Chapters Twenty-Six to Thirty

Chapter Twenty-Six

“463, Fern Street. West Hartford. Signal 17, for the sick call, Priority one, but they request a silent approach.”

“That’s bullshit,” Tom said. “I hate that. You either get lights and sirens or you don’t. What they’re worried their neighbors are going to see. Maybe we should have unmarked ambulances for the rich so as to maintain appearances. Fuck it. They want us on a one. They want us to put ourselves at risk, hurtling over here, I’m using the sirens right up to the front door.”

And he did. He used both sirens with the air horn for emphasis. People on the street were holding their ears as we passed. We raced down that residential street like we were going to a train wreck. Tom could be a dickhead when his buttons were pushed. I usually tried to moderate him, but sometimes it was just best to be silent, like him work his rage out.

There was only a cop car out in front. If it was at all serious they would have sent the fire department. That got Tom even more ticked. “Sick call,” he muttered. “They can’t give us better info than that. They knew enough not to send fire.”

He backed into the drive, without hitting off the backup alarm and left the lights, whirling for good measure. “We’re taking everything in,” he said. “Take the suction, too.”

“The suction?”

We never took the suction in.

“The suction.”

Already, I could see concerned neighbors standing at their front doors. Some walking over to see what was going on.

A woman about fifty met us at the front door. “Really, you don’t need the lights and I told them not to send you with sirens. You just need the stretcher and one of those chairs.”

“They just gave it to us an emergency,” Tom said. “We came as quickly as we could. You did call 911.”

“Yes, but…”

“Well, here we are. What’s going on?”

“My mother is ill. She has a fever and has been vomiting. The doctor wants her admitted to the hospital.”

Tom grunted. “Any trouble breathing? Any chest pain?”

“No, she just has a fever.”

“Well, we’ll check her out. Where is she?”

“Upstairs.”

I was going to put the equipment back in the truck, but Tom gestured for me to bring it. I followed them into the house. I wiped my boots on the mat, even though Tom didn’t. He could be such a dick.

The woman was in a bathrobe lying in bed. I saw trouble when I recognized the man standing over her. He was one of the town selectmen. This was his mother. The officer there tried to give Tom a knowing nod that said special treatment required.

Tom felt her forehead, and she recoiled from his hand.

“You’re hand is so cold.”

“Sorry, You feel a little warm. What’s her temp?”

“101.3,” the woman said. Dr. Collier wants her seen at Hartford.”

“Tim, get the stair chair, and a Johnny top.” To the family, he said, “We’re going to do a few things before we go.”

“It’s really not necessary.”

“No, it is,” he said. “You called for a paramedic. My job is to do a thorough assessment for the hospital. It helps them determine where to place the patient. In a bed or in the waiting room.”

“Dr. Collier said she’s going to be admitted.”

“I’ll be sure to tell them that. The ED will get enjoying that tidbit. Now we need to get this bathrobe off. I’m going to take your blood pressure now.”

“But I’m warm like this.”

“Please.”

”Let him do his job, mother,” the selectman said.

She wasn’t happy when Tom had her take the robe and pajama tops off so he could put her in a Johnny gown. At least he let the daughter put it on her, while the rest of us averted our eyes. He did a thorough assessment all right. Lung sounds in eight fields, abdominal palpation—all nine sections. Orthostatic vitals. 12 lead. He put in an IV, drew blood, checked her sugar, and her pulse SAT, which was 98%. “That’s good. No oxygen necessary for you,” he said. “You’re getting better oxygen than me. Of course I’m a smoker. I run triathlons, but I smoke.” He was just talking out of his butt, trying to be both professional and a dickhead at the same time. I think he thought he was just being a dickhead professional, but you could make the case that he was instead trying out to be a professional dickhead. “12- lead’s good, vitals are good. Just a little fever. Nothing that some aspirin and some fluids won’t cure.”

“The doctor’s worried she may have pneumonia,” the daughter said.

Tom stared at her a moment too long. “Is he?’ he said.

“Yes.”

If we had have done this call in a housing project in the north end, he wouldn’t have brought anything in. He’s have said, “Zapatos! Tarjeta medico! Vamanos! Get the fuck up, let’s go!” and walked her down four flights to the ambulance. But on the other hand, they probably would not have sent us lights and sirens or even sent a cop.

She was a big woman, maybe two hundred and eighty pounds. We bundled her up in the stair chair. I took the feet. Tom who was taller than me should have taken it, but the lady said she was nauseous and he had a thing about getting puked on.

“Keep your hands in,” I said, as I secured the straps around her. “Don’t reach out when we go down the stairs.”

We were half way down, and I was struggling a little because they had paintings on the stairway wall, and I liked to brace myself with one shoulder against a wall as I walked backwards down the stairs to support myself. I didn’t feel I had my balance quite right.

Suddenly, the woman reached out for the railing. Tom wasn’t paying attention, and it threw us off balance. I was just stepping backward. I leaned hard against the wall, knocking a painting off, and I jerked my right up to counter balance the movement or we were going to loose her.

“Don’t reach out,” Tom shouted.

But I had already felt a rip in my shoulder.

Tears were running down my eyes it hurt so much.

“Are you all right? The cop asked. I should have been spotting you.

“We told you not to reach out,” Tom shouted at the woman.

“I’m sorry. I thought you were going to drop me.”

“I think I hurt my shoulder, I moaned.

The cop had to come slide past the woman, and take the chair, which I had balanced on my knee as I leaned against the wall.

I couldn’t lift my arm.

We had to get another crew to come out and help Tom with the call, while a supervisor drove me to the hospital. I’m not a sissy, but I could have used a medic to get me some morphine for the pain.

They gave me some at the hospital, along with the news I had torn my rotator cuff, and would need surgery. On top of that I would be out of work for up to two months or longer.

They gave me some percocet and sent me home. The percocet made me nauseous. I called Carrie to see if she could bring us a prescription the doctor had given me over the phone to cure my vomiting, but she wasn’t home and wasn’t answering her cell phone. I didn’t want to bother my mother.

Fred stopped by in the ambulance to see how I was doing. In addition to going and picking up my prescription, he left me half a bag of dope he said he’d picked up on Garden Street. It seemed I wasn’t the only one who as finding things on calls.

The dope helped take away the pain and the nauseous, and I lay in bed trying not to think how being out of work was going to change my life.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I missed work. Once you get into something so hard, you inevitably go through withdrawal. I didn’t want to be one of those guys who was always hanging out at the office, or stopping by every time I saw one of our rigs on the roads. You think you are a part of things, but then you go out and it’s like you were never there. The world goes on. You get lucky enough to come back and it is like you never left. People see you or they don’t. You’re not indispensable. You’re just a body in the seat. Someone to do the calls, someone to talk to. Not indispensable. Sort of visible and invisible at the same time.

I thought maybe I would hang out with Carrie more. I was getting worker’s comp, but no overtime so I was really short on dough. I figured I could make it up to her by offering do projects about her house, things I could do with one arm. I offered to paint her room, and did a nice job at it. It just took me awhile. I still only got to stay there two nights a week.

“You need to go home by five,” she said when she got home from work. “It’s not fair to my roommate, you’re being here all the time.”
“But she’s at work tonight.”

“That isn’t the point. You don’t pay rent here. She does.”

“Ask her, I’ll paint her room too, the bathroom the hallways everything.”

“I’m sure she’ll like that, but she specifically told me I could only have overnight guests two nights a week, and we’ve abused that a bit in the past. I just want to be fair to her.”

So I painted by day, and went home to my room at night. Even the two nights I stayed seemed to lack their usual vigor. I was living on Vienna sausages and bologna to be able to afford to take her out once a week, and do Chinese the other night.

“You look like you’ve got a tape worm,” Carrie said, “I don’t understand you’re losing weight with all you eat when you’re with me.”

I was losing weight because I’d stopped weightlifting and wasn’t getting enough protein to support what muscle I did have. I was starving myself. The only other good meal I got was at my mom’s, and she said the same thing. “You look terrible.”

They had a big explosion one day at the civic center, they had ambulances in from all over, and I had to watch it on TV wishing at was there. Over a hundred people were hurt, sixteen died. I saw all the old faces on the news—there was Fred doing CPR on a child – and saw plenty of new people I didn’t know. I heard everyone in the company who was on that day got an accommodation from the mayor.

Thanksgiving dinner I was able to make it after all. My mom, my sister and myself. It was depressing.

“How come you didn’t bring anyone?” my sister asked.

“Because I didn’t invite anyone?”

“What about your girlfriend?”

“She’s having dinner with her family.”

“She didn’t invite you?”

“Don’t you have anything nice to say?”

“She didn’t want to come. You could have brought your partner.”

“Are you talking about Fred?”

“No, not that dufus. I’m talking about that Tom guy you work with, the good looking one.”

“What do you know about him?”

“I saw him at the Wendy’s. He was in there getting a burger. I told him I was your sister. He said he’d take me down to the casino some night.”

“Stay the fuck away from him.”

“I can see whoever I want.” And she stuck her tongue at me.

“Suit yourself then. You’re twenty. You can wreck your life, see if I care. Enjoy your veneral disease.”

“Mom!”

“Stop it the both of you. This is a family meal.”

At least I got a decent meal out of it. Afterwards we all watched Groundhog Day together. I spent the night on the couch. My mom came down in the middle of the night and wrapped a blanket on me. I pretended to be asleep. She must have sat there an hour watching me sleep.

***

I was getting strange vibes from Carrie some nights when I’d call her just to say hi, maybe hoping to finagle an invitation over on an off night. She acted like she didn’t have time to talk to me. “What is going on with you? Do you have someone there?’

“Yes, some friends from work. We’re doing a project, having pizza and trying to get our deadline met. Things have been hectic.”

“I guess they have. Are we still on for tomorrow?”

“Yeah, why don’t I just meet you at the Olive Garden?”

“All right.”

After we ate that night, she said she was all of a sudden not feeling well, and went home alone. I laid out sixty bucks for dinner and wine for her and got nothing by a good night peck on the check in return.

One night I decided to stake her house out. She usually arrived home from work at four-thirty to five depending on whether she stopped at the store. I let Freddy use my car in exchange for his tinted window Camaro. I backed in to a space on the far side of the parking lot, but with a good view of her front door. I had a pair of my dad’s old Binoculars, a 64 ounce Coke from the 7-11, a notebook to write down any thoughts, and a couple cans of Vienna sausage in case I got hungry.

At ten after five, I saw her grey Yugo pull in to her assigned spot. She got out, and went around to the passenger door, and took out three bags of groceries. I saw a loaf of French bread sticking out. She was cooking pasta no doubt. She always bought French Bread when she cooked for me, which she’d a fair amount of in the beginning when we were first seeing each other, but hadn’t for awhile. I also saw her take out a box of wine. She liked to drink red burgundy.

I waited. Who was coming over? She usually told me seven when she was cooking. It gave her time to smoke a little reefer if she had it, make the sauce, cleanup the house, and take a long bubble bath, which was where she would start in on the wine. She always liked to have a good high going when I got there. I could taste the wine on her breath when she’d put her tongue in my mouth as soon as I came through the door. Just thinking about the way she used to greet me, the passion coming off of her, passion for me I believed, got me excited sitting there. And it made me feel like a pervert, hiding behind tinted glass, spying.

The living room blinds were partly in, but I couldn’t see in from where I was. I wondered what would happen if I waited a little longer until she was in the tub, then cracked the door and went in. Would she be surprised to see me? Would she scream and call the cops, or we she say come here lover boy, and rub my face over her soapy breasts like I was a human luffa pad.

A seven on the button, a big black Chevy truck pulled up, and I got nervous as a tall muscular man I knew to be a Hartford cop got out, ran his hand through his hair. He was carrying what looked like a six pack of beer, and headed straight for her door.

He rang the bell. Waited, looked at his watch, then I saw the door open and the dread sight. Carry in her bathroom, grabbing him by the neck and pulling him in the door.

Call me a masochist, but I got out of the car, walked slowly to the apartment. No, I wasn’t going to knock on the door, but what I did is inch up close to the house and peer in the window. I saw them. He had her already sprawled out over the ottoman, and I could hear her cries through the window -- her cries of pleasure, her calls of encouragement.

I walked back to the car. When I opened the door, I saw the crow bar in the back seat. I thought about getting and doing a number on his car, smashing the windshield, the front lights, calling him out, calling him out to fight mano a mano or because he a good eighty pounds on me, mano a crow bar, Instead, I just took a bottle of sprite. I walked over to his car, spun off the gas tank, and poured it in like it was STP. Asshole.


Chapter Twenty-Eight

“So, what are you up to?” I asked over the phone.

“What do you mean ‘What am I up to?’”

“Simple question ought to get a simple answer.”

“I’m not up to anything except talking to you and wondering what the fuck you are talking about.”

“I was just curious.”

“Curious about what?”

“About what you’ve been up to. I call you and instead of hey, how you doing, let’s get together, I get these weird vibes from you that make me wonder what you’ve been up to, hence the question, what have you been up to.’

“I’m going to hang up now.”

“Why would you do that. Maybe you don’t want to answer the question.”

“Do you have something to say to me?”

“Yes, I do. Who the fuck was that over at your apartment last night?”

“What?”

“Don’t what me. You know what I’m talking about, the guy who had you against the ottoman. I could hear your grunting from the front door.”

“I can’t believe you.”

“You can’t believe me. I can’t believe you. You give me all these lame excuses why I can only come over two nights a week, my roommate, my work projects, and it turns out, its because I a whore, and I’ll take it from as many guys as I can get to come over and do me.”

“Fuck you! Maybe it’s because I want a real man, not some skinny horny little runt who can hardly even afford to take me out to a decent dinner.”

“Really, what dinner did you have last night? Where did he take you out? Carbones, Le New York Restaurant, Max’s Oyster House. No he went to Carrie’s Clam shack and you went to Big Boy’s Hot dog stand.”

“You are so immature.”

“Yeah, a least I’m not a phony.”

“Phony. That’s a laugh. You think you’re this big bad EMT. You with that ridiculous fake badge of yours. How much did it cost you $5? Did you get from a catalogue or the back of a comic book?”

She knew where to put the knife and how to turn it.

“The guy I was seeing last night is a police office with a real badge and gun.”

“Yeah, he’s got the gun all right.”

“Yeah, he’s got a gun, and he’s a good job and a pension, something you’ll never have.”

“I’ve been putting money away. I’m investing in our company’s 401K plan. I have a diversified portfolio I’m putting together.” Oh course I was lying, just parroting comments I’d heard Tom make to another medic.

“A diversified portfolio? You’re pathetic. And a peeping tom to boot. How low. I can’t believe I ever even went out with you. I can’t believe you spied on us. What a creep.”

“I wasn’t spying. I was just missing you so I was just going to leave some flowers in your door. That’s when I heard the grunting and I happened to see in the window. Now I know why they call cops pigs. The two of you in there making bacon.”

I got a dial tone. I stayed there holding the phone in my hand. I wasn’t going to try to call back. I knew I had fucked it up for good. That tone was the end. The tone rang in my brain. How was I going to be able undo that damage. I wasn’t going to be able to just show up on Friday night like nothing had happened. Everything had happened. I had basically called her a slut, which she was, but you can’t call someone that and expect nothing to change. Besides, she was right. He was a cop and his badge and gun were real. I was just some fucking doofus who been lucky to stumble in her path when she was down and out, and I was just a pretender and I had been found out.

I lay down on my bed. My head was spinning. I didn’t know how I was going to live. I was a nobody and everybody would know it. Loser.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

I was consumed with the idea of revenge. I was not a powerful person, but I was resourceful. When my neighbor poisoned my dog because he barked too much – he tossed him some poisoned meat I am sure. I set a delayed fuse in his garage. It was a simple device. I cut off the heads of fifty matches, and rolled them together in a paper towel like they were tobacco and the towel was a cigarette wrapper. I waited until he left as he always did around seven forty to hit the liquor store before it closed for the night. He was a drinker, cracking open his first beer at three-thirty when he got home from his job at the aircraft plant. I snuck in the garage through the side door by jimmying the lock. I set the fuse with a cigarette – a Camel- his brand, then tossed the cigarette under his lawn mower, which he had just used to cut his scraggly quarter of an acre. I had soaked some rags in gasoline and left them nearby. The delayed fuse I lay across the lawnmower and extended it ten inches to the top of a small stack of newspaper, again pretreated with gasoline from the stack of recycled newspapers he kept nearby. He stored fireworks in his garage that he set off every forth of July – bottle rockets and firecrackers that he boasted he’d bought five years before in South Carolina on his trip to Florida. I knew where he kept them. In one of those safes that anyone can pick just by the feel of their fingers – You spin it left, spin it right, then back left again real slow until it clicks. I opened the safe, took out some firecrackers and bottle rockets and left them on the shelf above the newspapers. I put a second delayed fuse connected to their fuses. My plan was simple. The first delayed fuse would start a good fire that would stoke the second fuse, setting off the firecrackers and bottle rockets. To fire investigators I guessed it would look like he had accidentally ignited the hot lawnmower with a poorly tossed cigarette and the blaze would be aided by the gasoline rags, and then further fueled by the poorly stored fireworks that he had taken out to look at in anticipation of the upcoming holiday. I wasn’t trying to burn the garage down, just trying to get him to dial 911, and then have to admit he was out driving, when it was clear he was shit-faced. Just some small mischief. He’d know it was me, but wouldn’t be able to prove it, and I’d have an alibi, as I was helping my mom make cookies at the time, and had only gone out for a minute to use the bathroom. I’d made certain I had an excuse, by drinking about three gallons of grape juice, giving me massive diarrhea.


Anyway, the plan worked just great, except the fire took so quickly and was spread by the bottle rockets igniting what was already a great fire hazard all the junk he had, and instead of calling 911 himself, he had tried to put the fire out when he got back and found his garage ablaze, that by the time the fire department arrived, it was too late. My mom and I watched it all. He pointed the finger at me, and the cops gave me a grilling, but they couldn’t prove anything. The only way they were able to make me pay for the garage was they found some of his fireworks in my bedroom, which I had lifted, and the choice was get busted for theft and have the judge go hard on me or pay $10,000 that I did not have, but could work off. I also had to move out and agree not to take any more actions against him. If I had had a good lawyer, I would have probably not even had to that, but I didn’t have a lawyer, and was sort of strong-armed. Live and learn.

With my past, anything to do with fire was out of the option. I was happy to see the next night he came to Carrie’s, he wasn’t in a pickup, but in a loaner from Winthrop Chevy. I went down to the Winthrop lot and saw his Chevy parked by the service door. Maybe the sprite had done its job, but I wasn’t satisfied.

I had a yahoo email address I used on my mom’s computer, not having one of my own. Sometimes Carrie had sent me jokes or funny pictures which she sent out in mass to her friends. I saved a few, so I scoured the list of other addresses and found one I thought was her new guy. RSCop. I also went to the city web site for the police department he belonged to and found a picture of him, which I saved to the computer. I then a search of gay personals, and found a web page where I listed his email, posted his cop picture and wrote a description describing all the kinky things he wanted down to him by other men. I also listed Carrie’s phone number. I was cracking up as I wrote it. I did all this not on my mom’s computer, but at the city library so they couldn’t trace if tack to me.

Revenge kept me busy, kept me from feeling sorry for myself, made me feel like I had some control in the world. I had a host of tricks in my bag. I went down to the public library and collected subscription cards from every magazine that had in their collection, which was over 200. I filled them all out with his name and address, which I had also gotten on-line. It would take a while for them to arrive, but it would be a pain for him to deal with that was for sure.

I sent Alcoholics Anonymous literature and Anti-drug literature to him at work, and marked it personal and confidential. I called hotlines and left his work number.

Everyday I tried to think of a new trick to add. I made up a bumper sticker that said “I hate guinea wops,” that I stuck on his condo door, then had pizzas delivered to his house from every pizza parlor in town. I watched as they’d arrive, ring his doorbell and no one would answer. I left my own message on his answering machine to go with all the others I’m sure he had. In a heavy Italian voice I swore, “Hey, whassamatta you stupid fuck. You mess with my fucking business, I mess with yours. Dey say revenge is best serve cold, I serve it to you hot.” I even went so far as to buy a mackerel at the city fish market, wrap in newspaper and leave it on his doorstep.

I get a call from Carrie.

“Hey, how are you doing?” I said. “Long time no talk to, what are you up too.”

“You stop it right now, you don’t know who you’re messing with.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Don’t play stupid. I know its you, and you don’t want Bob coming after you.”

“Bob, is that the name of your new friend? Bob? Sounds kind of gay.”

“Oh, that’s a good one. I had to have my phone line changed all the calls I’ve been getting.”

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about. Its funny I was thinking of you just last night. I was at Carbone’s with my new girl friend, Rosie deGarmo, nice girl, and what a cook, comes from a big Italian family. I went to pay, and it turns out her uncle is in business with Carbone’s. It didn’t cost me a dime. I looked around for you, and I didn’t see you.”

“Bob is coming after you. I told him it had to be you. He’s too nice of a guy to have enemies.”

“Have you been drinking? Are you high?”

“Stop t, and don’t say you weren’t warned.”

The next day I was driving down the street, and I got pulled over.

It was Bob.

“License and registration,” he said.

I gave it to him.

He came back and handed me a ticket $180 for traveling 30 mph in a 25 mph zone.

“You’re Bob,” I said. “I recognize you know. Carrie told me about you.” I laughed. “She kills me. She calls you Little Bob. Why is that? Is that why you’re giving me a ticket? You’re jealous you can’t match me.”

“Listen you little shit,” he said. “Two can play this game”

“What are you going to do, give me a ticket for breathing?”

“That’s not a bad idea. Hold on a minute.” He walked behind my car, and then I heard a smash. He’d hit my taillight.” He came back to the window. “How’s $60 for a broken taillight, instead.”

“You’re a funny man, Bob.”

“We’ll meet again soon, I’m sure,” he said, “Unless you make yourself scare, get my point.”

“Yes, sir, I do.” I said.

“From now on, I see you, I own you. Your license gone. Your registration forget about it. Give me any trouble, you’re in the lockup, understand? You don’t want me as your jailor because you will wipe my ass, if I ask you. You will suck my dick if I tell you. Are we clear?”

“Yes, sir,” I said, sounding as scared as I could. “Mr. Policeman, sir.”

“That’s it. I like it when you show some respect. Dickhead.”

That night I played the tape back for him on his answering machine:

“You’re Bob. I recognize you know. Carrie told me about you.” Laughter. “She kills me. She calls you Little Bob. Why is that? Is that why you’re giving me a ticket? You’re jealous you can’t match me.”

“Listen, you little shit. Two can play this game”

“What are you going to do, give me a ticket for breathing?”

“That’s not a bad idea. Hold on a minute.” Smash sound. “How’s $60 for a broken taillight, instead.”

“You’re a funny man, Bob.”

“We’ll meet again soon, I’m sure. Unless you make yourself scare, get my point.”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

“From now on, I see you, I own you. Your license gone. Your registration forget about it. Give me any trouble, you’re in the lockup, understand? You don’t want me as your jailor because you will wipe my ass, if I ask you. You will suck my dick if I tell you. Are we clear?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Policeman, sir.”

“That’s it. I like it when you show some respect. Dickhead.”

Carrie called me the next day. “You better not play that for anyone else.”

“I don’t intend to, but I have done nothing wrong here. I’m an innocent man, and I won’t let you or your boyfriend blame me if someone else is fucking with you. I’m not a dumbshit.”

She was quiet. “All right, I’m sorry,” she said. We just thought it might be you.”

“Please.”

Then I hung up, giving her the dial tone.

I won’t lie. For the first time I felt good about her dumping me.

Chapter 30

The glow from getting back at her didn’t last long. It was replaced inevitably by the loneliness I felt. And it was a loneliness that was only made worse by being with other people. I avoided going to bars, avoided going to my mother’s, avoided even going to stores during busy hours. I became a night owl, staying up watching old movies, and sometimes reading books. I liked reading short stories, and thought the authors probably got a lot of chicks because they were so good at telling tales. I particularly like a book called Steppenwolf about a guy walked around like me. I tried writing a few stories myself, but it never came out like it happened, or if it did, when you read them, you just didn’t get that live feeling. Some nights I just listened to classical music. Mrs. Broadbent had given me a list of the ten greatest works and I had bought them all. Beethoven, Mozart, Stravinsky. Dvorak’s New World Symphony remained my favorite. It haunted me. I felt like he too must have at some time in his life looked around at the world and wondered how he ended up where he did, like maybe we were both just bit players in a universe and world to daunting to comprehend.

I was glad when my shoulder was healed enough to go back to work without hurting too much, but a funny thing happened. I used to love the job, but now it didn’t take long for me to see something had changed. It just wasn’t the same anymore. The things I found fascinating before, no longer fascinated me.

I was in the EMT room, and one of the new EMTs was going. “You wouldn’t believe this call we had yesterday. We go screaming all across town, priority one for the severe bleeding. We’re fighting through traffic, jamming the air horn, we finally get there and an old man answers the door. Ambulance, we say. Anderson, he says, there ain’t no one named Anderson here. No, No, AMBULANCE. Someone called for an AMBULANCE.

He goes, “oh, oh, oh, wait a minute, then he gets his cane and goes wobbling into the back, and you hear a door open and some rap music, then this gang banger comes strutting out, holding up his finger that’s got a little cut on and he asks us for a Band-Aid. I thought you gotta be fucking kidding. We don’t carry Band-Aids, my partner says. The guy just goes, oh, okay, turns around and walks back to where the music is coming from. We cleared it unfounded. Can you believe that, Calling 911 because you want a band-aid.”

I could believe it. You work two months and the city and that shouldn’t shock you. I was going on three years, and I was as tired of the stories as I was of what they were about. I mean how many fucked up, psycho, complete idiot or dead gross people stories are there in the world. You wouldn’t fucking believe this call, they’d say, you wouldn’t fucking believe it. Yes, I would, I’d say to myself and tune them out. Been there, done that, and didn’t like being there, doing that anymore. The only way being at work beat not being at work was at least being at work I was getting paid for wasting the days of my life.

Everything was one mind numbing depressing routine. It wasn’t that I joined the ranks of the bitchers and complainers – I was beyond that. It was petty. I didn’t care if dispatch was boning my car, or if one of the supervisors was being a jerk, or if the new union contract didn’t have a big enough raise in it. All that seemed to matter was that I had a place to be – not a particular place I liked being, but it beat having to decide what to do with myself. They gave me a call, I went to it, did it, and took someone to the hospital, only to do it all over again, ten times a shift, seven days a week. Grinding out the calls, grinding out the days and nights.

We were given a transfer – a patient with a festering bedsore that needed debriefing. I couldn’t believe it when I entered the room and looked at the patient and then looked at the W10 the nurse had handed me. Joe Rothesburg – my stinking neighbor – the man who poisoned my dog. He didn’t recognize me. He didn’t recognize anything. His mouth was open and his eyes just wandered around inside his head. He had a feeding tube and a Foley catheter, and he stunk of infection. I thought for a minute that this was my dream come true. I could empty his Foley catheter and slowly drip urine into his open mouth. Or I could put a cockroach in his ear, and then block it in with cotton, and sit there and watch as the cockroach walked through his head and peered out through his eyes. I loved my dog, and I knew if he was looking down from doggie heaven he would be woofing with delight urging me to take my vengeance, but I couldn’t do it. He wasn’t the same man who had stuffed poison inside hamburger meat and lobbed it over the fence. He wasn’t the same man who insisted I pay him back for his burned down garage even though he had no proof that I had done it. I can still feel his spit on my face as he threatened to take my mom’s house away from her and get his cop buddies to see I did time and that I got fucked up while I did it. He wasn’t even a man anymore. I was gentle with him when we moved him over to our stretcher. I pulled the blanket up to his neck and wrapped a towel over his head against the afternoon rain. I talked to him, telling him what I was doing when I took his blood pressure or felt his pulse, but I didn’t identify myself, just in case he could hear and process inside that body of his. I was alive and he wasn’t. I had no need for revenge. Sorry Old Boy.

Chapters Thirty-One to Thirty-Five