"The Business of America is Business."
The sheets rustled when I stretched my lower extremities (leg). Released from the grasp of my lower extremities clutching Sam's thorax (mid -- section), I massaged his testicles, 17 grams of pure trouble, I chuckled to myself, partly the cause of my predicament. How much more peace would the world be if most men lived without their gonads?
The early morning sun was streaming through gaps in the drapes on the bedroom windows of the ground floor apartment on State Street in Capitalland. Small wonder Sam was lost in a refractory period. We must have put quite a show on last night during our exercitus, (physical therapy) a workout, which took the form of vigorous copulation. Why not try for another? Does Sam have enough testosterone to deliver again?
"Delivers" had been the campaign slogan of one of the candidates for office, this November. I really didn't pay much mind to politics. Sam did and politics had much to do with the timing of today's argument. With attention in the courts and elsewhere focused on the elections, the story about sex and violence involved in the malpractice action against me passed unnoticed.
Going metric, having me pushing 90.7 KG instead of 200 lbs in English measures, had been the objective of the president ousted a couple years back. Timing was as essential as packaging and presentation.
90.7 KG sounds a lot better to an obese girl. Pleasantly plump in my former friend's and roommate's lexicon, "Zaftig," shaped like round -- bottomed, flared flask beaker you might find in the lab, nonetheless, I had exceeded my own expectations. Was it even plausible? What had my sleeping lawyer companion declared in court today? "Plausibility," Sam had pled in court on my behalf, "is the measure which determines whether the story is one worthy of being re-told."
My path to rolling Sam's testicles between my digits (fingers) was a case study in implausibility. After having carried on a same - sex relationship with my former friend and tenant Erica Ehrlich whom I faced down this morning in court, I fortified my lawyer Sam who defended me from Erica's malpractice charge that I abandoned her naked and helpless after she walked into the middle of a drill of the joint emergency response team which I had supervised on behalf of University Hospital in a play acted mass disaster.
In the 1970s, the pall of the threat of malpractice hung over the medical profession. Malpractice reform was debated in the gabbled state legislative building in Capitalland without resolution. My lawyer Sam had said too many legislators had a piece in lawsuit lottery.
My malpractice accusation crept at me through a chain of improbable miscalculations. Instead of a simulated mass disaster, I found myself kneeling in front of a real casualty. My roommate Erica Ehrlich, lay sprawled with her legs spread in a provocative posture as if she were inviting a sexual encounter.. Her clothes, a red sweater and slacks, cut away from her body by over - enthusiastic med students, lay scattered on the street in tatters. Around her neck intact like a hangman's noose was the red scarf I had given her that morning.
Nearby, to my right, a tall thin woman, hands on her hips wearing that tell -- tale red scarf and sweater was arguing, that she had shown up and was entitled to be paid, even if Emergency Response hadn't used her. To my left, two first year med students were babbling that "we couldn't have known, the girl in the red sweater and scarf wasn't an actor in the mass catastrophe drill when she came out of nowhere at the corner. 'The victim' put up resistance. So, we cold -- conked her."
A burly Capitalland firefighter in a blue utility uniform took charge sending the shrieking actress up Central Avenue to the command center for her pay. "You got a free ride," the firefighter, looking down at Erica and taking her pulse with his hand, dismissed the actress, "on someone else's ticket." Lifting Erica's eyelids, the firefighter expressed regret, "I'd get my equipment, but I'd draw too much attention if I went back to the meat wagon to get the tools of my trade."
I thought to myself, why is he saying that? Rendering Emergency Treatment is what we do. Why would we keep that secret? I took a deep breath to demand, "What happened to Erica's purse?"
The firefighter snickered, "How long have you been around hospitals? Everyone in a hospital is an opportunist." Furtively looking around, the firefighter growled, "Time to scoot."
Assuring me that he'd call in an anonymous report so that Erica would be picked up right away, the firefighter cautioned me,. "We have to bury this story. Emergency med response's positive public image might be destroyed by an incident like this." The firefighter's eyes locked with mine. In a blood chilling tone, the firefighter added, "You know what they say happens to doctors' mistakes."
I sighed. I knew that the image of medicine had to be preserved. A shroud of silence fell on error. I was still kneeling by Erica's side on Central Avenue when the fire rescue ambulance pulled up alongside. I had misgivings.
"She was your ride? She ain't going nowhere. Climb aboard," the firefighter ordered, "I'm sure Police will be by in a few minutes, She will have a bad head -- ache and ringing in her ears tomorrow, but no permanent damage. Where can I drop you?"
In the truth that Sam occluded and no one needs to know, I justified my actions to preserve the image of medicine required by covering up the error. With an expected immediate police response to an anonymous tip, Erica should suffer little more than mild traumatic brain injury (headache) with nothing more serious than transitory tinnitus (ringing in the ears). I expected the firefighter I worked with to make report as promised. I did never anticipated the consequences Erica would suffer.
Sex, violence, betrayal of a friend would have made a great story. Imagine that all that involving me a person who set out to become a nun! Celibacy cast aside, goodness has nothing to do with any of it.
Some nun! In my last year in Med School with rising prices, my former roommate and current nemesis Erica and I appeared in my classmate's porn productions. Initially recruited by the producer -- director, my classmate Al Mandy, a tall swarthy pretend Saxon with a cultivated British accent, to play fully clothed parts in A NUN'S STORY, I daringly agreed to provide a comic relief of sorts, an obese girl bouncing her mammaries (boobs) running in an unclothed condition (nude) down the hall to join the other girls in a convent school's communal shower.