Free Spirit of the Place (9781101617021) by Samuel Shem

out.”
    â€œYou’re crazy!”
    â€œBill!” cried Babette. “We can go back to Boca!”
    â€œNo, no,” Orville said. “I’m not taking over. I’m helping out. Part-time. Some days, some nights, some weekends. We do it together.”
    â€œWait a second,” Bill said, his fingers drumming what sounded like a foxtrot on the yellow formica, clearly upset at this news. “You doin’ this under duress?”
    â€œYup. A lot of duress. You bet.”
    â€œSo it ain’t your choice?”
    â€œNope. Like you said, I’m crazy.”
    â€œWell, that makes sense.” He smiled. “One thing I’ve learned is, is that whenever you think you’re choosin’ things based on the facts, ten years later you look back and see you didn’t know shit from Shinola about what was really going on in the world and in your life to push you to think
you
were choosin’ things one way or another.” He took a deep drag on the Camel and blew it back out contentedly. “Stay, leave, what the hell difference does it make anyway? You get that nice Chrysler, though, and a helluva lotta cash.”
    â€œAnd the house.”
    â€œY’know, Orvy, they say that house has ghosts.”
    â€œGhosts would be an improvement.”
    Bill laughed. “Maybe we’ll have a little fun. Like we used to?”
    â€œMaybe,” Orville said glumly, “and maybe not.”
    â€œHear that, Babs? Same old card. A joker.” He chuckled. “Okay, partner, you’ve got yourself a deal.”
    The two shook hands. Orville started walking away.
    â€œDr. Rose?”
    â€œDr. Starbuck?”
    â€œSon,” he said, choked up. “For me, this is a dream come true.”

· 6 ·
    Seven weeks later, Orville was in the emergency room tending to a Columbian garbageman who had fallen into the business end of his truck and had seen the bottom half of his body compacted to the thinness of a door. The man was going to die and, horribly, knew it. His screams and curses filled the small circle of cubicles. No one wanted to go near him. The only way Orville could deal with it was to shift into “Distanced Doctor” mode and go into the room periodically to push morphine.
    It was the morning of October 12, a day of singular importance to Columbians—Columbus Day. The parade, filled with pomp and trepidation, was to start soon. Orville had promised Amy that he would take her. He was trying to finish up fast and make a smooth handoff of patients to Bill so he could run up to Penny’s ranch to pick up his niece.
    He was coming out of the garbageman’s room for what he hoped was the last time when he got an urgent call at the nursing station.
    â€œ
Caro!
”
    â€œCelestina?”
    â€œ
Sì, sì,
Celestina.”
    â€œ
Cara!
” Screams interrupted. “I’m in the emergency. You have to shout.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œShout!” he shouted.
    In the six weeks that she had been on retreat, they had spoken often. Their love was still intense. More intense, even, for their physical absence and their passionate phone calls.
    â€œThe retreat was
fantastico
and I have one favor to ask,
caro.
”
    â€œWhat is that?”
    â€œI need two more weeks.”
    â€œ
What?
” His heart did a flip-flop and started to sink. “Why?”
    As best he could hear, she was saying that the retreat had gone so well that the participants were revved up to try and set up an all-European
sangha,
or Buddhist community. Something about a Swiss banker from Zug who owned half an elephant in Nepal and had wandered into the Piazza Navona retreat by mistake (the banker not the elephant), stayed, had his eyes opened, and, now in a kind of dazed philanthropic state, was talking about helping finance the ongoing endeavor, and would Orville mind terribly if she delayed her arrival in Columbia for two weeks?
    â€œGive me a