Fire & Water Read online

  Copyright © 2013 by Betsy Graziani Fasbinder

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.

  Published 2013

  ISBN: 978-1-938314-15-5

  For information, address:

  She Writes Press

  1563 Solano Ave #546

  Berkeley, CA 94707

  In memory of my brother, whose voice I still hear. How is it that you speak most loudly from the very pages of this book? Perhaps my answers are here.

  Johnny, we all miss you and wish you were still here.

  Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,

  there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

  —Rumi

  Family

  “Yo, Murphy. Check it out,” Mary K announced as we walked together into the doctors’ lounge of UCSF Medical Center. Her raspy voice wore rough New York edges and contradicted her petite frame and freckled face.

  Awaiting us were a dozen of our fellow interns and nurses, wearing a rainbow of hospital scrubs and white lab coats, and a few of the friendlier senior staff physicians.

  Dahlia de la Rosa, my favorite nurse in pediatrics, pushed a hospital gurney with a huge cake on it. Along with her, carrying an instrument tray, was Andra Littleton, the star among stars of the third-year residents. They were both clad in surgical scrubs, gloves, and masks. The gurney was draped and the cake decorated to look like a pale belly prepared for surgery. Blood-red lettering read, Way to Make the Cut, Dr. Kowalski and Dr. Murphy.

  Dr. John Marshall, the head of surgery, raised his paper cup and the murmurs of the group came to an instant silence. “This class is an exceptionally fine group of interns. Perhaps the best I’ve seen in all my years at UCSF,” he said. “That is, of course, with the exception of when I was an intern.”

  The crowd gave a good-natured round of boos.

  Another intern hollered, “Your specialty was blood-letting and use of leeches, wasn’t it Doc?”

  “Watch who you’re insulting, Dr. Jones. I haven’t signed all of your paperwork yet.” Warm laughter rolled through the room. “Dr. Mary Kowalski and Dr. Katherine Murphy have been offered residencies from the likes of Johns Hopkins, UCLA, and Boston General. After considering their prestigious options, they’ve elected to accept surgical residencies right here at our own UCSF.”

  A burst of applause sent an unexpected charge through me. Marshall’s rare compliments and expectation of perfection gave him a well-earned reputation as a hard-ass, but made the praise that much sweeter.

  Dr. Marshall continued, explaining that Mary K would begin her specialty in the organ transplant program while I’d be in pediatric surgery. He bragged about us both until I thought I’d die of embarrassment. “Welcome, both of you, to UCSF.” Dr. Marshall lifted his glass a bit higher and the crowd shouted, “Cheers!”

  Mary K raised her fists and did an end zone triumph dance while I felt my face get hotter.

  Dahlia held a scalpel over the cake. “The patient is prepped, doctors. Vitals are good. Time for a little surgery,” she said, her native Mexico accenting her words.

  “I think you can handle this one, Murphy,” Mary K said, shining her fingernails on the lapel of her lab coat. “This patient doesn’t require my level of skill.”

  I stepped toward the gurney. “If the procedure is too much for you—”

  “No, no,” Dahlia cried. “Both of you. We want to watch you in action, see if all of this praise is deserved.”

  Andra offered a scalpel. Cameras flashed while Mary K and I made the ceremonial first cut to the cake.

  Suddenly, Mary K stepped aside and pulled off her mask. “I pronounce this patient healed.” She dipped her pinky into the icing and took a tiny taste. “And delicious. Nurse, can you take over?”

  The crowd laughed and the skirmish for cake began. Mary K inserted her thumb and forefinger into her mouth and delivered a piercing whistle that instantly quieted the crowd. She looked at me, silently offering me the floor. I shook my head. “No,” I whispered. “You go.”

  “Hey Kowalski,” one of the interns jeered. “Why don’t you stand up so we can see you?” Mary K’s diminutive size had been the safest topic for teasing from our fellow interns. Only Mary K could carry off all of her bravado from a barely five-foot frame. Her general prickliness kept people from teasing her about much else.

  “Hardy, har. If you mangy state employees could stop stuffing your pieholes for just a minute, I’ve got a word or two.”

  The group hissed and booed. “Pipe down,” Mary K said. “Murphy and I want to thank you all for this little shindig. Dr. Marshall, we’re honored that you would join us. Deciding to stay here at UC was just about the easiest decision I’ve ever made. Great hospital. Great staff.” Mary K paused and looked toward me. “Great friends. And, hey, three thousand miles away from those stinking Yankees. What more can a gal from Queens ask for, huh?” Mary K lifted her water bottle. “To a great institution and a group that should definitely be institutionalized.”

  The rest of the gathering was a flurry of congratulations and well-wishes from colleagues whose duties demanded that they return quickly back to work. They exited carrying paper plates with gruesome slices of red velvet cake. Celebrations in hospitals are more like drive-bys than parties.

  Dahlia offered a plate to Mary K. “You didn’t get any cake?”

  “None for me, thanks. Trying to keep my girlish figure.” She tilted her water bottle, emptying the last of it.

  I smiled at Mary K’s standard decline of sweets. Meanwhile, I’d eaten my second piece, since at nearly five-foot-ten the term girlish hadn’t applied to me since I was ten.

  As the crowd thinned I spotted Nigel Abbot across the room. His navy blue cashmere blazer and turtleneck seemed assigned from a wardrobe department called to costume a distinguished resident psychiatrist. They went perfectly with his pale complexion, precisely trimmed goatee, and somber but kind expression.

  “There’s your boyfriend,” Mary K whispered, her elbow nudging my side. “Thurstin Howell the Third.”

  Nigel and I had a loose arrangement—one that we’d tacitly agreed was not for public knowledge. Hospital gossip was rabid once couples formed. We saw each other discreetly. No commitment. No drama. He was kind, easy to talk to, and was one of the few single male residents who hadn’t slept with nearly every intern and nurse on staff. While our relationship wasn’t exactly the stuff of great romance, it was comfortable and convenient. “Roommate code of silence, remember?” I whispered.

  “Fair enough,” Mary K said. “Just let me know if Dr. Milquetoast is coming to our place later tonight. He gives some of my dates the creeps. Settle a bet,” she said out of the side of her mouth. “If he goes out into the sunlight, does he turn into a pile of ashes?”

  I shushed her again as Nigel approached. He held out his hand to Mary K. “Welcome.” He offered me a businessy kiss on the cheek. “And you, too, Katherine. I’m so glad you’ll both be remaining part of our little UC San Francisco family.”

  “As long as I don’t have to call you Uncle Nigel or anything,” Mary K said with a smirk. “So, will I see you at our place, Murphy? Or—” This was typical Mary K. First she’d nag me about how I needed to get laid now and then and not be so serious. Then, if I did date somebody, he became an object of scorn and ridicule. This had been our pattern since freshman year, undergrad.<
br />
  I’d not included Nigel in the second celebration my family was putting on for Mary K and me, but we’d arranged to share drinks after. Ours was not a take-him-home-to-meet-the-folks kind of relationship. “I’ve got some paperwork to tie up in the ER,” I said to Mary K. “I’ll just meet you there.”

  Just as Mary K was about to make her escape, Andra Littleton glided toward us, seemingly unaware that every man in the room could not help himself from gaping at her. The willowy blonde, hospital rumor had it, was a former Miss Texas, third runner up for Miss USA.

  Mary K fidgeted. “Don’t look now, but Barbie is coming over here.”

  “Andra couldn’t be a nicer, smarter person. I don’t know why you need to insult her.” I grinned, loving watching Mary K lose her composure. Andra made her nervous, and I’d never seen anybody else cause that reaction from her.

  Mary K glanced toward the exits as Andra approached. Andra leaned down to Mary K’s height and gave her a warm embrace. Mary K was a wild animal caught in a trap. “I’m just so happy you decided on UC,” Andra said with her broad smile, deep dimples, and hint of Texas twang. She threw her arms around me.

  “I read your article in The New England Journal of Medicine.” I turned to Mary K. “Did you know that our own Dr. Littleton here has collaborated with a microchip company to develop a new kind of computerized prosthetic hand?”

  “Must’ve missed that one. Congrats,” Mary K mumbled as she patted the pocket where she usually kept her cigarettes.

  I smiled, remembering I’d seen the journal opened to Andra’s article on Mary K’s side of the table only a week before.

  I’d met Mary K by chance when we were assigned as undergrad freshmen roommates at Stanford. We’d remained roommates and study partners for the nine years since. I’d never seen her nervous around someone, but somehow Andra was different.

  Mary K patted her pocket. “I’m gonna step outside.”

  “Mary K,” Andra said, her head tilted to the side. “You’re not still smoking, are you?”

  “I don’t appear to be at the moment, but give me a minute. Thanks for the cake and the hoopla.” She delivered a sailor’s salute and swept a strand of her strawberry blonde hair behind her ear.

  Andra’s face looked as though it had just been slapped as she watched Mary K exit, her lips forming a perfect O.

  Nigel offered a repeat of his congratulations and left for an appointment.

  I licked icing from the edge of my plastic fork.

  “Why does Mary K dislike me?” Andra asked.

  “That’s the way she is with everybody.”

  “No,” Andra said, putting her hands on her hips. “She’s gruff with everybody. Surly. Sarcastic. Irreverent. Moody. Crass. Even downright insulting. But she avoids me like I’m a bad smell.”

  “Well, that begs only one question,” I said, trying to suppress a grin. “If Mary K is as vile as you say—and I’m not saying she isn’t—what do you care if she dislikes you?” I turned and walked away, happy that I’d added a small wrinkle of confusion to Andra’s flawless face.

  * * *

  Murphy’s Pub sits on the edge of Golden Gate Park on Lincoln Avenue. A brass plaque beside the door reads ESTABLISHED BY ANGUS AND ELYSE MURPHY. 1956. Just up the hill on Parnassus Street, UCSF Medical Center peeks over the ever-present fog, watching over Murphy’s and San Francisco’s Sunset District like a castle overlooking its village. Between Murphy’s and UC sits the pale-peach fortress of St. Anne’s of the Sunset. The triangle of Murphy’s, UCSF, and St. Anne’s was my universe growing up. Doctors, nurses, janitors, and priests all found their way down the hill to lift a few at Murphy’s.

  I pressed my palm against the cool brass push plate of the swinging door. A symphony of sensations greeted me: the fragrant smell of Scotch eggs, hard-boiled and wrapped in sausage; laughter and cheers for whatever sport was on the TV above the bar; the jukebox crooning Dad’s favorite ballads. Until I moved to the dorms at Stanford, the only place I’d ever lived was the flat upstairs from the pub. I rarely slept anywhere but my own bed. I was invited to sleepovers now and then, but I always ended up calling my dad to come pick me up. He came and pretended to be mad at me, but whistled all the way home.

  Downstairs, the pub served as our parlor. The room was filled with dark fir wainscoting and worn velvet couches. It smelled of smoky scotch and pipe tobacco. Unlike many bars, Murphy’s was full of light; the front windows were always clean and clear, covered only by lacy café curtains and blinds that were brought down only after closing. The light found its way to the array of pampered orchids, narcissus, and hyacinths that seemed unbothered by cigarette smoke and loud talk. Thuds of darts and cracks of pool balls were percussion to the musical rise and fall of voices. We served enough food to qualify as a restaurant and kids often joined their parents. Always in residence was one or another stray cat adopted by the bar—or, more likely, fed by my father at the back door and allowed in by the same. They arrived thin and skittish and became fat and lazy. Dad always named them after foods like Tater Chips or Muffin or, when they came in two at a time, Corn Beef and Cabbage or Bubble and Squeak.

  Upstairs, our flat looked like most regular apartments, but a couple of decades out of date and perhaps on the wrong side of the Atlantic. Doilies on the arms of overstuffed chairs. A small kitchen with chintz curtains and a matching apron in front of the sink. One small bedroom, one large. A few family photos on the vanity table. Everything was frozen, unchanged after my mother died when I was eight.

  The melody of Dad’s voice, kissed by the music of his mother Ireland, sang out as I entered, “Ah, there’s my Kitten.” Dad’s dove-gray eyes shimmered under his wiry eyebrows. His shirt gaped a little where his belly spilled over his belt. Though in his mid-sixties and built like a short, stout fireplug, he scampered toward me and gave me a crushing embrace. “Look everybody. Our other guest of honor is here!” He pulled me through the room toward the huge round family booth in the front window where Mary K already sat with a club soda, a plume of cigarette smoke unfurling in front of her. “Look what Mary K brought,” Dad said, raising his palm to a new addition to his collection of flowers, a delicate blue bloom growing from a piece of mossy bark. “Orchidaceae Vanda. A blue orchid,” he beamed. He looked over at Mary K and wagged his finger. “Probably pricey, too. Nothing this one should be spending her hard earned money on.”

  “Hush, Mr. Murphy. It’s rude to talk about the price of a gift.”

  Alice greeted me next. A cloud of Shalimar reached me just before she did. Her hair color changed with each season and she always stacked it in various architectural shapes made stable by an impenetrable shell of Aqua Net. She’d gone extra blonde for this occasion, and her ’do was elevated to a celebratory height. She was a spectacular show of animal print and spangles, a pink fuzzy sweater with matching lacquered nails, and high heels that made her stand well over six feet tall. Alice was the bar’s first employee, brought on to cook. She and my mother had become best friends. I’d been named Katherine Alice Murphy in her honor.

  It was Alice who took over all womanly duties after my mom died: cooking, putting my hair in ponytails, buying my clothes and my first Kotex pads, back when they were as big as twin bed mattresses. Alice lived in an apartment just a few doors down from the pub where we had girly slumber parties and watched old movies on her black-and-white TV.

  “Katie!” Alice cried, covering my face with lipsticky kisses. “Look at your pink cheeks. Where are your gloves? Did you walk down the hill in this cold?”

  She took my coat and tugged me farther into the room.

  Ivan Schwartz stepped toward us. He took my hands into his tremulous ones and kissed me, first on one cheek, then the other. In his feathery voice he said, “Katherine. I can scarcely remember a prouder day.” His head wobbled as he spoke. Dr. Schwartz had been having his morning coffee and his evening brandy at Murphy’s Pub since the day it opened, long before I was born. He’d supervised my homework, coache
d me through AP chemistry, and helped me write my application to Stanford, his alma mater. Dr. Schwartz had been a respected heart surgeon at UCSF until Parkinson’s had robbed him of his steady hands.

  “Sure you’re proud, you skinny old fart. Who the hell wouldn’t be goddamned proud of our Katie and her little dyke friend here!” a slurred voice shouted from the end of the bar.

  I winced. I’d never heard Tully utter a mean word to anyone. And though he had only his usual coffee cup before him, he seemed unfamiliarly drunk. Ironically, though I’d grown up in a bar, drunkenness was rare in the “family.”

  “Hey, hey there!” Alice scolded.

  “That’ll be a dollar to you, Tully,” Dad said.

  Tully tried with all his might to raise his weighty black eyebrows, his thin, rubbery face contorting with his effort. “What do I owe a dollar for?”

  “The cussing jar, Tully,” Alice said winking a heavily mascaraed eye.

  “For what? I didn’t say nothing!”

  “G.D., Tully,” Dad said. “And Katie’s right here, plain as the nose. You know the rules. And you ought to pay extra for insulting our guest as well.”

  “Katie ain’t even a kid no more,” Tully said in slurred protest. “The rule should only be for kids.”

  “You don’t make the rules, Tully Driscoll,” Dad admonished.

  “Ah, shit!” Tully slurred, reaching into the front pocket of his paint-splattered jeans.

  “TULLY!” came the chorus.

  “That will be two dollars since you’re reaching,” said my dad.

  Some version of this exchange had occurred nearly every day of my growing up with one or another who had overimbibed or simply forgotten the family language rule.

  The cussing jar had once served as my college savings account, but now it lived on as one of the bar’s unchanged rituals. Because Dad owned the bar, he got to make the rules. Whenever children were present, no profanity was allowed. He was reasonable. Newcomers got a fair warning. Hells and damns were often overlooked, but all curses that involved anatomy, sexual acts, the Holy Trinity, or a bodily function were strictly prosecuted. A buck apiece. The f-word was double, and there were a few five-dollar fines for the more colorful ribbons of profanity unfurled during soccer matches and Giants games. The World Series and soccer playoffs were exempt from fines.