“He’s not bleeding,” Burnett said.
“He’s bleeding!”
“That’s wine,” Burnett said. Then to me, “Talk to her, Frank.”
“He was drinking when we found him. That red you see is wine.”
“That ain’t wine.”
“Night Train.”
“Lie!” she screamed. “Lie! Lie!”
The left side of her mouth twitched. She squinched her eyes shut and stood with her head turned, shaking. An older woman and two teenaged boys approached, wheeling one of those wire carts that you tilt to push. She set the basket upright. Rolly sat on the concrete, looking drunk, bewildered. Burnett caught my eye.
“Get’m in the bus.”
The trim little man bent to help.
“How you doin, Rolly?” the man asked in a gentle voice, and Burnett, who was already annoyed by the gathering crowd, said impatiently, “We got him. Step back.”
The man ignored him. Again, in a soft voice, “You hurt?”
Burnett held the man back with one hand. The woman with the grocery cart shouted, “Don’t you touch him! He ain’t done nothin! Don’t you touch him!” Burnett made a little huffing noise and pushed the man back. He tried to raise Rolly with one hand but only dragged him across the concrete. Both women yelled out, “You’re hurting him!”
“We’re gettin him in the ambulance,” Burnett said.
“He’s bleedin!”
Burnett turned on me.
“You gonna help, Frank?”
I’d been standing back, fingering the camera in my pocket, wondering how to get a photograph without making a scene. As I stepped up, Burnett looked past me and his eyes grew wide, startled. I turned to see a flash of metal. Something passed under my right arm. I fell. A blossoming on my right side, a warmth that flowed into my entire body. There’d been an insulated feeling to the whole exchange, and then suddenly it was like that moment when you come out of an air-conditioned house into the heat of the day. I lost perhaps ten seconds. Then I was on my back with a view of sky between brownstones. I heard sirens faintly. People ran back and forth near my head, shouting. I lay there, overcome, for a moment, with a feeling of well-being. Burnett stood near my head, a blue glove on his right hand, pulling a glove on the left, saying, “I gotta protect myself, Frank, never know who you been fucking.” I tried to sit up and was surprised when I couldn’t. I tried to sit up again and Burnett held me down with two gloved fingers. They were putting me on a board. Strapping me in. I felt hands on either side of my head. Burnett placed three fingers on my wrist. “Frank,” I heard someone say. “How you doin, Frank?” Burnett seemed far away. He was counting my pulse.
“I got one?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
“What is it?”
He stopped counting.
“Little fast.”
“Burnett.”
“Yeah.”
“What is it?”
“One ten.”
“How’s it feel?”
“Like you’ll live.”
I was being lifted. Burnett had his gloved hand at my right side.
“How’s that feel? That hurt?”
“Ah fuck.”
“That?”
“Would you fucking stop it?”
We were in the ambulance. Burnett was bandaging me. I felt something both sharp and heavy on my side. I began to sit up and Burnett held me down.
“She get you anywhere else?”
“I don’t know.”
I was lying on the stretcher looking up at the hanging bags of saline. Burnett was holding me down.
“How deep is it?” I asked.
“Hardly a scratch,” he said.
“What was it?”
“Knife, Frank. Didn’t you see it?”
I tried to sit up again. I was restless. “Come on, Frank. Jesus . . .” They put an oxygen mask on me. Burnett was saying, “Take it, easy, Frank. Fucking take it easy.” I was infinitely grateful that it was Burnett treating me. He was a great medic. Much better than I was. He was a thug, but he was a great medic. Burnett was going into my arms with the needles, the clear lines swinging on either side. He was talking to the driver up front. Then we were at the hospital and they jerked me out. The wheels landed roughly, with a pain that jolted through my entire right side. I did not really feel it for a moment, and then I did.
Inside the trauma room, Towers and Joseph came into view over my head. There were two stethoscopes on my chest. They cut my uniform off. Six pairs of hands rolled me, and they felt my whole back, the area inside my legs, my neck, my stomach, my back again, a finger in my rectum. Dr. Towers was over me, listening with his stethoscope, and then taking it off one ear, then the other, smiling, and saying, “You must’ve said your prayers this week, Frank. Been a good boy.” They gave me a chest tube and took a chest X-ray and gave me a unit of blood and listened to my lungs about eight times. Then they sent me upstairs where, later that night, Norman came in wearing surgical scrubs, a blue hairnet, and around his neck, a dangling white mask.
15
“You gotta see me now,” he said.
“I don’t mind seeing you,” I said.
He raised my arm gently and peeled the bandage back to reveal a yellowed oblong splotch with red along the middle. The skin was sewn tightly around the tube and the tube went into a basin that was bubbling, creating suction to reinflate my lung. Just beneath my armpit on either side of the tube there were three inches of neat stitches. Little nubs of number-two black thread above the rolled purplish skin.
“Who did this?”
“Towers,” I said.
“Sewed it, too?”
“Yeah.”
“Must like you. I’d’ve given you a scar to remember.”
He lay the bandage back. It hurt as he pressed the tape. Norman saw me flinch. The painkillers were wearing off.
“Saw the scan. It came in laterally, caudal. An inch from the subclavian.”
“Could’ve solved all your problems,” I said, and Norman immediately stiffened. His voice got hard. “You know what they’re saying downstairs?”
“Hero paramedic wounded in the line of duty?”
He was sitting alongside the bed. He draped his arm over the back of the chair.
“They’re saying it was retaliation for patient abuse.”
“Who?”
“Reporters.”
“Downstairs?”
“Yes.”
I started laughing.
“You’re fuckin kidding me. Jesus. Don’t let them up here.”
“I didn’t.”
“Where’d it say that?”
“On the news. And there were reporters. It’ll be in the papers.”
“Jesus,” I said, and started laughing again.
“Well, don’t take it too hard, Frank.”
“Yeah yeah,” I said. “Just don’t let them up here.”
He said he wouldn’t, and then he waited. He saw I was not going to explain myself. I could see he wanted to say more about it, to scold me or something, but I was lying there with a chest tube. It wasn’t like we were going to get into it at that point. He shrugged and after a minute stood up.
“You want me to call anyone?”
“No.”
“Anyone you want me to talk to?”
“No,” I said. “Who’d want to know?”
He hesitated, then just nodded and walked out. I was left alone with the curtain pulled round me, the clamor from eight other patients snoring and moaning and calling Nurse Nurse Nurse I need help Nurse, the throbbing feeling in my side, and the faint sound of sirens and traffic that kept me company all night as I tried to sleep and could not.
16
It was the next afternoon. I was still in the ICU. I heard Burnett in the hallway.
“Where’d you hide my partner? Where the fuck’s my partner?”
He strode up the aisle of beds, the nurses turning to see who was making all the noise.
“Frank!” he shouted.
I reached out to shake his hand. It hurt to move my arm. It hurt even to breathe. He looked at the chest tube.
“Got you hooked up. Jesus.”
He asked about the wound, what they’d done, and when I’d get out. Then he pulled the knife from his pocket, folded it out from the handle halfway, and tossed it on the sheet over my legs.
“Souvenir,” he said.
I opened the blade all the way and held it to the light.
“Who was she?”
“Some crackhead. They don’t know her name. They ain’t doin shit, Frank. They don’t even have an address or nothin. They say she’s homeless. Some—” He waved his hand. “Crackhead. I wouldn’t be expectin nothing.”
“I don’t care,” I said, which made Burnett laugh.
“You’re one apathetic motherfucker,” he said.
I could tell he thought this was a particularly ingratiating compliment. He leaned back, trying to be pleasant. I knew he’d come for a reason.
“You heard what they’re sayin?”
“Yeah, I heard.”
“Calling it retaliation for patient abuse.”
“They can’t prove it,” I said.
“Well, the woman—”
“The grocery woman?”
Burnett spoke quietly.
“She filed a complaint.”
I shrugged and rolled my eyes.
“Like that’ll do anything. I’ll say I don’t know what the fuck she’s talkin about. I’ll say we were doing our job and we were attacked for no reason. You say the same thing. End of story.”
Burnett seemed relieved. He’d acted like he didn’t care, but I could see he’d been worried. He touched my knee through the sheet.
“You’re all right, Frank. You’re a dumbfuck, but for a college boy, you’re all right.” Then, looking over his shoulder, “You need anything?”
“Nah, I’m fine.”
“If you need anything . . .”
I said I was fine. He looked at his watch, thanked me, and stood. I watched him strutting up the aisle, a roll to his walk that had not been there before. A moment later Emily Pascal walked in.
17
She was carrying that same blue duffel bag I’d seen before. I hadn’t spoken with her since the day I’d met her in Washington Square Park and we’d all gone to the club.
“Hey,” she said.
She placed the bag at the foot of the bed. She could tell I was surprised to see her.
“I was in the clinic. I saw it on the news.”
“Ah.”
“They said you were stabbed.”
“Yeah. That’s right.”
She leaned over to see the tube coming out of my side.
“They got that going right up into you?”
“It bubbles down there,” I pointed. “Makes a vacuum, a suction, that pulls the lung back out slowly. It takes a few days.”
She seemed impressed—a tube going right into me. That was a big deal. I told her to look in the drawer of the bedside table. She took the knife out and opened it. Slashed it through the air. Then folded it back up. She looked to see if anyone was nearby.
“You heard the news?” she said.
She was the third person who’d asked me that.
“Yeah, I heard. It’s bullshit,” I said. “I didn’t touch him.”
“You didn’t seem like the—”
“I didn’t touch him.”
“Maybe your partner, but not you. That’s what I thought,” she said.
I liked her for that.
“Did you talk to Myra?” I asked.
Her face changed a little.
“She said you never called her back. She said you were late for the date.”
“That’s true. I was.”
“She hates it when people are late. She’s a stickler about that. About a lot of things, but particularly about that. And then you didn’t call her back.”
“I figured there was no use. It didn’t seem like she wanted me to call back. I figured . . . I might as well not.”
“You should call her,” Emily said woodenly. “You should come by the club.”
“She doesn’t want to see me.”
“She will,” Emily said.
“I doubt it.”
“I’ll talk to her,” Emily said. “She wants to see you.”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll tell her it wasn’t you who did anything. She’ll like it that you were wrongly accused. That’s exciting. I’ll tell her all that. I’ll tell her you want to see her.”
“That should make her happy.”
“I’ll tell her you’re coming by the club. She’s more . . . relaxed at the club.” Emily seemed to warm to the idea. “So you’ll do it. You’ll stop by?”
I said I would, and added, “I’ll come when I get out.”
18
They took the chest tube out the next afternoon, sewed me up, and then kept me a third day for observation. Norman came by on that third morning but I pretended to be asleep, and later in the day I saw Hock in the hallway, out of uniform, unshaven, wearing a silky Buffalo Bills jacket, jeans, and heavy work boots.
“Criminal,” he said. “Patient-beater.” He smiled knowingly. “It was Burnett, right? He tooled’m up?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, Rolly calls every day. What’s he expect?”
“I don’t know.”
“The guy’s a fuckin drain on tax dollars. They oughtta give Jack a fuckin medal. What were you doin?”
“Nothin.”
“Were you takin pictures?”
I looked away.
“You took pictures, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“I knew it,” he said. “Jesus. I knew it. I gotta get a copy of those.” Then, lowering his voice, he took me by the arm above the elbow, guided me down the hall, and said, “Listen. I just saw something.” He motioned more with his eyes than his head. “Over in surgical. They got a bottle of Dilaudid sittin on the counter.”
“So what?”
“So it’s a bottle of a hundred Dilaudid. Twenty dollars a pill.”
“Where is it?”
“On the counter. Just sitting there. The nurse just got it from the pharmacy.”
“You sure it’s Dilaudid?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. I saw the guy delivering it. They’re waitin for the nurse’s aide or whatever the fuck she is to hand it off to. It’s just sittin right there.”
“And I guess you wanna take it.”
“Mind reader.”
“You need help? I’ll help,” I said.
He considered this for a moment.
“You sure, Frank?”
“Why not?”
He looked as if he didn’t really want to involve me. Then he shrugged, glancing over his shoulder.
“I’ll get the bottle. You just gotta do something.”
“Something.”
“Like distract her. Have a seizure.”
“Oh come on.”
“Well you know, try to kiss her.”
“Oh my god.”
“Well, see a car wreck out the window. I don’t know. Anything.”
“What’ll you be doing?”
“I’m looking for a patient.”
He hurried me on, guiding me.
“We got about three minutes, Frank. If you’re in . . .”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
We walked toward the surgical unit. Hock stepped ahead. I stayed back a moment, then followed him through the double doors.
The SICU was set up like my own unit but opposite, with the beds stretching off to the left, the nurse’s station at the front, and the windows along the far wall. As I walked in I saw Hock talking with a brusque, nasal-voiced woman. This was the charge nurse. I was supposed to distract her but she was already talking with Hock. She followed him down the aisle between the beds. Hock gestured as if he was going to see a patient, and she hurried after him,
saying visiting hours were over, that he had to leave, etc. I walked along the curved counter of the nurse’s station. It was filled with stacked charts, plastic racks, bins with blood tubes, syringes. Among all this I saw the bottle with the rectangular pharmacy sticker. The charge nurse followed Hock down the aisle. Hock kept walking. I figured I might as well grab the bottle myself. There was another nurse with her back turned, setting a drip rate. I wandered up to the counter and leaned over as if I was looking for something and I swept the bottle against my chest and stashed it beneath my shirt. An old man with jaundiced skin lay back watching me. I realized he was a patient I’d brought in. I just nodded to him and he nodded back to me and I turned and walked into the hallway. Rapid footsteps behind me. It was Hock.
“You got it?”
“Yeah.”
“Give it,” he hissed.
I handed him the bottle. He stashed it in his shirt without looking at it, then hurried into the stairway. I stopped at a drinking fountain.
“Hey. Hey you,” someone said behind me.
It was the charge nurse. Fifty years old with long, thin, frayed, brownish hair, a lot of gray in it. I looked at her calmly.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“Whattaya mean?”
“What’s your name?”
“Frank.”
“Were you . . .” She looked me up and down. “What were you doing back there? You were just in my unit.”
“I wasn’t doing anything. I’m bored. I was walking around.”
I was wearing one of those open-backed hospital gowns. There was nowhere to hide a bottle. If it was in my shirt she’d have seen it.
“What’s your full name?”
“Frank Verbeckas.”
Her face changed. She recognized the name.
“Your brother’s a surgeon?”
“Yes.”
“You’re EMS?”
“Yeah.”
She looked at me uncertainly.
“I . . . I thought . . . something just happened.”
She saw the exit to the stairs.
“Did you see someone go by?”
“I don’t know. I was just walking around.”
She frowned and ducked into the stairway. She came back and looked in the garbage. She entered the men’s bathroom and came out a minute later and walked quickly to her unit. I left the doorway and went back to my bed and waited to see if anything else would happen. It didn’t. After a while I started reading.
Safelight Page 4