Diamond in the Rough

by Peter Canning

  I was going to ask her if she had warned her roommate about him, but didn’t want to rub it in her face.

  “You still living on King Street?”

  “No, no, I just moved. I got a new place in Windsor, my own apartment. It’s small but it’s home.”

  “Good, good for you.”

  “How about you?”

  “Same old place. I’ve been saving up money, though. I’m thinking about moving to California.”

  “California?”

  “Yeah, I hear the sun shines out there damn near every day. I’m getting tired of the snow, plus nothing wrong with seeing the world. You only live once.”

  “That’s right.”

  I was trying hard to stay cool, but sitting there looking into her big green eyes, smelling her perfume, I was really having a hard time controlling myself. Even though I still had resentment toward her, I wanted to kiss her.

  “You want a drink?”

  “I was going to be going, but sure.”

  “I’ll give you a ride home if your friend needs to go.”

  “Okay, let me just talk to her.”

  I saw her go over and talk to her friend. I saw her friend crack a smile and look over at me.

  We had a beer and made small talk. “I’m not dating cops anymore,” she said. “It’s like they put on a badge and it’s all about them. It’s like I’m special only because I’m with one of them. It’s bullshit. I’m my own person. You disrespect me, that’s it. I’m done with you. It’s given me time to think about what’s important.”

  “Good, I’m glad to hear it. I dated for a while,” I lied. “Now I’m just chilling. I know what I want, and I don’t need distractions.”

  “What, you want a California girl? Are you saving yourself for a tall skinny blonde in a bikini? A Valley Girl?”

  “I don’t want a girl, I want a woman. It doesn’t matter where she’s from. Just so long as she doesn’t play games with me.”

  “Wow. You’ve changed.”

  “That’s what life is about, isn’t it? Change.”

  “Yes, I guess you’re right. Change is good. I know that now. I’ve changed—for the better, I hope. That’s the promise I am making.”

  “No doubt,” I said in a way that I thought was challenging her to prove it. She looked at me then in a way that told me that the power in our relationship, if that was we were starting again, might have shifted to me. I sensed she might, at least for tonight, need me more than I needed her.

  I got her coat when they said it was last call, and held it for her as she slipped her arms in. We walked out to my car, and I held the door for her. I put on a Shaggy tape, but with low volume as I drove. She directed me. I pulled up opposite her door, and we looked at each other.

  “I sure appreciate the ride,” she said.

  “My pleasure.”

  She didn’t go for the door.

  “I’m not ready to get back together,” I said.

  “I’m not asking for that.”

  Our eyes held each other.

  “No strings,” she said.

  “No strings.”

  There was a slow lean in to a kiss.

  Chapter 36

  The headline in the paper had the President’s popularity dropping with the war going so badly. His opponent was ripping him every night on the news, but the opponent was getting attacked in turn for being a two-faced coward. I didn’t like either of them. Fred was over there with his brother for nearly a month. He called me one night drunk and crying and babbling about how he ought to just kill his brother because his brother was so fucked up. I wondered how many other brothers were going through what he was and how many more would have to? The newspaper said the war was costing billions of dollars every day and, despite that, the cost of gas was still going up, which I thought was the reason we had gone to war in the first place—to get the gas for ourselves. You had to wonder if maybe the whole thing hadn’t been a mistake. America couldn’t seem to win, but we couldn’t retreat either. How did they say it? We had to stay the course? There would one day be light at the end of the tunnel?

  I had my problems. I could tell myself all I wanted that I would go straight, that I was done stealing, but nothing seemed to stop me—not ghosts of patients, not high fevers, not even my own panging conscience. The bottom line was the money was there for the taking, and I took it. I never stole from the poor that I could tell, never stole from those who needed it directly that I knew about it. I know. Excuses. Excuses. Lay the money before me, and as soon as heads were turned, it was in my pocket.

  Carrie and I weren’t officially back together, but were back to our old habits. I’d do some robbing, take her out on an expensive date, and we’d hit the hay, laughing how much of a good time we were having for just being exes, friends with benefits, as they say.

  She met me at the door all done up and ready to go out.

  “Flowers, how thoughtful,” she said. “I guess this makes up for your being twenty minutes late. I made reservations at Max’s Oyster House.”

  “I canceled them,” I said.

  “But it’s my birthday.”

  “I brought some oysters to you instead.” I showed her the bag of seafood I had.

  “Fresh from City Fish. I’m the chef tonight, and you will eat what I’m dishing out.”

  “But I really wanted to go out…”

  “I’ve got everything. Wine—your favorite kind—a California pinot noir. I’ve got lobster, oysters, jumbo shrimp with your favorite cocktail sauce, crabmeat—it’s raw-bar city. And for later, I have candles, cinnamon-flavored body lotion, chocolate-covered strawberries, and a special gift, all for you.”

  She was touched, I could tell. She didn’t know what to say—which was rare.

  “Here’s how it’s going to go,” I said. “I’m going to open a bottle of wine for you. You go sit in the other room, I’m going to dim the lights, light a candle. I bought a CD for you. Joan Osborne’s latest. I know you’ve wanted it, and you sit there and smell the candle and sip the wine and listen to the music, maybe loosen a button of your blouse there, and give me a little time in the kitchen to set this all up, and I will come out and join you in a seafood feast because it’s your night and you are a special lady.”

  She looked at me like she wasn’t certain I was serious when I said special, but I could see she guessed, she hoped and maybe even thought I was serious, and maybe if I thought that, maybe she was special. I know I wasn’t the only guy she was seeing, I rarely had ever been, but I know I still treated her better than any of the rest, and that was sinking in.

  I walked her into the living room, dimmed the lights, lit a candle, set the CD in the player, opened the wine, poured her a glass, let her take a sip and then had her sit back. “A little something to hold you while I labor in the kitchen.” I unbuttoned her shirt, released her bra, and then laid her down, and proceeded to take care of her in the way she liked to be taken care of. And then I kissed her on the cheek and whispered in her ear, “You are a sexy, gorgeous woman.” I left her there on the sofa and returned to the kitchen to prepare the feast.

  I wet some of her plates, and then put them in the freezer to give them a cold frosting. I spread ice cubes in a large serving tray and draped on top of them the cooked lobster, shrimp, crab and smoked trout I had purchased. I opened oysters and clams, and laid them on the tray. She loved raw bar and I had learned to love it as well. She said it was an aphrodisiac. That may be true, I thought, but I had another ace in the hole in that department as well on this evening.

  Earlier we had gone to the apartment of a diabetic, whose landlord had found him in a coma due to low blood sugar. We had been there before on many occasions. It was a routine call. Tom would check his sugar, confirm that it was low, then put in an IV and give him an amp of dextrose. He’d wake up and refuse to go to the hospital. We’d clear after he signed the refusal and Tom rechecked his blood sugar to make certain it was back to normal.

  On this
day, while Tom pushed the dextrose, it took a while because it was thick and syrupy and the man had small veins. I went into the bathroom to take a leak, and while I was doing that I opened the medicine cabinet. The last time we were there, I’d discovered the man was on Viagra. He didn’t have a girlfriend, just a stack of porno magazines he kept by the bed. I had been thinking about it ever since. Now I had no problems in the hard department, but I had heard Fred talking about it. And he swore, even if you were a lead pipe, Viagra would turn you titanium.

  I popped the pill I had stolen and tossed it down with my beer. Fred said it took about thirty minutes to an hour. I figured after eating, then with a little backrub, I’d be hitting it just at the right time.

  When I went back in the living room, carrying the ice tray of seafood, she was curled on the sofa. I refilled her wine and handfed her the seafood.

  “This is so decadent,” she said.

  “Eat up,” I said. “It’s all for you.”

  For every bite I had, she had four. I dipped the lobster in hot butter, I held the oysters and listened as she slurped them down. She’d slurp an oyster, and then put her tongue and the oyster in my mouth and we would kiss and share the taste. I had removed my pants and was serving her in just my underwear when she reached down and felt me.

  “Wow. What’s got into you?”

  “Oysters, raw seafood and a dazzling woman.” I kissed her neck. So much for the backrub portion of the evening—she pulled me to her.

  I awoke at four in the morning, and instead of seeing her asleep next to me snoring, I saw her looking at me.

  “What?” I said.

  “Nothing, you just amaze me sometimes.”

  “Amazement is good,” I said.

  “That was a lot of love—enough to make me think you can’t possibly have any left to spread around—that you’ve been saving it all for me.”

  “There’s more where that came from,” I said, dodging her foray.

  I must have known deep inside that the Carrie thing wasn’t good for me, but like the President, I didn’t see any retreat. I lacked the strength to truly make a clean break one way or the other. I talked about saving money for California, but I was using the money on her. I hinted I was seeing others, but sadly, I was a one-woman man. While right now, my war was going better than expected, I didn’t know how long it would last. I expected disaster lay ahead.

  Chapter 37

  “463, Shooting Edgewood and Homestead, on a 1.”

  “Woo—hoo!” Tom said as I lit up the ambulance.

  “Woo—hoo!” I echoed.

  He was excited because he was a spark at heart and loved trauma, loved the chance to be quick on the scene, and get the patient to the trauma room, tubed and with two lines to the acclaim of the trauma team, and the nurses who doted on him.

  I was excited because drug dealers were my bread and butter. One too-bad homeboy a month was all I needed to fund our hookups in style—flowers, nice dinner, some wine—all the while still contributing to my Rainy Day Fund, which I had also christened my California Escape Plan should I need a new start.

  I spotted a body lying on the street corner. People were still running every which way. A cop car was ahead of us, and the officer was out, gun drawn, looking in several directions. I thought I heard more shots fired and the cop ducked down behind his car. A lone body was good—it meant no one had had time to roll him before I got to him.

  “They’re still fucking shooting,” Tom said.

  “Hi-ho Silver,” I said. “Let’s get him loaded and get him out of here.”

  I spun the ambulance up on the curb between the direction the cop was pointing his gun and where the body lay.

  “You’re a crazy motherfucker,” Tom said. He was on the exposed side.

  “Crawl out this way,” I said, rolling out the driver door. He followed me. I had the stretcher pulled, and yanked out a board. Tom was already tubing the guy, using his perfected digital style. He always carried a number 8.0 ET tube he kept in his side pant-leg pocket. It was the quickest way to intubate someone: open their mouth and use your fingers, manipulate the tube down and shove it in between the chords by lifting up the epiglottis at the same time, then use your middle finger to give the tube an upward shove.

  The tube in, we rolled the patient on the board, lifted the stretcher, heard a few more rounds, then slammed it into the back. I hopped in, made certain to cut his jacket off, and then, while Tom popped in an IV, I bounced into the driver’s seat, slammed the ambulance hard into reverse, spun the back around, and then floored it back up Homestead. In and out in two minutes.

  The guy didn’t make it, but we had an awesome scene time, and I scored over two grand—my biggest payday in three months.

  “You are a crazy motherfucker,” Tom said again after he’d finished writing his form.

  “What are bullets when you have a job to do?” I said. “When you have a living to make?”

  He looked at me like I was crazier than even he thought.

  Chapter 38

  After we’d cleaned up, dispatch gave us a transfer: an old woman being discharged from the Saint Francis ER, going out to Alexandria Manor in Bloomfield after having her clogged G-tube repaired. It was a strictly basic transfer, but since we needed to go back and resupply some items after the shooting—it was all right. There was little chance of having to use the needed gear on a transfer. Dispatch said if we did the transfer, then we could grab some dinner, come in and resupply. By then, some more evening cars would be on and there would be little chance of getting whacked with another call.

  As we were exiting, I saw they were selling roses for three dollars each in the nursing home, with the money benefiting the residents’ arts and crafts fund. I guess I was in a good mood imaging the love Carrie was going to shower down on me. I saw us going back to Boston. We’d have a nice lobster dinner at Legal Sea Food, go to the Comedy Club at Faneuil Hall and then come back to our suite at the Ritz-Carlton and rock the joint. It would be great! And the truth was if she pressed me for us to be exclusive again, as she had been hinting at lately, I might just say okay. It would spare me from having to be constantly dropping hints that I was playing the field, just to get her to not take me for granted. Things were going so well, I thought that message had already made its point.

  I bought her a rose. “On our way back,” I said to Tom, “I want to stop by her place, and pop in and leave her the rose. She goes nuts for romantic stuff like that. I figured since we were in the area.”

  “You sure you don’t want to call her first, give a little heads-up?”

  “No, she’s just right around the corner. I want to be spontaneous.”

  “Spontaneous is great, but you should call.” He nodded to the payphone by the door.

  “I don’t have a quarter,” I said.

  I was smelling the rose, smelling good times, thinking of nothing but the brownie points I was going to be making.

  I directed Tom to her apartment complex. I could see the light was on in her apartment.

  “Here, take the radio,” Tom said. “Just don’t be too long, and don’t let her wrap her legs around your head so tight you can’t hear dispatch calling.”

  “If I don’t come out when they call, hit the air horn.”

  “You dog.”

  “It’s not like I haven’t had to park outside certain apartment complexes in half the towns we cover while you’ve run in and had extended lunches.”

  “You got me on that. I still think you should call first, give her a few minutes to freshen up.”

  I figured the first thing she did when she came home was shower, so she probably was good to go. With my luck—and I was feeling lucky—she’d answer the door in her bathrobe, with her hair up in a towel, smelling of herbal shampoo. We’d have a nice long sensuous kiss, then I’d tell her I’d be back so we could resume once my shift was over.

  ***

  I was pale, lifeless when I walked back to the ambulance. “Dude,
I’m sorry,” Tom said. “But I told you, you should have called first. Always call. Particularly her.”

  I looked at him then, eyeing him in a new way.

  “Don’t go there,” he said.

  I just shook my head. What a fool I was. I didn’t know whether to be angry at her or myself. It hurt. My delusions of her wanting only me. My delusions of being superman. Of simply being special.

  I let the rose drop out the window.

  Chapter 39

  I was supposed to see Carrie that night, but instead I left her a message saying I couldn’t make it. I knew if I saw her, I wouldn’t be able to carry it off like I knew nothing, and I would wonder how she could look at me with what I had thought had been love. Stupid me. And now of course I had all that money and needed to figure out how to spend it. If I had been a bold man I would have quit my job, packed my belongings and showed everyone by going west. California. But I was not a bold man. I was small-time.

  They dispatched us to a home on Magnolia Street in the North End for a lift assist. Eighty-eight-year-old woman lives alone with her retarded sixty-nine-year-old daughter; the daughter has Parkinson’s in addition to her retardation. She has fallen and the woman cannot pick her up. She hates to bother us, but she doesn’t know what else to do. The apartment is bare. There is a picture of Jesus on the wall next to one of John Kennedy and one of Martin Luther King. We help pick her daughter up and she is blessing us, and thanking us, and I am looking at Jesus and Martin Luther and JFK and at the poor surroundings, and it’s like all of a sudden I think I am not worthy, not worthy of her thanks and her bless yous. Just then I noticed the three of them are not just pictures, but real dudes looking at me and talking among themselves.

  “Okay, boys,” Jesus says, “we got work to do with this one.”

  I just tried to ignore the vision as just another one of my hallucinations. I knew I was not worthy of these men, her heroes who looked on at us. While Tom was getting her to sign the refusal of transport form, and I was getting the med list off the refrigerator door, where it was held by a magnet, so I could write it on the paperwork as required, a weird warm feeling came over me.