The nurse left quickly and Jennie, with the same deft motion, picked up two hemostats. The assisting surgeon took them from her hand and tied off two veins as the surgeon's knife exposed them.
"Aren't you going to wait for the biopsy?" Dr. Colton asked from his position next to the surgeon. The surgeon didn't look up. His fingers were busy probing at the mass. "Not unless you want me to, Doctor." He held out his hand and Jennie placed a fine curette in it. He was working quickly now, preparing to remove the infected kidney.
Colton hesitated. "Charles Standhurst isn't just an ordinary man." Everyone around the operating table knew that. At one time or another, the old man quietly lying there, could have been almost anything he'd wanted. Governor, senator, anything. With more than twenty major newspapers stretched across the nation and a fortune founded from oil and gold, he'd never really wanted anything more than to be himself. He was second only to Hearst in the state's pride for its home-grown tycoons.
The surgeon, a comparatively young man who'd rapidly become one of the foremost GU men in the world and had been flown out from New York especially for this job, began to lift out the kidney. The nurse behind Jennie tapped her on the shoulder. Jennie took the slip of paper from her and held it out for him to see. She could see the typed words plainly.
Carcinoma. Metastasis. Malignant.
The surgeon sighed softly, and glanced up at Dr. Colton. "Well, he's an ordinary enough man now."
Mr. Standhurst was awake the next morning when the surgeon came into his hospital room. If he paid any attention to the teletype clicking away in the corner, it wasn't apparent. He walked over to the side of the bed and looked down. "I came in to say good-by, Mr. Standhurst. I'm leaving for New York this morning."
The old man looked up and grinned. "Hey, Doc," he said. "Anybody ever tell you that your old man was a tailor?"
"My father was a tailor, Mr. Standhurst."
"I know," Standhurst said quickly. "He still has the store on Stanton Street. I know many things about you. You were president of the Save Sacco-Vanzetti Society at City College when you graduated in twenty-seven, a registered member of the Young Socialists during your first year at P. and S., and the first surgeon ever to become an F.A.C.S. in his first year of practice. You're still a registered Socialist in New York and you'll probably vote for Norman Thomas for President."
The surgeon smiled. "You know a great deal about me."
"Of course I do. You don't think I'd let just anybody cut me up, do you?"
"I should think you'd have worried just a little knowing what you do about me," the doctor said. "You know what we Socialists think of you."
The old man started to laugh, then grimaced in pain. "Hell! The way I figure it, you're a doctor first and a Socialist second." He looked up shrewdly. "You know, Doc, if you voted the straight Republican ticket, I could make you a millionaire in less than three years."
The doctor laughed and shook his head. "No, thanks. I’d worry too much."
"How come you don't ask me how I feel, Doc? Colton's been in here four times already and each time he asked me."
The doctor shrugged his shoulders. "Why should I? I know how you feel. You hurt."
"I hurt like hell, Doc," Standhurst said. "Colton said those stones you took out of me were big as baseballs."
"They were pretty big, all right."
"He also said I’d be wearing this bag you hooked into me until the kidney healed and took over again."
"You'll be wearing it quite a while."
The old man stared at him. "You know, you're both full of shit," he said calmly. "I’ll wear this in my grave. And that isn't too far off, either."
"I wouldn't say that."
"I know you wouldn't," Standhurst said. "That's why I'm saying it. Look, Doc, I'm eighty-one years old. And at eighty-one, if a man lives that long, he gets to be a good smeller of death – for anyone, including himself. You learn to see it in the face or eyes. So don't bullshit me. How long have I got?"
The doctor looked into the old man's eyes and saw that he wasn't afraid. If anything, there was a look of lively curiosity reflected there. He made up his mind quickly. Colton was all wrong in the way he was handling it. This was a man. He deserved the truth. "Three months, if you're lucky, Mr. Standhurst. Six, if you're not."
The old man didn't blink an eyelash. "Cancer?"
The surgeon nodded. "Malignant and metastatic," he answered. "I removed one complete kidney and almost half of the other. That's why you have that waste bag."
"Will it be painful?"
"Very. But we can control it with morphine."
"To hell with that," the old man said. "Dying is about the only thing in life I haven't experienced. It's something I don't want to miss."
The teletype began to clatter suddenly and the old man glanced over at it, then back at the doctor. "How will I know when it's close, Doc?"
"Watch the urine in that bag," the doctor said. "The redder it gets, the nearer it is. That means the kidney is passing clear blood instead of urine, because the cancer will have choked off the kidney completely."
The look in the old man's eyes was bright and intelligent. "That means I’ll probably die of uremic poisoning."
"Possibly. If nothing else goes wrong."
Standhurst laughed. "Hell, Doc," he said, "I could have done that twenty years ago if I'd just kept on drinking."
The surgeon laughed. "But look at all the fun you'd have missed."
The old man smiled up at him. "You Socialists will probably declare a national holiday."
"I don't know, Mr. Standhurst." The doctor returned his smile. "Who would we have to complain about then?"
"I'm not worried," the old man said. "Hearst and Patterson will still be around."
The doctor held out his hand. "Well, I've got to be going, Mr. Standhurst."
Standhurst took his hand. "Good-by, Doc. And thanks."
The surgeon's dark eyes were serious. "Good-by, Mr. Standhurst," he said. "I'm sorry." He started for the door. The old man's voice turned him around.
"Will you do me a favor, Doc?"
"Anything I can, Mr. Standhurst."
"That nurse up in the operating room," Standhurst said. "The one with the gray eyes and the tits."
The surgeon knew whom he meant. "Miss Denton?"
"If that's her name," the old man said.
The surgeon nodded.
"She said if I wanted to see her without her mask, she'd come down. Would you leave word with Colton on your way out that I'd like her to join me for lunch?"
The surgeon laughed. "Will do, Mr. Standhurst"
10
Jennie picked up the bottle of champagne and poured it into the tall glass filled with ice cubes. The wine bubbled up with a fine frothy head, then settled back slowly as she filled it to the brim. She put the glass straw into the glass and handed it to Standhurst. "Here's your ginger ale, Charlie."
He grinned at her mischievously. "If you're looking for something to bring up the gas," he said, "champagne beats ginger ale any time." He sipped at it appreciatively. "Ah," he said and burped. "Have some, maybe it will make you feel sexy."
"What good would it do you if I did?" Jennie retorted.
"I'd feel good just remembering what I'd have done if it were twenty years ago."
"Better make it forty, to be safe."
"No." He shook his head. "Twenty was the best. Maybe it's because I appreciated it more then, knowing it wasn't going to last very long."
The teletype in the corner of the library began to chatter. Jennie got up out of the chair and walked over to it. When it stopped, she tore the message off and came back to him. "They just nominated Roosevelt for a second term." She handed him the yellow sheet.