Free Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures by Vincent Lam

about the bicycle and the bus, telling the story as if his only concern at the time of the accident had been his medical school application.
    Dabbing at Fitzgerald’s raw chin with a plastic-bristled surgical scrub brush, McCarthy said, “Although I’m a dermatologist, you didn’t have to rip off half your face to come see me. We had already invited you for the interview.” She seemed very pleased with this remark. The scrubbing burned, and Fitzgerald winced at the pain. She made him take off his pants so they could examine his knees. She had Karl scrub the knees, and he was rough—perhaps because he had expected to interview a candidate rather than change dressings.
    â€œWhat did you like about Ottawa U?” asked McCarthy.
    â€œI had a chance to develop my study techniques.”
    â€œAnd what did you learn about studying?”
    â€œThat knowledge acquisition is all about discipline,” said Fitzgerald. He said to Karl, “You’re from Ottawa?”
    â€œSo it seems,” said Karl.
    Fitzgerald said, “I’m a friend of Ming’s.”
    â€œOh, what a small world,” said McCarthy. “You have mutual friends. But you have not met, correct? We can’t have the interview be biased, of course.”
    Both Karl and Fitzgerald smiled blandly at McCarthy, which she took as confirmation that they were strangers.
    As Karl hunched over, scrubbing hard at Fitzgerald’s knees, hurting him, Fitzgerald imagined jerking hisknee up into Karl’s jaw, Karl’s head snapping back. Could he make it look like an accident, like a sudden reflex of pain? It would be for Ming, he told himself. But they would know. They were doctors, therefore all-seeing, and they would recognize whether a knee-jerk was reflex or assault. And why should he do this for Ming, when this impulsive act might keep him from success, and she had drifted so far from him that she had changed her phone number? His knees had gone from scabbed and scruffy to raw and oozing with bloody fringes.
    Karl said, “One thing you learn in medicine is that wounds heal. Almost all bleeding stops with pressure.” He scrubbed hard, and Fitzgerald tensed his thigh. “Also, there’s some pain.”
    He should drive his leg upward. It was Karl’s fault that Ming had learned to exclude, to be hard. Of course, it was Karl’s study system that had brought Ming to medical school and himself to this interview. But the method was irrelevant. To study was to work. To work was to make it one’s own. As he neared the decision to do it—to knee Karl in the jaw—Karl finished wrapping his knees in gauze with a rough flourish. Karl stood and the opportunity for violence was gone. Fitzgerald looked at Karl and said, “Ming taught me that the first eighty marks are easy to get, but you lose it on the last twenty, so you live your life for the last twenty. Bleeding must be the same. The few cases that don’t stop are the tough part, right?”
    McCarthy said, “Before we discuss the management of hemorrhage, tell me about ‘knowledge acquisition.’ Is that what they call academics now? Like buying a house, or a hostile corporate takeover. How is it, Fitzgerald, that you ‘acquire’ knowledge?”
    Fitzgerald told himself to turn away, to look away from Karl’s gaze. “Maybe ‘acquisition’ is not right, since that implies taking it away from someone else. I guess when you know something well enough that you can use it from the gut, and it affects the way you think, then it’s an idea that you own. ‘Ownership’ might be a better way to think of it.”
    â€œOwning ideas is all about discipline?” asked Karl.
    â€œWhy don’t you get dressed,” said McCarthy. Fitzgerald was standing in his boxer shorts and dress shirt, his face and knees freshly wrapped in gauze. After Fitzgerald had dressed, McCarthy asked him what