by Lou Cadle
Chapter 9: Bash
Bash stood between McKenna and the dead patient. “You don’t need to look, honey,” he said.
“He just…died,” she said faintly, staring blankly at Bash’s chest as if she could see through it to the cadaver beyond.
Bash took her hands, carefully peeling off her gloves, then his. When he was done, he said, “McKenna, sweetie, look at me.”
Slowly, her eyes recovered from the blank stare and met his.
“I’m sorry I let you see that. I shouldn’t have.”
“He bled so much,” she said. “And you cut off his leg.”
“I know, I know.”
“I never saw anyone die before.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“He was an okay kid, you know? For a jock.”
Bash’s chest went cold with a deeper fear. “You knew him?”
“No, not knew him, not really. His name was Jared. He was on the basketball team, not the star, just a guy. Sometimes when the cheerleaders danced, he’d sort of dance on the sidelines, make fun of them. But not in a mean way. He made people laugh. And the assistant coach would swat at him with a clipboard, and people would laugh more.”
“Oh, McKenna. I’m so very, very sorry.”
Haruka began to stir to wakefulness.
Bash said. “I want you two to get some rest. Your mom hasn’t shown up?”
“No,” she said. “You don’t think she died, do you? Like that.” She pointed behind him.
He shook his head. “No. I imagine she’s having a hard time getting here. The roads aren’t passable.”
“Is it horrible of me?” started McKenna, then clamped her lips shut.
Bash said, “Is what horrible?”
It took her several seconds to manage a reply. “That if my mom did die like that — that I’m glad I wasn’t there to see it?”
Bash’s heart was breaking. Mentally he kicked himself across town and back for forgetting these girls weren’t trained medical staff, but smart teenagers who had taken on a new job and done it well. As a reward, and because of him, they’d probably have a lifetime of nightmares about tonight.
“I think the two of you could use some rest,” he said, glancing down at his watch. It was 5:12. The sun would be up soon. He could use some rest, too, but more important was getting the girls away from the blood and death. On the other hand, he couldn’t send them out into the world alone. “The night’s over. And you did great, but it’s time for you to sleep now.”
“I’d like to sleep,” she said, her voice faint.
“Great. We can do that.” He took back one of his hands and shook Haruka’s shoulder gently until she pulled her head upright. “Take off your gloves, Haruka. We’re going to call it a night.”
He got the girls up and turned away from the body on the operating table, which he wanted to bag and hide from view soon. The living were always more important than the dead. He led the girls over to the staff parking lot and beeped open his own car. McKenna was the taller of the two, so he got her settled in the back seat and untied her sneakers. The clothes from Macy’s that he’d never returned served as a pillow. Then he helped Haruka find a comfortable position in the front seat, tilting the passenger’s seat back until it nearly touched McKenna’s legs. He cranked down the driver’s side window a few inches, closed the door, and stood peering in. Haruka was asleep again almost immediately. He thought she hadn’t seen as much of the operation, so maybe she wouldn’t carry as much trauma from it. McKenna traced her finger along the stitching on the seat back for a moment, then she curled her hands under her chin. Her lids fluttered, then closed.
Bash wanted to stay until she was asleep, but there was the body lying there on the operating table under a slowly brightening sky. He made his way to the operating area. Someone had tossed a plastic sheet over the body in his absence. Bash went to get a body bag and find someone to help him slide the boy in. He talked the OTA into assisting, and as they bagged the boy’s body, she moaned a little. When he retrieved the amputated leg and put in the bag with the boy, she said, “shit shit shit shit shit” until she ran out of breath. He didn’t think she knew she was saying anything aloud.
Bash asked her to get a piece of paper and write “Jared, H.S. basketball player” on it in permanent marker and tape it securely to the outside of the body bag. Along the way, in a town this small, someone would fill in the last name, he was sure. He went back to cleaning up the surgical area, getting it ready for the next patient. As he did, a big fire truck and two ambulances pulled up and rescuers started hauling down casualties. Some civilians, walking wounded, climbed off the truck on their own. As they moved into better light, he could see some were actually medical workers, in uniform.
Were they well enough to help? They must be rescued from the hospital or one of the medical office buildings. He checked his watch They’d have been trapped or pinned for 14 hours, so psychologically, they wouldn’t be in the best of shape. But he’d been working for 14 hours straight, and he didn’t know how long he could go on before he was doing more harm than good. He was desperate for more staff, and not too proud to beg them to help.
He bagged all the trash and turned off the flashlights. He kept his eye out for Dr Shah, too, and finally saw him over near the street, talking to a woman with salt and pepper hair. The surgeon waved him over.
“This is Dr. Liz Eisenstein, orthopedics. Sebastian Hill, nurse. He’s been pretty much running things here since the quake.”
“Looks like you’ve organized it well.”
“We did what we could. Are you from the hospital, or — ?”
“Hopkins Medical Building,” she said. She waved a hand at someone, motioning someone else over. “What can we do?”
“Honestly, you can take over. Or find someone to take over. I need a few hours sleep, and I’m not an MD, and emergent medicine is not my field, and I’m so glad to see you.” He realized he was babbling and clamped his mouth shut.
Another woman, in her thirties, very pale with wispy black hair, came up. The orthopedist introduced her. “This is Sonja, a PA. She’s done some work overseas.”
“I did a stint with Doctors Without Borders,” she said.
“Would you?” Bash said. “Help? Take over? You must know a hundred times what I do about field hospitals.”
“Shouldn’t a director be an MD?” Sonja said, deferring to the two doctors standing there.
The surgeon said, “Bash here has managed well enough without an MD. We need someone to organize, assign staff, start setting up staff rotations, keep track of specialties, request equipment. And then we need an MD — you, maybe, Liz, to decide who gets evacuated with some smart triage. They’ll have three evac helicopters coming in midmorning.”
We will? thought Bash. Things had been happening without his managing them while he was in surgery, so obviously he could back off his responsibilities. He wanted to. He felt guilty about it, too, but he wanted to simply help patients and let someone administrate.
“We need to pick the six most critical cases to go first, within an hour” said Shah. “The helicopters will be back every two to three hours as long as they can be spared. With luck we might get 20 or more people out of here today.”
The two doctors talked about how to go about assessing patients for evac. Bash trailed behind, half hypnotized with exhaustion, but he forced himself to focus the best he could. They moved around the parking lot, filled now with patients lying down on makeshift beds, lying directly on the ground covered by blankets, and sitting on chairs. Some had family alongside. There was one firefighter who had gotten hurt when a half-collapsed building came down on him while he was trying to effect a rescue. With a broken ulna, he was out of commission for a few weeks, but at least he was alive to tell the story.
The little girl with the head injury who had come in last night before he started surgery was still unconscious and Bash was glad to hear the docs agree to evac her today. Her mother and father had
not shown up and Bash wondered if they were dead, or trapped somewhere, or struggling to find their daughter and hadn’t thought of coming here. He wondered about McKenna’s mother too, who surely could have made it home by now, even walking, and he worried that many children had been made orphans today.
Imagine the administrative nightmare of trying to match them up with distant relatives, of making sure those relatives weren’t child abusers or sex criminals, of trying to refer them to psychologists and social workers for the next several years. What were the populations of St. Louis and Memphis? Over four million combined, he imagined, probably 40% minors, and how many had been orphaned?
He brought his attention back to the rounds. Most of the patients he didn’t know. A handful were in the recovery room from surgery he had been in on, but he recognized the wounds, not the faces. A dozen patients were brand new, coming in with Liz and Sonja from the medical building rescue.
Suze was still doing triage and looked rebellious when she was told she’d get relieved in a very short time.
He stayed behind until she was done with her current patient, then said, “You’ve done a good job, Suze. It’s time for us to get some rest. There’ll be plenty to do in eight hours, too.”
“The rescue guys went through our building,” was all she said. “They found two survivors.”
“That’s great!” he said.
“Out of 23? No it’s not.”
“It’s better than no survivors,” he said.
“Maybe if we had found them sooner,” she said. “Maybe if you had helped me.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “There was so much to do.”
“I’m not about to forgive you.”
“Okay,” he said, not wanting to argue over it. There was no reason to argue, and he already felt bad enough. He felt bad about Jared and about McKenna watching him die. He felt bad about the man in the Toyota, the first man he condemned to death with triage. He didn’t need her blame on top of his own. “Get yourself some rest, as soon as you can.”
“I have patients to triage,” she said.
He let it go.
At the back of the hospital area where they arrived last, Mr. and Ms. Witherspoon were still sitting.
“There’s my nurse,” said Ms. W.
“How you doing?” Bash said.
“Past ready to have the baby.”
“Where’s the pediatrician?”
“Busy. Said it’d be sometime today, but not immediately, after looking up my whatsit.”
“How far dilated did he say you were?”
“Six centimeters, he said, about 45 minutes ago.”
“Getting there.” He turned to Dr. Eisenstein. “Can we get her evacced?”
“Not first thing. Maybe last load today, if no one worse comes in before then. There are too many emergent cases. And from how she answered our questions, the labor is preceding normally.” She turned to Ms. W. “Right?”
“There’s no blood or anything. It hurts, though.”
“We’ll see what we can do about that,” she said, then to Shah, “Sonja may have delivered a baby before.”
Ms. W. stabbed a finger at Bash. “I want him.”
“Me?” Bash squeaked. “I’ve never assisted with a birth.” He’d watched a few in nursing school rotations, but that was back before the turn of the century.
“I trust you.”
“But,” he said, and looked hopelessly at the doctor, then at Mr. W, who shrugged and smiled at him wearily. Bash hoped they could move him out, too, maybe tomorrow. He didn’t like the way the man looked, sallow and tired.
Shah said, “Why don’t you stay with her. I think you’re pretty much done for surgery.”
“I am a little tired,” Bash admitted.
“That’ll work, Liz?” he asked the new hospital administrator.
“Sure,” she said. “And I’ll find you two — “ this to the Witherspoons “ — the very best in delivery of our staff.” Then to Bash, “Stay here for now, okay? At least stay off your feet.”
Bash nodded and sat down then watched the assessment team move away toward the last few patients. He had so much to tell them, but if he could only rest for a second.
“Damn,” gasped Ms. W., and he watched as she rode out another long contraction.
When it was done, he said, “What can I do for you?”
“Tell me my baby will be okay.”
“Oh yes, I’m sure of it. Did the pediatrician listen to its heart?”
She nodded.
Mr. W. said “Said it was strong and steady. Said everything was normal.”
Bash said, “Then I’m sure you’ll both be fine.”
Ms W. peered at him. “Why don’t you take a nap? You look awful.”
“I thought you wanted me here.”
“To deliver the baby. And I’d like that to be now, but it isn’t.”
“You wanting to push?”
“No. Not at all.”
“Well…” he said. “Maybe I’ll grab forty winks.”
“Why don’t you use that car they examined me in,” she said, pointing. “It’s right there. Then we can come for you when we need you.”
“Promise to wake me up for whatever,” he said. “Especially if you want to push.”
“I will,” she said, struggling to stand.
He got up and helped her balance on her way to her feet.
“I want to walk again for awhile. You go nap.”
Every time someone said “nap” or “rest” or “sleep” it was like a stage hypnotist’s trick, making Bash want to lie down right where he stood. But he made over to the car — he wondered briefly whose it was, Meggy’s or some other dead person’s — and climbed in the front bench seat and let out the sigh to end all sighs. What a day it had been. Within moments, he was out cold.
Bash woke feeling sticky and still tired, but needing in the worst way to pee. Clambering out of the car, he looked up to see the sun halfway up the eastern sky. Across the way, Mr. Witherspoon was asleep on a blanket on the ground. Ms. W was pacing again. She’d probably walked miles, without ever going more than ten yards from her husband. Bash headed over.
“How are you?”
“I’m fine. But I want this to be over.”
“Has a doctor examined you since I fell asleep?”
She nodded. “I’m hungry.”
“I can get you something,” he said, wondering if that were so.
“No. I’m nauseated, too.”
“Ah, okay. You have water or juice?”
“I’m out.”
“I’ll get all three of us some. Will you be okay for ten minutes until I get back?”
“I’m fine,” she said, but she sounded upset, like there were tears underneath.
Well, he had to pee, no matter what else was going on. He’d tend to her emotions when he came back.
As he walked through the parking lot, he was surprised to see just as many patients as before. The staff, he only recognized two of. His first group had been replaced by a whole new shift, and he was happy that those first few were off getting some rest. The gazebo for surgery he had dreamed of last night had magically appeared. Had he mentioned it aloud last night? Or had someone else gotten the same idea?
He asked the receptionist where the bottled water and juice was, and she pointed while she finished writing something. She glanced up and said, “Wait!”
“Yes?”
“You really need a new uniform.”
He looked down at himself. He had dried blood and who knows what staining his front. Not very reassuring to patients. “I don’t have anything — “
“Someone found a box of scrubs.” She pointed. “Second table from the end.”
There was a ratty cardboard box under that table with scrubs and patient gowns in a disorganized pile. He rooted through until he found scrubs in large, pants and shirt, and he took them with him into a portapotty and peed, blessed relief, and changed his clothes. He found a plasti
c bag for his uniform, though with what he was hearing about water shortages, who knew when he’d be able to do laundry.
He got three bottles, water, apple juice, and lemon-lime soda, looked around for McKenna and Haruka, and not seeing them, went back to the Witherspoons. While he was hungry, he could put off a meal for a little while longer.
Ms. W took the apple juice. He left the white soda for her husband and took the water for himself. He lifted the bottle and toasted. “To your baby. You have a name picked out?”
“Ira is campaigning for Diana, but I’m leaning toward Anja.”
“They’re both pretty names.”
“I guess I’ll give in to him. He may not be around her whole life, so at least his child should have the name he wants.”
“It must be so hard,” he said.
Her face looked angry, but Bash thought she wasn’t, really, that she was fighting back fear and grief.
“It’s okay to be upset,” he said.
“Is it?” she said, her eyebrows shooting up, her tone snide.
He knew better than to take it personally. “I can’t imagine what either of you is going through.”
“But you’ve seen it before.”
“I’ve seen cancer before, certainly. And what it does to families.”
Her face relaxed and showed a hint of the worry she must be feeling. “How many of them die? The ones that you treat.”
“Too many. People fight with everything they have, but it doesn’t always work.”
“I wish he’d fight harder.”
“It might not matter — to the outcome, I mean. There’s no proof that positive thinking or angry fighting or any particular sort of attitude makes a difference. I know you’ve heard otherwise on the television, but it’s not so.”
“What makes a difference, then?”
“The best treatment. The right genes for it to work well. Luck, mostly, just plain old garden variety luck. And probably some stuff we simply don’t know about yet.”
“How about having a baby on the way? Could that help?”
He gave her a wan smile. “I hope so. I doubt there’s been a study done on it.” He wondered if she’d gotten pregnant after the diagnosis, if she’d done it to keep some part of her husband alive, even if the outcome of the cancer was the worst.
