Diamonds in the Water

Merritt – ‘I won’t allow it! Who do you think you are?’ I lifted him by his neck. “I’m not asking for your permission for time on your precious meeting schedule. I’m telling you that I have something to inform your delegates, and you will be very sorry if you attempt to stop me!” As I lowered him, I gave him a final thought to consider. “You can look at me, call me names and offer your opinion that you disagree with my beliefs. But do not cast judgment on a group of people you have never given a chance to show what they can do or help make a situation better. My father once told me to be mindful of the needs and circumstances of others. Who are you to judge one’s status, be it skin color, economic setbacks, intellectual or physical malady, for the circumstances could arise for you to be placed with those that you judge and who’s to say that you, with all your social advantage, money and privilege, would fare as well as they do, under those very circumstances?” Merritt- ‘Waterbury, you are a disgrace to the white race!’ Waterbury– “Dr. Merritt, your ambition and blind conventional assumption offers a disservice to God and yourself. When you learn to be mindful of the needs and circumstances of others, you will accept a valuable lesson about what really matters in this life.” I left him in the room to choke on his own smoke. I went straight to the hall where the delegates were gathering for the first talk of the day. The stage was prepared as I walked deliberately to the microphone and requested everyone sit down and that they were going to hear an unannounced, unadulterated analysis of the “The State of Affairs in 20th Century Medicine and the Role of the Physician We are Seldom Asked to Consider”. Just before I began my speech, Hugo, Pamela and Elizabeth were all on the edge of their seats. Elizabeth spoke- ‘I can’t believe that Southern bigot had such long-term hatred for you. I think it was really a front for something deeper inside him. He was jealous of your rank in the medical school class, he was not happy that you won all those coveted prizes, you equaled him on a social and economic level and you weren’t as petty as he was in your commentaries responding to his. He used his position at the A.M.A. to allegedly get back at you; he tried to portray a certain level of status to make him appear even more powerful, but in fact you called him on everything, and that is why he got so upset. He deserved all the criticism you said to him, and then some. He was a lucky man that I wasn’t standing there. He would have thought you were a ‘cream puff’ compared to how I would have told him what was what.’ “I know how you are, Elizabeth. You would have spoken your mind and that would have put out all his fire.