Chapter 37: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

December 26, 1994, Chicago, Illinois

“We have to take the minivan and a car,” I said. “Four passengers and their bags means we need to take the two back seats from the van. Even then, it might be tight depending on how much luggage they bring. So my car and the minivan.”

“No kids?” Jessica asked.

“I considered it, but who? If we bring Ducky and my Pumpkin, we’re out of seats again. They’ll just have to form a welcoming committee here.”

“I made sure the beds are made for our visitors,” Kara said.

“And the nanny room is made up for Jon and Karen,” I said. “So we’re all set. Shall we be on our way?”

As I suspected would happen, Jessica and Kara got into the van together and I drove alone in my car. It didn’t bother me; in fact, it confirmed that things were on the right path. The last few days, as hectic as they had been, had seen both Jessica and Kara behaving as they had when we first married. I took that as a very good sign. We still hadn’t worked out the specific details with Michelle, but the four of us had agreed it really needed to wait until the veritable storm of grandparents receded and Jonathan’s family was settled in.

We parked my BMW and the minivan side-by-side in the short-term parking outside the International terminal and went inside. I looked at the ‘Arrivals’ board and sighed. Despite having called British Airways to confirm the flight was on time, the board showed that Jonathan’s flight hadn’t landed.

“Well, that sucks,” I said. “We have at least an hour from the time they reach passport control, and the damned plane isn’t even on the ground. Our friends are going to be jet-lagged, tired, AND cranky.”

“We’ve seen enough of THAT this year! Let’s go have something to drink,” Kara suggested.

We went to a small café and paid the exorbitant price for three cups of coffee and sat down at a table.

“The house is going to be a complete zoo when we get home,” Jessica said.

“Let’s see; my parents, Kara’s mom and Paul, Elyse’s parents, Josie’s parents, Jennifer’s parents, the Krajicks? Yeah, a complete zoo!”

“Your brother won’t be here, will he?”

“I talked to my dad this morning before they left Mason and he assured me that was the case. Don’t worry - Bethany, Jennifer, Elyse, and my sister will make sure he doesn’t get near the kids if he somehow shows up.”

“I had a funny thought,” Jessica said with a mischievous look on her face.

“Uh-oh,” I chuckled. “I know that look!”

“I thought about having someone put up a barber pole, you know one of those rotating things they used to have outside barber shops, in the doctors’ lounge at UofC.”

“And?” I prompted.

“I might have called Alicia this morning and suggested it.”

“The man hasn’t even arrived yet and you doctors are already planning pranks!” I said, shaking my head. “What happened to the serious business of medicine?”

“Tiger, you know darn well that we have to do SOMETHING to counter all the stress. After all, didn’t YOU arrange for his locker to have a name plate that said ‘Sweeney Todd’?”

“Me?” I asked feigning innocence. “Of course, I might ALSO have thought of the barber pole idea, but I never said it to anyone!”

“So only YOU can tease him?” Jessica asked, trying to sound annoyed.

“No, I’m just not happy I didn’t suggest it before YOU did! I thought about asking Al to serve meat pies, but I wasn’t sure where we could get authentic meat pies in Chicago. Babe, you know, I forgot to ask, whatever happened with the Attending slot at UofC?”

“Doctor Barton managed to get the decision put off until after the 1st of the year.”

“Good. Then Howard will be on the Board of Directors, and the lunacy will end.”

“The rumor mill has the new director leaving if he loses this battle.”

“So what are you doing about Cook County?”

“I have to say ‘yes’ to them and then turn them down once the UofC position comes through. It’s not ideal, but I can’t risk not having a position. I turned down Loyola already because they wanted to know by the 15th.”

That certainly wasn’t how I would have handled it. I would either have taken the position at Loyola or turned down both Loyola and Cook County and taken my chances. I didn’t agree with accepting a position and then turning it down because a better one came along. It was one thing to do that after being employed somewhere for a time, but a very different thing to back out before even starting the job. BUT, that was my personal rule, and I wasn’t going to make a point about it to Jessica.

“Do what you think is right, Babe.”

“Everything would have been fine except for the medical director. But forget all of that now.”

“When does Alicia leave for Manchester?”

“Tomorrow. She made a trip at the beginning of the month to find a ‘flat’. The hospital helped her with that. She’s going to have a VERY good time.”

“A party girl spending a year in England?” I chuckled. “How could she not? Before I forget, Kara, did you confirm our plans for Vermont in March?”

“Yes. The tickets arrived while you were in Japan. Bethany and Tom will leave Nicholas with Jesse and Robert with Amanda, who’s going to stay at the house for the weekend. She’ll use one of the basement guest rooms. Kathy’s mom will watch their kids.”

“Did you hear from Katt and Mikael?”

“Yes. She called to confirm they’ll be there as well.”

“Thanks for handling all of that.”

“I also called to cancel our reservations in Iron Mountain since we’re going to Sweden and Russia this summer.”

“Good. I’ll call Tatyana on Russian Christmas, and I’ll also get in touch with Karin. We’ll only be in Stockholm for a couple of days, so it’s going to be tough to see anyone except for Kristian, Karin, and Kjell.”

“Your daughter will be VERY happy about that,” Kara smirked.

“And Jesse will be happy to see Larisa! And he’ll see Marta when Pia comes to visit in February.”

“You still think one of them will displace Francesca?” Jessica asked.

“I think Jesse and Francesca are going to have a torrid, stormy love affair that will, in the end, fall apart. And I’d be willing to bet one of two redheads or a blonde will be the catalyst.”

“The Jaeger girls or Amber?” Kara asked.

“Yep. One of those three will use her feminine wiles on our son!”

“‘Feminine wiles’?” Kara laughed. “Did those work on you?”

“Obviously! You’re here, aren’t you?”

She leaned over and kissed me, “Yes, I am.”

I went to check the ‘Arrival’ board and saw that the flight was shown as ‘Landed’, which meant the passengers hadn’t deplaned. I went back to my wives and sat down.

“The plane is on the ground, but it doesn’t show them in passport control yet, so probably at least an hour. Those kids are going to be stir-crazy by the time they get out of customs.”

It turned out to be about an hour and ten minutes before I saw my friend come though the arrival doors, wheeling a cart stacked with baggage and with a disheveled but beautiful blonde a step behind him. She had two clearly annoyed children in her arms - five-year-old Mark and three-year-old Jane. I waved and hurried over to greet them, with my wives following close behind.

“Hi, Jon!” I said, extending my hand.

“Steve,” he sighed. “Get me out of this airport!”

I nodded, “I hear you! Just a quick intro first! Mister Jonathan Todd, Barber-Surgeon, meet Doctor Jessica Adams, Trauma Surgeon, and Professor Kara Adams, PhD candidate in Chemistry.”

“Nice to meet you both,” he said accepting a quick hug from each of them. “This is Karen Kaliszewski, my wife the Dentist!”

“Hello, Doctor Kaliszewski,” I said.

“No ‘Doctor’,” she said. “We don’t call dentists in Blighty ‘doctor’.”

“Mister Todd, Miss Kaliszewski?” I asked.

“Exactly!” she agreed. “These two cranky little ones are Mark and Jane.”

“Hi, kids!” Kara said.

“Let’s get out to the cars and get you to the house,” I said.

I took over the cart-pushing duties, and we walked as quickly as we could out to the BMW and the minivan. I loaded all the bags into the minivan while Jessica and Kara helped Karen get the kids settled in car seats in the minivan. Karen rode with Kara and the kids, while Jon rode with Jessica and me.

“Not a fun flight, I take it,” I commented as I backed out of the parking spot.

“We were a few minutes late leaving Brussels, and that messed up our landing spot, I guess.”

“That happens here a lot. If you miss your slot, you get in line and they take you when they can. Usually, overseas flights get priority, but O’Hare is a mess no matter what.”

“Heathrow is crazy, which is why it made sense for us to fly to Brussels to come to Chicago. Fortunately, I could book direct, instead of through New York or DC.”

“I wondered about the Brussels connection. I want to warn you the house is going to be insane when we get there. Six sets of grandparents will be there, along with my sister’s family and my friend Bethany’s family. My sister is married to Bethany’s brother.”

“I think we’ll want to crash for a bit.”

“If you and Karen want to use the sauna and the Jacuzzi, you’re welcome to it. Our nanny is at the house today to help out, so I’m sure we can get your kids settled quickly. Dinner will be Chinese or Italian. We order from places close to the house and we’ll just serve buffet style.”

“I think we might sleep for twenty-four hours, but the sauna sounds good.”

“Jess, would you call home and ask someone to turn it on for us?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said.

She took her cell phone from her purse, dialed the house and asked Michelle to turn on the sauna and fill the whirlpool tub with warm water.

“Handy little toys, those mobiles,” Jon said. “A bit costly, though.”

“Work pays for mine and Jessica’s,” I said. “I only have to pay for Kara’s out of my pocket. But it’s not as bad as it was when I first got one several years ago. Most of my senior staff have them, along with our support folks. The time they save is well worth the cost. I suspect Al will get one for you while you’re here. What do you think, Babe?”

“All the Attendings at UofC carry them. I only have one because, due to my Fellowship, I’m considered ‘management’.”

“You finish that in May?”

“Yes.”

“Where will you be working?”

“Hopefully, at UofC; but if not, then at Cook County, where I am now. It’s one of the busiest ERs in the country.”

“I hear there’s a bit of a construction project on for 1996.”

“Nearly doubling the size and thus the number of patients that can be seen,” Jessica said. “You have to visit Cook County if you want to see what real trauma is all about. We were the first ‘shock-trauma’ unit in the US. And it’s completely insane at times. We’ve had as many as a dozen gunshot victims at once.”

“You bloody Yanks and your guns! No other civilized country permits any bloke with a couple of hundred quid in his pocket to purchase a pistol!”

I shook my head, “Well, Mister Todd, Chicago bans handguns and yet we have some of the highest rates of illegal use of firearms.”

“A complete ban?”

“Mostly,” I said. “It’s possible to get a permit with proper need. I have a permit that allows me to carry concealed.”

“You have firearms in the house?”

“Yes. My Beretta 9mm semi-auto and Elyse’s Mossberg shotgun.”

“Are they locked in a safe?”

“The Beretta is in the glove box there because I can’t bring it into the airport. It’s kept in my room on a high shelf when I’m not carrying. Elyse’s shotgun is on a high shelf as well, and the ammunition is kept in a locked drawer in her room to which she and I have keys. My spare ammunition is locked away as well.”

“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with the kids and firearms.”

“We’ll keep the doors to the rooms locked as well. My kids know they’re not to touch the guns. The issue won’t come up because they don’t even talk about them.”

“I’m just gobsmacked that a physician would allow firearms in her house,” Jon said.

“We have very different views on firearms from you in the UK,” Jessica said. “I’m from Texas and I had my first gun when I was six.”

“Pardon me, but that’s just loony. Giving firearms to kids?”

“Jon,” I said gently, “I learned to shoot both a rifle and a pistol when I was six. And that was in California. When I lived in Ohio, I’d say a good half of the kids in the school either had a gun or had easy access to guns their parents owned. None of us shot each other. It’s a different culture. One of the lessons I learned in Japan was to not judge before fully understanding.”

“I’ll talk to Karen about it.”

“Don’t freak out, Doctor Todd,” Jessica said. “But you’re going to see more gunshot wounds in the next year than you will for the rest of your life, unless you decide to join the British Army.”

“Lovely. Al didn’t warn me about that particular fact. I don’t know that I’ve seen more than half-a-dozen gunshot wounds in my entire medical career. Quite a few knife and broken bottle wounds, but not gunshot wounds.”

I chuckled, “Al Capone, Johnny Torrio, Dean O’Banion, and Bugs Moran say ‘hello’.”

“Please don’t take this wrong, but how can you be so cavalier about this?”

“I don’t know that it’s cavalier,” Jessica said. “But it’s just something we’re used to.”

“Bloody Yanks,” he sighed.

“Literally, in this case!” I chuckled.

We arrived at the house a few minutes later, pulling into the driveway behind Kara’s minivan, which had arrived just a few seconds before us. We got the kids out of the car seats, while Karen grabbed a bag with their things in them and we quickly got everyone into the house, mostly bypassing the assembled throngs. We took the kids straight upstairs and introduced them to Amanda, Matthew, and Birgit who’d been waiting for them. Despite the early hour, Karen and Jon got them into bed while I brought in the luggage from the minivan with help from Tom and Ed.

“Let me show you the sauna,” I said when Jon and Karen came downstairs.

I led them to the basement, showed them where the robes and towels were, explained the controls, and then put up the ‘Privacy Please’ sign for them.

“Thanks, Steve,” Karen said.

“You’re welcome. Come join the crowd when you’re ready. Everyone is looking forward to meeting you.”

I left them and went back upstairs to join the madhouse that was grandparents, parents, and kids.

“Sorry about rushing our guests through,” I said to my dad, “but they and their kids are beat.”

“It’s OK, Son. With all the grandparents here, it has to be really overwhelming! Did you hear from Jessica’s parents?”

“They asked her to bring the kids to see them. They aren’t happy with the arrangement here.”

“Not surprising,” my mom said. “Most right-thinking people wouldn’t be.”

“And yet, you’re here,” I said flatly, then turned back to my dad, “Are you coming by the office tomorrow?”

“Yes. I’d love to see what they did with your office.”

“Me, too,” I grinned. “All the work was done while I was gone, and I hear through the grapevine that there were some additions to the plan of which I’m not aware. And none of the women are talking!”

My dad laughed, “You’re the one who set that up!”

“I know!”

“How were Australia and Japan?”

“Australia was awesome; I got to do a lot of sightseeing. Japan was good, in that I got to go to Oguni again, but the master of our karate school died while I was there.”

“The older Japanese gentleman you told me about?”

“Yes; Sensei Hiro. He was in his eighties and suffered from congestive heart failure. It wasn’t a surprise, and the timing was fortuitous so that I could speak to him again right before the end.”

“Who takes over for him?”

“A young man in his mid-20s, who is going to marry Sensei Hiro’s granddaughter.”

“Does that change anything for you?”

“Not really. I’ll probably take over running the school here in Chicago with two or three other students when Jim retires. The real future of the dojo lies with Will, a fourteen-year-old black belt.”

“Did Jessica get her offers?”

“Yes. She tentatively accepted an offer from Cook County because there are some political issues at UofC that need to be worked out before they can offer her an Attending position.”

“And Kara’s PhD work?”

“Moving along. It’ll be at least another year before she finishes her research project. It’s something to do with polymers and I don’t claim to understand the first thing about it, nor do I want to!”

I felt a soft hand on my shoulder.

“There ARE things Steve doesn’t know,” Kara laughed. “Not many, but polymer chemistry is one of them!”

“I’ve avoided you and your ‘Chemistry Mafia’ like the plague for going on eleven years now!”

“Chemistry Mafia?” my dad asked.

“Her friends who came here to study. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, wanted to be in the same room with the chemistry geeks. They’re worse than computer geeks!”

“But nothing compared to MEDICAL geeks, right?” Jessica laughed, coming up on my other side.

“You said it, not me! But you also know I don’t have an issue conversing with you or Al on medical topics. Chemistry just makes my head spin!”

“Or is it the girls you met in chemistry that make your head spin?” Kara teased.

I chuckled, and she did have a point. I moved on from talking to my dad and went to talk to Harry Krajick and Robert Block, and then to Elyse’s parents. While I was talking to them, I saw Jon and Karen come up from the basement so I excused myself to see to our English guests.