Dr. Jerry Rosebottom had grown old. His friends were dying off one by one, but for some reason, he was still here. We’re talking way past retirement. Jerry was 92 years old.
He was a great clinician, but most of all, he loved his patients. As with most things, it was the act of being in service that gave him great joy. After he hung up his stethoscope for the last time, he did what any nimble man would do. He took up gardening. Being in service to the lawn wasn’t the same as healing patients, but it was a start. He began with the usual things—weeding the planters, pruning the boxwoods, laying down cayenne pepper to keep the bears away. He’d never actually seen a bear, but you never know.
The gardening didn’t quite fill the hole that leaving medicine had left in his heart. And his knees hurt. Lord did his knees hurt. Thank God for the hurricane that ripped through his town last year. That’s how Jerry met Mabel. It was during the aftermath.
Jerry was driving to the supermarket—yes, his reaction time remained quick enough to drive in the daytime. He was in desperate need of cayenne pepper for the bears and potable water. Just before he came to the stop sign, he saw her. She was standing in the front yard of a little red house with some minor roof damage from the storm and an acre full of mangled trees. She was standing there in her bathrobe trying to tug a broken branch from an enormous oak tree.
Jerry immediately turned into her drive and shut off the ignition. A helpless victim, an injured tree—this was as good as if he were a doctor again.
“Let me get that for you,” Jerry called, hurrying to her side.
The woman dusted off her hands and regarded him suspiciously. “I’m Mabel. Who are you?” She asked.
“I’m Dr. Jerry Rosebottom,” he replied, extending his hand. “Call me Jerry. Do you by chance have a ladder?”
That’s how it started, both with Mabel and the trees. Ever since he slipped that first chainsaw through a broken limb, he was hooked. Amputations, he called them. He was up on the ladder trimming trees every day now. The roar of the chainsaw, the scent of sawdust, the jagged splinters—they made him feel alive.
Mabel came with him, of course. She wasn’t needed to call an ambulance if he tumbled from the ladder, severed a finger, or impaled himself on a branch—he had a Life Alert for that. It was synced to his Alexa. Jerry just enjoyed Mabel’s company. She never said, “Jerry, you’re 92. You don’t belong on a ladder.”
The problem was that Jerry actually was 92. Lately the climb was making him short of breath. On the worst days, it made him dizzy, too. He had to wrap his arms around the trunk and cling to the tree like a Fingerling, one of those new toy monkeys the kids were always wearing.
On this particular day, Jerry descended his third tree and threw another branch onto the pile. The morning air was crisp, and the sky was blue.
“Jerry!” Mabel exclaimed when he stepped back onto the ladder. “Your arm!”
Jerry gasped, expecting a gash or a full-on severed hand. When he found his arm intact, he was a little disappointed, to be honest. Some excitement might spice things up a bit. “What is it?” He asked. “I don’t see anything.”
“Look at the blisters,” Mabel said, tugging on his sleeve. He inspected his arm, but the myopia was catching up with him today. It was all a blur. Shrugging, Jerry stepped back onto the ladder.
“Well, you’re a doctor, Jerry. What is it?” Mabel persisted.
Jerry pretended to take a closer look. “Either mosquito bites or Smallpox,” he said.
Before long, Jerry’s arm began to ache, and water began trickling from the blisters onto his sleeve. On the first day, he allowed Mabel to wrap his arm in gauze and feed him a Tylenol. By the second day, the rash had spread to his torso and his legs. He could see better with his glasses, and he watched the spots, big as quarters, fill with fluid.
On the third day, so many of the blisters burst that Jerry’s shirt and slacks were ruined. He hated going to the doctor, but this was becoming a real laundry issue.
Dr. Cook greeted Jerry warmly after the nurse placed him in a gown and sat him on the exam table. “Dr. Rosebottom!” He exclaimed. “What a pleasure to see you.”
“Are you old enough to be a doctor, young man?” Jerry asked. Was a man fresh out of medical school going to be able to cure him?
“Doc, I’m 53,” replied Dr. Cook. The mistake was understandable. “Any fever?” He asked, picking up Jerry’s wrist to inspect the blisters.
“No,” said Jerry.
“Cough?”
“No.”
“Shortness of breath?”
“Only at the top of the ladder.”
“What? Never mind. Any dizziness?”
“Nothing that doesn’t go away after I wrap myself around the tree trunk like a Fingerling,” Jerry insisted.
Dr. Cook raised his eyes from the chart he was filling out. One of his eyebrows lifted itself up like a caterpillar.
“They’re the toy monkeys the kids are wearing on their fingers,” Jerry explained.
“You need to go to the Emergency Room,” his doctor said.
“I’m busy,” Jerry snapped.
“You need blood work.”
“I need to get back on my ladder,” Jerry insisted.
“For Pete’s sake, Jerry. You’re 92. You don’t belong on a ladder!”
“I have trees to trim!” Jerry barked.
“Wait here,” said Dr. Cook. He left the room and Jerry turned up his hearing aids. They were military grade. It was basically espionage. Jerry could hear Dr. Cook talking to another man in the hallway.
“Can you take a look at him? He’s 92 and he’s refusing to go to the ER.”
“Why won’t he go?” Asked the other man. Jerry deduced the other man was a dermatologist based on the circumstances.
“He has to get back to climbing trees,” Dr. Cook explained.
“My HOA is looking for a tree trimmer,” the man said. “Do you think he has a business card?”
“Maybe you can barter,” said Dr. Cook. “Total body skin exam in exchange for all the trees on your street.”
“Listen, Dr. Cook. The old man just needs a topical steroid cream. And he needs to stay out of the tree. That rash is from the trunk itself.”
Jerry twisted the volume on the hearing aids just as Dr. Cook burst through the door. Grumbling, he took the prescription and promised not to climb anymore trees. Despite the rash, he was lying. He had already texted Mabel to have his chainsaw ready.
On his way to the exit, Jerry passed by the dermatologist’s office, and he could hear the two doctors speaking behind the closed door.
“So, did Dr. Rosebottom pass the interview? Is the HOA going to hire him for lawn care?” Asked a voice.
“No way,” replied the other voice. “Zero out of five stars. Would not recommend.”
The men laughed and Jerry quickened his pace.
Mabel was waiting for him in the field, all of his gear for climbing spread out around her. When he returned from the clinic, she held up a hand and pleaded with him not to get on the ladder. “Jerry, you’re 92-years-old. You have the balance of a drunken sailor and the bone density of a sponge. You’re covered with blisters.” Mabel glanced at her hands. “And I love you,” she said with her eyes down.
A flash of movement at the forest’s edge across the field stole Jerry’s attention. Distracted, he mumbled “I love you, too,” and studied a black figure rolling in the grass. Mabel turned to follow his gaze. When she saw the animal, she gasped and covered her eyes. Jerry couldn’t believe it. A black bear was rolling playfully on its back.
“Mabel, it’s a bear!” Jerry exclaimed.
Mabel scurried up the ladder, wrapping her arms around the trunk. “Should we get the cayenne pepper?” She asked.
“The bear’s hurt!” Jerry said in alarm. He could see a red streak through the fur on the bear’s leg. She was bleeding. The bear must have a deep cut. Approaching the bear would be dangerous, especially if she had cubs. The bear could easily devour him like a mid-morning snack. But how could he leave her like this? Jerry abandoned all thoughts of cayenne pepper. He looked from his blisters to the bear. The trees may need him, but right now the bear needed him more.
Jerry left the tree and disappeared into his house, returning a moment later waving a medical suture kit in the air. In his other hand, he held a raw steak slathered in peanut butter.
“This bear is hurt, and we need to help her!”
Mabel blew him a kiss from the top of the ladder. “You can do it, Dr. Rosebottom,” she cheered.
Jerry sewed the bear’s wound closed while the bear licked the peanut butter off the steak. As he tied the last stitch, he knew he would always be a physician no matter his age. The bear lumbered away once her cut was repaired, and Jerry put away his chainsaw and his cayenne pepper indefinitely. The rest of his days were spent sitting beside Mabel on the porch, watching for the bear’s return.
The End