Chapter 2
"Lies and Truth"
He did not hate his Dad! He never had, and never would.
But the insistent declaration that he did hate the man, truth be damned, always provided him with a great excuse to throw people off. It had certainly worked with Cuddy …
Not, however, he sometimes thought … with Wilson.
The fact was that he cranked out a lot of verbal bullshit just for shock value. Shot off his mouth and then watched for reactions to the words; waited for that blinding flash of belief-disbelief that told him whether or not he had seized the upper hand in a given situation. Drive the morons back to arms' length so they would never have enough time to understand the effort it took for him just to try to help them! That was usually the instant when people either granted him total control in their treatments, or snorted in disgust and asked for another physician. He couldn't have cared less either way, but he usually preferred the distraction of the former over the indifference of the latter. Made life more interesting somehow!
It was his father, John House, ("Blackjack" to his old Paris Island buddies), whose hard-ass reputation originally took the brunt of his son's sarcastic dissing. Not that John would ever have given a tinker's damn! Gregg always held the belief that his old man would have understood, and even afforded himself a good laugh at the irony of the ongoing joke, had he known … which he just might … for all Gregg knew.
Gregory House, M. D., however, balked at granting his parents too much access to his private life ever since the infarction. That access might allow them to witness an involuntary lowering of his personal barricades, and they did not need the additional worry of being privy to his pain.
Sometimes the pain bothered him enough that it was impossible for him to hide it, and those were the days he hibernated in his office behind closed doors. Furthermore, he did not want to hear any of the oft-repeated stories his parents were fond of relating about his childhood. Any inadvertent revelation about his angry misspent youth was an unwelcome intrusion into the cloak of mystery he kept curled tightly about himself.
It had been bad enough when his mom told him he was perfect just the way he was, (thank God no one else was there to hear!) and his dad grumbled that the last time he'd looked, Gregg did indeed have two legs. The old man's idea of "luck" had nothing to do with it! Or maybe it did.
"Blackjack" House had instilled in his son a strict sense of honor which came directly from his own training in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. This honor system dictated that a man's integrity and sense of truth and personal conduct mattered above all else. Gregg had fought his father's strict U. S. Marines rigidity all his young life, and sometimes it galled him no end that it had, after all, indelibly rubbed off on him. Even his best efforts would not make it go away. He'd finally grown into a man who'd spent his entire adult life denying that part of himself, but it was as deeply ingrained as his own DNA. And so he learned to hide it beneath layers and layers of sarcasm, bitter humor and bullshit.
No, he did not hate his Dad. He held a grudging respect for the man. Deep inside he understood completely that the reason they didn't get along together for any length of time was simply because they were so fucking much alike!
ooooooooooo
Careening down the Jersey Pike last Sunday night, jammin' to Jethro Tull, with speeds sometimes topping a hundred miles an hour, Gregg's mind whirled with mixed images of the two most prominent men in his life: his dad … and his best friend. He'd never known two people who were such polar opposites; such total and extreme ends of his life's spectrum.
John House was a total ball buster.
James Wilson was his port in every storm!
Gregory House had been angry with himself Sunday night. He was just about at the end of his rope with physical pain, and confused and upset with the many riddles that had recently been taking over his life; riddles which had tied his brilliant mind into knots. He was running away from the one riddle which he'd been unable to solve:
Himself!
At the forty six mile post, a sudden spasm that skittered along his bad leg caused him to jerk the steering wheel hard to the right. His left foot slid off the accelerator and his breath hitched in pain as his eyes clenched shut. During that split second, he lost control. The Corvette's direct-steering mechanism overcompensated for the angle of drift, and the right rear tire blew out beneath the undertow of friction. It sent them careening through the older section of guard rail and head-first down the embankment. The tough little car flew apart in all directions on impact, and he with it.
After that the world went away for a long time.
Vaguely he recalled waking in a dark, damp, frightening place. For hours he drifted in and out of consciousness, floating on a cushion of pain and hallucination. Time was no longer linear, but blinking in and out of existence. Sunlight blasted his vision one moment, and dark images of rabid wolves haunted his dreams the next.
After that the dog visions began to creep in. There was a large brown dog hovering somewhere near the fringes of perception … part of the dreams; visual and auditory hallucinations. It was a filthy, smelly thing, licking at his face and neck, settling close to his uninjured shoulder, nervously guarding him. Never leaving his side in spite of his weak and useless efforts to shout it gone!
Reminded him of his dad. Stubborn. Looming like a monolith in the background of his worst nightmares.
Reminded him of Wilson too. Compassionate. Wilson would not leave either, even when he shouted …
Especially when he shouted!
ooooooooooo
He lay nude in the trauma center, covered only with a thin hospital sheet. Trained trauma nurses and technicians had been working over him since he'd come through the door. His clothing was removed carefully. They sponged away the encrusted dirt from his face, neck and limbs, while at the same time conducting tests, taking fluid samples, inserting IVs and setting up monitors. Within fifteen minutes he was medicated to oblivion, deeply unconscious.
Without, thankfully, pain.
Two scrubbed and gowned trauma surgeons stared at the hollow gauntness of his long, thin body. Both men experienced compassion they had not known they still possessed when they saw their colleague like this; the unnatural contours of the bent, crippled leg, further compromised by its most recent injury. Both men froze in place for a moment and exchanged stunned glances as they regarded the angry surgical scar and deep indentation in the flesh where the large quadriceps muscle had once rested. And now, added to that was the deep laceration and blunt trauma injury that ran from the top of his knee, nearly to his crotch. A jagged corner of the Corvette's broken dashboard must have laid him open. House's tight blue jeans had stemmed the flow at first, but now the wound was bleeding freely. The fresh cushion of temporary bandaging was becoming saturated, leaking blood onto the absorbent pad beneath him.
His right hand was badly fractured, its palm lacerated. It lay, palm down, submerged in a bloody basin of antiseptic, while a layer of imbedded dirt floated away and they could scan the injury and prepare to operate. The right side of his face had been full of imbedded safety glass from the car's windows when they'd shattered and struck him like driving rain. He'd been very fortunate his eyes had been spared. The glass was carefully removed as soon as he was brought in, and the area cleansed. The entire side of his face looked as though he had an acute case of Poison Ivy.
Gregory House had been intubated and his body fully prepped for the surgery to come. He was a human pin cushion, crisscrossed with IV lines. Someone had just finished attaching a Foley, causing him to squirm uncomfortably. Finally he settled down. His heartbeat regulated and his breathing deepened.
With the preparations finished, they were ready to close the jagged wound on the crippled leg. They would have to be extremely careful. The laceration ran very close to the surgical scar.
A hand surgeon stood by, ready to perform the necessary repairs to the small bones in his right hand. And this patient was a concert pianist as well as a physician. Would he be one again?
Oh God!
They had not realized. Both men drew deep breaths and instantly forgave this doctor with the bad reputation, for most (not all) of his past transgressions.
No wonder he was difficult! Perhaps he had good reason.
oooooooooo
James Wilson and Eric Foreman stood just outside the sterile field, watching through the observation window. Neither of them had attempted to assist with House's preliminary prep and evaluation, and they would not help with the repair surgery either. They were too close to the man on the table, and they were both already traumatized by his ordeal as well. It would be at least another two to three hours until there could be any kind of prognosis. House's life was not at stake, but the further injury to the crippled leg was very serious, as was the broken hand. The possibility of a concussion was not out of the question, judging from the look of the side of his face. The length of time it had taken to find him, in the first place, was another factor. But they must stand by for now, and await further word.
After Gregory House was wheeled out of the emergency room and taken to surgery, both men turned reluctantly and headed for Lisa Cuddy's office. Cuddy would want a full report.
Foreman fell into step beside Wilson as they headed back through the corridor. "That's the first time I ever saw House's scar," he admitted. "It's …" His voice trailed off before he could voice an appropriate thought.
Wilson took a deep breath and looked over at his companion. "Scary?"
Foreman's head lowered as he replied. "Yeah … 'Scary' is a good word. To tell you the truth, I had no idea his leg was in such lousy shape. I guess I just assumed he was a whiner and a slacker, and that he put most of that limp … on!"
"A lot of people make that mistake," Wilson said. "The problem is, House doesn't give a damn what they think, and he never tries to correct them when they assume he's faking most of it. Actually, he's in varying amounts of pain all the time, and when it's at its worst he holes up in his office and won't talk to anybody. Not you, not me, not Cuddy … well, you know what I mean. You've witnessed it often enough. And now you know how real it is. You might want to pass that piece of information around … and cut the man some slack."
Eric nodded appreciatively. "Thanks, Wilson," he said finally. "I'll remember that."
oooooooooo
Lisa Cuddy looked up from a stack of invoices on her desk as Foreman and Wilson entered. She dropped the pen in her hand and gave them her undivided attention. "Well?"
Foreman stood back and allowed Wilson to take the lead.
"It's … pretty serious," Wilson began.
"How serious? Spell it out for me, Dr. Wilson. What can we expect for his immediate future?"
Wilson's right hand went immediately to the back of his neck, absently working at the stiffness as he gathered his thoughts. "I'd say that, without a doubt, he's going to be wheelchair-bound for an unknown length of time. There's no other way for him to get around. His bad leg is deeply bruised and lacerated from the knee to a point just above the infarction scar. No way can he bear weight! His right hand is lacerated at the base of the thumb, and there are broken metacarpals as well. That rules out any possibility he can use the cane … and his weak left shoulder precludes that he try to transfer it to the other hand. Crutches are out for the same reason. He'll need a motorized wheelchair … and I'm afraid we're all in for a long, bumpy ride! He's going to be mad as hell. When he's discharged, someone will have to stay with him around the clock."
Cuddy sighed. "Tell me about it!" She groused. "What about the cuts on his face? Any sign that there might be glass fragments in his eyes? Or a concussion?"
Foreman and Wilson both shook their heads. "At this point, no," Foreman said. "There doesn't seem to be any sign of either. His injuries are painful, but as far as we know now, not life-threatening. He was lucid when they first got him in the ambulance … yelled at Wilson to send somebody back after that mangy brown dog …"
"Dog? House was worried about a dog? That could just have been part of another hallucination …"
"Don't think so," Wilson interjected. "He was looking daggers at me when he was yelling about it. Nothing wrong with his mind! They shot him full of morphine to shut him up."
Cuddy smiled briefly through the cloud of worry. "That certainly sounds like him. But what's with the dog?"
Foreman grinned for a moment. "Darned if we know," he admitted. "But the LaValle police chief and his deputy are still out there the last we heard … trying to corral the mutt and take it to the nearest vet's office."
"And then what?"
James Wilson rolled his eyes skyward and sighed mightily. "Then …" he shrugged. "I guess I get to go to the vet's office and check out the mutt so I can tell House when he wakes up. So you may have a somewhat shaggy visitor in your yard for a few days."
"Oh brother!" Cuddy said. "Are you serious? My yard?"
"Oh yeah!" Both men echoed.
oooooooooo
Konnie Singh and Andy Alta managed to dump off the smelly dog a half hour later at the Veterinary Clinic of Bernard Baumberger, DMV. The mutt still fought the rope and snarled threateningly, but cowered trembling when anyone came near it.
When Bernie himself came out to meet them, and a trained assistant led the dog away toward the back of the building for delousing, Chief Singh and Deputy Alta both heaved sighs of relief. Bernie looked Konnie up and down and then snorted with friendly laughter. "Looks like you and the mutt had a wrestling match … and you lost!"
Young Alta snickered into his shirtsleeve and was given the evil eye by his boss, but eventually Konnie saw the humor in the situation too. "Yeah … took a nosedive into the crap trying to lasso that mongrel! I think I landed in a pile of poo!"
"From the smell of things, I think you did too!" Bernie agreed. "By the way, who the heck does the mutt belong to? … and what am I supposed to do with it?"
Singh shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Long story short …" he began. "I don't think it belongs to anybody. It's a stray. One of the doctors from Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital got himself hurt in an automobile accident Sunday night. He wandered away from the scene … a little out of his head … and we didn't locate him until this morning. When I finally found him, this mutt was standing guard over him and wasn't gonna let us get near him. I lured it away with a bag of beef jerky … so you might wanna keep an eye out in case it comes down with a good case of the back-door trots …"
Bernie Baumberger frowned at this, but said nothing.
"Anyhow, as they were loading him into the ambulance, Dr. House yells out to his buddy to bring back the mutt. That's all I know. When your people get the scurvy thing halfway cleaned up, call Dr. James Wilson at this number …" Konnie dug a slip of paper from his shirt pocket and handed it over.
Bernie Baumberger reached for the paper and shoved it into his shirt pocket. "I heard about this Dr. Gregory House on the radio," he said. "He's the head of Diagnostics at PPTH. Some sort of genius, from what I hear. Has to walk with a cane too … from what I hear. He hurt bad?"
Konnie shook his head and shrugged. "Not sure, but he was pretty beat up from what I saw. Bloody hand … bloody face … bloody leg. When they picked him up, that damn ambulance shot back out of there like a bat out of hell.
"Anyhow, me an' Alta here … we better get back. No tellin' what kinda shit my crew will get into if I'm not around."
Baumberger nodded. "Okay, Koonie … good seein' ya. I'll give this Wilson a call when we get the mutt cleaned up."
"Thanks." The two lawmen climbed into the dirty Dodge van and hightailed it out of there. Both were happy to be shed of the whole business. It was cleanup time in the shower room of the LaValle Auxilliary Police Station!
After that, end of shift and a cold beer waiting!
oooooooooo
13