The Class of 1969

Spring, 1966

Where have all the Flowers gone?

Spring quarter was the freshman year’s nadir. Students shuffled like zombies—or shell shock cases—barely able to confront their shredded cadavers. No one had seen Scott Hensley or heard his Harley in weeks. He had fallen into med school limbo, academically failing but not yet gone. The students’ mood was morose. Five students had flunked out or dropped out already. Only the brief glimpses of clinical medicine in Newell’s lectures and their clandestine trips to the CPC’s gave them hope.

The “soft” classes were gone too, replaced by Merrill Jarvis’ vile stew of anthropology, genetics and embryology, taught in stupefying fashion—monotonous recitation bereft of meaning. Biochemistry lab was done, too, along with trips to the brewery, replaced by physiology. And anatomy lab rolled on. For the rest of the year they would be up to their elbows in the tattered remains of sixteen human beings long since rendered unrecognizable.

On a warm spring afternoon, an elderly man entered the anatomy lab, dressed in a double-breasted suit and a faded bow tie. His gait was unsteady. He tried to peer into an open tank and bounced off the side, rebounding like a pinball into a neighboring tank.

“Alumni meeting?” Roscoe Stone said.

Max hurried over. “Sir, May I ask what you’re doing here?”

“My wife.” His breath was heavy with alcohol, and his eyes were unfocused. “You’re supposed to be studying her this year.” Max felt nauseated at the thought that this old man might have seen the remains of his wife. The cadavers were little more than gaping skeletons, limbs akimbo, surrounded by sheets of skin, blobs of fat and pieces of muscle. He gestured toward Jake, who raced across the lab and grabbed the man by the elbow. They escorted him to the smoking area, a low wall just outside the lab.

“I hope you didn’t you see anything in there,” Max said.

“No.”

“Thank God.” Max handed him a cigarette and lit it with a matchbook.

“Today is the third anniversary of her death.” He exhaled a puff of smoke. “I didn’t have anywhere to go, to leave flowers.”

“How long were you married?”

“Forty wonderful years.”

“Congratulations,” Jake said.

Jan sat down next to the man and cupped his hands. He wriggled one hand free and took another drag on his cigarette but returned his hand to hers, dangling the cigarette between his lips.

“Do you have a photograph?” she asked.

He pulled out a battered wallet and removed a professionally posed photo of a handsome gray-haired couple. Max felt relieved. She didn’t look like their cadaver—how she looked six months before.

“Any other pictures?” Jan asked.

He produced a faded picture of a young woman with short hair, wearing a cloche hat. In front of her ears two pointed curls jutted out from under her hat. “Very pretty,” Max said. “Why don’t you send some flowers? We’ll arrange a memorial outside the lab.” He wrote the school’s address on a scrap of paper. “Write down her name. We’ll put out a plaque with the flowers.” After a half hour he was sober enough that they walked him to his car and returned to look for Dr. Darman. Darman studied the name. “She’s still in the morgue. Thanks for intervening.”

Max sat down and put his elbows on the table at the side of the lab, resting his hands alongside his temples. Jan sat down beside him. “I’m glad she’s not ours.” Max felt uneasy. He’d lost the numbness that comes from over-exposure—superficial familiarity with dead bodies that bestowed no understanding of the mysteries of life and death. He looked into Jan’s eyes for answers. She nodded. “I feel like a grave robber.”

“What am I doing?” He could feel the tension underneath the surface calm of the anatomy lab, fear of failure, the weight of 3 1/2 more years of mind-numbing toil. Then what? Would it be worth the effort? Is that all there is? Spend your youth in pursuit of a vague goal of affluence and societal acceptance: a challenging profession, respect, recognition. Empty words. He still didn’t know why he’d applied to med school—other than the fact that Jan was applying. At tank number one even the phlegmatic Orsini looked unhappy, bobbing to his internal music while he worked.

At the far end of the lab Merrill Jarvis stood with Darian and Mason. They pawed at his sleeve, smiling—not looking worried about a thing. Mark Sterling walked over and patted Jarvis on the back, provoking a crooked grin. Jarvis laughed, bent over their cadaver and pointed at something.

“Look at that,” Max said. “Where’s God’s justice in all this?”