holding tissue, clamps, forceps, a needle holder for stitches, and various retractors sufficient for what Henry needed. But it had been a long time since he had performed any operation at all.
The captain and a chief petty officer were enjoying a game of cribbage in the wardroom when Henry and Murphy arrived with their morose patient. Without a word, the officers put away their game and Murphy cleared off the table and turned on the overhead surgical lamp. Henry was continually impressed by the elegant economy of space.
Fortunately Murphy was adept with the injection, and soon McAllister’s gums were numb. But his eyes followed Henry as he picked up the scalpel.
“Jesse, if we’re lucky, you won’t feel anything,” Henry said. “I’ll be as careful as I can be. Just don’t bite my hand, okay?”
McAllister made a little sound that might have been a laugh.
Henry made an incision behind and then in front of the bulging gum, revealing the intruding tooth. He pulled the tissue away as Murphy vacuumed the blood and pus. Henry could smell the infection as he cut deeper, searching for the root of the molar. McAllister’s body trembled with anxiety. Long ago, Henry had steered away from surgery because he hated to inflict pain.
He tugged the tooth out without much problem, but the jaw below was infected. Without a dental drill or other implements, Henry had to chisel the abscess out of the bone. McAllister grunted in appalled astonishment as Henry relentlessly forced the implement deeper into his jaw, again and again, until the bloody hole was finally clean and pure again.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Henry said proudly, as he began to stitch up the vacancy and Murphy stuffed cotton around the wound.
McAllister nodded apprehensively, knowing what was coming.
“Now let’s do the other side,” Henry said.
* * *
—
THAT EVENING one of the most embarrassing episodes in Henry’s life occurred: he walked into the women’s shower. He was wearing the dead doctor’s oversized bathrobe and flip-flops, with a towel around his neck, as he had seen the submariners do, and he went directly into the room where three women, including Murphy, were showering or drying off. For a second, Henry stood absolutely frozen. “Get the fuck out,” one of the women advised, and he quickly retreated to his berth, totally mortified.
Half an hour later there was a light tap on his door. It was Murphy.
“Oh my God,” Henry said. “I can’t apologize enough.”
“It’s okay, sir. We know it’s not your fault. Nobody explained the code to you. We’ve got men’s hours and women’s hours for the shower, and the only way you’d know that is by the picture on the door.”
“I didn’t notice.”
“Dolly Parton for the gals and John Wayne for the guys. Nobody thinks you did it on purpose. Our fault, we should have told you.”
When he went to the mess hall, where the crew was watching Black Panther, Henry realized that everyone on board already knew about his experience in the women’s shower. They were nudging each other and making wisecracks under their breath about the “rider”—meaning him, the stranger. In no time at all, he had become a legendary buffoon. Or pervert. He had no idea what else they were saying about him, nor did he care to hear.
“Hey, Doc!” one of the SEALs said. His companions tried to shush him, but he shrugged them off. “My buddy died this morning.”
“Which one was he?” Henry asked.
“Petty Officer Second Class Jack Curtis. You told him he was going to be fine.”
Henry could see the rage and grief in the young man’s face. “I’m sorry, there was nothing I could do,” he said.
“Then what the fuck are you doing here? While this fucking disease picks us off one by one?”
“We don’t have a cure for this—” Henry began, but the young man wasn’t finished. “I’m here because I know how to do my job,” the SEAL said. “But you’re just occupying space.”
There was nothing Henry could say in return.
38
Mrs. Hernández
“Would you like some more ketchup soup?” Helen asked Teddy. She was sick of waiting on him, but there was really no one else to talk to. She could call friends on her mother’s cell phone, and occasionally someone would drop off some food on the porch, but it wasn’t sufficient. They were out of lentils. The cupboard is bare, Helen thought, like in a fairy tale.
Teddy didn’t answer. His head was buried in Jill’s computer.