Therapy

By John Ryan

An innocent family man is wrongfully implicated in a crime that he did not commit. Time is running out for Edward Allen, as police gather evidence clearly pinpointing him as their only suspect in a violent crime. He frantically tries to extricate himself as the authorities close in, desperate to close their case.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 21, 2013
• ISBN: 9781493110988

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Copyright © 2013 by John Ryan.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 10/17/2013

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Chess is one of the oldest forms of competition known; it originated in India more than fifteen hundred years ago. Its complexities sometimes are a depiction of life, with each of its two combatants using the various pieces to their advantage to form strategy and to confuse the adversary. In matches pitting opponents of equal skill, the player of the white pieces, moving first, is said to possess a 55 percent chance of winning. Playing the black evolves into a succession of countermoves, hoping to thwart the offensive schemes of the white. For the most part, a drawn match for the black side is reasoned a success, a won match being an anomaly. The irony of chess is that the succession of interwoven, complicated moves by the pieces of power is preceded by the first innocuous advance by the humble pawn.

Deep within the bowels of a nuclear submarine, entrapped by the confined spaces of its reactor compartment, I was struggling to find footing and stability. Unable to clearly see where my next step was going to land, I felt tentatively with my foot, hoping to find a secure placement. Shifting my balance and stepping downward, I transferred my weight from my left foot to the right. At that critical juncture, the slippery texture of bare metal caused my right boot to slide off the metal, with only the heel catching the edge of the steel plate. The forward movement of the leg was stopped only momentarily by the structure of the knee joint. As more weight was thrust upon the knee by my impending fall, the joint’s interior makeup of cartilage and tendons exceeded its limitations. There was an audible pop from the knee as it failed, and I continued downward until I came to rest on the solid steel deck plate. Initially, there seemed to be a lack of pain, and I considered myself lucky not to have struck my head or other vital areas.

As I started to rise from the deck, I was then aware of a burning sensation from under the kneecap. As I stood and distributed weight evenly, the right leg buckled slightly and the pain increases became more noticeable. I bent over and reached down to the knee and rubbed it with my right hand, feeling for any telltale displacements. There were none, and I proceeded to slowly flex the right leg. I was somewhat relieved to feel that the pain in the kneecap area seemed to be receding.

At that point, it appeared there was no cause for worry about my misstep. I stepped gingerly in the available space, again testing the stability of the knee joint. Fellow employees were nearby, laughing and shouting out. Stay down, old man, was the first of the chants, followed by even louder laughter and cat calls. I couldn’t say that I didn’t earn it. At that instant, fallen and injured, I did look the part of a forty-seven-year-old man. I was really embarrassed; although an athlete all my life, I now looked like your average couch potato, tripping on his rug while running for another bag of chips during a thirty-second time-out during the basketball game. And my fellow workers were really getting their shots in, one barb after another. I tried unsuccessfully to appear to not hear them as I dusted myself off.

As the hazing continued, I started to notice an aftereffect of the small pain in my right knee. I started to contemplate reporting the injury at the yard hospital. I then looked at my watch. It was reading 8:48 a.m., close to our normal nine o’clock break time. As I looked up from my watch, my fellow workers, as if by telepathy, understood that work would cease for the time being.

Break time in a shipyard is a term that is one of the most controversial topics, especially with management’s oversight concerning worker relationships. In the shipyard, you don’t want to be found not working; you must appear to be involved in some aspect of your job. You sort of have to incorporate it with what you are supposed to be doing, such as reading a procedure or gathering material for an upcoming job.

Being so close to break time, an idea popped up into my head. Why not just extend the break and proverbially kill two birds with one stone? I decided that after I took a short time for break, I would walk down to the yard hospital and report the soreness in my knee. It was always advantageous in the instance of an in-plant injury to report the injury in case it persists and additional medical care would be needed. Before I took off for the yard hospital, I would first have to notify my boss that I would be gone for a while.

Hey, have you seen Bowen anywhere? I asked one of my coworkers, George Green. George weighed more than four hundred pounds yet measured about five feet eleven. George was always around, meaning he didn’t move from place to place very much. It also meant that he didn’t do a large amount of work, either. Break time was an integral part of the day for George; he had an entire menu planned. Doughnuts, bagels, and other sugar-loaded treats awaited him the moment he opened his enormous lunch box. It was the size of an ice cooler a family would normally take to the beach for the day. To think that he might have to delay break time to try to help hunt down Tim Bowen had already started to put a frown upon his face.

No, I ain’t seen him in a while, answered George. You might look across the street, thought I seen him heading for Rad Stores a couple minutes ago. Yea, try over there. Someone there must’a seen him. George was just trying to get rid of me quickly, so he could make a beeline for his cooler. I passed by him and told him that if he saw the boss, to tell him that I was heading down to the yard hospital to check out the sore knee. I could hear him mumble, Fuckin’ pussy, under his breath when I was far enough away to be almost out of hearing distance.

Yeah, if you’d get up and move some day, you could break suction with your pussy and that chair, I fired back. You’ve been sitting there so long that when you do move, your fuckin’ shadow will still be there. You fat fuck, you!

One thing about George—you either loved him or hated him, but when it came time to standing up against the management, George Green was the man to have your back. He absolutely hated everything about the hierarchy at EB. He wouldn’t move a muscle to help some guys on a job, but if management was somehow trying to screw that same guy, he’d jump right in the trench with him to fight his case. George also happened to be somewhat of a go-between the workers and our area union stewards. George knew all of the stewards closely and was always the first one to hear any new union gossip and rumors. Of course, the best topics of interest were when someone really screwed up and was facing suspension or termination. Everyone wanted to get the scoop, and George was the one who usually delivered it.

Of course, everything came at a price. You had to sort of cajole George all the time, like bringing him things he liked. I found that a great way to melt The Big Boy was with flavored coffee creamer. I brought in a different flavor every day, and he couldn’t wait for me to bring him his daily treat.

Hey, what about the creamer, he screamed. I actually thought I might see him get up and try to run after me. I made him believe I didn’t hear him for an instant and slowly continued to walk away. Then, timing it perfectly, I stopped and turned. George had stumbled to his feet and was just starting to come after me when I stopped him in his tracks.

Hold on, big boy. I was going to get it before I went on break. Crème Broulet today, great taste. I then laughed, knowing I had gotten him. And he knew it.

Fuckin’ asshole.

The visit to the yard hospital was actually very short. Surprisingly, there were very few patients there when I first walked in. In the old days, the shipyard walk-in clinic was continually filled with personnel who had in some way become injured at work, especially the days before OSHA, the government workplace watchdog, came into the shipyard and demanded safer working conditions and practices. After giving initial information to the nurses’ assistant at the front, I was led into the clinic to meet the doctor.

Dr. Messina was a likeable sort, who had been the head physician at the yard hospital for a number of years. He wasn’t even reaching middle age; he looked about thirty-five, possibly less. Most of the other doctors who I had known over the years at EB had been a lot older, and I often wondered why Dr. Messina had come to EB at such an early age. Most of the others had come there after practicing somewhere first. The examination consisted mostly of me telling Messina where the pain was, and he then writing the information down. He gently bent the knee slightly one way, and then the other, being careful not to flex it too much. Because the pain was so slight, and in a small area, he didn’t seem to be aware of any serious conditions.

He told me to be careful with it and to not do anything to cause further stress on it for a couple of days. If it continued to bother me, I was told to come back, and a further evaluation would be performed. I felt comfortable with the visit. I didn’t feel acute pain; it was similar to other minor injuries that I had suffered before, and it would pass in a day or so if I didn’t do anything harmful to it. I resumed my normal work routine, being careful with the knee. Upon returning home, I was undecided on what activity I would attempt. My usual routine would be to do one of three sports—running, riding, or swimming, the three basic elements of triathlon racing.

Every day, except Mondays, I would be out there after work doing one of the three. Sometimes I would include two of the disciplines, depending on the training regimen for the day. That day I had planned to go home and get out on the bike, but later I was pondering what I should do because of the soreness in the knee. I had learned over the years that injuries would really linger on if they were not allowed to heal properly. It was not a lesson learned easily, however. When an athlete is young and is always striving to get better, it sometimes seems that taking time off for an injury is almost out of the question. Cut back the workouts, possibly. But stop completely? It usually didn’t seem like an option, until you get older, of course, and start finding out that the injuries weren’t healing quickly, or not at all. Finally, after years of doing things the wrong way, I had finally become wiser and started letting the little injuries heal properly.

With this in mind, I decided not to go on the planned group ride. Usually, on Wednesday nights, a group of riders would gather at the local bicycle shop in Willimantic and ride for hours through the countryside. That night, because of the knee, I was changing my training plan to go swimming instead. I would let the injury have time to heal, and in another couple of days, it would be just as good as new, I hoped. I didn’t enjoy swimming as much as running or cycling. Those two sports I could do from my home, and without much preparation. Within a couple of minutes, I could be out running or riding my bicycle. But to go swimming, I had two options. One was that I could swim in the nearby reservoir, which was within easy walking distance. For some reason, however, each time I swam in fresh water, I seemed to develop an acute sinus problem. The other option was to swim at the Mansfield Community Center, where there was an Olympic-sized swimming pool. This option required that I pack everything into the car, drive twelve miles to the pool, shower, swim, shower, and then drive all the way back home—very time consuming for the amount of time that you spend working out. One added benefit to swimming at the pool was seeing nice-looking young ladies in skin-tight swimsuits, stroking along in a nearby swim lane.

Being late in the month of May, approaching Labor Day, the pool was getting less and less crowded compared to the winter months when everyone is relegated to doing things inside. With the warmer weather, more people were staying away from the community center, engaging themselves in outside activities. On that day, there were only two other people in the pool—an elderly man in the lane next to me on the right and a female two lanes over on my left. I couldn’t keep from glancing to that side of the pool as she swam by. She seemed very graceful, and I was quickly surprised at how much faster she was able to swim than I could. I seemed to be trying twice as hard as she was but could not come close to matching her speed. I continued watching her as the laps passed and marveled at how fast she could slice through the water with such little effort. I tried to make a mental picture of how she positioned herself as she propelled herself through the clear blue pool water. I was especially interested in how she brought her arms back and under her as she pulled through the water. If I could become fluid and conserve energy as she did, I imagined how much faster I could become.

I had thought many times of getting in touch with some sort of swimming coach but had always hesitated, mostly because of money. I just couldn’t rationalize paying someone to teach me something that I thought that I should already know. But as it was turning out, my swimming was not improving with my self-teaching methods. I wondered if this young lady had a coach; else how did she gain her knowledge? Possibly she would let me in on some of her techniques. I had asked another avid swim racer how she did her flip turns in the pool, and she had demonstrated the technique to me. This time I only watched her, and lack of courage prohibited me from talking to her.

Four days passed, and the pain in the knee persisted. Whereas at first it seemed to be only a precautionary idea to get my knee looked at, it now seemed that the injury could be more serious than when first examined. I had tried to run on it the day before, and had not managed to run very far, when the soreness became more than tolerable. I had experienced many types of injuries before, some sports related and some not. I was usually a pretty good judge of where the injury was heading, but this one sort of had me baffled. The pain was coming from an area where I normally never felt pain before.

That day was Monday, June 4. The weekend had been a complete waste for me as far as training was concerned. For the past weekend, I had planned to do a fifty-mile bike ride on Saturday morning and, maybe, a slow three-mile run directly after getting off the bike. These simultaneous workouts, known as bricks, were used to acclimatize the body to the rigors of changing from one format of the triathlon race to another. Going from riding to running muscles required changing the blood flow from one to the other; bricks helped condition the body to make the transition in the race easier. I had also planned to do a long run on Sunday, probably the eight-mile run I like to do that takes me up into the Natchaug State Forest. Though very hilly, it is mostly on dirt roads, which makes it very easy on the body. I didn’t run this route for time because of its steep hills, I run it for endurance and stamina. The continued soreness in the knee had prevented me from doing anything on either day. Apprehension was starting to seep into my consciousness as concerning the injury. Perhaps Dr. Messina’s diagnosis was not going to prove accurate.

Some people actually look forward to getting back to work on Monday. I often wondered what it would be like to go to work and really enjoy what I was doing. Fellow workers and I many times discussed these scenarios. There were the obvious situations that I knew I would love; airplane pilot, pro athlete, and race car driver headed the list. The hedonist list often went on and on. But what about real jobs? How did doctors, lawyers, and other seemingly happy people really feel about their jobs? I ended up thinking that for me, handing out medical supplies or food in some place like Somalia would be a proper balance of effort and satisfaction.

But it’s eight forty-nine on a Monday morning, and I’m back in the shipyard like I’ve been for the last two-thirds of my life. Back to a repetitious job, working with the same group of men. The crew basically includes the area supervisor, the supervisor, and the workers, the main difference being that the supervisors were part of management and the workers were not. Supervisors had no union umbrella to hide under, whereas workers were all protected by the union. Even though supervisors and workers sometimes became close friends, there was always this invisible line of demarcation. A case in point is that very seldom would you see a union guy eating lunch with a supervisor. If they did, more often than not they would be immediately accused of brown nosing.

One of the greatest brown nosers of all time was my friend and fellow coworker, Tommy Grinaldi. He had been doing his best to avoid any type of work for most of the early morning. He was always complaining and spent more time down at the yard hospital than most. I figured he was an expert.

Hey, Tommy. Ask you something. I got, like this little pain in my knee from last week. It doesn’t feel like it’s getting any worse, but it’s still there. Probably, nothing, but I can still feel it. Think I should wait a little while more or go to the yard hospital again?

Go down now, he said. Go down and rag ’em. They get paid to see what’s wrong. And if there is something outa whack, then let them take care of it. Bring ’em a doughnut or something, I don’t now. Hey, it’s almost nine.

I enter the yard hospital, and sign in at the outer entrance. I proceed to the front desk, where the nurses were busy attending to those who had gotten there before me. I sat down and waited, noticing that there was an inordinate amount of workers in the clinic that morning, many probably suffering the aftereffects of too good of a weekend, and subsequently injuring themselves on the job. It took a few minutes before I could actually talk to one of the nurses. I explained to her what my situation was, and gave her my case number. The case number could be quickly looked up, and general information about that particular injury easily obtained. The nurse was relatively new and didn’t recognize me, there being no previous encounters. I was told to sit and wait, and the doctor would see me shortly.

Doctor Messina arrived a few minutes later. Hey, Allen, back again? Something new, or something old?

It’s the same problem I had last week with the knee. It hasn’t gotten any better, but I still have some pain, right about here. I reached down and put my index finger on the front of the knee. The knee is a very complicated structure. It is made up of numerous bones, sockets, ligaments, and cartilage. Pain can be emitted from a thousand different places. I had taken many courses in college relating to the body—anatomy, physiology, biology, and classes in body mechanics. With that background, I had a general idea where the pain was coming from.

It’s in the area of the patella tendon, right here near the top and under the kneecap. From the way that you described your fall, you could have put some strain on the tendon. What did you do this weekend? I didn’t know exactly to what he was intending but answered in a manner to which I thought he might like.

Didn’t do anything to stress the knee. Did some swimming but other than that tried to let the knee have the weekend off. The pain was still there, so I figured I’d not push it until the pain went away—which hasn’t.

That was smart, Messina replied. Some guys, the macho ones, don’t know enough to stay off an injury. It keeps getting worse until it is chronic. This shouldn’t last long. Give it some rest, and it should be OK in a week or so.

He wished to know if I wanted any sort of pain medication, and I declined. I knew from past experiences that the only pain pills they handed out at the yard hospital were mild Ibuprofen tablets that really didn’t do much for anything more than a mild headache. We talked for a couple of minutes before I left, and Messina mentioned that if the pain persisted that maybe I should consult my family physician or possibly a knee specialist. That was about it. Yard hospital MDs were of the general practitioner type. They had medical knowledge that covered a broad range but nothing on a specific level. They weren’t surgeons. They really couldn’t get too deep in their evaluations because they just didn’t have the actual medical training to do so.

The remainder of Monday unraveled at a slow pace. When you don’t feel well in a shipyard, there isn’t a sanctuary to turn to. You are expected to do your job, or don’t report for duty. If you punch in for work, it means eight hours, however you manage it. I dragged my right leg around the best I could, and when two thirty finally flashed on the computerized time clock, I was about as relieved as anyone to be going home.

Liz was already home when my old Bronco II chugged up the driveway. The house sat back from the road nearly a half mile, and in the summer months, the tree leaves completely obscured the house from the road. As I approached the house, I could see her sitting up on the deck. Many times during the hot months, she enjoyed getting home, slipping out of her work clothes and lounging on the deck with a mixed drink. As I got closer to the house, I could see the drink glass on the circular table in front of her. She smiled and gave me a half wave as the Bronco came to a halt.

Now that’s a good sign, I said as I walked from the car around toward the back side of the deck. She knew exactly what the inference was.

Don’t count on anything. It’s early yet. The real meaning of the short exchange was that when she had a couple of mixed drinks, the chances for sex climbed accordingly. However, the veiled warning was that it was too early in the day to do it, and I had better be on my best behavior while I was waiting. No biting, off-color sex jokes, or anything else that related to sex at all, for that matter.

Elizabeth Beverly Allen had been my wife for more than twenty-four years. She had turned forty-six a few months earlier, but you would never know it by looking at her. The years had treated her kindly, especially compared to other women of her age. Her face belied her years; her skin was soft and relatively wrinkle free, and only small darkish circles were slightly evident beneath her eyes. Her teeth were very evenly spaced and had retained most of their whiteness. Her figure was still very appealing; I often wondered if she was hit upon at work. My outlook was that she was still pretty hot looking, and that most men would entertain thoughts about her. Her hair was a very unique shade of dark red. This radiant, smooth frock was indeed her calling card; if there were twenty women in a group, all initial eyes were on Liz. You just couldn’t miss the hair at first glance.

She stood as I walked across the deck; she hadn’t gotten up initially to greet me. That would probably seem like some sort of subservience to her. Instead, she had gotten up to refill her drink glass. As she passed before me and started to enter through the sliding glass door, I lightly smacked her on her backside. She half turned her head and gave me a playful look as she disappeared into the house.

The rest of the afternoon slipped away for me in a routine fashion. Liz had decided to take her kayak to the reservoir down the road to slowly navigate the man-made reservoir and its many small islands; strenuous paddling for her was not part of the routine. Part of her equipment package was her special Camelback drinking bottle. It could be thrown, dropped, or submersed without losing a drop of liquid, which was important, because the bottle usually contained a mixture of Captain Morgan and Coca-Cola. Nothing like a smooth glide down the water on a nice hot summer-type day with a cocktail for enhancement.

On her return from kayaking, I was wishfully anticipating an intimate encounter. As she entered the house, I was seated upstairs in front of a small television in the bedroom. Upon hearing her arrival, I switched off the television and immediately started down the stairs. I caught Liz going back out the front door toward her SUV in which she had stuffed the kayak. I followed behind and asked if there was anything that needed to be carried up from the vehicle.

No, nothing else left, she replied. Got it all the first trip. The rest I’ll leave in the car in case I want to go again tomorrow. Phew, I’m beat.

That was definitely a bad sign. Nothing was worse to the ears than to hear she was tired. All the hoping, planning, and scheming I had done was not going to end in the result that I had hoped for. Oh no, I thought, not again. It seemed that the sexual exchanges were becoming fewer, and the emotion was starting to dwindle. Was it her psychological burden of getting older? Or was it that she was starting to see me for the age that is was?

I thought about that one for a while. When people tried to guess my age, they usually ended up somewhere between late thirties or early forties. The fact that I was constantly training kept me looking very lean; my body fat was extremely low for a man of my age. I still had all of my hair, which I proudly let grow to a medium length. I had colored it for a while but had been bothered by the fact that hair dyeing was faking. Though the grey hairs were slowly increasing, there was still an abundance of dark hair. Was the thrill gone? Was almost thirty years with the same man starting to take its toll? For whatever reason, what used to be an almost everyday occurrence now happened about once a week.

Other men I know have turned to cheating on their wives for various reasons. Some of their spouses had become unattractive while others had lost sexual desire. Any way you look at it, you break a special bond, irregardless of what type of rationalization you try to use. You are either trustworthy or not. Once you cross the line into infidelity, you can never retrace your steps and go back. For some men, it is a step easily taken, and it seems their conscience never surfaces to bother them.

Opportunities for unfaithfulness had presented themselves to me at various times. Once, after a group ride, the group of cyclists had stored our bikes in our vehicles and met up later at a nearby pub. After downing some Molsons, I had gotten into a conversation with a fellow rider, an attractive middle-aged cyclist. Maybe it was the alcohol, or possibly the rush of endorphins, that caused the overexcitement. We were the last of our group to leave the bar, and as we got to our car, the woman had made known her intentions of trying to get me to come home with her. She had a pleasant face and a body to kill for. But something inside me told me to turn her down, which I eventually did. I had come close. For days, I thought about what might have happened.

Early in the evening, I had a haircutting appointment. Since I was very young, I had always enjoyed getting my hair cut, enjoying the physicality association. Adding to the ambience was my stylist, Sara, who was extremely attractive. I had gotten to know her fairly well during the past three years, and I looked forward each time to seeing her. In addition, Sara had recently begun running. She and a friend started together about two years ago, not long after I had first met her. She had very little knowledge of the sport initially, and when she found out that I was training to do an Ironman in Florida, she had become immediately interested. Each time I would arrive to get my hair cut, she would always ask me about different aspects of running. Sometimes I would think of something pertinent and e-mail it to her. As a Christmas gift in 2006, I had given her a new sports gel to try. Much of the time during the hair cutting was passed by discussing what running endeavors we had recently done.

Getting out of the car at the hair salon, I strode painfully up the small hill from the parking lot. I wondered how she would react when I told her that I was suffering from a sore knee. She had come to look at me as though I was somewhat indestructible and would be surprised to learn that I had suffered an injury which was keeping me from working out. As I approached the door, I was searching inside of my head for what I was going to say.

The receptionist greeted me and informed me that Sara would soon be there to meet me. She was just finishing with a client. I had started reading a sports magazine when she approached with open arms. The running bond we had formed between us made us closer, and now a mild hug replaced the normal handshake.

Hey, Ironman Ed, she exclaimed. How have you been? Got your e-mail last week. I tried the twenty second fun sprints Saturday. Then ran four miles this morning, and I could actually feel a little difference. I felt more fluid, with much better turnover. She was leading me back to the area where there were four sinks, lined up one after the other. She put a cape around my shoulders to keep hair and water from my clothes prior to shampooing my hair. What have you been doing for workouts, lately? Probably hundred-mile bike rides, or twenty-mile training runs.

Not really. I’ve had this problem with my knee, and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better. Kind of frustrating. This time of year, I should be getting into the heavy training, but as of right now, I don’t feel good about running at all. Biking seems to be OK, as does the swimming. But running is killing the knee for some reason.

Old age catching up with you, she playfully asked.

No, I don’t think that’s it. Possibly a contributing factor, but I actually aggravated it at work. Freak thing. Tripped and wrenched the knee. Didn’t think much about it at the time. It just hasn’t gotten any better. Pain in the ass.

By this time her hands were covered with shampoo suds, but she was being careful not to let any drip down my neck. You know, I had a little problem with my knee about two or three weeks ago. I first went and had it looked at by a doctor, and his opinion was that I should give up running, and try something else. Not exactly what I wanted to hear. I’m not ready to give running up. Heck, I just started, and I want to do a full marathon someday. I don’t want someone telling me to quit.

So what did you do? I asked.

I started asking around, just kind of looking to see if there were any other alternatives. A friend of my husband’s told me about this doctor near South Windsor. Ed, this is just the guy for you. You walk into his office, and all you see are Ironman pictures. He does triathlons all the time. I think he even did the Florida Ironman that you did last November. You’ve got to give him a try. I went in there and told what was going on and how the other guy said I should give up running altogether. He said, no way, there will be something that we will try to get you back on track, literally. So he actually prescribed some exercises, told me to do them for about ten days and then try running a short distance. Most of the exercises were stretches. He said there were many tight areas around the knee that were probably slightly misaligned, and manipulating and strengthening the muscles around the knee should correct the problem. Guess what? Did what he suggested, and the pain was gone. You have got to give him a call.

What is his name? I asked.

Arthur Ramistella. I probably have his phone number, if you want me to get it for you.

No, I can look it up when I get home, I replied. Many times people give me suggestions, and I tell them that I will use the information and I eventually don’t. This time, however, I made a mental note of the name of Dr. Ramistella and decided that I would contact him.

The following day I called Dr. Ramistela’s office and made an appointment for an evaluation. I was excited, for I hoped that he could find a simple solution for my knee problem and get me back out running quickly. Being a renowned surgeon, however, meant that I would have to wait until well into the following week for the office visit. Looking for the quick fix, I was at first unhappy having to wait that long. Usually, most medical situations I had were dealt with in a matter of a couple of days, or sometimes the same day.

Thursday, June 14, arrived with a cloudless sunrise. It looked to be a great day, with temperatures expected to be in the middle 80s. My appointment with Dr. Ramistella was for nine twenty, and I was going to be sure to be on time. The early morning appointment meant that I would have the rest of the day off, as I had informed my boss that I would not be coming into work. Going to the doctor’s office was not the ideal thing to be doing on a day off, but, as the old saying goes, A bad day at home is always better than a good day at work.

I followed the directions as I exited I-84 West and was soon at the office building. I was immediately taken aback by the facility. Doctor’s offices are for the most part nondescript, but this building was certainly the exception. A three-story glass and steel edifice stood alone on about four acres of beautiful manicured landscape. Even the parking lot was beautifully blended in; instead of the usual rows of rectangular spaces, these rows were staggered and curved into an actual shape that looked more like a golf course than a parking lot. The sign proclaiming Connecticut Sports Medicine had its illuminated letters tastefully imbedded into a huge boulder at the edge of the property facing the road.

I entered the building through a three-story atrium, which also included the elevator. I would be going up to the third floor, according to the listing of professionals. Inside the elevator, I noticed a P on the control buttons; the building included an underground parking garage for the staff. I envisioned Dr. Ramistella having a nice Porsche garaged there, in which he would coming rocketing out after his day was completed.

Just before the elevator doors closed, I noticed two people coming through the outer doors. One was on crutches, and the other seemed to be a helpful companion. I pushed the button that kept the door from closing.

Thanks, said the guy on crutches, clearly out of breath from the effort from his car. These things are a pain in the ass. I looked at the crutches, and a cold chill ran through me. I hadn’t thought of that. What if it was determined that I would need some kind of procedure with similar results? This possibility hadn’t really crossed my mind. He had approached still legged, and I assumed that he too had a problem with a knee.

How is it coming? I asked.

Fine. Dr. Ramistella is the best. Should be back playing soccer in about a month. Screwed up my ACL. A guy took me down with a dirty tackle.

I entered the office, which was very large and well appointed. Two office personnel were seated behind glass windows, with small openings. I walked up and introduced myself after which I was handed a clipboard with six sheets of questions to fill out. I wondered, in this wonderful age of electronic technology, why couldn’t a credit card type device that could be swiped be used to instantaneously give someone all of your pertinent medical history? But for now, I just had to sit there and fill out the forms. My peripheral vision alerted me to the number of crutches in the waiting area. A young girl to my left, an older man further to my left, and a young man over on my right.

As I became more at ease with the surroundings, I noticed pictures on the