What the Hell, Paul?

One Saturday after office hours, Daddy and I were in Shambaugh’s IGA. Daddy was talking to Jerry at the butcher counter, when a man came up to Daddy and slapped two five-dollar bills in his hand. “Here you go, Doc! If you were in a hurry for your money, you could have just asked me!” He was gone before Daddy could say anything.

“What was that about?” Jerry asked.

“I don’t know,” Daddy said.

After Daddy paid his bill at the check-out, the cashier said, “Wait a sec., Doc.” She grabbed her purse, pulled out two dollars, and gave it to him, saying, “It’s all I have right now, but I’ll find more next week.”

“No hurry,” Daddy said.

The cashier gave him a funny look and shrugged.

On Monday, Mother was cooking dinner and said, “I thought you told me that Daddy was on his last patient a half-hour ago.”

“He was.”

“Go see what’s keeping him.”

I went into the drug room and saw Daddy standing there, tapping his fingers on the counter.

“Mommy wants to know what’s keeping you.”

“I’m waiting for Paul to finish his last patient. Go back in the house, Kiddo.”

The tone of his voice told me I had better not ask anything else. And he had called Uncle Doc, “Paul,” not “Dr. Paul.” I went back in the house.

“Well?” Mother said.

“He’s waiting for Uncle Doc to finish his last patient.”

“Why is . . .”

“WHAT THE HELL, PAUL!” Daddy’s voice cut through the kitchen wall. We couldn’t make out Uncle Doc’s part of the following conversation, but we understood every cuss word that Daddy threw at his brother. The nuns in the convent across Wayne Street probably heard him too.

The practice always carried a lot of unpaid bills. Daddy always figured that the patients would pay when they could. But Uncle Doc thought the errant patients were taking advantage of Daddy’s good nature and gave the late accounts to a bill collector.

Daddy’s tirade at Uncle Doc was the end of the bill collector.

Unpaid bills were sometimes settled by bartering. We got our house-in-town painted that way. Another time, all the Beares got free gasoline at the gas station for several months. And at the time there were seven drivers in our two families.