Free Love Is the Best Medicine by Dr. Nick Trout Page A

facility are, by definition, design, and desire, unpredictable to say the least.
    It may be no more than fifty yards and twenty seconds from the click of my vehicle’s central locking mechanism to the swish of the automatic doors at the hospital’s entrance, but there is ample opportunity to be accosted. It could be an anxious owner who has just dropped off his or her pet for surgery, armed with more pressing questions, eager to ensure that I have brought my A game, my mind sharp but not overly caffeinated. It might be my first appointment of the day, early and wandering the perimeter of the lot, a gimpy canine patient staking claim to a patch of yellow snow as his owner looks my way and juts a sharp chin in my direction as if to say, “Ready to see us or what?” But on one mean morning in January, nothing but black ice and a dusting of pet-friendly ice melt stood between me and the warmth of our vast reception area.
    “Is it Friday the thirteenth?”
    Sweeping in from my left, keeping pace as I headed to my office, came one of our interns, Dr. Elliot Sweet, greeting me with that question.
    “Because if it’s not, last night had to be a full moon.”
    We were walking together, as though he happened to be going my way, and it seemed obvious that he needed to confide. In fact it was a Tuesday, though I could forgive his disorientation. The telltale stubble on his cheeks told me all I needed to know. Dr. Sweet had been working the overnight shift.
    “Did one of your clients appear overcome by the Roman goddess Luna?” I said.
    He stopped me with an enormous hand on my shoulder and a smile that said this would be worth my while, and he set the scene.
    The doors to our emergency service are open 24/7 and last night the waiting area had been packed with a variety of patients hoping to be seen. Among them were a Persian cat who had mistaken his owner’s stash of pot for his own stash of catnip; a Weimaraner puppy with a cut pad, blissfully ignorant of the bloody crime scene he was creating across the hospital floor; and a Pomeranian with a chronic, greasy, malodorous skin problem that, according to his cranky owner, simply could not wait until tomorrow.
    And then there was Mr. Turret and his dog, Dillon. Mr. Turret’s resonant mantra had been heard long before he breached the automatic doors, his arrival all the more dramatic for the silence that ensued as he stormed into the center of the waiting room.
    “Rabies,” he boomed, dropping the piece of twine that loosely tethered his placid mutt, his great hands extending before him, joining his eyes in pleading to the audience, circling before the waiting room turned theatre-in-the-round.
    Mr. Turret commanded attention. He was an enormous barbarian of a man with untamable black hair contiguous between head and beard through which poked a bulbous ruddy nose and quick menacing eyes. Only the horned helmet and the evidence of rape and pillage were missing.
    “For the love of God, it is rabies.”
    He stressed every word, enunciating with Pentecostal precision.
    “Rabies, the Lord’s blight upon man and beast. I know it and you know it. Just look at him.”
    Suddenly he strode toward the strung-out guy clutching the floppy Persian cat.
    “Look before you,” he said, gesturing dramatically in the direction of his dog, like a magician’s assistant accentuating a trick, the cat and its owner too stoned to feign interest.
    “You see it, sir. I know you do. See the devil’s froth and spittle, see it pouring from his innocent lips; see those kind and devoted eyes possessed by Satan’s defiant stare.”
    Dillon sat perfectly still, unperturbed, watching his master’s every move. However, to the trained eye, Dillon swallowed with increased frequency, effort, and considerable discomfort. The corners of his lips were wet and accumulating saliva, in a manner remarkably similar to those of his ranting owner.
    “Rabies. Can there be any doubt?” Mr. Turret scanned his audience