It was a slow day for news, however, the Joint Commission was finished with this years inspection. To hear the various doctors describe it, they came for revenge and especially to piss off medical staff with endless pursuits of trivia. Conversation was naturally seeded with wonder about who would be zapped in their report. "Why do those toads judge us? Who are they?" was the general trend. Self aggrandizement and each one's contribution to society followed. Only Frank Sumner was, as usual, restrained. Larry Osten tried to draw him out a bit, "Hey Frank, what did your department do for the commission?"

"Bled."

"Clarify, please," Osten nudged.

"Well, this kid came in with a pumper from a knife wound to the arm. I took lady stiff ass reviewer with me on the call. The resident had it clamped already, but I let the thing spurt right on her and into her purse as I made an adjustment. I offered her my jock strap to wipe it off. She just cursed me out. Well, fuck her. Fuck them all. Like I care."

Frank Sumner said something funny? But it wasn't, nor was that his intent. He was the one bleeding. Though it seemed that only Osten picked up the scent, a silent and distant Macaluso was making soft guttural throat sounds. Concerned by Sumner's cracking decorum, Larry softly argued, "But you do care. You of all people."

Everybody else was laughing, though surprised at Frank's long over due offering to the Table. But that oversight didn't last long as he slumped over, "Nah. I'm losing it, Larry. I feel nothing. I have become half wood, like my face." That thread was not pulled further lest the man, himself, unravel. A cool eerie silence rippled outward.

Osten diverted, "I joined a victuals maintenance organization. It's a cool idea. You pay each month, fifteen to twenty percent less than what you would ordinarily pay for a month's food. When you need supplies, you go to a designated place and give the food keeper your shopping list."

"They do the work?" Denise helped out feigning interest.

"No. They check it to see if you really need to eat what is on your list. They send you to designated places to get the stuff that they have substituted. You may have to travel a bit."

"Meaning what?", Denise played along.

"Well, I had written 3 pears, 4 apples, and 4 plums - to make a fruit salad. They replaced that with 2 figs and sent me to Delaware - to a fig auction warehouse where outdated, but palatable, figs are sold cheap. I waited three hours, was given one fig and was then told to come back next Wednesday if the first fig didn't satisfy. Have to admit, we're eating out a lot lately, but the shopping bill is down."

"Osten, I weel crush you like a fig! You peeg." Belachnik, true to his role as the official, Oh I get it, spokesperson, then brightened with, "What if they give you botulism and half your family dies?"

"Nothing," Osten stated that they were protected by the ERISA statutes which hold them unaccountable. He mumbled some legal contractual double speak typical of HMO denials. After the groans, conversation drifted to recent roomers. Was it true that AmeriMed was billing a membership surcharge to obstetricians whose patients stayed beyond 18 hours? Denise affirmed that, adding - thank God - she never had dealings with them. She added that several of her colleagues had been pressured to substitute pooled midwives at home birthings. Refusing, they were sued for breach of contract.

"Breach of contract?" Osten was incredulous.

"Yeah. The contracts included wording that practitioners would abide by AmeriMed standards of practice, subject to unpublished notice. In this reading, that meant lowered standards whispered up somebody's ass." She then found an appropriate stream of expletives for the mood.

Was it true that there was yet another staph epidemic over at Bethdale General Hospital? Was it the fifth in three years? How many dead this time? Somebody thought four but the buzz from the periphery asserted six as two went uncounted. The fifth and sixth died in other hospitals shortly after transfer out, something Bethdale did regularly to control their morbidity statistics. Conversation turned to old philosophical arguments and from there on to individual moments of inner growth and self realization. But Macaluso, still tangled in Sumner's icy blast, remained detached, drifting as general remembrances were being shared and dissected. He heard barely heard any of it, mere echoes until his hand was physically shaken by Larry.

"Yoo hoo. Mac. Yo. Hey!" Osten jabbed him, "What's in there? Share it."

"Nah. Just a, a, ah...." Mac was grasping for a verbal connection to his inner darkness. "Loss. We aren't who we were. Loss has no tense. It spans past and future - always, killing in both directions. It.. it.. uh.. Haven't we all died?" He was looking at Frank. His dark eyes bore in as that sentinel cigar drooped. Osten's eyes flitted between the two of them. Christ! A connection was imminent. He held outward two up-reaching arms with fingers spread, a gesture of spiritual sanctity, which brought complete silence as impending revelation was palpable. Time and space melted. Two man faced each other joined by souls. Place ceased to exist and faded into detachment.

"Just talk," Larry whispered. "It will come. It will come."