SPRING CAME TO BLUE RIDGE EARLY THIS YEAR
I PLACE MY BAG of instruments in the back seat from force of habit. I know they will not be needed. I get in the driver’s seat and pause for a moment to get my breath. I am panting slightly; old age comes to doctors too, I tell myself—there is nothing else to say. The engine turns over easily and begins to whir; I let out the clutch slowly (we don’t want to buck) and we, the old Dodge and me, rumble the half block from my office to Main Street.
I turn left to go to the high school, having the feeling that this has all happened before. It has all happened before, as a matter of fact, except it was winter, the morning after the heavy snow, the first time Sam Goodrich called me out, and now it’s spring. I had been counting on spring to dispel the gloom that has settled on the town, but instead it has brought it into higher relief, has brought it into focus by contrast.
The air is warm and sweet, filled with the smells of damp earth and green life; as I drive down Main Street, the breeze ruffles my hair (it is all white now, no gray left) and the sun is warm on my elbow hanging out the window. At one time I would have felt invigorated; now I am merely reminded of how thoroughly pervasive is my tiredness.
I pass Dr. Hermann’s office. There are five or six people in his waiting room. He is old and clings to the old ways, refusing to work on an appointment basis. Since he no longer makes house calls, and I’m the only other doctor in town, the onus falls upon me to make this one.
(I was weary and tried to get Hermann to go on that call to Walshville. Half asleep on the way back, I saw the car ahead of me lose control on an ice patch, and come to a precarious stop on the shoulder. The passenger was sure to be uninjured. There were cars coming in both directions and someone would stop to help. Who needs a malpractice suit? I thought. It snowed heavily that night.)
The usual complement of old fogies are sitting on the bench in front of the pool hall, where they can greet the other fogies that might pass by, and discuss baseball and arthritis without being interrupted by women. As the years pass, it pains me to note, more and more of them are my old schoolmates. They all wave as I go by; I am probably the biggest event of the afternoon so far.
Mrs. Simms pulls from a parking place without looking, as always, and I must stop suddenly to avoid plowing into her trunk. This too, it seems to me, happened the last time as well, or perhaps I just think so. It has happened often enough, it makes little difference. Her engine dies as she shifts from reverse to drive, so I must wait a moment. Finally she gets the lever into neutral, and turns the key. The engine ignites immediately, but she holds it on start for a good five seconds.
It’s good I’m not going on an emergency call. There is no hurry. In fact there is no need to go at all, but no reason to avoid going, either. I know what will happen; it will be a repeat of last time. I will walk into the principal’s office and Alice, the secretary, will say, “Go right in, Dr. Tyler. Mr. Goodrich is waiting for you.” I will smile and nod and leave my bag on a chair and say, “Keep an eye on this for me,” and I will go in. Sam Goodrich will stand up behind his desk and stretch his meaty hand to me. We will exchange greetings and he will comment about the pleasant spring weather. I will agree that the weather is indeed agreeable for early March on the prairie, and I will sit down next to a window and say, “What can I do for you?”
Mrs. Dreiser, the guidance counselor, will be called in, and we will perform the greeting ritual again. Then Sam will say, “I’m sorry to bring you here again on something so vague, but frankly I’m worried. There were only six students last time, but the number has grown to over thirty now, and nothing seems to help them. I’m probably wasting your time, but I wish you’d examine some of the new cases.”
“Yes, Dr. Tyler,” Mrs. Dreiser will say, “you’ll make us feel better, even if you don’t discover anything new. We just don’t know what else to do.”
I will fend off their apologies with forced jocularity, and we will go to the first-aid room, where there is an examination table. On the way, Mrs. Dreiser will tell me how the incidence is higher among the more intelligent students, which to her is the most mystifying aspect of the whole thing.
(“The mystifying aspect to me,” Randy, the day cop, said, “is how that little bump on her head could kill her.” “It wasn’t the bump,” I told him, “she froze to death.”)
The brightest boy of the junior class (or senior, or freshman) will be waiting when we arrive. Sam and Mrs. Dreiser will hover discreetly in the background as I examine the boy. I will open my bag and take out several instruments. I check his heart rate and listen to his chest. I take his blood pressure and tap his knee with a hammer. I shine a light in his eyes and peek in his ears, and no one will notice that his problem can’t possibly be in his ears, but the whole thing is for show anyway. I know ahead of time exactly what I will find: nothing.
Mrs. Simms finally gets her Buick moving again, and jerks down the street with her nose brushing the steering wheel. I notice her windows are up, and she is wearing her fur coat. At the second intersection she turns without signaling or varying her speed from its constant fifteen m.p.h., and heads home. With her out of my way, I soon reach the railroad tracks and clatter over the six rails. Two of the six are rusty on top. The depot to my right, like everything else in town, is run down and in need of repairs. Howard, a retired telegrapher, is sitting in front of his old office, and waves as I pass. The smells of coal dust and diesel fuel blow in on the warm air; for a moment I feel better than I have all day.
The boy will say nothing during the examination. I will poke and prod, and he will be malleable, like putty. His eyes will be dull, his manner listless. “Going out for track, Dick?” I will say when I’m through with my monkey tricks. “I haven’t decided yet,” he will mumble in reply. “How do you spend your time at home?” “Homework . . . TV.” He has not yet turned to face me. “What are you planning to do when you graduate?” “Hadn’t thought much about it yet.”
I’ll tell him he’s in good health, though a little run down, and he should go out for track to build his body up. As he shuffles out, Sam and Mrs. Dreiser will look at me questioningly, anxiously. I will shake my head. “I couldn’t find anything wrong with him, physically.”
They will bring in the next student; it will be a girl this time, a cheerleader, a homecoming queen, the prettiest, the smartest girl in her class—at one time. Like the boy, her grades have been slipping, her class participation is nil, her attention span, her initiative, her creativity dead. I will go through the motions of the examination again, and I will find nothing. Her breasts will be full, her hips round, but I will hardly notice, and my indifference will be more than professional.
(“You seem worried about something,” I told the girl last time. “Do you want to tell me about it?” “It’s happened before, but my mother didn’t come home last night,” she said. Then they told me Randy, the day cop, was looking for me, and I learned her mother was dead. They expected me to tell her, of course.)
Passing by Millie Perkins’ house, I see her in her usual place in the bay window, where she can see the street, see the TV set, and reach the telephone at the same time. She is at the phone now. No doubt she is anxious to discuss the soap opera which has just finished its latest episode, the afterimage of the final frame still etched on the screen, the final organ groan vibrating the china as she dials. The TV provides more of her gossip than the street does these days. She is probably calling my wife, herself an intimate of the mythical personalities that dance and blink through our living room:
(“Yes, you did get a call last night, just before you got home, but it came during the last five minutes of Gunsmoke, and then Millie was on the phone, and I forgot to tell you.” “What did the caller say?” “He said there was an unconscious, woman in a car on the road to Walshville. Oh, dear, I do hope nothing terrible happened to her.”)
I may examine one or two more kids, but probably not. We will decide there is little point in it.
“What is it, Dr. Tyler?” Mrs. Dreiser will say. “What’s wrong with them? It doesn’t make any sense, and I, for one, am scared.”
“I don’t know,” I will say. “Can’t understand it myself. I’ve seen people like this many times in my career. It’s often a reaction to mourning, or a buried psychological problem. Usually the person will come out of it by himself, given time. I’ve never seen it so lasting or widespread, though. If it’s any consolation to you, it’s happening all over the country, striking the young mostly, just like here. It started in the small towns, but it’s spreading to the cities now.”
“But what is it?” Sam will say.
“The journals have called it various things. I prefer ‘chronic apathy’ myself. It’s as good a term as any. I haven’t heard any satisfactory explanation of the cause.”
Mrs. Dreiser will probably start sobbing. “What’s going to become of these young people?” she will ask between sniffles.
“Yes, Dr. Tyler,” Sam will say. “What are we to do? What are we to do?”
I will hide my face and shake my head, and pretend I don’t feel like crying myself. I will pretend there never was a time when I was ready for any commitment, no matter how great; never a time when my hope and confidence and energy were unlimited.
“I wish I knew, Sam,” I will say. “I wish I knew.”