Halfway to Hell

Halfway to Hell Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

Stan Rosenbaum was a good doctor but a bad example. He chain smoked constantly. Even when he was with a patient.  Lighting a new cigarette from the still smouldering butt of the last one. And the extra strong mints he sucked couldn’t mask the stink of whiskey that undercut his tobacco breath. Every time he opened his desk drawer you could hear the chink of bottle and glass. But, hey, the man had saved my life so I wasn’t about to get on his case about his poor bedside manner.

            We met during the ‘Big One’. I had what you might call a bad war. Not that I’ve ever heard of a good one. I joined up in ’42, all full of vinegar and patriotic pride determined to strike a blow for freedom. It didn’t take long for Uncle Adolph’s jackbooted pals to knock those half-assed notions out of my head. Mostly, it was just about survival. Something I almost didn’t achieve.

            When they wheeled me into the field hospital I was more dead than alive. Stan was the medic on duty. He took six bullets out of me and patched up a dozen other scrapes and contusions, including one that left me with a second parting in my hair. A slug had grazed my skull leaving a six inch line of puckered skin that wouldn’t grow hair anymore. I think it looks kind of stylish, but if he’d aimed a half inch to the left, that would have been all she wrote.

            While I was waiting to be shipped home, me and Stan got to talking. Seems we came from the same neighbourhood. He’s ten years older than me so our paths never crossed. Scuttlebutt has it that he only joined the Medical Corp to get out of a bad marriage. That seemed to work out for him because he’s been single ever since. Nowadays he prefers a string of girlfriends. Emphasis on the ‘girl’. Stan like ‘em young. Too young for their own good and his. But, like I say, the man saved my life and as long as no-one complains…

            He opened his desk drawer – chink-chink – and pulled out a prescription pad and began to write. ‘Still getting the headaches?’ he asked.

            ‘Yea.’

            ‘And the blackouts?’

            ‘Sometimes.’

            ‘The pills still working?’

            ‘Seem to be.’

            ‘Good. Keep taking them.’

            He tore off the script and handed it to me, stubbed his cigarette end out in the overflowing ashtray, took another one from the pack, flipped it into his mouth, lit it. I folded the script and put it into my pocket.

            ‘Been a while since we had a drink,’ I said.

            ‘Maybe for you,’ he replied.

            I grinned. ‘Socially, I mean.’

            ‘You asking me on a date, Mac?’

            ‘You’re not my type, but there is one other thing.’

            He laughed. ‘There’s always one other thing with you, Mac. What is it this time? A teenage redhead whose shouldn’t be pregnant, but is? A guy with too much lead in his system who needs patching up? Or maybe a stoolie who needs to lie low for a while?’

            I shook my head. I sometimes forget that Stan knows almost as much about my cases as I do. If I wasn’t such a straight arrow, it would be enough to get him whacked.

            ‘Nothing like that,’ I said. ‘I just want your professional opinion about a doctor.’

            ‘You mean you want me to dish the dirt on a colleague which is not only unprofessional it is also personally abhorrent to me.’