Emergency Room
Part Five
By Gary Schneeberger
TheSchnays@cs.com

"So tell me, from the perspective of the people who actually make sure things run smoothly around here, what's life like inside the E.R.?"

John Wells took a quick glance over his shoulder, in the direction of Eriq La Salle and Alex Kingston. He was smiling, as he was when he delivered the question to the six nurses standing before him, but the meaning behind the smile changed ever-so-slightly in second or two it was flashed at his stars. Haleh, Chuny, Conni, Malik, Lydia and Yosh got the "I-really-care-about-your-opinion" smile. La Salle and Kingston got the "See-that's-how-you-treat-these-people-by-flattering-them-and-pretending-you-really-care-about-their-opinion" smile.

Both smiles had their desired effects on their audiences.

"Well, it's an exciting place," the rather ordinary-looking, middle-aged white woman whose name Wells had been told, and forgotten, three times now responded. "How can it not be exciting when you work around all these talented doctors and all these needy people?"

"Yeah," the effeminate Asian guy whose name Wells didn't think anyone had mentioned yet chimed in, "especially when the talented doctors are usually the neediest people."

Wells was careful to monitor his laugh, reeling it in to just this side of a guffaw so as not to be perceived as too enthusiastic or insincere. The actors behind him let loose everything from hearty chuckles to restrained belly laughs, reminding their boss by the effortlessness of their performances why he'd enlisted them for this project.

"So, you have to take care of the doctors as much as the patients?"

"Oh, honey, the doctors usually need more care and coddling than the patients," said the large black woman who Wells thought was named Layla - or did he only think that because he'd listened to his "Best of Eric Clapton" CD on the plane?

"How is that?" Anthony Edwards asked, knowing his status as the biggest name in the cast allowed him to ask a question even if Wells hadn't specifically said it was OK. "I've been trying to sit down with Dr. Greene, but I haven't been able to find him,
and I really need some insight into his character."

"Why don't you ask Dr, Corday?" It was out of Chuny's mouth, and stamped with a tone that left her meaning unmistakable, before she realized what she was saying.

"Drs. Greene and Corday are dating?" Wells asked, jumping back in to make sure control of the meeting stayed where it belonged. "So we have a little fraternization around here, then, do we?"

The laughter was coming from the nurses this time - and none of them bothered to audit how authentic it sounded.

"A little?" Malik asked, not bothering to audit his incredulity, either, now that Chuny had let the mating cats out of the bag. "There's a lot more than a little ... "

Wells knew whatever it was the bulky black guy with one of those Muslim names was saying must be pretty funny, judging by the stereophonic ha-ha's coming at him from the front and the rear. But his ears weren't capable of identifying much more than that, now that his mind's attention was wholly focused on what his eyes had spotted at the nurses' station to his right.

"When was that?"

The incensed insistence in his voice stopped Malik in mid-story and everyone else in mid-listen.

"Excuse me?" Haleh responded after a beat, confused not only by what he was talking about but by what he was pointing at.

Wells was aghast. Here he was, buttering up a few nurses as he angled for the kind of behind-the-scenes insight that would
inject his "Emergency Room" script with a few CC's of verisimilitude, and his eyes had to wander over to that.

"That. When was that?" Wells repeated, motioning again - with florid disdain - in the direction of the computer manuals,
personal photos, medical charts and assorted other mess that crowded the countertop.

"Mr. Wells, I'm not sure what you're talking about."

He moved roughly past Haleh, and between Chuny and Malik, snapping the item fueling his anger off the counter.  He waved it
in front of them - all of them, nurses and actors alike - and repeated his question.

"This. When was this?"

"It's a picture, Mr. Wells. Of a going-away party for our former boss."

"What's he doing in it?" Wells growled, his rage expanding as he stabbed his finger into the frame's glass, at the face of the
smiling man with the salt-and-pepper hair hugging the pretty woman with the curly hair.

"He's the father of her twins. They're getting married."

"That bastard Clooney is marrying a Chicago E.R. nurse?"

"Clooney? George Clooney? That's not George Clooney, Mr. Wells, it's Dr. Ross."

The wave of embarrassment that crested inside him reminded him of the way he felt when he read the reviews of  his TV series "Angel Street" back in 1992. He blinked a couple of times at the photo in his hand, preparing to stammer his way through an apology, when the crash of the ambulance bay doors sent everyone scattering.

Saved by the bell, he thought. Or, more appropriately, saved by the senseless destruction of human life as fortuitously administered by a --

"Knife fight," Wells heard a paramedic shout as he wheeled a gurney bearing an unbearably bloody body through the door.  "This one got it in the aorta--"

"And this one got it in throat," his partner said, maneuvering another gurney a few frenetic paces behind.

Wells was awed by the scene unfolding before him. Out of nowhere, it seemed, doctors and nurses were converging on the gurneys, tossing medical shorthand at each other that those hearing it seemed to instinctively understand before those saying it had gotten it out of their mouths. How am I ever going to be able to recreate this chaos? he wondered. How am I ever going to keep the CBC's separate from the ICP's? How is Laura Innes ever going to learn to walk that fast while faking a limp?

"Randi! Have you seen Dr. Kovac?"

"Yeah, Dr. Weaver, he came through here about 10 minutes ago. He was looking for some shampoo.

"Shampoo?"

"Yeah."

"Would somebody go check the locker room for him, please?"

Wells unstuck his eyes from the frantic goings-on in what he thought somebody had called Trauma 1 long enough to check out the faces of the actors who had broken a few paces away from the nurses' station to observe the same flurry of activity. He could tell by the half-startled, half-studious looks on their faces that they were soaking up nuances of character that would be pure gold when filming began next month.

The white lab coat would have been nothing but a blur if the doctor inside it hadn't stopped abruptly on his way by.

"Hey, you're that director guy, right?"

"Uh ... yes ... I'm John Wells."

"Which one of them is Palladino?"

"Erik? He didn't make the trip with us."

The look on the doctor's face reminded him of the way critics looked at his screening of the "Angel Street" pilot.

"He didn't make the trip?  Why not?"

"Maybe because it doesn't do an actor any good to study a doctor who doesn't actually practice medicine," the doctor inside
another white lab coat said as he hurried by. "Let's go, Malucci."

"Sure, Dr. Greene. Sorry"

Dr. Greene? Edwards' ears perked up, but he wasn't able to make eye contact with his "Emergency Room" alter ego before he hurried away..

Wells' view of what was happening inside Trauma 1 was almost obscured now, as the two doctors joined their colleagues around the stabbing victims.  He stood on his tip-toes and craned his neck to get a better look, and almost got knocked off his feet for his trouble by the doctor inside the next lab coat that whizzed by.

This one didn't stop, and Wells would have had no idea who he was if he hadn't been close enough to hear the exchange that occurred inside:

"Nice of you to join us, Dr. Kovac" - that sounded like Dr. Weaver.

"Hey, Luka. You do something different to your hair?" - that sounded like the guy who asked about Palladino.

It was Visnjic's ears who perked up this time.

Wells looked away from the window of Trauma 1, not because all the frenzy was suddenly less fascinating, but because he was
suddenly aware that just watching it had started to exhaust him. He turned on his heels to hunt down a coffee pot, his gaze swinging just slowly enough to catch another speeding lab coat race by, this one covering the big doctor who had nearly come to blows with La Salle just a few minutes earlier. He couldn't swear by it, but he thought he saw the big doctor scowl the kind of purposed scowl he hadn't seen since he caught a glimpse of his own reflection when he read the reviews of "Angel Street" back in '92.



Wells was still sipping his coffee, all alone, outside near the ambulance bay, when Dr. Weaver crutched out.

"How did it go in there?" he asked.

"Saved them both," she said wearily. "Thanks to some great work by Dr. Benton."

Hmmm. The big, scowling guy could do more than scowl.

"Do you know where Michael Michele is? Dr. Finch is only on a half-day today, and she'd like to get her interview done as soon as possible."

"Yeah, no problem. Give me a few minutes and I'll bring her around."

"Thank you."

"Oh, by the way, Dr. Weaver, have you talked with Laura yet?"

"Inns? No, I've been busy."

"It's Inn-iss. I'll bring her around, too."

"Fine."

Wells drained the last sip in his cup and crumpled it as Kerry cobblestopped away. He dropped it in the trash can just outside
the door and stopped as he re-entered the emergency room, unsure that he'd actually seen what he thought he saw: The big, scowling doctor executing some intricate karate move, seemingly in celebration, from the confines of a hallway he thought was safe from prying eyes.

Wells reached gingerly in the breast pocket of his suit coat, removed his microcassette recorder and deposited a reminder
inside it - careful to whisper so as not to alarm the big scowling doctor.

"Don't forget the neat idea about how to film Eriq for the opening credits."

NEXT TIME ON "EMERGENCY ROOM": Cleo discovers that the actress playing her isn't a man after all - or even the Mom from "The Waltons."