Bad Call Read online

  As we approach Elmhurst General, the tension eases up a bit. It’s a relief for things to get back to routine. We drop off our patient and go on our way. I never give the cop a second look. To be honest, I don’t have the stones.

  Fred is still agitated on the way back to St. John’s, judging from his grip on the wheel. Fred is nothing if not direct. What did that cop say to you back there. I don’t think he has any idea about what just happened.

  I don’t know, something about this guy was going away for a long time, I say. It’s not like Fred to be this easy, but for some reason, he lets it go. From now on, this episode will be between me, myself, and I.

  I’ve locked myself into a stall in the men’s room at St. John’s. I haven’t dared to look in my pocket, to see what I put there in the ambulance, until right this minute. I reach in. I can feel the crisp new bill and gingerly separate it from the tired old soft money in my pocket—all four bucks of it. I pull out the new bill and look at it. Oh for God’s sake.

  I have just undergone nearly intolerable personal stress and laid my integrity on the line, albeit under duress, for twenty bucks.

  What an asshole, that cop. He’s much worse than a thief.

  He’s a lousy tipper.

  A Visit from a Friend

  It’s the summer of 1970, and I’m damn lucky to have gotten into the New York Army National Guard, especially considering my low number in the first draft lottery. As soon as I got home after graduation, I called the Army Reserve at Fort Totten, and while they didn’t exactly say they weren’t accepting recruits, they did say they only talked to prospects between 8:00 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. Mondays and Fridays. Okay. No need to draw me a picture.

  One of our neighbors told my parents that because the New York Army National Guard had been federalized the year before to deliver mail during a postal strike, there were openings. The troops who were federalized got a year knocked off their six-year obligation. I went to the Flushing Armory, got an orientation, and the next week I was sworn in.

  While I’m waiting to go for basic training, I get to spend drill time at the Flushing Armory mopping floors and cleaning up. Any day now I’ll get sent away for six months’ active duty, and I still won’t have a job when I get out. I suppose I could go back to work on the ambulance, but I know that’s not what four years at Vanderbilt were for. On the other hand, I couldn’t tell you what they were for.

  Even so, it’s all better than having your shit blown away in some festering jungle in Southeast Asia for absolutely no reason. I have a bunch of friends who went—and are still going—and some who won’t be coming back. I have other friends who see no solution other than violent revolution.

  I hope when it’s over we can all still be on speaking terms. Those of us who are still alive and not in prison or in hiding, that is.

  I have lost touch with virtually all of my New York friends by now. Most of the time I work at night and try to sleep by day. I rarely have the opportunity for any kind of social interaction. Make that almost never.

  But it’s not just the job that’s created distance between me and the old gang. A few of my closer high-school friends have gotten involved in the New Left—the Students for a Democratic Society. They had been flirting with the SDS in high school, but I thought they’d have grown out of that by now. In the early college days, the few times I did see them, normal conversation became increasingly difficult. I wanted to talk about beer and Barbara. They wanted to talk about Ho Chi Minh and Marx. I wanted to get wasted and forget what I was seeing all week long. They wanted to engage in endless dialectic.

  The struggles of everyday existence were more than enough for me to deal with; fuck the vanguard of the proletariat. You want to talk about a classless society, come with me for a ride on the ambulance and see how democratic death is.

  I did make a few good friends at Vanderbilt, and I’ve been to visit one recently. He lives out in the sticks west of Baltimore and wants to visit New York, so I’ve invited him up. I say lives out in the sticks. What I mean is that his family resides in an eighteenth-century estate house, filled with eighteenth-century art and artifacts, commanding an eighteenth-century view: you can see nothing but family land from the house.

  The grassy hills surrounding the house roll away to woods and sky, and the only sound is the faint hum of the faraway interstate. His family is distantly related to Johns Hopkins, making him some kind of x-times-removed cousin or nephew, I think, since Johns had no children of his own. My friend goes by the name Speed, which at first I thought had something to do with amphetamines but later found out was the surname of yet another venerable forebear.

  Having seen firsthand how the other half lives, I can say without qualification that I prefer the Hopkins half.

  I have a ride-along on the ambulance planned for him, so he can see for himself the basis of some of the tales I’ve been telling my inner circle every autumn at school, tales that have earned me the dubious nom de guerre Morgue Man. This way, he can tell our mutual friends and acquaintances that I haven’t just been making it all up.

  There are seats for only two up front in the ambulance, so it’s Jose and me in front and Speed sitting on the front edge of the bench in the back. We’re driving around, but we’re not on a call—we’re actually on our way to get something cold and sweet from the Lemon Ice King of Corona. My new and unexpected favorite: the rum raisin. I’m laying off the lemon for a while; I suspect it’s starting to take the enamel off my teeth.

  It has been an unusually slow night so far, and I’m getting a little concerned that we won’t see any of the action that I’ve led Speed to believe was a nightly, if not hourly, part of the job. Not that I would ever wish anyone to get hurt or maimed or die for the mere titillation of a friend. I merely want to provide some evidence of my secret life. A little backup testimony.

  I’m almost on the verge of making some kind of apology to Speed when we get a call. Woman down. No rush. It’s in a private house. Second floor. Over and out and off we go. See you later, Lemon Ice King.

  When we get to the house, a man who I assume is the husband is there to greet us and lead us up. No hurry, no panic. No big deal so far. Speed is staying in the ambulance, keeping a low profile. I’m not sure if we’re allowed to take friends for ride-alongs, but I’m way past the point of caring enough to ask. If someone at the scene should ask, I’m going to tell them Speed is starting work in a week and this is part of his orientation. In fact, that’s just what Pete did when I was starting. Nobody cared then, so why would they now.

  There are four of us going up to the second floor. The husband, Jose, a cop, and myself. The other cop is upstairs with the patient, in her bedroom. She’s sitting on her bed, and tears are streaming down her face, but it isn’t the tears that I notice first.

  She is without a doubt the fattest human being I have ever seen.

  Sitting sideways on her bed with her legs hanging down, she occupies nearly its entire length. She’s looking right at us. At me. She seems like a very nice woman, and I’m trying my best not to stare like a kid at a sideshow, but, Holy Jesus, she’s enormous. I wouldn’t even begin to guess her weight. More than four hundred for sure. Maybe more than five hundred. I think the heaviest person we’ve ever carried was between three hundred and four hundred. I’m staring for a very practical reason. We need to figure out how to move her, and it won’t be easy.

  She knows what we’re thinking, and before anyone can speak she attempts to lighten the mood by trying a weak laugh and saying through her tears, You boys will never get me out of here. Last time it took eight big guys. I believe it.

  Our efforts to move her are going to be complicated by the pain she’s in. She’s diabetic, and both of her legs are gangrenous below the knees, and she must be in nearly intolerable pain. Any attempt to handle her legs—which will be inevitable—is going increase her pain dramatically.

  She definitely needs to go to the hospital, and we’re going to take her. The question is n
ot whether, but how. We all retreat downstairs to make a plan.

  Any removal by stretcher or folding chair is completely out. She simply won’t fit either one. We’re doubtful that we can even get her down the staircase. She’s wider than the distance from the wall to the banister, but there has to be some flexibility on her sides, so we may be able to squeeze her through. I wonder how they got her out last time. Has she gained weight since then. Probably so. Pointless questions. This is what it is, right now.

  One of the cops has an idea. Since we need reinforcements anyway, he’ll call EMS. They’ll give us the extra muscle we need, and they may have a few tricks up their sleeve that we don’t. While we’re waiting, I go back down to the bus to see how Speed is doing. I explain to him that this is the largest person we’ve ever tried to move and we are waiting for the cavalry to give us some extra carrying power. I have to turn down his offer of help, since he’s not insured—in case she falls and gets injured or falls and injures one of us.

  While I’m hanging out with Speed and Jose, I size up the interior of the ambulance. Oh Christ, she’s not going to fit in here. Not with the stretcher in place. She will easily take up the entire floor of the ambulance, a good-sized Suburban-based vehicle. She may not even make it in between the ambulance wall and the bench seat. Or she may—just.

  Once we’ve gotten her downstairs, we’ll be at the point of no return; we’ll never be able to put her back. Not all the king’s horses nor all the king’s men. She will have to fit. We’ll need to leave the stretcher at the house and return for it, which is something we’ve never done. We can do that if her husband stays home and doesn’t go with her to the hospital. Come to think of it, he can’t go to the hospital with her, at least with us. She’ll take up the entire rear of the ambulance, and Speed will have to squeeze between me and Jose for the trip. EMS is here.

  We all go upstairs to take another look and review the situation. The EMS cops immediately come up with part A of the solution. We’ll lay her on a body bag and slide her down the stairs, three of us at the top, two at the bottom, and one holding on to the edge of the bag and walking down the steps, outside the banister. Will this work, you guys. They’re confident it will. What’s part B of the solution. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, I guess.

  I’ve never seen a body bag like the one they’ve just brought in. It’s more like a tarp than a bag: a huge, square, heavy dark green canvas, with loop handles and ties along the side. It looks like a piece of military bivouac equipment. Also, it’s dirty. I know these are meant for dead people, but our patient is very much alive. Do they ever clean these things, I ask. Yeah, they clean them, but they can’t get the stains out. Wonderful.

  The plan is to spread out the bag on the floor by her bed and then ease her onto it. Sounds straightforward enough, but these things never work out as well as you hope.

  The body bag/tarp is all laid out with the bottom end pointing at the bedroom door toward the stairs. Can you stand up for us, ma’am. Yes, she can. We help her up, but immediately she seems like she’s about to go over. She is imponderably ponderous. None of us could stop her if she started to go down. We are lumberjacks wondering which way our tree will fall.

  Jose and I steady her in front. Her huge, pillowy arms are lying on our shoulders. We turn her slightly so her back is away from the bed, and three of the cops can get behind her and work her down to the tarp. As her back lowers, sliding against the bed frame, Jose and I straighten out her legs, and she starts to shriek. I’m so sorry, lady. It has to be done.

  Now she’s on the tarp. So much for the two-at-the-bottom theory—it will take more than two to drag the tarp to the top of the stairs. Change in plans. Three of us will pull her down (since that’s all that will fit on the stairs), two will take the top, and the sixth man will go down outside the banister as planned. We start to pull. Nothing happens. We pull some more, and still she doesn’t budge. Now I’m thinking maybe she’s more than five hundred pounds, although the friction from the canvas against the carpeting isn’t helping any. We should have put something down first—waxed paper maybe. Too late for that now.

  We decide to use short tugs, and those seem to work better. Basically, it’s all on the three of us at the bottom, since the guys at the top are really not in a position to help much—they’d have to push, and you can’t push a tarp.

  We barely get her through the door onto the landing. The stairs are fully carpeted with a thick runner. This is not going to go well. Jose has an idea and asks us all to wait. He runs out to the ambulance and grabs the backboard to use as a skid under the tarp. We get her to the edge of the stairs with the board positioned below the top step. With a mighty tug, we get her onto the skid.

  End of plan A.

  Before we know what has happened, Jose, cop, patient, skid, and I are at the bottom of the stairs. Everything but the board is on top of the woman, who is now shrieking like a steam whistle. Jose’s skid idea worked. Too well. Our patient shot down the staircase like a meteor hurtling to earth, trailing three baby asteroids. We’re trying to get off of her as fast as we can, being especially careful not to step on one of her legs.

  By now, I’m sure Speed has heard the screams, not to mention the crash at the bottom of the stairs, and I’m wondering what he’s wondering is going on in here. The front door to the street has been open all the time we’ve been working.

  Now all six of us grab the tarp until we get to the front door, then it’s pull/yank/tug again. We need to get the board out from under her to move it so we can slide her over the doorsill and down the brick stairs. Five of us go on one side to lift while Jose yanks the board out and puts it in place under the bottom of the tarp and over the sill. We pull. Now she’s out on the stoop.

  Our stretcher has folding side arms, and when they’re down, it can be made to lie completely flat. We will use the backboard as a ramp to get her down the steps and onto the stretcher so we can roll her to the ambulance. That works all right, but how are we going to get her onto the floor of the ambulance. By now, the backboard appears to be the hero of the play. I’m wondering how much more it can take. It’s only three-quarter-inch plywood. She is on the stretcher, still on the tarp, and we’ve retrieved the board to use it again as a ramp. We’re going to slide her up the board from the stretcher into the back of the ambulance. This may be the hardest task of the entire call.

  Only two can enter the ambulance, backward, pulling at the tarp. The other four of our team will have to push and slide her up the board as we back our way through the ambulance, into the front, and out the driver’s and attendant’s doors. Excuse us, Speed.

  Jose and I are the go-in-backward team, since it’s our ambulance. It works surprisingly well, even though our exit is a bit ungainly.

  Jose and I go back to the rear of the ambulance to take a look. Just as I thought. She literally fills up the entire interior of the ambulance, from the wall to the bench and almost half the vertical area. I’ve never seen the rear end of the ambulance sag like this. I wheel the stretcher up to the house, where our patient’s husband is more than happy to hold it for us and also grateful we were able to get his wife out of the house for treatment. He obviously loves her very much, and I hope he thinks we handled her with enough care. She screamed so much. I want to tell him it couldn’t be helped. I think he knows.

  I tell the EMS guys we’ll save their tarp for them at St. John’s. Our patient is quiet now, and I think she believes me when I tell her the worst is over. Jose, Speed, and I are off to EGH.

  Speed is dumbfounded. As much as I want to explain to him that this is no ordinary call, that it’s not always like this, that we don’t always make our patients scream, I’m too tired to say anything at this point.

  When we get to EGH, we go in for a gurney and some help. We tell the four orderlies who come with us that we have a very large patient who is too heavy for the two of us to move. I’ll never forget the looks on their faces when they come outside.


  Once again the backboard serves us well. Archimedes, I love you, man. The six of us have little difficulty sliding the woman out of the bus, onto the backboard/ramp, and on top of the gurney. The difficulty comes in keeping her on top of the gurney. She’s so big that she’s literally hanging over both sides, threatening to fall off either one way or the other. This didn’t seem too much of a problem when we had her on the stretcher, which is low to the ground, but the gurney is considerably higher and the whole situation is much more precarious.

  From here on into the Elmhurst ER, it’s a balancing act, trying to keep her centered on the gurney while straining to move her immense bulk. Slow and steady. Nice and slow. Okay, EGH people, she’s all yours now.

  She’s in. Now it’s back to her house to get our stretcher. Then on to the Lemon Ice King. We must have made an impression on Speed.

  He says it’s his treat.

  Bon Voyage, Scumbag

  There’s a good reason I don’t like to read novels even when they’re superbly written: I don’t believe in them. I think they’re cheats. I don’t believe life happens like that, with a linear plot and a beginning, a middle, and an end. Life is episodic, like a series of short stories. Or even more of an isolated moment in time than that: a poem. William Faulkner said a novelist is a failed poet, and I believe him. Maybe a short-story writer is somewhere in between: a poet who got all Cs.

  It may be that the episodes in a life are connected well enough to make a coherent novel, but I have always doubted it, until today. Now I think it may be possible, because this story has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

  A really satisfying, terrific end.

  I’m starting on a twelve-hour night shift, and it’s about 7:30 p.m., still light, but it’s the end of August, and already it’s getting darker earlier. So it’s twilight. I’m on with Lenny. Lenny is a really small guy. Totally unlike anyone else on the ambulance. More like a furtive woodland creature. He looks like he has some sort of deformity in his upper back—maybe scoliosis. He has what I would call a flatline demeanor. I’ve never seen him get emotional. He doesn’t seem interested in talking about anything in particular. When he does speak, it’s unbelievably fast, and I have to ask him to repeat himself half the time. We don’t work together too much, but when we do it’s at night, and we seem to be lucky in that we often have shifts where it’s quiet and we can catch some sleep. So I really don’t know that much about him. It’s pretty much a pH 7 relationship.