Tomorrow We Die

by Shawn Grady

  The ambulance shut off. Bones came around back and swung open the doors. He raised his arms, grinning with televangelist grandeur. “Thou, unknown man down. Come forth.”

  We got off work an hour late after cleaning and restocking the ambulance and finishing paperwork. The Sierras stood dark and majestic, silhouetted by the day’s crimson farewell. What was it they said in the navy? Red at night, sailors delight. Red in the morn’, sailors mourn.

  Norah Jones escorted me home, her sultry, smoky voice enticing “Come Away With Me” through the car speakers. The black leather of my VW Passat presented a comfortable contrast to the gritty chaos of the workday. I longed to shed my uniform, to be free of the sublime stench of the ambulance.

  A paper crinkled in the side pocket of my pants. And I heard my patient’s raspy voice. . . . “Arepo the Sower holds the wheels at work.”

  I pulled out the note and unfolded it atop the steering wheel. A series of markings littered both sides of the sheet – straight and curved lines, dashes and slashes.

  Chicken scratches.

  I tossed it onto the passenger-side floor.

  Streetlights glowed along the sidewalks. The lengthening day disappeared in the west. Blue and red lights illumined my dash.

  That look in his eyes . . .

  “Give this to Martin.”

  I shrugged it off, watching the road zip beneath me. Norah finished. The Byrds came on. “To everything . . . turn, turn, turn.”

  I laughed and shook my head. The man had been obviously low on oxygen and perhaps delusional. A paper full of scribbles meant nothing. I was going home. I was going to relax and get away from work and have my own life for at least the next ten hours.

  The notepaper sat on the floor.

  I couldn’t see throwing it away in good conscience. That left me one option . . .

  I hit the blinker at the next intersection. I’d turn around, take a half hour to go back to Saint Mary’s, and give the piece of paper to the man – or at least to his nurse – and be done with it. The sooner I found him, the sooner I could drop it off and be home in a hot shower.

  Night had fallen by the time I pulled into the hospital parking lot. The fatigue in my muscles made it feel later than it was. The evening air bit sharp with the reminder that winter had yet to fully loosen its grip.

  At the ER doors I punched in the key code to enter. By now they probably would have moved our patient to the cardiac intensive care unit, but I decided to stop and ask to be sure. A multitasking middle-aged nurse with long, frizzy brown hair gave me three seconds, time enough for her to say, “CIC, ’bout an hour ago,” before trading the clipboard chart she was holding with a new one from a shelf. I don’t think she even heard me thank her as she set off for the next patient room.

  I made my way down the long corridor that led to the elevators. The entire hospital buzzed in a constant state of movement, someone always going somewhere and doing something. The extent of my interaction was limited to a polite smile as I shifted with the sea of changing faces.

  In the elevator I ran my fingers over the folds on the paper. I placed it in my jacket pocket, and at the fifth floor exited and walked toward a tall reception counter in the cardiac intensive care unit. Behind it sat a young nurse with straight black hair just long enough to be pulled into a ponytail. She reclined in a cheap office chair, staring blank-faced at the surrounding rows of flat-panel monitors coursing with electrical heart rhythms. I recognized her from the ER.

  She grinned with straight white teeth. “Uh-oh. Here comes trouble.”

  I smiled and scoured the back of my mind for her name.

  Sherri . . . Brandi . . . no, something more androgynous . . .

  “Bobbi,” I said in stride. “Hey.”

  “How have you been, Jonathan?” She almost succeeded in concealing a glance at the name sewn on my work jacket.

  “I’m all right. Tired. It’s been a busy week. We ran three cardiac arrests in a row today.”

  “So you’re the one who’s been sending us so much business.”

  “I wish I could say that. Only one made it to the hospital.”

  “Oh yeah? What’s the name?” She leaned forward and pulled a scrunchy out of her hair.

  “I actually don’t know it. We found him on the street, and he didn’t have any ID.”

  “Hmm.” She sifted through a stack of charts on the desk. “We did get a John Doe from the ER about an hour ago. This says he was a field save, came in intubated. Male, in his sixties.”

  “That sounds like him.”

  “Wow.” She stared at the chart. “You’re not going to believe this.”

  “What?” I leaned forward on the counter.

  “According to this he just AMA’d outta here.”

  Against Medical Advice. “He just up and walked out?”

  Bobbi twirled her scrunchy and looked aside. “So that’s what all the commotion was about . . .”

  “What commotion?”

  “You know, being stuck out here I am so out of the loop. I swear, I feel like all I do is stare at ectopy and hit Silence buttons.”

  “Bobbi, what commotion?”

  “What? Oh. Well, a tall, disheveled-looking man stormed past the front here. And I thought I heard a couple of the other nurses saying that he was lucky he didn’t yank his vocal cords out.”

  “He pulled his tube.”

  “Yeah.” She glanced at the chart. “And his IVs too.”

  “That must’ve been him.” I nodded at a small brass key with a plastic ring tag clipped to the top of the chart. “What’s that?”

  She picked it up off of the clipboard and read a small sticky note beneath it. “ ‘Patient belonging left behind.’ ” She twirled the key between her fingers and thumb.

  “What does it say on the tag there?”

  She held it close to her nose. “River Crown Motel.” Then flipped it over.

  I huffed. “The River Crown. No doubt.”

  “You know it?”

  “Too well. East Fourth Street.” I scratched the back of my neck. “I just can’t believe that he left already.”

  “Maybe you should check on him.”

  “This day is never going to end.”

  “What’s that?”

  I’ve come this far. . . . “You know, you’re probably right. He could be really sick somewhere.”

  “Yeah.” She made a face of joking concern. “Or at the very least locked out.” Bobbi looked around and then took my hand in both of hers on the countertop. A cool metal shape dropped in my palm. “You really are so sweet to go the extra mile. Poor guy, he might not even be able to get into his room.” She ran her fingers along my knuckles.

  Were I less tired and less consumed by the growing cloud of mystery surrounding this patient and his absurd statements and the ridiculous piece of paper that I couldn’t seem to throw away, I may have capitalized on that moment and scored a date with a hot young nurse. But instead, half considering myself a fool, I simply patted her hand and smiled. “Thanks, Bobbi.” I turned and made my way to the elevators.

  “Don’t be a stranger, Jonathan.”

  Back in my car, I hunched over the wheel and exhaled. The steam from my breath climbed over the windshield and retreated. I held up the key in the fluorescent parking lot light.

  All right, Jonathan, let’s get this done.

  CHAPTER 03

  I waited at a red light for no one.

  Across the intersection sat my destination, marked by a dilapidated neon sign that read River Crow Mo el. With the green light I pulled forward and parked in a lot that over time had become more gravel than intact concrete. The motel was two-story, L-shaped, probably built in the sixties during the heyday of Highway 40. Construction of the interstate years ago dropped a slow poison into the old artery, prompting the appearance of strip clubs, bars, and boarded-up businesses. The River Crown’s rectangular pool now brimmed with pebbles, adorned at the edges by dead junipers in terra-cotta basins. Th
e room doors sported custom numbering by hand with what appeared to be black permanent marker. A dull amber light loomed at the corner office. I found the door unlocked.

  The small reception room reeked of smoke and dust and sweat-gland-excreted alcohol. Fifty years of shag-carpet collective odor. The walls, infested with faint yellow orange patches of bacterial growth, were in desperate need of cleaning or painting – or both. Behind the front desk, the light and shadows of a television danced from a dark room at the end of a hallway. Save for the muffled din of the TV set, it was silent.

  I sounded the ringer.

  A short and stocky man waddled to the front. His scruffy gray beard failed to mask the folds of his double chin. He looked me over. “What do you want?”

  He obviously did not in any way assume that I was looking for a room. I remembered I was still in uniform.

  “I am . . .” I didn’t know how to phrase it. I decided I’d keep it simple. “I’m looking for a man.”

  I paused, not knowing quite how else to proceed since I knew so little about my patient. But then I realized what my pause could imply after my curt statement and became immediately embarrassed, knowing that I had to say something quickly, regardless of its pertinence.

  I cleared my throat. “That is . . . a specific person I need to find.”

  His eyebrows relaxed from the raised position they had been in.

  “Right.” I drummed my hands on my thighs. “Perhaps you would recognize him if I described him?”

  “You don’t know his name?”

  “No, see, I’m a paramedic.”

  He gave me an impatient look, as if I was patronizing him.

  This was supposed to be easy. “He’s tall, slim, with sort of thin, wispy, light-colored hair and a beard. He wears a black overcoat – ”

  “Yeah, yeah. That’s Simon Letell.” The man ran his finger down a guest list. “He’s in 210. Real quiet guy, a little off his nut, keeps to himself mostly.”

  “He’s been here for a while, then?”

  “At least a month.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate the help.”

  He gave a wry half smile and shuffled back to the hole of a room he had come from. I turned and made my way out the door.

  The chill fresh air was a relief. I shifted my gaze to the upper floor and wasn’t able to make out room 210, so I walked to the stairwell at the inside corner of the motel. It smelled like urine, and the soles of my shoes stuck to the steps. At the top of the stairs a row of pale lights shone, illuminating a balcony bordered by a four-foot wooden sidewall with chipping blue paint. The first door was numbered 218, with 216 beyond it, so I made my way down toward 210.

  My legs locked in place.

  Adrenaline welled up in my chest. My lips parted as I squinted my eyes to bring into better focus the dark mass lying on the balcony floor – directly in front of room 210.

  Not again.

  Simon Letell’s feet pointed toward me, his long dark overcoat enshrouding him as he lay on his side, one hand tucked in toward his chest, and his other arm bent up by his head, quasi-fetal position. His face was ghastly white. The pupils of his wide-open eyes were fixed, dilated, and gelled over. His mouth hung agape, his yellowish teeth apart. The side of his face that lay upon the concrete was livid purple. I placed my fingers upon his wrist and tried to move his arm. Rigor mortis had already set in. He lay frozen in the position in which he had died, his skin waxen cold.

  An icy wind swirled through the upper walkway.

  I pulled my phone from my pocket and called dispatch. I told them to send a coroner. No need for medics.

  I took a few steps back and leaned against the balcony wall. My one save was now beyond saving. The Reaper had the last laugh after all.

  I exhaled and, through the wafting steam, read the numbers on Simon Letell’s door –

  Two . . . One . . . Zero.

  CHAPTER 04

  I didn’t tell the police about the notepaper.

  I explained my presence as a simple welfare-check, doing a favor for the nurses on the fifth floor of Saint Mary’s. I recognized the cops, and they me, though not one of us knew the others’ names. But they made little of it. There wasn’t any trauma or sign of struggle on Simon’s body. They took down my personal info for their report and dismissed me with a “Have a nice night. See you on the streets,” and I set off with the blessing of their professional courtesy.

  Sitting back in the driver’s seat of the Passat, I felt overcome with a sudden weighted exhaustion and wondered if I would be able to make the drive home. One look out of my window served as the catalyst for pressing onward. I longed for the comfort of the house I rented in old southwest Reno, where the world felt normal and beautiful. Where tree roots took precedence over sidewalks, and the mountains beyond stood as silent sentries. I shifted into gear, my thoughts free-floating with visions of sheltering oaks, mystical cottonwoods, and the peeling white bark of aspen trunks.

  My phone vibrated. I fished it out. “Hello?”

  “Jonathan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s Joseph Kurtz.”

  I should have recognized his voice. It was Doctor Joseph Kurtz, dean of the University of Nevada, Reno, Medical School. It was he who had first convinced me to pursue paramedic school – and more recently, med school. He’d coached me in my preparations for the MCATs.

  With his ponytail and round spectacles, he’d always struck me as something of a misplaced beatnik. Decades ago he’d traded his beret for a stethoscope and in recent years had become the medical-school dean, bringing an out-of-the-box style of leadership that had garnered national recognition for the med school’s programs. He also happened to sit on the board that was considering my application for scholarship.

  “Hey, Doc. Good to hear your voice.”

  “You too, Jonathan. What’ve you been up to?”

  “Oh, just happened to be checking up on a patient.”

  “Right, right. That’s my good medic. Well, I won’t keep you, but I do have some very good news.”

  My heart hopscotched.

  “The board reviewed your MCAT scores, and they were very impressed. I am not sure if you’re aware of how few people in the country actually score in the ninety-eighth percentile. We examined your financial application, and I am happy to tell you that you’ve been approved for a full-ride scholarship.”

  I held the phone out and looked at it in disbelief. Yep, Dr. Kurtz’s number. There was no way I could afford med school on the $11.70 an hour I was bringing home as a paramedic. My hopes had rested entirely on scholarship applications.

  A full ride. “I can’t believe it. Out of all the applicants?”

  “You outshined them all, bud. Congratulations.”

  “Wow. That . . . that makes my year.”

  “Just thought I’d pass on the good news.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  “Hey, you earned it. Made my personal recommendation easy. But, look, the scholarship is provisional, based on an ongoing evaluation.”

  “Like with grades?” I glanced out my side window and merged into a lane.

  “That . . . and the board wants to make sure that its scholarship recipients are examples of the professional caliber that the med school produces.”

  “How do they measure that?”

  “It’s difficult to quantify. But for starters, I’d recommend that you enroll in the summer prep courses.”

  “That’s all stuff I’ve pretty much taken.”

  “I know. I know. But it shows the board that you’re serious and committed. This is a huge gift, and you don’t want to do anything to jeopardize it, right?”

  Summer prep was a full-time commitment. I doubted that I could even keep up per diem hours on the ambulance. “What about meals and lodging? The scholarship program only covers that during the main school year.”

  “We discussed that and have decided to make an exception for you.”

  That only gave me a mon
th. I’d have to give notice on my lease, move everything out, put some stuff in storage. And my dad –

  “Jonathan?”

  “Yeah? Sorry. Just taking it all in. I’m definitely on board.”

  “That’s what I like to hear. Well done, bud.”

  “Thanks again.”

  After hanging up, I went on autopilot for the next couple of miles, blinking out of my reverie when I pulled onto my driveway. The glow I felt inside dampened a bit as I parked in the cave-like garage. The walls of my house had been built with stones that came out of the hole the original builder dug for the basement back in the thirties. My house only because it had come to feel that way after renting for the past four years. My dad lived there too. And I always had to qualify this – no, I didn’t live with my dad. Yes, I did live with him. He rented a room from me. In the house that I rented.

  Street light stretched through open blinds, lending the only light inside. I sat in the dining room and stared out the back window. Closer than in winter, Orion ran up from the mountains into the night sky, Ursa Major still eluding him at an angle.

  The day had kept me moving, doing, talking. As the high waned from the scholarship news, the inevitable quiet of evening crept in. It made it impossible to ignore the shadowy plane of hurt that lay just beneath the surface of my consciousness, ever present and waiting for me to slow down. The memory of that day . . . the long lingering wound that refused to mend.

  Was I fooling myself? Was I foolish to think that med school and becoming an ER physician would make things any different, that it would somehow enable me to overcome the pain?

  To outwit death?

  The rain from that day didn’t stop, nor did the images of that shattered windshield.

  I traced a finger over the small scar at my hairline.

  My father ambled in wearing boxers and a collared button-up shirt. “Hey, Jonner.” He held an empty gin glass that he took to the kitchen.

  He rarely drank in front of me. As though that would somehow cross a line. It would actually admit that he was doing it. That he was an alcoholic. And it would set a bad example for his son. Didn’t matter that I was twenty-six and doing more of the caring and providing for him than the other way around. Only God knew how he’d fare if I left him alone.