But Wait.... There's More! #2

BUT WAIT.... THERE'S MORE! #2

by

HARVEY JACOBS

Produced by ReAnimus Press

Other books by Harvey Jacobs:

Beautiful Soup

Side Effects

American Goliath

Coming soon: The Egg of the Glak, by Harvey Jacobs

Coming soon: The Juror, by Harvey Jacobs

But Wait.... There's More! #1

But Wait.... There's More! #3

© 2017 by Harvey Jacobs. All rights reserved.

http://ReAnimus.com/store?author=harveyjacobs

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Table of Contents

THE MIRACLE CURE

Introduction to DEAR HITLER,

DEAR HITLER,

THE SYNCHRONOUS SWIMMER

PRE-EMPTIVE ACTION

PROJECT $ (CITYSCAPE 1955)

THE NEGOTIATORS

ROGUE

THE EXERCIST

About the Author

THE MIRACLE CURE

Ordinarily, Dr. Tobey Chalmers would have ascribed the story she heard in Beijing at the conference of Gastroenterologists as another of those stories of medical miracles that seem to be a combination of myth and magic. But this time, she listened to the English translator (who attempted to project the passion of Dr. Chang Yu’s account) with special interest. One reason was because she had heard the identical story of an overnight cure at meetings in London, Ankara, Rio and at her own hospital in San Diego not two months before.

The usually reserved Dr. Yu was waving his arms and practically shouting at his audience of non-believers, many of whom could not suppress an audible titter. The translator had a coughing fit trying to keep up with the speaker’s emotion but did his best. The voice in Dr. Chalmers earphones cracked and crackled as the translator apologized for taking time to sip some water but even Dr. Yu took a break to wipe his forehead as his face turned an alarming shade of red.

I am a rational man, he said, leaning closer to his microphone, "but I promise you I am telling the truth. My patient had been prepared for gall bladder surgery the following morning. This was not to be a laparoscopic procedure since his gall bladder was a bag full of marbles and ready to rupture. In fact, I had never before seen such an advanced and urgent case.

"Of course, we had done every test to confirm our diagnosis; there was no doubt about what caused his symptoms or what course to follow. The patient responded well to the anesthesia and I made my first cut. I was about to excise the infected, stone-filled gall bladder when I began to realize that the problem was already resolved. Moments before the second incision, I was forced to accept that all signs of trouble were gone. This clearly chronic gall bladder was perfectly normal! In fact, it was a gall bladder to envy, an excellent gall bladder certainly in no need of removal. I repaired my patient’s wound and had him wheeled first to radiation, which confirmed his amazing overnight recovery, then back to his bed where he healed quickly.

It was not easy explaining the events to him or his family, much less to myself and my colleagues. Doctors, this experience confirmed what we all know…that there are such things as miracles. Dr. Yu half-bowed and backed away from the microphone. He waited for audience response. First there was silence. Then Dr. Yu’s story was received with polite applause, except from Dr. Chalmers who leapt out of her seat shouting, Yes! Yes! Yes! then stopped abruptly realizing she was being looked at like some kind of mental case.

She heard one of the doctors in the row behind hers make some remark about her California credentials. The land of nuts and fruits was what he said, a familiar bromide. But Dr. Chalmers was unshaken, convinced that something was going on deserving investigation.

Back home in San Diego, she arranged a meeting with a fellow surgeon, Dr. Bodley-Smyth, a physician with an untarnished reputation. When Dr. Chalmers told him what she’d heard at the Beijing Conference, she saw his eyes lower and his face pale. One of the most respected surgeons in the world admitted that he’d had an experience identical to the one described by the Chinese MD, a gall bladder that healed itself. She expected some response akin to excitement, like Dr. Yu had expected a round of rousing applause or at least a gasp of astonishment, but Dr. Bodley-Smyth surprised her by his posture of indifference.

I do appreciate your sharing the story with me, he said, I mentioned my experience with the overnight cure to some close friends and, believe me, I took a lot of flak for having brought up the subject in the first place.

"It isn’t in the first place," Dr. Chalmers said. I’ve heard the same story several times in the past few years and you just admitted to an equivalent case here in our own hospital. Surely this is beyond coincidence…

Dr. Chalmers, odd as it may be, there is a phenomenon, a form of animated hysteria, where certain weird stories fly around the world faster than rumors of alien abduction. Anything suggesting even the slightest echo of the occult has a ready audience. One hears talk of such things on late-night radio where flying saucer insomniacs gather to vent. Our appetite for magic, for the tantalizing impossible, angels, devils, demons, zombies and the like, is insatiable. Such unscientific prattle is so compelling it can influence thought, even behavior, in the most rational among us.

But, doctor, you said this was your own experience. And your whole surgical team witnessed…

A so-called medical marvel? I doubt the marvel part. There are too many factors that might have influenced the ‘marvel’, none of which are marvelous. A delayed reaction to drugs, the human body’s ability to repair itself, and so forth. I admit to being caught up in the gravitational pull exerted by our desire for marvels but I got over my own suspension of disbelief. I came back to reality with the help of some healthy taunting from many associates who didn’t want to see me fall over the deep end of sanity. And I suggest you do the same as soon as possible.

But…

I have another ripe gall bladder scheduled for this afternoon, Dr. Bodley-Smyth said. I guarantee it won’t cure itself. Well, doctor, it’s been nice chatting with you. Then he turned and walked quickly back toward the hospital. Dr. Chalmers thought she could smell a faint contrail of fear. She stood watching the Pacific waves, trying to yield to what seemed like sensible advice, but she couldn’t cancel the pendulum of curiosity swinging in her mind.

Sorry, she said to Dr. Bodley-Smyth’s retreating body. But Dr. Chalmers refuses to leave the unexplainable unexplained. I am going to palpate the belly of these marvels you dismiss so blithely and dredge up some answers.

In the following months, Dr. Chalmers made herself available for every gall bladder operation that the hospital performed, both profitable and pro bono. Every surgery she did was routine. The patients who were prepped for gall bladder removal the night before woke with the same stone problem intact.

The only difference from the hospital’s usual ritual was that Dr. Chalmers spent the entire pre-surgical nights fighting to stay awake in a reclining chair she had placed in the patient’s room. As Dr. Bodley-Smyth predicted, other medics and nurses began to look at her strangely. She even looked strange to herself starring into the mirror while she sterilized her hands before entering an operating theater.

On a deep winter’s night, after many months of spying on men and women about to be liberated from gall bladders bulging with rock-hard calcifications, Dr. Chalmers fell asleep in her reclining chair while watching her next patient for some sign of an overnight remission. She was jolted awake by a long, low moan coming from the woman occupying the bed. The woman was not a complainer. She had been admitted to the hospital in extreme pain but she’d never lost her composure or taken comfort in so much as an audible prayer.

The moan was definitely not consistent with her stoical acceptance of whatever fate lay in store for her. When she was told that she would lose her gall bladder in the early morning, she merely nodded. The procedure was to be performed by Dr. Tobey Chalmers who announced that she would spend the night in the woman’s room, watching over her vital signs.

Don’t you have nurses who do that sort of thing? the woman asked.

We do, Dr. Chalmers answered, but I am the exception to the rule. I service what I sell.

The woman licked on a few ice chips, endured some jabbing and questioning by a nurse who was particularly resentful of Dr. Chalmers’ overnight sentry duty, then fell asleep with the help of a powerful sedative. Her breathing was so rhythmic, so like a lullaby, Dr. Chalmers was soon curled in her chair drifting into a dream. Hours passed before she woke hearing the long, almost seductive groan.

Startled, she jackknifed into a normal sitting position and rubbed the dream remnants from her eyes. Bending over the patient was a man wearing a plaid shirt, blue jeans, heavy boots and a battered hat. Just as Dr. Chalmers saw the stranger, he turned abruptly and starred at her, eye to eye. No question, she’d seen him somewhere before.

She took a minute to recognize his sun-leathered, time creased face. He was the man holding the pitchfork in Grant Wood’s iconic painting, American Gothic, a work of art become a cliché. This intruder, a Midwestern mushroom of a man, somber and soil-stained, was certainly not a member of the hospital’s staff.

Dr. Chalmers was relieved to see that he was not carrying his trademarked pitchfork. His right hand was flat on the sleeping patient’s abdomen; his left held some tool like an industrial flashlight buzzing and flickering as it scanned her body.

Who the hell are you and what exactly do you think you’re up to? Dr. Chalmers said, standing up and reaching for a phone to call security.

I am Mr. The Farmer. And please don’t bother calling for help because the phone won’t work.

We’ll see about that, Mr. The Farmer. Dr. Chalmers lifted the phone and got nothing but a high whine.

By the way, I am calld Dr. The Farmer. At least in my dimension. And I did not mean to disturb you but it’s just as well. Some confrontation was inevitable what with your pre-op vigils. You’ve brought inordinate attention to the so-called gall bladder miracles. Too many scientists around the galaxy are asking questions.

Around the galaxy? Why don’t you take your medicine and go back to the psych ward, Dr. The Farmer.

I sense reluctance, a snide barb when you honor my title in your condescending voice. I have twelve advanced degrees in medical specialties you’ve never even heard of, not to mention your own. And I offer my skills free of any charge to indigent patients in the final stage of desperation. They cross the universe to visit my clinic.

Nice of you, Dr. Chalmers said. "Admirable. Then why aren’t you wearing a white coat or at least scrubs instead of that Grapes of Wrath getup? And what’s all this, this Dr. The Farmer business?"

I am a farmer, Dr. Chalmers. My farming pays for my clinic.

Dr. Chalmers noticed a look of pride flicker over the man’s face. That face was not unpleasant, a cross between Harrison Ford, Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart and Ronald Reagan. His body language was also pleasing, long, lanky, slender, strong, more protective than threatening. She felt a sudden inner warmth, an echo of feelings long suppressed by the demands of her dedication. Dr. Chalmers realized she hadn’t touched another human except through the barrier of rubber gloves in years. That surge of heat built into a blush. Dr. The Farmer noticed her unexpected reaction and smiled.

I suppose the only way to satisfy your curiosity about the gall bladder miracle cures is to open doors I expected to keep shut. We are going on a trip, you and I and this woman here in the bed. Dr. The Farmer touched a key on the device in his hand. A rainbow of light filled the room.

I’m not going anywhere, Dr. Chalmers said. And my patient certainly is not leaving this… She felt herself dissolved into a rainbow spectrum of familiar colors and others she’d never seen. Then Dr. Chalmers was whirled in a blender with such force that she was stripped naked. After what seemed like an endless ride on a manic carousel, the spinning stopped, hurling her into a wall of soft fabric. She passed through the fabric, emerging into the arms of Dr. The Farmer who cloaked her embarrassed body in an outfit made of tiny bubbles.

Sorry about your clothes, Dr. The Farmer said. Everything will be returned in due course.

Dr. Chalmers felt her head clear and found herself in a pristine white cube of a room lit by a bank of spotlights not unlike those used to illuminate sports stadiums during night games. The only furniture in the space was a bed where her patient slept peacefully, untroubled by her kidnapping and a tray that hovered in space with no base for support. That tray held an assortment of unfamiliar metal instruments polished to perfection and a small pail that seemed to be carved from ice.

We do try to thwart any chance of infection during a procedure, Dr. The Farmer said. But as you know, microbes do have a way of sneaking in through the most miniscule ports or possibly in our exhalations. Now I will release the Famished Cloud.

The…?

Dr. The Farmer touched something on the instrument table and suddenly the room filled with a hoard of particles that made munching sounds like a swarm of beetles while emitting sounds that reminded Dr. Chalmers of baby burps. Then the storm dispersed.

Nothing left to worry about, Dr. The Farmer said. No bug can survive their hunger. The Famished Cloud is the ultimate disinfectant.

So your surgery is completely sterile? Dr. Chalmers said, scratching her body where the outfit of bubbles caused an itch.

My surgery? Oh, no, no, Dr. The Farmer said. This is my farm, or at least a key part of my farm. The milking chamber.

Milking chamber? What do you milk? Dr. Chalmers said, feeling a wave of anxiety pass through her carbonated wrap.

"The woman on the table, of