2019-12-04 - The Repairer of Reputations

The Gray Harbor Country Club was nothing to write home about in the grand scheme of things. Compared to its more luxurious counterparts in more metropolitan cities, it was housed in a building designed like an oversized cabin, boasting distant views of the harbor. The golf course and its sprawling, green fields stretched around it; despite the economic downturn, its owners somehow managed to maintain the full eighteen holes just fine, without caving to the external pressures of selling a portion of the land. These days, there seemed to be a growing interest by outsider investors to obtain parcels here and there, and he was all the more grateful that the proprietors had resisted.

The afternoon's game had been a wash, but the club itself was a welcome respite from its disappointments. Stripping off his golfing gloves, Henry Wallace eased his lean, lanky body on his usual place at the bar. With the late day's sun sinking in the horizon and with the holidays fast approaching, it wasn't surprising to find the place devoid of its usual patrons. Corporate Christmas parties were starting up, and he was sure that it would be the same for Addington Memorial, though he couldn't help but make a face at the thought - there tended to be separate ones for the doctors and the rest of the staff, as if they didn't work side-by-side in the trenches every day. He didn't particularly agree with the practice.

The only other occupant was a man in an impeccable pinstripe suit reading a newspaper.

Odd, that, he mused with a furrowed brow. Who wears a hat and sunglasses indoors?

"Doc," the bartender said. "The usual?"

The address towards him pulled his attention away from his fellow bar-dweller, a ready smile on his face. "Please," he said.

It wasn't long until Joseph delivered what he asked for, a glass of Kentucky bourbon, neat. As he took a pull from his drink, the only other person at the bar shifted and lowered his paper. His eyes gravitated immediately to the yellow flower pinned to his lapel.

"A doctor, then?" mused the suited man, his smile glinting white from the shadows cast by his bowler hat. "It would explain the exercise. It's a terribly stressful profession, no matter what the stripe."

Henry lifted his head to regard his accidental companion, before his smile returned. "It is," he said easily. "But I find the work rewarding."

"I was one, myself," Bowler Hat said, folding his paper with his gloved hands. "Retired now, of course, but I felt the same." His tone carried a hint of wistfulness there, though it was impossible to gauge his expression. "A very rewarding experience." The lighting was too low, and the hat and glasses were in the way.

He shifted to regard his companion fully, interest on his features. "What was your practice?" he asked, unable to help his curiosity.

Bowler Hat laughed pleasantly. "Psychology, but before then, when I was wee, I was in pediatrics. You're relatively young, yet, but back in my day, it was easier to obtain degrees in multiple disciplines." His head inclined, the shape of his bold nose finding the light. "Yourself?"

"Surgeon," Henry answered with a smile. "I'm lead for transplants in Addington Memorial."

"Mm. Difficult." A sympathetic note slipped through Bowler Hat's voice. "The pressure must be significant, to put a donor's precious gifts to good use, but if you could save a life, several lives, in fact, and put some much needed hope in families waiting for a match..."

"That's the best case scenario." He glanced at his bourbon, his expression turning solemn and contemplative. "Unfortunately, it doesn't always turn out that way." After a moment, he turned his hopeful expression towards Bowler Hat. "But medical science has improved in leaps and bounds in the last twenty years in that regard, the success rate has increased tremenduously, depending on the organ in question."

"Are you kept busy, much?" Bowler Hat wondered. "Addington Memorial is a fine institution, but it's still a small town. I wonder, truly, if you see much traffic."

"You'd be surprised," Henry remarked. "Plenty of accidents and suicides around these parts. I'm starting to think it's the water." He laughed. "Not the most professional of diagnosis, mind, but considering the headlines and the traffic I see at the hospital, I wouldn't be terribly amazed if that was the case."

"Indeed. Well, this city is extremely fortunate to have you, Doctor Wallace. It seems to me that your heart is in the right place."

The surgeon watched his companion curiously, a nagging thought tugging at the back of his mind, before he cleared his throat and reached over to extend his hand. "I'm sorry, Doctor, but you are...?"

Bowler Hat reached with his own, capturing his fingers with a secure grip. His smile widened from underneath the hat. "I am...?" he wondered, almost playfully.

He didn't know what it was about that smile, but his heart started to race. Icewater flooded his veins as he realized just why his brain was nagging him just moments ago.

"...I didn't give you my name," Henry said, his hand frozen in his companion's grip.

As the world started to spin around him, the smile remained, and that smooth, polished voice echoing in his ears:

"No, my dear doctor. You did not."