"Whisper of the Wind"
Chapter 13
"Bedside Manor"
December 2024:
Leather:
Mountain View was a damn sight better than any of those other places his family wanted to hide him. He never lasted at any of them. The longest was at one of those ugly state-run joints that hired idiots off the street who knew nothing about caring for cases like Wilson's.
He'd languished there for way too long, and I hated knowing he lived under those heartbreaking circumstances.
I had no say in the matter. He and I were not blood-related. I waited and watched from a distance. I had recently awakened from a coma myself, and there was no way I could leave the hospital. I was trussed up in casts and braces like a captured grizzly bear, and I wanted the Wilsons to get lost, and for my friend to come to me …
I was so full of shit!
When Wilson's parents died within a month of each other, his only remaining brother
left New Jersey for good. Tom Wilson went to California, probably to get away from the responsibility of his kid brother's care. Two brothers: one a vegetable, the other, God knew where. Tom thought Jimmy and I were fags anyhow, the bastard. That was fine with me. Wilson needed such morons like he needed another fucking hole in his head!
A week later, I asked Billy Travis to call his older brother in Michigan and arrange for Wilson to be transferred there. Billy had wanted to do that anyway, but he also wanted me to be well enough to understand his suggestion to do so.
Whit and Billy Travis owned a hospice near East Lansing where Wilson would finally get the treatment he deserved. Whit knew about the friendship between his brother and Wilson and me, and he knew about the accident. He and his kid brother were close, and I was sure he was the right man to watch over the most important person in my miserable life.
Right then, I decided I would leave Princeton and "die" also. I couldn't work anyway. Hell, I couldn't move! Lisa Cuddy kept me on the books, I guess, more out of charity than any real value I might have been to the hospital.
The name "Gregory House" didn't turn heads in medical circles anymore. It just drew a bunch of blank stares.
It was time to move on. Maybe time to dump the name too. Nobody needed to know where I was … or where Wilson was … except maybe one or two people. The time for some real anonymity was way overdue.
I'd heard there was soon going to be a shakeup at PPTH. Lisa Cuddy was getting hitched, finally, to a high mucky muck cardiovascular specialist in Syracuse, New York, and I'd heard that Eric Foreman was being groomed to replace her as Dean of Medicine.
I wanted to come back to work under him like I wanted to be run over by a damn school bus!
The rest of my old team … and the team after that … were just fine on their own and doing the same kind of work they would do if I were right there. I never hung around with any of 'em. They all thought I'd lost my marbles at the same time I'd "lost" Wilson. They were probably right. They'd kept a close watch on me while I was in the coma, or so I'd heard. But when I finally came around, they all went back to business as usual.
I never thanked them; they never expected me to …
By that time I'd healed a bit more and began to undergo rehab at my own place. I'd had the kidney transplant and looking forward down the road to the same thing happening with the lungs and liver. Too much pain … too many drugs … even the "safe" ones … administered too often … and after awhile a man's organs begin to whither and die on the vine.
Losing Wilson from my life was like losing my heart, and I might have been better off without any of them …
Before the horrible day when I woke up and discovered he'd gone around the bend forever, I'd had no idea what he actually meant to me. I never knew how much I gave a shit, or how much I would miss him. Only that his goofy face and sad, intelligent eyes were no longer occupied by the force that was Wilson.
The worst thing of all was that I'd never told him any of this when he could hear it and understand. I didn't know the truth myself until it was too late. That was what hurt the most. Tom Wilson had sensed it, and I had called him an asshole. Well, he was … but that was beside the point.
I sold most of the paraphernalia I'd accumulated over the years. A truck picked it up and took it off somewhere. And I "died". Billy packed the rest when I moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, home of my alma mater. Far away from Princeton and close to Mountain View.
I found myself a contemporary "handicap" apartment and took a position as diagnostic consultant and faculty advisor at the university. I was healing by then, except for the damn leg. I was calling myself "Leather", and getting used to answering to it …
It wasn't that far from Lansing, and I could visit Wilson whenever I wanted. I could sit there with that empty shell of skin and bone that had once housed the essence of this dear friend of mine.
I could tell "Whitey" some of the things I'd thought about all those years … some of the stuff I'd wondered about the two us, but could never find words that made any sense, either to him or to me.
It became so much easier to say this stuff when I knew he wasn't listening …
I was using a wheelchair by then, and once in awhile crutches. Getting old aint for sissies, especially since I was trying to learn to walk on a leg that wouldn't hold me up most of the time.
When I finally went in for the lung and liver transplant, I asked them to dig around in the smashed-up leg and see what they could do to straighten the damaged Achilles tendon and strengthen the ankle and foot.
They told me it was a bad idea … let time do its work and be patient.
Shit! It continued to atrophy and turn my ankle inside out.
When I was strong enough I looked for work, just to keep busy and keep the old sorrow and regret at bay. The administrator's job seemed to fall into my lap. It made me instantly suspicious when the Dean of the medical school called me at home and offered it to me. I thought: "Don't look the gift horse …" Right?
When I started work, I bought a "handicap car". They were something new; invented and manufactured in Scotland, and were called "Edinburgh". Ugly as hell, but driving one was simple and uncomplicated. I told 'em to take the "handicap" logos off the bumpers! They said they couldn't do it. Safety regs. Crap! So I got a hammer and chisel and did it myself a week later …
I asked for a piano for Whitey's room, and they brought in a spinet with a great sound. It didn't take up nearly as much space as my old baby grand in the new apartment. I wrote Whit a check for it … plus a couple extra grand, but he said it wasn't necessary. I did it anyway. Charity begins at home, I guess.
I had only lived in Ann Arbor about eight months when I looked up one day from the desk in my office. I saw a familiar dark face in the hallway outside, just staring in at me. It was Billy Travis, Whit's brother. My friend. And Wilson's. What the hell was he doing here? I invited him in and we sat and talked for a while.
"I just walked up five freakin' flights of stairs. What the hell's with that? You've got the elevator turned off?"
I snickered. "If these brats want counseling, they've gotta earn it!"
He snickered back. "Leather reminds me a lot of Gregory House …"
Billy told me that Princeton Plainsboro had undergone some drastic changes in the months since I'd been gone. Some guy nobody ever heard of had been brought in as the new Dean of Medicine. His name was strange, Billy said.
Lisa Cuddy, who was now Lisa Rothberg, lived in Upper New York State. Eric Foreman had to take a back seat, and was this "strange" guy's second in command. I didn't ask questions. Wasn't that interested.
Allison Cameron Noble had taken a post in Atlanta, in charge of Emergency Medicine. Robert Chase was firmly entrenched in my old Diagnostics Department, whiteboard and all. Good luck with that, "Bob".
I laughed. "Does he walk with a cane? Whack anybody in the shins with it?"
"Nope."
"My guess is, he won't last."
The other Dr. Wilson … Stephen Wilson … was now in charge of Oncology.
Billy said the first time he heard someone call that Dr. Wilson from the corridor, and a voice answered from the office that was once James Wilson's, he'd felt a ghostly chill run down the center of his spine.
I understood.
Then Billy said: "Hey Boss … what would you say if I were to tell ya I'm thinking about moving to Ann Arbor?"
And I said: "Are you kidding me?"
And he said: "Nope. Boss, let's face it … somebody has to keep an eye on you. It's always been me before … and to tell the truth, I miss you."
"Well, come ahead then," I told him. "You're always welcome. An adult to talk to once in awhile would be a great change from having to listen to the gripes of all these damned med students. One of the little shits is supposed to start working for me … and I'm not sure if I'm up for that or not. I'm having visions of another whiny-ass Allison Cameron, and I might have to give her knockout drops if her mouth cranks as much as Cameron's used to!"
That's when he told me that all his belongings were already in a cargo van that was on its way here, and he'd take charge of the "Allison Cameron Clone".
I might have known.
Two weeks later, Billy landed the night shift Supervisor's job in the teaching hospital.
From there he could dog my weary ass twenty-four hours a day and watch me like a hawk to make sure I wasn't falling apart … or falling on my ass because of the freakin' leg … and the other stuff.
Some things never changed … we were both of that opinion, but we'd have to have a talk about it.
Billy started to call me "Leather". All the hullabaloo had calmed down, finally, from the accident that had taken Wilson from me, and I never wanted it to get started again. Or even have to talk about it. I'd pulled a fast one, thanks to his brother. There was nothing in my records or on any Computer under any other name than "Leather". Whit had taken care of that too. He knew people he could count on. He was sneaky. He and his staff had very successfully sent "Gregory House" into the ether trail of high lonesome.
Wilson wouldn't care much what we did. He was just sitting around on the third floor of Mountain View, ignoring everything and admiring the wallpaper.
It was funny, I guess. Billy called me "Hey Boss!" for a while until he got used to the rest. That was when he officially became "W. T."
Even Wilson wasn't "Wilson" anymore, but "Whitey" … the nickname his new attending nurses had affectionately dubbed him with.
God knows it fits.
His hair is white as snow.
And so it went …
… and so it has gone for so many years now that it is sometimes difficult to keep it straight between the 'real' fiction and the science fiction!
Whit and his brother "W. T." and I are all pretty good friends now, and I'm actually beginning to believe in Whit and his "little green men".
Some damned strange things happen around here from time to time.
Haw haw.
I have my "other" babysitter back now … plus that bothersome kid. It's soon gonna be Christmas …
Joy to the World!
#
73