Troy worked like a whirlwind, seven days a week, no rest. I used to always beat him into work. Now I always saw his grey pickup in the lot when I drove in. I’d find him sitting in the passenger seat in 482, reading the sports page, the engine running, the car gassed and washed.
“You check out the gear?”
“ALS and BLS lists,” he’d answer. “O2’s good, we’ve got two boards and plenty of clean laundry. I’m just waiting for your tired ass to get behind the wheel so we can go out and do some good.”
We were supposed to get off at two, but Troy volunteered us to stay till four every night. I was getting so run down, after midnight I’d climb in the back and nap between calls.
One night I was vaguely aware of Troy driving while I slept. When I finally awoke, Troy said, “You owe me twelve bucks.”
“Twelve bucks?”
When I still looked puzzled, he handed me a completed run form. Capitol and Broad to ADRC for detox. “For doing your job,” he said.
I checked the date and times. The call had been done in the last hour. “You did this while I was sleeping?”
“Yeah, I thought you needed your beddy time. I had the guy ride in the front.”
“You amaze me. How about I just get you a cup of coffee?”
“You can drink mine. You’re such an old man these days.”
“How’s his sugar?” Ben asked when he and Linda saw me changing the O2 M tank in the garage, while Troy had gone into the stock room to resupply after we’d run through the drug box on a v-fib cardiac arrest.
“He’s all right,” I said. “He’s keeping it higher than he used to. No problems.” He was eating more than normal. When he checked his sugar, I saw his numbers were up. 120-160, 180. He was giving himself a buffer.
People watched him, waiting for something to give.
“He’s all right?” Linda asked. Her eyes fixed on me like a wife waiting to hear about a sick husband.
“Yeah, he’s holding up all right. We’ve had no problems.”
“You’d tell us?”
“He’s keeping it higher. It’s not going to happen.”
“Keep us informed,” Ben said. “It won’t go anywhere else.”
“I will,” I said.
One rainy morning on the way into work, I saw Allison at Marty’s Mobil in Bloomfield. She was buying a coffee when I went in to pay for my gas. She’d cut her hair short. I almost didn’t recognize her. The luster was gone from her smile. I could see the lines in her forehead and the corners of her eyes. She’d left the ED and was working now as a nurse in a doctor’s office down the street on Cottage Grove Road. “How’s Troy?” she asked. “I heard he was back to work.”
“He’s losing himself in his work,” I said. “I think he’s trying to do the job of two people.”
Her eyes watered. “Tell him, I said, hi,” she said.
“Take care of yourself,” I said.
She nodded and gave me a forced smile before she headed back out into the grey day.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Chapter 41
It was a Tuesday afternoon at three minutes past one. We were standing outside Hartford Hospital when we heard an explosion that sounded like a B52 dropping a five-hundred pound bomb. It rocked us where we stood.
“What the f—was that?” Melnick said.
Already black smoke was rising to the north. It came from downtown.
We swore in unison, and then jumped in our truck and started in that direction.
It was the Civic Center. The explosion had ripped through its south side. The force of the blast shattered glass and overturned cars. Melnick and I were the second car on the scene. The smoke was thick and black. Stunned bleeding and burned people stumbled onto the glass-strewn street. Flames leapt through the smoke.
“Medic! Medic! We need a medic!” A man, his clothes torn, bleeding from the head, helped another half naked man along who was burned, his skin peeling off his arms and chest.
“Get the stretcher!” Andrew shouted at me. “Get me a burn sheet.”
“Help, can’t you please help? He’s not breathing.” A woman knelt over an obese man who lay on the sidewalk. A hunk of concrete lay across his legs.
Andrew grabbed the blue bag and ran to his side. I watched as he took out his intubation kit.
“Do CPR!” he shouted at me.
A huge cloud of black smoke blew at us. I lost sight of him for a moment. People running from the building jostled me.
Andrew and I coughed heavily. He had the laryngoscope in his hands. I looked closer at the man.
“He’s dead, Andrew. Leave him.”
He looked up at me, his hands shaking.
There was another explosion. A car burst into flames. I felt the heat on my back.
“Over here, over here.”
A mother carried her daughter in her arms. Their faces were blackened with soot. The girl’s leg dangled at a grotesque angle.
“Everyone back!” a police officer shouted, while another cop grabbed my arm and tried to pull me forward. “There’s a guy over here who’s hurt real bad.”
The smoke cloud again obscured our view.
More units arrived, but we were lost. No one was in charge. There were patients all around us. Someone said it was a bomb, another said a transformer had blown, another a gas line. Voices shouted over each other on the radio. Andrew stood there dazed.
I heard a shout. I turned and looked up the street and saw him. Troy – in full paramedic uniform . A car fire blazed behind him.
“Tercelli, get these people out of here. Melnick, set up triage in the Laz E Boy lot. Nelson, find the fire commander and tell him what we’re doing. Lee come with me.” Troy barked orders into the radio, talking to dispatch, to Ben Seurat and to the C-MED dispatcher.
A fireman came out of the building carrying a motionless bloodied girl.
Troy took her in his arms. He gave her two breaths and handed her to me. “Keep breathing for her and get her up there. You can do it.”
I put my mouth on hers and breathed. My god, I thought, I can feel her move. She was moving.
Troy nodded. “Get her up there and come on back. I’ll need you here with me.”
I walked fast with the girl in my arms, holding her up to my mouth, breathing for her. With each breath, I felt more movement. Com’on, little girl. Com’on, little sweetheart.
I followed the flow of people down Asylum Street. People made way for us as if I were carrying the Olympic Torch. They steered me into the Laz-Boy Lot where Andrew had already set up a small station.
As I held the girl, Kim Dylan put an oxygen mask on her face, and listened to her lungs. Her partner brought over their stretcher.
“You all right?” I asked.
She nodded. “Stay safe,” she said.
“You too.”
They loaded the girl and headed off to Saint Francis.
Ambulances lined up on the far side of the lot. Andrew radioed for them to come over one at a time. Patients sat on the ground or leaned against cars in the lot. I saw other medics checking them out, sorting them into groups by urgency of their injuries.
I turned and headed back up the street.
Troy, his face now covered with soot, leaned over a motionless fire fighter, surrounded by three of his fellows. Troy raised his fist up and smacked the firefighter in the chest.
The man coughed and began to breathe. He said “Huh?”
The other firefighters looked to Troy, but he was already leaving. The firefighter wanted to get up and get his hose.
“No, he’s got to come with me,” I said. “He has to go to the hospital.”
“No way. I’m fine.”
“You have to understand,” I said.
“Com’on Frankie,” his fellows said. “Listen to the man. I saw it. He’s telling the truth. You scared the shit out of me. You weren’t breathing.”
They helped me load him on the stretcher, and take him down to the triage area.
Kim who was already back from Saint Francis after taking the girl, who she said was doing much better, took the firefighter. I manned a stretcher and headed back toward the smoke where Troy and others raged against the chaos.
By three o’clock we had treated over two hundred patients. The day went by in a blur. There were fourteen fatalities. Seven criticals. There could well have been more but for the efforts of the firemen and police and EMS.
Later, I saw Troy at the hospital. He sat on the bench in the back of his ambulance. His pale face was still covered with soot.
We hadn’t had time to talk. “Howdy, stranger,” I said. “You came back.”
“Yeah, I was bored.” He rechecked a laryngoscope blade.
“You were the best out there.”
“Thanks.”
“You look wiped out.”
His eyes were drawn, his hands shook slightly.
“I’m okay.” He started to speak, but had no words.
We took stock of each other.
“Let me get you an orange juice,” I said. “I’m buying.”
“Okay.”
When I got back with the orange juice he was out cold. I thought about trying to find a medic, but I didn’t. On this night, after all he had done, I didn’t want anyone to see that he was mortal. I closed the doors, strapped the tourniquet on his arm. I was about to stick the catheter in his vein when Ben opened the side door.
“He’s out,” I said.
Ben nodded. He reached over and felt Troy’s cold, wet forehead. “Give me that,” he said.
I handed him the catheter. He hit Troy’s vein, and attached the IV line. I handed him the D50. He screwed the amp into the Bristo Jet, pushed out the air, and then stopped. Maybe it was because of all that happened with Pat, or what had happened that day or maybe it was just that he realized that what mattered was not all the bullshit, but actually doing the job – whatever – he clearly had a change of heart. He handed the D50 back to me. “Go ahead, you know what to do.”
I nodded my thanks. I know Troy wouldn’t have wanted to awaken with Ben standing over him.
Just as he was about to go out the door, I said, “One thing?”
“What?”
“How’d he get back to work?”
“He showed up with his note.”
“Marcus Welby?”
He smiled. “Who am I to say he’s not a real doctor somewhere? Now all I have to do is tell my brother about it.” He looked at Troy a long moment. “When he comes to, get him something to eat.”
“What the f—was that?” Melnick said.
Already black smoke was rising to the north. It came from downtown.
We swore in unison, and then jumped in our truck and started in that direction.
It was the Civic Center. The explosion had ripped through its south side. The force of the blast shattered glass and overturned cars. Melnick and I were the second car on the scene. The smoke was thick and black. Stunned bleeding and burned people stumbled onto the glass-strewn street. Flames leapt through the smoke.
“Medic! Medic! We need a medic!” A man, his clothes torn, bleeding from the head, helped another half naked man along who was burned, his skin peeling off his arms and chest.
“Get the stretcher!” Andrew shouted at me. “Get me a burn sheet.”
“Help, can’t you please help? He’s not breathing.” A woman knelt over an obese man who lay on the sidewalk. A hunk of concrete lay across his legs.
Andrew grabbed the blue bag and ran to his side. I watched as he took out his intubation kit.
“Do CPR!” he shouted at me.
A huge cloud of black smoke blew at us. I lost sight of him for a moment. People running from the building jostled me.
Andrew and I coughed heavily. He had the laryngoscope in his hands. I looked closer at the man.
“He’s dead, Andrew. Leave him.”
He looked up at me, his hands shaking.
There was another explosion. A car burst into flames. I felt the heat on my back.
“Over here, over here.”
A mother carried her daughter in her arms. Their faces were blackened with soot. The girl’s leg dangled at a grotesque angle.
“Everyone back!” a police officer shouted, while another cop grabbed my arm and tried to pull me forward. “There’s a guy over here who’s hurt real bad.”
The smoke cloud again obscured our view.
More units arrived, but we were lost. No one was in charge. There were patients all around us. Someone said it was a bomb, another said a transformer had blown, another a gas line. Voices shouted over each other on the radio. Andrew stood there dazed.
I heard a shout. I turned and looked up the street and saw him. Troy – in full paramedic uniform . A car fire blazed behind him.
“Tercelli, get these people out of here. Melnick, set up triage in the Laz E Boy lot. Nelson, find the fire commander and tell him what we’re doing. Lee come with me.” Troy barked orders into the radio, talking to dispatch, to Ben Seurat and to the C-MED dispatcher.
A fireman came out of the building carrying a motionless bloodied girl.
Troy took her in his arms. He gave her two breaths and handed her to me. “Keep breathing for her and get her up there. You can do it.”
I put my mouth on hers and breathed. My god, I thought, I can feel her move. She was moving.
Troy nodded. “Get her up there and come on back. I’ll need you here with me.”
I walked fast with the girl in my arms, holding her up to my mouth, breathing for her. With each breath, I felt more movement. Com’on, little girl. Com’on, little sweetheart.
I followed the flow of people down Asylum Street. People made way for us as if I were carrying the Olympic Torch. They steered me into the Laz-Boy Lot where Andrew had already set up a small station.
As I held the girl, Kim Dylan put an oxygen mask on her face, and listened to her lungs. Her partner brought over their stretcher.
“You all right?” I asked.
She nodded. “Stay safe,” she said.
“You too.”
They loaded the girl and headed off to Saint Francis.
Ambulances lined up on the far side of the lot. Andrew radioed for them to come over one at a time. Patients sat on the ground or leaned against cars in the lot. I saw other medics checking them out, sorting them into groups by urgency of their injuries.
I turned and headed back up the street.
Troy, his face now covered with soot, leaned over a motionless fire fighter, surrounded by three of his fellows. Troy raised his fist up and smacked the firefighter in the chest.
The man coughed and began to breathe. He said “Huh?”
The other firefighters looked to Troy, but he was already leaving. The firefighter wanted to get up and get his hose.
“No, he’s got to come with me,” I said. “He has to go to the hospital.”
“No way. I’m fine.”
“You have to understand,” I said.
“Com’on Frankie,” his fellows said. “Listen to the man. I saw it. He’s telling the truth. You scared the shit out of me. You weren’t breathing.”
They helped me load him on the stretcher, and take him down to the triage area.
Kim who was already back from Saint Francis after taking the girl, who she said was doing much better, took the firefighter. I manned a stretcher and headed back toward the smoke where Troy and others raged against the chaos.
By three o’clock we had treated over two hundred patients. The day went by in a blur. There were fourteen fatalities. Seven criticals. There could well have been more but for the efforts of the firemen and police and EMS.
Later, I saw Troy at the hospital. He sat on the bench in the back of his ambulance. His pale face was still covered with soot.
We hadn’t had time to talk. “Howdy, stranger,” I said. “You came back.”
“Yeah, I was bored.” He rechecked a laryngoscope blade.
“You were the best out there.”
“Thanks.”
“You look wiped out.”
His eyes were drawn, his hands shook slightly.
“I’m okay.” He started to speak, but had no words.
We took stock of each other.
“Let me get you an orange juice,” I said. “I’m buying.”
“Okay.”
When I got back with the orange juice he was out cold. I thought about trying to find a medic, but I didn’t. On this night, after all he had done, I didn’t want anyone to see that he was mortal. I closed the doors, strapped the tourniquet on his arm. I was about to stick the catheter in his vein when Ben opened the side door.
“He’s out,” I said.
Ben nodded. He reached over and felt Troy’s cold, wet forehead. “Give me that,” he said.
I handed him the catheter. He hit Troy’s vein, and attached the IV line. I handed him the D50. He screwed the amp into the Bristo Jet, pushed out the air, and then stopped. Maybe it was because of all that happened with Pat, or what had happened that day or maybe it was just that he realized that what mattered was not all the bullshit, but actually doing the job – whatever – he clearly had a change of heart. He handed the D50 back to me. “Go ahead, you know what to do.”
I nodded my thanks. I know Troy wouldn’t have wanted to awaken with Ben standing over him.
Just as he was about to go out the door, I said, “One thing?”
“What?”
“How’d he get back to work?”
“He showed up with his note.”
“Marcus Welby?”
He smiled. “Who am I to say he’s not a real doctor somewhere? Now all I have to do is tell my brother about it.” He looked at Troy a long moment. “When he comes to, get him something to eat.”
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Chapter 40
For weeks we’d heard rumors that Troy was coming back, but we never saw him walk in the door. There were other rumors too. The place was going bankrupt. We had been sold. Champion was going to take us over by court order. No, a national corporation was coming in. No, the Fire department was going to take over the service. No one knew what was going on. The paper had stepped up its attacks on us. We were all on mandatory overtime. Working extra days – always being held over. If the men and women of Capitol Ambulance and its ambulances were a building, I wouldn’t have been surprised to walk in one morning and just find a pile of rubble. We were at the breaking point.
“Why are we busting our butts for this stinking city,” Andrew Melnick said. “They don’t give a shit.”
“It’s your rock to push,” Brian Sajack said. “Now get on the road.”
“My rock to push? What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means get your ass in the seat, and get out on the road and do your job!”
“Why do I even bother getting up in the morning? What’s the point?”
“453” the dispatcher came over the radio. “I need you to sign on and take Martin and Capen for the MVA. On a one.”
“I need a new life,” Melnick said.
“Copy, Martin and Capen,” I answered. “Let’s get pushing,” I said to Melnick.”
If there was an order to the universe, the gods would have gone easy on us for a couple weeks, given us a chance to find our bearings again, time to absorb what had happened and deal with it. But hell is random, and it kept ringing our number.
A tractor trailer driver suffered a heart attack at the wheel, went out of control, and plowed into a minivan holding a family of seven. There were five fatalities. Audrey Davis crawled into the car and tried to comfort the mother who was entrapped and crushed at the waist. Her husband was dead beside her. Her older daughter was also trapped and dead. A child in the back was taken out screaming. Blood had flowed from the mother’s forehead blinding her vision. When Audrey had staunched it enough to let the mother see the carnage around her, she felt like she had done her no favors. I could hear her screams from twenty yards away as we waited for the fire department to extricate them. The mother died as soon as she was cut free. Only the four and five year old survived. One was maimed physically. The other child hadn’t a scratch, but had been so covered in blood, the crew had rushed the child to the trauma room, terrified by the sight and the soundless child.
A tenement caught on fire. Four small children were killed, each carried out of the fire by fireman handed over to EMS, blackened by soot and lifeless. Each was taken to the hospital, worked on by the crews even though they were long dead.
A disgruntled employee at an insurance company shot seven co-workers, killing five of them before shooting himself. As we worked our way through the maze of cubicles looking for victims, it seemed every phone in the building was ringing. I stood in one cubicle starring at a man who had been shot twice in the head and another three times in the chest. A radio on his desk broadcast early news of the shootings. I looked at the pictures of his smiling family. His phone rang and his answering machine picked up. I heard a woman’s voice say, “Bill honey, call me, I’m worried about you. I’m watching the TV. Are you all right? Please call me. I love you, honey. I love you. Please call.”
“Why are we busting our butts for this stinking city,” Andrew Melnick said. “They don’t give a shit.”
“It’s your rock to push,” Brian Sajack said. “Now get on the road.”
“My rock to push? What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means get your ass in the seat, and get out on the road and do your job!”
“Why do I even bother getting up in the morning? What’s the point?”
“453” the dispatcher came over the radio. “I need you to sign on and take Martin and Capen for the MVA. On a one.”
“I need a new life,” Melnick said.
“Copy, Martin and Capen,” I answered. “Let’s get pushing,” I said to Melnick.”
If there was an order to the universe, the gods would have gone easy on us for a couple weeks, given us a chance to find our bearings again, time to absorb what had happened and deal with it. But hell is random, and it kept ringing our number.
A tractor trailer driver suffered a heart attack at the wheel, went out of control, and plowed into a minivan holding a family of seven. There were five fatalities. Audrey Davis crawled into the car and tried to comfort the mother who was entrapped and crushed at the waist. Her husband was dead beside her. Her older daughter was also trapped and dead. A child in the back was taken out screaming. Blood had flowed from the mother’s forehead blinding her vision. When Audrey had staunched it enough to let the mother see the carnage around her, she felt like she had done her no favors. I could hear her screams from twenty yards away as we waited for the fire department to extricate them. The mother died as soon as she was cut free. Only the four and five year old survived. One was maimed physically. The other child hadn’t a scratch, but had been so covered in blood, the crew had rushed the child to the trauma room, terrified by the sight and the soundless child.
A tenement caught on fire. Four small children were killed, each carried out of the fire by fireman handed over to EMS, blackened by soot and lifeless. Each was taken to the hospital, worked on by the crews even though they were long dead.
A disgruntled employee at an insurance company shot seven co-workers, killing five of them before shooting himself. As we worked our way through the maze of cubicles looking for victims, it seemed every phone in the building was ringing. I stood in one cubicle starring at a man who had been shot twice in the head and another three times in the chest. A radio on his desk broadcast early news of the shootings. I looked at the pictures of his smiling family. His phone rang and his answering machine picked up. I heard a woman’s voice say, “Bill honey, call me, I’m worried about you. I’m watching the TV. Are you all right? Please call me. I love you, honey. I love you. Please call.”
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Chapter 39
Victor came back at work, though only temporarily, he said. Medical control had lifted his suspension and Don Seurat had convinced him to come in and work some shifts while we were so short-handed. If the bounty hunter he was apprenticing with didn’t need him that day, he’d come in and work. It was good to have him back.
We drove past the courthouse on Washington Street. It was the first day of Felipe Ruiz’s trial. A large crowd had massed outside. “The big day,” Victor said.
“Troy should be up tomorrow.”
“How’s he doing?”
“He’s hurting. He tries not to let it show, but he blames himself for what happened to Pat.”
“He’ll come back to work. He’ll get one of those new insulin pumps – they’re working for a lot of people, helping keeping their sugar regular. He gets one of those, he’ll be back.”
“You think?”
“I just can’t see him not being here. Its where he belongs.”
“Maybe being up here tomorrow and seeing the ambulances going by will do it.”
“He’ll be back before the month is out I predict. He’ll be back as soon as the trial is over.”
Troy and Linda had been deposed to give testimony about what happened the night Felipe shot Joey Diaz on Afflect Street. The prosecution had Troy set to be a prime witness. Linda’s testimony was less important because though she had been there she had her back turned and couldn’t actually testify she saw Felipe shoot the other man.
We hadn’t gone three blocks past the courthouse when we heard sirens and saw three police cars heading north on Washington.
“463, 100 Lafayette in the Courthouse, shooting to the head on a one.”
“I don’t believe this,” Victor said.
I hit the lights and pulled a U-turn.
The scene outside the building was chaos. People spilled out of the courthouse, while others tried to get inside. We had to push our way through the crowd to get to the door. I saw two burly courthouse guards wrestling with a man who spat at them and cursed. Two police officers raised their night sticks to clear a way for us. Just as we went through the front door, I thought I heard gunshots on the street. On the portable I heard the call go out for two more ambulances.
We went through the metal detectors that beeped, then were led into the first courtroom.
“Head and chest shot,” an officer said to us.
Papi Ruiz howled. His son Felipe lay bleeding in his lap. I could hear the gurgling in Felipe’s lungs. The officer had to hold Papi down, as we pulled Felipe off him and onto our stretcher. “Easy Papi, easy Papi,” Victor purred, but I doubted Papi could hear above his anguished cries as he tried to hold onto Felipe.
Papi’s white shirt and black pants were drenched with blood.
Victor slapped a dressing on the open chest wound. Felipe’s teeth were clenched. His gurgled breathing was erratic. I put on a non-rebreather.
“We’ll strap him down later. We’ve got to move,” Victor said.
Felipe started seizing. It took five deputies to clear the way for us back to the ambulance. We saw three more ambulances and a fly car at the curb. When the crowd saw Felipe shaking, a man shouted, “Do something, he’s dying! What’s the matter with you? Don’t let him die!”
Someone pushed me from behind. I turned and decked the man. Victor kept pushing the stretcher forward and in the confusion, we made it through. Three cops came to our aid and held the crowd back while we loaded Felipe.
In the back, Victor gave Felipe Valium to stop the seizing, and intubated him while I drove and patched. “Shooting to the head and chest. Two minutes out,” I said. “We’ll need help unloading.”
The hospital sent out two techs to greet us. When they opened the back door, Victor was doing CPR. In the trauma room they opened Felipe’s chest and did open cardiac massage just like they did with Pat, but to no avail. With his head injury, it was surprising they even went that far.
“Wild scene, huh?” Victor said when he met me outside while I cleaned off the stretcher.
“Did you hear who shot him?”
“Yeah, an officer was just telling me. Joey Diaz’s sister.”
“Denny Creer told me she pulled out a 9 millimeter in the courthouse. I don’t know how she smuggled the gun in through the detectors, unless someone else got it in for her.”
“Yeah, I talked to dispatch. They said Melnick took one critical to Saint Fran.”
“This stuff is out of hand.”
“We’re killing ourselves off.”
“I felt bad for the old man.”
Victor just shook his head.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, I feel bad for him too. Hey, I meant to tell you. You threw a mean punch there.”
“I wasn’t thinking.”
“I’m not complaining.” He patted me on the back. “You did a good job.”
“You too, friend,” I said. “If anyone would have saved him, you would have. It’s good to have you back.”
“I can’t do this much longer,” he said, and went back inside.
A half hour later I went in to find Victor. Dispatch was asking us to clear. Jean Rushen told me he was in the trauma room. I found him standing next to Hector and Papi. Papi sat in his wheel chair, holding his grandson’s hand, his head lay against his boy’s side. Hector stood behind him, his eyes steely and dead. I left them there.
The police sent reinforcements to the ER to guard against the growing crowd that had migrated from the courthouse. People cried and screamed and beat their breasts.
We drove past the courthouse on Washington Street. It was the first day of Felipe Ruiz’s trial. A large crowd had massed outside. “The big day,” Victor said.
“Troy should be up tomorrow.”
“How’s he doing?”
“He’s hurting. He tries not to let it show, but he blames himself for what happened to Pat.”
“He’ll come back to work. He’ll get one of those new insulin pumps – they’re working for a lot of people, helping keeping their sugar regular. He gets one of those, he’ll be back.”
“You think?”
“I just can’t see him not being here. Its where he belongs.”
“Maybe being up here tomorrow and seeing the ambulances going by will do it.”
“He’ll be back before the month is out I predict. He’ll be back as soon as the trial is over.”
Troy and Linda had been deposed to give testimony about what happened the night Felipe shot Joey Diaz on Afflect Street. The prosecution had Troy set to be a prime witness. Linda’s testimony was less important because though she had been there she had her back turned and couldn’t actually testify she saw Felipe shoot the other man.
We hadn’t gone three blocks past the courthouse when we heard sirens and saw three police cars heading north on Washington.
“463, 100 Lafayette in the Courthouse, shooting to the head on a one.”
“I don’t believe this,” Victor said.
I hit the lights and pulled a U-turn.
The scene outside the building was chaos. People spilled out of the courthouse, while others tried to get inside. We had to push our way through the crowd to get to the door. I saw two burly courthouse guards wrestling with a man who spat at them and cursed. Two police officers raised their night sticks to clear a way for us. Just as we went through the front door, I thought I heard gunshots on the street. On the portable I heard the call go out for two more ambulances.
We went through the metal detectors that beeped, then were led into the first courtroom.
“Head and chest shot,” an officer said to us.
Papi Ruiz howled. His son Felipe lay bleeding in his lap. I could hear the gurgling in Felipe’s lungs. The officer had to hold Papi down, as we pulled Felipe off him and onto our stretcher. “Easy Papi, easy Papi,” Victor purred, but I doubted Papi could hear above his anguished cries as he tried to hold onto Felipe.
Papi’s white shirt and black pants were drenched with blood.
Victor slapped a dressing on the open chest wound. Felipe’s teeth were clenched. His gurgled breathing was erratic. I put on a non-rebreather.
“We’ll strap him down later. We’ve got to move,” Victor said.
Felipe started seizing. It took five deputies to clear the way for us back to the ambulance. We saw three more ambulances and a fly car at the curb. When the crowd saw Felipe shaking, a man shouted, “Do something, he’s dying! What’s the matter with you? Don’t let him die!”
Someone pushed me from behind. I turned and decked the man. Victor kept pushing the stretcher forward and in the confusion, we made it through. Three cops came to our aid and held the crowd back while we loaded Felipe.
In the back, Victor gave Felipe Valium to stop the seizing, and intubated him while I drove and patched. “Shooting to the head and chest. Two minutes out,” I said. “We’ll need help unloading.”
The hospital sent out two techs to greet us. When they opened the back door, Victor was doing CPR. In the trauma room they opened Felipe’s chest and did open cardiac massage just like they did with Pat, but to no avail. With his head injury, it was surprising they even went that far.
“Wild scene, huh?” Victor said when he met me outside while I cleaned off the stretcher.
“Did you hear who shot him?”
“Yeah, an officer was just telling me. Joey Diaz’s sister.”
“Denny Creer told me she pulled out a 9 millimeter in the courthouse. I don’t know how she smuggled the gun in through the detectors, unless someone else got it in for her.”
“Yeah, I talked to dispatch. They said Melnick took one critical to Saint Fran.”
“This stuff is out of hand.”
“We’re killing ourselves off.”
“I felt bad for the old man.”
Victor just shook his head.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, I feel bad for him too. Hey, I meant to tell you. You threw a mean punch there.”
“I wasn’t thinking.”
“I’m not complaining.” He patted me on the back. “You did a good job.”
“You too, friend,” I said. “If anyone would have saved him, you would have. It’s good to have you back.”
“I can’t do this much longer,” he said, and went back inside.
A half hour later I went in to find Victor. Dispatch was asking us to clear. Jean Rushen told me he was in the trauma room. I found him standing next to Hector and Papi. Papi sat in his wheel chair, holding his grandson’s hand, his head lay against his boy’s side. Hector stood behind him, his eyes steely and dead. I left them there.
The police sent reinforcements to the ER to guard against the growing crowd that had migrated from the courthouse. People cried and screamed and beat their breasts.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Chapter 38
Pat’s wake was held on Wednesday night. The line out of the funeral parlor stretched for four blocks. There were EMTs, commercial and volunteer, police, fire, nurses and other people from the hospitals. I even saw some patients he’d treated, who must have recognized his photo in the papers or on the news.
Inside the funeral home, there was a display of pictures and memento’s from Pat’s life. A smiling four-year old made Popeye muscles at the beach. A Little Leaguer looked determined, batting helmet on his head, as he waited for the pitch. A sophomore in high school, hair to his shoulders, played the guitar. A high school senior posed for his class photo, his hair shorter, quite a handsome young man, the world before him. With Troy in Colorado, they both wore ten-gallon hats. Pat stood with his arm around Allison at Carbone’s just a few nights before, a ring around her finger, a smile of amazement on his face.
There were blue ribbons, a report card with A’s, an essay about his father he’d published in his college literary magazine, a copy of his paramedic license, postcards to his family from the places he’d traveled. There was a framed newspaper article -- the front page of the Courant the day Pat appeared on the cover carrying a child out of a burning building.
Allison stood next to his mother. She looked tired, strained, but they both stood and shook hands and talked with everyone who came through, thanking them for coming, hearing their remembrances of Pat.
Ahead of me in the line, a young EMT shook Allison’s hand and said, “Pat was a role model for all of us. He belongs to the city now.”
“No, he doesn’t,” she snapped. “He belongs to us.” She turned to hide her tears. Pat’s mother, touched the shocked young man on the shoulder and taking his hand, said, “You’re nice to come.”
“I’m sorry,” Allison said, composing herself. “This is just hard.”
Pat’s father had been in the receiving line, but he sat now in a chair before the casket. He was considerably older than Pat’s mom. He looked feeble.
I saw Troy out in the parking lot, smoking a rare cigarette. He’d been a part of the reception line, but had had to take a break. I mentioned how frail Pat’s father looked.
“He’s seventy-five years old,” Troy said. “He used to play baseball with us when we were kids. He’d be out there for hours throwing tennis balls at us as hard as he could. By the time we got to Little League, we could hit anything. He coached us and took us to the state’s regions, which was quite an accomplishment for a town of our size. He’s a doctor. Up until a couple days ago, he was still going into his office everyday.”
“How about you? How are you doing?”
He shook his head. “I should have been there,” he said.
“They shot him in the heart, Troy. You couldn’t have saved him.”
“I still should have been there.” He threw his cigarette down. “I’ve got to go back inside.”
They held the funeral service the next day in West Hartford. The turnout was remarkable. Police, Fire, and EMS came in full dress uniform. Ambulances came from every service in the state and from as far away as Georgia and Iowa – such was the bond of those who put their lives on the line in EMS. Services differences aside, fire, volunteer, municipal, or private ambulance, it didn’t matter, the people who did what Pat did -- worked the streets -- they came out.
The ambulances staged in a vast empty parking lot on Washington Street in Hartford. There were still ambulances in the parking lot when the first ambulances were reaching the church in West Hartford where the ceremony was held. The line of ambulances was over five miles long.
They closed down South Main Street and had us line up service by service in formation on the road in front of the church. The ceremony was broadcast by loudspeaker. The space in the church was limited. I chose to stand outside. I didn’t want to be in a confined space, didn’t want to have look again at the grief on the faces of Pat’s family. And besides I wanted to honor him and what he did with his life by standing with those he was a hero to – his brothers and sisters who worked the streets.
Billy Dalton gave the eulogy, his voice clear and strong through the speakers. “Pat was all of us on our best days. He taught us that there was as much glory in holding a patient’s hand, as in putting a tube down their throat, as much grace in a simple touch of a forehead as in compressing a dying heart. Because he stood among us, no one could look down on us. Because he was our partner, no one could say were not the best.
“Don’t think for a moment that he won’t live on within us -- that what Pat taught us will not be used and passed on. When a child is sick, when a grandmother struggles for breath, when a father is injured, and we are called upon to respond, Pat will be there with us, in our touch, in our words, in our belief in ourselves and what we are capable of. And on quiet nights when we grieve his loss as we will, close our eyes and listen, and his voice will be on the wind. “451, roger Laurel Street on a 1...451 clearing Hartford, George-11... 451, copy the backup on Bellevue.
“Pat always had our backs, now God has his.
“Watch out for our friend.”
As people filed out of the church, Scott Dykema and Scott Cummings played “Amazing Grace” on their bagpipes.
The Life Star helicopter made a pass overhead.
That night, we went out for beers and to reminisce about Pat. I don’t know if we went back to the Brickyard Pub to feel the pain of his passing or to remember the warmth that filled the place just a few nights before when we had all gathered there in what now seemed like a different age of our lives. There was no music, no dancing on this night. We were the only customers there.
People told stories about him; about the lives he’d saved, his amazing skills, the things he and Troy had done.
“Why Pat?” Audrey asked. “If you had to pick anyone who earned the right to live, I mean he didn’t have a single mean thing in him. If there were any job that would make you a nonbeliever it would be this. How can you believe in anything but death? How can you believe that you will ever be rewarded by anything but suffering? It makes me want to go out and drink, and fuck every good looking guy, and blow my money on Caribbean vacations and not give a good god dammed about anything.”
“Hey, I’m with you on that,” Victor said, “When do we leave?”
She punched his shoulder. “I’m serious. This isn’t right, it being Pat. He had so much more to give.”
“Maybe it’s a message,” Andrew said.
“What the fuck kind of message would that be?’ Audrey was hot. She was right up in Andrew’s face. “Like ‘Eat Shit and Die’ or ‘Have a Nice Life Go Fuck Yourself!’ Or ‘Be a Decent Guy -- Get Shot in the Heart!’”
“Easy,” Andrew held up his hand. “Maybe it just means live your life.”
“Hey, we’ll all drink to that,” Victor said, filling our beers from one of the pitchers on the table. “We can all drink to that.” He put his arm around Audrey, who wept. “We all miss him,” he said to her and gently kissed her head.
“It’ll never be the same without him and Troy on the street, that’s for sure,” she said.
At last call, Victor talked the bartender into selling us a six-pack to go wrapped in a brown bag. We got into our cars and drove to Lawrence Street. The drug dealers came out as we approached.
“Yo yo yo, I got Red Dancer,” one dealer said. “Red Dancer.”
“Fuck off,” Victor said.
We stood in the yard. Victor had taken a small wooden shrine out of his trunk. He’d built it out of plywood. Its roof was slanted like a church. Its front was open. Pat’s picture was taped inside. Victor lit a candle that illuminated the photo.
We each held a beer up in salute.
“To our brother,” Victor said.
“To Pat.”
We tipped our beers, spilling a taste into the earth.
“Always in our hearts. Never to be forgotten.”
We left offerings -- a Red Sox hat, a paramedic rocker, a book of matches from the Brickyard. Our bottles made a circle around the shrine.
Inside the funeral home, there was a display of pictures and memento’s from Pat’s life. A smiling four-year old made Popeye muscles at the beach. A Little Leaguer looked determined, batting helmet on his head, as he waited for the pitch. A sophomore in high school, hair to his shoulders, played the guitar. A high school senior posed for his class photo, his hair shorter, quite a handsome young man, the world before him. With Troy in Colorado, they both wore ten-gallon hats. Pat stood with his arm around Allison at Carbone’s just a few nights before, a ring around her finger, a smile of amazement on his face.
There were blue ribbons, a report card with A’s, an essay about his father he’d published in his college literary magazine, a copy of his paramedic license, postcards to his family from the places he’d traveled. There was a framed newspaper article -- the front page of the Courant the day Pat appeared on the cover carrying a child out of a burning building.
Allison stood next to his mother. She looked tired, strained, but they both stood and shook hands and talked with everyone who came through, thanking them for coming, hearing their remembrances of Pat.
Ahead of me in the line, a young EMT shook Allison’s hand and said, “Pat was a role model for all of us. He belongs to the city now.”
“No, he doesn’t,” she snapped. “He belongs to us.” She turned to hide her tears. Pat’s mother, touched the shocked young man on the shoulder and taking his hand, said, “You’re nice to come.”
“I’m sorry,” Allison said, composing herself. “This is just hard.”
Pat’s father had been in the receiving line, but he sat now in a chair before the casket. He was considerably older than Pat’s mom. He looked feeble.
I saw Troy out in the parking lot, smoking a rare cigarette. He’d been a part of the reception line, but had had to take a break. I mentioned how frail Pat’s father looked.
“He’s seventy-five years old,” Troy said. “He used to play baseball with us when we were kids. He’d be out there for hours throwing tennis balls at us as hard as he could. By the time we got to Little League, we could hit anything. He coached us and took us to the state’s regions, which was quite an accomplishment for a town of our size. He’s a doctor. Up until a couple days ago, he was still going into his office everyday.”
“How about you? How are you doing?”
He shook his head. “I should have been there,” he said.
“They shot him in the heart, Troy. You couldn’t have saved him.”
“I still should have been there.” He threw his cigarette down. “I’ve got to go back inside.”
They held the funeral service the next day in West Hartford. The turnout was remarkable. Police, Fire, and EMS came in full dress uniform. Ambulances came from every service in the state and from as far away as Georgia and Iowa – such was the bond of those who put their lives on the line in EMS. Services differences aside, fire, volunteer, municipal, or private ambulance, it didn’t matter, the people who did what Pat did -- worked the streets -- they came out.
The ambulances staged in a vast empty parking lot on Washington Street in Hartford. There were still ambulances in the parking lot when the first ambulances were reaching the church in West Hartford where the ceremony was held. The line of ambulances was over five miles long.
They closed down South Main Street and had us line up service by service in formation on the road in front of the church. The ceremony was broadcast by loudspeaker. The space in the church was limited. I chose to stand outside. I didn’t want to be in a confined space, didn’t want to have look again at the grief on the faces of Pat’s family. And besides I wanted to honor him and what he did with his life by standing with those he was a hero to – his brothers and sisters who worked the streets.
Billy Dalton gave the eulogy, his voice clear and strong through the speakers. “Pat was all of us on our best days. He taught us that there was as much glory in holding a patient’s hand, as in putting a tube down their throat, as much grace in a simple touch of a forehead as in compressing a dying heart. Because he stood among us, no one could look down on us. Because he was our partner, no one could say were not the best.
“Don’t think for a moment that he won’t live on within us -- that what Pat taught us will not be used and passed on. When a child is sick, when a grandmother struggles for breath, when a father is injured, and we are called upon to respond, Pat will be there with us, in our touch, in our words, in our belief in ourselves and what we are capable of. And on quiet nights when we grieve his loss as we will, close our eyes and listen, and his voice will be on the wind. “451, roger Laurel Street on a 1...451 clearing Hartford, George-11... 451, copy the backup on Bellevue.
“Pat always had our backs, now God has his.
“Watch out for our friend.”
As people filed out of the church, Scott Dykema and Scott Cummings played “Amazing Grace” on their bagpipes.
The Life Star helicopter made a pass overhead.
That night, we went out for beers and to reminisce about Pat. I don’t know if we went back to the Brickyard Pub to feel the pain of his passing or to remember the warmth that filled the place just a few nights before when we had all gathered there in what now seemed like a different age of our lives. There was no music, no dancing on this night. We were the only customers there.
People told stories about him; about the lives he’d saved, his amazing skills, the things he and Troy had done.
“Why Pat?” Audrey asked. “If you had to pick anyone who earned the right to live, I mean he didn’t have a single mean thing in him. If there were any job that would make you a nonbeliever it would be this. How can you believe in anything but death? How can you believe that you will ever be rewarded by anything but suffering? It makes me want to go out and drink, and fuck every good looking guy, and blow my money on Caribbean vacations and not give a good god dammed about anything.”
“Hey, I’m with you on that,” Victor said, “When do we leave?”
She punched his shoulder. “I’m serious. This isn’t right, it being Pat. He had so much more to give.”
“Maybe it’s a message,” Andrew said.
“What the fuck kind of message would that be?’ Audrey was hot. She was right up in Andrew’s face. “Like ‘Eat Shit and Die’ or ‘Have a Nice Life Go Fuck Yourself!’ Or ‘Be a Decent Guy -- Get Shot in the Heart!’”
“Easy,” Andrew held up his hand. “Maybe it just means live your life.”
“Hey, we’ll all drink to that,” Victor said, filling our beers from one of the pitchers on the table. “We can all drink to that.” He put his arm around Audrey, who wept. “We all miss him,” he said to her and gently kissed her head.
“It’ll never be the same without him and Troy on the street, that’s for sure,” she said.
At last call, Victor talked the bartender into selling us a six-pack to go wrapped in a brown bag. We got into our cars and drove to Lawrence Street. The drug dealers came out as we approached.
“Yo yo yo, I got Red Dancer,” one dealer said. “Red Dancer.”
“Fuck off,” Victor said.
We stood in the yard. Victor had taken a small wooden shrine out of his trunk. He’d built it out of plywood. Its roof was slanted like a church. Its front was open. Pat’s picture was taped inside. Victor lit a candle that illuminated the photo.
We each held a beer up in salute.
“To our brother,” Victor said.
“To Pat.”
We tipped our beers, spilling a taste into the earth.
“Always in our hearts. Never to be forgotten.”
We left offerings -- a Red Sox hat, a paramedic rocker, a book of matches from the Brickyard. Our bottles made a circle around the shrine.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Chapter 37
I drove downstate to Troy’s. His pickup was in the driveway, a light on in the house. The remnants of a bonfire burned in the front yard. A small pit had been dug, surrounded by stones. I saw burned ends of photos and newspaper clippings, blackened metal trophies, chards of glass from smashed frames. By the fire was a folding chair. Empty bottles of Budweiser were scattered on the ground.
I walked up the steps to the open front door. In the living room I saw Troy sitting on the couch. I saw a broken chair, a smashed lamp. The wall at several places looked dented with fist and head marks. His eyes were dark, inconsolate when he looked up at me.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Were you there?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Tell me.”
I told him what I knew. Pat and Audrey had responded to an unknown at the abandoned building on Lawrence Street. They’d gone in. There was a shot and Pat had fallen. Audrey was too shaken up to give a clear picture. The cops found a dead junkie in the building later, but from his rigor and livitity, he’d been long dead. They had no clues to go on.
“Why didn’t he wait?” Troy said suddenly. “He always does.”
“He didn’t,” I said.
“Everyone knows you’re supposed to wait for the cops on calls like that. If there’s any doubt, you wait. And what about his vest? He always wore a vest.”
“He stopped wearing it,” I said.
“What was he thinking – he’s invulnerable? Jesus, Pat.”
“I can’t believe he’s dead,” Troy said. “I should have been there to protect him. Here I’ve been these last months sitting on my duff living the good life, while you guys are getting killed up there. My friends.”
“There was nothing you could do,” I said.
“I could have saved him. You need me up there. I should never have let them force me out. I need to be back there. You need me up there.”
“Take it easy,” I said. “Now’s no time to make decisions.”
“Decisions? I’d be better off dead than feel like I do now.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said again.
I sat with him most of the night. A couple times I went out and got more lumber for the fire. He alternately ranted and wept.
I walked up the steps to the open front door. In the living room I saw Troy sitting on the couch. I saw a broken chair, a smashed lamp. The wall at several places looked dented with fist and head marks. His eyes were dark, inconsolate when he looked up at me.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Were you there?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Tell me.”
I told him what I knew. Pat and Audrey had responded to an unknown at the abandoned building on Lawrence Street. They’d gone in. There was a shot and Pat had fallen. Audrey was too shaken up to give a clear picture. The cops found a dead junkie in the building later, but from his rigor and livitity, he’d been long dead. They had no clues to go on.
“Why didn’t he wait?” Troy said suddenly. “He always does.”
“He didn’t,” I said.
“Everyone knows you’re supposed to wait for the cops on calls like that. If there’s any doubt, you wait. And what about his vest? He always wore a vest.”
“He stopped wearing it,” I said.
“What was he thinking – he’s invulnerable? Jesus, Pat.”
“I can’t believe he’s dead,” Troy said. “I should have been there to protect him. Here I’ve been these last months sitting on my duff living the good life, while you guys are getting killed up there. My friends.”
“There was nothing you could do,” I said.
“I could have saved him. You need me up there. I should never have let them force me out. I need to be back there. You need me up there.”
“Take it easy,” I said. “Now’s no time to make decisions.”
“Decisions? I’d be better off dead than feel like I do now.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said again.
I sat with him most of the night. A couple times I went out and got more lumber for the fire. He alternately ranted and wept.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Chapter 36
Friday evening. We were driving down Capitol Avenue, headed up to area 9.
My partner Andrew Melnick was on his cell phone arguing with his girlfriend. “It’s just going to be me and Tom and a couple of guys from the Fire Department. It’s a guy’s night out,” he said.
As we drove down Capitol Avenue, passing in between the state Library and the gold domed capitol, I saw 451 parked ahead under the Shell sign at Capitol and Broad. “I’m going to stop and say hi,” I said.
This time of day with the western sky red and rush hour long over, if they called our number, we could easily shoot up Farmington or hop on the highway without much time lost.
As I turned into the parking lot, Annie Moore and two men came out of Capitol Liquor. They walked quickly past the gas pumps and then disappeared down Broad Street. I parked next to 451 and then stepped out of the car. Pat rolled down his window.
“I haven’t seen a Friday this slow in a long time,” Pat said. “We’ve been sitting here for three hours, not an accident, not even a drunk.”
“It’ll change,” Audrey said. “Give Annie and her buddies an hour to get their liquor down if we don’t get another call before then. How are you, Lee?”
“Good,” I said. “Who’s winning the game?”
Pat had the Red Sox on. “Yankees,” he said. “Sox loaded the bases in the first, and couldn’t bring anyone in.”
“You think wearing a Yankees hat is helping the cause any?”
“I try not to look in the mirror. Besides…” He lifted his leg up and pulled his pant leg up over his black high top boots to reveal red socks. “I’ve got to keep the faith somehow.”
“Maybe they’ll rally like last night.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice? It’s probably pushing our luck to hope for it. Still we deserve a break for our suffering. The gods haven’t been too kind.”
“No kidding.”
“I was reading this book about the Red Sox by Peter Gammons. He was talking about his father. His father’s on his deathbed and his last words are “Son, maybe the Red Sox will win in your lifetime.”
“It’s got to happen sometime.”
“They ever get in the series I’m getting tickets and taking my Dad. I don’t care what the scalpers ask for. You’d have to be there for that.”
On the radio I heard a roar. The announcer said, “Way back. Way back. Gone. Bernie Williams has hit a three run homer to put the Yankees…”
Pat turned the radio off. “I don’t think this is going to be the year.”
“It’s got to happen sometime.”
“451,” dispatch called.
“51,” Audrey answered.
“451, Take Lawrence Street for the unknown. 2nd floor. Third party caller. Wait for the PD.”
“Lawrence. The junkie motel. A little narcan maybe.”
“You want us to back you up?”
“No, we’ll be all right. We’ll call if we need you.”
I watched them pull out, lights whirling. They headed down Broad Street, their reflection visible in the windows of the Capitol Apartments across the street. The evening breeze, which had been dormant, picked up and I felt a slight chill against my face.
Andrew was just getting off the phone. “She’s driving me nuts,” he said. “Where are they going? I had the radio down.”
‘Lawrence Street for the unknown.”
“Let’s follow them. You never know at that address. Maybe it’ll be a double OD.”
We followed. It was only a few blocks away. As we approached the address we saw Pat and Audrey wheel their stretcher across the walkway overgrown with weeds. They stopped at the base of the stairs. You, Pat, took the blue bag off the stretcher and threw it over your shoulder. You grabbed the heart monitor, while Audrey carried the green oxygen cylinder. You stepped up onto the porch. Was it Troy’s Yankee hat that made you look invincible? How strong did you feel as you strode forward through the open front door, and disappeared from our sight.
We parked behind 451, its lights still on. We stepped out and turned our radios on.
I heard a pop pop. Then a scream. Audrey.
“Get down,” I said to Andrew. I ran toward the building, instinctively staying low.
“51! 51!” She cried on the radio.
“Come in 51!”
“Everyone quiet!” the dispatcher shouted. “51 what do you have!”
I scaled the porch steps in two strides, then pressed myself to the side of the door. I heard a wild sob.
I peered in quickly. It was dark. Audrey her back to me was on her knees. I thought I saw Pat on the ground in front of her. “82,” I said. “We’re out with 51, Send cops. Now.”
“82 what do you have?”
I stepped inside, my eyes quickly scanning the dark room as I approached Audrey. “Pat’s down. We need help now.”
“What do you mean he’s down? 82 come in.”
Audrey kneeled over him. “He shot him,” she said. “The man and the woman they were fighting, and Pat tried to break it up and he turned and shot him. And they ran.”
She pointed down the hallway. Her arm trembled. I saw no movement, nothing.
I rolled Pat onto his side. His head rolled to the side, his body flaccid. He wasn’t breathing. I tore his shirt off. With my flashlight I saw two holes in his chest. I didn’t need to feel his neck.
I heard a sound behind me and turned to see Andrew in the doorway. “He’s in arrest,” I said, “You need to tube him now. I’ll get the board. Audrey, you have to do compressions.”
She looked at me as if she didn’t understand.
“Start CPR,” I said.
She nodded, and got down on her knees and put her hands on his chest. Andrew reached for Pat’s bag. I rose quickly, stumbled on the heart monitor, as I brushed past Andrew, kept my balance and ran outside. I tripped on the bottom step, and tumbled hard against the ground, hitting my shoulder and knee. I rose quickly. My hand was bloodied. I hurried to the ambulance. I pulled out a long board and straps and ran back inside.
Andrew had his hand down Pat’s throat, struggling to get an ET tube into his trachea.
“Are you in?”
“I don’t know. I can’t quite feel it.”
“Are your fingers long enough? I’ll get your scope.”
“No, I’m in. I think I’ve got it.”
I attached the ambu bag. I squeezed it, while Andrew listened over the belly and lungs. “It’s good. It’s good.”
“Okay, let’s get him on the board.”
Andrew taped the tube down. Audrey kept up the compressions on Pat’s chest. I positioned the board at his side, and then altogether on my count, we rolled him on his side and slid the board under him. We tied the three straps across his body, clipping them to the board. “Unhook the ambu bag,” I said to Andrew. “Let’s make our run for it. I’ll take the head. You get the feet. Audrey watch my back. Right outside now. On three.”
I could hear sirens approaching. Andrew set the ambu bag across Pat’s chest, and we lifted up. My knee throbbed. Pat was two hundred pounds. Andrew struggled to hold his end up. For a moment I thought we were going to drop him, but I was able to raise hard with my right arm to counter balance Andrew, then I leaned against the wall with my left shoulder. “Have to hold on. Clear the way, Audrey.”
As we stepped through the door out into the dusk, I could see the lights of police cruisers and a Capitol fly car. I felt another hand on my shoulder.
“We’ve got it,” Ben Seurat said. “I’ve got this end with Lee. Help Andrew.” Brian Sajack took the foot end with Andrew.
“How is he?” Ben asked.
I shook my head.
“Oh, Christ,” Ben said looking at his lifeless face.
We made it down the stairs and laid Pat and the board down on the stretcher, then pushed him across the weeds. We lifted upon the stretcher, carrying it more than rolling. I looked back and saw Troy’s Yankee hat fall off Pat’s head. I tried to grab it, but it slipped from my fingers and we had to keep moving. I looked at Pat, the tube coming out of his mouth, Audrey still pounding on his chest, as she rode the side of the stretcher. It had to be a bad dream. I desperately wanted to wake up in a cold sweat. I nearly stumbled again as my knee almost gave way.
We lifted Pat into the back. Andrew, Audrey, Brian and Ben all climbed in, Andrew taking the head, Audrey doing compressions, while Ben reached for Pat’s arm, and Brian grabbed an IV bag from the shelf. “Drive!” Ben shouted at me.
“What happened?” Denny Creer leaned in the back.
“He’s shot,” Brian said, “We’re leaving.”
I limped around to the front, and put the car in gear.
“Drive!” Ben shouted again.
A police car led the way in front of me. Two followed behind. At each intersection, police cars appeared to block traffic as I sped toward the hospital.
I radioed. “Gunshot to the chest.” My voice cracked. “CPR in progress. One of our own.”
A crowd waited outside the ER. I saw Dr. Eckstein, Raul Martinez, Candy Bird, and two Capitol Ambulance crews. They had the doors open before I had even put the ambulance in park. I opened the outside door as the procession rolled him in. Everyone gathered around the stretcher -- Audrey not relinquishing compressions, Ben holding up two IVs, Andrew bagging. Raul pulled the front of the stretcher. “He got intubated right away,” Ben told Dr. Eckstein. “He’s gotten an epi down the tube, one epi and one atropine IV. He’s been in asystole the whole way. It started getting harder to bag as we pulled in. I popped his right chest as we pulled in.”
In the trauma room, they cracked his chest with the rib spreaders. Blood splashed all over the floor and onto Dr. Eckstein’s white lab coat. I watched as Dr. Eckstein reached her hand in and squeezed Pat’s heart. They opened up the blood bank. After twenty minutes a trauma resident wanted to call it, but Mary O’Toole told him, “No, keep going.”
“He’s asystole.”
She glared at him.
“Keep going,” Dr. Eckstein said quietly.
I found out later they called in volunteer ambulances from the suburbs – Bloomfield, Windsor, Newington, Granby, Canton, Windsor Locks, Glastonbury and others -- to handle city calls while nearly every crew of ours held vigil at the hospital. The trauma team worked him for over an hour. Dr. Eckstein didn’t call it until she had seen the assent in each of our faces. It was time. I stood in the room watching them disconnect the monitors, unhook the ventilator, and then sew his battered body back up. Mary covered his naked body up to his neck in a warm white blanket until they brought the body bag. The floor was pooled with blood and medical wrappers. I heard a page for environmental services to report to the trauma room.
Then I heard screaming from the hallway. Raul Martinez and two nurses held back Allison who howled like a wounded animal. She screamed “No! No!” Her face was angry and wild. She scratched Raul and kicked at him. “He’s not dead! He’s not dead!” she shouted. “Let me see him! I want to see him!”
Raul and the nurses held her while a now crying Dr. Eckstein sedated her.
I felt suddenly dizzy and had to sit down. I held my head between my knees. I felt a hand on my shoulder, but felt too nauseous to even look up.
“God bless you poor boys,” Mary O’Toole said.
Later I wandered to the snack room where I found Andrew. His eyes were red. He wouldn’t look at me when I asked him if he was okay.
“You did the best you could,” I said.
“I should have got the tube quicker.”
“Andrew, he died before he hit the floor.”
“I didn’t save him.”
“No one was going to save him.”
“Troy would have.”
“No, and he wasn’t there. You were. That’s what matters. You tried. He would have been proud of you.”
Andrew just shook his head. He didn’t speak.
I sat down next to him.
My shoulder and knee throbbed, my head hurt. I felt like my muscles, my chest, were empty.
My partner Andrew Melnick was on his cell phone arguing with his girlfriend. “It’s just going to be me and Tom and a couple of guys from the Fire Department. It’s a guy’s night out,” he said.
As we drove down Capitol Avenue, passing in between the state Library and the gold domed capitol, I saw 451 parked ahead under the Shell sign at Capitol and Broad. “I’m going to stop and say hi,” I said.
This time of day with the western sky red and rush hour long over, if they called our number, we could easily shoot up Farmington or hop on the highway without much time lost.
As I turned into the parking lot, Annie Moore and two men came out of Capitol Liquor. They walked quickly past the gas pumps and then disappeared down Broad Street. I parked next to 451 and then stepped out of the car. Pat rolled down his window.
“I haven’t seen a Friday this slow in a long time,” Pat said. “We’ve been sitting here for three hours, not an accident, not even a drunk.”
“It’ll change,” Audrey said. “Give Annie and her buddies an hour to get their liquor down if we don’t get another call before then. How are you, Lee?”
“Good,” I said. “Who’s winning the game?”
Pat had the Red Sox on. “Yankees,” he said. “Sox loaded the bases in the first, and couldn’t bring anyone in.”
“You think wearing a Yankees hat is helping the cause any?”
“I try not to look in the mirror. Besides…” He lifted his leg up and pulled his pant leg up over his black high top boots to reveal red socks. “I’ve got to keep the faith somehow.”
“Maybe they’ll rally like last night.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice? It’s probably pushing our luck to hope for it. Still we deserve a break for our suffering. The gods haven’t been too kind.”
“No kidding.”
“I was reading this book about the Red Sox by Peter Gammons. He was talking about his father. His father’s on his deathbed and his last words are “Son, maybe the Red Sox will win in your lifetime.”
“It’s got to happen sometime.”
“They ever get in the series I’m getting tickets and taking my Dad. I don’t care what the scalpers ask for. You’d have to be there for that.”
On the radio I heard a roar. The announcer said, “Way back. Way back. Gone. Bernie Williams has hit a three run homer to put the Yankees…”
Pat turned the radio off. “I don’t think this is going to be the year.”
“It’s got to happen sometime.”
“451,” dispatch called.
“51,” Audrey answered.
“451, Take Lawrence Street for the unknown. 2nd floor. Third party caller. Wait for the PD.”
“Lawrence. The junkie motel. A little narcan maybe.”
“You want us to back you up?”
“No, we’ll be all right. We’ll call if we need you.”
I watched them pull out, lights whirling. They headed down Broad Street, their reflection visible in the windows of the Capitol Apartments across the street. The evening breeze, which had been dormant, picked up and I felt a slight chill against my face.
Andrew was just getting off the phone. “She’s driving me nuts,” he said. “Where are they going? I had the radio down.”
‘Lawrence Street for the unknown.”
“Let’s follow them. You never know at that address. Maybe it’ll be a double OD.”
We followed. It was only a few blocks away. As we approached the address we saw Pat and Audrey wheel their stretcher across the walkway overgrown with weeds. They stopped at the base of the stairs. You, Pat, took the blue bag off the stretcher and threw it over your shoulder. You grabbed the heart monitor, while Audrey carried the green oxygen cylinder. You stepped up onto the porch. Was it Troy’s Yankee hat that made you look invincible? How strong did you feel as you strode forward through the open front door, and disappeared from our sight.
We parked behind 451, its lights still on. We stepped out and turned our radios on.
I heard a pop pop. Then a scream. Audrey.
“Get down,” I said to Andrew. I ran toward the building, instinctively staying low.
“51! 51!” She cried on the radio.
“Come in 51!”
“Everyone quiet!” the dispatcher shouted. “51 what do you have!”
I scaled the porch steps in two strides, then pressed myself to the side of the door. I heard a wild sob.
I peered in quickly. It was dark. Audrey her back to me was on her knees. I thought I saw Pat on the ground in front of her. “82,” I said. “We’re out with 51, Send cops. Now.”
“82 what do you have?”
I stepped inside, my eyes quickly scanning the dark room as I approached Audrey. “Pat’s down. We need help now.”
“What do you mean he’s down? 82 come in.”
Audrey kneeled over him. “He shot him,” she said. “The man and the woman they were fighting, and Pat tried to break it up and he turned and shot him. And they ran.”
She pointed down the hallway. Her arm trembled. I saw no movement, nothing.
I rolled Pat onto his side. His head rolled to the side, his body flaccid. He wasn’t breathing. I tore his shirt off. With my flashlight I saw two holes in his chest. I didn’t need to feel his neck.
I heard a sound behind me and turned to see Andrew in the doorway. “He’s in arrest,” I said, “You need to tube him now. I’ll get the board. Audrey, you have to do compressions.”
She looked at me as if she didn’t understand.
“Start CPR,” I said.
She nodded, and got down on her knees and put her hands on his chest. Andrew reached for Pat’s bag. I rose quickly, stumbled on the heart monitor, as I brushed past Andrew, kept my balance and ran outside. I tripped on the bottom step, and tumbled hard against the ground, hitting my shoulder and knee. I rose quickly. My hand was bloodied. I hurried to the ambulance. I pulled out a long board and straps and ran back inside.
Andrew had his hand down Pat’s throat, struggling to get an ET tube into his trachea.
“Are you in?”
“I don’t know. I can’t quite feel it.”
“Are your fingers long enough? I’ll get your scope.”
“No, I’m in. I think I’ve got it.”
I attached the ambu bag. I squeezed it, while Andrew listened over the belly and lungs. “It’s good. It’s good.”
“Okay, let’s get him on the board.”
Andrew taped the tube down. Audrey kept up the compressions on Pat’s chest. I positioned the board at his side, and then altogether on my count, we rolled him on his side and slid the board under him. We tied the three straps across his body, clipping them to the board. “Unhook the ambu bag,” I said to Andrew. “Let’s make our run for it. I’ll take the head. You get the feet. Audrey watch my back. Right outside now. On three.”
I could hear sirens approaching. Andrew set the ambu bag across Pat’s chest, and we lifted up. My knee throbbed. Pat was two hundred pounds. Andrew struggled to hold his end up. For a moment I thought we were going to drop him, but I was able to raise hard with my right arm to counter balance Andrew, then I leaned against the wall with my left shoulder. “Have to hold on. Clear the way, Audrey.”
As we stepped through the door out into the dusk, I could see the lights of police cruisers and a Capitol fly car. I felt another hand on my shoulder.
“We’ve got it,” Ben Seurat said. “I’ve got this end with Lee. Help Andrew.” Brian Sajack took the foot end with Andrew.
“How is he?” Ben asked.
I shook my head.
“Oh, Christ,” Ben said looking at his lifeless face.
We made it down the stairs and laid Pat and the board down on the stretcher, then pushed him across the weeds. We lifted upon the stretcher, carrying it more than rolling. I looked back and saw Troy’s Yankee hat fall off Pat’s head. I tried to grab it, but it slipped from my fingers and we had to keep moving. I looked at Pat, the tube coming out of his mouth, Audrey still pounding on his chest, as she rode the side of the stretcher. It had to be a bad dream. I desperately wanted to wake up in a cold sweat. I nearly stumbled again as my knee almost gave way.
We lifted Pat into the back. Andrew, Audrey, Brian and Ben all climbed in, Andrew taking the head, Audrey doing compressions, while Ben reached for Pat’s arm, and Brian grabbed an IV bag from the shelf. “Drive!” Ben shouted at me.
“What happened?” Denny Creer leaned in the back.
“He’s shot,” Brian said, “We’re leaving.”
I limped around to the front, and put the car in gear.
“Drive!” Ben shouted again.
A police car led the way in front of me. Two followed behind. At each intersection, police cars appeared to block traffic as I sped toward the hospital.
I radioed. “Gunshot to the chest.” My voice cracked. “CPR in progress. One of our own.”
A crowd waited outside the ER. I saw Dr. Eckstein, Raul Martinez, Candy Bird, and two Capitol Ambulance crews. They had the doors open before I had even put the ambulance in park. I opened the outside door as the procession rolled him in. Everyone gathered around the stretcher -- Audrey not relinquishing compressions, Ben holding up two IVs, Andrew bagging. Raul pulled the front of the stretcher. “He got intubated right away,” Ben told Dr. Eckstein. “He’s gotten an epi down the tube, one epi and one atropine IV. He’s been in asystole the whole way. It started getting harder to bag as we pulled in. I popped his right chest as we pulled in.”
In the trauma room, they cracked his chest with the rib spreaders. Blood splashed all over the floor and onto Dr. Eckstein’s white lab coat. I watched as Dr. Eckstein reached her hand in and squeezed Pat’s heart. They opened up the blood bank. After twenty minutes a trauma resident wanted to call it, but Mary O’Toole told him, “No, keep going.”
“He’s asystole.”
She glared at him.
“Keep going,” Dr. Eckstein said quietly.
I found out later they called in volunteer ambulances from the suburbs – Bloomfield, Windsor, Newington, Granby, Canton, Windsor Locks, Glastonbury and others -- to handle city calls while nearly every crew of ours held vigil at the hospital. The trauma team worked him for over an hour. Dr. Eckstein didn’t call it until she had seen the assent in each of our faces. It was time. I stood in the room watching them disconnect the monitors, unhook the ventilator, and then sew his battered body back up. Mary covered his naked body up to his neck in a warm white blanket until they brought the body bag. The floor was pooled with blood and medical wrappers. I heard a page for environmental services to report to the trauma room.
Then I heard screaming from the hallway. Raul Martinez and two nurses held back Allison who howled like a wounded animal. She screamed “No! No!” Her face was angry and wild. She scratched Raul and kicked at him. “He’s not dead! He’s not dead!” she shouted. “Let me see him! I want to see him!”
Raul and the nurses held her while a now crying Dr. Eckstein sedated her.
I felt suddenly dizzy and had to sit down. I held my head between my knees. I felt a hand on my shoulder, but felt too nauseous to even look up.
“God bless you poor boys,” Mary O’Toole said.
Later I wandered to the snack room where I found Andrew. His eyes were red. He wouldn’t look at me when I asked him if he was okay.
“You did the best you could,” I said.
“I should have got the tube quicker.”
“Andrew, he died before he hit the floor.”
“I didn’t save him.”
“No one was going to save him.”
“Troy would have.”
“No, and he wasn’t there. You were. That’s what matters. You tried. He would have been proud of you.”
Andrew just shook his head. He didn’t speak.
I sat down next to him.
My shoulder and knee throbbed, my head hurt. I felt like my muscles, my chest, were empty.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Chapter 35
I went out for a beer with Victor a few nights later at the Brickyard Pub on Park Street in West Hartford. He’d lost his medical control to practice as a paramedic pending investigation. He’d had an asthma patient go into respiratory, then cardiac arrest. He’d been unable to get the intubation. They suspended him because he’d spent too much time on scene. Medical control said if he hadn’t been able to get the tube on his second try, he should have just bagged the patient with a face mask while his partner drove to the hospital.
At the bar, Victor told me how the first two times he went in for the tube, the chords were closed in a bronchospasm. The third time they were open, but he couldn’t maneuver the tube through the chords. He thought about cricking her – puncturing her throat with a large bore needle – gaining an airway, though a small one to ventilate through -- but he held off. The fourth time he was sure he’d get the tube, but it just wouldn’t go in. Same with the fifth. By then it was too late. Even though he was ventilating her with the bag mask in between attempts, he wasn’t getting enough oxygen in. He’d made his stand and lost. He finally got the tube on his sixth try.
With the aid of an IV in her neck and several rounds of epinephrine, he got the woman back, but she suffered brain injury from the hypoxia. No one would have thought anything of it, but she was the wife of a neurologist at one of the local hospitals, and he was making a case about it. He’d watched Victor’s struggle along with the other members of the dinner party. Of course none of it would have happened if she’d gone to the hospital when she first felt short of breath. Or if her husband had called 911 when after several puffs from her inhaler she wasn’t getting any better. But her husband didn’t want to leave the bigwig function they were attending. He’d waited till she was on the verge of collapse. She stopped breathing two minutes before Victor even arrived. He just didn’t get the tube in time. He admitted he screwed up. He should have cricked her, or at least reshaped the tube or repositioned her head when he went back in, something to give him a better chance. He was playing with no margin of error, and he’d let himself get rattled. That was the thing about this job. A major leaguer strikes out with the bases loaded or let’s a ground ball go through his legs on national TV, and he’s a goat, but a paramedic makes an error and someone dies or is disabled for life.
Victor would have been all right if he’d just packaged her and bagged her and pumped on her chest as he made his way to the hospital. He never would have gotten her back, but he would not have faced the same scrutiny. Now with the suspension, he could still work on the ambulance, but not as a paramedic. Victor had to wear masking tape over his paramedic rocker. Many medics would have found the experience humiliating, but Victor didn’t let anything show. “Long as they’re still paying me,” he said. “Besides I don’t even think I’m going to fight it. I need a life change anyway.” He nodded to the bartender to refill our mugs.
“You shouldn’t do anything rash,” I said. I tossed a twenty on the bar.
“That’s the same thing Ben said to me, but I’ve always been rash, and my problem is I haven’t been rash enough in my own life to be true to myself. I need to be rash. That’s who I am. That’s how I have to live. I should have divorced my wife two years ago when I fell out of love with her and I should have quit this job when I got tired of it. I’m thinking about becoming a bounty hunter. You can make some real money at that work.”
“Bounty hunting?”
“Yeah, you use your brain and your brawn. You’re your own man, all you have to do is bring in the bad guy. There’s good money in it. And you’re helping to keep the streets clean.”
“Why don’t you just become a cop?”
“Not with my past. Wouldn’t happen. They’d say thank you, and here’s the door.”
“You should stay here. You’re a good medic. People will stand up for you. Maybe at worst you’ll be suspended for a few weeks. We need you out here.”
“No, its time for me to move on. Times are changing. The old people -- the people I started here with -- are all leaving. I don’t want to end up like Nestor, with nothing else to do but remembering how it used to be. Life’s full of opportunities. I look on this as a break -- a good one.”
Pat and Denny Creer and a couple other guys who used to work for Capitol showed up and joined us at the bar. “I hope you don’t mind we invited some other people down,” Pat said.
“The more the merrier.”
Word of the party spread. As the night went on we were joined by more and more of our fellow workers and friends. There was Rick Ortyl and Howard Rapacky. Kim Quinn and Quentin Babbitt. Chris Dennis and Rod Furtado. Darren Regini and Melody Voyer. Aaron Dix and his wife Penny. Greg Berryman and Bob Mosebach. Craig Walton dropped by with his new girlfriend. Wendy Albino was there and Annette O’Callahan and her sister Kelly. Alan Goodman, Butch Fetzer, Alan Sklar and Dan Leger all came down along with others as they got off their shifts.
We ordered beer by the pitcher and had trays of hourdevers, buffalo wings, french fries, and nachos spread out on the tables that we pushed together.
A DJ played requests and people danced.
In the newspaper that day they had run a profile of twenty of the city’s movers and shakers – all telling their experiences of Hartford. But I thought that night as I watched my coworkers live in their moment, that in this room, in this bar, was a collective experience of Hartford that dwarfed what the papers had. These people’s lives were inextricably linked with the life of the city. They had been in its mansions and its tenements. They’d been to the top floors of the city’s tallest buildings to treat sick executives and they’d taken care of homeless men under the highway. They’d been on center court at the Civic Center to take care of injured athletes before crowds of thousands, and they’d been behind the counters at fast food restaurants for injured workers. They’d been to city hall, and on the floor of the state legislature and in the dinning room of the Governor’s mansion. They’d worked thousands of morning rush hour MVAs and evening rush hour MVAs and lone car crashes in the middle of the night. They’d been in barbershops, nail salons, and massage parlors. They’d carried old men out of their lifelong houses for the last time, been in high school gyms and classrooms, seen card games in back rooms, done shootings in hallways, alleys and on street corners. Rich or homeless, it didn’t matter, your name got written on their trip reports. South End, North End, West End, Dutch Point, Bellevue Square, Barry Circle, Asylum Hill, Downtown, Charter Oak Rice Heights, Stowe Village -- this was their territory, their town, their ground, their land. Pick up the newspaper. Read about the accidents; they got the patients out of the cars. Read about the shootings; they were with them on the race to the hospital. Read the obituary papers; they were the ones who touched their cold stiff bodies and pronounced the time. They were the ones into who’s arms came the crying infants, struggling to an uncertain future.
I sat with Pat, Victor and Brian Sajack, who told stories of medics who hadn’t worked the streets for years, but who still existed as legends.
“There was Joe Lancaster. He was a handsome guy; looked a lot like Troy, except he was six-foot ten, two-hundred-sixty pounds of lean muscle, arms like tree trunks. He played basketball in Europe for a couple years. A gentle giant. He could pick up a two-hundred-twenty pound woman in his arms and carry her down the stairs like she was a baby. He could rip a car door off like it was made out of tin foil. And you think Troy can sweet talk madmen, Lancaster could sweet talk a psych just by whispering soft words in his ear, and touching his arm. It was like he had Haldol breath.”
“Then there was Jim Harris. He once intubated eight people on a single call. Guy tried to kill himself by sitting in his garage running the engine. He succeeded, but he also almost killed his wife and seven kids. The Fire department dragged them all out of the house unconscious, several not breathing. Harris went right down the line. 8.5 for the husband. Number 8 for the mom. 7.5 for the sixteen-year-old. 7 for the fifteen-year-old. 6.5 for the eleven year old. 6 for the ten-year-old. 5.5 for the five-year-old. 5.0 for the four-year-old, and a 4 for the two-year-old. He had the fire department doing CPR on five of them that were in arrest. Between his rig and the fire department they only had five ambu bags, so he was switching in between patients to keep them all ventilated. I was in the first ambulance that arrived to back them up. Amazing sight. He was calm as can be. Five of them made it. Harris’s in computers now, somewhere up near Boston.”
“What about that animal guy?”
“Michael Fink? That guy was crazy. He was always running into strange animal calls. Pythons, bats, bulls, bee swarms, baby alligators, spider monkeys and even once a pet tiger. He was like Marlon Perkins. It got so anybody had to deal with any kind of animal on their call, they’d call for Marlon Perkins for an intercept. Michael Lambert and Kelly Tierney are at a call. They find a guy rolling around on the floor with an iguana trying to bite his neck off. The iguana’s clamped down hard and the guy is in serious pain and looking a little dusky. Mike and Kelly tried beating the iguana with a stick. They just couldn’t get him off. Fink takes one look at the iguana, goes in the garage, comes back with some motor oil, and pours it on the guy’s neck. The iguana lets go as soon as that nasty oil hits his lips. Amazing. Believe it or not, Fink works for the Cleveland Zoo.”
“Davey Nestor was something too. A whirl of energy. You know when you get tired in between calls, you dog it a little, take your time cleaning the rig, finishing your paperwork, catching a breather. Not Davey. One call after another. He was always on the go. He loved this job. Only one I ever saw run to calls. He was always taking the stairs two at a time. He hurt his hip, and then he had to wobble to calls. He had bad eating habits. I think he suffered from depression. He was a lesson in how even the most fit body can fall apart and that you can’t take anything for granted. You’ve probably all heard his stories. He told them all a hundred times, but what you don’t ever hear is just how sweet he was with his patients. That man could hold an old lady’s hand. He was a charmer, one that could put Rhett Butler or even Pat here to shame. I was on a call with him once. An old woman fell, hurt her hip, shit herself. She was so embarassased. Davey completely cleaned her before we left the house, got a warm towel, and when he was done, put a little dab of perfume on her, so she’d smell nice and feel like a woman again, instead of a broken down sitting in her diarrhea lost soul, contemplating her decay and approaching death. It’s a shame anyone who only knew Davey in his last days, didn’t see the man he was.”
“I’ll second that,” Victor said. “He did become an ass in later life, but only after life beat the goodness out of him.”
“Whatever happened to Joe Lancaster?” I asked.
Brian and Victor looked at each other and I saw a bit of sadness there.
“No one really knows,” Brian said. “He just didn’t come to work one day. Disappeared. There’s more to it than that of course. He was in love with a woman who worked here, Susan Holden. Susan was married to another paramedic, and they had a tempestuous marriage. They loved each other, but they were always fighting over money or one thing or the other. They had a child with cystic fibrosis and he was a strain on them. I think she may have seen in Joe another life. He never acted on it – at least that I know of it -- but they were close. He’d been her preceptor. She could talk to him. They were lovers in conversation. What happened was this. They got called to back up her husband on an overdose. They get there and find the junkie puking because Scott Holden has just given him some narcan. The junkie is angry and cussing. He grabs his syringe and confronts Scott like he’s going to stab him. Joe steps in, but before he can even say a word, the junkie stabs him with the syringe. Time stops. The needle is sticking out of Joe’s stomach. He’s looking at it like maybe he’s looking at his own death. Joe takes it out, drops it on the floor, steps on it, then out come those sweet words, and he sooths the junkie down. Even talks him into coming into the hospital and seeing someone about detoxing. The man does go to detox and is one of the rare ones who actually makes it. He’s a well-known city minister today. He’s even been on the Oprah show. But Joe six months later starts to get night sweats, starts losing weight, looking real gaunt. We told him he ought to get checked after he’d been hit with that needle, but he wouldn’t even report it. One day he just doesn’t come to work, sends word that he’s quitting. He moves out of his apartment. Never seen again. What we know is this. The minister has HIV. Its one of the things he champions the cause of, is very up front about. Susan and Carl Holden get a life insurance check in the mail, made out to them. One afternoon, not long after, I see the minister standing up on Zion Hill with a little urn. He’s throwing ashes up into the wind, tears rolling down his eyes. I asked him what he was doing, he says, ‘Bringing home a good man.’”
We were quiet.
“I like that story,” Pat said. “I’ve heard it before. I can see that, I can see him doing that. I think that’s nice.”
“Your ashes over the city, I want to be as far away from here as I can when I die.”
“There is more to life than work, but there is something to be said for doing a job well, and being proud of who you are and what you’ve done. Maybe he was that way.”
The DJ announced a dance contest and people paired off. Audrey Davis dragged Victor to the dance floor. The DJs tapped the pairs on the shoulder till there were just three couples in the middle and the DJ had us shout for who we liked best. Victor twirled Audrey around like she weighed fifty pounds. The crowd loved it. Hooping and hollering. They played it for everything. They danced like they were all making love.
When they announced Victor and Audrey as the winners, they bowed and the DJ gave them a coupon for a free pitcher of beer, which the waitress brought and Victor held it a loft like it was a golden trophy.
“I’ve got to go,” Pat said. “Allison’s waiting up.”
“You’re whipped!” Victor said. “Look at him. He’s whipped.”
“I believe I am. Yes, I believe so.”
“Well, here’s to you then. We all wish we were whipped again ourselves. It beats not giving a fuck.”
“I appreciate that.”
“The guys here want you to tell Allison to send us our socks back now that her door is no longer open.”
“Well, since they were all too small for my feet, she already donated them to the dwarf orphanage.”
“Good one! Here’s to you compadre!”
“Hey before you go,” Victor said. “We’ve got to have a last round of toasts. Everybody get a beer and get your drink and stand with us now.” He raised his beer aloft. “To a night like night’s past, a night we will always remember if not in the morning, then maybe deep in our failing hearts on dark lonely nights years from now when we’re rotting away in the nursing home or freezing on the city streets. Or in your case Pat, smoking a pipe with a brood of grandchildren playing around before you and the Mrs. in front of the grand fireplace in your big white house on the hill, you lucky bastard.”
“Here’s to you Pat.”
“Thank you,” Pat said, “And here’s to you Victor. We hope you stay with us.”
“Here, here,” people seconded.
“And let’s drink a toast to Troy. May he join us again.”
“To Troy!”
The toasts went on.
“Here’s to Joe Lancaster and his ashes swirling about us.”
“Here’s to Davey Nestor. I miss the old grouch.”
“How can we forget the old man himself. To Sidney!”
“To Sidney!”
Everyone went about the room and proposed toasts to those among us, those departed, and those we might yet see again.
“How about you, Lee, you have a toast for us.”
“I do,” I said. “To all of you here. You are as fine a bunch of drunks as I’ve ever had the pleasure to know. I’m glad to be among you. Here’s to you. This night was well made.”
And we all raised our beers and drank. And the music played and we drank some more. People left and others stayed. Victor slow danced with Audrey. Andrew Melnick made out with his girlfriend in the corner. I saw Kim watching me from our table and I smiled back at her. I gave the DJ a twenty-dollar tip. He played Louis Armstrong for me. “Wonderful World.”
At the bar, Victor told me how the first two times he went in for the tube, the chords were closed in a bronchospasm. The third time they were open, but he couldn’t maneuver the tube through the chords. He thought about cricking her – puncturing her throat with a large bore needle – gaining an airway, though a small one to ventilate through -- but he held off. The fourth time he was sure he’d get the tube, but it just wouldn’t go in. Same with the fifth. By then it was too late. Even though he was ventilating her with the bag mask in between attempts, he wasn’t getting enough oxygen in. He’d made his stand and lost. He finally got the tube on his sixth try.
With the aid of an IV in her neck and several rounds of epinephrine, he got the woman back, but she suffered brain injury from the hypoxia. No one would have thought anything of it, but she was the wife of a neurologist at one of the local hospitals, and he was making a case about it. He’d watched Victor’s struggle along with the other members of the dinner party. Of course none of it would have happened if she’d gone to the hospital when she first felt short of breath. Or if her husband had called 911 when after several puffs from her inhaler she wasn’t getting any better. But her husband didn’t want to leave the bigwig function they were attending. He’d waited till she was on the verge of collapse. She stopped breathing two minutes before Victor even arrived. He just didn’t get the tube in time. He admitted he screwed up. He should have cricked her, or at least reshaped the tube or repositioned her head when he went back in, something to give him a better chance. He was playing with no margin of error, and he’d let himself get rattled. That was the thing about this job. A major leaguer strikes out with the bases loaded or let’s a ground ball go through his legs on national TV, and he’s a goat, but a paramedic makes an error and someone dies or is disabled for life.
Victor would have been all right if he’d just packaged her and bagged her and pumped on her chest as he made his way to the hospital. He never would have gotten her back, but he would not have faced the same scrutiny. Now with the suspension, he could still work on the ambulance, but not as a paramedic. Victor had to wear masking tape over his paramedic rocker. Many medics would have found the experience humiliating, but Victor didn’t let anything show. “Long as they’re still paying me,” he said. “Besides I don’t even think I’m going to fight it. I need a life change anyway.” He nodded to the bartender to refill our mugs.
“You shouldn’t do anything rash,” I said. I tossed a twenty on the bar.
“That’s the same thing Ben said to me, but I’ve always been rash, and my problem is I haven’t been rash enough in my own life to be true to myself. I need to be rash. That’s who I am. That’s how I have to live. I should have divorced my wife two years ago when I fell out of love with her and I should have quit this job when I got tired of it. I’m thinking about becoming a bounty hunter. You can make some real money at that work.”
“Bounty hunting?”
“Yeah, you use your brain and your brawn. You’re your own man, all you have to do is bring in the bad guy. There’s good money in it. And you’re helping to keep the streets clean.”
“Why don’t you just become a cop?”
“Not with my past. Wouldn’t happen. They’d say thank you, and here’s the door.”
“You should stay here. You’re a good medic. People will stand up for you. Maybe at worst you’ll be suspended for a few weeks. We need you out here.”
“No, its time for me to move on. Times are changing. The old people -- the people I started here with -- are all leaving. I don’t want to end up like Nestor, with nothing else to do but remembering how it used to be. Life’s full of opportunities. I look on this as a break -- a good one.”
Pat and Denny Creer and a couple other guys who used to work for Capitol showed up and joined us at the bar. “I hope you don’t mind we invited some other people down,” Pat said.
“The more the merrier.”
Word of the party spread. As the night went on we were joined by more and more of our fellow workers and friends. There was Rick Ortyl and Howard Rapacky. Kim Quinn and Quentin Babbitt. Chris Dennis and Rod Furtado. Darren Regini and Melody Voyer. Aaron Dix and his wife Penny. Greg Berryman and Bob Mosebach. Craig Walton dropped by with his new girlfriend. Wendy Albino was there and Annette O’Callahan and her sister Kelly. Alan Goodman, Butch Fetzer, Alan Sklar and Dan Leger all came down along with others as they got off their shifts.
We ordered beer by the pitcher and had trays of hourdevers, buffalo wings, french fries, and nachos spread out on the tables that we pushed together.
A DJ played requests and people danced.
In the newspaper that day they had run a profile of twenty of the city’s movers and shakers – all telling their experiences of Hartford. But I thought that night as I watched my coworkers live in their moment, that in this room, in this bar, was a collective experience of Hartford that dwarfed what the papers had. These people’s lives were inextricably linked with the life of the city. They had been in its mansions and its tenements. They’d been to the top floors of the city’s tallest buildings to treat sick executives and they’d taken care of homeless men under the highway. They’d been on center court at the Civic Center to take care of injured athletes before crowds of thousands, and they’d been behind the counters at fast food restaurants for injured workers. They’d been to city hall, and on the floor of the state legislature and in the dinning room of the Governor’s mansion. They’d worked thousands of morning rush hour MVAs and evening rush hour MVAs and lone car crashes in the middle of the night. They’d been in barbershops, nail salons, and massage parlors. They’d carried old men out of their lifelong houses for the last time, been in high school gyms and classrooms, seen card games in back rooms, done shootings in hallways, alleys and on street corners. Rich or homeless, it didn’t matter, your name got written on their trip reports. South End, North End, West End, Dutch Point, Bellevue Square, Barry Circle, Asylum Hill, Downtown, Charter Oak Rice Heights, Stowe Village -- this was their territory, their town, their ground, their land. Pick up the newspaper. Read about the accidents; they got the patients out of the cars. Read about the shootings; they were with them on the race to the hospital. Read the obituary papers; they were the ones who touched their cold stiff bodies and pronounced the time. They were the ones into who’s arms came the crying infants, struggling to an uncertain future.
I sat with Pat, Victor and Brian Sajack, who told stories of medics who hadn’t worked the streets for years, but who still existed as legends.
“There was Joe Lancaster. He was a handsome guy; looked a lot like Troy, except he was six-foot ten, two-hundred-sixty pounds of lean muscle, arms like tree trunks. He played basketball in Europe for a couple years. A gentle giant. He could pick up a two-hundred-twenty pound woman in his arms and carry her down the stairs like she was a baby. He could rip a car door off like it was made out of tin foil. And you think Troy can sweet talk madmen, Lancaster could sweet talk a psych just by whispering soft words in his ear, and touching his arm. It was like he had Haldol breath.”
“Then there was Jim Harris. He once intubated eight people on a single call. Guy tried to kill himself by sitting in his garage running the engine. He succeeded, but he also almost killed his wife and seven kids. The Fire department dragged them all out of the house unconscious, several not breathing. Harris went right down the line. 8.5 for the husband. Number 8 for the mom. 7.5 for the sixteen-year-old. 7 for the fifteen-year-old. 6.5 for the eleven year old. 6 for the ten-year-old. 5.5 for the five-year-old. 5.0 for the four-year-old, and a 4 for the two-year-old. He had the fire department doing CPR on five of them that were in arrest. Between his rig and the fire department they only had five ambu bags, so he was switching in between patients to keep them all ventilated. I was in the first ambulance that arrived to back them up. Amazing sight. He was calm as can be. Five of them made it. Harris’s in computers now, somewhere up near Boston.”
“What about that animal guy?”
“Michael Fink? That guy was crazy. He was always running into strange animal calls. Pythons, bats, bulls, bee swarms, baby alligators, spider monkeys and even once a pet tiger. He was like Marlon Perkins. It got so anybody had to deal with any kind of animal on their call, they’d call for Marlon Perkins for an intercept. Michael Lambert and Kelly Tierney are at a call. They find a guy rolling around on the floor with an iguana trying to bite his neck off. The iguana’s clamped down hard and the guy is in serious pain and looking a little dusky. Mike and Kelly tried beating the iguana with a stick. They just couldn’t get him off. Fink takes one look at the iguana, goes in the garage, comes back with some motor oil, and pours it on the guy’s neck. The iguana lets go as soon as that nasty oil hits his lips. Amazing. Believe it or not, Fink works for the Cleveland Zoo.”
“Davey Nestor was something too. A whirl of energy. You know when you get tired in between calls, you dog it a little, take your time cleaning the rig, finishing your paperwork, catching a breather. Not Davey. One call after another. He was always on the go. He loved this job. Only one I ever saw run to calls. He was always taking the stairs two at a time. He hurt his hip, and then he had to wobble to calls. He had bad eating habits. I think he suffered from depression. He was a lesson in how even the most fit body can fall apart and that you can’t take anything for granted. You’ve probably all heard his stories. He told them all a hundred times, but what you don’t ever hear is just how sweet he was with his patients. That man could hold an old lady’s hand. He was a charmer, one that could put Rhett Butler or even Pat here to shame. I was on a call with him once. An old woman fell, hurt her hip, shit herself. She was so embarassased. Davey completely cleaned her before we left the house, got a warm towel, and when he was done, put a little dab of perfume on her, so she’d smell nice and feel like a woman again, instead of a broken down sitting in her diarrhea lost soul, contemplating her decay and approaching death. It’s a shame anyone who only knew Davey in his last days, didn’t see the man he was.”
“I’ll second that,” Victor said. “He did become an ass in later life, but only after life beat the goodness out of him.”
“Whatever happened to Joe Lancaster?” I asked.
Brian and Victor looked at each other and I saw a bit of sadness there.
“No one really knows,” Brian said. “He just didn’t come to work one day. Disappeared. There’s more to it than that of course. He was in love with a woman who worked here, Susan Holden. Susan was married to another paramedic, and they had a tempestuous marriage. They loved each other, but they were always fighting over money or one thing or the other. They had a child with cystic fibrosis and he was a strain on them. I think she may have seen in Joe another life. He never acted on it – at least that I know of it -- but they were close. He’d been her preceptor. She could talk to him. They were lovers in conversation. What happened was this. They got called to back up her husband on an overdose. They get there and find the junkie puking because Scott Holden has just given him some narcan. The junkie is angry and cussing. He grabs his syringe and confronts Scott like he’s going to stab him. Joe steps in, but before he can even say a word, the junkie stabs him with the syringe. Time stops. The needle is sticking out of Joe’s stomach. He’s looking at it like maybe he’s looking at his own death. Joe takes it out, drops it on the floor, steps on it, then out come those sweet words, and he sooths the junkie down. Even talks him into coming into the hospital and seeing someone about detoxing. The man does go to detox and is one of the rare ones who actually makes it. He’s a well-known city minister today. He’s even been on the Oprah show. But Joe six months later starts to get night sweats, starts losing weight, looking real gaunt. We told him he ought to get checked after he’d been hit with that needle, but he wouldn’t even report it. One day he just doesn’t come to work, sends word that he’s quitting. He moves out of his apartment. Never seen again. What we know is this. The minister has HIV. Its one of the things he champions the cause of, is very up front about. Susan and Carl Holden get a life insurance check in the mail, made out to them. One afternoon, not long after, I see the minister standing up on Zion Hill with a little urn. He’s throwing ashes up into the wind, tears rolling down his eyes. I asked him what he was doing, he says, ‘Bringing home a good man.’”
We were quiet.
“I like that story,” Pat said. “I’ve heard it before. I can see that, I can see him doing that. I think that’s nice.”
“Your ashes over the city, I want to be as far away from here as I can when I die.”
“There is more to life than work, but there is something to be said for doing a job well, and being proud of who you are and what you’ve done. Maybe he was that way.”
The DJ announced a dance contest and people paired off. Audrey Davis dragged Victor to the dance floor. The DJs tapped the pairs on the shoulder till there were just three couples in the middle and the DJ had us shout for who we liked best. Victor twirled Audrey around like she weighed fifty pounds. The crowd loved it. Hooping and hollering. They played it for everything. They danced like they were all making love.
When they announced Victor and Audrey as the winners, they bowed and the DJ gave them a coupon for a free pitcher of beer, which the waitress brought and Victor held it a loft like it was a golden trophy.
“I’ve got to go,” Pat said. “Allison’s waiting up.”
“You’re whipped!” Victor said. “Look at him. He’s whipped.”
“I believe I am. Yes, I believe so.”
“Well, here’s to you then. We all wish we were whipped again ourselves. It beats not giving a fuck.”
“I appreciate that.”
“The guys here want you to tell Allison to send us our socks back now that her door is no longer open.”
“Well, since they were all too small for my feet, she already donated them to the dwarf orphanage.”
“Good one! Here’s to you compadre!”
“Hey before you go,” Victor said. “We’ve got to have a last round of toasts. Everybody get a beer and get your drink and stand with us now.” He raised his beer aloft. “To a night like night’s past, a night we will always remember if not in the morning, then maybe deep in our failing hearts on dark lonely nights years from now when we’re rotting away in the nursing home or freezing on the city streets. Or in your case Pat, smoking a pipe with a brood of grandchildren playing around before you and the Mrs. in front of the grand fireplace in your big white house on the hill, you lucky bastard.”
“Here’s to you Pat.”
“Thank you,” Pat said, “And here’s to you Victor. We hope you stay with us.”
“Here, here,” people seconded.
“And let’s drink a toast to Troy. May he join us again.”
“To Troy!”
The toasts went on.
“Here’s to Joe Lancaster and his ashes swirling about us.”
“Here’s to Davey Nestor. I miss the old grouch.”
“How can we forget the old man himself. To Sidney!”
“To Sidney!”
Everyone went about the room and proposed toasts to those among us, those departed, and those we might yet see again.
“How about you, Lee, you have a toast for us.”
“I do,” I said. “To all of you here. You are as fine a bunch of drunks as I’ve ever had the pleasure to know. I’m glad to be among you. Here’s to you. This night was well made.”
And we all raised our beers and drank. And the music played and we drank some more. People left and others stayed. Victor slow danced with Audrey. Andrew Melnick made out with his girlfriend in the corner. I saw Kim watching me from our table and I smiled back at her. I gave the DJ a twenty-dollar tip. He played Louis Armstrong for me. “Wonderful World.”
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Chapter 34
Pat Brothers and I were sitting in 482 down by Bridgestone Tire at Albany and Main. It was seven-thirty in the evening. We had the game on the radio. While Pat had taken to wearing Troy’s Yankee hat in honor of his friend’s forced absence, like me, he was a diehard Red Sox fan.
We were cheering a double off the wall by Mike Greenwell when we heard an unmistakable pop pop pop.
“That was close,” Pat said. “Down at the Sands maybe. They’re starting early tonight. Let’s head that way.”
The Sands was the public housing complex off North Main. Summers in the evening, people gathered on the balconies and by the cars in the parking lot to listen to rap music, drink their 40's and stay out of the sweltering apartments.
I put my seatbelt on, turned on the engine, but didn’t put it in gear.
“482,” Dispatch called. “On a one. Male shot 1620 Main P.D. on the way.”
“Com’on, let’s roll,” Pat said.
“We should wait for the cops. We roll now, we’ll be right in it.”
I could hear sirens in the distance.
“We’ll get there together.”
“Okay, Troy,” I said. I shifted into drive.
Pat laughed. “Let’s do some good.”
We were out in less than a minute. No cops yet. Already a huge crowd had gathered. People spilled off the balconies. You can tell its going to be bad by the way the crowd moves. This crowd was hot and angry. I felt assaulted by a hundred glares.
“Mothafucka move! Mothafucker that boy hurting. That boy hurt. Mothafucker you run like he your brother! Run like he your brother!”
They pressed in against the ambulance. I was jostled as I went around to pull the stretcher. I threw the board on it and the oxygen tank.
“Run big man,” a tall young man shouted at me, his face contorted in anger. “Big man, move! That boy hurting, big man.”
Pat knelt by the young man. He had his hand shoved down the boy’s mouth almost to the wrist, as he tried to manipulate an ET tube into his throat. He pulled his hand out, then wrapped white tape around the tube and around the boy’s head. There was blood and brains on his gloves. “On the board and out of here,” he said, calmly.
We slid the victim onto the board. “Strap him later.” We lifted him onto the stretcher and pushed back through the crowd. I saw Pat doing compressions on his chest.
“Just drive,” he said, as we lifted him into the back. “Just get us out of here nice and easy and quick.”
I slammed the back doors. The ambulance was already encircled. “You let him die, I’m gonna get you big man. Big man, I’m going after you, you let him die.”
The police had arrived in force. An officer had to push people to make way for me to reach the driver’s seat. I hit the sirens, but no one would move. They were beating on the sides of the ambulance. I saw someone get clubbed in the side mirror. I had a little opening and pushed the ambulance through it. The crowd parted. In the rear view mirror I saw Pat stick a needle in the boy’s chest. I switched to the C-Med radio and patched in. “We’re four minutes out with multiple gunshot, head and chest, CPR in progress.”
“Is the patient intubated?”
“That’s all done.”
“What’s his rhythm?”
“I don’t know. The medic is doing CPR so it can’t be good.” I dropped the mike.
The young man was dead. They took one look at him under the bright trauma rooms lights and called it. “We may be good, but we’re not that good,” the doctor said. “We don’t do brain transplants here. Not that a brain would help him with a chest like that one. Sorry folks that’s it.” The trauma team pulled off their masks and walked out of their room, their green scrubs unstained.
“Couldn’t you just have thrown a sheet over him?” the doctor said.
Pat stood there, his mouth half open. His arms and shirt were bloody. He had brain on his sleeve and boot. He looked at me and shook his head. Someone else might have come back with a smart answer, but that wasn’t Pat.
“Hey, I just noticed, you’re not wearing your vest,” I said after he’d taken his uniform shirt off.
“Don’t tell Allison. It’s too damn uncomfortable in this heat, though I was thinking about it when we on scene. But then I remembered I was wearing Troy’s hat – that’s makes me invincible, right?”
“I don’t know about that.”
He laughed. “That was a rough group.”
Outside the entrance to the ED a crowd began to form. “Don’t let my baby die,” a woman cried to the closed ER doors, as others held her up. “Don’t let my baby die!”
“We ought to get out of here before they turn their anger back on us,” I said. “Besides we have to get you a clean shirt.”
“Sounds good to me,” Pat said. We got in our ambulance and headed back to the office to clean up and resupply.
The newspaper the next morning ran a story on the shooting. It was the fourth shooting in the last week, like many recently attributable to a turf battle between new dealers and some older dealers -victims of a crackdown five years ago -- who were just now getting out of prison and were eager to take back their positions. The boy had been shot with an Uzi. The cops recovered twenty-seven rounds.
“Listen to this,” I said to Pat. “Residents of the housing complex said the ambulance took at least ten minutes to arrive. Ten minutes. We were out in a minute. The whole time from dispatch to arrival at the hospital was six minutes. How can they write that?”
Pat just shrugged and kept reading the sports pages. He never even showed interest in reading the article. On the news that night, they interviewed residents about the incident. “If he was a rich boy they would have been here faster, but this city don’t care about its poor,” one woman said.
“I used to get pissed off,” Pat said. “Nothing seemed fair. No one understood. But that goes with the job. You’ll deal with blood, vomit, unpleasant people, a sensational press, low pay. So what? What are you going to do? Complain? This is a great job -- you get to help people and have a three-day work week if you want. So sometimes there are bitchy nurses and arrogant doctors, there are also truly awesome doctors and wonderful nurses. What would this job be without their smiles every time we come in the door? It’s like having a hundred sisters, some are sweet, some are moody, but I love just about every one of them. And except for a couple of satanic ones– they’re awesome. And I’ve had great partners. When Troy and I worked together – they paid us to have a ball. You can’t get better than that. This job is like a continual day at an amusement park. It’s like Playland.
“Sometimes I think there is no other place in the world I would rather be. You know sometimes this job just gives you the feeling that you can’t be any more alive. It’s like you are life in the city itself. You never know where the wind is going to blow you, but you’re always there right in the vortex of life. People dying, babies being born, all the emotion in the world—love, hate, fear, joy—all right there before you, playing out. And you are a part of its fabric. A witness to life. That’s heady stuff.
“And who cares about the paper. I mean sometimes they even print a picture of you doing something good. I was on the front page once carrying a little girl in my arms out of house. I gave that one to my mother. She had it framed and hung it over the fireplace in the den. That beats a plaque that says you were the Jaycee of the Year or top salesmen. So they’re being hard on us now – they have papers to sell and maybe it’ll even focus some attention on EMS and keep everyone on their toes trying to prove them wrong. Next month, they’ll be going after someone else. They’ll go after the cops or fire or the sanitation department, or heaven forbid, the governor. In the end what does it matter? Just do your job. It’s like a football player complaining, ‘Gosh, coach, they’re trying to tackle me out there.’”
“That’s an interesting way to put it.”
“This job will eat you up if you don’t keep your perspective. You need a life outside of it. That’s why I’ve decided to get married.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Don’t tell anyone. I’m asking Allison on Friday night. I’m taking her to Carbone’s. I’ve already got the ring.”
“That’s great. That’s really great.”
“Life is great. That’s what’s great. Life.”
“Have you told Troy yet?”
“No, but I’m going to go see him tomorrow, if he’s not too busy with Veronica. Those two are like rabbits. ”
“Do you think we’ll ever see him up here again?”
“He’s going to be coming up in a couple weeks. He’s got that trial of Felipe Ruiz. He’s got to testify. We were going to get him drunk afterwards, and make him fill out a new job application and sign in blood that he’s coming back.”
“Do you think that’ll work?”
“I don’t know. One way or another we have to get him back. He says he doesn’t want to come back, but he does. This is where he belongs. The hardware gig is wearing thin. He’ll be back. They’ll find some kind of compromise about the diabetes stuff. We’ll look up and he’ll be here. And then I can stop wearing this dam Yankees cap.”
We were cheering a double off the wall by Mike Greenwell when we heard an unmistakable pop pop pop.
“That was close,” Pat said. “Down at the Sands maybe. They’re starting early tonight. Let’s head that way.”
The Sands was the public housing complex off North Main. Summers in the evening, people gathered on the balconies and by the cars in the parking lot to listen to rap music, drink their 40's and stay out of the sweltering apartments.
I put my seatbelt on, turned on the engine, but didn’t put it in gear.
“482,” Dispatch called. “On a one. Male shot 1620 Main P.D. on the way.”
“Com’on, let’s roll,” Pat said.
“We should wait for the cops. We roll now, we’ll be right in it.”
I could hear sirens in the distance.
“We’ll get there together.”
“Okay, Troy,” I said. I shifted into drive.
Pat laughed. “Let’s do some good.”
We were out in less than a minute. No cops yet. Already a huge crowd had gathered. People spilled off the balconies. You can tell its going to be bad by the way the crowd moves. This crowd was hot and angry. I felt assaulted by a hundred glares.
“Mothafucka move! Mothafucker that boy hurting. That boy hurt. Mothafucker you run like he your brother! Run like he your brother!”
They pressed in against the ambulance. I was jostled as I went around to pull the stretcher. I threw the board on it and the oxygen tank.
“Run big man,” a tall young man shouted at me, his face contorted in anger. “Big man, move! That boy hurting, big man.”
Pat knelt by the young man. He had his hand shoved down the boy’s mouth almost to the wrist, as he tried to manipulate an ET tube into his throat. He pulled his hand out, then wrapped white tape around the tube and around the boy’s head. There was blood and brains on his gloves. “On the board and out of here,” he said, calmly.
We slid the victim onto the board. “Strap him later.” We lifted him onto the stretcher and pushed back through the crowd. I saw Pat doing compressions on his chest.
“Just drive,” he said, as we lifted him into the back. “Just get us out of here nice and easy and quick.”
I slammed the back doors. The ambulance was already encircled. “You let him die, I’m gonna get you big man. Big man, I’m going after you, you let him die.”
The police had arrived in force. An officer had to push people to make way for me to reach the driver’s seat. I hit the sirens, but no one would move. They were beating on the sides of the ambulance. I saw someone get clubbed in the side mirror. I had a little opening and pushed the ambulance through it. The crowd parted. In the rear view mirror I saw Pat stick a needle in the boy’s chest. I switched to the C-Med radio and patched in. “We’re four minutes out with multiple gunshot, head and chest, CPR in progress.”
“Is the patient intubated?”
“That’s all done.”
“What’s his rhythm?”
“I don’t know. The medic is doing CPR so it can’t be good.” I dropped the mike.
The young man was dead. They took one look at him under the bright trauma rooms lights and called it. “We may be good, but we’re not that good,” the doctor said. “We don’t do brain transplants here. Not that a brain would help him with a chest like that one. Sorry folks that’s it.” The trauma team pulled off their masks and walked out of their room, their green scrubs unstained.
“Couldn’t you just have thrown a sheet over him?” the doctor said.
Pat stood there, his mouth half open. His arms and shirt were bloody. He had brain on his sleeve and boot. He looked at me and shook his head. Someone else might have come back with a smart answer, but that wasn’t Pat.
“Hey, I just noticed, you’re not wearing your vest,” I said after he’d taken his uniform shirt off.
“Don’t tell Allison. It’s too damn uncomfortable in this heat, though I was thinking about it when we on scene. But then I remembered I was wearing Troy’s hat – that’s makes me invincible, right?”
“I don’t know about that.”
He laughed. “That was a rough group.”
Outside the entrance to the ED a crowd began to form. “Don’t let my baby die,” a woman cried to the closed ER doors, as others held her up. “Don’t let my baby die!”
“We ought to get out of here before they turn their anger back on us,” I said. “Besides we have to get you a clean shirt.”
“Sounds good to me,” Pat said. We got in our ambulance and headed back to the office to clean up and resupply.
The newspaper the next morning ran a story on the shooting. It was the fourth shooting in the last week, like many recently attributable to a turf battle between new dealers and some older dealers -victims of a crackdown five years ago -- who were just now getting out of prison and were eager to take back their positions. The boy had been shot with an Uzi. The cops recovered twenty-seven rounds.
“Listen to this,” I said to Pat. “Residents of the housing complex said the ambulance took at least ten minutes to arrive. Ten minutes. We were out in a minute. The whole time from dispatch to arrival at the hospital was six minutes. How can they write that?”
Pat just shrugged and kept reading the sports pages. He never even showed interest in reading the article. On the news that night, they interviewed residents about the incident. “If he was a rich boy they would have been here faster, but this city don’t care about its poor,” one woman said.
“I used to get pissed off,” Pat said. “Nothing seemed fair. No one understood. But that goes with the job. You’ll deal with blood, vomit, unpleasant people, a sensational press, low pay. So what? What are you going to do? Complain? This is a great job -- you get to help people and have a three-day work week if you want. So sometimes there are bitchy nurses and arrogant doctors, there are also truly awesome doctors and wonderful nurses. What would this job be without their smiles every time we come in the door? It’s like having a hundred sisters, some are sweet, some are moody, but I love just about every one of them. And except for a couple of satanic ones– they’re awesome. And I’ve had great partners. When Troy and I worked together – they paid us to have a ball. You can’t get better than that. This job is like a continual day at an amusement park. It’s like Playland.
“Sometimes I think there is no other place in the world I would rather be. You know sometimes this job just gives you the feeling that you can’t be any more alive. It’s like you are life in the city itself. You never know where the wind is going to blow you, but you’re always there right in the vortex of life. People dying, babies being born, all the emotion in the world—love, hate, fear, joy—all right there before you, playing out. And you are a part of its fabric. A witness to life. That’s heady stuff.
“And who cares about the paper. I mean sometimes they even print a picture of you doing something good. I was on the front page once carrying a little girl in my arms out of house. I gave that one to my mother. She had it framed and hung it over the fireplace in the den. That beats a plaque that says you were the Jaycee of the Year or top salesmen. So they’re being hard on us now – they have papers to sell and maybe it’ll even focus some attention on EMS and keep everyone on their toes trying to prove them wrong. Next month, they’ll be going after someone else. They’ll go after the cops or fire or the sanitation department, or heaven forbid, the governor. In the end what does it matter? Just do your job. It’s like a football player complaining, ‘Gosh, coach, they’re trying to tackle me out there.’”
“That’s an interesting way to put it.”
“This job will eat you up if you don’t keep your perspective. You need a life outside of it. That’s why I’ve decided to get married.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Don’t tell anyone. I’m asking Allison on Friday night. I’m taking her to Carbone’s. I’ve already got the ring.”
“That’s great. That’s really great.”
“Life is great. That’s what’s great. Life.”
“Have you told Troy yet?”
“No, but I’m going to go see him tomorrow, if he’s not too busy with Veronica. Those two are like rabbits. ”
“Do you think we’ll ever see him up here again?”
“He’s going to be coming up in a couple weeks. He’s got that trial of Felipe Ruiz. He’s got to testify. We were going to get him drunk afterwards, and make him fill out a new job application and sign in blood that he’s coming back.”
“Do you think that’ll work?”
“I don’t know. One way or another we have to get him back. He says he doesn’t want to come back, but he does. This is where he belongs. The hardware gig is wearing thin. He’ll be back. They’ll find some kind of compromise about the diabetes stuff. We’ll look up and he’ll be here. And then I can stop wearing this dam Yankees cap.”
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Chapter 33
I was without a partner for the day so they hooked me up with Linda. We’d only go out if it got busy. Ben and Don were both out of town at a conference, so it was quiet about the office. I did laundry, restocked the shelves, and washed ambulances. I liked to keep occupied. Around noon, we took the ambulance out to get lunch.
“Do you see Troy at all?” Linda asked.
“Every so often.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Okay, he likes to call himself the hardware czar of the tri-town area. He’s even got a commercial on the local cable TV that’s pretty funny. He’s sitting in a chair in front of the store wearing a big velvet robe with a crown on his head, smoking a corncob pipe and grilling a hot dog. “You want to win the battle against peeling paint, leaky facets, and stubborn crab grass, don’t do it alone. Come see the Hardware czar. I’ll get you what you need to turn your life into a picnic. Ya’ll come down now, you hear.”
She laughed. “You’re kidding.”
“No, he filmed about six or seven different spots. It’s all low budget. I think Pat filmed them with his camcorder. In one of them he’s wielding a sword, and he cuts this over grown brush into a pristine lawn in ten seconds. Another he’s drinking a beer in a tree fort with a sign in the background that says no girls allowed. ‘Build your boy a tree fort. Then kick back and have a cold one. Life’s little pleasures.’”
“You have to be putting me on.”
“No, I’m serious. He’s only been running them a couple weeks; he’s already a cult hero. Business is booming, he says.”
“He can be so funny.”
“He’s a trip all right.”
“But how is he doing?”
“Okay, you know, I think he misses us up here, but he’s getting time to enjoy other things.”
“He has a girl?”
“You know Troy.”
“He has several in other words.”
“Maybe, I’ve just seen the one he hangs out with most.”
“Veronica?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“I met her a month ago. Don and I ran into them at a restaurant down on the shore. She’s pretty.”
“Yea, in the Swedish bikini team sort of way.”
She laughed. “She certainly had Don’s eyes rolling.”
“I think Don should be happy with what he’s got.”
She patted my shoulder. “You’re so sweet Lee. I’m not the jealous kind. Men are men. They think with their dicks too much. At least Troy is honest about it.”
“I think she’s just a filler for him.”
“Really?”
“It’s just a sense I have. I think in the end, you are more his type.”
“We did have fun, but he’s still a boy. He’ll probably always be one. I’m just glad he’s doing well.”
She seemed legitimately interested, and truly unjealous. That’s what I liked about her. She was always on such an even keel.
I insisted on paying for her salad. She tried to hand me money, but I wouldn’t take it. “Humor an old man,” I said.
“You’re not old.”
“As the hills,” I said.
“That’s not what I heard from Kim. I heard you have plenty of life to you. Look at you you’re blushing. You thought it was a secret. Who says girls don’t talk? Give us some credit. You shouldn’t pass on her. She’s a special lady.”
“I know.”
“Men are stubborn and blind. You’re smarter than that.”
Kim and I were still going out occasionally, more as friends than lovers. Talking with Helen then made me think I should try to get it back going a little more solidly.
I had to admit I was flattered to think about them talking about me in that way. It’s easy to think of yourself as old when your mind is weighed down. A woman with an affectionate laugh can make anyone feel young.
It was a brilliant summer day. The sky clear blue, a light breeze. There were red and yellow tulips growing in the beds outside the office. We sat out on the picnic benches and ate our lunch.
“It’s too nice a day to stay inside reading run forms. Let’s go play in the city,” she said when we were done.
She put us on with dispatch as a floating car, and we drove around visiting other crews and seeing the city. It was funny, sometimes if you didn’t stop and look around, you’d miss the life that was there. Old men played chess and laughed down by Bushnell Park, where mothers watched their children on the merry go round and office workers threw Frisbees on the lunch breaks. On Albany Avenue girls showing their bare shoulders, firm abs, and long legs drew whistles and smiles as they promenaded past the men in front of the Laundromat. Work continued on renovations to the community health center, moving it into a modern building to better serve the community. In Kenney Park, preschoolers fed the ducks and chased each other in circles under the watchful eyes of their keepers.
We had just gotten back in the ambulance after Linda bought us pastries -- her treat this time at the Los Cubanitos bakery on Park -- when she spotted Helen Seurat outside the school, watching a group of small children run about the playground.
She was wearing white shorts and a red halter-top. Several of the children clung to her like she was Snow White. I saw a softness in her eyes and a smile I hadn’t seen before.
“I love these kids,” Helen said. She and Linda sat down on a bench while she kept an eye on the kids. “Julio, Venga aqui!” she called to one of the boys who went too far off. He smiled and came back to her. She adjusted the collar on his shirt, and rattled off something else to him in Spanish that made him laugh. He smiled and joined a group of his friends playing on the swings.
“You’re Spanish is getting better,” Linda said.
“I can almost speak it now,” she said. “Perry wants to take me to Puerto Rico.”
“That sounds great.”
“The problem is Senator Shrieb wants me at a rally with him down in New Haven.”
“You still working with him?”
“Yeah, I’m even on his field staff now.”
“Wow. What’s he like?”
“He’s full of himself.” She giggled. “Perry, I think likes to have me on his arm. I make him feel like a man I think. Shrieb, I think he just needs a Puerto Rican on his staff. He smiles and looks you in the eye, but it’s like his mind is elsewhere. He’s very ambitious. At least he has gotten some grant money for the literacy program and Head Start. Men – you can never find the right combination.”
“You have someone else in the mix?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe? Tell it to me girl.”
“We haven’t done anything yet, and I’m not going to make the move, but I don’t know if I could resist him.”
“Who is it?”
“You won’t approve.”
“Who said I had too?”
“For one, he’s married.”
“That’s not good. What’s ‘for two?’’
“He just got out of jail.”
“Jail? Wow, Helen, talk about a bad combination. You better start from the beginning.”
“He’s Perry’s cousin. I met him at a family picnic that had in Pope Park. There’s a connection there. He was attentive to his wife, but I saw the way he looked at me. A woman can tell what’s in a man’s eyes. I’ve seen him a few times since. We haven’t done anything, but I find myself imaging myself with him. A girl can fantasize, can’t she?”
“What’s his name?”
“Hector Ruiz,” she said. “You’ve heard of him?”
“Yeah. Who hasn’t? He’s a bad man.”
“But he is way good looking. And he has his tender side. He’s very poetic. He buys me sweets and drops them off at my office. These delicious pastries with guava jelly in the middle. Unbelievably good.”
“I can’t believe you are telling me this.”
“I know, I thought what am I doing? But he is not who you think.”
“Be careful.”
“Oh, I will be. It’s too bad I couldn’t put them all together. Shrieb for his intelligence, Perry because he’s crazy for me, and Hector for all that a woman wants in a man.”
“Look at you, you’re blushing just talking about him.”
“Not to change the subject too much, but how’s Don?”
“You know, he’s Don. Work has got him all tied in knots, but on the weekend, he gets out on the boat, and he’s okay. The kids love his beach house.”
“That must be fun for them down there.”
I was surprised at how well the two of them got along. I gave the kids piggyback rides while they talked. I loved to hear their laughter.
“You have to come volunteer for us, Lee,” Helen said when she gathered the kids together to take them back inside.
“Maybe some day.”
“Lee works too many hours,” Linda says. “It would be good for him, though.”
“It’s been a pleasure to meet you,” she said. She shook my hand and smiled warmly.
When we drove away, Linda told me, “Helen hinted she might be back in the ambulance business.”
“How’s that?”
“You know everything that’s going on with the company up for sale. It is very political. The partners want to sell and they can get the most money if they can sell national. I think what she was hinting at was after the sale; the city’s going to step in and split the town up. And she and Santiago maybe able to buy into Champion and run the south end.”
“It’s too confusing to me.”
“That’s alright. She said she’d hire us if it comes to us. Besides no matter who ends up running it, they’ll always have a need for people to fill the rigs.”
“Do you see Troy at all?” Linda asked.
“Every so often.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Okay, he likes to call himself the hardware czar of the tri-town area. He’s even got a commercial on the local cable TV that’s pretty funny. He’s sitting in a chair in front of the store wearing a big velvet robe with a crown on his head, smoking a corncob pipe and grilling a hot dog. “You want to win the battle against peeling paint, leaky facets, and stubborn crab grass, don’t do it alone. Come see the Hardware czar. I’ll get you what you need to turn your life into a picnic. Ya’ll come down now, you hear.”
She laughed. “You’re kidding.”
“No, he filmed about six or seven different spots. It’s all low budget. I think Pat filmed them with his camcorder. In one of them he’s wielding a sword, and he cuts this over grown brush into a pristine lawn in ten seconds. Another he’s drinking a beer in a tree fort with a sign in the background that says no girls allowed. ‘Build your boy a tree fort. Then kick back and have a cold one. Life’s little pleasures.’”
“You have to be putting me on.”
“No, I’m serious. He’s only been running them a couple weeks; he’s already a cult hero. Business is booming, he says.”
“He can be so funny.”
“He’s a trip all right.”
“But how is he doing?”
“Okay, you know, I think he misses us up here, but he’s getting time to enjoy other things.”
“He has a girl?”
“You know Troy.”
“He has several in other words.”
“Maybe, I’ve just seen the one he hangs out with most.”
“Veronica?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“I met her a month ago. Don and I ran into them at a restaurant down on the shore. She’s pretty.”
“Yea, in the Swedish bikini team sort of way.”
She laughed. “She certainly had Don’s eyes rolling.”
“I think Don should be happy with what he’s got.”
She patted my shoulder. “You’re so sweet Lee. I’m not the jealous kind. Men are men. They think with their dicks too much. At least Troy is honest about it.”
“I think she’s just a filler for him.”
“Really?”
“It’s just a sense I have. I think in the end, you are more his type.”
“We did have fun, but he’s still a boy. He’ll probably always be one. I’m just glad he’s doing well.”
She seemed legitimately interested, and truly unjealous. That’s what I liked about her. She was always on such an even keel.
I insisted on paying for her salad. She tried to hand me money, but I wouldn’t take it. “Humor an old man,” I said.
“You’re not old.”
“As the hills,” I said.
“That’s not what I heard from Kim. I heard you have plenty of life to you. Look at you you’re blushing. You thought it was a secret. Who says girls don’t talk? Give us some credit. You shouldn’t pass on her. She’s a special lady.”
“I know.”
“Men are stubborn and blind. You’re smarter than that.”
Kim and I were still going out occasionally, more as friends than lovers. Talking with Helen then made me think I should try to get it back going a little more solidly.
I had to admit I was flattered to think about them talking about me in that way. It’s easy to think of yourself as old when your mind is weighed down. A woman with an affectionate laugh can make anyone feel young.
It was a brilliant summer day. The sky clear blue, a light breeze. There were red and yellow tulips growing in the beds outside the office. We sat out on the picnic benches and ate our lunch.
“It’s too nice a day to stay inside reading run forms. Let’s go play in the city,” she said when we were done.
She put us on with dispatch as a floating car, and we drove around visiting other crews and seeing the city. It was funny, sometimes if you didn’t stop and look around, you’d miss the life that was there. Old men played chess and laughed down by Bushnell Park, where mothers watched their children on the merry go round and office workers threw Frisbees on the lunch breaks. On Albany Avenue girls showing their bare shoulders, firm abs, and long legs drew whistles and smiles as they promenaded past the men in front of the Laundromat. Work continued on renovations to the community health center, moving it into a modern building to better serve the community. In Kenney Park, preschoolers fed the ducks and chased each other in circles under the watchful eyes of their keepers.
We had just gotten back in the ambulance after Linda bought us pastries -- her treat this time at the Los Cubanitos bakery on Park -- when she spotted Helen Seurat outside the school, watching a group of small children run about the playground.
She was wearing white shorts and a red halter-top. Several of the children clung to her like she was Snow White. I saw a softness in her eyes and a smile I hadn’t seen before.
“I love these kids,” Helen said. She and Linda sat down on a bench while she kept an eye on the kids. “Julio, Venga aqui!” she called to one of the boys who went too far off. He smiled and came back to her. She adjusted the collar on his shirt, and rattled off something else to him in Spanish that made him laugh. He smiled and joined a group of his friends playing on the swings.
“You’re Spanish is getting better,” Linda said.
“I can almost speak it now,” she said. “Perry wants to take me to Puerto Rico.”
“That sounds great.”
“The problem is Senator Shrieb wants me at a rally with him down in New Haven.”
“You still working with him?”
“Yeah, I’m even on his field staff now.”
“Wow. What’s he like?”
“He’s full of himself.” She giggled. “Perry, I think likes to have me on his arm. I make him feel like a man I think. Shrieb, I think he just needs a Puerto Rican on his staff. He smiles and looks you in the eye, but it’s like his mind is elsewhere. He’s very ambitious. At least he has gotten some grant money for the literacy program and Head Start. Men – you can never find the right combination.”
“You have someone else in the mix?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe? Tell it to me girl.”
“We haven’t done anything yet, and I’m not going to make the move, but I don’t know if I could resist him.”
“Who is it?”
“You won’t approve.”
“Who said I had too?”
“For one, he’s married.”
“That’s not good. What’s ‘for two?’’
“He just got out of jail.”
“Jail? Wow, Helen, talk about a bad combination. You better start from the beginning.”
“He’s Perry’s cousin. I met him at a family picnic that had in Pope Park. There’s a connection there. He was attentive to his wife, but I saw the way he looked at me. A woman can tell what’s in a man’s eyes. I’ve seen him a few times since. We haven’t done anything, but I find myself imaging myself with him. A girl can fantasize, can’t she?”
“What’s his name?”
“Hector Ruiz,” she said. “You’ve heard of him?”
“Yeah. Who hasn’t? He’s a bad man.”
“But he is way good looking. And he has his tender side. He’s very poetic. He buys me sweets and drops them off at my office. These delicious pastries with guava jelly in the middle. Unbelievably good.”
“I can’t believe you are telling me this.”
“I know, I thought what am I doing? But he is not who you think.”
“Be careful.”
“Oh, I will be. It’s too bad I couldn’t put them all together. Shrieb for his intelligence, Perry because he’s crazy for me, and Hector for all that a woman wants in a man.”
“Look at you, you’re blushing just talking about him.”
“Not to change the subject too much, but how’s Don?”
“You know, he’s Don. Work has got him all tied in knots, but on the weekend, he gets out on the boat, and he’s okay. The kids love his beach house.”
“That must be fun for them down there.”
I was surprised at how well the two of them got along. I gave the kids piggyback rides while they talked. I loved to hear their laughter.
“You have to come volunteer for us, Lee,” Helen said when she gathered the kids together to take them back inside.
“Maybe some day.”
“Lee works too many hours,” Linda says. “It would be good for him, though.”
“It’s been a pleasure to meet you,” she said. She shook my hand and smiled warmly.
When we drove away, Linda told me, “Helen hinted she might be back in the ambulance business.”
“How’s that?”
“You know everything that’s going on with the company up for sale. It is very political. The partners want to sell and they can get the most money if they can sell national. I think what she was hinting at was after the sale; the city’s going to step in and split the town up. And she and Santiago maybe able to buy into Champion and run the south end.”
“It’s too confusing to me.”
“That’s alright. She said she’d hire us if it comes to us. Besides no matter who ends up running it, they’ll always have a need for people to fill the rigs.”
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Chapter 32
We agreed to meet at the Ship’s Pub. Troy came in shortly after us with a tall good-looking blonde on his arm. He must have said hello to everyone in the bar before he reached our table. It was just like when his father had come in.
“What are you running for mayor?” Pat said.
“I’m keeping my options open, besides, it takes a smile to sell paint, isn’t that right honey?”
“You know he’s a bullshit artist,” the girl said.
Troy winked at us, then introduced her as Veronica, who managed a local bookstore.
She had a wholesome smile and breasts even Pat, the gentleman he was, had trouble not looking at.
“We met at the Y playing volleyball,” Troy said. “Veronica was captain of her team at Mount Holyoke College.”
“Troy’s an amazing player for just taking up the game.”
They both gave each other little love shoves, then Troy told her we needed to talk business for a few minutes, and she left to talk with two women she knew sitting at a table across the restaurant.
“We all want you to come back,” Pat said. “All you have to do is get a doctor’s note.”
“Fuck them,” Troy said. “I already talked to my lawyer about suing them. He says I have a case. It’s discrimination. But even if I did get back to work, I might not take it. I mean why should I?”
“Maybe they’ll even give you a raise.”
“I don’t need them. And I don’t need money. Why should I kill myself for them? What kind of difference can I make? People are going to keep dying. It’s an endless stream of misery. You never completely cure the sick. You never stop all the dying. You can’t stop the violence. It’s pointless. You know being off has been great. I’ve learned a lot of things. I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been in since the army. I’ve got my diabetes under control. I’m making good money -- twice what I ever made there, even with overtime. Why shouldn’t I just stay here, get married, raise a family? Tell me a girl like Veronica wouldn’t put out some big strong healthy kids for me. I could live out my life in peace. I don’t need that shit anymore. It’s not going to happen.”
“At least think about it. It’s not right you not being out there. I mean with you gone, trauma and sickness are having one field day after another. They don’t have to worry about you kicking their butts back into hiding.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere.”
“Well, at least, let me wear your hat or something, just to show the flag, maybe fool them a little to give us a break. Then when you come back, you could pull it back on, and restore order to the universe.”
“You wearing a Yankee hat? I can’t turn that down. While you are trudging through the pee and vomit, me, I’ll have my head in sweet Veronica’s lap, listening to her golden words as she reads me happy bedtime stories, before putting me to sleep in her own special style.”
“You’ll be back,” Pat said. “It’s what you do.”
“Correction,” Troy said. “It’s what I did – at least until they took it away from me.”
“What are you running for mayor?” Pat said.
“I’m keeping my options open, besides, it takes a smile to sell paint, isn’t that right honey?”
“You know he’s a bullshit artist,” the girl said.
Troy winked at us, then introduced her as Veronica, who managed a local bookstore.
She had a wholesome smile and breasts even Pat, the gentleman he was, had trouble not looking at.
“We met at the Y playing volleyball,” Troy said. “Veronica was captain of her team at Mount Holyoke College.”
“Troy’s an amazing player for just taking up the game.”
They both gave each other little love shoves, then Troy told her we needed to talk business for a few minutes, and she left to talk with two women she knew sitting at a table across the restaurant.
“We all want you to come back,” Pat said. “All you have to do is get a doctor’s note.”
“Fuck them,” Troy said. “I already talked to my lawyer about suing them. He says I have a case. It’s discrimination. But even if I did get back to work, I might not take it. I mean why should I?”
“Maybe they’ll even give you a raise.”
“I don’t need them. And I don’t need money. Why should I kill myself for them? What kind of difference can I make? People are going to keep dying. It’s an endless stream of misery. You never completely cure the sick. You never stop all the dying. You can’t stop the violence. It’s pointless. You know being off has been great. I’ve learned a lot of things. I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been in since the army. I’ve got my diabetes under control. I’m making good money -- twice what I ever made there, even with overtime. Why shouldn’t I just stay here, get married, raise a family? Tell me a girl like Veronica wouldn’t put out some big strong healthy kids for me. I could live out my life in peace. I don’t need that shit anymore. It’s not going to happen.”
“At least think about it. It’s not right you not being out there. I mean with you gone, trauma and sickness are having one field day after another. They don’t have to worry about you kicking their butts back into hiding.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere.”
“Well, at least, let me wear your hat or something, just to show the flag, maybe fool them a little to give us a break. Then when you come back, you could pull it back on, and restore order to the universe.”
“You wearing a Yankee hat? I can’t turn that down. While you are trudging through the pee and vomit, me, I’ll have my head in sweet Veronica’s lap, listening to her golden words as she reads me happy bedtime stories, before putting me to sleep in her own special style.”
“You’ll be back,” Pat said. “It’s what you do.”
“Correction,” Troy said. “It’s what I did – at least until they took it away from me.”
Sunday, August 09, 2009
Chapter 31
That summer our call volume soared. Not just the routine bullshit, but heavy-duty calls. Shootings, major car wrecks, cardiac arrests. Chaos had free reign. The city’s gangs chewed up each other and plenty of innocent bystanders with their street gun battles.
Gang warfare wasn’t the only problem. A nasty heroin hit the streets. It started in the north end, and within a few days was clear across the city. People were dying with the needle still in their arms. The city hired a van to patrol the streets with a megaphone warning of the dangers of the drug. The deaths just seemed to increase. Every medic in the company carried two prefilled narcan syringes in their pocket. Andrew Melnick could twirl them in his fingers like six guns.
An arsonist in the south end took out ten buildings in two weeks, killing eight people in one fire. A freak tornado whipped through the city toppling trees, crashing several cars, tearing the roof off three homes, killing four. I remember a woman who was carried across the parking lot, and smashed into the ground, breaking nearly every bone in her face. Her eyes were swollen purple shut. Blood poured from her nose. Sixty years old, she screamed, “I can’t see, I can’t see, Lord help me, I can’t see.”
Making matters worse the newspaper was all over us again. There was a plethora of stories about late response times. “Shooting Victim Waits Twenty Minutes for Ambulance.” “Ambulance Gets Lost, Man Dies.” “Lucrative Transfers Take Priority over Emergencies.” “Man Refused Ambulance Dies at Hospital.” An editorial cartoon showed two ambulance drivers laughing at a mangled man in the road. One EMT said to the man, “Take a cab, buddy.” The editorial board said a private company had no business handling 911 calls and the fire department should take over. They failed to mention the city was broke and didn’t have enough money to staff the schools, fix the city’s pothole ridden streets or hire enough cops to put a quarter of the bad guys away much less hire fifty paramedics.
The simple truth was we were overwhelmed and understaffed. We lost three medics to back injuries; another had his arm broken by a violent psychiatric patient. Two of our ambulances were totaled in crashes. Morale was at an all time low. Rumors were high. Besides the newspaper pushing the idea that the fire department should take over, there was talk that a sale of the company was imminent – that a national corporation was going to buy us out. They would fire all the senior personnel so they could pay everyone the same lower wage. They would outlaw the twelve and sixteen hour shifts many of us worked. Everyone would work five eight-hour shifts. There would be no overtime. We’d all have to wear ties. If we didn’t like it, tough. We were meat in the seat. Plenty of people waiting to take our jobs.
We didn’t like the program; they’d bring in people from other divisions. None of it made sense – we had a union contract that they would have to honor at least until it expired -- but it was what people were talking about. People said the bad press was coming from somewhere in the fire department. They had a plan to put a paramedic fly car in each of the station’s firehouses. They would go to the calls and decide whether to ride in with the ambulance or not. They would be in charge. People hated that thought. I said “Look on the bright side, to staff all those Broncos; they’ll have to hire paramedics. Maybe you can get a job with a city pension.” But no one was buying that. The medics would be converted firemen. There was talk the fire department was going to start running their own paramedic program in conjunction with one of the hospitals. It didn’t matter that we believed it took a special person to do that job -- that you had to have a gift for the work. We felt powerless.
Don Seurat was called to testify before a special city commission on EMS charged with making recommendations for change. The commission included members of the police and fire departments, as well as representatives from the hospitals, city health department and regional EMS council. There were no representatives from the ambulance, no street medics. Ben told me Perry Santiago made a fiery speech attacking Capitol Ambulance to open the meeting, but before Don could respond, Santiago excused himself, and walked out hurriedly talking into his cell phone.
Santiago’s actions gave more fruit to the rumor that politicians were working on behalf of Champion Ambulance. The state law assigning PSA-public service areas to ambulance companies said the PSA could only be taken away if the town’s chief elected officer could prove negligence on the part of the current provider and could offer a better plan. We heard talk they were drafting a change to the law, a pilot program that would allow one city—Hartford-- to put the contract out to bid. One way or another we all felt the fix was in. Things were changing, and soon would never be the same. If Champion took over, the only way we could keep working in the city was to wear their green pants with the yellow strips. Their gas station jackets had two patches on the front, the patch on the right breast told you your name, the one on the left told who you worked for.
I had never had much patience for the routine grumbling on the job. These kids had no idea of how well they had it. A little “yes, sir, no sir” in the morning, and they were on their own all day, responding to the calls, getting paid for adventure, for hanging out, for stories they could tell over beers. But I could see how the bad publicity and uncertainty took its toll. They were all little heroes, and the public scorn hurt their pride. They needed something to take home, some respect for their years of effort. They needed honor and it hurt to turn on the news and see the six o’clock I-team with their fancy graphics “Citizens at Risk,” “Ambulance Investigation Exclusive”, “Only on this channel,” “You heard it here first” bull shit. Bystanders heckled us on calls. Ambulances got hit with eggs, some times even rocks. We normally stationed cars in the north end at Albany and Main, Albany and Blue Hills, Main and Tower but the company pulled them back to Saint Francis and Mount Sinai after sunset. It would cost a couple minutes in response time, but at least the company was concerned for our safety.
We just weren’t very popular. Everyday we parked our cars up on the curb across from the downtown Dunkin’ Doughnuts and ran in to get our coffee -- they’d done it for years. One morning, a meter maid ticketed a couple cars. One of our EMTs Terry Milner actually got hauled to jail for arguing with the meter maid, who called for police backup. When Terry accidently bumped the cop, he got thrown on the sidewalk and cuffed. They put him in a cell and took his belt away like he might actually kill himself over a parking ticket.
The worst though was when the city gave away free tickets to the circus to the kids of all public safety personnel. Kim Dylan thought that included us, and brought her three kids only to be told at the door, you needed a police or fire ID. She ended up having to hit up the cash machine to pay $20 a pop for her three kids, who didn’t understand why their mommy couldn’t get them in free. We responded to the same 911 calls, stood shoulder to shoulder, worked as a team, but somehow EMS didn’t rate. They were city employees with pensions, we were private employees -- a difference no one thought about when the red lights were whirling.
I was working with a young man just out of medic school, a nice enough kid, but he was out of his league. His first week he had three codes including a teenage girl who’d hung herself and he delivered a premature baby who died. I gave him credit just for coming out in the morning. Turnover was high. Every night crews were held late. Some days to fill shifts even Don Seurat had to man an ambulance.
One afternoon when Pat and I were restocking our ambulance after a trauma, when Don Atreus handed us a memo. “We’ve got a $1000 bounty on anyone who can bring in a new employee. If they make it a year, you get a $1000, they get $1000. Know anyone?”
“How about old employees?” Pat asked. “How about Troy?”
“If Troy wants to come back, we’ll welcome him. He’ll get his full salary and benefits. He just needs a note from his doctor that he’s got his diabetes under control. If you can talk to him, I’d appreciate it.”
“He won’t accept that,” I said to Pat as we left.
“It’s worth a try. I know he misses it.”
Gang warfare wasn’t the only problem. A nasty heroin hit the streets. It started in the north end, and within a few days was clear across the city. People were dying with the needle still in their arms. The city hired a van to patrol the streets with a megaphone warning of the dangers of the drug. The deaths just seemed to increase. Every medic in the company carried two prefilled narcan syringes in their pocket. Andrew Melnick could twirl them in his fingers like six guns.
An arsonist in the south end took out ten buildings in two weeks, killing eight people in one fire. A freak tornado whipped through the city toppling trees, crashing several cars, tearing the roof off three homes, killing four. I remember a woman who was carried across the parking lot, and smashed into the ground, breaking nearly every bone in her face. Her eyes were swollen purple shut. Blood poured from her nose. Sixty years old, she screamed, “I can’t see, I can’t see, Lord help me, I can’t see.”
Making matters worse the newspaper was all over us again. There was a plethora of stories about late response times. “Shooting Victim Waits Twenty Minutes for Ambulance.” “Ambulance Gets Lost, Man Dies.” “Lucrative Transfers Take Priority over Emergencies.” “Man Refused Ambulance Dies at Hospital.” An editorial cartoon showed two ambulance drivers laughing at a mangled man in the road. One EMT said to the man, “Take a cab, buddy.” The editorial board said a private company had no business handling 911 calls and the fire department should take over. They failed to mention the city was broke and didn’t have enough money to staff the schools, fix the city’s pothole ridden streets or hire enough cops to put a quarter of the bad guys away much less hire fifty paramedics.
The simple truth was we were overwhelmed and understaffed. We lost three medics to back injuries; another had his arm broken by a violent psychiatric patient. Two of our ambulances were totaled in crashes. Morale was at an all time low. Rumors were high. Besides the newspaper pushing the idea that the fire department should take over, there was talk that a sale of the company was imminent – that a national corporation was going to buy us out. They would fire all the senior personnel so they could pay everyone the same lower wage. They would outlaw the twelve and sixteen hour shifts many of us worked. Everyone would work five eight-hour shifts. There would be no overtime. We’d all have to wear ties. If we didn’t like it, tough. We were meat in the seat. Plenty of people waiting to take our jobs.
We didn’t like the program; they’d bring in people from other divisions. None of it made sense – we had a union contract that they would have to honor at least until it expired -- but it was what people were talking about. People said the bad press was coming from somewhere in the fire department. They had a plan to put a paramedic fly car in each of the station’s firehouses. They would go to the calls and decide whether to ride in with the ambulance or not. They would be in charge. People hated that thought. I said “Look on the bright side, to staff all those Broncos; they’ll have to hire paramedics. Maybe you can get a job with a city pension.” But no one was buying that. The medics would be converted firemen. There was talk the fire department was going to start running their own paramedic program in conjunction with one of the hospitals. It didn’t matter that we believed it took a special person to do that job -- that you had to have a gift for the work. We felt powerless.
Don Seurat was called to testify before a special city commission on EMS charged with making recommendations for change. The commission included members of the police and fire departments, as well as representatives from the hospitals, city health department and regional EMS council. There were no representatives from the ambulance, no street medics. Ben told me Perry Santiago made a fiery speech attacking Capitol Ambulance to open the meeting, but before Don could respond, Santiago excused himself, and walked out hurriedly talking into his cell phone.
Santiago’s actions gave more fruit to the rumor that politicians were working on behalf of Champion Ambulance. The state law assigning PSA-public service areas to ambulance companies said the PSA could only be taken away if the town’s chief elected officer could prove negligence on the part of the current provider and could offer a better plan. We heard talk they were drafting a change to the law, a pilot program that would allow one city—Hartford-- to put the contract out to bid. One way or another we all felt the fix was in. Things were changing, and soon would never be the same. If Champion took over, the only way we could keep working in the city was to wear their green pants with the yellow strips. Their gas station jackets had two patches on the front, the patch on the right breast told you your name, the one on the left told who you worked for.
I had never had much patience for the routine grumbling on the job. These kids had no idea of how well they had it. A little “yes, sir, no sir” in the morning, and they were on their own all day, responding to the calls, getting paid for adventure, for hanging out, for stories they could tell over beers. But I could see how the bad publicity and uncertainty took its toll. They were all little heroes, and the public scorn hurt their pride. They needed something to take home, some respect for their years of effort. They needed honor and it hurt to turn on the news and see the six o’clock I-team with their fancy graphics “Citizens at Risk,” “Ambulance Investigation Exclusive”, “Only on this channel,” “You heard it here first” bull shit. Bystanders heckled us on calls. Ambulances got hit with eggs, some times even rocks. We normally stationed cars in the north end at Albany and Main, Albany and Blue Hills, Main and Tower but the company pulled them back to Saint Francis and Mount Sinai after sunset. It would cost a couple minutes in response time, but at least the company was concerned for our safety.
We just weren’t very popular. Everyday we parked our cars up on the curb across from the downtown Dunkin’ Doughnuts and ran in to get our coffee -- they’d done it for years. One morning, a meter maid ticketed a couple cars. One of our EMTs Terry Milner actually got hauled to jail for arguing with the meter maid, who called for police backup. When Terry accidently bumped the cop, he got thrown on the sidewalk and cuffed. They put him in a cell and took his belt away like he might actually kill himself over a parking ticket.
The worst though was when the city gave away free tickets to the circus to the kids of all public safety personnel. Kim Dylan thought that included us, and brought her three kids only to be told at the door, you needed a police or fire ID. She ended up having to hit up the cash machine to pay $20 a pop for her three kids, who didn’t understand why their mommy couldn’t get them in free. We responded to the same 911 calls, stood shoulder to shoulder, worked as a team, but somehow EMS didn’t rate. They were city employees with pensions, we were private employees -- a difference no one thought about when the red lights were whirling.
I was working with a young man just out of medic school, a nice enough kid, but he was out of his league. His first week he had three codes including a teenage girl who’d hung herself and he delivered a premature baby who died. I gave him credit just for coming out in the morning. Turnover was high. Every night crews were held late. Some days to fill shifts even Don Seurat had to man an ambulance.
One afternoon when Pat and I were restocking our ambulance after a trauma, when Don Atreus handed us a memo. “We’ve got a $1000 bounty on anyone who can bring in a new employee. If they make it a year, you get a $1000, they get $1000. Know anyone?”
“How about old employees?” Pat asked. “How about Troy?”
“If Troy wants to come back, we’ll welcome him. He’ll get his full salary and benefits. He just needs a note from his doctor that he’s got his diabetes under control. If you can talk to him, I’d appreciate it.”
“He won’t accept that,” I said to Pat as we left.
“It’s worth a try. I know he misses it.”
Friday, August 07, 2009
Chapter 30
Troy’s Dad invited Pat and me down for a surprise cookout for Troy’s birthday. On the drive down Pat told me about how Troy’s time in the service and how he came to work for Capitol Ambulance. “Troy was a natural soldier,” Pat said. “He loved everything about it – the challenge to be the best. He went to Ranger School and broke training records that had stood for years. He was training for Desert Storm when they found him unconscious. He’d been lying in a field for two days. He’d camouflaged himself so well, no one could find him. His blood sugar was over 1000. He almost died. Instead of parachuting into the desert, he’s getting off a greyhound bus in small-town USA dressed in civvies, a medical discharge in his pocket.
“He came home, did nothing but hang around the house. I was worried about him. Here the two things he’d loved – competitive sports and the military -- were gone from his life. I’d try to get him down to the Y for pick-up games. He could still shoot the lights out, but here he’s playing against middle-aged men with beer bellies and braces on their knees and hot shot kids who like to gun. It seemed meaningless. There were no crowds. Nothing was at stake. He was morose all the time.
“One day I say come with me to work. I’d just started working for Capitol. When I got out of college, I was a salesman for a book publisher. So much for an English degree. I wasn’t bad at it, but it did nothing for me. I thought I’d try the EMT stuff to see if I had the stomach for medicine. Maybe go back to school. Maybe even try for medical school. I loved the job. It seemed a natural for Troy.
“First night he comes out we do a shooting to the head, a double fatal on the highway, and a major MI. Troy signed up for EMT class the next day. He doesn’t always get the applauding crowds here, but when he walks in the house they look up at him like he is a god. You’ve seen that. This is his battleground. This is where he is who he is. They’ve taken that away from him now, and he has nothing left. I don’t know what to do. He’s keeping a good face, but obviously he’s hurting.”
Troy and his Dad lived in an old farmhouse on ten acres of pine forest. In the backyard was a three-quarter basketball court his father had built for Troy when he was a kid. There was a pitching mound, sixty feet from a home plate. His Dad grilled us New York steaks and split lobsters rubbed with mesquite seasoning. He roasted quail on a spit, and shucked fresh oysters and clams. He had a giant ice chest filled with bottles of a local pale ale. Six months before I wouldn’t have touched a beer, but I had had a few now and then with Kim, and I had managed to keep it in control. I didn’t say no when Troy handed me one. We ate, drank, played cards and told stories.
Listening to Troy and Pat tell their tales reminded me of my best friend from childhood, Billy White, and our times together and the cookout our families had for us before we left. We drank all day and into the night where after everyone else had gone to bed, and the fire had dimmed to embers, just Billy and me remained out in the yard. We sat in the rocking chairs we’d taken off the porch, the keg of beer between us that we were determined to finish off. We had a bucket of oysters and clams that we shucked and ate raw, tasting the sea in their salty juices. Overhead shined the Milky Way, which Billy said his grandfather called “The Road of the Gods.”
If there was a time I would want it to be, it would be then. We raised our beers to the heavens, praised nature for making us young and strong, believing our fates were our own to create.
“You want another beer or are you drifting off?” Troy asked, holding a cold bottle up for me.
“No, no, I’m fine,” I said. “Yeah, I’ll take it. Thanks”
We clinked our beers all around.
I’ll admit there were times in the past when it hurt just to be alive, but I was glad for that night, for the energy of Pat and Troy’s friendship, for being able to remember the good times.
“He came home, did nothing but hang around the house. I was worried about him. Here the two things he’d loved – competitive sports and the military -- were gone from his life. I’d try to get him down to the Y for pick-up games. He could still shoot the lights out, but here he’s playing against middle-aged men with beer bellies and braces on their knees and hot shot kids who like to gun. It seemed meaningless. There were no crowds. Nothing was at stake. He was morose all the time.
“One day I say come with me to work. I’d just started working for Capitol. When I got out of college, I was a salesman for a book publisher. So much for an English degree. I wasn’t bad at it, but it did nothing for me. I thought I’d try the EMT stuff to see if I had the stomach for medicine. Maybe go back to school. Maybe even try for medical school. I loved the job. It seemed a natural for Troy.
“First night he comes out we do a shooting to the head, a double fatal on the highway, and a major MI. Troy signed up for EMT class the next day. He doesn’t always get the applauding crowds here, but when he walks in the house they look up at him like he is a god. You’ve seen that. This is his battleground. This is where he is who he is. They’ve taken that away from him now, and he has nothing left. I don’t know what to do. He’s keeping a good face, but obviously he’s hurting.”
Troy and his Dad lived in an old farmhouse on ten acres of pine forest. In the backyard was a three-quarter basketball court his father had built for Troy when he was a kid. There was a pitching mound, sixty feet from a home plate. His Dad grilled us New York steaks and split lobsters rubbed with mesquite seasoning. He roasted quail on a spit, and shucked fresh oysters and clams. He had a giant ice chest filled with bottles of a local pale ale. Six months before I wouldn’t have touched a beer, but I had had a few now and then with Kim, and I had managed to keep it in control. I didn’t say no when Troy handed me one. We ate, drank, played cards and told stories.
Listening to Troy and Pat tell their tales reminded me of my best friend from childhood, Billy White, and our times together and the cookout our families had for us before we left. We drank all day and into the night where after everyone else had gone to bed, and the fire had dimmed to embers, just Billy and me remained out in the yard. We sat in the rocking chairs we’d taken off the porch, the keg of beer between us that we were determined to finish off. We had a bucket of oysters and clams that we shucked and ate raw, tasting the sea in their salty juices. Overhead shined the Milky Way, which Billy said his grandfather called “The Road of the Gods.”
If there was a time I would want it to be, it would be then. We raised our beers to the heavens, praised nature for making us young and strong, believing our fates were our own to create.
“You want another beer or are you drifting off?” Troy asked, holding a cold bottle up for me.
“No, no, I’m fine,” I said. “Yeah, I’ll take it. Thanks”
We clinked our beers all around.
I’ll admit there were times in the past when it hurt just to be alive, but I was glad for that night, for the energy of Pat and Troy’s friendship, for being able to remember the good times.
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Chapter 29
“I didn’t think I would marry again or want to,” Kim said, “But I know that’s what I want now. I don’t know how you feel, but I’m thirty-five and, if I do, my time is getting short. I guess I’d just like to know where you stand.”
She sat on the edge of my bed, her hand on my chest. We had just made love for the second time, but it was late and she was now getting up to dress and return home.
I couldn’t think of the words, and in my silence, she could see that I wasn’t ready.
“You don’t have to say anything,” she said. “I just want you to know what I’ve been thinking, and that I’m going to have to make some decisions. I feel like I am getting into a place where I could get hurt, and I need to protect myself.”
“You know, I’m crazy about you,” I said.
“It’s okay…,” she said. “I don’t want you to be who you’re not. If I start backing away, I just want you to know why.”
She leaned forward and kissed my forehead and then as I watched her, she dressed and left without another word.
They already had the trees marked they were going to take down. With each beer I finished I tossed it out and watched it spin through the air and then disappear below – on the rocks or into the waves. It didn’t matter.
“I heard you were coming up here,” she said. “I thought at least you might have called. I’m glad you made it home safe. I’m sorry about Billy and your Dad.”
I hadn’t heard her and wondered if maybe she had been watching me for awhile. She looked the same, except her hair was cut short. I looked at her belly – it was flat.
“Sorry I missed the wedding,” I said.
“I can’t imagine what you’ve been through. I’m sorry.”
“Believe me I don’t come up here for the memories.” I hurled another beer.
I didn’t look back up for awhile – I just opened another beer. When I did, she was gone.
I left town a week later.
She sat on the edge of my bed, her hand on my chest. We had just made love for the second time, but it was late and she was now getting up to dress and return home.
I couldn’t think of the words, and in my silence, she could see that I wasn’t ready.
“You don’t have to say anything,” she said. “I just want you to know what I’ve been thinking, and that I’m going to have to make some decisions. I feel like I am getting into a place where I could get hurt, and I need to protect myself.”
“You know, I’m crazy about you,” I said.
“It’s okay…,” she said. “I don’t want you to be who you’re not. If I start backing away, I just want you to know why.”
She leaned forward and kissed my forehead and then as I watched her, she dressed and left without another word.
They already had the trees marked they were going to take down. With each beer I finished I tossed it out and watched it spin through the air and then disappear below – on the rocks or into the waves. It didn’t matter.
“I heard you were coming up here,” she said. “I thought at least you might have called. I’m glad you made it home safe. I’m sorry about Billy and your Dad.”
I hadn’t heard her and wondered if maybe she had been watching me for awhile. She looked the same, except her hair was cut short. I looked at her belly – it was flat.
“Sorry I missed the wedding,” I said.
“I can’t imagine what you’ve been through. I’m sorry.”
“Believe me I don’t come up here for the memories.” I hurled another beer.
I didn’t look back up for awhile – I just opened another beer. When I did, she was gone.
I left town a week later.
Monday, August 03, 2009
Chapter 28
“You won’t believe it,” an EMT said to me outside Hartford Hospital. “Troy Johnson’s in Cedarcrest.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I just saw him. We did a psych transfer. I swear to god I saw him. We were at the desk, turning over the paperwork for the new admit, and I saw him in the community room playing Chinese Checkers. He had his back turned to me, but it was him. I know it was him.”
“Yeah, I heard about that this morning,” another EMT chimed in. “A friend of mine works on the ambulance down on the shore. He said they got called to Troy’s house. He’d set a big bon fire in the yard and was yelling and waving a machete. It took three cops to take him down with a stun gun.”
“It wasn’t his sugar talking?”
“No, they said his sugar was fine. Troy Johnson. Can you believe it? In the psycho ward?”
I was stunned.
“He was always freaking crazy,” the EMT said.
I walked away.
The stories started almost immediately. He’d taken over the psych ward by sheer force of personality. They said he cured half the patients of their disabilities. A mute spoke his first words. An anorexic woman began to order second helpings. An unkempt man shaved. One weekend, people said, Troy led an escape of fourteen patients on his floor and took them up to Gloucester in rented limousines where they went on a whale watch. Troy entertained them by leaping into the water, and riding a humpback whale until the coast guard fished him out. Another story had him sneaking out with a blonde nurse with bright red lipstick and movie magazine cleavage. They were later arrested at the Wadsworth Athenaeum for posing naked as statues in the Modern Art wing. It seems a schoolteacher complained to the befuddled management about the full nudity on display.
None of the stories were true of course. I think people were just challenging themselves to come up with the wildest exploits for their hero – the man they most wanted to be like if they could live his life without its consequences. I picked him up on the fourteenth day -- he’d called me from a pay phone on the floor -- and drove him home.
“They thought I was going to harm myself and that was that,” he said. “Fucking cops. I mean, why would I want to hurt myself? It isn’t like I don’t have a great life. I mean look at me. I’m too pretty. I’m the king of the world, the fucking hardware czar of a three-town area. I’ve still got game.”
He didn’t say another word the rest of the ride.
Pat called me that night. “How is he?” he asked. “He didn’t have much to say when I called.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “He really didn’t have much to say to me either.”
“He called you to come pick him up?”
“Yeah. Maybe he tried you and your line was busy. I don’t know.”
“Yeah, I was on the phone a lot today. Thanks for getting him.”
“No problem,” I said.
I could tell from the disappointment in Pat’s tone that it had hurt him that Troy had called me and not him. But where he and Troy were best friends, Troy and I were partners, and partners kept failings between themselves.
“What are you talking about?”
“I just saw him. We did a psych transfer. I swear to god I saw him. We were at the desk, turning over the paperwork for the new admit, and I saw him in the community room playing Chinese Checkers. He had his back turned to me, but it was him. I know it was him.”
“Yeah, I heard about that this morning,” another EMT chimed in. “A friend of mine works on the ambulance down on the shore. He said they got called to Troy’s house. He’d set a big bon fire in the yard and was yelling and waving a machete. It took three cops to take him down with a stun gun.”
“It wasn’t his sugar talking?”
“No, they said his sugar was fine. Troy Johnson. Can you believe it? In the psycho ward?”
I was stunned.
“He was always freaking crazy,” the EMT said.
I walked away.
The stories started almost immediately. He’d taken over the psych ward by sheer force of personality. They said he cured half the patients of their disabilities. A mute spoke his first words. An anorexic woman began to order second helpings. An unkempt man shaved. One weekend, people said, Troy led an escape of fourteen patients on his floor and took them up to Gloucester in rented limousines where they went on a whale watch. Troy entertained them by leaping into the water, and riding a humpback whale until the coast guard fished him out. Another story had him sneaking out with a blonde nurse with bright red lipstick and movie magazine cleavage. They were later arrested at the Wadsworth Athenaeum for posing naked as statues in the Modern Art wing. It seems a schoolteacher complained to the befuddled management about the full nudity on display.
None of the stories were true of course. I think people were just challenging themselves to come up with the wildest exploits for their hero – the man they most wanted to be like if they could live his life without its consequences. I picked him up on the fourteenth day -- he’d called me from a pay phone on the floor -- and drove him home.
“They thought I was going to harm myself and that was that,” he said. “Fucking cops. I mean, why would I want to hurt myself? It isn’t like I don’t have a great life. I mean look at me. I’m too pretty. I’m the king of the world, the fucking hardware czar of a three-town area. I’ve still got game.”
He didn’t say another word the rest of the ride.
Pat called me that night. “How is he?” he asked. “He didn’t have much to say when I called.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “He really didn’t have much to say to me either.”
“He called you to come pick him up?”
“Yeah. Maybe he tried you and your line was busy. I don’t know.”
“Yeah, I was on the phone a lot today. Thanks for getting him.”
“No problem,” I said.
I could tell from the disappointment in Pat’s tone that it had hurt him that Troy had called me and not him. But where he and Troy were best friends, Troy and I were partners, and partners kept failings between themselves.
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