The basement was full of stuff that was no longer wanted above, but which couldn’t be thrown out because the state required so much paper work to throw something away that it was easier to send it to the basement. Grollman wandered aimfully for about 15 minutes until he stumbled on the entrance to the cafeteria. It was almost obscured by a seven foot high pile of superannuated bedpans. It was closed. A sign read, “You’re too late for breakfast and too early for lunch.”

Grollman had lost all bearings in his wandering through the junk. He was convinced that he’d never get out and was determined to wait until lunch when he could ask someone in the cafeteria the way out when his right eye spied a small window just below the ceiling off to the left of the bedpans. By placing a pile of the bedpans on a red plastic chair that had “Texas A&M” stamped on its back he was able to climb to the small window. To his surprise it was not locked. Another surprise was that he was able to squeeze through the window without falling off of the pile of bedpans.

He was on his knees on a small diamond of grass facing a parking lot. Before he attempted to rise he was pulled to his feet like a rusty nail to a magnet.

“I got you at last, you slimy son of a bitch,” said a cylinder-shaped black man in a white cowboy hat. He looked like Smokey the Bear.

Grollman tried to pull away; then he noticed the badges (he wore two) and the gun stuck to the black man’s side like bubble gum on the underside of a seat in a movie theater so he went limp like a possum – actually more like a marionette with no strings.

“I didn’t do anything. I got stuck in there. I’m a doctor. I just got here. I was lost. I’m a renal fellow. I’m a commissioned officer in the US Army. My name is Richard Grollman. I work for Dr Lance. I also work for Dr Walker. I don’t have any allergies. I just moved here from Chicago. Do you know Mabel Stuart? And besides I’ll never do it again – whatever it is.”

The black man in the cowboy hat with the stuck on gun and badges looked at him like he was crazy which he would be for quite some time to come, though he would die sane.

“You sure are a talkative fucker. Now just give me one story.”

“I was trying to find the cafeteria where I was supposed to meet Dr Lance who was giving the orientation for the new renal fellows of which I am one when I got lost and couldn’t get out of the basement except by climbing up a pile of bedpans and out the window where you apprehended me. You see it’s all quite innocent.”