61

On the day before the regional tournament began, Schwartz drove out to see his orthopedist. The clinic was tucked into a redbrick strip mall between a cell phone outlet and a Christian bookstore. Schwartz parked the Buick in the handicapped spot, a little in-joke with himself. Julie, the receptionist, held up two fingers, indicating which exam room he should head to. He always scheduled the first appointment after Dr. Kellner’s lunch so he wouldn’t have to wait.

“Mike.” Dr. Kellner gave him a strong handshake, held the grip. Orthopedists, in Schwartz’s experience, were serious alpha males; hard-charging, broad-chested guys much like himself, except better at math. “I’ve been keeping up with the team. Conference champs. Congrats.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s a banner year for Jewish ballplayers. That Braun kid for the Brew Crew is going like gangbusters.”

“The Hebrew Hammer,” Schwartz said gamely. Dr. Kellner liked to connect with him on an ethnic level; understandable in this part of the country, where the natives were blond or German or both.

“So what have we got today?”

“Just here for my monthly tune-up.”

“Well, good. Hop up on the table, Captain Crepitus.”

Schwartz hoisted himself onto the padded exam table, lay on his back, yanked his sweatpants’ gathered elastic hems up onto his thighs. Dr. Kellner tested his range of motion, prodded each kneecap, applied valgus and varus stresses. “Where does it hurt best?” he asked, an old joke of theirs.

Crepitus: the noise produced by rubbing irregular cartilage surfaces together, as in osteoarthritis. With each stretch Schwartz’s knees snapped and popped at increasing volume, as if trying to outbid each other. Within a minute Dr. Kellner had heard enough. He plopped down in a chair, scratched a meaty arm under his short-sleeved scrub shirt. “Nothing we don’t already know,” he said. “Normal people have cartilage, you’ve got ground beef. Every game you catch brings you that much closer to a couple TKRs.”

“I’m almost done,” Schwartz said. “Just regionals this weekend.” And nationals too, if they won—when they won—but not much point in saying so.

Dr. Kellner was making marks on Schwartz’s chart. “Can’t hardly wait,” he said without looking up. “We’ll get you in the OR, knock your ass out, clean you out good. Cartilage, scar tissue, the works. Get you ready for life after baseball. No more of this stopgap bullshit. How’s the back? You’ve been seeing your chiropractor?”

“Every week.”

“You want me to have a look?”

Schwartz shrugged. “Not much point right now.”

Dr. Kellner nodded. “Keep going with the anti-inflammatories. Twelve hundred milligrams three times a day is fine for a guy your size.”

“I have been.” Schwartz paused, pretended to study the kitschy framed posters of strongman stretches that hung above the exam table. “But as long as I’m here… maybe we should go one more round with the Vicoprofen.”

Dr. Kellner cocked his head. “We’ve talked about this, Mike.”

“Just a dozen or so. Enough to get me through these games.”

“We agreed that your attachment to these painkillers was borderline problematic.”

“It’s not an attachment. I’m in pain. Pain I would like killed.”

Dr. Kellner cocked his head further. “I believe you about the pain, Mike. Believe me, I believe you. I quit doing marathons because one of my knees looks half as bad as both of yours do, and you’re half my age. How’s that for bad math? If I gave you an MRI right now and looked at the results I’d have to shut you down for good—you and I both know that. But a person can be in legitimate, significant pain and still be attached. These are habit-forming drugs.”

“I don’t care about the drugs per se. I just don’t want the pain to affect my play.”

“So we’ll do another shot. Cortisone with the lido.”

“It’s not enough,” Schwartz said. “It did shit last time.”

Dr. Kellner leaned back in his chair, arms folded, and contemplated Schwartz. “When did you last take any pain meds?”

Schwartz counted back the days. It was now Wednesday; he’d run out on Saturday, the day Henry walked off the field. This season had been rough, painwise; much worse than previous years, worse even than this past football season. Until recently, he’d been getting painkillers both from Dr. Kellner and from Michelle, a nurse at St. Anne’s whom he’d dated on and off since sophomore year. But Schwartz had stopped answering Michelle’s texts when he met Pella, and now—of course—Michelle wasn’t answering his. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“Have you been having trouble sleeping?”

“Only a little,” Schwartz lied. “Because of my back.”

“Any chills or excessive sweating?”

“My sweating is always excessive.” Good thing he’d left his windbreaker on. Kellner couldn’t see that his T-shirt was drenched.

“Have you been feeling unusually anxious or irritable?”

“Me, irritable?” Schwartz joked.

Dr. Kellner didn’t laugh. “You drink with the meds? A few beers here and there?”

Schwartz ignored the question. “We’re not talking about habits,” he said. “We’re talking about a well-defined short-term situation. I just need to make it to Sunday. To give my team a chance to win.”

Julie poked her blond head around the door. “Doctor K. Your two o’clock is here.”

One of her eyes had a sleepy tic, but otherwise she was cute enough. No doubt she had a steady stream of meds at her disposal, working here. Schwartz should have laid the groundwork a long time ago; too late now. He’d asked around at school, steering clear of his teammates, who might get the wrong idea, but all anyone had was Adderall and coke, coke and Adderall.

Dr. Kellner shooed Julie away. Schwartz went on: “In moderation these aren’t dangerous drugs, right? They’re legitimate treatment for lots of people. People in way less pain than me. I mean, you can walk into any dentist’s office in town holding your cheek and they’ll write you a scri—”

Dr. Kellner shook his head. “Stop right there, Mike, or I’ll call every doctor, dentist, and pharmacist in a fifty-mile radius and tell them to be on the lookout for you. Moderation means small, non-habit-forming amounts. That’s not you. You’ve got a problem with these narcotics. Period. You’re going through withdrawal, and the sooner you ride that out the better. I should ship you over to St. Anne’s to see a counselor, but I know you won’t go and I don’t have time to play babysitter. You want cortisone, I got cortisone. You want to tell me what else is going on in your life that makes a little oblivion so appealing—I’m all ears. Otherwise I’ll see you next month.”

Doctors were the most self-righteous people on earth, Schwartz thought. Healthy and wealthy themselves, surrounded by the sick and dying—it made them feel invincible, and feeling invincible made them pricks. They thought they understood suffering because they saw it every day. They didn’t understand shit. Plus they could prescribe themselves what they knew they needed without having to listen to lectures about the meaning of moderation from people who hadn’t even read the goddamn Ethics.

Dr. Kellner stood up, looked at his watch.

“Fine,” Schwartz said. “Give me the goddamn shot.”