Chapter 20

Mary and I both sat there and stared at Daddy. Mary was the first to break the silence.

"But she's just sat in that chair all the time I've known her. She doesn't do anything. How could she be violent? And how can she be violent to herself?"

"I think they screwed up with the medication."

I said, "Too much medication makes you violent?"

He looked at me with what I can only describe as a grimace. "No. Too much makes you dead. Too little makes you violent."

I said "What?" at the same time Mary said "I don't get it."

Daddy looked at Mary and said, "You said she's always just sat in that chair. When's the first time you met Mrs. Dandridge, Mary?"

"I don't know, couple or three weeks ago. After Charlie and I got well enough to get around."

"So you never knew her before the attack?"

"No. Charlie said she was against our going out. She thought I was using him. I never did understand what her problem with me was."

"Jill? Any ideas about that?"

"Yeah. I went through the same thing when we were little kids. She doesn't trust anyone around her son."

"Anyone?"

"Girls."

"Has she ever told you why?"

"She didn't. But Charlie and I talked about it a lot."

"What did you come up with?"

"First off, the way he was born. All the doctors said she should abort because the chances of them both surviving were almost zero. Charlie's dad was even trying to get her to abort the baby before he was born. She swore that God meant her to have this baby and she'd rather die than go against God.

"After he was born healthy, she became even more religious. Ever since I've known her, every other word out of her mouth was something to do with God, the Lord, Faith, something like that. Charlie says she still complains to his father because he lost faith and he's been trying to be a good Christian ever since Charlie was born, but nothing's ever good enough for her."

"OK. That explains her religious beliefs. But what about her and Charlie?"

"Oh, that. Well, God put her on this earth to give birth to Charlie and take care of him. She has a real hard time with anyone she thinks might be trying to take him away from her."

Daddy said, "Did you know any of this, Mary?"

"I knew that she wasn't happy that Charlie took me out. And that she used to do a lot of stuff around the house. You know, cooking, cleaning, washing, pretty much spending all her time doing housewife and mother stuff. She hasn't done any of that since I've known her, though. Charlie says she's not the same person. He said she hasn't even wanted to go to church."

Daddy continued, "She pretty much dedicated her life to taking care of Charlie and worshiping her god. Those two things seem to have been her purposes for living.

"June says that Mr. Dandridge had to insist that Charlie be allowed to take you out that night. She was convinced that you were going to try to take her son away from her, and it's one of the few times Claude's taken a stand against her. Then they got the call that Charlie was in emergency surgery and they didn't really know anything that happened. The one thing she did know was that you were with him and she immediately blamed you for what happened to him. She said some pretty vicious things about you to your mother and your mother reacted by slapping her before she and your brother went to the cafeteria to cool down. From what I've heard, she continued to rant about the girl who hurt her son, what God was going to do to you, that you were the spawn of the devil, how you were going to burn in hell for eternity. One of the interns took her inside an examination room and gave her a shot to quiet her down."

Daddy stopped and looked over at the counter. "Are you sure you want to hear about this? It's a long story, and once I get going, I find it hard to stop."

Mary said, "I don't care. I want to hear it."

"OK, then. Just so you know, the way I talked about that bitch with her little empire earlier is nothing compared to the way I feel about these clowns."

He looked over the refrigerator. "I don't suppose there's any way I could get something to eat? And maybe a cup of coffee?"

I said, "Oh, Daddy. Did we keep you from breakfast?"

"It's OK, Princess. I was glad to do it."

"Nonsense. You sit right down there and Mary and I will get you breakfast. I'll take care of the coffee. Could you make some bacon and eggs, Mary?"

"Sure. I think I'll have something myself. You want anything, Jill?"

"Well, since Jack's not here, sure."

"Umm. I'm telling."

Daddy snorted. I looked up and he winked at me. The old faker probably stuffed himself before we got there this morning. But he had Mary thinking of something other than Charlie, which was exactly what she needed right now. "It didn't look like you had any problems feeding your face at the barbecue yesterday and Jack was right there with you most of the time."

I stuck my tongue out at him and he laughed. "Jack lets me do what I want. He might have something to say if I start getting fat, though."

"You mean other than your butt."

"Jack likes my butt. He likes my butt a lot."

"I don't want to hear about it. Too much information."

Mary got the eggs out of the fridge and started breaking them into a bowl as I filled the coffee maker. By the time I was done with that, she was grating some cheese into the mix. She put some milk, salt and pepper and a splotch of salsa in the bowl, whipped it all together with a wooden spoon, then got a twelve inch skillet, put it on the stove and poured the mixture in. While she was working on her project, I got the bacon out of the refrigerator and put some in a frying pan.

"Anybody want toast with this?"

Daddy said, "That'll be plenty," and Mary said, "No, thanks."

Daddy and I had coffee and Mary poured herself some OJ. Mary got a big smile on her face when Daddy and I both commented on how good the eggs were.

He put his cup down. "So, where was I?"

She said, "They had to quiet her down."

"Oh, Right. I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume they haven't quite quit teaching everything that has some use yet. Have you two learned how some of the ancient scientists were pilloried for their discoveries? Like when they claimed that everything didn't revolve around the earth? Or that the earth isn't flat?"

Mary and I both said "Yes."

"What they probably didn't tell you is that there were some people who worked awfully hard to get everyone believing those things in the first place. In those two instances, it was the church in Rome. And you can bet the farm their purpose wasn't the glory of God. It was money and power. You find any lie that's been sold to the public and it most likely boils down to one or both of those.

"The whole purpose of these disinformation campaigns is to create what I call an 'everybody knows'. Once you do that, you've got it made. Everybody knows the earth is flat. Everybody knows that the universe revolves around our planet. Everybody knows if you buy this sports car, the women will be lining up to get laid."

I said, "Like everybody knows kids are going to have sex, anyway."

"Not quite. That one happens to have some truth to it. Either of you girls want to argue with me about that?"

I just smiled at him. If he didn't know by now, he never would. I noticed that Mary was suddenly paying a lot of attention to getting the last bit of her egg off her plate.

"I didn't think so. Just so you know, it was pretty much the same when I was young. We didn't talk about it as much, at least out loud, and some things weren't accepted as much as they are now.

"I'm afraid I'm part of a profession that has a very high opinion of itself but doesn't really do a lot more than the old snake oil salesmen. Sure, we can set a broken bone and let the body heal itself. And we can clean out a wound, sew it up, and let the body heal that, too. I've heard your mother talk about this while you were around, Mary, so I know you have at least some idea of her opinions on what they've done to Charlie's mother. Let me give you mine, from my viewpoint as a doctor.

"I took a hard look at what I wanted to do when I decided on my specialty. I don't know if you're aware of this or not, but obstetrics is one of the few medical specialties that just helps the patient without destroying some part of him. Nine times out of ten, a good midwife could do the same things I do, for a lot less. But that other ten percent are the ones I get the big bucks for. And the other 90% are willing to pay me for the peace of mind knowing I'm there if they need more than that midwife can give them. Plus, the medical profession has done a real good PR job on the whole subject of midwives. That said, it's a bad month when I don't save at least one woman's life. I don't know how many end up with healthy children that wouldn't if they didn't have me telling them what to do for the majority of their pregnancies. The most intrusive thing I do to a patient is perform a Cesarean in a difficult birth. There are lots of OBs that would rather do all their deliveries Cesarean. I do it only when the mother or child is in danger and I know it will make the difference. It says a lot about the 'everybody knows' of the medical profession when most women think nothing when their physician says he's going to slice them open to deliver their child.

"For the most part, doctors make something stop or keep the patient from actually experiencing what is happening to him. In very few instances do they actually heal anyone. The primary purpose of any medication is to prevent someone from being uncomfortable. If that medicine causes something else to go wrong, which a good percentage of them do, there's always another magic pill for the side effect. The drug industry has even changed the language over the years so that drugs are the wicked, illegal things you get on the street and medicine or medications or meds are the desirable things you get from your doctor. Meds — makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, doesn't it? If you make someone dependent on a street drug, you're a pusher. If you make him so he has to take a med or even a group of meds every day for the rest of his life, you're a concerned physician. Somehow the purpose to cure people has gone by the wayside.

"If they don't have a drug that will hide it, they'll just cut whatever it is out of the body and then give him drugs to cover up the pain and then play with dosages of different drugs to try and provide something similar to what they cut out of him.

"The medical profession has gone way beyond the point of one man learning all he could to help his fellow man and then doing it. I won't get into all of the reasons for the changes, but part of it is that we've somehow convinced the public that we're all gods and can do no wrong. Of course, we aren't, and we've become fair game every time one of us shows that he's human and makes a mistake. Somehow we're supposed to spot a microscopic tumor when the patient's insurance company won't pay to have the necessary tests done. Or there's no indication that the tests are needed in the first place, so we get sued for not doing them. There's a lawyer under every rock, willing to make a case against any physician, guilty or not, for his fifty percent. I'm not saying there aren't times a person should be compensated. If a doctor comes in drunk to take out an appendix or he forgets to remove a forceps, he deserves to be punished. Personally, I think he should lose his license to practice medicine, but it seems he has to kill five or ten patients before they'll go that far. We doctors have a hell of a union. The point is, if you even want to look at a patient today and don't want to be in debt for the rest of your life, you need to purchase malpractice insurance. I could put you and your brother through college with the money I pay my insurance company each year. And guess what? The bad ones, the ones who are the reason for the insurance in the first place, figure they can get away with paying even less attention to what they do because the insurance will cover their murderous asses."