A FBOW excerpt in sequence: Wolf Man/Public Health

Manhattan, New York

August 5, 1956

The Wolf Man

The weather unusually hot these first days of August, outside it was a beautifully crisp summer day — at least here near the ocean.

Before leaving for the city, lowering the convertible top but because they’d be raising it when they parked, Mitchell did not go to the bother of putting the boot on.

Still feeling the after glow of their love making, Marsha sat as closely as possible. Driving in the—even for Sunday morning—light traffic, Mitchell drove with his arm about Marsha’s shoulder.

Finding a parking spot on Ninth Avenue near 44th Street, about a half mile from the theatre, Mitchell raised the top.

Walking along 42nd Street, finding a restaurant just off Times Square, they had breakfast where Mitchell— despite what Ruby had told him, had his usual of fried eggs, hash brown potatoes, pork sausage, toasted bagel with cream cheese and coffee.

With the exception of ham and tea, Marsha had the same.

Finished eating, walking to the Paramount Theatre they found a triple wide box office line snaking halfway around the block.

Checking with the outside usher, Mitchell learned that the lobby was packed and the next show completely sold out.

Disappointed but unwilling to wait in line for three hours, ‘even’ to see Judy Garland, deciding, “As long as we’re here, we might as well see a movie.”

Walking along 42nd Street, looking for a movie they both agreed on, passing the alley that runs adjacent to the theatre: “ ‘Clang, clang, clang went the trolley’!” They heard the strong voice of Judy Garland wafting through the open rear doors of the ‘Paramount’.

Stopping, moving into the alley they stood among a large group of people that also stood listening.

However it was extremely humid and much hotter here than nearer the ocean and they remained in the stifling heat of the alley only until Judy finished the medley and they heard the thunder like applause of the jammed theatre, of which the people in the alley joined in then...

Marsha and Mitchell continued their search for a movie.

There was ‘Moby Dick’ with ‘Gregory Peck’ that Marsha did not want to see and the intellectually stimulating ‘Abbot and Costello Meet the Mummy’ which they of course had seen while in Manhattan two weeks earlier, and ‘The Searchers’ with ‘John Wayne’ that Marsha also did not care to see and ‘Mister Roberts’ that, ‘finally’ both agreed on.

**** 

Recently off a naval type vessel, “Jesus, Marcie...” visualising it happening, laughing, “...when all that soap foam came pouring through the hatch, I thought I’d…”

“Mitchie...” cutting him off, “...look at that lady!”

The top down once again. Heading towards the Brooklyn Bridge and home they’d stopped for the ‘very’ long traffic light near Union Square at the ‘always’ busy, multiple intersection of ‘Broadway’, ‘Fourth Avenue’, ‘East 14th Street’ and ‘Park Avenue South’.

A few car lengths ahead— at the intersection there was an elderly woman wearing a multi-coloured wool tam and—in August—a topcoat.

Held in the woman’s arms there was what appeared to be a baby swaddled in a light blanket.

Walking along the curb, going from car to car looking through the window, asking something and getting negative responses.

Working her way to the Ford, as the woman approached— settling a corner of the blanket over the baby’s head. “ ‘Please’...” the woman said, looking over the top directly into the car, “...my baby is sick and I’ve ‘got’ to get him to the hospital!”

Marsha had found that most of the New Yorkers she’d met, unlike mid-westerners, seemed to be rather cold and distant. But to ‘refuse’ a ride to woman with a ‘sick’ child? A child who ‘needed’ to get to a hospital yet!

“What hospital? Where is it?”

Stepping off the curb. Coming even closer to the car. Glancing downward, apparently checking to see if the baby’s head was covered. “Not far from here...” the woman said, “...it’s on ‘Amsterdam’ near ‘Lincoln C enter’.”

Looking at her husband beseechingly, Marsha shrugged her shoulders.

“That’s more than five miles away…” he said softly, “...in the opposite direction.”

“Yeah, but, Mitchie, how can we turn her down?” Not waiting for his approval, which, knowing her husband, she knew was coming—and even if it wasn’t—opening her door and stepping out of the car, Marsha pulled the passenger seat forward so the woman could get into the back…

Which she did, with a barely noticeable nod of her head.

Finally, the green light. Rather than angling to the south on ‘Fourth Avenue’, the Ford took a right turn going north on ‘14th Street’.

Twisting on the seat, looking over her shoulder. “What’s wrong with your baby?” Marsha asked.

“She’s, uh, got diarrhoea.”

‘She’? I’d swear she said ‘him’ before. But maybe, Marsha thought, I misunderstood. Marsha ‘did’ know, though, that diarrhoea was not, usually, a hospital treated condition.

‘Fourteenth Street’ clear, as the convertible gained speed, the wind— coming above the windshield— unexpectedly lifted the triangle of blanket covering the ‘baby’s’ head.

Glancing at Marsha, replacing the blanket quickly, the woman held it down with her hand.

Turning forward Marsha looked out the window a moment, then opening the glove compartment and removing a pencil and a small Spiral notebook she wrote something. Poking Mitchell on the side of his thigh, Marsha motioned for him to read what she had written.

Slowing the car while glancing about to see if there was any approaching traffic, looking to his right he quickly read: ‘That’s the hairiest kid I’ve ever seen. Kind of looks like Lawrence Talbot’.

Picking up speed…

Looking out the window. Catching the woman unaware the wind once again tugged at the blanket and, sniffing the air, a hairy, gray head with pointed ears and a black snout poked out.

Looking in the rear view mirror, “Lady...”

Forcing the head down, recovering it the lady looked at Mitchell.

Slowing again, the car pulled to the curb, “...that’s ‘not’ a baby, is it?”

“I never said it was ‘a’ baby!” The woman said defensively,— her thinly pencilled eyebrows jiggling on her forehead. “I said it was ‘my’ baby!”

“Oh!” Mitchell looked at Marsha whom, attempting to hold back laughter held her hand over her mouth.

His head turned to the rear, looking at the woman. “Is your, uh, ‘baby’ ‘really’ sick?” Thinking, If she says yes I’ll take her wherever— within reason— she wants to go.

But…

“ ‘No’!” the woman said belligerently.

Turning forward. Glancing at Marsha he drove to the ‘Amsterdam Avenue’ intersection where she might get another lift.

Pulling to the curb the Ford stopped.

Opening her door and stepping out, Marsha pulled the seat forward and waited as the woman, and her ‘Schnauzer’ stepped from the car.

Pulling from the curb, Mitchell joined Marsha in a gale of laughter.

In ‘Wolf Man’ movies, the wolf man’s real name, while in human form, is ‘Lawrence Talbot’.

Seagate, New York

August 20, 1956

Public Health

“Mitchie!” Sitting on the edge of the bed, “Mitchie!” shaking his shoulder.

“Huh?” Lifting his head from the pillow. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t feel so good.”

Sitting up, “Marcie...” Turning the light on, squinting against the glare he glanced at the clock: ‘2:05 AM. “...what’s wrong?”

“Don’t know. I had to ‘go’ all day yesterday and now’s the third time I’ve gotten up to ‘go’ tonight and whenever I ‘make’ it hurts.”

Awoken from a sound sleep, trying to acclimate himself. “Whenever you make what?”

“All day yesterday and tonight I had to pee and every time I make it burns there ‘bad’! And now it hurts...” touching her lower back, “...here, and I think I’ve got a fever.”

Putting his lips onto her warm, clammy forehead. “I think you’re right...” he said, kissing her forehead. “...you may have a fever.”

“I’m scared. You think it has anything to do with the baby?”

Having no idea what it might be or if, indeed, it did have something to do with the baby. “No, of course not! But look, you don’t have to be at work till noon tomorrow, uh, today and…”

Open till nine PM on Mondays and Thursdays, four times a month Marsha had the late shift at Lord & Taylor, which meant on those days she did not have to be at work until noon and this day, Monday, was one of those days.

“…you’ll go see your doctor.” Thinking a moment, “Tell you what, honey; I’ll take you there.”

“First off...” she said scornfully, “...I don’t have ‘a’ doctor! I have ‘whatever’ doctor is available. And secondly, how? How are you going to get off?”

“I told you no one ‘ever’ comes to Addressograph, and that Ruby said that if it’s in the middle of the month and we’re not busy it’s okay to take a day off every now and then. And it is the middle of the month and we’re ‘not’ busy. And besides, in the three weeks I’ve been there he’s taken off twice and I haven’t had the nerve to do it even once yet. But taking you to see a doctor today seems like a pretty good excuse to me.”

“How’s about the car?”

“Ruby’ll pick it up and bring it back.”

“But aren’t you supposed to?”

“Yeah. But, Marcie, you think they even remember it’s me driving it in and bringing it back? So long’s I do my work they don’t even remember I’m alive. And ‘believe me’, no one gives a damn who drives the car just so long as it’s there in the morning and back at the garage at night.”

**** 

“Ruby, hi! Sorry to call so early.”

“It’s, emm, okay, Mitch.” Forcing himself awake, looking at the clock on his nightstand: ‘4:07’, almost two hours before he usually got up. “What’s, uh, up, Mitch?”

“Marcie got sick last night and I want to take her to the doctor’s this morning. So how’s about picking up the Chevy and standing by for me today?”

“Sure! What’s wrong? Nothing serious I hope.”

Looking at the closed bathroom door. “She’s been peeing her brains out and says it burns like hell whenever she does.”

“She have a pain in her back, in her lower back?”

“Yeah, in her back, by her side. How’d you know?”

“Sounds to me like a kidney infection.”

Amazed by this, “How the hell would ‘you’ know?”

“How the hell would ‘I’ know? My old man’s a doctor, that’s how the ‘hell I’d know’!”

“Marcie...” going to the bathroom door, “...I got Ruby on the phone and I told him about you, and…”

“What do you do, Mitch, get on the phone and tell the whole world whenever I go to the toilet?”

Unable to tell if she was serious or joking. “No, but Ruby says it sounds like a kidney infection.”

“Yeah! How would ‘he’ know?”

“Hold on, Ruby.” Pressing the phone to his chest. “Why wouldn’t he know?” Mitchell said to the closed door. “His dad’s a doctor, remember?”

“Of ‘course’!” Marsha said facetiously. “ ‘His father’s a doctor’! How ‘silly’ of me! Why wouldn’t he know?”

**** 

Wanting to beat the traffic, to say nothing of the line of patients when ‘Public Health’ opened at eight—because Marsha had told him: ‘When you get there they give you a number’. Mitchell had thought of that, ‘until now’ as a gross exaggeration.

They’d left Seagate at 6:15, driven to Manhattan and even though they had arrived at the grungy, three story building well before 8:00, there were at least forty people standing in line in front of the locked double doors.

‘8:40’

Sitting on a wooden bench —to their right was a Negro family of three which, of course he did not mind. To their left was a Mexican or Puerto Rican family of five which, of course he did not mind. But what Mitchell ‘did’ mind was that ‘yes’. After the doors opened at 8:00; when they’d finally reached the lady at the front desk, she’d asked Marsha’s name and did, in fact, give her a cardboard chit with a number.

8:40

Waiting on the ‘Negro’, ‘Latino’, ‘Caucasian’ populated bench, his face near hers, “Jesus Christ, Marsha...” whispering in her ear, “...it’s terrible here!”

“I told you, but I didn’t think you really believed me.”

“Well, I sure as hell do now and I think…” taking her hand, turning the engagement ring so the diamond was facing the palm of her hand. “…it would probably be best if we don’t advertise these too much here.” Turning his palm up, he showed that his ring also, was turned with the diamond to the inside.

“I ‘hate’ it here, Mitchell!” Whispered in an accusatory tone. “And besides all this...” making a sweeping gesture. “...the doctors are so damned young! The one that gave me my internal ‘couldn’t’ have been much older than you! And that was the first time I’d ‘ever’ had that kind of an internal examination! Hell, I’d have been nervous about it with Doc Schaffer, and he delivered me. Hey, Mitch, how do you like the idea of some guy that’s no older than… say your friend ‘Norman’, looking up my naked crotch! I hate it here more than you’ll ever know!”

“I’m sorry!” Said apolitically as though Mitchell Lipensky had ‘anything’ to say about how medical services were at Public Health.

“You ‘know’...” speaking in a somewhat impatient tone, “...that I’ve spoken to Frohlick about this and you ‘know’ he told me it’s only a matter of time till the new, uh... edict or decree or whatever the hell they call it comes through and then the government’ll pay part of the bill for whatever doctor you go to. We’ve just ‘got’ to be patient.”

“ ‘We’ve just got to be patient’, eh?” Marsha mimicked. “Yeah, ‘sure’, Mitch! Only ‘Dennis the Menace’ ain’t looking up ‘your’ box!”

Forgetting the ‘night of the shower’ and her absolute urgency to become pregnant then, right ‘then’, which led her here, right ‘here’ right ‘now’!

“ ‘Forty-six’!‘Forty-seven’.”

Looking at the chit in her hand, then at the huge masculine woman in a kind of white nurse’s uniform that stood in the doorway leading to the examination rooms.

“That’s me, I guess,” Marsha said dejectedly. Handing Mitchell her purse then walking to the doorway, she gave chit ‘forty-seven’ to the nurse, who then motioned for the two women standing before her to follow.

Marsha followed behind a fat, waddling Latino type woman dressed in a stained cotton house-dress, wearing a red and gold rayon scarf with a silk screening of ‘Christ on the cross’ on her head.

In the examination room…

Pointing to one of two examination tables, speaking to the Latino woman, “¡Cuarenta Y seis, aqui!” The nurse went to the head of the stainless-steel table and, reaching underneath, pulled the end of a roll of white paper to the end covering the table’s length. Placing the woman’s folder in a wire basket at the food of the table...

“And you,” looking at Marsha, pointing to another table about six feet away, “number forty-seven, here!”

Repeating the process with the rolled paper, the nurse then yanked a bisecting, opaque plastic drape across the straight slot in the ceiling. “Get undressed…” handing Marsha a sheet and an open backed, cotton hospital gown, “…and get into this!” Pulling another section of plastic drape around the curved slot in the ceiling, she completely — sort of — closed off the area making two — sort of— semi-private examination areas.

Parting the bisecting drape the nurse stepped through and, giving the other woman a gown and sheet, repeated the order in Spanish.

****

Marsha had been sitting on the edge of the examination table with her legs dangling for ten minutes waiting for him and, Oh, ‘God’, she thought when the drape finally parted, he’s even got acne! Tightening her knees. Glancing down to be sure the sheet was hanging below her bare feet. “Hi!”

“Hello, uh...” consulting the file folder, “...Marsha. I’m Doctor Sobecki. How are we today?”

‘We’! “I’ve had a pain in my back...” touching her lower back with her thumb, “...and seem to have to urinate all the time, and when I do, it burns.”

“And we’re pregnant, are we?” Trying hard at a ‘bedside manner’, attempting to impress this unusually—for this place—attractive young woman. “Besides urinating and the back pain, how are you feeling, Marsha?”

“Besides that... Fine, I guess.”

Going to the same shelf the gowns and sheets were on. Taking a thermometer from an alcohol container. Shaking it down he placed it beneath Marsha’s tongue. “Be right back.”

Stepping through the drape, speaking in Spanish, Sobecki, presumably, asked the same ‘How are we’ question to her neighbor.

Returning in a minute, Sobecki took the thermometer from Marsha’s mouth, looked at it, shook it down and returned it to its alcohol bath.

“Marsha...” placing the tips of his fingers onto her shoulders, he gently eased her to a supine position on the hard, cold table, “...why don’t you just lay back and try to relax.” Sensing her uneasiness, he draped the sheet over her feet. Holding her ankles above the sheet while bending her legs at the knees, Sobecki placed Marsha’s heels into the metal stirrups on either side of the table.

Back at the shelf. Lifting the metal top off a flat, rectangular glass alcohol container he removed a long, shiny cylindrical instrument.

Back to the table. Sitting on a low stool he lifted the end of the sheet to…

Oh, God!

…her knees as, noting her tensing, “Relax, Marsha,” he said softly. “I’m a doctor. I see women in this position all the time.”

Sure you do, Buster! Marsha thought, mentally comparing her thin body to that of the fat body of the woman on just the other side of the drape as…

Peering beneath the sheet. “This won’t hurt, Marsha.”

Closing her eyes tightly. Expecting pain, wincing as she felt the cold, metal speculum enter her vagina but as it did not hurt she did try to relax… Until she felt the pressure as the young doctor expanded the instrument, along with her vagina… In a minute— breathing a sigh of relief— loosened, the speculum was removed.

Replacing the speculum into the alcohol container and taking a latex finger sheath from a box he pulled it onto his left index finger then, digging the finger into a jar of ‘Vaseline Petroleum Jelly’ Sobecki returned to the table and. lifting the end of the sheet, reaching beneath Sobecki inserted his finger into Marsha’s rectum and, pushing inward, probing upward, turning his wrist…

“Ow!”

“Sorry.” Withdrawing his finger. Stripping the sheath off he tossed it into a garbage can along side the table..

“We’re urinating more than usual, are we? And it burns?”

“Yes, Doc. A lot more.”

“Okay, Marsha, sit up.” Parting the rear of the gown, Sobecki placed the cold, smooth surface of his stethoscope against her back, moved it four times and, “Does it hurt here,” pushed with the tips of his fingers at a point on her lower back.

“Ouch! Yeah!”

“Okay.” Closing the gown, “As far as your pregnancy goes, everything’s just fine. But we do seem to have a kidney infection.”

****

“Yes, Mother, it’s a kidney infection.”

“And you’re not feeling well?”

“No, I’m not. As a matter of fact I felt so bad when we left Public Health that I couldn’t even go to work. Mitchell had to call for me to tell them I’m sick.”

Wincing at the words ‘Public Health’, “Marsha, if just ‘half’ of what you tell me about that place is true , then, ‘really’, I don’t know how you can stand it there.”

“I have no choice, Mother, and like I told you, something’s supposed to happen real soon to change all that.”

“So you’ve told me, but it ‘hasn’t’ yet!” Thinking a moment... “Listen to me, Marsha. Why don’t you come home tomorrow and…”

In pajamas, sitting at the kitchen table, “Mother, I…” Mitchell sat at the other side of the table listening to the conversation.

“No! I said ‘you’ listen to ‘me’! You’re pregnant with your first child and you’re getting, at the very most mediocre medical care… ‘God’!” Rhea said through clenched teeth, “I’ve never heard of such a thing! To not even know who’s going to deliver your baby!

“Marsha, fly home tomorrow! Have Doc Schaffer check you out. Stay the rest of the week, and coincidentally you’ll be here Saturday for Rosalie’s wedding then you can go back to your husband knowing everything’s all right with both you ‘and’ your baby.”

Looking at Mitchell, wishing he wasn’t in the room. “Mother, the money we brought with us from the wedding is about gone and I don’t know how long I’m going to be able to keep working, and we definitely do ‘not’ want to touch what you’ve put away for us!”

****

They had received quite a bit of money as wedding gifts: $5,160.00 to be exact, which Mitchell had suggested Rhea hold for them until he was discharged so when they returned to Chicago they’d have money enough for the down payment on a house in one of the fast growing, newer suburbs north or west of Skokie. But knowing they’d be needing a few things—a television; money for the initial purchase of groceries and odds and ends for the apartment, and also, because they weren’t taking a honeymoon, the newlyweds wanted ‘a few bucks’, so if they wanted to do something, or saw something they wanted they’d have money to buy it—they had taken an even thousand dollars with them when they drove to New York the day after their wedding.

What they did not know was that, although Rhea ‘did’ have the money for the formal wedding and the ‘cannot lose deal’ and though she did plan on ‘helping’ with the purchase of an engagement ring for her daughter...

As it turned out Rhea did ‘not’ have enough cash for both Marsha’s 2&1/2 carat and Mitchell’s 1 carat diamond engagement rings. Which were purchased both to spite Myra—who was ‘completely’ against the purchase of both expensive rings —and in the only way she knew to make up to her daughter for the years of neglect, however...

However a large bulk of Rhea’s hidden stash was to be used for..

As Morrie Jacobson had put it in his phone call a few weeks before Rhea, Myra and Marsha had visited ‘Sid’, Rhea’s “friendly” jeweller…

****

“It’s a ‘cannot lose’ deal, Rhe!” Morrie had said. “Hardly anyone knows about it yet, but in two years they’re going to put the ‘Northwest Toll Road’ right through that shitty neighbourhood and, among other structures ‘Tax’ is going to foreclose on this crummy, rat-trap building that’s smack dab in its path. The loan there’s assumable, so I thought, if you want, you can pick up the building for a song and all you’ll need then is enough cash to pull it out of foreclosure.”

Morrie had never steered Rhea wrong yet, so…

“How much is ‘a song,’ Morrie?”

“Thirty-two grand… But Rhe, you’ll be able to, at the ‘very’ least double your money when the city starts buying up those properties. And like I said, all you’ll need is a few thousand to cover the foreclosure…”

“How’s about the mortgage?”

“There’s twelve transient apartments. The rentals there’ll pay the mortgage.”

****

The wedding and diamond rings ‘did’ set Rhea back a bundle, but she had been able to scrape up the $6,200 needed to cover the foreclosure… Because, unknown to them, Rhea had made her daughter and son-in-law partners by using every cent of their wedding money.

****

“Daddy misses you, and...”causing Marsha’s heart to skip a beat, “...I do, too.”

Rhea had never thought she would feel this way about her daughter. But it was true ; for some reason she ‘did’ miss Marsha.

“So what if I pay for the round trip plane ticket...” Rhea said, “...and Doc Schaffer, too.”

She did ‘not’ want to leave her home or husband, however Marsha had waited all her life to hear her mother say something as affectionate as ‘I miss you’. So now warmed by her mother’s unexpected concern and, yes, ‘of course’ she’d like to be seen by Doc Schaffer if for nothing more than the assurance that everything was ‘indeed’ okay with her baby and herself.

Also, needless to say, Marsha would ‘love’ to be able to attend Rosalie’s wedding. And to attend the wedding pregnant yet! To be the ‘very first’ within their group of friends to be pregnant!

“That’s ‘so’ nice of you, Mother! Let me talk to Mitchell and I’ll call back in a little while.”

Next FBOW excerpt in Sequence: A Very Bad Day