Free A Disorder Peculiar to the Country by Ken Kalfus Page A

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    The surgical thread in Marshall’s scalp had been stitched and removed at the local emergency room, but he felt compelled to see his own physician when a strange condition inflamed the right side of his body, running all the way from mid-thigh to his lower abdomen. The skin had become painfully tender and the center of the rash was moist and scaly. The doctor’s examination was brief.
    “How long have you had it?”
    “About a week and a half. It started three days after September 11.” The doctor looked at him blankly and Marshall was embarrassed. Everyone was dating everything now from September 11, regardless of whether they or anyone they knew had been at Ground Zero—when was that going to stop? Marshall explained, “I was there. In the World Trade Center. I escaped.”
    The doctor bunched his eyebrows and frowned. “Really?” he said, momentarily disbelieving. “How did you escape?”
    Marshall preferred not to speak about the terrorist attacks and had spoken very little about them with other people, but he understood that September 11 was now part of his medical history. He told the doctor everything that had happened from the moment the first plane hit the twin towers, omitting only the mention of Lloyd, the man who had fled the buildings with him and been killed. That little incident, of no significance to anyone, he kept to himself as a secret part of himself. Marshall parceled out the rest of his account in small, concise pieces, in case he was giving too much detail, while the doctor interrupted from time to time, his interest growing: “Where was that?” “And then what?” “And what did that feel like?” In the waiting room patients were accumulating.
    When he was finished, the doctor shook his head. “Well, that was something terrible, Mr. Harriman. Now you know what it’s like to live in history.”
    Marshall wondered if he could put his pants back on. He was sitting on an examination table with a paper sheet over his privates. “Do you think the rash has something to do with it?”
    The doctor rubbed his face thoughtfully. “All sorts of debris products were put in the air when the towers came down: asbestos, PCBs, dioxin…Toxic material, or something you maybe allergic to. Perhaps it’s an infection. I’ll write you a prescription for an antibiotic. Come back in a week. Give it air and don’t let it chafe. If it gets worse, call me. Here’s my service number.”
    “Could it be contagious?”
    He shrugged. “Does your wife have symptoms?”
    “I was thinking about my kids. I have two, four and two years old. They seem fine.”
    The doctor nodded his big, bald head. “That’s right, I remember: a girl and a boy.” Marshall smiled, gratified that he remembered. “No, I wouldn’t worry unless you see something. And if your wife’s okay—”
    “I don’t know,” Marshall blurted. “I wouldn’t know. We’re not talking, we’re not sleeping together. We’re getting divorced. We’re virtually separated except I’m still living in the apartment. She wants to force me out and then charge me with abandonment, or something like that. It’s been the worst year of my life.”
    He threw up his hands, stricken by bewilderment. This was even more painful to speak about than September 11. His gaze was imploring.
    “Well,” the doctor said gravely. His forehead darkened like a thundercloud. “She always seemed a bit high-strung.”
    Marshall bobbed his head in agreement, but he was so surprised by the doctor’s remark he could hardly speak. Commenting on the personality of another patient must have been against every principle of professional ethics. This lapse, by a distinguished physician with a Clinton Street brownstone and a wall of degrees, could have been provoked only by the most extreme and obvious circumstances. High-strung? Of course Joyce was high-strung. Marshall had always known it. Now he had received expert confirmation.
    He had never before left a medical