Now on my own as a paramedic I have been working with a new partner every shift while I wait to be assigned a permanent partner. But whether you’ve worked with someone one hour or ten years, the same rules of protection must apply. We’re called for a violent psych. Ahead there are two police cars, with a third approaching from up the street. On a grass embankment, five people are holding a man facedown. The patient is pinned, arms and legs outstretched.
“Goddamn, motherfucking, honky crackers, get the fuck off me, I’m going to kick your ass. Who are you telling me what I can do? Goddamn motherfuckers,” the man says.
“You have a body bag?” a cop asks us.
I shake my head.
“You’re going to need one.”
“I ain’t answering no more of your goddamn questions, honky motherfuckers. Get off me. I’m going to kick your ass.”
We call dispatch and they send another ambulance to bring us a bag.
“Every one of your ambulances ought to carry a body bag,” the cop says. “There are so many nuts in this city.”
“Goddamn motherfuckers. Get off me. I ain’t telling what I know. You’re not getting answers from me. Honky crackers.”
We bring the stretcher over. We can hear the other ambulance approach and see it now coming from downtown.
“Fuck’n goddamn, get off me. I ain’t telling what I know. Honky motherfuckers.”
The other ambulance parks. The EMT, a strong thin young man in his early twenties, brings the bag up to us. His partner is twenty-two, a pretty soft-spoken girl with black hair, a pink complexion, and still some baby fat in her face. She has a hint of an accent from a childhood in the South.
We put the bag on the stretcher. It is made of thick military green canvas. With the help of the cops, we lift the man and drop him facedown on the stretcher, and try to quickly wrap the bag around him. He fights and squirms. One cop grabs his arm and twists it. The EMT holds him by the hair, pressing his face into the stretcher. It takes all of us to get him subdued.
“Hide the video camera,” one cop says.
“I’m going to kick all your asses, honky motherfuckers.”
We pull the straps around the bag.
“Motherfucking po-lice brutality. Honky crackers. You’re all in the KKK, motherfuckers.”
The bag completely holds him, so just his sneakers are out the foot end and his head out the front.
The stretcher is still in the low position. We start to wheel him toward the ambulance. I am at the foot end. The young woman is by the head. He spits in her face. She screams. “You fucking bastard!” She kicks him hard in the ribs. “You fucking bastard!”
“Hey!” Her partner pulls her away.
“He spit on me. He spit in my face.” Tears run from her eyes. She tries to kick him again, but her partner holds her off.
“Motherfuckers. Goddamn, leave me the fuck alone, honky crackers,” the man shouts.
We lift him into the back and the girl’s partner gets in with my partner. The hospital is just around the corner, so he rides with us while she follows in the other ambulance. I hear muffled shouting and thuds in the back. I turn up the music. I don’t look in the rearview mirror.
“What Kind of House Do You Go Home To?”
My new permanent partner is Glenn Killion. He is a twenty-three-year-old who has been working in the city for almost two years. He is an EMT-Intermediate, so he can do IVs if I need him to, and he knows the streets well and likes to drive. He is a neat freak, and after every call, I find the ambulance restocked and immaculate. He likes country music and I do, too, so I don’t mind if we listen to it all day, though I also love rock and soul. Glenn moved to Connecticut from Pennsylvania coal country, where he had also worked as an EMT. In Connecticut he worked for a while in computers, but didn’t like the work and came back to EMS. He is a country boy at heart and doesn’t like most of what he sees in the city. At night he frequents a bar called the Cadillac Ranch, where he dons a cowboy hat and takes pride in his country dancing ability.
We get called for an unknown at the Laundromat on Albany Avenue.
“It’s a drunk,” Glenn says.
The crowd of thirty or so men in their forties make way for us.
“He’s in there,” a man holding a beer in a paper bag says. “He can barely walk.”
“You should have just left him there, let him sleep it off,” another man says.
“He done fell down twice. That ain’t safe. He needs help.”
“All he gonna get is trouble now.”
We enter the Laundromat. It is a dim room with just a proprietor standing against a machine watching us. I look around and don’t see anyone else. I turn back to the door and see a tall man pressed face first to the wall. I look at his feet and see a puddle forming from the urine flowing down the wall.
“What are you doing pissing in public?” Glenn says. “That’s disgusting.”
The man turns to face him. We are standing in the doorway.
“Put that away,” Glenn says.
The man—who must be six six—has a coy smile on his face. He starts walking out the door, taking his steps real slow. “Take me ho-ome,” he says.
“Button yourself up,” Glenn says.
“We can’t take you home,” I say. “It’s the hospital or ADRC.” ADRC is the Alcohol and Drug Recovery Center, a state facility where we transport many of the drunks we pick up, provided there are still open beds and the person is not on their banned list for poor behavior in the past. Otherwise we take them to one of the hospitals, where they are restrained either in a wheelchair or on a bed until they sober up and can be released.
“Take me home so I can sleeeep it off,” he says, reaching toward Glenn.
“Put that fucking thing back in your pants, and don’t touch me,” Glenn says, knocking his hand away.
“You just an ambulance driver. You take me where I say. I want to go home.”
“You’re going to go to jail if you don’t cooperate.”
“I don’t care. Put me in jail. I can make bail.”
“Zip your pants up,” I say.
He fiddles with it and finally puts it away.
“Hey, Slim, you left your hat.” The proprietor of the Laundromat comes out and hands him a dirty orange baseball hat, which he sets on his head and smiles. He has no front teeth, but big molars, which he grinds together, making a frightful eerie sound.
We lead him to the ambulance.
“You should have just let him sleep it off,” a man standing by says to another man in the crowd.
“He done fell down twice. He going to hurt himself. You can’t be left like that.”
“Take me home, ambulance driver,” our patient says to us.
We help him into the back, but instead of sitting on the bench where Glenn has laid a sheet, he falls over on the stretcher. Glenn picks him up and pushes him on the bench.
He smiles at Glenn. “I’ll kick your ass.”
“Don’t make a fist at me,” Glenn says.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Punk,” the man says to me.
“Punk,” I say, “is that your name?”
He just smiles.
“If you want to go to ADRC, we’ve got to have your name to see if you’re not on their banned list.”
“I own a two-hundred-thousand-dollar house,” he says. “Take me home so I can sleep it off.”
“What’s your name?” I say.
He tells me his name. He slurs it, so it takes a few more times asking to get it right. Glenn calls on the radio and we wait to hear if he’s clear to go.
“Got a cigarette?” he asks.
“Not for you,” Glenn says.
The man tries to lay his head down, but Glenn grabs him and sits him up.
“I’ll kick your ass,” the man says.
He tries to lie down, but Glenn grabs him by the shirt and sits him up again. “I’m tired of picking up you people.”
“You peop
le,” the man says. “You people. You calling me nigger? Why, you just a punk ambulance driver.”
“I’ll sit with him,” I say to Glenn.
“I’m fine,” Glenn says. “You behave, or we’re calling the cops.”
“Call. I don’t care. I make bail.”
“We’re calling to see if you can get into ADRC,” I say, “so just chill out for a minute.”
He smiles at Glenn, who is staring back at him.
The dispatcher tells us it is okay to take him to ADRC.
“I’ll be fine,” Glenn says to me again.
I go up front to drive.
* * *
At ADRC, the security guard comes out and eyes our passenger as I open the back door. They don’t like uncooperative or too-drunk patients. “He can’t get out on his own, he ain’t coming in,” the guard says.
“What’s for dinner tonight, nigger?” our patient says, sticking his head out and holding his hand out to me to help him down.
“Who you calling nigger?” the security guard says.
“You, nigger.” He smiles at the guard.
“He can’t walk on his own?” the guard asks.
“He can,” I say, holding his arm.
“What’s happening, nigger?”
“You gonna have to behave now you going to stay with us.” He just smiles.
“Let’s go,” Glenn says, grabbing his arm harder and moving him along.
Inside, we sit him in a chair.
In the waiting room, a young man looks at him, then at me, and shakes his head. An older man smiles.
“Hey, who’s that spic over there?” our patient asks.
“You can’t talk like that,” the guard says.
“What’s for dinner tonight, nigger? I want something hot.”
“You can’t eat till we get you checked in. You can’t just come in and get something hot. You gotta get checked in. That’s the policy.”
“I gotta pee,” he says.
“You can’t pee here.”
“I pee whenever I want.”
“You better listen to him,” Glenn says. “He was peeing right in the Laundromat when we got him.”
“Let me help you then,” the guard says.
He helps him up and walks him to the bathroom.
“I seen him around plenty,” the younger man says to me. “Me, I’m trying to get help, trying to get in a treatment program.”
“That’s good,” I say.
“I just look at myself and see myself headed downhill. Cocaine addiction.”
“It’s tough stuff.”
“You pick him up on Albany Avenue? The Laundromat?”
I nod.
“He probably gets picked up forty, fifty times a year. Me, I’m looking for help.”
“Hopefully, they’ll be able to help you out.”
Glenn is writing up the run report. A woman administrator asks where the patient is. Glenn says he’s in the bathroom. She says she needs to look at him before they admit him. She asks us to wait before we leave.
They come out of the bathroom. “He peed right in the middle of the floor,” the guard says, shaking his head.
Our patient just smiles and shuffles back to his seat. “What are you looking at, nigger?” he says to the younger man.
“Chill out,” the younger man says.
“I kick your ass.” The patient smiles and makes a fist.
“Don’t be getting into it with me. I know you. We did time together in Morgan Street.”
“I ain’t been there for five years.”
“You wearing jail pants.”
He looks at his dark green pants and smiles. “Got a cigarette?”
“Can’t smoke in here,” the guard says.
“Can I give him one to hold on to for later?” the younger man asks.
“Long as he doesn’t smoke it in here.”
He gives him a cigarette.
The administrator, hearing that he peed on the floor, tells us to take him to Saint Francis.
“I don’t get to eat,” he says to the guard.
“You had your chance,” Glenn says, putting on a pair of latex gloves. “Now you get me.”
“Punk,” the man says. “Loser. Ambulance driver.” He smiles. “Take me home to my two-hundred-thousand-dollar house so I can sleep it off.”
“Behave yourself now,” the guard says.
“Take it easy,” the younger man says to me.
“Good luck.”
He nods.
We take our patient by the arm and lead him out to the ambulance.
I drive. Glenn is sitting on the stretcher. The man is on the bench. I see him take the cigarette out and put it in his mouth. He tries to light a match. Glenn grabs it from him.
“You’re not smoking that thing in here.”
“Let me know if you need help,” I say.
“I’m fine.”
The man laughs.
“Don’t make a fist at me or you’re going to regret it,” Glenn says.
I continue through traffic.
There is a commotion in back. Glenn has grabbed the cigarette. The man lunges at him. They wrestle. I stop in the middle of traffic. I open the door to go around to the back to join the fracas.
“Keep going,” Glenn shouts. “Call the company, tell them to get the cops at Saint Francis.”
“You all right?”
He is on top of the man, holding him down. I can see a cut under Glenn’s eye.
I call the company on the radio. We’re three blocks from the hospital.
When I pull in to the emergency entrance there are four other EMTs awaiting us.
They open the back door, and a moment later the man is yanked out and thrown into a wheelchair. His orange hat falls to the ground. One EMT holds him by the hair when he tries to get up.
“Punk,” the man says, still smiling. “Ambulance driver.”
“You all right?” I ask Glenn.
In addition to the cut, he has a shiner growing under his eye. “Fine,” he says.
A cop comes out to see what the commotion is about. We tell him the man assaulted Glenn.
“Arrest me, I make bail,” the man says.
We take him into the psych room. He is still smiling while restraints are applied to his wrists and feet, and his clothes are cut off.
“Loser,” he says to Glenn.
“Loser, you’re the fucking one who’s tied up,” Glenn says.
“I got a two-hundred-thousand-dollar house. I can make bail.”
Glenn tightens the restraint on his arm.
“What kind of house you going home to, ambulance driver?” He smiles. “What kind of house you going home to?”
A Smile
We are sent on a priority three for an abdominal pain on Capen Street. We ring the door of the apartment building, and a few moments later a little girl with cornrow hair opens the door for us, then runs up the stairs, pausing at the top to wait for us to get halfway before racing up the next set of stairs. She looks playfully at us.
At the top of the stairs, the girl goes into an open apartment door. The apartment is largely barren. There is a bed on the hard wooden floor. A body lies on its side under a blanket. There are no other sheets on the bed. The girl sits on the windowsill and watches us.
Under the blanket is a woman in her late twenties. She is awake and breathing. “I got this stomach pain since last night,” she says.
I get a quick history. She had her period last week. Her pulse is normal, her abdomen soft, nontender. She has no fever.
“It just comes and goes,” she says.
“Do you have stomachaches often?”
“Sometimes.”
“What’d you eat last night?”
“I went to KFC and I had a beer.”
“Okay.”
I look over at the little girl, who is eating chips from a bag of Doritos taco flavor and watching me intently.
“I couldn’t sleep last night.”
&n
bsp; “You want to go to the hospital?”
“Saint Francis,” she says.
“Can you walk?”
“I wouldn’t have called the ambulance if I could.”
“I don’t mean to the hospital. Can you walk down to the ambulance with us, or do you want us to carry you?”
“I guess I can walk,” she says. Her face is a constant grimace. “Sharon, get my shoes.”
The little girl gets her mom’s shoes and jacket. Then in the kitchen she uses a chair to get up on the counter and reaches up onto the top of the refrigerator for the shoebox that holds their state medical card. She puts on her own pink snow jacket.
We walk slowly down the stairs. Outside, the little girl skips ahead of us. She hops in the back of the ambulance and buckles her seat belt. The mother sits on the bench. As I fill out a run form, the little girl eats her chips one at a time.
“You got one for me?” I ask.
She smiles and shakes her head.
I am new to the street. Every day I take in its sights and stories. For others, years—or for some, just months—of toil with drunks and calls for complaints where people should be calling a taxi instead of an ambulance wear them down. Rene Barsalou tells me when she was working with Tom Harper he got so upset at a woman for calling an ambulance to get to her doctor’s appointment at Hartford Hospital that he berated her for the full fifteen-minute drive. The next day they were parked on Main Street when a bus pulled up. He got out of the ambulance, stepped up into the bus, bought two tokens from the driver, then got in his ambulance and drove to the woman’s house. He knocked loudly on the door, and when she answered, he said, “Use these next time,” and gave her the tokens.
When I ask him about the story he says it is true. “I’m not a taxi driver,” he says. “I was fed up. The lady was healthier than you or me.”
I am new and not burned out. I look for the life in the scene, whether it’s Tom’s impulsiveness in that story or a little girl’s smile in the midst of a barren house. I try to keep my eyes wide open.
We pull into the driveway of a motel on West Service Road, parallel to I-91 north of downtown. Two cops go running in just ahead of us.
“This must be a good one,” Glenn says.
We pull the stretcher, the green bag, monitor, and drug box in case it is a cardiac arrest. The call is for an overdose.
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