Hot Lights, Cold Steel by Michael J. Collins

Author:Michael J. Collins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2005-01-28T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

January

We were slouched in chairs in a second-floor classroom of the Medical Sciences Building listening to one of the research fellows drone on about biomechanics. Behind me I heard a chair scrape and someone softly sigh. I looked out the window and watched the branches of a snow-clad elm rise and fall in the cold north wind. Next to me Bill Chapin was drawing an anatomically correct picture of a naked woman.

I leaned over and pointed at the picture. “What kind of vector force makes them stick out like that?” I whispered.

“These,” he said, blowing off the erasure debris and holding up the picture for scrutiny, “are yet another example of the beauty and symmetry of nature.”

In front of the class Dr. Hai Wong was discoursing earnestly about an esoteric biomechanical principle known as the Right Hand Rule.

“Many orthopedic residents never master the concept of the Right Hand Rule. This is very sad.” He frowned and stuck out his lower lip to be sure we understood the concept of sadness. “The Right Hand Rule is very important. It appears on the Orthopedic Board Exam every year. If you don’t know the Right Hand Rule, you will flunk the Board Exam. You will remain a resident for four more years, living on macaroni and cheese.” He nodded slowly to impress upon us the terrible culinary fate that lay in store for those who did not master the concept of the Right Hand Rule.

I looked out the window again. It was a beautiful day for skiing. I was imagining myself schussing effortlessly down a long hill of powder. My eyes drifted closed and my head began to sink forward on my chest.

“Dr. Collins!” Wong said sharply.

My head snapped up.

“Explain the summation of forces in the Right Hand Rule.”

I realized that I was being asked to provide enough rope for the good doctor to hang me. I obliged by mumbling something about perpendicular forces in a three-dimensional construct.

Dr. Wong’s eyes bulged and he began drumming his fingertips together in front of his lips. “Dr. Collins,” he said, “are you particularly fond of macaroni and cheese?”

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