“No time,” Jax says. “The joint is cold. Muscles are spasming. You wait for X-rays, he’s in pain for an hour. You pop it in now, he’s happy in ten seconds. It’s the Cunningham Technique. Massage the bicep, distract the brain, slide it home.”
He grabs a new burrito from his pocket (where does he keep them?).
“Go on. Touch the meat.”
I step forward. I put my hands on Mike’s massive, sweaty arm.
“Okay, Mike,” I say, my voice trembling. “I’m going to... massage you.”
“Just fix it, doc!” Mike yells.
“I’m trying! Your deltoid is very tense!”
“Stop petting him like a cat, Preston!” Jax barks. “Use leverage! It’s simple physics. Fulcrum and load. You know physics, right? You memorized the textbook?”
“I know theoretical physics!” I snap. “I know how to calculate the trajectory of a particle in a vacuum! I do not know how to shove a humerus back into a glenoid fossa while the patient smells like gym socks!”
“Less talking, more popping!”
I close my eyes. I visualize the skeletal structure. I visualize the torque required.
I take a breath. I rotate the arm externally. I lift.
SCHLUCK.
The sound is wet. It is loud. It sounds like a boot being pulled out of a swamp.
Mike screams. Then he stops. He blinks.
“Oh,” Mike says. “That feels better.”
“There it is!” Jax cheers, clapping me on the back so hard Istumble. “The sweet sound of reduction. Good job, kid. You have the hands of a safecracker.”
I look at my hands. They are shaking.
“I heard it,” I whisper, horrified. “I heard the cartilage rub against the bone. It sounded like gravel.”
“That’s the music of healing!” Jax says. “Now, grab the staple gun. We have a guy in Bay 5 who fell on a fence.”
“Staple gun?” I back away. “No. Absolutely not. I draw the line at hardware store supplies.”
“Preston! Come back! We’re just getting started!”
I flee the Trauma Bay. I run straight into Luke in the hallway.
“Psychiatry,” I gasp, clutching Luke’s scrubs. “Put me in Psych. I can’t do the popping. I can’t do the staples. I need a room where people sit in chairs and nobody’s limbs are pointing the wrong direction.”
Luke looks at my pale face. He looks at Jax, who is waving a staple gun in the distance.
“Psychiatry it is,” Luke agrees.
PRESTON
I walk into the Psych ward. It is quiet. It is clean. There are no staple guns.
“Who is the intake?” I ask the charge nurse, Brenda.
“Mr. Finch,” Brenda says, looking exhausted. “Room 708. He’s manic. He’s been ranting for three hours about ‘The Blue Boy’ and refusing his meds. He thinks the doctors are stealing his pigment.”
