When you ride in an
ambulance, you see the world painted in strobing
blood red and stark
bone white. When the siren isn't blasting above my head, I am
straining to hear it in the distance. Driving when I'm not at work is like going to the
dentist, with its slow motion
crawl and delaying
stoplights. The
flat panel bullet that I ride at night has no respect for the rules of the
road. "
i am tha god a speed" it screams with its oscillating
metal throat, blasting through intersections like a
bat out of hell.
You watch the faces in the
windows as they flow by in a cloud of blurred
tint, the little faces
yearning to sit in the seat you are warming. It's always the little kids that look the
hungriest. The plainest expressions come from the
young. They haven't learned to bottle up their
demons. The siren sound means someone is in
pain,
dying, and we race to them like a hungry
wolf. They watch us hurtle past, their eyes
stabbing. Which way to the
blood? Where is the
soul slipping loose?
Predators learn from their parents.
I hate calls for
kids. The
bus rocks like a sick
railcar as the
Sadist rides the horn and swears at spooked
old ladies. The kids, man, they can't
hide it. They just spell out all their pain in big
capital letters. They wail their little hearts out in confusion and animal
terror. "How can this happen to me?" they
screech. What
God would let me
die like this?
It's stuff they don't see in their
Saturday morning cartoons or
fuzzy picture books.
I bite down on that
tickle of consciousness that make me want to cry. "Just do your job" I
mantra to myself. Keep it together and
pass the buck.
Going through the motions keeps the emotions away. We slide to a stop in front of a dirty
tenement.
Slum job.
Choking is the worst way to
die. You have just enough time to realize your
ticket is punched and
thrash all your strength out in a show in front of people trying to help you before you go
under. Instinct makes you try to hide. Watch somebody who is
choking next time it happens. They
ball up and try to
avoid you, sometimes running to the
bathroom. They want to get away,
lick their wounds in private. I have nightmares about food
stopping up my lungs. I chew like a
obsessive compulsive now. Another joy
pissed away by this job.
Up the stairs five flights. Paramedics always seem to know where to go. You know why? We follow the
waves of panic. People don't realize how much louder they get when they
freak out. I could find you a million miles away if you're
bleeding in the water. Sharks never stop
swimming. Not even the mingling
apartment stenches can hide them.
Ok,
steel yourself. It's
show time.
The pastel green door is
caved in. A size twelve footprint is stamped on it up by the doorknob. The deadbolt lays on the floor.
Cops.
A screaming girl. She ain't choking, that's for sure. Ok,
pan left.
Cop. Big cop. Mr. Door-kicker. Doing a shitty job of calming the little girl down. Nope,
next room. Feet on the floor. Little brown feet and big black boots.
Oh
man.
Cop Number 2 is hunched over the flat little body of
Kid Eternity, who is splayed out like
Leonardo da Vinci's Man. His big hands are half in a cheap
latex glove, which is in turn, stuck in the kid's
jacked open jaw. He looks broken, like a rag doll. The cop is pale and sweating. A week of
first aid didn't cover this. He doesn't even see us come in. I can hear him muttering frantically under his breath. "Move." I
command.
He stops like a
cockroach in a kitchen light.
I don't ask twice. Kid don't have the time for his brain to
turnover. A well placed shove knocks 2 over. Time to work. Stick to the little jobs, don't get sucked
in. He is young and small and reedy and beautiful, like a dark
leather briefcase, untouched by time or fear. His vitals are
weak. The thin whistling
gurgle means he is losing. And then I made the mistake of looking at his eyes.
A
cyanotic eye, rolled up in his tiny black face, shone like a
star. Time stopped when I fell into Eternity's eyes - he was looking a
million miles away with his black pinpoints. The
wreathes of pale blue veins held his brown
iris up,
porters carrying the heaviest
soul in the world. He looked right through me and a tear
boiled up and fell.
I.. I. I don't know what happened
next.
The cop had packed up the kid's windpipe while trying to help him. He was choking on
macaroni and cheese,
comfort food. I decided to try for a emergency
tracheotomy. You ain't dead yet, Kid.
Scalpel, find the hollow between his tiny little
collarbones, cut his poor flawless
skin.
Enjoy your first taste of the real world, Kid.
The foamy
pink blood told me he could breathe. The eyes snapped back from the edge of the
universe. His new nostril flared horse-like, raw and
bleeding. His lungs filled with the rotten
air of reality, the one where nobody really cares unless it happens to them. The kid did the only
honest thing I have ever seen anyone do when faced with that.
He
puked. Hard. Cleared his throat and lungs and stomach and heart all at once. He screamed with his new
breathless throat. The reedy
howl chilled me to the bone as I wiped off my uniform shirt.
Born again, Kid. Born again.
The cop with his fingers in the Kid's throat had coffee with us after we got done in Emergency. They were going to foster homes. Mom was out
whoring. Welcome to the
real world, Kid.
Christ, what next? I check to see if it's a
full moon.
continued in Do svidanya, Rodina!
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