A house call offers comfort in the night

I hear the familiar, deliberate steps on the stairs up to my bedroom, but I live on one floor. There are no stairs to my bedroom. I look at the clock. It is 3:12 a.m.

I smell the fragrant pipe tobacco mixed with the odor of ether. Dr. Bartlett has been operating this evening. He sits down on the corner of my bed as he always did.

''Donald. How are you doing?"

''You were right."

''About what?"

''I didn't have to become my parents."

''I said that?"

''Changed my life. I was 12. It was 1936."

''I'd be in trouble if I said that today. Sued probably."

I nodded and we sat quietly, as he had during my sickly childhood. He'd shoo Mother out of the room and the world would grow quiet. He was the busiest doctor in town, but he never hurried. There was great comfort in the fact he never needed to rush. This is not a crisis. He'd seen this before many times, and he knew what to do. The cure would be in a great homeopathic black bag he had with him. He looked me over, listened to what I had to say, and touched my shoulder quickly as he left.

Tonight, he just sat.

''If you're dead, you probably have a lot of time on your hands. Dr. Bartlett, do you know what a hospitalist is?"

''I don't think I want to."

''We've been doing some terrible things to the language since you've gone. I've been called an expressivist. I think it's an insult or something. I think they mean I'm a writer who expresses his feelings, more heart than head."

Harrumph.

He always had a good harrumph, a Down East, part Indian harrumph.

''I just saw my hospital had hired a couple of hospitalists. Apparently general practitioners don't like to visit patients in hospitals, upsets their schedule, I guess."

Another harrumph.

''And young doctors don't like to be called in the middle of the night. Want an 8 to 5 schedule. So they become hospitalists, have a 9 to 5 schedule. No calls at night."

''Patients must cause a fuss."

''Don't think so. They are dealing with specialists."

''In what?"

''All the things you used to do alone. Deliver babies. Take adenoids, tonsils, appendix, as you did mine. I have a doctor for my heart, my mind, my eyes, my teeth -- dentist and oral surgeon."

''All different guys?"

''And girls. I have a foot doctor and a skin doctor and a bowel movement doctor and a kidney doctor and two nerve doctors, even an ear wax doctor."

''They ever come to your home? See what's going on, what the life you lead is like?"

''Of course not. I go to their offices."

''How could I treat you without knowing you?"

''Tests, a lot of tests."

''The doctor takes your blood or whatever?"

''Nope. More specialists. I'm down to only 11 specialists. Had nearly 20, a couple of years ago. They keep me alive."

''You, Donald, are alive because you are stubborn."

Dr. Bartlett rose on his last harrumph and was gone.