Requiem for the Bone Man. R. A. Comunale M.D.
was signed by the dean.
He ran outside and stood in the middle of the quad, arms outstretched, eyes turned up to heaven.
“I made it!” he shouted, to everyone and no one.
He felt on top of the world as he walked the main corridor of the science building where he had spent most of the last three years. As he passed by one of the labs, he heard his name being called.
“Mr. Galen, may I see you for a moment?”
It was Dr. Freiling, professor of physiology. Galen had gotten the only A ever granted by the shriveled old man. It must have royally pissed him off, but Freiling couldn’t have done anything else. Galen’s papers and exams were perfect, and he had even caught a mistake in one of the solutions the professor himself had explicated.
“Yes, Dr. Freiling?”
“Mr. Galen, I hear by the grapevine that you’ve been accepted to medical school. Is that so?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mr. Galen, I know that you are brilliant, but to be honest, you don’t have the personality to be a good doctor. I wouldn’t want to be under your care.”
Galen knew he was being baited. It was Freiling’s style, a last-resort attempt to gain the upper hand.
“Yes, sir, thank you for your confidence in me. Is there anything else?”
Freiling shook his head, frowned and walked away.
Galen felt as though he had just been shot down by the Red Baron. He knew Freiling was a bitter man, but even so, he had done well in his class and had hoped that would be all that mattered.
He walked to the pay phone halfway down the hallway and called his parents. It had only been two years ago that they had finally installed a telephone.
He whirled the dial wheel once, and when he heard the operator he gave her the number. A moment later, his mother’s quiet voice said, “Hello?”
“Mama, it’s Berto. Tell Papa when he comes home I got accepted to medical school!”
The phone was quiet for a few seconds, then his mother responded, still strangely quiet.
“Si, Berto, I will tell him. This is wonderful news.”
He hung up the phone. He had expected her to be as happy as he was, but he sensed the reserve in her voice. What was wrong?
It was true he and Papa hadn’t seen eye to eye on a number of things since he had started college. His father still dealt with him in the old way, never acknowledging his growth as a person or his reaching adulthood. He understood the cultural imperative of the old country, deference to parental authority being the highest level of respect a child could demonstrate.
Yet he had grown tired of the petty arguments over everything, the endless fault-finding and criticism. It seemed as though his father was trying to drive him away.
He would call later when his father had come home from work.
He walked slowly across the campus and sat down on one of the benches outside the main library, which had served as his sanctuary.
“Mr. Galen, are you all right?”
He looked up and saw his favorite professor, Dr. Basily, chairman of the anthropology department and curator of the school museum. His back ramrod straight—the result of a war wound from Korea—he was never too busy to talk over class points or just about anything else.
Galen wished he could talk to his father the way he did with Basily.
“I just got accepted to medical school, Dr. Basily.”
“And this is what gives you the long face? Spill it, Galen.”
He told the older man about his encounter with Dr. Freiling and the strangely unenthusiastic response from his mother.
“That old fart Freiling isn’t happy unless he’s making someone else miserable. Listen, Galen, let me give you some advice that took me twenty years to learn. In your life you will meet two types of people of whom you should be very wary: dream eaters and soul stealers.
“Freiling is a dream eater. He will tell you that what you strive for is not for you, and that you don’t have the ability so you shouldn’t even try. Dream eaters can be teachers, friends, counselors, or even family. These people, like Freiling, are emotional vampires, manipulators, control freaks. Later, when you become the fine doctor that I know you will be, you will run into the soul stealers. These will be your colleagues, your bosses, collateral individuals who will try to sabotage what you do. They also are emotional vampires who live off your misery. Unfortunately, your worst enemies will be yourself and those closest to you—your family. This is when your guard should be at its highest, and you should resist with all your might.”
Basily reached over and ruffled the hair on Galen’s head.
“C’mon, let’s go to the student union. I’ll buy you a soda to celebrate the good news.”
“Dr. Basily, would you mind if I asked you a personal question?”
“Shoot.”
“Your back must hurt quite a bit. Can anything be done for it?”
“Mr. Galen, it hurts like a sonofabitch. And no, I’ve been told it’s as good as it will ever get. That reminds me of a third point I need to share with you.”
“What’s that, sir?”
“Shit happens, no matter what you do and no matter how hard you try to prevent it.”
Galen smiled, the muscles of his own shoulders visibly relaxing—for a short time, anyway.
“Antonio, we have to tell him.”
“Cara mia, it is not his right to know. It is his duty to obey. I will tell him when he comes home. He will not go away until it is over. He must respect our wishes. That is the way it must be.”
...
On the day of his graduation, as had been the case in high school, Galen was alone—without family—a disappointment that dampened what could have been a wonderful moment for him. He had achieved summa cum laude, and his life was spread out before him, a full plate of promise and opportunity.Dr. Agnelli had invited him to help out at his clinic over the summer, taking Galen under his wing once more. Except now that he had been accepted into medical school, Agnelli treated him as one of the brotherhood and talked frankly about the life Galen would face.
“I’m not sure you know what you’ve signed on for, Berto. If you’re foolish, like me, you’ll let it take over your entire life, even to the point of neglecting your wife and children—if you’re lucky enough to have any.”
He looked at the tired old doctor he had known all of his life—the doctor who had delivered him. Galen felt comfortable talking with him, just as he had with Professor Basily.
“Dottore, you know me better than anyone except my parents. You know how much I love what you do, what you represent. I just don’t know how to get my father to understand that.”
“What’s the matter, Berto? Isn’t your father proud of you and what you’ve accomplished?”
“I think he is, but he never says so anymore, and now he wants me to put off going away to school. He won’t tell me why. He just says it is my duty to obey his wishes.
“Dottore, I’m twenty years old and my father doesn’t treat me as an adult, with thoughts and goals of my own. I’ve worked so hard to get to this point in my life. I thought that’s what he wanted, what he expected of me. And now…”
Agnelli just shook his head. This did not sound like the Antonio he knew. There had to be something wrong. He looked at Galen and gave him the only advice he could.
“Berto, whatever your