My Best Friend
Dr. Arnold Schopp, DVM, glanced at the caller ID; he didn’t recognize the number. The time was 5am. Picking up his landline, he said, “Hello?”
“Oh! Hi! My name’s Livy. You don’t know me, but I got your number from the men’s washroom at The Stagger Inn, the tavern in the Central West End?”
Arnold blinked. He’d never heard of the place. Was this a crank call? he wondered.
“Can I help you?” he asked cautiously.
“Well, I’m a porter at the tavern during the mornings, before they open. I’m working my way through nursing school, Arnie; Class of ’96! Yay! Is it alright if I call you Arnie?”
Arnold shrugged, but his caller couldn’t see it, so he said, “Okay.”
“I’m having some trouble with my hand,” Livy went on. “And I thought maybe you could help.”
Arnold shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“Well, where I found your name and number, underneath it said, “For a Good Hand Job, call Arnie, at…” and she read off his phone number. “Are you a doctor or something, Arnie?”
“Well, no,” he said. “I am a veterinarian, however.” He was almost sure he wasn’t being pranked. “What happened to your hand?” he asked.
“I stuck it in the wringer on the mop bucket when I was mopping the floor and then wrung it out. It hurts,” she added.
Arnold went on to tell his new friend how to treat the injury, with ice and later with heat and so on.
“Thanks so much, Arnie,” said Livy with a little squeal.
“How are you doing in nursing school?” he asked.
“I’m just ending my first year,” she replied. “I’m doin’ real good. Thanks for asking.”
It occurred to Arnold that Livy hadn’t many places to turn when she encountered the vicissitudes of life, so he told her, “It’s the very least I can do, Livy. I’ve got to go for now, but you’ve got my number. Don’t be a stranger.”
“Okay,” she said with a gulp.
They disconnected.
_____
Arnold lifted the receiver of the landline in his all-night animal clinic and said, “Hello?”
“Arnie?” asked a young, shrill female voice. “It’s Livy.”
“Hi, Livy,” said Arnold, smiling. “What’s going on?”
“Ooh, I smashed my head,” she lamented, her voice revealing a tremor of angst. “I was taking the laundry out of my washing machine and the lid closed on my little peanut head!”
“Are you alright?” asked Arnold with concern.
“No!” she said loudly. “It hurts. I think I might have a concussion.”
Arnold frowned into the phone. He knew it was unlikely that the light-weight lid of a washing machine would do much damage. He told Livy so.
“You don’t care if I die!” she shrieked. “I have a drop of blood on my forehead and I think I might’ve fractured my skull, Arnie.”
Arnold rolled his eyes. “Unlikely,” he suggested.
“I’m thinking of going to urgent care or to the hospital or to Minnesota…” began Livy.
“Minnesota?”
“The Mayo Clinic,” Livy explained. “That have an excellent trauma unit for head injuries, Arnie.” Livy, Arnold remembered, was a student nurse, now in her second year.
“How much blood did you lose?” asked Arnold.
“One or two drops.”
“Do you have a knot or your head or anything?” he asked next. “Do you feel sleepy or dizzy or…”
“No,” said Livy, “but I almost for sure fractured my skull. “The parietal bone, or the zygomatic arch or the…”
“Livy, put some ice on it,” counseled Arnold. “Do you have any insurance yet?” he asked.
“No. And I need a CAT scan and an MRI and a cognitive assessment…”
“Well, if you feel that you must get medical treatment, hospitals can’t turn away anyone who’s deathly ill. Go to St. Elizabeth’s, here in town, and see what they say. Okay?”
“Okay, Arnie,” replied Livy. “Thanks.”
“You bet, Livy. Let me know what they tell you.”
“You’re interested?” she asked with surprise.
“I am,” said Arnold.
“Goody,” she said.
“Okay, bye.”
“Bye.”
They disconnected.
_____
Arnold glanced at his watch and lifted the receiver.
“Arnie,” said Livy, her voice staticky over the line. “I had an accident.”
“What kind of an accident?” asked Arnold.
“I was painting my flower boxes and I got a splinter.”
Arnold envisioned Livy, bringing her middle finger to her lips and sucking on it.
“How big?” he inquired.
” ‘Bout a quarter of an inch. It hurts!” she wailed, holding the finger up in Arnold’s mind’s eye for his inspection. He shook his head, thought about the spaying and neutering operations he had pending at the clinic. “Do you think I need a tetanus shot?” she asked.
“When did you have your last one?” Arnold asked her.
“Six months ago, remember, when I dropped the can of peas on my foot and thought I might’ve broken the third metatarsal or the calcaneus? At the ER they didn’t want to do a full-body scan because I didn’t have any insurance and I wouldn’t leave until they did something. So they gave me a shot.”
Arnold sighed. His young friend was a bit of an alarmist. “I think you only need a tetanus shot every ten years or so…”
“Oh!” said Livy. “That’s right, I remember it from class.”
“I’d just wash the wound with hydrogen peroxide, dress it with merthiolate or iodine and wrap it up. You’ll be fine, Livy,” said Arnold.
“Thanks, Arnie,” said Livy gratefully. “You’re the best!”
The dial tone popped back on.
_____
Arnold, on duty as usual at his animal clinic, picked up the telephone on the second ring. He knew it would be Livy, his irrepressible friend from the college. She called every day at the same time: 5am.
“Hi, Livy, how’s tricks?” he asked, pleased to talk with a friendly voice.
“Hiya, Arnie,” she fairly burst through the line. “I’ve got a problem.”
“What is it?” he asked, barely avoiding appending “this time” to the query.
“I’ve been picking weeds out of my garden,” Livy explained. “And my fingers are cramped. I think I might have myasthenia gravis or something. Maybe Parkinson’s.”
Arnold rolled his eyes. “Not a chance,” he said.
“Well, I’ve sure got weeds,” she asserted. “What do you think I…”
“Livy,” said Arnold with what patience he could pull together, “you need to start making some decisions on your own. You’re an adult, and you’re old enough,” he said, perhaps more harshly that he’d intended.
“Arnie, did I catch you at a bad time?” Livy asked him.
“Well, kind of. I don’t mind…I like talking to you every day, but sometimes you need to just stand on your own two feet and decide. Do you know what I mean?” he asked, hoping he hadn’t hurt his sensitive young friend’s feelings. She was so easily hurt…
_____
“I met a guy, Arnie,” said Livy one day.
“Where did you meet him?” asked Arnold.
“At a party thrown by one of my friends from school,” she said.
“Is he a nursing student too?” he asked.
“No, he’s a medical student, Arnie. We partied and I got a little bit drunk and later we kissed and made out.”
“Be careful,” cautioned Arnold. “You’ve got your whole life in front of you, Livy.”
He could almost see her nod. “Gotcha. We didn’t do anything I might regret,” she said. “Robert–that’s his name, Robert–asked me out on a regular date tonight.”
“That sounds fine,” said Arnold approvingly. “Is he known among your friends; I mean, does he have a good reputation?”
“Yes,” she said. “All my friends say he has a lot of girlfriends, and none of them turned up dead or anything. He graduates next year,” she said.
“Well, have a good time, Livy.”
“Thanks, Arnie. I’ll talk to you later.”
_____
Arnold didn’t hear from Livy as usual the next morning and he wondered how she was. She usually called every day from work, when she was cleaning the tavern to pay her way through school; she had done so since they met over the telephone more than a year before. Finally, he checked his phone directory and found the last number she’d used. He dialed it up.
It rang and rang but the call went unanswered. Arnold called again several times, until, on the fourth try, after the phone rang endlessly at the other end, she picked up.
“Hello?” said Livy in a whisper.
Arnold frowned into his receiver; Livy sounded so down.
“Livy?” he said.
After a moment, she said, “Hi, Arnie. How are you?”
“I’m fine,” Arnold said. “How are you? Are you alright?”
“Yes.”
“Livy,” he said, “what have you been doing? Why haven’t you called me?”
“I was only doing what you told me I should do,” replied Livy. “You know, take responsibility for my actions, make decisions, and…” Her voice drifted off.
“Livy, does this have anything to do with Robert?” Arnold asked.
“I went out with Robert,” she said dully. “I trusted him, like you said.”
“Livy,” said Arnold, gripping the receiver fiercely, “what happened.”
“Robert took me out, like he said he would,” she replied. Before he could inquire further, Livy whispered, “Robert raped me, Arnie.”
Arnold’s blood ran cold. He listened intently, but Livy said no more, until finally, she murmured, “He hurt me, Arnie.”
“Livy,” said Arnold, “I am so sorry.”
“I know, Arnie. Because you’re my friend. I know you don’t always have time for me and I need to stand on my own two feet and…”
Arnold listened and thought he could hear Livy softly weeping.
“…it was my own fault anyway,” she continued. “I should’ve known better than to go back to the home of someone I only just met. I…I’d never made love before, and I didn’t know what to do when he told me to take off my clothes…”
“Livy, it is not your fault,” said Arnold firmly.
“If I’d just done what he said, then he wouldn’t have hurt me,” she said.
“A woman makes decisions her whole life, Livy, and she doesn’t always make the right ones. But, whether you said yes or not, it was rape. He made the decision for you, Livy. Rape is not about a man’s needs or even what he says he wants. It’s about domination and control and inflicting humiliation on his weaker victim. Do you understand me, dear?”
“Yes, Arnie,” replied Livy. She sounded to Arnold as though she were regaining some of her composure. Which gave him heart.
“So,” she said, “it wasn’t my fault…?”
“That’s right, Livy. Where are you now? Are you at home?”
“I’m in a little diner in the Central West End, near the tavern I clean,” said Livy.
“Why didn’t you call earlier?” he asked.
“I was…ashamed,” she admitted.
“Livy, have you received medical attention? Have you seen a professional?”
“No, Arnie.”
“Give me the address,” he told her. She did. “I’ll be there in 15 minutes, Livy, and we’ll get you the help that you need.”
“You mean you’re coming for me now?”she asked in a small voice.
“Right now,” he said.
“Then we’ll finally get to meet face to face, Arnie. Goody.”
Minutes later, Arnold pulled his animal hospital vehicle into the parking lot of the small diner described by Livy over the phone. He glanced at his watch: it was a quarter past 6am. He’d never met his friend, but knew she was 20 years old. The place was half-filled, but he discerned Libby almost by instinct.
A smallish, thin woman with light brown hair, she occupied a booth near the end of the cafe. She looked up at him as he took a seat opposite her. They sat and looked at one another for an impossibly long moment, before Livy said, in a voice that Arnold recognized instantly, “You came.”
A waitress materialized as if by magic and Arnold asked Livy if she wanted anything. There was a half-drunk cup of coffee before her, with fully a half dozen opened Splenda packages lying in disarray in her saucer. She shook her head no.
Arnold insisted she have something to eat, so she ordered French toast. He ordered a coffee. They spoke in low, confidential voices until their order arrived. Livy’s appetite appeared to be piqued by the aromatic French toast and she dug in, smothering the dish with butter and warmed maple syrup.
As she ate, Arnold told her what would happen next.
“I’ll take you to the emergency room,” he said, “and they’ll check you out. They have a rape crisis unit on duty there, 24/7.”
“What will they do?” Livy asked. He told her.
“They are associated with law enforcement, Livy,” he said. At her stricken look, he assured her that she was not in trouble, but rather Robert. “Forcible rape is a felony, Livy,” he told her gently but firmly. “No one can make you cooperate with them, but think of all the other young women and girls that Robert might inflict himself on in the years to come.”
That sealed it. She agreed to talk to the rape counselor and the cops.
“I feel like I failed you, Livy,” said Arnold contritely, reaching across the table and touching his friend for the very first time. It was warm where they touched.
“You’ve done so much for me, Arnie,” said Livy in a stronger voice. “And you’re still doing it. No one has ever been my friend before. Not like you.”
Arnold felt his heart break. “I love you, Livy. You are my very good friend.”
“You’ve done so much, Arnie,” said Livy again. “Could I ask you to do me one more thing?”
“Of course.”
“Come around to my side and give me a hug, alright?”
Without another word, Arnold rose from his seat, came around and sat next to Livy and gave her a tremendous hug.
For the first time that morning, Livy smiled.
“Goody,” she said.
