POCKET CHANGE
by Sharon R.
Chapter Two
Forgiveness and Regret
The heavy morning dew mixed with the sweat beginning to trickle down Luka's face as he woke to the rising sun. Hot already, and the full day in front of him. Here they were, deep in the rainforest, in the rainy season, and no rain. At this point he would have gladly welcomed a shower. He looked over at Carter's cot and saw what looked like a frat boy hung over from a long night of partying.
"Carter, wake up. It will be time to leave for the clinic pretty soon."
Carter rolled over and rubbed the crust from his eyes. "Did you actually sleep?" he whined. His back ached from bouncing off the wooden supports of the cot and his stomach rumbled from hunger.
The two men spilled out of their cots and slowly, with great discomfort, straightened themselves to an upright standing position. Wading past the mosquito netting draped over their cots, they could see Joseph through the screen already gassing up the Jeep for the trip into the jungle. They cleaned up at the pot of water Toomay had placed out for them the night before, and put on clean shirts. Not much of a help. The jungle humidity had even claimed the freshness from their laundered and neatly folded clothes.
So far their brief morning together found them exchanging few words. Nothing new. The cordiality they emoted on the nearly 25 hours and 11,300 miles of flight from Chicago to London to Johannesburg to Kinshasa was stretched, but within their limits of personal space. The two doctors were worlds apart in spirit lately– almost laughable that they would share the next few weeks in the same confines of a home and clinic in one of the most volatile of third world countries.
They fit right in. They just didn't know it.
Toomay had a morning meal laid out for them of very strong, but good, coffee, Chapati – a flat unleavened fried bread - fried plantains and yams. Luka found it most appetizing. Carter nibbled politely and loaded up on the coffee. He'd have to get used to the food.
The three men took off in Joseph's truck for the first day at the clinic. The drive was not terribly long, but it was extremely uncomfortable: both on the body and mind. Joseph was a different person on this leg of the trip. He sat rigid while driving, looking uneasily from side to side.
The dirt road wound around treed areas and dipped into wet, marshy spots spewing mud into the Jeep and on its passengers. The skies quickly darkened as the rains finally appeared. Joseph had tied tarps over the supplies to keep them dry, but the doctors were not so fortunate.
Joseph became more alert when a group of soldiers walking towards them in two columns motioned for them to stop. He spoke with them in yet a third language: Lingala. Patting one of them on the back, the translator/guide seemed to introduce the two doctors, who nodded and smiled nervously. After a few tense minutes, they drove off.
"Don't look back." Joseph caught Carter as he was about to turn around. "They are rebels."
Joseph called them "unfriendlies". He drove on with a bit more speed making the bumps on the dirt road that much more painful. "Those men are rebels, but I know them. They cannot be trusted, but I have never had problems with them."
"You know all kinds of people here," Carter spoke up over the grind of the engine.
"I have to live here. I have to survive among them." Joseph reasoned. "Working with medical aid - it's kind of a dance we do. None of us like the music, but as long as we don't step on each other's toes we can all share the dance hall, only I usually have to let them lead."
There were no more man-made stops but Mother Nature had a say. The truck got stuck twice on the road which washed out easily in the rains. "Is the road ever impassible?" Luka worried aloud.
Joseph explained that the road could become too wet and slick to be drivable, but that it is a temporary situation. The sun usually makes an appearance and dries it out enough within a day. However, the doctors would have to stay at the clinic until he could get there. "I tell you this with great hesitation and caution." Joseph spoke as loud as he could over the thud of the tires as they smacked into the roots and rocks of the road. "If we ever get stuck out here, there is a creek to the south, just to our right. You can follow it upstream to the clinic. But I repeat to you that you are safe in my village, you are safe at the clinic. You are not safe in between. You must stay with me and do what I say."
The two doctors listened intently, not wanting to miss any of this experienced man's instructions.
The trees and jungle quickly morphed into a clearing. Ahead of them was a long, one-story, rough looking building. Cement block. It had been painted white, a few times along the way. The paint was chipped and missing more than not. The tin roof may be a welcome during the rain, but otherwise looked to be a heat producer when the sun came to dry the moisture.
Two women appeared. Nurses, both of them from the local area. Introduced as Chibon and Agunda, they spoke French and a little English, enough to take orders from the doctors. They both had the equivalence of a high school education – quite high for anyone in the region, much less women, but their nursing skills were learned on the job. They staffed the clinic during the day, but walked back to their village on the other side of the clinic at night.
"Why can't we stay here at the clinic or with the women's families at night?" Luka asked.
"Well," Joseph explained, "like I said yesterday, the clinic is not completely safe for foreigners at night. That doesn't mean you can't stay here. You may have to if we cannot evacuate a patient out safely by truck."
Carter jumped in, "And the nurses' village?"
Joseph moved to open the back of the truck. He waited for the women to take some boxes inside before explaining. "They appreciate the help you give the people, but do not want you living there. Their people are afraid that your presence will put them in danger. That the rebels will assume the wrong things about the villagers there if they harbor you."
Carter loaded Luka's arms up with supplies before quietly sharing with him a sarcastic but nervous, "That's comforting."
The men and women moved back and forth between the truck and the clinic. The men brought the rest of the supplies in while the women stayed inside organizing them. Luka was listening to a CD with headphones. Back and forth he went bobbing his head to the beat of the music, sometimes humming along. Carter finally asked, "What are you listening to?"
Luka raised his finger at Carter, waiting for the chorus. "I'm making my way to Margueritaville…" Luka sang with a course accent and a slightly better voice.
Carter got a kick out of this and apologized for laughing. "I'm sorry, but I never pictured you as a Parrot Head."
Luka took his headphones off. "A what?"
Carter repeated, "A Parrot Head. You know, like a Dead Head?"
Luka was puzzled and wondered if this was an insult or a bad joke until Joseph chimed in, "A Jimmy Buffet fan is called a Parrot Head." Carter looked surprisingly at Joseph, and then back at Luka as if to say "Don't you know anything? Even in the jungle they know that!"
"Well, actually this is Abby's CD she left behind."
Carter nodded in recognition. "Now that I can believe," and they both laughed quietly. This reminded Carter of the song Abby would play over and over in the Jeep. She bought the CD loaded with Italian songs sung by a young upstart, Josh Groban, just to hear that one song. Over and over again. He even conveniently tossed it out the window into the river just to find a new one in its place the next day. More than eleven thousand miles from home and he still thought of her, but the memories were sour, stale.
Joseph went off to speak with Chibon and Agunda as the doctors finished bringing in the supplies and started to get acquainted with the facility. The building was small and echoed. But for all it didn't have, it was clean.
It was broken up into three areas that in some way flowed together. The smallest room was on the far left where exams would take place. A couple of benches stood outside the door for waiting patients. Inside was a very old exam table. Something these two doctors hadn't seen outside of pictures. An equally old medicine cabinet was off to the side. Old instruments and carefully rationed medical supplies were locked behind the broken glass doors. The most modern piece of equipment in that room was a round stool on castors for the doctors to sit on.
The infirmary took up the largest space in the middle of the long building, housing four very old hospital beds and three cots, all neatly made up with white sheets. A rudimentary back board leaned against a wall and in the far corner there was a stainless steal table with boxes and old charts on it. An operating table, they surmised.
The right third of the building was where the doctors had a desk and a few rickety wooden chairs. A short waive radio sat prominently on the desk. A pot of coffee stood waiting for them, freshly brewed. The women would take care of them. There they filled two cups and sat down. Joseph was back too, cataloging the goods he brought atop the desk.
"Do we use the radio?" Luka asked.
Joseph placed his boxes on the floor and went over to the desk. "Yes. The frequencies that we use are here taped underneath. Call me when you are in need of transport."
"Does the radio always work?" As usual Carter was looking at the dark side.
"Usually, yes." Joseph opened the bottom drawer, jarring it hard a couple times to make it work. Inside was a bulky looking telephone. "This is a satellite phone. The instructions are in the drawer. But you are only to use that in case of emergency. You won't get me. You'll talk to Sean. He splits his time between Kinshasa and Mbandaka."
The three men continued hauling in the supplies and storing them away. Carter and Luka hadn't talked much since their arrival in the Congo. Carter assumed that it was because of their strained mutual relationship with Abby. "Luka," Carter knew he was treading water here, "after you and Abby split up, did you ever forgive her?"
"Her?" Luka stopped short of discussing his bygone disgust of Carter, the one he suspected Abby of loving from a distance while she shared Luka's bed. Luka, in turn, asked Carter if he'd ever had someone he loved turn to someone else. Carter told him about Harper Tracy. They were med students together. One night Doug Ross decided to give her a little personal tutoring, extra credit. Luka asked how he found out.
"Good old confession actually," Carter smiled uncomfortably as he swatted the congregating flies away from his face. "Believe it or not, she actually told me, right there in the ER. She got to me before Mark Greene did. He found out, and, well…" As he smirked at himself and the old memory, Carter couldn't help bringing it up. "Doug Ross. I should have known. Should have seen it coming."
Luka didn't miss a beat as he latched onto the analogy he was trying to relay to Carter. "Did you ever forgive her?" Carter caught on as the two shot looks straight through each other, Carter giving a tilt of his head, a half smile of understanding but a slightly raised eyebrow of contempt.
Joseph caught on too and looked up from the clipboard, "You two have been in love with the same woman?"
Carter smiled, "Well, not at the same time."
Standing between them, holding a box, Joseph looked back and forth between them and said, "Forgiveness is easy. Forgiveness is something you do for yourself. You do it, you feel better, you move on. It's what you don't do with your life that you can never go back and fix. That's regret. And you live with that for the rest of your life."
Joseph drove back home leaving the doctors and two women to fend for themselves. Carter and Luka checked out their new little "hospital", opening cupboards and making mental lists of where the scant medical supplies were stored. They walked around the building subconsciously avoiding each other's presence listening to the rain tip-tap on the roof and pour off past the windows to the puddled ground below.
"Well…," Carter sat on one of the beds tapping his fingers on his knee.
"Yep…," Luka pursed his lips and searched the only place that hadn't been yet: the ceiling.
At home bad weather usually slowed things down. The ER could get down right lonesome in the middle of a huge storm. The two men wandered the infirmary listening to the rain and each other's shuffling feet, wondering when Joseph would return.
Agunda peeked around the curtain separating the infirmary from the exam room. "Excuse me, doctors. We were wondering if you will be seeing patients today."
The two looked at each other, somewhat relieved that they would have someone to talk to besides each other. "Sure," Luka told the nurse, "just let us know if someone comes in."
"Dr. Luka," as customary in the region, Agunda addressed the doctor by his first name. They all assumed Carter was just… Carter: Dr. Carter. "We have had patients waiting for a while." No charts handed to them here by nurses or unit clerks.
The two doctors walked past the curtain into the exam room. A woman was sitting on the table holding a child. Luka sat on the stool first, assuming the responsibility of this child and left Carter to occupy his own time.
"I guess I'll take the next patient," Carter sighed. He opened the door and fixed his eyes on the endless procession of people going from the clinic door to the first line of trees way off in the distance. With his stethoscope still in his ears, Luka did a double take and stood to assimilate just what they were seeing. All the time they had been shuffling about the building, these people ever so quietly appeared, lining up patiently to have their medical needs taken care of.
The two doctors saw patient after patient throughout the day. Eventually they set up a system whereas one doctor and nurse would triage and do minor treatments, while the other team would admit patients temporarily into the infirmary for longer observations or extensive treatments. They sutured lacerations, treated a multitude of infections, set two fractures - hoping that they were right- and dispensed anti-inflammatory, vaccinations and antibiotics. They also performed minor surgery on ingrown toenails, abscessed wounds, and assorted boils. The highlight of the day came when the men flipped a coin to see who would have to extract a rotten tooth. Luka lost. Carter laughed light heartedly.
Finally the line thinned out and the infirmary was emptied. Chibon and Agunda set about to clean and prepare for the next day as Carter sat down, finally. Luka picked up the handset of the short wave to call for their ride "home". It had rained steadily all day and Joseph was afraid of the final rise in the road to the clinic. The doctors would have to take a short hike to edge of the clearing at the bottom of the rise to wait for Joseph. They gathered their belongings, bid goodbye to the nurses and dashed off to the shack, barely standing, where Joseph would meet them. The doctors found a dry corner of the primitive shack to wait out the storm, the rain so heavy that the visibility mimicked a good Chicago blizzard.
"What's your dad like, the painter?" Carter asked in an effort to bridge the obvious gap.
Luka raised an eyebrow, surprised that Carter cared to remember. "You were paying attention at that seminar."
"It was mandatory," Carter retorted, as they shared a quiet laugh.
Luka thought about his father. Old, but still very capable of living life to its fullest. Looking down, away from Carter, but with irreverent remembrance Luka spoke of his boyhood in Croatia, of the days spent with his father riding the trains he was conducting. Drinking in the countryside as the engine streamed across the rickety tracks while listening to his father pontificate about his son's future. "You will be a great doctor someday, and we will see your face on the cover of American magazines."
Carter listened with the interest of a boy yearning for family. "And you actually wanted to be a doctor?" he asked.
"Without a doubt," Luka gave back. "School was the only thing I was good at. School, and…," he paused looking slyly out of the corner of his eye at Carter, "and fencing." It was good to share such laughter as they reminded themselves of that uncomfortable day spent in the classroom last year waiting for the sexual harassment seminar to start. The day they let their testosterone get the best of them.
The cadence of the rain slowed to allow the drops of water on each leaf, tree and flower to have their own unique pitch. The jungle was visible now through the shear veil of moisture as the warmth finally made a return to take away the chill driven to the bone by the sudden onslaught of rain.
In a moment of deep silence, one in which Carter made a quick inventory of his own family, he looked straight ahead to Luka. "Your dad must be so proud of you – even if you haven't made Time Magazine's Man of the Year."
Luka loosened up and shared Carter's humor. "I could pass wind in front of the Pope and Dad would still be proud of me." He spoke with the certainty of a man who felt such fatherly affection every day of his life.
"Do you get to see him much?" Carter asked.
Luka explained that he saw his father whenever he could. Two or three times a year if possible. He had recently bought him a computer and they exchanged e-mails almost daily.
Carter stood and walked to the side of the shack, looking out at the mountains in the distance, straining to see something that wasn't there. "That's more than I see my father," he wished aloud.
Luka rose and brushed his pants of the accumulated dirt from the floor. "Isn't your family in the Chicago area?"
Joseph's jeep rumbled into site, making a 3-point turn at the shack to head back to his village with its passengers. Carter picked up the backpack of medical supplies and, without turning to look at Luka, walked out into the remaining mist of the storm mumbling. "Says a lot, doesn't it."