A half-dozen of us were in the showers after practice the day Joe smacked my ass with a wet towel. I ignored it, but he kept smacking me. The others taunted me to do something about it. When I confronted Joe, he beat the shit out of me.

Picture me in a fetal position on the floor, clutching my stomach in agony. Now picture Joe and his friends pissing on me as a group, drenching me from head to toe.

Laughing.

Like I said, I didn’t know Joe’s mom, and didn’t kill her.

But I let her die last week from an infection I could’ve prevented.

III

 

I’M NOT AN angel of mercy. I don’t kill random patients.

I’ve got a list.

If you’re on my list, it means you’ve done something I refuse to forgive. It’s probably something minor to you, something you forgot long ago. But like the Stones said in the second best song they ever recorded, time is on my side.

Like everyone else in the world, you and your loved ones will eventually get sick or have an accident. And when you do, you better not come to my hospital, because I can kill you, maim you, infect you, humiliate you, frighten you, aggravate you, and generally fuck up your life in a thousand different ways.

Want an example?

I bet you didn’t know that every year three hundred hospital patients burst into flames during routine operations.

Three hundred!

You think all those are accidents?

Thirty-six items in a standard operating room can explode under the right conditions. What I’m saying, I can turn your chest into a fireball using nothing more than an alcohol swab and a hot cautery device.

So don’t piss me off.

And tread lightly, because I’m tightly wound. Every day it takes less and less to piss me off.

IV

 

I’M THE LAST guy you want to meet in the hospital—and not because I’m a vindictive son of a bitch.

I am a vindictive son of a bitch, but the reason you don’t want to meet me is I’m your child’s last hope for survival. When they wheel your kid into my operating room, it means his problems are so severe no one else can perform the surgery.

That’s because I’m the most technically gifted congenital/cardiothoracic surgeon in the world.

That’s right, in the world.

Think I’m bragging?

I’m not.

I take no pleasure in being the world’s greatest surgeon.

Someone in the world makes the best flapjacks. Someone else is the best seamstress. And someone owns the world’s biggest ranch, truck, or penis.

I’d rather be any of them.

Especially the guy with the biggest penis.

But it’s my job to be the best surgeon.

My skill is my curse, and forces me to work in hell, under excruciating pressure. I say that and you think, yeah, there probably is a lot of stress in what I do, operating on infants and children.

No.

You think you know, but you don’t.

You have no idea.

Want a glimpse into my world? That’s me in the operating room, standing in the corner, crying silently so the others won’t know. They think I’m psyching myself up for the six-hour procedure I’m about to perform.

See that tiny blue object on the table, surrounded by two highly-skilled nurses, a pediatric anesthesiologist, and assisting surgeon?

My patient, Lainey Sue Calfee.

Five pounds, less than a month old, structurally abnormal heart. It would take five minutes to tell you what’s wrong with her, but she’ll be dead by then. And anyway, those are only the problems I know about.