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.
