Рита Браун - Claws And Effect

"My knees are better." Mrs. Murphy turned her back on Bruce, whom she considered a conceited ass. "Everything about me is better. If people walked on four feet instead of two most of their problems would vanish."

"Won't improve their minds any," came the voice from the mail cart, which now echoed slightly.

"There's no help for that." Tucker sighed, for she loved Harry; but even that love couldn't obviate the slowness of human cogitation.

"Pewter, why don't you get your ass out of the mail cart? You've been in there since eight this morning and it's eleven-thirty. We could go outside and track mice."

"You don't want to go out in the cold any more than I do. You just want to make me look bad." There was a grain of truth in Pewter's accusation.

Bruce left, treading the ice with slow respect.

In ten minutes Hank Brevard, plant manager of Crozet Hospital, and Tussie Logan, head nurse in Pediatrics, arrived together in Tussie's little silver Tracker.

"Good morning." Tussie smiled. "It's almost noon. How are things in the P.O.?"

"The P.U.," Hank complained.

He was always complaining about something.

"I beg your pardon." Mrs. Miranda Hogendobber huffed up.

"Cat litter." He sniffed.

"Hank, there's no litter box. They go outside."

"Yeah, maybe it's you," Tussie teased him.

He grunted, ignoring them, opening his mailbox. "Bills, bills. Junk."

Despite his crabbing over his mail, he did open the envelopes, carefully stacking them on the table. He was a meticulous man as well as a faultfinder.

Tussie, by contrast, shuffled her envelopes like cards, firing appeals, advertisements, and form letters into the wastebasket.

Miranda flipped up the dividing counter, walked out, picked up the wastebasket, and started to head back to the mailbag room, as she dubbed the working portion of the post office building.

"Wait." Tussie swiftly dumped two more letters into the trash. "If you don't open form letters you add three years onto your productive life."

"Is that a fact?" Miranda smiled.

"Solemn," Tussie teased her.

Miranda carried the metal wastebasket around the table to Hank. "Any more?"

"Uh, no." He thumbed through his neatly stacked pile.

"Can't you ever do anything on impulse?" Tussie pulled her mittens from her coat pocket.

"Haste makes waste. If you saw the damaged equipment that I see, all because some jerk can't take the time. Yesterday a gurney was brought down with two wheels jammed. Now that only happens if an orderly doesn't take the time to tap the little foot brake. He pushed, got no response, then pushed with all his might." Hank kept on, filled with the importance of his task. "And there I was in the middle of testing a circuit breaker that kept tripping in the canteen. Too many appliances on that circuit." He took a breath, ready to recount more problems.

Tussie interrupted him. "The hospital does need a few things."

He jumped in again. "Complete and total electrical overhaul. New furnace for the old section but hey, who listens to me? I just run the place. Let a doctor squeal for something and oh, the earth stops in its orbit."

"That's not true. Bruce Buxton has been yelling for a brand new MRI unit and-"

"What's that?" Harry inquired.

"Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Another way to look into the body without invading it," Tussie explained. "Technology is exploding in our field. The new MRI machines cut down the time by half. Well, don't let me go off on technology." She stopped for a moment. "We will all live to see a cure for cancer, for childhood diabetes, for so many of the ills that plague us."

"Don't know how you can work with sick children. I can't look them in the eye." Hank frowned.

"They need me."

"Hear, hear," Miranda said as Harry nodded in agreement.

"Guess we need a lot of things," Hank remarked. "Still, I think the folks in the scrubs will get what they want before I get what I want." He took a breath. "I hate doctors." Hank placed the envelopes in the large inside pocket of his heavy coveralls.

"That's why you spend your life in the basement." Tussie winked. "He's still looking for the Underground Railroad."

"Oh, balls." Hank shook his head. If they had been outside, he would have spat.

"I've heard that story since I was a kid." Miranda leaned over the counter divider. "'Bout how the old stone section of the hospital used to be on the Underground Railroad for getting slaves to freedom."

"Every house and bush in Crozet has historical significance. Pass a street corner and some sign declares, 'Jefferson blew his nose here.' Come on, Tussie. I've got to get back to work."

"What are you doing here with doom and gloom?" Harry winked at Tussie.

Hank suppressed a little smile. He liked being Mr. Negative. People paid attention. He thought so anyway.

"Chuckles' car is in the shop."

"Don't call me that," Hank corrected her. "What if my wife hears you? She'll call me that."

"Oh, here I thought you'd say 'people will talk.'" Tussie expressed much disappointment.

"They do that anyway. Ought to have their tongues cut out."

"Hank, you'd have fit right in during the ninth century A.D. Be in your element." Tussie followed him to the door.

"Yeah, Hank. Why stop with cutting people's tongues out? Go for the throat." Harry winked at Tussie, who joined her.

"Mom's getting bloodthirsty." Mrs. Murphy laughed.

"Let me get Chuckles back to his lair." Tussie waved good-bye.

"Don't call me Chuckles!" He fussed at her as they climbed into the Tracker.

"They're a pair." Miranda observed Hank gesticulating.

"Pair of what?" Harry laughed as she emptied the wastebasket into a large garbage bag.

The day wore on, crawled really. The only other noteworthy event was when Sam Mahanes, director of the hospital, picked up his mail. Miranda, by way of chitchat, mentioned that Bruce Buxton had slid on his back down Main Street.

Sam's face darkened and he replied, "Too bad he didn't break his neck."

2

"Whee!" Harry slid along the iced-over farm road, arms flailing.

The horses watched from the pasture, convinced more than ever that humans were a brick shy of a load. Mrs. Murphy prowled the hayloft. Tucker raced along with Harry, and Pewter, no fool, reposed in the kitchen, snuggled tail over nose in front of the fireplace.

Susan Tucker, Harry's best friend since the cradle, slid along with her, the two friends laughing, tears in their eyes from the stinging cold.

Slowed to a stop, they grabbed hands, spinning each other around until Harry let go and Susan "skated" thirty yards before falling down.

"Good one."

"Your turn." Susan scrambled to her feet. Instead of spinning Harry, she got behind her and pushed her off.

After a half hour of this both women, tired, scooted up to the barn. They filled up water buckets, put out the hay, and called the three horses, Poptart, Tomahawk, and Gin Fizz, to come into their stalls. Then, chores completed, they hurried into the kitchen.