Universal Donor

Garret dropped out of med school when he was 20, and this saddened me. As his anatomy professor, I was disappointed. He was a bright kid, probably too bright. He almost never got an A+ on anything, choosing instead to sabotage his work with a freckling of small, intentional errors, or even large ones. This habit, as a professor, was frustrating. For example, in one essay, when discussing the radius and ulna–the two long bones in the forearm–he simply replaced "radius" with "femur" throughout. He was insolent like that frequently, as if I was insulting his intelligence with every exam. His brilliance was only matched by his immaturity. Actually, it paled in comparison. Two model skeletons in class were often configured in some lurid posture with respect to one another, and any mention of neural tissue would invoke his immediate vocal response: "BrraaaaaaAAINS?" Also, disturbingly, his presentation on the male reproductive system, including a graphic demonstration of *all* its various states and functions, began with the dropping of his trousers. While disturbing, I did not interrupt. It was brutally informative and accurate. It was his only A+.

I found him impossibly repulsive in virtually every respect. But, the only reason he remained tolerable at all was his delusional fantasy of getting me in bed. As a breathing female only a few years his senior, he seemed to revel in the relentless barrage of innuendos and flirtations spewed in my direction on a regular basis. Every essay would be crafted to be somehow suggestive, and when the topic was completely inert, such as the function of the large intestines, he would simply insert some crude invitation, like:

Villi are vaginations (folds) of the mucosa and increase the overall surface area of the intestine while also containing a lacteal, which is connected to the lymph system. Would you like to have sexual relations in the faculty bathroom after class? And, aids in the removal of lipids and tissue fluid from the blood supply.

It was in poor taste. I wouldn't flatter him by calling it outrageous. He was less brave–more an entirely shameless heathen with seemingly no honor or respect for authority. But, the truth was, he was, indeed, more competent than 'authority' in many ways, myself included, and as we got to know each other better, some of his behavior became understandable, even warranted. When we started dating, I learned that Garret was subject to a certain kind of authority, but that is a different story to be told another time.

I was terminated from the university a couple months after Garret and I started dating. Dating a student wasn't the cause, but Garret was nonetheless responsible. He had dug up a bunch of reports from the FDA and had been "communicating" with corporate executives. (It turns out getting confidential information from a CEO is easy if you know his mistress.) As a result of his research I was subjected to some evidence that compelled me to change my curriculum. My lesson plans were changed to contradict a couple textbook items regarding the safety of certain popular prescription drugs. Big pharma found out, and didn't like it. When I refused to advocate their toxic drugs to my students and their future patients, they invited me to their lab for a discussion. When the lab technicians verified my concerns, they agreed to notify their managers. But, instead of changing the textbook, I was informed I was out of a job. When the corporation threatened to lower their corporate contribution, I was terminated from the university by the president. The endowment was simply more valuable than the truth, and my students were all shuffled to a different classroom where they could listen to a stooge for big pharma advocate the status-quo death spiral of dangerous prescription drugs.

Rob and kill someone instantly and you go to prison–rob and kill someone over a period of 30 years and you retire a multimillionaire.

I took a job as a waitress at a local bar. The tips were good and I decided it was more responsible to serve booze to drunken lunatics than lies to soon-to-be doctors. My decision was not without consequences. One evening, as I was walking across the street toward Garret's apartment, a large sedan full of drunk 20-somethings I had just been serving ran a red light, and screeched around the corner towards me. The last thing I remember was floating over the beige roof and striking the trunk on my descent toward the pavement. Garret tells me he heard the squealing, saw me laying on the pavement, and rushed down to check me out. It was late at night and the street was quiet. He says I was bleeding out. There was no time for an ambulance. He carried me into his apartment, set me on his sofa, and began performing first aid. When it was apparent I was about to die of blood loss, he found a couple syringes and some tubing, and fabricated a crude, double-ended IV, shoving one end into his arm, bleeding down to fill the hose, then inserting the other end directly into mine. He happens to be o-negative, the universal donor, so he didn't need to check my blood type. I woke up the next morning covered with bandages, my fractures reduced, and a breakfast of warm bacon and eggs, my favorite. He offered to call the hospital, but I refused. Garret's heroics were criminal. He didn't call 911, he could be charged with negligence, even kidnapping.

More dangerously, I was worth hundreds of thousands to the hospital and a raison d'etre for the public insurance companies. The broken bones and internal injuries would yield an expensive battery of tests, drugs, and interventions. I was a sitting gold mine. I knew this, Garret knew this. I needed to trust either him or the barrage of procedures and drugs designed to fill the pockets of investors. I went with Garret.

Over the next 6 weeks Garret found an impressive improvement in black market medical supplies since the recent government occupation of health care. The quality was getting better and the cost had come down dramatically. The infrastructure had been in place for years, so the transition was swift. The guys who were distributing raw milk out of their barns one week were stocking x-ray machines in the rafters the next, and underground bunkers the next. This closet, underground industry was booming and its proprietors were growing increasingly clever at the cover-up. With massive profit potential, there was no questioning the economics: trade underground and pay a relatively small overhead to hide the stock, or pay twice as much for taxes, licensing, and keeping up to code. There was only one code now: make bulletproof stuff, or you will fail. Massive potential for profits had intensified competition. Second-rate stuff was worthless underground. They shipped it off to state hospitals like scrap metal.

Word got around about Garret's heroics. People were getting sicker. They needed options. Hospitals had lost credibility, real and perceived. When they came to his door, he had no choice. All these customers needed to say was:

"Hi Garret, I know what you are doing here. If you don't help me I will reveal your underground clinic."

But, it was never like that. They just walked in. Garret would never think of turning someone away. Before long, he had taken in more patients than his apartment could accommodate. Within weeks, he had rented all the vacant apartments in the building and filled them with hospital beds–every one of them built in some secret factory. They kept coming in droves, paying anything for an appendicitis. All Garret did was read medical books and perform procedures. It was insane, but there were few options. The public was terrified of hospitals. Garret was their only hope...

(To be continued...)