--·,... : ... -...; ~:.);. ;i;:::~.. ~~ ) ·:· ,· ;~r,l.;-. .:,~:~· ~/. . _, -~.:• __. ..•. :-~ ..,.._~ ,,. ·:J~J,· -:"·. .,, •?~~ :.:,)• ....... ~ :·:)i . • •Xv -( ' . :.. -~· _,,~--,}~:· . ·= i . .$ .......}t:.. \·:~" <~"§. ?4(") '°'~... ~ ;..~~~ ., 4(~'/4.~"·,... .. ~~.:;..~:; ,~,:~~: .. --~ ....., -·-~ ,:J-:•.,i"' .. .. tr,~-,, :::~· ...,:., .. .,. .;.· /i'! •,;• ... .....,.. 4 ·1 -~ :.-:: ,. •-!1:':/:~ ~~~s~~ :t, ,;. ... .. • • Ji,.,. ,--·~:..:.;rf ;-.., ., • : < ,,,: . ,.... ~, .. •• ; ~-,I i, '-~·--... ,,.. -;.· • -~ -""' ...... .. ,~.-,r ... ,:;~., -./'·'~<-'c"' .... • .) ~~ ' "''° , •·,'-•-:,,.:!°f'·..:.; ..! .""'· ( ... -~-)~~ ,. .--...~~~t"".:~ .._ 'l_~/,.;,.·,~r ,..., 4, .... ::,__.;_t.,)(:~.;· :!..~:,;~;;~: ,,,,"', .., l"lf.• ., .. . "'~ .. '-· ....' I.PAGE B.RUDDJCK P.ANDERSON F.R.SCOTT MONTREAL, CANADA F"EBRU.ARY 1944 *** EUR~ *** The patient in bed 20 said, "Ycu don't have to tell him nothing Cassidy. He's only a student and. they 7 re always poking around." ''Don't mi.nd him1 " said Cassidy,,. "He'.s bugs." I expla~ned to him how we had to work out the cases assigned to us. He was co--opeieative4 His right arm was in a cast so the whol_e story was right there in front of me, Still I had to get a complete history and give my diagnosis. Dull. Routine. Cassi~y, J. Male. 64P Labourer. Verdun Avenue. No Previous Ad.missions. Phelps carr.e up to me. ncqme on up .to Ward E. Emergency burn just admitted," I excused myself and went with him~ Miss Newton was standing outside the door to the small Operating Room off E. She is a dark, thin, pert thing who shouldn't be spending all her love in the day-time. The kids think she i.s v, .)nderful, and she loves children, but she still makes me unhappy. Sometime I hope she busts the hell out of her starched blouse and gets what she needs_ "If you're going into the O.R. better wear masks." We took the small bundles and unrolled them and tied them over our lower faces. "Lookit the sojers," one of the kids shouted. Phelps turned a.round. "Booe,." he said. "Either of you assigned ··~to this case?" Phelps didn't want to exclude me, but he had to say something. "I guess I am." "Better go out in the hall and get the history from the parents." "Sure," said Phelps, ~.ropping the mask around his neck. "Hell," I thought, "I wonder if he thinks I'm horning in?" "Can I go in?'Y I asked Newton. She opened the door and peeked around it. "Sure." In the centre of the room a pale plump child was lying quietly on a small operating table. He was covered from waist to ankles with a thick padd ing of pre~sure bandages. The only sign of burns was a pink blistered mass the size of a plum representing his tiny genitalia. Two men from surgery and an interne worked over his right ankle trying to cut down on a vein~ One of the Chiefs was there tryin~ to get an Oxygen mask working. A 0 pinkie" was sterilizing instruments in a corner and her peppermint-stick blouse was the only colour in the whole white room. "This little bugger is so small and fat that I can't find a decentsized vein anywhere," said Lyons, the resident. "Come here doctor," the Chief flattered me. "See if you can feed him this stuff. Cup your hands over his face and make a mask. Bloody rubber in this one is all shot." He threw the useless mask on top of a cabinet. I stayed there guiding the oxygen to the child1s face. Latour came in and arranged a mechanical unit that supplied a steady stream of moistened oxy~en. He put a rubber tube into one nostril and forced it gently down through the pharnyx until it flowed directly into the kid's throat. The child had been having slight twitching spasms. I held hie small cold hands to stop them from flailing around. With every spasm his fists would • ... -. PAGE·-f'f'WO tigllten reui).4 my thumbs. His pale finger-nails were chewed short and ringed completely with a dirt-line. I could feel his rapid pulse pounding through .h1s plump wrists. The spasms gradual~y grew worse until he had one terrible convuleion, rising o·rr the table on the arCh of his back, arms outetr~tchad, breath. lesa, blue. ~ Then he fell back and whimpered. "Can't take many more ef those," said the Chi er. "Better anaesthetise him and control it." The child's breathing was irregular, slow, laboured, and even the ~pinkie" in the oo~ner' could hear the rales, of fluid bubbles bursting in his airways. His eyes were open and the pupils were pin-point~;. "Why the pin-point pu:pils'?n I asked Latour. ''Morphine. Some doctor:~gave it before he got here, end we don't know how much a.nd we are afraid to give him any more ourselves." He put a gauze ~ask over the child's nose and mouth, and sprinkled it with something.. I asked him what 1 t was, but I couldn't understand what he said. Af'ter a while the convulsions ceased. The Ohief waited around till a vein had been located end the intravenous plasma circuit was working. Than he left. Lyons went with him. With a long pair ef tongs the "pinkie" was placing sterilized instruments in neat rows on a whi.te covered coaster table. Latour and I teased her about Cape Breton. "I would.n' t of left there, but I always wanted to be a nurse." He~ry, from Surgery, sat down on a stool, leaned against the wall and peeled off his rubber gloves_ He came from a little Ontario town and wanted to get baek to take over his father•s practise. But he was in the Mediee.l Corps end he didn't know where he was headed. "How' ld you like to be Medical Officer for a bunch of CWACS?" joked Latour. ''Ugh. ·Jesus. n said Henry. The 11 pinkie" laughed louder then the rest of us, The interne left and went down to his ward. Latour was getting worried about the kid's breathing. He set up suction apparatus and worked it in and out of the kid's mouth. We stood eround, not saying much, while the suction tube slushed and hissed and sucked out the saliva and mucus from. the kid's mouth and throat. "Will you phone down fer another oxygen tank?" he a!ked ma. As I went out I heard Henry say, "This goddam plasma isn•t going in." I A priest was standing red-faced and scowling by the door. When I eame eut he a.eked me if he could go in and see the patien I went over to where Newton was trying to coax a kid to truce a cathartic. "What's burning his nibs?" I asked her. "The :parents want him to administer the last rites." He came over to us, "May I go in now·?" he said, "I have been hare over a.n hour and I can't waste time like this." "Sure," said Newton. He looked at us helplessly. "What do they expect I ean do for the spirit ual comf,t>rt of a two-.year-old?" He went into the O.R. I phoned, and came back to where Phelps we.s curled over a table writing out the history forms. tn.\rhet 's the sto~y?" PAGE THREE He fiddled with his pen, "I wish I spoke better French. They live 1n the eest end, The moth.er was doing the laundry. Six kids in tha house. Jean.. Louie in there becked into a pail er boiling water. It took them three hours to get him here." · I went beck in and passed tha priest as he we! coming out the door. The plasma was dripping down into the tube very slowly. Henry detached ·the tube end stuck a syringe into the eanula whieh was ligatured into ·the vein. He pulled on the plunger gently 'and finally a dark red clot came into the syringe, tollowed bye gush of blood. "Heh." Henry toqk off the syringe and hooked up the eirouit. A nurse's aide pOkE,d her head round the door. She came in. Debuta.nte on e.n errand. Latour was engrossed in giving oxygen, anaesthetic and eucking the fluid out of the kid's throat. She walked up beside him and stood watching. "Got to get this stuff out or he'll inhale it and drown himself." Sha went over to where Henry was still trying to get the plasma flowing easily. ''Goddam 1t," said Henry,, "he's not getting one bit of this stuff." Le.tour was bending over the head of the table. I could hear him cluck. ing and talking to the child. ·"'Come on gamin. We got it all right now little f?'iend. Chuck, chuck." "You're a sloppy sentimentalist Latour," I said. "Ah, you wouldn't understand." Henry we.s looking around for an available vein in the arms. He triad to get a needle into a couple but had no luck. The arms were so plump and the vessels so small it was almost impossible to see them. That was why they had gone int• the ankle in the first plaee. "I think his veins have collapsed," said Henry, Phelps came in and said, "His father wants to see hlm." "In e few minutes," said Hea,ry. Phelps turned to .me and grinned, "He thinks you and I are burn specialists from the Army or something. These uniforms. 1Nh• am I to d1sillusi"n the poor guy." Gentle Phelps. Henry we.a filling a syi-inge y.ith plasma. I put my hand under the blanket covering the kid. His chest was very hot. I tr,ld tat.9ur, "Ged yes,'' said Lateur feeling for himself. "Get Newton," he said to the "pink!e''. The "p1nk1e" went out of the reorn, Henry attached the syringe t.. the canule. in the kid's ankla. He started toreing the plasma slowly and easily into the collapsed vein. ••Now he's getting whats good for him," said Henry. "Bright idea," said Latour. "Hard as hell to work on kids. Cen 't sae to get int• a vein on a normal kid, never mind one in shock,n The ":pinkie" came back with Newton whG) took his temperature. Henry kept giving more plasma from lar~e sterile syringes. "'10?," said Newton. "Jesus," swore Latour. nHappens often in dehydrated kids," said Henry. "Why do ·you get fever in dehydration?" I asked Latour. "Best and Taylor's Physiology will tell you better than I can,." "How's it llek?" I asked Henry, ''Can't say," he aaid, reattaching t-he drip tube to t·ha eenula. PAGE FOUR ''Pretty high. He was in terrible shape when they brought him in," said Newton. "Maybe hetll pull out of it all right. Breathing well. His haart'e slower and steadier~" said Latour. "Sure." said Henry. We all stood around and waited. After a while the father came in with Lyons. He stood ebout ten feet away from the child. Straight, thin in blue denim overalls and leather jacket. His peak-cap roll,ed in one hand. He~.looked at the child through his heavy tortoiseshell glasses a long time. His black hair, brushed sideways, :partly covered one ear. "I guess we can move him from the table now," said Lyons. He must have been operating downstairs. He wee still gowned, his cotton mask hanging down around his neck. Miss Newton went out and came back wheeling a crib. I looked at the child. "I don't think so, " I whispered to the ").)inkie". Henry didn. 't either. He took out his stethescope and put it under the blanket. He listened for about three minutes. Lyons was trying to move1 the stand holding tha drip apparatus. The father looked at him. H~ looked up at the a:Pparatus. Tne plasma was still dripping slowly into the feeding tube. He looked back at the child. Finally Henry turned from the child. He had a hopele,ss dumb grin on his face. He stuck out his lower lip wryly. "I guess that's about all," he said. The father turned up the palms of his hands, "1Nhat can I do?" he said apologetically. He stood there-I could see the metal eyelets of his rough, black boots gleaming under the strong surgical lamps. I went over to the corner and pre,tended to be worlting at something. I wanted to wash my hands but I decided to wait. The nurse's aide was picking lint from the large red cross on the front -of her unifor.m. She turned around quietly and wen.tout. I followed her. I washed my hands outside. I looked at the clock. Four e'clock. Three hours in there. I had e Pathology Conference at four-thirty. The hell with it. I was fed up, Bugger it all. I was going to a show. I walked out through the kid's we.rd. ''Hi sojer!" said one of the kids standing at·the edge of his crib end bit-ing at .the enameled railing. "Hi there!" I said.. "~1hat 's the matter with you?" "Dunno." "F'eel alright?" I asked him.. "Uh-huh." Newton cam..e over to the crib, "Hernia. Did him ten days ego. Going home tomorrow,'' she said. I turned to the kid, and stuck a finger in his ribs. "You' re full of beans,'' I said. nAn_' you're fulla baloney,'' he said. Newton and I laughed. . The kid jumped up and down in his crib. ''Too bad about that/' I said thumbing hack at the O.R. "Yes," she said. I went out and stood in the hall waiting for an elevator. Why do you get such a sudden rise in tempereture in dehydration? I went into the cloak....rocm. A:n Iuterne was there smoking. He offered me one. There was no one else around, ."Why do you get hyperpyrexia in dehydration?"! asked him. "Roflexee. Lowered blood volume. Got a lecture?." "I•m cutting it. Think I• 11 -take in a show.. I'm fed up," Ke got up. "Go see Watch on The Rhine," he said, "It's e honey." Ha went int• the lavatory. I walked out and. towards the :r.~ain entrance. I met the father hustling up the corridor. I nodded to him and he stopped n1e, putting out his hand. ''Thank you, what you did for my Jean-Louis," "f'm sorry," I said. I wanted t~ put an arm around him and take him through tha wards end show him what ce.n be d,one sometimes. I wanted to prove to him that we were not e.lways helpless. I wanted to explain to him. I could see his big, still, blaok eyes through ·, I tlle heavy lenses. Poverty hung on him like a caul. I shook hls hard dry hand. "I'm s·orry," I said" He nodded and left me. , When I got tn -the street I suddenly felt again the wa.y I had often te1t cerning out of the theatre late at night alone, and wanting a woman I ~ouldn't have. I headed for the library. BRUCE RUDDICK. POEM Let us by paradox choose a Catholic close for innocence. Wince at the smell of beaded flowers like rosaries on the bush. Let us stand together then till the cool evening · settles this silent place and having•seen the hatted priest walk with book from Presbytery to border and th.e pale n,m1s, handless as seals, move in the still shadow, let us stand here olose, for death is common as grass boyond an ooean and, with all Europe pricking in our oycs, s uddonly romomber Guerni ca and be gone. P.K.PAGE pago six · ,, 1 TRANS CANADA Pulled from our ruts by the made-to-o~de~ gale We sprang upward into a wider prairie And dropped Regina below like a ~ile of bones. Sky tumbled upon us in waterfalls But we were sroa»ter than a Skeena salmon And shot our silver body over the lip of air To rest in a pool of space On the top storey of our adventure. A soler peace And a six-way choice. Clouds, now, are the solid substance, A floor of wool roughed by the wind Standing in wavas tnat halt in their fall. A still of troughs. The plane, our planet, Travels on reads that ere not seen or 161d But seund in instruments on pilots' ears, While underneath, The sure wings . Are the everlasting arms of science. Men, the lefty worm, tunnels his latest alay, And bores his new career. This frontier toe is ours. This eve~here whose life can enly be lad At the pace of a rocket Is common te man and man, .And every country below is an I land. The sun sets on its t~p shelf, And stars seem.-: farther frem our nearer gitesp. I have sat by night beside a cold lake And touched things smoother than moenlight en st1ll wate~, But the m~on en this cloud sea is not human, And here is no shore, n~ intimacy, Only the start of spa.ca, the way to suns. , .R. SCOT'l', page sovcn THRE}; P03MS ••• PATRICK 11N.DERSON POEM Somotimos in a groat public place a theatre ballpark or forum ~hero the shadowy banks of people seem colloctod for surprise -and offor, ~ow upon row, their violet oycs to start and startle and suffer ~hatevor there ia, touchdown, puck across ice or proud Hamlet-built in amongst cheering strangers or a croPd clapping I have thought perhaps silence could so surmowt and outmodo sound we'd got the illegal stations of your courage, construct from pooplo an t:.acouatic shell, turn all the corridors in'to detectors, rip music from tho auditorium, and so might hoar a pin drop or a tear from Europe's oothor weeping for h.Gr children. Or on groat avenues and whore tho city's all hubub and blowing horns and evon tho oyos of anguish arc dusty dry like tho white eye of clock, havo thought also to cut and modlo drums, make sea-shells out of. them, acarah longingly the nisory sea: turn m.arblo parliamont out of this kir,.gdoI!l ·· that it's aghast facade be palo with gulls, ghettoes, their cries, its spoakers frozen into listeners: make soldiers musical also, to try tho Atlantic we.ve, moving from place to place their trurnpct liko o.n 1µar in evory arn1y. Yet should wo hear, hon could TTO weep for th01:1? Not oven a great forost obsessed mth uind a~d ~ith southuest weoping, not even a t:;ailing r.all of oaks and elms clotted ~ith raiu, nqt acattoring its leaves and loudly scaling its towers of tallness and toaring them all, nor with sussurus being incessantly sleepless and sighing for them, · nor bonding its bolltshs and beating them senseless on tha·grotmd• nor with tho grand0ur of pines in a ~ild gale wildly seething, nor the cripplod thorn trco nor the little oocontric stau1n0rin.g bush 0vor explain th0ir Warsaw r-:i th wild voathor. Nor this ~istoria running with m.nd as m.th invisiblo wo.tor and tensing all its twigs all night, its cyos shut tight against the darkness, larlont 0110 child with ragged stuops for hundel DANCER Undor th0 lights, public and nakod, splayed like a aturfish, flat ns a r.lllp, by sloop saint0d and ·1y.1ng punished in that prono that lonely and lovely position is published a golden authority in our twilight -oyos not raoving not moving yet all tho lines will coobino ttith a dialectic shock the gouotypc nnd tho porsonal God•s great line fit in honoy and so suffers thoro ~n tho stage tho young dancer o. boy in pori;t destined to dance or dio for us all. This ~dness of boi11g ono thing Md its muscle this nudo stupor to dance the necessary and halt-evil narvol in tho quick and cupboard splondou of too flesh tho whito night of the form forc,vor sleepless. A. sad and beautiful target begins to novo No..v almost awk\vardly raises one log uhich simply and smilir.igly the light congratulates and painfully { tho drawn out r.ioroont is modorn, an 0xar.1plo of realism, considering ..,:;von tho hairs, in this assistcd by tho uonotonous drura, tho tom ton) raisos one-slo1? ns a pause in April-IZG iafloctcd upwards for a careful P'tSO nine cxar.1inor' s intorost, insistinG pcdo.ntice.lly upon it with a sort of grin delight in sax und tcchnics. ONE CUBAN BOY'S LEG. (;~h so youth uhistlos ooroscly at t~o English v.indou in rainy April, considering the poetics, the toclu1ics und tho thing.) Ho observes his lLi.1.i ts (tho drur:43 tho to~ tons throb to tho baton), celculutcs oxuctly th0 slun nnd ~ondor of this liub oroctod into t!lo l:"CUlr.1 of light articulntes it ns to function~ one JESIB of a log all right- curls end uncurls tho toes·, packs feeling in t~o cul do sac ON.::.: OF TOlv1MY GOMEZ 'S T'v70 ~ uobs tha croud liko Christ. Ho ends this shock by rolli116 ovor . once or twice on his bun and rising. while in the pit tho sunburnt instruments applaud ' and on tho skin bee.ts out tho hoart 's rythr:i. 0 not lamed v7ith silk enter tho girls in tho ritwl de.nee of the island (tho drur::s tho tom toms nodorn as anything and the disonanco and tho boy without ornaneht lilre left architecture) O not crippled the girls trl. th any silk . m th laoo rJainod or ,mtor or tho clover ~tlrror but only wearing in thoir secret parts tho gauze of joy, BC>rdBING BERLIN Tonight s01-:10 boys were history novod together in a cloud of disaster and. ono roloa.sod with prir1 precision ain his vertical verdict: bolow sr1ilos burst, anger boearX; senile, houses foll down on their kncos end reado for their inhabitants a surronlist prayor. page tea The crime against hurnani ty was to consider oneself a master raee: one died because one was lonely or too quiet to care, became eccentric and rmsturbated too muon and talked to oneself all day in the room littered with tears that wera al~ays 1mttdy and kept in cupboards and drawers too many dead dear things, too many whips and ribbons and photos of boys~ Their historical role was to play the poor cramped quarters or their hato against our loosr concourse democracy and mako us suddenly take sides mth life and rvith the sun and with th8 merciless seasons \l.Iltil in our great antiseptic halls statues wero trees and rnon TI"Orki.ng and coloured as posters children played against walls. Tho young ones TTith daggers paid for, of course, by tho old ones With c.ash duping themselves have involved us all in so great a hope this war's already elementary: from their restriction our widoncss ~c disintegrate the cross they tri0d to bond ·1nto a more selfcontained shape. NOTE *** *** We would remind our readers of the PREVIEW FUND and its objoctivo o! ono h\mdrod dollars ... Though tho response to our appeal has been very gonorous, uo still havo •.·.. a considorabl~ way to go. · . · Please send all donations, litorary contributions e.nd eritic1sm (o·f which -.:ic wish thoro '7oro more} to Bruce Ruddick, 1455 Drunurcnd_Stroot, Montroe.1,· Q,uoboc.· ' I . , I