam. And you don’t look like the anal retentive type…at all!” She was still laughing that cheerful, happy, laugh; her beautiful blue eyes smiling as she eyed Chase up and down. Chase laughed right along with her. He liked her right off the bat.
“No. I’m a lot of things, but anal retentive isn’t one of them! Nor is politically correct. And it’s Chase.”
“So nice to meet you, Chase. Now. What can I do for you? Fix you dinner? Buy you a house?” They were both chuckling like school girls. “How about if I start small. Coffee?”
“I’d love a cup. Thank you.”
She filled two identical mugs from the pot on her ornate credenza and sat one of the steaming beverages in front of Chase.
“Jenny Sandler’s an old story, Chase. I’ve been funneling complaints about her to the chancellor’s office for years. It does no good.”
“I’m new here, Kay, so I’m not sure of all the rules and regulations yet. However, if I’m not mistaken, the clinic and the campus medical staff are exempt from the chancellor’s review, are we not? Isn’t the hiring, firing and overall running of the clinic strictly up to the medical director’s discretion? That’s the impression I got from what scant literature the regional director sent me.”
“It’s supposed to be, Chase, but the piece of work who had the job before you kind of brought about a whole lot of extenuating circumstances and work arounds.”
“But nothing was officially changed, right? At least it wasn’t in the literature I read. If it was, I would have never taken the job. No offense, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to have a bureaucrat telling me how to run a medical clinic.”
“No offense taken. I like your style,” she laughed. “And, no. As far as I know, nothing’s been officially changed.”
“Kay. You’re human resources. Let me ask your honest, unbiased, opinion.” He opened his backpack and tossed Jenny’s massive file, along with the Jenny version, across to Kay.
“Read these, please, and tell me what you’d do? And keep in mind that the thinner, Nobel Prize worthy file is the file Nurse Jenny has condensed on her own. The thicker file is her actual file that the office manager made sure she kept the way she’s required to keep all the staff files.”
“Now. I haven’t had time to talk to the entire staff; other than to dress the ones on duty today down, but I did talk to one who was almost afraid to speak to me for fear of this Jenny ogre’s retribution; and another who was almost pulling her hair out over the conditions over there. And I’ve experienced her rudeness first hand.”
He sipped his strong, delicious coffee as Kay intently read through the actual file. She was shaking her head. Tsk-tsking. He could see the disbelief written all over her pretty face.
“Chase. Are you in a hurry?”
“Not at all. I’ve got all the time you need.”
She held up one dainty finger in a wait a sec gesture and picked up her phone.
“Hi, Clay, it’s Kay. Do you have a minute to step into my office? Great. See you in a few.”
“Clay’s the director of our esteemed legal staff, Chase. And he’s a really good guy. I want him to see this. Boy! Talk about a nightmare in sensible shoes. From an HR standpoint, just the fact that she’s been culling her file is grounds for immediate dismissal as far as I’m concerned.”
“That’s my impression. And I’d truly like to get this clinic off on the right track. She’s definitely not someone I want hindering that task. I’ve even heard through the grapevine that the students are either too disgusted to, or too afraid to go there.”
“That’s the general…” The knock at the door interrupted her. “Come!”
“Clay, this is Doctor Chase Brandt. He’s the new clinic medical director. Chase, this is Clay Sparkman.” Chase and Clay shook hands.
“I hope you can do something with that nefarious hell hole, Chase. That clinic has become a bone of contention and embarrassment-on campus and off.”
“So I hear. And I have every intention of doing everything in my power to turn that around.”
Even Clay was shaking his head as he read through the tome.
“So, Clay. Does Chase have grounds for dismissal?”
“She should have been let go years ago. Holy shit! And you’re right. Just the fact that she’s doctored her file alone is grounds for dismissal. The rest of this reads like a horror thriller. How has this shit been allowed to go on for so long? Is she in the witness protection program or something?”
“We don’t stand on political correctness behind closed doors in here, Chase,” Kay laughed. “Unless the chancellor, or some of the faculty or students are around, of course. You’ll soon learn who the ones you need to tread lightly around are. Wanna get censured? Just swear or say something politically incorrect around one of our woke professors. And we’re ripe with them. Big Brother probably has this office bugged,” she sighed.
“Let’s hope not,” Chase chuckled.
“Chase, you’re pretty much autonomous in the clinic. The chancellor has no control over you whatsoever unless you do something that goes against general university policy. Do what you feel you have to do to clean things up over there. Just make damn sure you cover your ass and leave a meticulous paper trail. Nothing around here happens seamlessly. Every decision any of us make is scrutinized and pushed back on. Academia, like the military, has a way of hiding their troubles by sweeping them under the rug.”
“Not on my watch. We’re supposed to be here to support these kids and that’s exactly what I plan on doing. What I saw today still has my blood boiling.”
“Go with God, my son, and good luck,” Clay laughed. “But be prepared for some backlash. Just know that you have two allies in Kay and me. We’ve been battling the establishment around here for years. Our efforts often prove futile, but we press on, taking our few winning battles where we can. The fact that you’re here now proves that we do win a few.”
“I thrive on backlash, Clay. And I appreciate the support,” Chase laughed.
“Kay, thank you. It was a pleasure meeting you both. I’d better get back to the clinic. I’m sure Jenny’s watching out the window and logging my in and out times.” They all shook hands.
“Any issues, Chase, just give me a call…any time,” Kay laughed, winked, and walked him to the door.
By the time he got back to the clinic, his mind was made up. He’d call Jenny on the carpet first thing in the morning. But tonight, he had every intention of going through the rest of the personnel files. He wanted to know exactly what he had to work with. He didn’t like surprises.
When he walked into the office, Jenny wasn’t at the desk. A pretty young nurse sat at the window.
“Hi. Chase Brandt. And you are?” He reached out his hand to shake hers.
“Trish, Doctor. Trish Meechum. I’m the night nurse tonight. I was forewarned of your arrival,” she laughed. “And while I missed your thrilling welcome aboard speech, you can consider me properly spanked, and totally on your side. Unless of course you’d like to personally spank me.”
“I usually wait until the second infraction before I resort to corporal punishment, Trish. And thanks for your support.” Chase laughed. “And it’s Chase, Trish. Nice to meet you. Who’s the NP on duty tonight?”
“Tony Parish. He’s in with a serious sore throat and high fever in six right now.”
“Oh boy. Ok. I’ll be in my office if anyone’s looking for me.”
**********************************
Surprisingly, the nightmares he expected to unfold from the staff files never materialized. All the apparent troubles in the clinic appeared to revolve around one person. Other than a few who might need a slap on the wrist, they all looked like good, quality, qualified people. On paper, anyway. He’d need to see them in action and not under Nurse Nasty’s thumb, to come to any definite conclusions.
He’d lost all track of time, lost in the numerous staff files, when he heard a knock at the door. “Come on in!”
The door cracked and the white handkerchief he’d handed to Abby earlier, tacked on a broom handle, slipped through the door, waving in surrender.
“Sorry! We don’t take prisoners here. It’s shoot to kill,” he laughed. “Come on in.”
Abby, his favorite NP, pushed through the door toting a six pack.
“For the record, this isn’t a suck up offering. It’s more a peace offering,” she smiled. “And I wanted to bring you back your handkerchief,” she laughed.
“Right now, I could use a cold one. Come on in and have a seat.”
“I just wanted to say that I have no excuse for today, Chase. I was just so frustrated. Situations like the one you were exposed to today are the norm around here; not the exception. And the students shouldn’t have to be punished for that.”
“I couldn’t agree more. And, as I said, you have nothing to apologize for. You handled that situation exactly the way I’d expect anyone with even an ounce of compassion would have.”
She handed him a beer. He gratefully twisted the cap and took a long draw.
“And I apologize for coming in like a herd of elephants. I’m usually quite docile, actually. But seeing what I saw today just infuriated me. You were just, unfortunately, collateral damage.”
“It used to infuriate me, too. But when it appeared that nothing was going to change, I guess I kind of went along with the flow to keep from blowing a fuse. Frankly, I got tired of having to clean up after everyone else. But I’ve kept my resume fresh.”
“Well I can’t give you any details, but I can promise you that things will definitely change around here. Starting tomorrow.”
“So, Ms. Fulbrock. I was reading through your file a little while ago. Army nurse, then emergency nurse practitioner, huh?”
“Yeah. Six years. I got my masters and my ENP while I was on active duty.”
“Oh well. When you can’t get into the Navy, I guess the dullards have to have someplace to go!” Chase laughed heartedly. She knew he was kidding. The old dig had been going on between the services since their inception.
“Believe it or not, I couldn’t agree more,” she laughed. A beautiful, carefree, laugh. “Unfortunately, my high school was Army ROTC. I never had a chance.”
“Your credentials are very impressive, Abby. And a little birdie told me that I could count on you as an ally. Is that true?”
“That depends on what that alliance would be?”
“Nothing sneaky or underhanded. I just want to get this place cleaned up and get things to where the students aren’t afraid to come here for their medical care. A clean, high quality facility where they’re treated with respect; and where they’ll get excellent medical care.”
“If that’s your goal, Chase, count me in. Tony, me, and a couple of the nurses, have done everything we could to turn things around. Unfortunately, with no backup, we’ve been fighting a losing battle. And there’s just no place to go to build up an alliance. The two doctors here treat us like their handmaidens.”
“I’ll definitely deal with that. Trust me.”
Chase took a sip of his beer and leaned back in his chair. “Abby. Can we talk: just between you and me?”
“Sure.”
“What’s this power that Nurse Jenny wields over everyone around here? She’s just one aged nurse for Christ sake.”
“Ah, but the plot thickens. I don’t know what the connection is exactly, but she has some heavy hitter relative or something in the ivory towers. She’s, from what I’ve been told, untouchable. She’s our answer to Nurse Ratched from Cuckoo’s Nest.”
“The last untouchable went the way of prohibition,” he laughed. “There won’t be any untouchables around here-myself included. And things will change. I have the utmost respect for nurses, but she’s part of the one percent that doesn’t belong in the profession. I believe I’ve got all the ammo I need, but if you have anything to add to the arsenal, I’d appreciate it.”
“Well let’s see. There’s that permanent, mean, nasty streak. The self appointed title of queen of mean. She’s rude beyond measure and a narcissist with a Napoleonic complex. Other than that, there’s not much more to tell. She never deals with patients, medically, any more. She just sits at the window, doing a damn good impression of the receptionist from hell, getting RN’s pay by the way, and she hasn’t done anything, medically, since I’ve been here. Not even so much as taking a blood pressure. And the entire staff hate her. Are you really going to fire her?”
“Between you and me? Yes. First thing in the morning.”
“Oh, thank God! I think you’re going to find that once she’s gone, this place will change dramatically.”
“That’s my intent. And I have every intention of calling all the staff in here individually and getting their stories and opinions. From what I hear, my predecessor was a real piece of work.”
“I’ve never met him in the three years I’ve been here. We just get the occasional email, or find some new edict tacked on the bulletin board in the break room. In truth, most of us are convinced it’s Jenny sending the emails and writing the manifestos.”
“Well I’m more the hands-on type. And I have every intention of seeing patients myself. I’m told I’m a fair to midline administrator, but I much prefer patient interaction.”
“God! I like you already,” she giggled. It was a sweet, pure, giggle that instantly got to him.
“So tell me, Abby; what do you see that can be done out there to make the clinic a much kinder, friendlier place? A place that’ll make the students feel comfortable coming here, and the staff happy to come to work?” He got a legal pad from his desk, ready to take notes.
“Well, you’re already off to a good start. Getting this place cleaned up will be a definite improvement. Can you imagine being told to undress and sit on one of those disgusting exam tables? And to put on one of those fungus infested gowns?”
“Been there, done that, gave myself a shot of penicillin when I got done!” Both of them were laughing.
“I’m so sorry, Chase. And in my defense, had I not had a heart attack when you revealed your true identity, I would have normally pulled the used paper and wiped the cot down with a disinfectant wipe.”
“I don’t doubt that for a minute. And I apologize for the heart attack. What else?”
“Let’s see. Better scheduling. And don’t misunderstand me. Poor Ann does a wonderful job, but she’s under Jenny’s thumb. Ann makes the schedule, then Jenny changes it. And it almost always ends up with Tony, Trish, Carol and me getting the absolute worst schedules.”
“Scheduling,” he said, writing. “Well, that’s easily fixed. I’ll do the scheduling myself from now on. On a rotating basis with everyone getting their time in one shot instead of day here, day there. How does that sound?”
“Like heaven! Lately, I’ll work a morning shift one day, have the next day off, then pull a night shift the next day, then have to pull a double and stay over for a day shift the following day. And it’s almost always weekends. She does it in spades whenever I’ve dared question her authority.”
“Let me ask you this: is there an on call room in the clinic?”
“Two, actually. They’re both store rooms now. I think the spiders have built their kingdoms in both of them. I wouldn’t go in either one of them on a dare.”
“Would you guys prefer to pull three day, seventy-two-hour shifts? Come in at seven one morning, work three days, and get relieved at seven AM on the fourth day? I ask because I’ve been reviewing the staffing. We’re staffed well enough to do it. We used to work that schedule during my residency and everyone liked it. That would give each of you four days off every week. And after normal clinic hours you can sleep or read in an on call room and just be standing by for any in house patients or night emergencies. I’ll get those on call rooms cleaned out and furnished if you all agree to the schedule changes.”
“You’re serious?! You’d do that?!”
“If everyone’s agreeable, why not? My job is to have capable, competent, bodies staffing this place twenty-four seven. If I can make those capable, competent people happy doing that, all the better.”
“I know I’d be elated. I’ve been trying to find a way to take a few extra classes; but with the way Jenny has us working, it’s been impossible.”
“We’ll have a medical team staff meeting here in the next few days; after I’ve had a one on one sit down with everyone, and we’ll see what the general consensus is.”
“Listen, Chase. And I hope I’m not out of line here, but I know you’re new in town and everything. Would you like to go out and get a drink? Maybe get the lay of the land from someone who’s lived here for most of her life?” She had a shy, embarrassed look on her beautiful face that just made her look even more appealing-if that was even possible. She was biting the corner of her lip apprehensively.
“Actually, have you eaten, Abby?”
“No. And I’m starving?”
“Well then; how about if I take you out for a nice dinner? We can discuss all this, and put on the feedbag at the same time. I haven’t eaten all day. Any good steak houses in town?”
“Oh, yeah! The Gaslight Grill. They’ve got fifty something varieties of awesome draft beers in huge frosted mugs and their steaks are to die for.”
“Sounds perfect. Give me a minute to clean this mess up and we’ll go.”
“Great! I’ve got some charting to finish up. Meet you back here in twenty?”
“Sounds good. And I’ll put these in the frig for our next powwow,” he laughed, lifting what remained of the six pack.
*****************
Abby was an entirely different person when she was away from the clinic. Even more breezy and cheerful. It was like the weight of the world was lifted off of her tiny shoulders as soon as she was away from the stresses she’d been dealing with for three years. Her professional practitioner persona waned, and a very cheerful, very beautiful woman emerged. They fell into an instant, easy, conversation. Their short walk to the restaurant was upbeat and chock full of happy chatter.
“So. Are you actually staying in that haunted, rat’s nest director’s house connected to the clinic, Chase?”
“Not yet. I’m staying at the Regal until they get the house whipped into shape. I guess the last director didn’t even live there. Ten years with no inhabitants really took its’ toll. I almost had to call in a hazmat team just to clean out that nasty office bathroom. I thought about culturing the shower,” he laughed. “I can’t even get into the house itself. I was told it’s unsafe. There’s boards nailed across the entrance from my office and across the back door.”
“Lots of luck getting the house whipped into shape any time soon. Campus maintenance seems to run about like that clinic does. Well, I probably shouldn’t say that. In all fairness to them, that’s probably not an accurate statement. Their lackadaisical responses may be due to Jenny, too. She’s never polite when she calls them to have something fixed. And she barks at them and browbeats them when they do come. She’s always criticizing their work and their response times. That’s probably why they never respond very quickly. Who would, willfully, subject themselves to that kind of treatment?”
“And her nasty greetings are probably a big part of the reason the clinic is in the shape it’s in. I have a feeling they’ll expedite the repairs on the house, though. It’s costing them a fortune to keep me at the Regal,” he laughed.
“Are you one of those pot stirrers, Chase? A rebel?” The waitress was setting their fishbowl sized beers on the table, then took their orders.
“Fraid so. Especially where that clinic is concerned. I just can’t deal with shoddy medicine. Never could. And I can’t stand seeing patients treated like cattle. I’m not at all afraid to ruffle some feathers for the right cause; and I don’t back down from a fight. I had a rear admiral at the last hospital I was in charge of that threatened to have me sent to Antarctica on a daily basis,” he laughed.
“You’re just what that place needs. Morale’s in the crapper. People are threatening to quit. Good people. And given the well-known reputation we’ve rightfully earned in all the local medical circles, finding replacements will be nearly impossible if they do.”
“Let’s hope we can turn that around. Happy people make for a fun and enjoyable workplace. When I see a happy, smiling staff, I know the patients are being properly cared for.”
“What about salary? I know what everyone makes, but how does that relate to the local trend? I didn’t have enough time to look at all the demographics, or do any due diligence on the area. They’d basically labeled this place a disaster area and wanted me here immediately. I didn’t get a chance to do a lot of the research I would have normally done.”
“We’re slightly under the average for the area, but there’s perks. If we want to take classes there at the school, we only have to pay for the books and class materials. Three weeks paid vacation every year. Sick days. Discounts on scripts. And either free passes or discounted tickets to all the events on campus.”
“So that’s not an issue I need to address?”
“Not really. I mean, no one’s going to pass up a raise, but money’s definitely not something that requires your immediate attention. The salary and perks are basically the only reason anyone has stayed this long.”
Chase laughed. “Ok. I’ve got quite a list here. What do you say we leave the clinic back at the clinic for tonight and just enjoy this awesome looking dinner, followed by a few more of these ginormous beers? This dark lager is one of the best I’ve ever tasted.” The smiling waitress was setting their delicious looking steak dinners down before them. The delightful aroma had Chase’s neglected stomach growling.
“Trust me. I know where to find a good beer,” Abby laughed. “A bunch of us come over here after work a lot to drown our sorrows and bitch about Jenny.”
*****************
The remainder of the night flew by happily. When they’d finished dinner, they just sat and talked and laughed. Mostly laughed. Chase quickly realized that Abby wasn’t just intelligent, but she was free spirited, sweet, and a whole lot of fun. She just had this way about her that immediately put him at ease.
When the bartender called last call, both Chase and Abby were hammered. The night had just been so enjoyable, and the beer and the conversation flowed so smoothly, that it caught them both by surprise. They’d even done an inebriated, off key duet to Radar Love-and received rousing applause during the karaoke contest. Unfortunately, they didn’t win.
He walked the stumbling Abby to her tastefully furnished, off campus apartment just outside the west gate and helped her in. Her hand-eye coordination was definitely out of whack. He had to take the key from her spastic hand to let them in. She plunked down on the couch, giggling, and was out before her head hit the throw pillow.
Chase just stood there for a moment, staring at the beautiful woman he’d just spent one of the most enjoyable evenings of his life with. She was just plain awesome in every way. So intelligent. So much fun. He truly wanted to see her, socially, again.
Abby wasn’t scheduled to work the following day, but Chase’s day was going to be a doozie. He gently slipped off her sandals, pulled an afghan from the back of her couch, covered her gently and gave her standoffish cat a saucer of milk. The wary cat quickly became his best friend, rubbing against his leg, purring loudly as Chase poured the milk.
He took one last look at her beautiful, sleeping face and locked her door on his way out. Thankfully her apartment was only a block from the Regal. He was pretty lit, and nearly forgot to set his phone alarm before he, too, passed out across his bed; fully clothed.
****************
In typical Navy fashion, he woke up, swallowed some ibuprofen tablets with a few massive glasses of ice-cold water to ease the throbbing in his head and started a mini pot of coffee in the complementary coffee nook; then took a cold shower. It wasn’t a cure, but it did offer some much welcomed relief for the familiar hangover. He dressed quickly, filled his thermal mug with coffee and was walking through the clinic door at seven sharp.
He was pleasantly surprised. The clinic, while nowhere near the standard he wanted to achieve, looked miles better than it had the day before.
Trish, the night nurse, sat at the nurse’s station filling out her end of shift notes.
“Morning, Trish. How was your night?”
“Hi, Chase. Gloriously slow, thank God. For the most part, the flu epidemic that’s been running rampant around here took a night off.”
“Just out of curiosity, Trish, were there any posters put around campus, or emails sent to the students encouraging them to get their flu shots back in the fall?”
“No. That should have been done, but…well…”
“Trish, you can speak freely.”
“Well: I saw the media materials come in from the health department back in August. The posters and pamphlets, I mean. If I’m not mistaken, you’ll find them buried under the volcanic eruption back there in the store room. Someone didn’t want to bother. Look at the information table out there, Chase. Nothing on it but dust.”
“So we’ve had a serious outbreak because someone didn’t want to carry pamphlets out to the waiting room, or send out a mass email?”
“Basically: yes.”
“Trish. When Jenny’s not here, who covers the check in window?”
“Ann, usually. She’s there at her desk anyway so she just multitasks.”
“When Jenny comes in, would you ask her to come to my office, please?”
“Sure will.”
As Chase headed down the hall to his office, he almost ran head on into Tony Parish, the NP on night duty, coming out of one of the exam rooms.
“You’re Tony, right?” Chase asked.
“Yes! And you’re Doctor Brandt. Nice to meet you. I heard you were here.” They shook hands.
“It’s Chase, Tony. Are you busy at the moment?”
“Nope. Just sent another fledgling flu case off with some Tamiflu. We’re only seeing priority cases as you requested, so it’s been a pretty quiet night.”
“Got a minute to chat?”
“Sure.” Tony followed Chase into his office.
“Sit, Tony. Relax. This isn’t an inquisition,” he laughed. He’d reviewed Tony’s file the day before. Like Abby, he was one of the good guys. Abby assured him the night before that Tony would definitely be all for any positive changes.
They’d no sooner gotten started when the knock at the door came. She didn’t wait for in invitation to come in. She just blew in like gangbusters.
“Trish said you wanted to see me, Doctor?” Just the intentional, dramatic, put-out look on her face pissed Chase off.
“I do, but I’m with someone right now. Have a seat in the outer office. I’ll see you when I’m finished here.”
“I do have a job to do out there, Doctor. Remember? Your rather boisterous orders to clean this toilet up. I don’t have time to be sitting around.”
Between her nasty demeanor and his waning hangover, he wasn’t in the mood.
“Ann will handle the window, Nurse Sandler. Have a seat in the outer office. I’ll be with you when I’m done here.” The tone of his voice left no room for discussion.
Nose in the air, and with contempt written all over her prudish face, she whisked out and slammed the door.
When Chase looked back, Tony was shaking his head in disgust. Chase wasn’t going to discuss Jenny’s impending ouster with him. They just talked in general. As expected, Tony’s interview almost mirrored Abby’s. And he, too, was completely onboard with the initial changes Chase planned to make.
When they finished chatting, Chase stood, shook Tony’s hand and asked him to send Jenny in on his way out.
He took a deep, cleansing breath and mustered up all the patience he could pull from his mental reserves. He never enjoyed firing anyone, but in this case he had no choice. Just for his own protection, he pressed the record button on his digital mini-recorder.
Once again, Jenny didn’t knock. She just whisked in like she owned the place.
“I’ve got so much to tell you, Doctor,” she quipped, plunking down in a chair, uninvited, her flabby arms falling on his desk as she feigned exasperation. He decided to let it play out for its’ entertainment value.
For the next half hour, she whiningly extolled him on how incompetent the staff was, how hard she worked to keep things together with no cooperation from said staff, and her ideas for improving the conditions in the clinic. When he’d finally had a belly full. He stopped her in mid sentence.
“Nurse Sandler. Frankly, I’ve sat here quietly and patiently and heard your complaints, but I’ve also spoken to a good many of the staff. And I’ve reviewed your file. Your actual file.”
“To put it in plain English; I believe you’re delusional. Your interpretation of why things are the way they are, and the actual facts, differ entirely. Not to mention that nothing I’ve seen or read made you the queen around here, yet you seem to have assumed that responsibility-much to the determent of the entire purpose of this clinic. And between what I’ve seen with my own eyes, heard from the staff, and read in your file, I find that I have no other recourse but to let you go?”
“What?! Why you impudent, wet behind the ears, little prick! Who do you think you are?! You can’t fire me! I run this fuckin place! I’ll see your uppity, ivy league ass being hauled out of here long before I ever go!”
Chase laughed as he picked up the phone.
“Campus police.”
“Yes, hi. This is Doctor Brandt in the student clinic. Would you send a couple of officers over to escort a disgruntled, belligerent, employee off the premises as quickly as possible please? Yes, thank you. Sandler. Jennifer. She used to be one of our nurses.”
“I’d suggest you collect your belongings, Ms. Sandler, and leave peacefully. We wouldn’t want a scene.”
“Oh, I’ll be back! You can bet your sweet ass on that! It’ll be you they escort off campus before this is over, you wretched little puke!”
Chase was laughing, sitting back, hands folded behind his head, watching her ranting rampage. She was red faced, storming around his office, cussing up a storm and calling him everything but a human being. Even as a sailor some of her obscenities caused him to blush. And he had her entire tirade recorded.
The knock came quickly. Apparently the campus police were more on the ball than some of the other departments he’d heard about.
“Come!” Chase had to yell to be heard above Jenny’s blue tirade.
Two burly campus police officers came through the door ready for battle after hearing her hysterical caterwauling all the way down the hall. Nurse Nasty instantly turned as pale as paste and went silent.
“Can you fellas watch her clean out her desk and her locker, then escort her off the property, please? And she’s not to return for any reason.”
“We thought there was a murder going on in here with all the noise,” one quipped. “Come along, Ma’am. Let’s keep this peaceful.”
She spun on her heel, nearly spitting. “I’ll be back! I’ll get you, you sonofabitch!”
“You gentlemen heard her threaten me, didn’t you?”
“We did,” they answered in unison.
“Can I have your names, please? I’ll need it for the discharge paperwork.” They happily complied.
*****************
Chase spent the rest of the morning talking with the staff. Not surprisingly, the news was out. Those who’d seen Jenny escorted out got on the clinic telegraph and spread the word. While he couldn’t, and wouldn’t, give details, everyone he spoke with for the remainder of the morning was ecstatic. They all knew his glaringly obvious reasons without having to be told.
When he spoke with Ann again she assured him that she could get a student from the job center to fill the newly vacated receptionist’s position.
The only dressing down he gave was to the nurse who herded him into the exam room. He accepted Alice’s apology and her excuse that she’d just been overwhelmed with the influx of flu shot patients. He let her off with a warning and a brief note in her file. He got the impression that she’d toe the line from then on.
Chase had a brief, impromptu lunch in the faculty dining room with the two staff doctors. That went extremely well. Unfortunately, both were teaching a class that afternoon, part of their duties, and had to cut their meeting short. They’d barely got past the pleasantries. They all agreed to meet again when their schedules gibed; but both of them assured Chase they were on board and elated that things were on firmer footing.
He went back to the clinic with a little brighter outlook to start working on the new medical staff scheduling and getting the filth cleaned up. Everyone he spoke to, including the two MD’s-who he’d also requested show their full respect and guidance to the NP’s-were elated to be on more predictable scheduling; although the doctors amiable schedule was already fine with them. He went through all the staff files to determine seniority, and worked up a rough schedule accordingly.
He took advantage of the fact that Jenny was filling a nursing position, regardless of her self-appointed queen receptionist’s title , and requested some nurse resumes from the staffing department. He was hoping he wouldn’t have to do any interviews until things were on more stable ground, but nurses weren’t an area they could afford to run short on.
When he looked at his watch, it was six PM. The day flew by. He was considering going out for something to eat when a knock at the door brought him out of his thoughts.
“Come on in,” he called.
“You’re going to cause me untold hours of grueling work, Doctor Brant,” Kay laughed, sweeping into the room. “My office has been a madhouse all day.”
“Don’t tell me. Nurse Sandler expressed her displeasure over her dismissal,” Chase laughed.
“And how! And so have a few of her ardent supporters. And the veil of mystery has finally been lifted, so to speak. It seems that our Ms. Sandler is related to the chancellor himself. And, between you and me, he’s an asshole.”
“I got that impression when I met him at my interview dinner at State.”
“Well, not to cause you any further headaches, Kay, but I won’t back down on this. The last director backed down twice. I won’t. I’m still in my six month window to reactivate my naval commission. And if the chancellor decides to somehow override my decision, I’ll just pack up my sea bag and go back to…well, let’s see? The last threat I got for ruffling feathers was for immediate orders to Antarctica. Yeah, that was the last threat. I’ll be going to Antarctica,” he laughed. “I hear it’s beautiful this time of year.”
“I don’t think it’ll come to that, Chase. At least I pray it doesn’t. But I have a feeling there’s going to be some serious heat.”
“Like I said, Kay; I thrive on adversity, fall out, revenge: all of it. It’s my milieu. And I’ve been dealing with it since I finished medical school. I’m either going to run this clinic the way I think it should be run, or my replacement can try his or her luck.”
“You are a hard ass, aren’t you,” she laughed.
“Well, Doctor Brandt, I’m not averse to a good battle. Honestly, knocking that priggish Horst Zeigler down a peg or two kinda gives me a warm, fuzzy. Clay and I meant what we said. We’re in your corner. I’ll give you a heads up on anything I hear, and Clay said he’ll back you up, legally, to the limits of the law-if it comes to that.”
“My ex’s daughter is a student here and Clay’s granddaughter is on the staff. Both of us want to see this clinic become a place where if, heaven forbid, anyone gets really sick or injured, they’ll get the care they need.”
“That’s my goal, Ma’am. And I get the impression from the staff I’ve spoken with that I’ve got some very good people who are more than anxious to make that happen.”
“Good. Now. If Zeigler calls you into his office, please leave that firebrand side of yours here in your desk. He’s the most self-important, nose in the air, uninformed little man I’ve ever met. He’s clueless. His world revolves around books. If he ever had to function outside of academia, in mainstream society, he’d die. And a raised voice will have him cowering in the corner.”
“That bad, huh?”
‘Worse. Trust me. I’ve been trying to get transferred from the first minute I met him. To appease me, the president gave me the title of vice chancellor to keep me there close to Zeigler. He wanted a friendly ally in the war zone.”
“Fortunately, over the years I’ve managed to work out ways to deal with him and conduct business behind his back to keep things running around here; but it’s been a nightmare, believe me. He’s clueless. How he maintains his position amazes everyone. For some reason the alumni seem to want to keep him in that position. If this is any indication of what you’ll be up against, his PhD is in entomology!”
“How fitting,” Chase laughed. “He looks like a bug.” That got Kay laughing.
“Well, I’ve dealt with admirals, politicians, and a whole host of other anal retentive pricks in my time. I usually come out on top because I never go off half cocked. I’m not worried about it. I had solid grounds to let her go. They’ve tried to get rid of her twice before. I don’t know their reasons for backing down, but I won’t.”
“The previous director backed down after his chat with the chancellor. But he was covering his ass. He was always one step away from the unemployment line and an AMA review himself. People who live in glass houses can’t throw stones.”
“I don’t have any skeleton’s in my closet, Kay. He’d have no ammo to use against me.”
“I know! You’re a regular boy scout,” she laughed. “I took the liberty of looking through your file to see if I needed to, shall we say, lose anything that might come back to haunt you. Nary a thing.”
“I’m a doctor, Kay. And I spent fifteen years as a guest of the government-either as a student or an officer. Not much chance to build up a rap sheet in an environment like that.”
“Well consider this your heads up. I know he’ll be gunning for you. She raised such a stink in the office this morning I thought I was going to have to call campus police to have her dragged out of our offices, too. When His Majesty finally called her in, I could hear the ruckus all the way down the hall.”
“Yeah,” Chase laughed. “She raised quite a stink in here, too.”
“That was part of her gripe. She said she was mortified and belittled by having the campus coppers drag her off in front of her coworkers.”
“I gave her the option to leave peacefully. She preferred to just stand there calling me names and threatening me.”
“She threatened you?!”
“Oh, yeah. Part of her tirade was in front of the two cops. I have it all recorded on my little friend here,” he smiled, holding up the mini recorder. “As I said, I know how to cover my ass.”
“Give me the names, Chase. We may be able to nip this in the bud before it ever leaves the admin building.” He replayed the last bits of their conversation for Kay as she wrote down the names.
“This is too good! Jeez! Talk about a potty mouth! I’m going to tell Clay about this when he comes in tomorrow morning. Don’t lose that, Chase.”
“Not to change the subject, Chase, but how did you get to be such a successful doctor at such a young age?”
“I don’t know about successful,” he laughed “but I graduated from high school at fifteen, got a full scholarship for my bachelors-which I got at eighteen-and got offered a full ride through medical school on the government’s dime in exchange for a hitch in the Navy. I couldn’t pass that up.”
“I guess not! So not only are you a hunk, but you’re a brainiac, too,” she laughed.
“I wouldn’t go that far, but I did ok. I’ve been very blessed in the opportunities department.”
“Well, I’m off. Keep in there swinging, Doc. It already looks miles better out there. I’ll see you soon. Call me if you need anything at all.”
“Thanks for everything, Kay. I really appreciate it,” he smiled, walking her to the door.
A few ideas popped into his head as soon as he sat down. All thoughts of dinner were quickly forgotten. Within an hour, his desk looked like an explosion in an office supply store. His computer screen had twenty open browser tabs as he compared prices, asked for quotes and ordered six new exam tables for the exam rooms, ten gross of disposable gowns and a whole host of other standard supplies that, according to the staff, had been in short supply for ages.
Somewhere around nine, another knock at the door brought him out of his trance.
“Come on in,” he called.
“You could have at least stuck around and let me fix you breakfast,” Abby laughed, coming through the door. “I hope you gave me my last rights before you left last night.”
“I’m glad to see you survived,” Chase laughed.
“I haven’t been that drunk since college,” she chuckled, blushing. “Did we actually do karaoke?”
Chase couldn’t help but laugh. “We sure did. And they didn’t send out the shepherd’s hook to drag us off the stage, so we couldn’t have been too bad.”
“I had a very nice time last night, Abby. Good food, good beer, and exquisite company.”
“Me too, Chase. Thank you. I needed that. And I hear the Wicked Witch of the South is gone.”
“Yes she is. She was escorted out this morning. And you’ll be happy to know that your colleagues all agreed on the revolving schedule. We’ll be implementing it the first of next month. I’ve offered to pay a couple of the maintenance guys overtime to get those on call rooms cleaned out, painted and whipped into shape.”
“Oh my God! You’re here for two days and things are shaping up already.”
“I always go for the easy fixes first. The hard ones always take too long to wow the masses,” he laughed.
He found he laughed a lot with Abby. She was standing there in a pair of tight jeans, pretty leather sandals, and a flowery blouse that showed off her awesome figure without being overly revealing. She was wearing a light lipstick, and just a hint of mascara. She was so beautiful that any more make-up would just hide her radiant, natural beauty. He felt that familiar stirring in his khakis again. In truth, every minute he spent with her he found he was highly aroused. She was just the right combination of all the good things that appealed to him in every way.
“So. What brings you out on your night off?”
“I tutor some of the nursing students on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We meet at the library and spend a couple of hours working through any issues they have. They’re taking midterms now, so only one of them showed up tonight. We finished earlier than usual so I thought I’d finish up some paperwork here so I don’t get behind.”
“I had a feeling you were one of the good ones from the moment I laid eyes on you,” he smiled. “Tutoring is a very noble pursuit.”
“I just remember what a hard time I had with pharmacology. If I can make it easier for someone else, I’m happy to help.”
“Got any plans for the rest of the evening?”
“Nope. I don’t exactly live life in the fast lane these days,” Abby replied. She had a sad expression on her otherwise flawless face.
“Well I’m starving. Care to join me for dinner?”
“I’d love to. Wow! Out two nights in the same week. My cat’s going to start getting jealous,” she giggled, coming out of her temporary fog.
“I gave her a bowl of milk before I left last night, by the way.”
“He’s a him: and thank you. His name is Erwin. I was in no condition to bend down and pour milk last night,” she giggled, blushing.
“Erwin?” Chase couldn’t help but laugh.
“I’ve didn’t name him, although it suits him. And if you were to spend any time with him, you’d quickly realize he’s definitely an Erwin.”
“So. If I’m not being too nosey, what other plans do you have for this place?”
“Well, for starters, I just ordered all new exam tables, privacy curtains, disposable gowns and a whole host of other goodies. I’m hoping to make this place look spic and span post haste.”
“And we need to start a heavily advertised vaccination program. Those flu cases you guys have been battling with might have been avoided, or at least greatly diminished, if they’d known they could have come here for a free flu shot. And there’s HPV, the meningococcals, the Heps. All things that in a communal, hormonal, situation like this are all real possibilities.”
“Well, hell. If you’re sure you’re not too tired for dinner, and you can tolerate my company for another evening, I’ll run some of these ideas by you over something to eat. You can let me know whether I’m delusional or not.”
“I’d like that,” she smiled. “And I’m starving.”
“Good. We did steak last night. What do you feel like tonight?”
“If you like Thai, there’s a great place just outside the east gate.”
“Love it. Let me shut all this down and we’ll go.”
*********
“Ho-ho-holy shit that’s hot!” Chase was fanning his mouth, quickly sipping his water after a few bites of his Pot Thai pork curry. Abby was laughing so hard she had tears rolling over her lovely high cheekbones.
“I warned you not to order the extra hot! And so did the waiter. They don’t spare the spices in this place.”
Her laugh was enchanting. So sincere. So pure. He was truly starting to really fall for the beautiful little lady. He hadn’t asked any personal questions of her. They weren’t that familiar yet; but he had to wonder how such a beautiful, intelligent woman got to be thirty-two years old without having a trail of men worshiping her wherever she went.
“I’ve been to Pattaya, Thailand where actual Thai’s make this authentically and it isn’t this hot.” He was still sipping his water, holding his glass out to the laughing waiter for a refill. His eyes and nose were running like a river down his red face.
“I can’t imagine the places you’ve been and seen. I was billeted at the Walter Reed ER for my entire enlistment. Trust me. Once you’ve seen the Smithsonian ten or fifteen times, and the cherry blossoms once or twice, the rest of DC is a real drag. That boredom is what pushed me to go back for my emergency practitioner’s degree.”
“So I’ve been told. A buddy of mine is an ER doc at Georgetown. He said the same thing.”
“You were a shipboard doctor, Chase?”
“For the first year. LHA’s. Quite an operation, really. But I minored in hospital administration as an undergrad, so that pretty much sealed my fate. The hospital at NAS Peabody had some issues that made the news, so they kinda scrambled to do damage control. I got picked from the list to straighten it out.”
“And how did that go for you?”
“Apparently, fairly well. When I left, we were recertified with all the accreditations, and our patient approval rating was in the mid ninetieth percentile. I made a few enemies in the process; which apparently appears to be par for the course for me.”
“You haven’t ruffled any feathers here, other than Brunhilda’s, have you?”
“A little birdie told me that the chancellor wasn’t too happy about my decision to let her go.”
“Pffft,” she laughed, flapping her hand. “Have you met that arrogant little prick yet? He’s got a stick rammed so far up his ass he walks like a windup toy soldier.”
“I’ve met him. Briefly. I got the same impression,” Chase laughed. “How much of a hard time he’ll give me is yet to be seen.”
“Are you concerned?”
“God no. I’m either going to run this clinic the way I see fit, or I’ll reactivate my commission and go back on active duty.”
“Please don’t do that. You’re like a breath of fresh air around here.”
“Well I appreciate that. Although, I just got here. Given a little more time, I’m sure I’ll have a few more spitting on the floor when they hear my name mentioned.”
“As far as the staff goes, I don’t think you’ll have any problems at all. A few of them will probably need their batteries recharged, but they’re all pretty good people.” Abby was starting to look a little bleary eyed.
“I get that impression so far. I’ve spoken with almost everyone but the pharmacists. I’ve asked them to stop by tomorrow.”
“Lisa and Gwen. Both of them are really nice and very good at what they do. *hiccup*”
“Wow! I don’t know whether it’s residual from last night, or whether I’ve had a few more beers than I thought I did, but I’m getting a wicked buzz,” she laughed, hiccuping again. Chase just laughed.
“Probably because that’s not beer,” Chase chuckled. That’s lao khao. It’s a rice whiskey. I thought you knew that? You ordered it,” he laughed.
“Oh no!” She was giggly. “I thought it was just strong beer that tasted weirdly good.”
“Come on, Slugger. Let’s get you home. I’m sure Erwin is worried about you.”
Chase paid the bill, laughing harder as he watched Abby trying to get out of her seat. The potent Thai whiskey snuck up on her and bit her in the ass with a vengeance. He helped her up and wrapped his arm around her to keep her from falling on her face. Being that close to the beautiful woman gave him a warm sensation that he thoroughly enjoyed.
“Not exactly how I planned on making a good impression on the new boss. And two nights in a row!” She laughed, slurring, then let out a burp loud enough to wake the dead.
“Oh, God! I’m such a lady!” They were both laughing hysterically, Abby staggering. The beguiling little woman was trashed.
“That must have come from your toes, Tiny Person,” Chase laughed.
“Whoops! Whoops! Wait! This is a short cut,” she stuttered, hiccuping, swaying precariously as they came upon a well traveled path through a patch of woods. It comes out right in front of my apartment building. Yup-yup!”
“You’re looking a little green around the gills there, Kiddo. Are you ok?”
“Can we sit for a minute, please? I’m feeling a little queasy.”
“Sure. Here. Sit on this bench.” He gently helped her swaying little body down.
As soon as her pert and perky butt hit the bench, she hiccuped again, got a surprised, terrified expression on her rapidly scrunching face and the flood gates blew open. A stream of everything she’d eaten and drank in the last two days spewed from her; covering her from head to toe. Chase had to jump out of the way to avoid the erupting volcano. He quickly grabbed her beautiful, dangling hair and held it up for her, rubbing her back.
“Oh my God! I’m so sorry, Chase! What you must think of me!”
“I think you’ve a very beautiful woman who just had one too many. It’s happened to all of us,” he laughed, still rubbing her back. She started to cry.
“Abby. Sweetie. Relax. It’ll all come out in the wash. It happens.”
“I’ve got to get cleaned up,” she burped loudly and started spewing again. Then the dry heaves started. “Oh, God! Oh, God! This is awful! Burrrrrrppppp.”
“Come on, Lightweight. Let’s see about getting you cleaned up.” Once again with the awesome Abby he was killing himself trying to keep a straight face and not hurt her feelings.
“Just carry me over to that car wash across the street and hose me down. I’m so sorry, Chase.” She burped and hurled again.
“We need to get some water in you before you dehydrate, Kiddo. Here we are. Let’s get you inside.”
The poor kid was a mess as she staggered and almost fell in the door. Chase caught her by the belt as she walked into the coffee table and started to fall again. She started crying again, breaking his heart. And she smelled really, really bad.
“Listen, Ms. Fulbrock, I’m going to have to go from your dinner companion to your doctor expeditiously,” he laughed. “You sure can’t lay down like that. Where’s your bathroom.”
“I’m so sorry, Chase. I hope you don’t think any less of me.”
“Of course not, Abby. Jeez. Lighten up. I’m a sailor, remember? And if you promise not to tell anyone, I fully admit to being in your shoes more times than I care to remember,” he laughed, leading her to the bathroom.
He sat her down on the toilet lid and stifled a laugh. The poor kid had puke from her hair to her tiny feet. He leaned in and turned the shower faucet with one hand; the other was keeping her from wavering and falling on her face.
“I’m so, so sorry, Chase. This is definitely not me.”
“You worry too much,” he smiled, unbuttoning her blouse, cautiously working it off of her gingerly so as not to sling the puddles of bile all over the spotlessly clean bathroom. He carefully sat it in the sink.
He knelt down in front of her and slid her sandals off; they, too, going into the sink. He smiled approvingly at her cute, perfect little feet. Even covered in her dinner, they were beautiful.
Erwin, hearing the commotion, stood at the door giving Chase the stink eye.
He unfastened her bra, adding it to the growing pile in the sink. He was fighting to keep his thoughts in medical mode, but Abby was utterly breathtaking. Those perfect, bubbly breasts stood out proud without aid of the bra atop her solid abs. The chill in the room brought her tiny pink nipples up to full mast.
One hand still on her shoulder, he eased her back against the tank and unfastened her belt and the button of her jeans. Try as he may to avoid it, his hands were covered in her dinner.
“Ok, Lil Lady. Let’s stand you up and get these sodden pants off of you.”
“I’d say you could have at least bought me dinner first, but you already did,” she sighed, then got silent.
He got her standing on her shaky, quivering legs, holding her up under her arm, and slid the pants and panties down her short, beautiful legs and sat her on the tub edge to work them over her tiny feet and straight into the tub. The vomit soaked through her jeans and stained her pretty lace panties. She just sat there silently, staring at the wall, her beautiful eyes at half mast as he got her free of the soiled jeans. It was obvious that she was embarrassed, but in her condition she’d have never been able to do it herself.
“Ok, Lieutenant, let’s get you cleaned up.”
“I’ll be mortified in the morning, Chase, but thank you.”
“There’s nothing to be mortified about, Abby. I’m a doctor; remember? You’re not the first beautiful lady I’ve seen in her birthday suit,” he laughed, trying to get her to lighten up.
“Beautiful? Me? Ha!”
“Abby, you’ll have to allow me a moment here, and I’m sorry if this is a bad time, but you’re probably one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
He was holding her up as he took the handheld shower head from the bracket and hosed her down. The water surrounding her pretty little feet was brown and green with a few identifiable chunks of the pad kra pao she’d eaten circling the drain. He stifled another laugh.