American Panda(36)



As soon as we reached the basement, the smell hit. It was vaguely familiar—corn chips, I realized, but mixed with a suffocating chemical odor. Yet another thing permanently off my grocery list (in addition to cottage cheese, of course).

I dug in my pocket for the Tiger Balm (the Asian cure-all) that Xing had told me I would need to put in my nose for the smell.

Anna grabbed my elbow. “Hey, you okay? Give it a minute—your nose just needs to adjust.” She glanced at the beads of sweat on my face. “This is exciting. Fun. Don’t be scared or nervous or whatever it is you’re feeling. It’ll be better once we’re actually in front of the cadavers, when you can see everything, just like Dr. Lu said.”

I ignored my bossy companion and took a moment to collect myself, needing a few extra seconds after hearing the words “Dr. Lu.”

Then I ripped the Band-Aid off, passing through the double doors quickly while holding my breath. It escaped in a whoosh when I spotted the rows and rows of body bags, most of which were open. The cadavers were yellow-gray, slightly deteriorated, even more dead than I expected. In various parts—the leg, arm, and neck—the skin was cut away, the fat cleaned out, with only muscles, tendons, and nerves visible. The whole image was so unnatural, so disturbing, like a horror movie come to life.

The ease with which the medical students milled about felt so out of place I stopped to stare. One student leaned against his cadaver’s leg as if it were an extension of the exam table. Another excised neck fat in the same manner one would hack apart a fatty rib-eye. The bodies were no longer human. No one looked at them, and the ones who did saw past them.

I felt someone grab my arm, and I numbly followed Anna’s tugs to a group at the back of the room.

The balding professor—Dr. Wilson, according to his hospital badge—patted the cadaver’s ankle with a gloved hand. “How’s Ruthie today?”

The students chuckled, and with a satisfied smirk, Dr. Wilson walked to Ruth’s partially dissected neck. “Who can locate the cervical sympathetic ganglion?”

All six students raised their hands. Several held strong and still in a salute while others waved. Both obnoxious, but in different ways.

Dr. Wilson pointed to Anna. After parting Ruth’s carefully incised neck tissue, Anna thrust her gloved hand in and emerged with the gray, knotted nerve. She tugged the chain so it extended past the plane of Ruth’s neck like an overstretched rubber band. The smug look on her face was more nauseating than the smell.

“Excellent work.” Dr. Wilson chuckled. “It’s like a treasure hunt.”

A sadistic, twisted treasure hunt for serial killers, maybe.

The gray elastic between Anna’s fingers snapped back, and she jumped in surprise, moving away from Ruth.

“Don’t worry. She can’t hurt you,” Dr. Wilson said, his voice dead serious, as if he were imparting new wisdom. “Consequently, what a perfect opportunity for more learning. If Anna had indeed injured Ms. Ruth’s cervical sympathetic trunk, what would the medical ramifications be?”

He absentmindedly picked a hand from the four in the air, this time a squat boy with a stubbly chin. The student’s voice was monotonous, as if he were reading from a textbook. “Horner’s syndrome, whose symptoms include miosis, ptosis, enophthalmos, and anhidrosis.”

Could I ever be happy memorizing textbooks and spewing them back to professors? I asked myself even though I already knew the answer.

“Correct,” Dr. Wilson said, then shifted over to Ruth’s head. “Okay, enough review. We’re going to get into the brain today.” He picked up the electric saw. Its half-moon blade was lined with jagged teeth and the bloated, boxy handle looked impossible to hold, let alone control. “Which one of you wants to do the honors with the Stryker?”

Six hands shot in the air so fast I wondered if I had misheard. Did he just ask, Who’s scared to use the tool specifically designed to cut through bone? Shouldn’t everyone’s instinct have been to run the other way, not fight for a chance to use it?

Anna’s outstretched arm was the straightest and most desperate, but Dr. Wilson pointed to the burly boy with gargantuan hands. Everyone crowded around Ruth’s skull, and I fought the tide to plant myself by Ruth’s lower half.

The saw came to life with a high-pitched whir. If my eyes had been closed, I might have thought an airplane was somehow landing in the basement. But I didn’t dare close them for a second, not with an active bone saw in the hands of an inexperienced operator.

There was a gleam in the boy’s eyes as the blade arced through the air, meeting Ruth’s cranium with an intensified screech. Flecks of skin and bone splattered onto the surrounding students, but they didn’t notice—all except one boy, who flinched and rubbed his mask with his double-gloved hand. Unbeknownst to him, the movement smeared the debris instead of removing it.

I was pulled to him like Lu Pàng to a scallion pancake. Clearly, he was the only other sane person here. Sidling up to him, I yelled over the noise, “How long did it take you to get used to this?”

His head whipped toward me as if he were surprised by my sudden appearance. “Maybe two sessions? I shower afterward and have the hospital clean my scrubs.” He pushed me closer to Ruth. “Once you get in there, you’ll feel better. Why don’t you pick up the forceps and take a look through the leg muscles?”

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