Living and Dying in Brick City

by Sampson Davis

  “The violence in nightclubs and bars across the country has increased dramatically,” Robert Smith, a San Diego consultant who specializes in nightclub crime, told the Sun-Sentinel in Florida in a story published in February 2012. “It’s not just in your town, it’s nationwide.”

  Instead of solving problems with their fists, people are carrying guns, Smith said.

  In the same article, Tammy Anderson, a sociology professor at the University of Delaware, told the newspaper that after studying nightclub violence, she had concluded that one of the common elements of the brawls was “macho posturing.” Men try to show off their toughness and physical prowess to attract women, which can escalate their response to the most innocent bump or minor exchange of words. “Those personal affronts become catalysts for violent offending and victimization,” she said.

  Several cities have passed laws trying to crack down on such violence. In 2007, for example, the New York City Council passed measures requiring security cameras at the entrances and exits of dozens of bars and clubs. It gave the city the power to shut down businesses selling fake identification cards, as well as those that hire unlicensed bouncers. Such measures can be helpful, but nothing is a replacement for personal vigilance and responsibility.

  I knew from the moment I stepped onto the dance floor with my homegirl at the nightclub that my actions would piss off her dance partner. I just didn’t care. But if I’d taken a few extra seconds to consider the consequences, I might have made a different choice.

  After the morning report, my team, Trauma A, checked in on all the patients remaining from our previous shift. When we got to the Surgical Intensive Care Unit and made it to Greg’s room, I saw a familiar face. It was the girl who’d helped him into the emergency department. I introduced myself, and she remembered me. She was Tara, his girlfriend. I told her I was sorry to hear what had happened. I was sure she had been in touch with the police officers investigating the incident, but she was eager to know if I’d heard anything more.

  “Did they catch him yet?” Tara asked, referring to the shooter. “They have his girlfriend. I can’t understand what’s taking so long.”

  I told her that I hadn’t heard anything new.

  “Dr. Davis, Greg always looked after Reggie,” she continued. “Their mother made sure they always took care of each other. She would tell them both, ‘All you have is each other.’ ”

  That bond had held tight. I had to finish my rounds with the rest of the team, and so I assured Tara that I would return later. But I hadn’t had a chance to make it back when I heard a Code Blue call from the Surgical Intensive Care Unit—a cardiac arrest. I dropped the note I was writing about another patient, grabbed my stethoscope, and sprinted over. I reached in my back pocket for gloves. I always kept a spare pair or two on me since they sometimes weren’t readily available when I needed them.

  As I barged through the door, my gut told me it would be Greg. The unit had a dozen beds, all critical patients, but he was by far the most critical that day. And, in fact, the junior resident was standing over Greg, supervising his care. One of the nurses was performing chest compressions. I stepped in quickly to take over. This was my expertise. I knew the medical side of a cardiac arrest. Epinephrine was pushed, followed by atropine. After administering several rounds, we eyed the monitor and felt for a pulse in his leg. The femoral artery didn’t give way to any thumping. I felt no rhythm under my finger. There was no heartbeat coming through the stethoscope, and the monitor showed a flat line. At just twenty-three years old, Greg was dead.

  Tara, who’d been so tough until now, broke down, screaming and crying. For the rest of the day, Greg’s grieving family came and went. I was called to the room several times to talk to new family members. His death was still so shocking that each one wanted details. They’d thought he’d survived the worst of it. How had this happened? I didn’t mind spending as much time as I could with them. It was the least I could do. Before the family left the hospital, the brothers’ mother led us all in a prayer. She prayed for her sons and for the protection of her family. She asked the Lord to forgive her boys for whatever role they may have played in the brawl and to protect and guide Greg’s soul.

  “Amen,” we said in unison.

  Long after they’d all gone home, Greg was still on my mind. His life had been snuffed out for what? Because some dude felt disrespected that his girl was dancing with someone else? Pride could be deadly.

  A few days after Greg’s death, I was walking past Reggie’s room and decided to check on him. I knocked softly, simultaneously pushed the door open, and stuck my head in. He was sitting up, staring into space. He appeared to be deep in thought and never even seemed to notice that I was there, and so I left him alone. A couple of days later, I tried again. He was sitting up and watching television while eating lunch. The breathing tube in his throat was gone, and he was recovering well from the gunshot wounds. I remembered those larger-than-life bullet holes he and Greg had had. A high-caliber gun must have been used at close range. Reggie’s lungs were showing promising signs of recovery, which meant his chest tube would soon be pulled. And there was no paralysis. “Good morning,” I said, making my way over to him. “I’m Dr. Davis. How’s your breathing?”

  Without looking my way, he murmured, “It’s okay. I feel better today than yesterday.”

  “That’s what we were hoping for,” I responded. “You’ll have an X-ray later to check on your lungs. If all is well, then I’ll pull that tube out of your chest.”

  Reggie nodded, still focused on the television. Highlights from the Lakers game were on. The team was on the road to the playoffs and had taken a beating the night before. Also a basketball fan, I saw an instant opportunity to connect and commented on the loss. Reggie dropped his head, as if he was still in disbelief over his team’s performance. His icy demeanor began to thaw.

  “Man, if Kobe and Shaq could only have gotten along, the Lakers would have won ten championships,” he said.

  My eyes turned to the TV. “How can you like the Lakers? We’re here in New Jersey,” I teased.

  Reggie smiled for the first time since I’d entered the room. “Doc, the Nets make it hard to like them.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. I had been a Lakers fan in the eighties when Magic and Kareem were playing. Together, Shaq and Kobe seemed to bring back some of that eighties magic to the Lakers, but egos were starting to get in the way. After the Lakers won the 2000 championship, the two stars engaged in a nasty public feud, each trying to one-up the other. They would still lead their team to two more back-to-back championships—the famous “three-peat”—but fans of the game suspected that a breakup was inevitable long before it actually happened. That would come to pass three years later with Shaq’s trade to the Miami Heat.

  “I’m telling you, the Lakers would have won as many rings as Bill Russell,” Reggie said, referring to the former Boston Celtics star who led his team to an astonishing eleven championships. “I’m telling you, Doc, it would have happened.”

  I gave him a skeptical look. “Man, today’s players don’t stick it out with one another that long. After a championship or two, the stars are off to the next team or holding out for the salary demands.”

  Reggie paused and then added: “That wouldn’t be me and Greg. If we were on that team, we would show those guys how it’s done. We checked our egos at the door. We would have won eleven rings. We always took care of each other.”

  I smiled. “Now, that’s what’s up. If we had more guys with that attitude, we would be better off.”

  I sensed that Reggie was beginning to drop his defenses a bit, maybe realizing that the hospital was neutral ground. It was nice to see him in good spirits. But what came next surprised me.

  “Doc, I miss my brother,” he said. “We would always watch the games together. He was shot the same night I was.”

  “I remember your brother,” I said. “I took care of both of you the night of the shooting.”

&
nbsp; This was the first time that Reggie had opened up to anyone about his brother or the shooting. When a social worker had visited previously, Reggie wouldn’t say a word.

  “This experience has changed my life,” he whispered. “Things will never be the same. Doc, I still can’t believe that he jumped in front of the bullet. I can’t believe that he would risk his life that way. If he’d stayed in the background, he would be here talking to me. Yeah, I still would have been shot, but I wouldn’t have to live with his death on my conscience. He’s—” Reggie broke off, and paused for a painful second and corrected himself. “He was my best friend.”

  The pain and guilt were palpable.

  “Don’t be hard on yourself, man,” I said. “It wasn’t your fault.” I reminded him that he wasn’t the one who’d pulled the trigger, and that his older brother felt a sense of responsibility for him and wouldn’t want him moping around feeling depressed.

  I felt I was connecting with him, so I kept pushing. “You know, there is something to be learned here.”

  He stared at me. “Yeah, I know.” He was wearing outdated, brown plastic-rimmed glasses, which made him look more mature than his years. “All I was doing was dancing with some girl, and her dude got all beside himself,” Reggie began. “As soon as I saw him come back into the bar, I should have known that it was going to go down. That’s my fault. I slipped.”

  He seemed to need to talk, so I just kept quiet and listened.

  “All I remember is my brother pushing me out of the way, and then there were flashes of light. I heard people screaming and at the same time I felt a burning sensation in my chest. That was it. I passed out. I would give anything just to have my brother here.”

  I placed my hand on his shoulder. “I know, Reggie. I know,” I told him. “Take it one day at a time and keep moving forward, with the thought of Greg watching over you.” Then I wished him well and left the room.

  Sometime later the shooter surrendered and was eventually sentenced to life in prison. I was glad that Greg’s family got the justice they sought, yet I couldn’t forget that from one frivolous encounter on a nightclub dance floor, two young men’s lives had been lost—one to death and the other to jail. And still another one would be haunted forever.

  8

  THE FEAR FACTOR

  My landlady, Mrs. Jackson, had become my second mother. She ran a small home-based daycare center and had touched so many lives with her warmth and nurturing manner that her former preschool children returned to visit long after they had left her home. She had what I joked was her own tribe of men and women, all ages, who were always stopping by to check on her. I’d already become one of them. My plan had been to live in her house for three months while I got on my feet financially, but my time there kept expanding. Little did I know then that I would stay on Hazelwood Avenue for six years.

  The Christmas holidays were approaching in 2001 when I noticed Mrs. Jackson hobbling around the house on a bad knee. She hadn’t fallen and couldn’t remember bumping into anything—she just woke up one morning, and it was swollen and sore.

  “Must be my arthritis,” she said, leaning on the big black umbrella she was using as a cane. I suspected that was the case, too, but I suggested she come to the hospital so I could get a specialist to check it out, just to be sure. But she refused. Like most busy moms, Mrs. Jackson put everyone else first. She rarely took time away from the kids, even to go to the doctor for a routine checkup. “I have to be here for my babies and their moms,” she insisted. “What would they do if the daycare was closed?”

  For two weeks after the pain started, she simply “rubbed the knee down,” with this potion or that one, limping, hurting, hoping it would get better. Even with a doctor living in her house, she preferred diagnosing herself, treating practically every ailment with one of her home remedies—specially brewed teas for coughs and sore throats, strong-smelling ointments to break up chest congestion or soothe aching joints. I even offered to make an appointment for her, but she kept putting me off.

  “Don’t worry, it will get better,” she said.

  “It might be arthritis, but it might not be,” I warned.

  Finally, Mrs. Jackson agreed to come to Beth Israel for tests. It was Christmas Eve day, so her “babies” were home with their families, and she assumed the emergency room wouldn’t be as crowded as usual.

  As soon as I reported to work that morning, I phoned the rheumatologist on duty and asked if she could take a look at my “other mother” in the emergency department. As a favor to me, my colleague agreed, and I called Mrs. Jackson to let her know that she needed to get to the hospital right away. Within a half hour, she was being examined. The diagnosis: She had excessive fluid in her joints. The doctor then performed an arthrocentesis, a joint aspiration using a needle to drain the fluid from the knee. After removing about fifty milliliters of yellowish liquid, the doctor injected the knee with steroids and an anesthetic, which would help relieve the pain. Afterward, I sent Mrs. Jackson for an X-ray to confirm that there were no fractures or other bone damage, and she rewarded me with a huge smile. She said she felt better than she had in weeks. I finished the paperwork for her release, handed her a prescription for pain, and told her I’d get her an appointment with the joint specialist to figure out what had caused the fluid buildup. Now she beamed like a proud parent.

  “Sam, I’m glad you made me come,” she said, as I walked her toward the hospital exit, where her daughter was waiting for her. “I never would have done this on my own. Don’t get stuck here for Christmas, now. You know I’ll have dinner at home.”

  For me, Christmas had come a day early. Mrs. Jackson had allowed me to take care of her, and that was a wonderful, unexpected gift.

  Unfortunately, Mrs. Jackson’s reluctance to see a doctor isn’t unusual. I treat many patients whose busy lives or fear of doctors prevent them from seeking much-needed medical care right away. In 2003, I witnessed one of the worst examples of what can happen when a man I’ll call Mr. Tate showed up during my shift at Irvington General, another big-city medical center that is part of Beth Israel’s training network. As I passed through the emergency department on my way to the doctor’s call room one day, I noticed him sitting in one of the examining rooms, head down, hands folded in his lap, waiting patiently to see a doctor. Next to him stood a much younger woman—his daughter, I presumed—with an agitated look on her face. I made it to the call room, set my bag on the old metal desk, and pulled out my stethoscope, rubber hammer, pen light, and lunch. I found a spot in the refrigerator for my chicken salad sandwich and hoped it wouldn’t suddenly grow legs and walk away. On more than one occasion my lunch had mysteriously disappeared from the community fridge. That accomplished, I headed back to the emergency department, where I picked up some charts and began forming a mental game plan: How many patients were waiting? Who would I see next? Who was the most critical? I was counting patients in my head when an irritated voice interrupted my thoughts.

  “Can you puh-leeze hurry up and see my father?”

  I looked up to see the young woman who had been standing next to the elderly man in room 5. I’m certain my face told her I didn’t appreciate the ambush, but I knew I’d get an earful from the hospital administration if I voiced the words that came to mind. I held my tongue, placed my blue stethoscope—the same one I’d had since medical school—around my neck, pulled the patient’s chart, and followed her. On the way, I scanned the man’s information. The first thing that jumped out at me was his age. When I’d walked by earlier, he’d seemed to be a frail, elderly man of at least seventy, but now I saw I was off—way off. The age printed on the chart was fifty-five. He was complaining of throat pain, a sore tongue, and swelling on the left side of his neck. The nurse triage sheet noted that he had been seen a week earlier at another hospital. It appeared he had been diagnosed with a throat infection, given a prescription for antibiotics, and sent home.

  “Hi,” I said, extending my hand. “I’m Dr. Davis. How
are you doing today?”

  “I’m doing great,” he said, introducing himself. He had a smoker’s voice, raspy and dry.

  He’d been suffering with the same symptoms for a year, he told me, and the medicines he’d been given at the other hospital a week ago hadn’t worked a bit. His daughter, Michelle, handed me a worn brown paper bag with two empty pill bottles, one for penicillin, the other for ibuprofen.

  These were the right medications for a throat infection, I thought to myself. Before I could even note the medications on my chart, Michelle was on the attack: “Look, you better do something!” she snapped. “He’s sick, and these so-called medicines ain’t working! The other doctor said these would make him better, and they clearly haven’t.”

  Her voice was raised, her eyebrows were wrinkled, her nostrils flared, and her right index finger waved in the air for added effect. Michelle was only a few inches shorter than me and built like a high school football player, with a certain swagger. But it was important for me to stay calm. A nurse, apparently hearing Michelle’s raised voice, peeked into the room to make sure everything was okay. I signaled to her that I had it under control.

  “Why is it so slow here?” Michelle continued. “We’ve been here for hours and nothing’s been done to help us.”

  “I understand your frustration,” I said calmly, then turned to her father and asked about his medical history. He told me that although his throat had been bothering him for around a year, the symptoms had worsened in the week since his previous hospital visit. He had no medical insurance, but his daughter had insisted he go to another hospital, this time Irvington General.

  “You say you’ve had throat pain for about a year?” I asked, trying to make sure I’d understood correctly.

  “That’s right. It comes and goes, but lately it’s been here all the time.”

  “Do you smoke?”

  Mr. Tate nodded yes.