by Joe Nobody
Lt. Porter had listened to endless debates at both headquarters and the city council meetings. The medical center was one of the few “bright spots” in the city when it came to tax collection. The debate always centered on “social redistribution” versus “reward and reinvest in what is working.” Shouldn’t the area generating the revenue receive the lion’s share of the funds? The council members argued that the city could not be seen as protecting the rich while poorer neighborhoods were left to become the Wild West. Lt. Porter was beyond contemplating that age-old debate any further. He simply wanted to get in his 25 years and retire. The constant battles with low morale, stretched-too-thin resources, and the other consequences of a shrinking force had taken their toll on him and his family. Only the love for his fellow officers kept him in the game. He sometimes felt a small hint of remorse over the fact that he tried to protect his officers more than the citizens of the city. It was only a small tinge and always passed quickly.
The duty sergeant interrupted Big Mike’s thoughts with a louder than normal knock on the doorframe – a sure sign that something was wrong. “Lieutenant, there is a problem down at Houston General. We have received several calls of looting and hospital employees stealing equipment from the building. I guess they had a big announcement this morning that the place was shutting down on Friday, and now the rats are abandoning the ship and taking lots of equipment and even prescription drugs with them.”
Big Mike digested that information for a second and then asked, “Who’s running their security shift this morning?”
The sergeant answered, “It’s George, and it took me quite a while to get him on his cell. There is a crowd gathered in front of the building, and he has all of his guys trying to keep things in order. He says he needs help and needs it right away.”
Another officer appeared over the sergeant’s shoulder and said, “Boss, we have a problem down at Houston General. You better flip on the TV and check it out. It looks pretty serious.”
As Bishop walked to the front entrance, he noticed nurses, orderlies, candy stripers, and other staff leaving the facility, carrying their personal effects and looking either bewildered or disgusted. When he turned the corner heading to the front doors, a large crowd blocked his way. Many of the people were simply curious what all the fuss was about. There were at least three television news teams, complete with vans pointing satellite dishes at the sky. The crews seemed excited, filming the growing crowd of spectators. Several hospital security guards were trying to keep anyone from entering the building, and this was causing tensions to rise quickly. Already there were a few heated arguments in process.
Working his way through the crowd, Bishop overheard a man shouting at one of the guards, “What do you mean I can’t go in? I was told to get my wife out of this place, and now you won’t let me go in? How am I supposed to get her out?” Several others were echoing similar protests. Bishop realized there was no way he was going to get in through the front door, so he reversed course and headed along the side of the hospital. As he strode along, trying to figure out what to do, a side emergency exit door opened. Two men in scrubs peered outside, and then began to pass out boxes. Bishop waved as he walked toward them, but they paid no attention to him. He entered the door between them.
A little disoriented, he made his way to the main lobby and didn’t even notice the absence of the volunteers who normally manned the information desk. He rode to the third floor, exited the elevators, and proceeded to room 323. As he entered the room, the stench almost overwhelmed him. Mrs. Rita Peterson, his mother-in-law, shared a room with two other patients. Clearly one or more of them had soiled themselves and hadn’t been cleaned. He ignored the overwhelming odor and proceeded to the last bed where Rita was lying.
Rita’s eyes were open, and she was moaning. He had seen her awake only briefly in the last month and had not heard her make any noise at all. She was trying to move, and obviously something was wrong. He was relieved that the smell did not seem to be emanating from her, but then realized she was in agony. Her thin brows were clenched, and she was grinding her teeth at the same time as trying to yell out. Her weakened body was shaking badly. Bishop moved to her side quickly and took her hand, repeatedly asking, “Rita, Rita, what’s wrong? Are you okay? Tell me what’s wrong.”
Rita’s eyes cleared for a moment and she whispered, “THE PAIN. Oh Lord, it hurts so bad.” Bishop hurried to the foot of the bed and located Rita’s clipboard. He had spent enough time at her bedside in the last few months to know a little about how the nurses charted. He flipped a few pages and realized no one had made any entries in the record all day. Rita was in pain because she had not been given her medications. He looked up to see that her IV drip was almost empty as well. She and all of the other patients in the room seemed to have been ignored by the hospital staff.
Bishop rushed out of the room toward the nurse’s station. He was outraged and intended to protest the treatment of his mother-in-law. As he approached the station, he noticed another patient trying to get out of his room and struggling. “Help me…someone please help me…I am not well,” the older man was saying. Bishop heard crying and another voice calling, “Nurse…please come here,” as he stepped down the hall.
Bishop knew before he got there that the station was deserted. He could hear monitors beeping and small alarms going off before even turning the last corner. Sure enough, no one was around. He noticed a cart with locks on the drawers and a set of keys lying close by. Each drawer contained several small paper cups full of pills with a room number and patient name written on them. He knew this was the med cart, and Rita’s pain control medications might be there. He searched for a while and found a syringe labeled with her name. He ran back to Rita’s room, squirted the syringe toward the ceiling to remove any air, and then injected the medication into her port just as he had seen the nurses do several times before. The effect was almost immediate, and she relaxed.
There was no alternative but to get her out of the hospital, so he went to search for a wheelchair. He found one, but then realized there was no way to keep her in the chair even if he did move her from the bed. There had to be another solution. He checked several doors, but they were locked. He remembered the keys, and spent almost half an hour trying countless keys in different locks and eventually found a gurney. It was lighter than the bed, and he knew he could load it into the back of the truck.
As he pushed the gurney back toward her room, he practically ran over two guys coming around the corner. “Sorry,” he said while reading the badges around their necks. Both of their IDs said “Cafeteria” on them, and Bishop wondered what they were doing up here. He almost started laughing at them because one of them reminded him of Bluto from the old Popeye cartoons, and the other one walked just like Daffy Duck. They looked at each other and then at Bishop, probably wondering why he had a smirk on his face.
Bluto grumbled, “We need that cart---official hospital business.”
“No can do, pardner – I’m using it. I think there are some more in that closet down the hall,” Bishop replied, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb and trying not to laugh.
“I don’t think you heard me,” was the tense response. “This is official hospital business, and YOU can go get another cart.” Daffy, clearly the brains of the operation, chimed in, “We also need to see your wallet…errr…your ID.”
Bishop gave a frightened glance at both men and stuttered, “You... You…You want my ID?”
Bishop was not an intimidating physical specimen by any means. Barely six foot and less than 200 pounds, he had figured out a long time ago that bluffing his way through a confrontation was rarely a valid option. He was also a natural born smartass and had a lot of trouble controlling his mouth. This combination had caused him to learn the hard way---surprise was the best advantage.
Bluto reached for the gurney and started to pull it away from Bishop who held on tightly, and that surprised the big man. Bluto, as Bishop had anticipa
ted, shifted his left foot for balance and started to give the cart a hard pull. Bishop gave it to him, pushing as hard as he could. The guy completely lost his footing as Bishop thrust the gurney at the wall causing Bluto’s back to slam hard against a mounted fire extinguisher. Spinning the cart sideways to block Daffy, Bishop took two steps and struck Bluto hard in the Adam’s apple with the edge of his hand. He spun around to face Daffy before Bluto had finished sliding down the wall, clenching his throat and trying to breathe.
Daffy was holding up his hands in the “Don’t shoot” position and backing away. He decided he had business elsewhere, and quickly spun around and ran off.
Bishop looked down at Bluto and could see all of the fight was out of him. “You better get that looked at, bud. It’s hard to be a looter if you can’t breathe. By the way, has anyone ever told you that you look just like Blu . . . . Oh, hell, never mind.” He grabbed the gurney and started heading back to Rita’s room.
He disconnected her IV and rolled Rita from the bed onto the gurney as gently as possible. His plan was to take her to another hospital, so he threw her chart onto the gurney as well. She seemed not to notice any of this. He glanced at his watch and realized almost two hours had passed since he had talked to Terri. He would call her once he had Rita in the truck.
Ali Benzilla Shenfeti hated America. Not because of religion, or holy wars, or even the influence of his mosque. Ali hated America because of what it had done to his father. At great risk, his father had helped the Americans in the First Gulf War by providing information about the Iraqi forces in Kuwait City to the Americans. He had despised Saddam more than the infidels. After the war, the American consulate recognized Ali’s father was at risk if he stayed in the region . . . so they granted him political asylum and eventually, US citizenship.
Ali had been uprooted with his mother and siblings and flown to the United States. His father had researched various American cities and settled on Houston, Texas. For the first few years, everything had gone according to plan, and life was good. The State Department had assisted in a small business loan, and a new family enterprise was established. Shenfeti Medical Supply was born with a family celebration in the back of the firm’s new warehouse. It was really nothing more than a gas station that had gone out of business, but Mr. Shenfeti acted like it was a new 100,000 square foot facility.
Mr. Shenfeti worked tirelessly and grew his business delivering bottled oxygen and other supplies to customers in the medical center area. It was not long before he had three trucks and enlisted his son as a driver. Despite his limited English, Mr. Shenfeti had worked hard, enrolled his children in school, and allowed his wife to become more “westernized.”
Ali had struggled with the West in general, but especially America. He played soccer while all of the other boys were interested in basketball or American football. He was one of three Muslim children in his class and the only one who was openly in love with Allah. This did not go unnoticed by his classmates. Regardless, he and his family survived, and even flourished in Texas until 9/11.
As Ali later told his Mullah, it was as if someone had flipped a light switch. The discrimination was not open at first, but more like an underlying current of hatred. Orders for his father’s business slowed, and longtime customers suddenly chose competitors for no known reason. Family friends no longer called or stopped by. Eventually, his father lost the business, having to sell out to a rival. Ali was retained as a driver because he knew the routes and the customers. Mr. Shenfeti became depressed and then ill. He died less than two years later of a heart attack in Houston General Hospital, one of his company’s very first customers. Ali’s hatred of all things American increased every time he made his weekly delivery to Houston General.
Ali was unaware of the hospital’s financial problems or the announcement that morning. He pulled his delivery truck into the loading dock only to find everything locked down and a sign on the office door saying that the hospital was closed. This angered him even more as the hospital had dozens of his empty oxygen tanks, and he was responsible for exchanging them for the full ones on his truck. The hospital also used acetylene and other volatile gases for its labs and processes, and his truck was full of those as well. Barely keeping his temper in check, he shifted the truck into reverse, deciding his boss could deal with the situation later. As he tried to turn the corner on the way to his next customer, he found his path blocked by the large crowd of people gathered in front of the building.
Big Mike ordered all available radio cars be sent to Houston General and called downtown to request help. He left the station and quickly proceeded to the hospital. By the time he and most of the officers from the area began to arrive, there were over 800 people gathered in front of the building, and the crowd had overflowed onto Fannin Street, a major traffic artery in the area. Big Mike had to pull his cruiser to the curb almost six blocks away because of stranded cars full of angry drivers. As he strode toward the building, he saw something fly through the air and strike one of the big, two-story windows on the front of the hospital. The glass shattered, throwing sharp shards into the crowd and raining down on top of the front line security officials guarding the building perimeter. Before the yelling and screaming was over, another projectile was launched from the throng, and a second window exploded, causing even more bedlam. Big Mike radioed back to the station and told dispatch that they had better issue the riot gear and requested more officers be sent immediately. Big Mike gathered up three of his men and advanced to the front of the crowd, never noticing the white truck with the O2 sign on the door.
Ali had just had enough. The events of the day overwhelmed common sense, and he started honking his delivery truck’s horn while inching into the mob. Most people simply moved aside or tried to get out of the way, but eventually his truck bumped into three men who had walked out of a local bar, drinking beer and watching the show. One of them turned around and yelled back at Ali, “Look at this Mexican honking his fucking horn. Go back to Mexico, asshole! If all you fuckers went back home, maybe we would have jobs.” If Ali had not been so angry, being mistaken for a Mexican would have been funny. When the three large men started moving around to the side of his truck, he reached under the seat for the sawed-off shotgun he kept there.
Bishop didn’t even try for the front door while pushing the gurney. He had waited on four different elevators before he could finally fit in with Rita. Furthermore, he found it a bit odd that no one riding on the elevator questioned him at all. When he arrived at the main floor, he started pushing Rita toward the side door he had used to enter the building. He found the exit and opened it to look out on the side street. There were lots of people around, and he could hear honking coming from the direction of Fannin Street where the big crowd was gathered. He began pushing Rita out of the door.
Ali pulled the shotgun out from under the seat at the same time he opened the driver’s door of the truck. He kept one foot on the sideboard as he intended to just show the rednecks the shotgun, not use it. He pulled it out of the cab and started to level it toward the closest of the men.
Something caught Big Mike’s eye; and as his head pivoted toward the truck, he saw the driver pull the shotgun out of the cab. Big Mike screamed, “GUN!” at the top of his lungs and tried to pull his 9mm service weapon from its holster, but the closeness of the mob stopped the draw. One of his officers heard the shout, and managed to clear his weapon despite the press of people. His shot went high because he rushed it.
Ali heard the shot and actually felt the round go over the top of his head. He believed one of the rednecks was shooting at him and began to chamber a round in the pump shotgun. His finger never made it to the trigger.
Big Mike managed to get his weapon clear as the crowd instinctively moved away from the first shot. This gave him the space he needed. His training kicked in, and his thumb released the safety while his arm brought the weapon in line with the target. He pulled the trigger, and the hammer fell on the firing pin. A 1
10-grain full metal jacket bullet exited the barrel of the pistol at 1,725 feet per second. It missed Ali low and to the left, passed through the front and back windshield, and struck a full tank of oxygen right below the valve, shearing the stem and causing the slightest spark.
The escaping oxygen, ignited by the spark, burned its way inside of the tank where there the pure gas fueled an even greater combustion. The steel tank could no longer hold the pressure and exploded, sending searing hot fragments flying into the bed of the delivery truck, piercing the skins of several other full tanks.
That first, single tank would not have caused a very large explosion, and the damage would have been limited. But when the high velocity steel fragments shredded the other tanks in the truck, the mixture of escaping gases immediately formed a small vapor cloud. The military refer to this type of cloud as a “fuel air mixture,” and the resulting release of energy is the most powerful known to science, short of a nuclear detonation. To the naked eye, it all looked like one big explosion.
Anyone within 100 feet was killed instantly by the shock wave, their internal organs turned to mush. Within 150 feet, the fireball incinerated many others as the oxygen already in their lungs was ignited at over 1200 degrees. Those individuals unlucky enough to be within 250 feet suffered the effects of the flying debris.
Bishop had just started pushing Rita’s gurney out the door when the shock wave caught her and tore him the rest of the way through the exit, still hanging onto her. Rita was killed instantly as her gurney was hurled almost 20 feet through the air, pulling Bishop along with it. When his head finally cleared enough, Bishop realized he had cracked a rib, and it felt as though he had dislocated his shoulder. The angle of the building absorbed most of the blast and saved his life. Disheveled and stunned, he laid over the legs of Rita’s gurney, his fuzzy mind drifting back to a similar experience years before.