Brief Five

Doctor Alistair

Doctor Alistair was an old man when I was a young apprentice. He was a good doctor and a good man. He was good to me. He didn’t pay much but he was good to me. Always had a smile on his face, even when the work got rough.

The work got to him. Doctor Alistair had worked hard all his life. A little too hard perhaps. He did it because he loved his work. And he did it because it gave him the opportunity to live by the golf course and drink vintage wine. Doctor Alistair loved his wine. I think he loved all other liquor as well but wine was, by far, his favorite. Some mornings, I thought, he had it at breakfast. It steadied his hands I think he thought. But it actually made them shake even worse. Sometimes a patient would throw me a nervous look as Doctor Alistair started at them with his unsteady hands, but the majority knew him and trusted him despite his shaking.

The shakes spread to his head right about the time my apprenticeship was nearing its end. He hated change Doctor Alistair did. He hated when it was time to welcome a new apprentice. He hated the unknown. The number of pills he had to swallow in the morning grew exponentially in the last few weeks. I would see them on his desk in his private office when I went down there to bring him the newspaper. It made me sad to think of leaving but I had no choice. I couldn’t be Doctor Alistair’s apprentice forever.

He had to give up his precious wine. But he was able to steal a glass or two now and again when we went to lunch some days. “Leo,” he’d say, “have a glass of wine with me, won’t you!” And I’d humor him and drink a glass with him. My head always spun afterwards during the afternoon work while Doctor Alistair always worked better during those afternoons. I’d even hear him humming away in his laboratory.

I left in the fall. I told Doctor Alistair that I’d come back and work with him one day. But I never did. I got enticed by the big city and the big enterprise and the big life. I met a man who came to work at our conglomerate one day many years later. He knew Doctor Alistair. He said Doctor Alistair had survived a massive heart attack. That was over three years ago. Poor, old, shaky Doctor Alistair.