It is Guardia for one month and the administrators sentence the Wracks to a month in obstetrics gynecology downtown.   After an unanticipated snafu of one half of a year, the Wracks finds himself in the center of Guadalajara in a government hospital, after a long bus ride with one transfer.  Built of stone and bricks like everything in Guad, the hospital is an open-air affair with rooms situated like huge stadiums cordoned off with a wall.   Naked women in gurneys’ line up in the room and the Wracks is told to stand behind the surgeon and do whatever he asks.   Unlike the states where women get their own room for anything, Mexico is a catholic country and women cannot be in a room with a man without an escort.  In gynecology here, a medico works with a nurse with the sole intention that the patient cannot declare violation because another woman is present.  And so, it goes.   The doctor swabs a woman’s fourchette and places it in saline for a wet mount, and another goes to Microbiology for a culture.  The doctor does the work and hands the swabs to the Wracks who puts them in a labeled tube and sets them in a test tube wrack.   A nurse stands aside and brings supplies and helps physically manage the patients.  After the ladies are done, Wracks is told to leave and sit outside with his blue Harrison’s book and read and wait for the next batch of patients.   This is assembly line medicine in Mexico and it works and is safe.  This edifice is a downtown government hospital and stands close to the government building for the city of Guadalajara.  No one else is around, the patients load from the back of the arena and the Wracks is there for insurance.

Occasionally a tall man walks by the Wracks and looks at him.   He is a slender six feet three, in a grey silk suit with a lanyard for a tie.   His shoes are black leather custom boot, sort of a cross between a tuxedo shoe and a western boot, affluent cowboy Mexican style.   What arouses the Wracks attention is the fact that this tall man has two European body guards, also in suits. that stand one on each side of him and from their looks and serious demeanor, they are all book and mean business.    This tall, elegant evidently rich man never says a word but he takes a Mexican flan desert in a plastic custard cup and with a wooden spoon, eats it in front of the Wracks and disposes the plastic in the nearest trash can.   Not daily but occasionally, he and his bodyguards walk up to the Wracks, show him the cup of Mexican flan which is one of the most delicious deserts the Wracks has ever enjoyed, eats it and then walks away.  His eyes are not brown but uncommonly grey and the Wracks feels the ominous vibrations whenever he appears.   Like a guardian angel, he looks at the Wracks, evaluates, eats his flan, signals to his bodyguards and leaves.   A nurse briefly sticks her body out of the stadium and wags her index finger from side to side as is the Mexican beware signal and whispers “LASARO”, and then she is gone.   The Guardia ensues, the Wracks assists in some birthing, then more gynecology and then he sits with his book, the physician tells him he can leave and he takes his double bus ride to his reduvid infested adobe room in plaza del sol.    Then as soon as it started, the Guardia ends and the Wracks is back at the clinical campus in respiratory medicine looking at x-rays of pulmonary tuberculosis, and discussing treatment options with the doctor doing his social service at the clinical campus. 

They say Lasaro Cardenas died a long time ago.  I have to disagree with that because people with a heavy vibe about them are not normal, they are exceptional and Lasaro had a pretty fair granddaughter that the Wracks never had enough money to date.   Maybe he was evaluating the Wracks for talking with his granddaughter.  It really does not matter anymore and it never has.  Great men do not die; they simply fade away unmercifully.   The Wracks is honored that such a spectacular historical figure would take some of his precious time to deal with him.   Time moves on and the Wracks never had time to attend his graduation because his residency starts in one week and he has to be in New York to secure lodging.  His oil rich friend who drove the Wracks around in his car eventually moved to Texas and practiced there and the next epic in the saga starts.   It has been a long time, and the Wracks is in his room with an energy efficient Qualcomm processor that lasts 16 hours.   He doesn’t like the Mac operating system and he wishes he did, because it lasts 16 hours or more on a charge.  A cup of coffee and a candy bar are subjects of mirth and happiness and the clock goes round and round eventually.