The Circus Freak - and the boy who was afraid of clowns

Third chapter

THIRD            CHAPTER 

            IN THE BEGINNING OF THE FOLLOWING WEEK, JACIARA TOOK RENATO TO THE OFFICE of Doctor Leandro, one of the best available pneumologists of that time.

“And who's the nice young man?” Asked the doctor, while taking from his pocket a metal tongue depressor that grabbed the new client's attention. “What's your name?”

“Renato,” answered the boy, before his mother could answer for him. One of Jaciara's hands, after hanging the purse over the opposite arm, touched the boy's shoulder as a way of asking him to be quiet.

“It's asthma, Doctor!” The mother was still standing when she diagnosed.

“It is up to me to diagnose him. Mrs...” Leandro smiled. His unfinished sentence led the servicewoman to a formal introduction.

“Jaciara, Doctor, it's Jaciara!” The doctor could not disguise his declared interest in the V–neck that was too low cut, and in the underwear that was insisting on coming out from under the uniform of the servicewoman. The doctor, who had specialized in lungs, loved some nice bursting breasts. The powerful thorax of the mother was a contrast to the dug–in chest of her skinny little son.

“Senhora Jaciara, I suppose...” the doctor emphasized. He stared at Jaci's light colored eyes, for just a second, and then stared for a long while at her huge breasts.

“Not really, Doctor, Senhorita Jaciara sounds a lot better. I've never been formally married,” And smiled. Not a wide and without modesty smile, but a closed teeth smile, making an effort to show she was shy.

The doctor gave a large smile in return, celebrating the beautiful mother's marital status. With deliberation, he pointed to the other side of the table, to a chair lower than his own. He said: “Go ahead, Jaciara, have a seat please!”

The doctor asked about Renato's symptoms, and scrutinized, for almost half an hour, the boy's semiology of cough and of dyspnea.  Later he inquired about whether or not Renato frequently had the flu, and investigated his family history going back five generations. That, and many other things.

The mother interrupted the inquisitorial torture session that had been going on for about an hour. She opened up:  

“This boy is too sick, Doctor Leandro, it's so sad to see. At night you can hear him making noises, the noises he makes sound like a cat meow.” Jaciara told the Doctor how she had given Renato epazote, because she knew it was the cure-all medicinal herb for lung diseases, but the boy just hadn’t gotten any better. She had hesitated about going to the drugstore, but she had surrendered to the boy's begging, and bought him some cough syrup, which had not worked either. She talked about her lack of money, and how she could barely afford to buy food. But, thank God, the boy was smart. She didn't have to pay for a private school, because he had gotten a scholarship in a contest held by the factory.

For the first time in a very long time, thanks to a painful exercise in budgeting expenses, there was some money left to take her son to the pneumologist. Leandro listened to Jaciara with immeasurable attention, always trying to remember to avoid the thorax of the “lady”.

Leandro examined the boy all over. The lung examination with stethoscope became long and detailed.

In the waiting room, the line of distressed patients was getting longer, and more complaints were spilling into the assistant's ears.

The delay, combined with the humid heat, became a tropical torture session without precedent.

“His lungs, Jaci, are full of mucus. He hisses high and low” e abbreviated the name of the boy's mother, expecting to become more intimate with her.