Sydney Baumann. That's my
real name. Nobody here
except the
Human Resources broad at
dispatch knows that. They all call me
Twitch. My eye didn't do that before I started here. I developed a
facial tic from all the bottled up stress. The upper portion of the
Orbicularis oculi muscle twitches like a little
hummingbird wing when I get stressed or tired. I went to school to learn that
one.
It hasn't really stopped in
months. Its a
tiny
metronome beating like a
telltale heart,
counting out the days I'm shaving off my
life
expectancy. You ever see a
cop or a
nurse drink? They drink with a
determination to erase the
holes they see in the society's accepted version of
reality. They drink to forget the
winos who they see freeze to death and the drug addicted
babies shaking in their
cribs. They watch everybody else dance around with
blinders on and it wears on them. We play the
middlemen. Cops
find them and nurses
fix them, but we
deliver them. Paramedics get one
chance to
fix it or
fuck it, the ultimate application of
the American love of the car.
I have to think really
hard to find the one thing I like about my
job. I sort of fell into it after dropping out of
Med. school. The funds dried up after Dad got busted by the
IRS, but I was strangely glad when he called. It just wasn't for me. I couldn't get my
ego swelled up enough to play
God. I dropped down to the paramedics course at the
community college downtown and had my
ticket 6 months later. It was a
whirlwind of drinking and cramming and sleep blurred lectures. When the
certificate came in the mail to my tiny dark apartment, I felt happy but
hollow. I had a job that
afternoon. The thing I like about this
job is that I don't have to try very hard.
Seems I was
way overqualified. It slowly leaked in to my head that this
profession is a
catch basin for all sorts of
loose ends. The
cowboy ex-jocks, the
sadists, the bitter closet
lesbians, the carefree
journeyman hippies, the
thrill seeker freaks, the C grade
saviors and the A grade
washouts all end up here. It's an
ant trap for good intentions, and you can see all the way to
Hell on a clear day.
Pop quiz! What is the
paramedic's key responsibility?
Stabilize and
run. That's
it. We live on a
firecracker's schedule. Off or on. Stopped or running
full speed. There is no gray, only a flurry of white or a panorama of black. And don't waste the
meds.
So, I've seen
stuff. Real
stuff. Nothing gets cleaned up for the 11'o clock news before I get there. You know when you see the
white sheets on the bodies at the side of the
road? I drink my coffee while sitting on a
box of them in every day. The one we went out with
tonight is half full. 8 bodies till it's
empty. We keep
garbage bags for the little pieces. We have to pick those up
too.
My first shift was so
quiet I wondered why I went to school at all. At 4:38am, everything changed. I remember because it was that time in the morning when your body gets
cold, a
circadian rhythm slowdown that reminds you that all
the normals are asleep and you are out in an
ambulance waiting for bad things to happen. I looked at my watch for the
millionth time that night when the radio spoke.
Gas main explosion.
Multiple causalities. You go and get them.
When I realized the finger I was bending to pick up was moving like an
angry red and pink worm, it was 4:45am.
When I broke the tip of the
IV needle off
inside the burnt construction guy's arm, it was 5:01am.
When I
puked up my guts in the hospital ambulance bay because the adrenaline was making my scalp
dance, it was 5:10am.
The first time my eye twitched was that
afternoon, when I woke up. The time didn't really matter any more.
That was a long time ago. Months, years, it all
runs together. Tonight, I'm riding the
bus with George. Everyone thinks he's a
sadist, like the ones who whip their partners to get off. He makes me
nervous when he gets
glassy eyed, like he is straining to keep his fingers out of wounds before he packs them with
gauze. I always make him drive. Slow night saw us drive around in circles until lunch at
midnight. A
mirror world clock, complete with
Mr. Spock goatee. I ate the finest
shit a teenager could grill for
minimum wage and we both fell asleep in empty parking lot behind the burger place. I was supposed to be listening to the
radio.
Half hour later, when we didn't check in, we get a wake up call from a
cop rapping on the windows with his
nightstick. You can't lose a running ambulance. They got us wired up to
satellites like little
model trains.
Dispatch doesn't mention it, but we are going to get something now for
sure. No rest for the
wicked. Just don't be a
kid. I hate kids.
The call comes.
Black male.
Choking.
7 years old.
Fuck.
continued in Kid Eternity
In which the mountains are old and I am the ghost on the battlements - Kid Eternity - Do svidanya, Rodina! -
Standin' in a pool of cop blood with a shotgun you can't stop - Street Meat -
Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar