Читать книгу A Portal in Time - James A. Costa Jr. - Страница 14

Chapter 9

The shingle with black lettering hanging from a white post on a seedy lawn read: EMILE GOLDMAN M.D. Holding tight to the wrought iron railing with one hand, and his ribs with the other, Gary limped up the half dozen steps to the door, obeyed the Enter sign and walked in. Three people turned to stare at him: two elderly ladies and a shabby man about fifty, with horny, yellow toenails sticking out of a bandaged foot, and a pair of crutches occupying the chair beside him. He was smoking a cigarette.

Seeing no receptionist, Gary eased into a chair opposite the others. After looking around a few moments, his attention came back to the man. Gary pointed to the cigarette curling smoke into the air. “You can hardly do that anyplace anymore,” he said.

The man seemed startled. “If it’s bothering you…” he said, reaching for the ashtray.

“No, not at all.”

The man looked askance at the women, who had stiffened in their seats and were already appraising Gary’s dirty clothes with steely-eyed disdain.

Something strange here, Gary thought. Even though this part of town was poor and way behind the times, it seemed oddly strange… oddly out of place. He looked down at the package in his hands and around the room again. No television set? Even in the poorest ghetto you could find a television set. And no magazines, not even the tattered, year-old ones. Then again, maybe not in a doctor’s office. Some doctor’s office! Hard wooden chairs, wooden floor, lousy lighting, and ashtrays. Four of them.

One by one, the three before him disappeared into the back room, where they seemed to spend an eternity before finally emerging and passing him without so much as a wave of the hand or the courtesy of a nod.

“Next,” the voice called from the doorway of the back room.

“Have a seat,” the doctor said, motioning him into a cubicle and gesturing toward a chair. Gary took the room in at a glance. It looked primitive and reeked of medicine.

“Looks like you had a bad time,” the doctor said, taking up a high stool a few feet away. He had a smooth, boyish face, thinning blond hair and liver-spotted hands.

“It could have been worse, I guess. A gang jumped me.”

The doctor smiled knowingly. “Where does it hurt?” he asked, looking into his bruised eye.

“Mostly across here,” Gary said, laying a hand on his chest. “And I think my mouth is cut inside. I can still taste blood.”

The doctor reached for a tongue depressor and inserted it far enough into his throat to make him gag. “I don’t wonder,” he said. “Your teeth cut in pretty deep.” He stretched for a fat cotton swab, dipped it into a jar of foul-smelling stuff and rubbed it on the inside of his cheeks.

Gary winced with the sting.

“That should be taking care of that,” the doctor said, getting up. “Take off your sweater and shirt and give us a look-see.”

Gingerly, Gary maneuvered his arms out of his sweater sleeves and pulled his shirt over his head. He clenched his jaw as the doctor pressed and probed, not any too gently.

“I suspect a rib fracture or two, judging by these scrapes and bruises. X-rays will tell for sure.” The phone rang in another room and the doctor excused himself.

Gary felt disturbed. Things didn’t seem quite right, though he couldn’t tell why. Squinting at the framed diploma on the wall above a medicine stand, he moved closer to read it. So. The doctor was a surgeon as well as a general practitioner. He had to be one of the few general practitioners around; everybody seemed to be a specialist these days. Startled, he read the date again: May 18, 1926. Of course. It must have been the doctor’s father’s diploma, or his grandfather’s. Nice nostalgic touch for the patients, and clever way of showing that he was carrying on the family tradition. Must be quite a man, he thought, foregoing work in some affluent neighborhood to attend the poor like this.

Still…something had been unsettling him for the past hour or more, some idea trying to break through that he was reluctant to see, trying to assert itself. He glanced around the room, looking… looking for what? A plain room in what appeared to be an old converted house. Way behind the times with its green linoleum floor and, no doubt, original ceiling, a tin-like metal with a flower design stamped into it.

Moving over to the window and pushing the lace curtain aside, he took in the row of houses across the street, rather well-taken care of by their owners, he thought, and in surprisingly good condition for their age. No slum landlords here, obviously. A car scooted by down the street, black, with a high top, and another passed in the opposite direction… another old one… like the police car….

The sight of the cars jolted him. His eyes traveled around the room again…the plaster walls, porcelain sink…a radiator? Everything seemed made of wood. No plastic. He knew what he was seeing, couldn’t deny what he-- Could those blows to the head have affected his mind!

The door swung open and the doctor came in adjusting his stethoscope over his white jacket. “Sorry for the interruption,” he said, approaching Gary and pressing the cold metal against his chest. “Sounds fine. I think you should go over to the hospital for those x-rays. Just to make sure.”

“What if the x-rays show a cracked rib?” he asked. “What will they do for me at the hospital?”

“They’ll tape you up.”

“And if I don’t go, what will you do?”

“Tape you up.”

Gary checked a quick laugh and grabbed for his ribs as pain stabbed him. “In that case, Doctor Goldman, you know my answer.”

The doctor didn’t seem amused. “I don’t have to do it, you know. And without x-rays I’m not absolutely sure it’s necessary.”

“Can’t hurt me if it’s not, can it?”

“As you wish,” he grumped, his impatient hands rummaging through his medicine cabinet.

“Doctor, is there any chance, do you think, of an infection from these mouth cuts?”

“Infection is always possible,” he said, cutting a strip of tape.

Hesitating, instinctively apprehensive, he asked, “Don’t you think I should have a shot of penicillin?”

The doctor paused. “A shot of what?”

“Penicillin. You know, to fight off any infection.”

“It must be something brand new on the market. Or experimental. If it is you’re way ahead of me, lad. I haven’t heard or read of it yet.”

“Yes, right,” Gary said, puzzled, “I probably read about it…somewhere.”

“Those ribs will be uncomfortable for a while, but this should help,” the doctor said, snipping the tail off the last piece of tape. “And it might be a good idea to report this assault to the police if you haven’t already done so. Overall, you’re in excellent health, fortunately. You’ll heal quickly enough.” He gathered some papers. “You can put your clothes on now and come next door to my office.”

Gary slid one arm then the other into his shirt sleeves and painfully worked the shirt over his head. His sweater was too filthy to wear and he carried it with him to the next room, where the doctor was sitting at a roll-top desk filling out a form.

“Have a seat,” he said. “I just need a little information for my records.” He wrote down the nature of the injury and treatment, Gary’s name and the false address Gary gave him, while Gary’s curious eyes traveled around the room. Everything looked antique, from a dusty fan on a table to a coat rack that resembled antlers, to a tiny corner sink to a shelf with a brass, fist-sized bust of Hippocrates anchored to a cracked wooden base.

“What are you doing in this neck of the woods?” the doctor asked, looking up.

Did everybody say ‘this neck of the woods’? “Just running an errand.”

“You really ought to be x-rayed, Mr. Tyler. You could have some other damage.”

“I’ll take my chances, Doc,” he said, peeking over his shoulder and seeing the date on the form: April 15, 1939. And his desk calendar said ‘Friday.’ No wonder the cops…. His hair stood on end. My God!

The doctor swiveled in his chair. “Don’t do anything strenuous for at least six weeks. Until it heals completely,” he said. “That will be three dollars, please.”

The penicillin…1939…and he dipped his pen in a jar of ink!

“I said that will be three dollars, Mr. Tyler.”

“Three--oh, sure, Doc,” he said, his voice shaking as much as the hands digging into his pockets.

“Are you all right, Mr. Tyler?” he asked, scrutinizing him. “I don’t like that bump on your forehead. You have a concussion, too, you understand. You’ve taken quite a beating.” He stood up. “Let me call the hospital and--”

“No, doctor, I feel fine. It’s just that…they must have robbed me too,” he said, bringing his hands out empty. “But,” he added quickly, “I can mail you the money.”

A hint of amusement touched the corners of the doctor’s mouth, but he masked it with a serious face. “I understand,” he said, extending his hand. “When you get a chance you can stop by and pay me.”

“Thank you, Doctor Goldman,” he said, shaking his hand and turning to leave.

“Mr. Tyler. Your package. Don’t forget it.”

Thanks again,” he said, retrieving it. “Oh, Doc, if someone had a concussion-- say, for instance, I did-- would it make me hallucinate?”

“What kind of hallucinations?”

“I mean, well, could I imagine I was another person, or in another country? Or time period, like thinking I was living in the future? Or the past?”

“Are you experiencing any such thing now?”

“Oh, no, no, of course not, I was just wondering, that’s all, seeing that I did bang my head pretty hard on the sidewalk.”

“The mind is a very complex organ, Mr. Tyler. It’s capable of almost anything you can conceive of.”

“If I do have a concussion, Doc, will it take care of itself?”

The doctor smiled. “You’d better hope it does. But if you feel any dizziness, double vision or nausea, don’t hesitate to get to a hospital…. And if you don’t mind my asking you a question now, Mr. Tyler, who’s Greg Norman?”

“Who?”

“The shirt you’re wearing, that,” he pointed, “with the name Greg Norman.”

Gary smiled. “Oh, Greg. He’s just a friend I golf with.”

“I see,” he said, looking puzzled. “And the name you mentioned…?”

“Name I mentioned?”

“For warding off infections?”

“Oh, that--penicillin, or something that sounds like it….”

Out on the street, Gary looked around, trying to decide the best way to get back to his car. Somehow he’d been caught up in a Twilight Zone nightmare he couldn’t wake up from. Maybe he was still unconscious on the sidewalk and everything up to now had been a dream. Or maybe that crack on the head had his mind playing crazy tricks on him. The only thing he was certain of was that he wouldn’t be able to walk very long or very far. Just breathing hurt. And he was getting hungry. He should’ve taken Grandma’s roast beef instead of the cookies when he had the chance.

Thirty-five minutes later he found himself staring up at the North Division Street sign. No mistake about it, this is where he had pulled up and parked his car. Possibly towed away? He saw no signs against parking. Although the car was gone the building wasn’t. Retracing his steps, he walked back to the door he had entered earlier. Same address, but with shiny numbers, same knob-less door, but with a lustrous coat of green paint, and the sign saying Ring For Service. Wary of another encounter with the gang, he caressed his ribs as he hurried as quickly as he could around the block to the door he had exited from. Like the rear door, it was relatively new, but this one had a handle. He tried it but it was locked.

Worry stirred in his gut as he moved off down the street. Edgy, unable to think straight, he tried to calm himself, but everything seemed out of sync, out of place, out of time. Everything was familiar and nothing was familiar. Most disturbing of all were the few cars that passed him as he walked along. They all looked like antiques. In fact, they were antiques.

He wondered, could he be hallucinating? Could he be going mad? Could he at that very moment be at home in his room, dreaming? What other explanation could there be? It was all much too complex for a practical joke. Unless…unless what he had tried to convince Shelley of was true. Theoretically, going back in time seemed reasonable, possible, but if this actually was… if he had somehow actually slipped back…. His skin prickled at the thought and his blood ran cold.

The world seemed strangely quiet as he headed back downtown. No radios or televisions blared anywhere, no planes roared overhead, no rumbling trucks shook the pavement, no voices crying out or barking dogs. The air itself seemed a calming blanket of silence that had a subtle unsettling effect.

The sun warmed his skin, but the air carried a chill in it. The few people he saw, he saw only at a distance. A stray beagle waddled up behind him, sniffed at his heels and padded off into an alleyway.

On the opposite side of the street, farther down, he spotted a diner and crossed over to it. If this… this dream… this hallucination…this time warp were for real, he couldn’t use the paper money in his wallet, not unless they didn’t look at it too closely. He did have the silver dollar in his pocket, though. If he had really landed sometime in the 1930s, it would go a heck of a lot further than in his own time. Still, he was going to need some luck, lots of luck. His mind couldn’t deny what his senses told him must be true. He felt scared. What in hell had he gotten himself into? And what was even more frightening, could he get out of it?

Going into the diner, Gary failed to see the man observing him from across the street.