Yellow and Orange Blues
by Amy Bechtel
Illustration by Mike Aspengren
On Wednesday Howard Winston brought a cardboard box to my veterinary clinic. I saw him sitting in the waiting room with the box in his lap, studying an open book propped across the box. An extension cord protruded from the box and coiled under Howard’s chair to a wall plug; undoubtedly it was connected to a heating pad. Perhaps, I thought wistfully, Howard had an orphan puppy or kitten in the box. It would be nice to see a normal sort of animal for a change. But it was probably a reptile. I sighed and called in the next patient.
After I had seen a poodle with a cyst (the owner had thought it was a tick, and had valiantly tried to pull it off), a parakeet for a wing-and-beak trim, and an iguana with metabolic bone disease, I began to wonder if my receptionist, Kami, had forgotten Howard. I peeked into the waiting room, and at that moment Kami rushed forward breathlessly to hand me the file. It was so heavy I almost dropped it. Howard’s file had always been bulky, but now—I opened it and counted—there were thirty-seven new charts in it, each painstakingly filled out by Kami. All thirty-seven said exactly the same thing: species reptile, breed desert tortoise, color green, sex unknown, age two days.
“I’m sorry the paperwork took so long, sir,” Kami said, “but there were so many charts to fill out. And, Doctor Clayton, I didn’t fill out the name’ part because he hasn’t named the turtles yet.”
“Tortoises,” I corrected.
“Oh. I’m sorry.” Kami looked devastated at the correction. I was about to mention that she could have done the paperwork in 1/37 of the time by making use of the copy machine, but I didn’t have the heart.
“Never mind,” I said, and called Howard into the exam room. He smiled affably, closed his book, unplugged his box, and brought it in. He didn’t complain about being kept waiting; Howard is the most patient man I’ve ever met. He also has the most bizarre collection of exotic pets I’ve ever seen. For him, a box of thirty-seven baby tortoises was downright normal.
“Hi, doc,” Howard said cheerfully. “I’ve got a whole herd of Max’s kids to see you today.”
“Thirty-seven kids? Max gets around.” Max is one of Howard’s favorite pets, a huge venerable desert tortoise with a penchant for females.
“They just hatched,” Howard said proudly.
I opened the box and looked in. The box was full of exquisitely tiny tortoises, no bigger than silver dollars, all busily crawling over and under each other. I picked one up and set it in the palm of my hand. It peered up at me nearsightedly, extending its little neck, and I smiled. It was a sweet little thing. Adorable, really. I had never realized that reptiles could be so cute.
Cute? What was I thinking? I was an affirmed horse and cattle vet; I only did dogs and cats because there wasn’t enough large animal work to make a living in this town. I only did exotics because of Howard, and because of all the exotic pet owners Howard had referred to me. So how had I ended up seeing more snakes and lizards than cattle and horses? And when had I come to think of reptiles as cute?
I looked back at the baby tortoise in my hand; it was still adorable. It snuffled, and I held it closer. Its tiny nostrils were clogged, and its eyes were swollen partway shut. I picked up another tortoise, and another, keeping track of which ones I had examined by moving them to another box. Most of the babies had one symptom or another of respiratory disease, a very nasty thing in desert tortoises. I would need to get them all onto antibiotics. I looked doubtfully at the tiny creatures, then looked up the antibiotic dose. There was quite a bit of debate in the literature about the appropriate tortoise dose; I averaged the recommendations of several experts and then weighed a representative tortoise. The dose wasn’t hard to calculate; I would need about 0.0002 cc for each baby. Measuring the dose, however, was going to be tricky. I groaned and began to calculate dilutions. I was deep into a set of fractions when Kami knocked on the door and anxiously poked her head into the room.
“Doctor Clayton?”
“Not now, Kami.”
“But Doctor, it’s an emergency.”
The final calculation took advantage of the interruption and eluded me, and I sighed and gave up. “All right. What is it?”
“It’s a dog. It needs vaccinations. The owner says it’s a whole day overdue. I thought I’d better tell you.”
“Oh.” I closed my eyes and began to count to fifty. “Thank you, Kami.”
“You’re welcome.” She smiled and closed the door.
Howard coughed and said, “I didn’t know vaccinations were an emergency.”
“They’re not.”
“Shouldn’t you tell Kami?”
“I’m afraid to. She might decide that arterial bleeding isn’t an emergency either. Do you suppose Lynda might want to come back to work?” Lynda used to be my receptionist, before she went off to live with Howard, and I missed her terribly. I missed her more every day I worked with Kami.
Howard looked doubtful. “She’s awfully busy,” he said.
“Figures,” I said sadly. “And my kennelman is quitting next week. He says cleaning cages and stalls is too gross, and mopping hurts his back. I can’t seem to keep kennel help for more than a month any more.” I couldn’t seem to get rid of Kami, either. Maybe I should assign her to clean some of the more revolting cages.
Howard said thoughtfully, “I have a poetry student who might be interested in the job.”
“A poetry student? To clean cages and mop floors?” I threw up my hands.
“Sure.”
I shrugged helplessly. “If he’s interested, have him give me a call.”
“She,” Howard said.
“She?”
“She. I’ll let her know.”
“Sure.” I settled back to my fractions, bemused, wondering why a poetry student would possibly want a job at a veterinary clinic.
“So how’s your social life?” Howard asked. “Are you still seeing Susan Rose?”
I sighed. I’d gone out with the beautiful Susan Rose twice, but the third time I asked her for a date she said no (politely, but still no) and the fourth time she said no a bit less politely, which seemed to be some kind of hint.
“Oh no,” I told Howard, trying to sound casual. “We didn’t really hit it off. Besides, I don’t think I was ever meant to date a woman who owns a pet snake.”
Howard laughed. “Oh come on, Doc, you’re great with snakes.”
“Not with snakes named ‘Terminator.’ ”
Actually I was not good with snakes of any kind, but it would probably be best not to mention that to Howard. He had a few snakes of his own that I might have to treat someday.
“By the way,” Howard said, “could you come by our place on Friday night?”
I looked at him suspiciously. “Why?”
Howard smiled. “It’s a surprise.”
“What kind of a surprise?” A few months back I had given Howard a surprise of my own; I had presented him with an orphan calf which he’d then had to bottle feed night and day. I was afraid that Howard might have retribution in mind.
“Come over Friday night and you’ll find out.”
“You don’t have a new pet, do you?” I asked nervously. If he had a new pet it would probably be a species I wouldn’t even recognize.
“No new pets,” Howard said, “except for these thirty-seven. So you’ll come?”
“Well, I’ll try,” I hedged. “Depends on how things go, you know how it is.”
“OK,” he said amiably. “So how much antibiotic do I give the babies?”
I’d gotten distracted from my fractions again and I still had all those hideous dilutions to calculate. Why didn’t anyone manufacture drugs of a suitable strength for the one-gram patient?