Two Doctors

Wally had more cookies. He went to the police station the second day after his arrival, but there was nobody there, even though it was during the posted hours. At the health-care center he learned more about Leffer’s demise. Joseph had brought the body back, naked, on the back of Leffer’s snowmobile. The doctors did a full autopsy, there weren’t a lot of opportunities in a settlement of eight hundred for one. Leffer had been dead for several days when he was brought in, but the wounds were a lot fresher. Wally was interested in the photos, but they were underwhelming. The wounds were grizzly but all consistent with garden variety wolves.

The doctors thought it likely Leffer was dead before the wolves got to him. They didn’t like that Officer Rexbechaj let Joseph go back into the interior without answering more than cursory question.

-That Elvis is a crook, one of the doctors said. The Americans would clean it up.

-Please, the other doctor scoffed, blowing a raspberry as he turned from his compatriot to Wally. You think so too, huh?

Wally didn’t like to talk politics, and he didn’t like when people argued.

-It worked for Guam, or what’s left to it, Wally offered. And the others.

Guam didn’t quite tip over, but a lot of it was lost to the advancing ocean before it became the 52nd state and the federal government put up big sea walls. Big walls, an old solution.

The second doctor rolled his eyes.

-In any case, it’s pretty sure Leffer was dead when the wolves got to him.

Wally asked if he could take the photos with him and after some bargaining, the doctors obliged. He would do a few shifts in the animal unit. It was a part time operation. Most of the people with animals in the home could deal with most ailments and injuries. But as it were, there were two dogs and a parrot in there.

-Can you imagine, the first doctor said, somebody bringing a parrot here with them?

-An American, the second doctor noted.

The politics was making Wally feel uncomfortable.

-What’s wrong with the dogs?

-Botflies, or worms. Medication hasn’t taken, and they’ve been increasingly erratic.

-Probably going to have to put them down, the other doctor added. Neither of them liked that.

Even though he was a cryptozoologist, Wally didn’t particularly like dogs. He had been compared to one since he was in middle school. He remembered prancing around like a puppy when he was very young, and so when the taunts started, first he thought they’d heard he’d done that, then he assumed he looked like a dog. He’d stand in the mirror and put his tongue out like a dog, to look for the resemblance.

Doggie Wally. It followed him through to high school, where he finally learned it wasn’t that he looked like a dog, it was that he followed people around eager to please, like a dog. Like a dog. You have to be more like a wolf, the girl who pitied him enough to date him in high school, and who enjoyed having a lap dog, told him in a moment of exhaustion with behavior that leads to telling obvious truths. But he knew he could never be a wolf, and he didn’t want to be one. He went back home that evening and sat in his room, wondering what kind of animal he would be. He went through as many as he could think of, but never settled on one that fit him.

-Let’s see what they look like, Wally said, asking the doctors to point the way.

The dogs looked bad. Swollen and mangy at the same time. They let out sorry whines when Wally walked in. He looked at the dogs and wasn’t sure what it was he could do.

-Were there any tick bites on them?

-No.

-They had to have eaten something.

-Have you run tests on, have you run blood tests? Wally considered the question ridiculous as he was asking it.

The doctors paused.

-Yeah. The results will be coming back from Ilulissat tomorrow.

Wally couldn’t tell if it was deadpan humor. One time at Bates during a particularly tense phase of the rivalry with Colgate, a bunch of the fans came to a game wearing Buck Fates shirts. The boosters for the home team wanted to retaliate against their rivals in the next game. Wally suggested Fuck Bates without laughing and they actually printed the shirts. He wasn’t good at deadpan humor.

-We took a stool sample we tested ourselves. It’s not good. They ate big eggs. Maybe spiders. Possibly venomous.

-Just not good.

-Yeah, wow. That’s a lot. I guess, let me take a look at the charts you’ve got.

-It can wait till tomorrow, the second doctor said. Their shift had ended half an hour ago. It’s not a full picture without the blood test anyway.

-Sure, that’s true, eh?

-You’ve got enough with the autopsy photos. Do you want the reports too?

-Oh, yes, yes.

They went back to the office and one of the doctors made copies of the autopsy photos and the files for Wally.

The doctors explained they were two krones a page, but when Wally offered dollars they happily accepted. It was a good thing for Wally, he’d only bothered to bring American currency.