Diamond in the Rough

by Peter Canning

  Dead drug dealers were the jackpot. There was a turf war raging between the city’s rival gangs over various neighborhoods, and I profited on it. Responding to a shooting, Tom and I would throw the patient on the stretcher. I’d hop in the back with him briefly. My job was to cut the clothes off to expose for any injury, while Tom got his equipment out. Then I’d jump in the front and drive as fast as I could. I’d carry the bloody clothes into the trauma room afterwards, along with any personal effects, always after levying my surcharge. In one bloody night, I took six hundred dollars off a dealer shot at the corner of Enfield and Capen, and then two hours later got a grand off one who met his end at Albany and Deerfield. As a bonus, he had an ounce of reefer on him too.

  I was growing bolder, but even I had my limits. Two masked men robbed a bank on Blue Hills Avenue. The alert teller hit the silent alarm, and the cops were pulling up as soon as they came out of the door. In the resulting foot chase, a good Samaritan tackled one of the robbers, upsetting the bag of cash. The robber punched the man in the head and kicked him, then grabbed handfuls of the packets and tried to escape, when a police dog tore into his side. When we arrived to treat the two men, there were packets of bills scattered all around us. I had never seen so much money. The area was taped off and police officers stood by. A TV camera crew was there. I spotted one packet in the robber’s front pocket. I figured there might be ten thousand dollars there. With that money, I could buy Carrie a car to replace her clunker, I could get her a big wedding ring with enough left over to take us to Hawaii for a honeymoon. On the other hand, I saw the footage on the evening news, my hand reaching for the money, my hand going into my pocket, another hand grasping my hand, iron cuffs being placed on my wrists, then I saw a thick massive hand grabbing my hand, and all of a sudden I was in a small cell with bars over the sunshine, with a roommate named Big Smoke, who smiled at me, and said, “You going to be the wife and I’m going to be the husband.”

  “Officer,” I said. “Officer Winslow!” The cameras were on me now. “Officer, he’s got money in his pocket. Right here!” And I pointed to it.

  “Aren’t you a good citizen,” he said, and then glared at me when his back was to the camera.

  “Just doing my job, sir,” I said.

  That night at the Brickyard, on the TV, they did a feature on the robbery and a little featurette on the EMT who pointed out the money in the robber’s pocket.

  “It’s wonderful how we have such honest people out there,” said Denise D’Ascenzo, the news anchor, before going to the commercial break.

  “I’m disappointed in you,” Fred said. “You could be on a plane to the Caribbean right now.”

  “My Timmy’s a honest one,” Carrie said. “Although being on a plane to the Caribbean sounds nice. Imagine having that kind of cash for free spending. Maybe a little dishonesty now and then might not be so bad.”

  “So, it’s okay if I go down to Uncle Al’s tonight, and get one of those special lap dances, so long as I don’t tell you about it.”

  She slapped my shoulder. “Not that kind of dishonesty.”

  Fred just shook his head at me.

  For the next week, I had to endure comments of everyone telling me what they would have done with the money, and what a sap I was. It was good-natured ribbing, and I doubted any of them would have dared to do what I had not, but still I wondered if maybe I hadn’t missed a chance to be bold.

  Chapter 19

  “Are you okay?” I asked when we found her on the floor again, for the third time in two weeks.

  “Just my pride is hurt,” she said. “I’m afraid I’ve had a bit of an accident.”

  “I’ll say,” Tom said.

  She had soiled herself. A trail of feces led from the bathroom to the side of her bed where she had again managed to knock the phone off the nightstand to make the emergency call.

  “You know you really ought to either get a nurse to sit with you overnight or else get one of those medical alarms to go around your neck. Push the button and say, ‘Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.’”

  “I suppose I should.”

  “You can’t drag yourself to the phone. Who is going to find you? How often are the visiting nurses coming in?”

  “Once a week. And the grocery service comes once a week, but on the same day.”

  “You fall the day after, no one finds you for a week. Look at you now, imagine you after a week.”

  “I guess I see your point.”

  Tom made a point of snapping on his gloves. “Time to get you up.”

  “Hold on,” I said. “We can’t put her in bed like this.”

  “You have another plan?”

  “We have to clean her up.”

  “I don’t do clean up.”

  “I really don’t want to be a bother.”

  “Do you have a towel I can use from the bathroom?”

  “Yes, go right ahead.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Tom said.

  I got a towel and ran warm water on it. We lifted her up to her feet, and then removed her gown. Tom had her hold onto her walker. Once she was balanced, he said, “I’ll be down in the ambulance.

  I didn’t answer.

  “You’re awfully sweet to do this,” she said, as I toweled her off, scrubbing at the dried stains. I didn’t like the smell much and fought back a gag when I caught too heavy a whiff.

  I felt a shaking in her body and saw that she was sobbing.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “You’ll be done in a jiffy.”

  “It’s not okay,” she said. “It’s humiliating. I’m sorry. You are kind. Forgive me. Don’t get old. “

  I cleaned her off in silence, not knowing what to say. Classical music that she later told me was Mozart played on her stereo. I had to use a fresh towel and warmer water to get off all the stains. I draped a bathrobe over her and then, as she directed, found a fresh nightie in her drawer. I pulled the bedspread back for her and helped her in, then pulled the covers up. I thought of Tom sitting down in the ambulance and, while I knew he would tease me, I thought, “Fuck him.” I would do what needed to be done.

  I made her some tea, and then sat by her side. I knew what it was like to be lonely.

  “I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused you,” she said. “I’m sure there’s other people who could use your assistance.”

  “It’s not a trouble at all. Our job’s not just about shootings and car crashes.”

  “You have a good heart.”

  “What about him?” I asked. I pointed to the picture of the man in the straw hat.

  “No, no, he didn’t,” she said. “But he was handsome.” She laughed, and then she looked wistfully at the ring on her finger.

  “You were married?”

  “No… engaged.”

  “What happened?”

  “He died in an accident.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.’

  “Don’t be, but tell me about your girls. I remember you said you had several. Are they pretty?”

  “I pretty much just have one. She’s pretty. At least, I think so.”

  “Does she please you?”

  “Yeah, she does all right in that department.”

  She laughed. “Good. Do you love her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then don’t tell her you do.”

  She started crying again and I felt terrible. I leaned over and kissed her on the forehead, and said, “You are a beautiful woman, Miss Broadbent.”

  She took my hand and held it to the side of her face. I felt her warm tears on my skin. She held it there for the longest time. I just sat and listened to the Mozart and looked at the diamond ring she wore and tried to imagine just what it was that had happened to her and broken her heart so long ago. After about fifteen minutes, she had closed her eyes and lightened her grip and while I don’t know if she was truly asleep or just feigning it so I could leave, I slipped my hand out, turned off her light and left.

&nbs
p; ***

  “I can’t believe you wiped her butt,” Tom said to me when I got back in the ambulance. “That is just not in the job description.”

  “I couldn’t leave her there covered in shit.”

  “I could. Roll down the window. You stink of that lady.”

  I rolled the window down.

  “And what the fuck where you doing up there for so long?”

  “I was just talking to her.”

  “Talking to her? I don’t know about you sometimes,” Tom said. “I just don’t know. I think you might be some kind of freak.”

  I thought I was a good partner. I did whatever he said and I never ratted him out when he screwed up, which wasn’t often (not even our best medics were infallible) or when he was inappropriate. Just that afternoon, tired from picking up a repeat psych patient who’d tried to slash his wrists by cutting himself horizontally, Tom had grabbed the razor and said, “Look, you want to do the job right? Cut this way. Vertically, down the length of the artery, split it wide open, not this sissy cut you’re doing. Either fucking get serious about it or quit wasting our time.” He stormed out and I had to tech the call. Another EMT might have reported Tom or, if the patient complained, ratted him out.

  The last thing a medic wanted was a partner who didn’t watch his back, and Tom knew I had his. Maybe I was just being sensitive, but on this night, his words hurt me. I didn’t feel he said them in an endearing way, but in a way that made me feel he really did think I was odd, and not in a good way.

  Chapter 20

  One afternoon, Tom and I got called into the office. That was rarely a good thing. Usually it was Tom getting us into trouble. While he was an awesome medic in the skill and medicine sense, his bedside manner left much to be desired—that and his quick temper, which often spurred complaints from nurses, police, firefighters, anyone who got in his way or challenged him.

  A police car was parked outside the office. Not a good sign.

  “Why are you so squirmy?” Tom said as we parked.

  “Why do you think the cops are here?”

  “To arrest your scrawny little butt for being such a chicken shit. Maybe the nationwide manhunt for the goat raper has finally reached its conclusion. I’ll be on the news. He was a good partner, a little strange, didn’t say much, but sure did like to bleat.”

  “Am I not a good partner?”

  “Didn’t I just say you were?

  “Not really.”

  “Well, work on it, then?”

  While I admit that I liked being the partner of someone who was considered one of the better paramedics, I was coming to realize I really didn’t like Tom very much at all.

  Ned Martinson sat us both down and. with a very stern look on his face, said, “Gentlemen, explain yourselves.”

  “I didn’t do it,” Tom said. “I categorically deny everything.”

  “I was there the whole time,” I said. “I never saw any of it.”

  Ned smiled. “You two kill me, you really do. If we didn’t need cars on the road, you both would have been ridden out of here long ago. Spencer for your general attitude, and you, Tim, for being Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil. Someday you are going to get us in a lot of trouble, but today you’ve both gotten a temporary Get Out of Jail Free Card.”

  Tom and I looked at each other quizzically.

  “That’s right, a surprise. I don’t have you in here to paddle your backsides. We just got notice from the Governor’s Office. You’re both getting Lifesaver Awards for the Collins Street Fire. I know you were out of your assigned area when you happened to spot the fire, but people’s lives were saved, and the state is going to recognize you for it.”

  Tom had a big grin on his face. He turned and we slapped high-fives. He put his feet up on Ned’s desk. Ned walked around and knocked them off. “Don’t get carried away. All this means is you’re staying employed until the banquet, unless you really fuck up.”

  “What banquet?” Tom asked.

  “The state is holding an awards banquet, and you each, as well as a guest, are invited, along with me, my wife, and the boss and his missus.”

  “A guest?” Tom said. “How am I going to decide who to take? This is going to cause trouble for me.”

  “That’s your problem. You obviously will all have to be on your best behavior. I’ll need to know in advance who you’re bringing so we can get security clearances. Let me know by next Friday. That will be all.”

  “Security clearances?”

  “Yes, did I forget to mention the Vice President will also be there?”

  ***

  “You want to go with me?” I asked Carrie that night after I’d told her everything.

  “I’d love to,” she said. “Are you going to be wearing that dashing tuxedo of yours?”

  “Oh, no, I’ll be in dress uniform. It means I’ll have to shine my boots, and the company’s going to give us ties to wear.”

  “What do you think I should wear then?”

  “You look nice in everything.”

  “I should probably get a new dress. I’d like to look good for you. I suppose they’ll be taking lots of pictures. We might even get on TV with the Vice President coming.”

  The next day, another drug dealer was gunned down on Lawrence Street. I bought Carrie her new dress.

  Chapter 21

  Tom had taken the day off so I was just working BLS with a new employee. We got called for a person screaming in Stowe Village, which was one of the public housing projects, and was probably the worst of them.

  We happened to be close by, heading south on Main Street, just having crossed the Hartford line from Windsor, where we’d returned a gorked-out old man to a nursing home. We banged a quick right up Kensington Street and we were out. We could hear the howling from the parking lot. We ran up the stairs, and there was a crowd of neighbors around an open door, and what was spooky was they were quiet, not yelling and causing a commotion like you normally saw in the projects. We pushed through the door, and in the dim light of the apartment, a room that smelled like rotten hamburger and marijuana, a crying woman lay on her knees holding something tight to her. I saw two men sleeping on the sofa. A TV was on soundless. I stepped closer and saw it was an infant. “What’s going on?” I asked.

  The woman didn’t even look at me; she just continued wailing.

  I stepped nearer. The child did not appear to be moving. I put a hand on her shoulder, which was rocking. “May I see the child?”

  She looked up at me then. She was thin, emaciated—with the wild eyes of a crack addict. She handed me the baby. It was cold and stiff—lifeless as a doll.

  “Oh fuck, oh fuck,” I must have said. I looked at my partner and he looked scared shitless. The people in the door were looking at me. They saw what I held.

  “Is she alive?”

  “That baby dead.”

  “Do something! Do something!”

  I raised the baby to my mouth and kissed its cold lips, blowing in air, but the baby was as stiff as a plastic doll. I started toward the door, relieved to see two police officers cutting through the crowd. They saw my terror.

  “I’m going to Saint Francis,” I said. I moved my fingers up and down on the baby’s chest.

  “That baby dead. She dead! Run, boy! Run. Help that baby! Help that baby! Crackhead mother should be in jail!”

  I went through the crowd and out to the ambulance. My partner, shaking, got in the back to help me, but I just said, “Dude, just drive! Drive fast!”

  I didn’t even know what I was doing. The baby was dead, beyond dead, but there I was breathing air, doing mouth to mouth. I never even grabbed the ambu-bag we had, never put the baby on a half board, I was just breathing into a doll, the dead baby’s eyes open and lifeless.

  We were lucky we even made it to the hospital. My partner was so nervous; he never even turned on the lights, so we were barreling through intersections with just a siren. I came into the ER, holding the baby cradled in my arm,
doing CPR and still breathing in its mouth.

  The nurse took the baby from me and laid it on the bed. I kept doing CPR until she gently eased me away. The doctor felt the baby’s cold skin, and looked at me, the tears rolling now down my face. A grey-haired nurse hugged me. I sobbed uncontrollably.

  ***

  Ten minutes later one of our crews brought in a twenty-one-year-old man in cardiac arrest from a heroin overdose—one of the men on the couch. The other was roused with Narcan. A third ambulance brought in the mother. Half the police department must have been at Saint Francis. They interviewed me a couple times to ask what I had seen when I got there, but all I could say was the mother was holding the baby and wailing.

  The story that came out was most disturbing. The mother had come back from a night out—a night spent looking for crack, and doing what it took to get it. She’d left her baby with a friend, who’d shot up when his buddy came over. While they nodded off, at some point the baby had been sodomized. They apparently hadn’t realized why the baby was now quiet.

  That day I kept thinking what kind of world did we live in where you could look out at an apartment window and see beautiful office buildings, where people made hundreds of thousands of dollars and drove fancy cars back to their homes in the suburbs, and yet at the same time look around and see poverty, neglect and the results of illiteracy and a broken-down human system. I mean, what kind of chance did that little girl have? How come we couldn’t protect her? I found out Tom and I had revived each of those addicts before. Maybe we should have just let them die. Maybe if we hadn’t done our jobs, that baby would still be alive. Maybe instead of letting crack whores ply their trade in the back of my cab, I should have driven them out to the country, and put a bullet in their heads, and thrown them in a shallow grave. The city would be terrorized by the prostitute killer, but that baby wouldn’t have had to have gone through what it did. Maybe the fear of the prostitutes I didn’t kill would send those prostitutes running for a convent. Hardly likely. The rock was too strong. And people without hope had no chance against it. But how could we give them hope? If a baby in a mother’s arms couldn’t do it, what could a country do? These questions tormented me.