by David Carnoy
“Who’s this?” he says.
It’s Catherine, one of the emergency room nurses.
“Catherine, it’s Ted. Ted Cogan. I want you to listen carefully. I have a nineteen-year-old male who’s been shot in the neck and has a vascular injury with significant blood loss. We’re going to need blood and fluid and a vascular surgeon prepared.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes, I’m serious. Do it now. We’ll be there in five minutes.”
After he hangs up, he turns his attention back to Jim. His eyes are open, but he’s having trouble breathing. All the swelling from the gunshot is probably compressing his airway.
He touches his wrist. He’s getting clammy and his pulse is thready and racing. With heavy blood loss, the body constricts its blood vessels, diverting blood to the vital organs.
“Jim, can you feel my hand? Blink if you can feel my hand.”
He blinks, which is a good sign.
“Can I do anything?” Carolyn asks.
“Touch his ankle,” he says.
“Jim, can you feel that? Blink for me if you can feel her hand.”
Again, he blinks.
“OK, we’re almost to the hospital. Hang with us for a little longer, buddy. You’ve been shot in the neck, but if you can feel your hands and legs, that’s a good sign. I want you to relax as much as you can. You’re going to be in good hands in a few minutes.”
He’s dying. He can see it in his eyes. He can hear it in his breathing. He’s going to box and there’s nothing he can do about it except ask him not to.
“Don’t you box on me, Jim,” he says half under his breath. “Do you understand? You will not box.”
They’re all there: Doctor Kim, Wexler, and the two interns whose names he always forgot. They’re waiting for them when they arrive, along with the attending physician, a guy named Mark Franklin, who’s at the head of the pyramid that morning. They get Jim on a gurney and wheel him right into the trauma room, where a nurse immediately starts ventilating him while Wexler cuts his clothes off and another nurse jams a large bore IV into one arm, then the other. One intern draws blood and the other prepares to feed a Foley catheter into his urinary tract, so once the fluids come, they’ll have a receptacle to drain into. Until they know what type of blood he has, they’ll fill him with uncrossed match blood.
When the IVs are in, he feels and then sees Kim hovering over his shoulder. The resident puts his hand over his, the one he’s using as a ligature, and says, “It’s OK, Ted. I got it.”
And with that he steps back and becomes a spectator. Drained, he stands next to Madden in the back corner of the room, watching them follow the procedures he knows all too well. The adrenalin subsiding, he starts to feel his head again, and by the time Franklin says, “OK, let’s get some neck film and get him up to the OR,” he’s feeling a little woozy.
And then they’re gone. Down the hall they go, but only when they get in the elevators does he notice Beckler standing in the hallway, staring at him, aghast. He realizes then what a mess he is, his hands and shirt covered in blood.
“Hello, Anne,” he says, leaning against the wall for support.
“Christ, Cogan. What happened? Josie said you were down here.”
“Oh, you know, a little accident.”
“Little?”
Madden walks up to him and puts a hand on the back of his shoulder.
“You OK, Cogan?”
“He’s got a nasty cut,” Wexler says, taking a closer look at the back of his head. “You’re going to need some stitches, my friend.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Beckler offers.
He pushes himself away from the wall. “This should be good,” he says. “I always thought you were a good closer, Beckler. Did I ever tell you that?” He puts his arm around her shoulders and leans on her a little as they walk together down the hall.
“You know, I owe you big time,” he says. “They got the guy. The real guy.”
“The kid back there in trauma?”
“Yeah, though I think it’s a little more complicated than that.”
He explains that the cop didn’t shoot him, another kid did, and he’s not sure why.
“If I did anything, Cogan,” she says. “I did it for myself. You know, they were already lining up your replacement. And the leading candidate just happens to be someone I like less than you.”
“Do I know him?”
“Her.”
“Ah, I see.”
“However, I can’t deny that experiencing you in a humbler state made a favorable impression. I saw a glimmer of evolution there, Cogan.”
He smiles as they stop in front of a vacant examination room. His head is still throbbing, but the dizziness is gone. He’s totally lucid.
“How about a coffee, Anne? You’d never have coffee with me. Ultimately, I think that was the source of all our problems.”
“Do me a favor, Cogan.”
“Anything.”
“Shut up.”
43/ BUSINESS CLASS
May 18, 2007
WHEN YOU’RE HIT IN THE NECK WITH BULLET AND YOUR CAROTID artery is completely severed, you have little chance of survival. Jim was lucky: in his case, the artery was only partially dissected. The bullet sheared a small chunk of the vessel’s wall off, leaving a hole a quarter inch in diameter, while also damaging his larynx. To expose the injuries, the surgeon made a “hockey-stick” incision with the long limb of the scalpel parallel to the anterior border of the sternocleidomastoid muscle. He opened the wound in layers, retracting the sternocleidomastoid muscle laterally to expose the common, internal, and external carotid arteries and the jugular vein, and repaired the damaged segment in the common carotid with a vein patch.
All this was done in less than half an hour, yet Cogan knew that such vascular injuries to the neck brought with them a high probability of stroke. So when Kim gave him word later that day Jim had survived but had suffered an acute stroke to the left side of his brain, he wasn’t surprised. It would be several days, even weeks, before they’d fully understand the scope of the damage, but when Jim woke up two days after the operation, the right side of his body was seventy to eighty percent paralyzed, and he was experiencing serious memory loss.
The brain contains a number of different kinds of memory, including short-term, long-term, declarative, and non-declarative. In Jim’s case, his long-term and declarative memory, which holds conscious memories of specific information and events, were most affected. (Non-declarative memory is a learned habit, such as riding a bike or driving a car, that once learned is not forgotten). When he woke up, he did not recognize his family. “Jim, do you know who I am?” his mother asked. The injury to his larynx and paralysis in his face prevented him from responding verbally, but he was able to indicate with a perceptible shake of his head that no, he didn’t know who she was. A few days later, when she asked the same question, he scrawled the word “mom” on a notepad with his left hand. But the only reason he was able to do it was because she’d told him a few days earlier she was his mom.
The doctors said that with time and therapy he would improve. Some memories might never return, his right side might never be quite as strong as his left, and his personality might be altered. But the brain had a way of rewiring itself, and stroke victims, especially younger ones like him, had gone on to lead healthy, productive lives.
“We feel very fortunate that Jim is alive today,” his father says, reading from a statement to a group of a dozen or so reporters who’ve gathered in the hospital courtyard five days after the shooting. “He continues to make positive progress with each passing day. Regrettably, at this time, he remembers neither the shooting nor the incidents leading up to the shooting. We therefore cannot comment on the allegations that have been made.”
Crowley, unusually tightlipped, also reads a short statement from the podium: “All charges against Dr. Cogan have been dropped. At this time, however, no additional arrests have been made and w
e cannot comment on the most recent allegations, as an investigation is ongoing. We ask that you direct all your inquiries into the shooting death of Mr. Watkins to Commander Gillian Hartwick of the Menlo Park police department.”
Commander Hartwick takes her turn closing ranks, too. “After a thorough investigation, it has been determined that Detective Henry Madden discharged his weapon in self defense after the assailant, Christopher James Watkins, turned his weapon on him. Let it be said that that this is the first time detective Madden has fired his weapon while on duty, and while his actions were unavoidable and necessary, he regrets that they resulted in the loss of human life.”
Cogan says precious little publicly. He won, and when you win, it doesn’t do you a whole lot of good to stand at the top of the summit, beating your chest and raining down insults on your former detractors, who are scurrying around at base camp, looking for a sleeping bag and a tent to crawl into to take cover from shit storm they see coming. He doesn’t need Carolyn to tell him that, but she does anyway.
“Humble, compassionate, and no names,” she advises.
And so in his statement, which turns out to be the longest of the bunch, he doesn’t disparage anyone—the police, the DA’s office, the hospital administration, Jim, Carrie, Kristen, or her father. Instead, he speaks a language the authorities are comfortable with, the language of the clean and well swept, of the tidy little ledge high above the amorphous, mucky bottom.
“I was falsely accused of a crime I didn’t commit,” he says from the podium, glancing at his typed notes as he speaks. “It might be trite to say that I knew that the truth would prevail, but for those of you who supported me during this difficult time, I say you were right, the truth did prevail, though I’m sorry it had to end the way it did.”
“Until all this happened, I was in the business of saving people. Some of them were good, some bad, and some were a little of both. We have rules in our business. A strict set of guidelines we follow to minimize risk. However, usually the best of us, when it comes down to it, rely on instinct and sometimes end up having to ignore the rules.”
“All along, I felt, in my heart of hearts, that Kristen was one of the good ones. When I asked myself why she wrote the untruths she did, the only answer I could come up with was that she wasn’t lying. She believed in the fiction she created. It was her story, the way she wanted it, and no one was going to take that away from her. I’m only sorry now that I couldn’t have made her realize things weren’t so bleak that she would feel the impulse to take her own life. For that I would like to apologize to her family, who have had to endure a nightmare far more horrific than mine these last several weeks.”
Privately, of course, the authorities inform him they have a good inkling what’s down in the muck. They’re with him: The two frat boys raped Kristen. But to prove it is another matter. Sex is one thing. But rape is an altogether different beast. And now, with one of them dead and the other barely knowing who he, let alone Kristen, is, well, that made things awfully challenging, even with the journal cum love letters they found on Jim’s computer.
Even Kroiter has had enough. The stakes have changed, the enemies have multiplied, and earlier that morning, standing on his welcome mat, frustration overcame him. “Get the fuck off my lawn,” he bellowed to a TV crew. “Neither my wife nor I has anything to say. So leave us alone.”
A week later, on June 6, several arrests are made. Joseph Greene and Dwight Johnson, proprietors of Miss Tiki’s Beauty Salon in East Palo Alto, are booked and charged with promoting prostitution and underage prostitution, along with twelve women, who are brought up on prostitution charges. In a separate raid, Lincoln Barkley and Jaime Pulido are both charged with two felony counts of possessing and selling illegal firearms and drug trafficking.
The arrests are part of an orchestrated effort by both the Menlo Park and East Palo Alto police departments to demonstrate that they’re responding swiftly to the shooting with material action and to reinforce the notion that C. J. Watkins is the troubled youth they claimed. Unfortunately, the image they sketched in the days immediately following his death didn’t always jibe with the photo of the clean-cut kid that was being circulated in the media, sandwiched between adjectives like bright, charming, and popular. The dark-side argument needed a beefier foundation, and in one sweeping, well-coordinated operation, they silence the small minority of critics who contend Madden acted hastily in slaying Watkins. Behold, they intonate none too subtly, the real C. J. Watkins was having sex with prostitutes, buying and selling amphetamines and other designer drugs to students, and fraternizing with gun dealers.
However, part of their PR problem stems from Madden’s refusal to go along with the media’s attempts to portray him as a hero. So long as Carrie, the doctor, and the victim/suspect aren’t talking, Madden, the handicapped detective with a chip on his shoulder, is the most logical lens through which reporters and television producers can tell their stories. The most hungry and accommodating of them brazenly promise a sympathetic profile, an expanded, spicier version of the last article, a piece that he can “always look back upon and be proud of, something his kids will show their grandkids.”
Imagine their surprise when they hear he wants nothing to do with it. He tells Pastorini and Hartwick that’s the last thing he wants, another puff piece celebrating the hurdles he’s had to overcome. Sitting in the sergeant’s office, he says, “What I have to say wouldn’t translate well, Pete. The department wouldn’t like it. It’s not sound-bite friendly.”
“What do you want to say, Hank?” Pastorini asks.
Madden doesn’t respond at first. But after some reflection, he says, “Between you and me, Pete, shooting that kid and—”
He falls silent, suddenly embarrassed.
“What?” Pastorini urges.
“Well, saving the doc there in the park and rushing Jim to the hospital—that whole thing, the whole combination, just set something off in me. Afterward, I thought about what Cogan did. Here’s this kid who could have destroyed his life, and without even a second of hesitation, he goes all out to save him. I don’t know, Pete. You go through all your life looking for some sort of revenge and suddenly you realize what you really should have been looking for was the exact opposite. It threw me for a loop.”
Pastorini looks at him, a little dumbfounded. “Did you apologize to him?”
“No. I thanked him, though.”
“For what?”
“For being a good doctor.”
“Very touching,” says Pastorini.
Madden smiles. “Hey, Pete.”
“What?”
“Say Open Wide.”
“Why?”
“Just say it.”
“Open Wide,” Pastorini says.
Madden smiles again.
“Say it again.”
“Open Wide.”
Madden’s smile broadens.
“I’ll be damned. Hey, Billings,” Pastorini shouts through his half open door, “Get in here. I want you to see something.”
The next day, Cogan opens the newspaper and spots a short article with the headline, “Detective Still Mum on Shooting.” About half the piece is a rehash of earlier profiles of Madden, describing his physical handicap, as well as his childhood sexual abuse—both of which, according to Commander Hartwick, the detective has long ago put behind him.
“While Detective Madden is a private man,” the commander is quoting as saying, “the main reason he doesn’t want to discuss the shooting is that he feels strongly that Dr. Cogan and the team of doctors and nurses at Parkview Hospital who saved Jim Pinklow’s life are the heroes here. What they did was truly remarkable. All he had to do was to pull the trigger of a gun.”
And for a time, Cogan does feel remarkable. He knows the feeling will fade, but while it lasts, he feels a quiet satisfaction that he hasn’t felt in quite some time, not since he pitched a three-hit shutout his senior year, the only complete game of his college career.
&nbs
p; One morning he gets a call from a hospital administrator. She’s calling to ask him what day he’d like to start again. Not if, but what day.
“Monday, I guess, is fine,” he replies. “I’ll take my usual shifts if that’s possible.”
“Absolutely. But you might want to take your first few weeks a little slower. You know, work your way back into the swing of things.”
She sounds more like a flight attendant than the impatient underpaid staffer he was used to.
“No, you’re right. Can you just put me on for three days? I’ll see how I feel after a couple of weeks.”
And so months of contemplation, fantasies of a triumphant departure, and nerve-racking debates over possible career paths are erased in a single instant by an inconsequential bureaucrat with a nice tone of voice who happened to ask one question instead of another. Not if, but what day.
“It just seemed all right,” he tells Carolyn that Monday, calling her from his old office, which he found exactly the same way he’d left it.
“How does it feel to be back?” she asks.
“Well, it’s the same plane, but I’m flying business class instead of coach. That’s what it feels like.”
“Now there’s the secret to life.”
A month passes. Then two. And soon it’s as if he’d never left. July and August come and go, and he doesn’t hear from Carrie. He’s vaguely disappointed, for although part of him thinks it will be best to forget her, he feels she owes him some sort of explanation and an apology. Madden had given him that—maybe not in precise words, but the sentiment was there. They’d had a drink together at The Dutch Goose and somewhere between beer one and two he agreed to become an assistant coach for Morey’s, his son’s Little League team sponsored by Peninsula Building Materials.
Madden didn’t think he’d hear from her.
“Her parents sent her away somewhere,” he said. “They haven’t told us exactly where. I think it’s some sort of Bible school.”