Trauma is easy for me. I can patch holes and fasten bones together without much difficulty. It’s like carpentry or pottery. Other mechanical issues like blockages are possible but harder. Disease is hit or miss; I have to try to convince the cells to act right, to repair themselves, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. I felt pretty good about this one.
The nice thing about a stroke, it can resolve on its own and isn’t likely to prompt anyone to stone an underpaid ambulance jockey in the town square for using his Dark Arts; or call the tabloids, which might well be worse.
‘What do we want to call this?’ Pete asked through the passage between the driver’s compartment and the back.
‘Unresponsive. I’m leaning toward stroke. Doesn’t look like an OD, and her blood sugar’s fine. Pressure’s high, pulse is slow-ish. Let’s head to the Hole. They have a decent CAT scan, not like the one at the General that goes offline if a tech breaks wind.’
‘Holy Trinity Hospital it is.’
We dropped our patient at the hospital, by which time she was showing some improvement. Pete smiled as he climbed into the passenger seat of the ambulance.
‘Building bridges with the hose-draggers?’
I shook my head, ‘Ya know,’ I began, ‘don’t get me wrong. I’m glad that someone who isn’t me is willing to run into a burning building and pull people out.’ Or stop a fire spreading. I’d just as soon not see another Great Fire of London. ‘But do we really need three speedbumps in turnout gear surrounding my patient, doing nothing? Or even worse, misapplying the minuscule iota of medical training they did get at the academy between lectures on how to put wet stuff on red stuff? It’s not like that axe jockey from the last call is gonna get disciplined for sucking as an EMT. If a private ambulance crew was that clueless, we could choke them on scene, and get a medal for it.’
‘They’re bullet proof, man,’ he replied. ‘You need to come to terms with that.’
‘I know. Part of me wants to show up at a fire and get in their way, but the lesson wouldn’t take. They’d hit me with an axe and get three cheers and I’d get arrested.’
‘They’re not all that bad.’
‘No,’ I admitted. ‘The guys here in Philips Mills are generally OK, but they actually fight fires. They don’t want to do my job, so they stay out of the way. It’s the Cat Rescue Specialists in Riverdale that make me want to climb a bell tower with a deer rifle.’
‘I hear ya. Just let me do my job and I’ll let you do yours.’
‘I was gonna say “If the patient isn’t on fire, get the fuck out of the way,” but your way’s more likely to win friends.’
‘Speaking of winning friends, and of you being gay, some guy came by the base asking for you yesterday.’
‘Looking for me?’ I asked. ‘He look like a cop, a bill collector, or an angry husband?’
‘Said he was a patient. You and Nique fixed up his ankle and he wanted to thank you. Didn’t know your last name, but your first is on your tag and he described you well enough.’ The half-smile was back. ‘Since he noticed you and not her, I’d say that’s compelling evidence he bats for the other team. Tall guy. He had a foreign accent. Russian or German or something.’
I tried to stay calm despite the alarms sounding in my mind. ‘Nobody said anything to him, did they?’
‘Of course not. We figured you might owe him money or were banging his wife. Or his husband, since this is Massachusetts. We don’t throw our own under the bus.’
Maybe it was just a grateful patient who wanted to say thanks, but that didn’t happen to us very often. Or at all, that I could remember. Sometimes a card would arrive at the base, or maybe some cookies, but I’d yet to see a face-to-face thank you. If he’d come by in a bid to meet Nique I could see it, since she had a body that would make a dead man kick the lid off his coffin. I, on the other hand, was a fairly unremarkable working class medic whose only talent was career-limiting sarcasm.
And the ability to heal with a touch, but that was a secret.
That was supposed to be a secret.
As I drove, I felt the old fear like a heavy ball in my stomach. Attention was never a good thing. Sure, nobody had been burned or hanged for witchcraft around here in three centuries, but fear of the unknown and the natural pigheadedness of human nature had a tendency to rear their ugly head.
The nice thing about being a cynic is that you are rarely disappointed.
Chapter 4
WE MADE IT THROUGH THE REST of the shift, and as I drove home in the morning, I tried to think what the foreign sounding patient could have noticed. He couldn’t know I’d healed him. He’d been in a lot of pain, and it’s not like he stumbled onto an x-ray table. It could have been just a dislocation, for all that he knew.
Hell, that was one reason I stayed with EMS. Very often nobody knew the real severity of an injury until they got to the hospital. It was easy to nudge a patient back to the healthy side of the fence without raising eyebrows. One of the few jobs where I could use my gift and not attract attention.
I trudged up the stairs to my apartment, fumbling for my keys. These twenty-four-hour shifts in the lovely metropolis of Philips Mills were wearing on me, and I wasn’t as young as I used to be.
I opened the door and looked down into the stern, dignified gaze of a large black and white cat. He stood in his usual spot as guardian of the house. I squatted down and scratched his head. ‘Morning, Buddy,’ I said. ‘Permission to come aboard?’
I walked in, dropped my keys on the table and picked up the mail. I was tired, but nerves weren’t going to let me sleep anytime soon. I fed the cat, then went to the liquor cabinet and poured myself four fingers of single malt. Drinking at eight in the morning doesn’t count, I told myself, since it’s after work. I checked my email, nothing exciting; somebody wanted a ride to fencing club tomorrow, three people wanted to help me claim my foreign lottery winnings and two more wanted to sell me generic Viagra. The concern was touching, but my thoughts kept sliding back to the man who was asking questions about me.
I couldn’t place his accent, but I knew I’d heard it before. It remained just beyond my mind’s grasp. I wracked my brain through half the glass of whisky, then decided I needed a visual aid.
I pulled down an atlas from the bookcase; I always find that looking at maps helps me put things in perspective. I flipped open to Eastern Europe and ran my finger over the page, letting my mind drift back, hearing the speech of each country. I stopped when I realized I was tracing the route of our retreat from Moscow.
It was disheartening in more ways than one. Somewhere along the long, frozen road, I’d realized that my zeal to fight for liberté, egalité and fraternité had turned into the cynicism of an expendable foot soldier in servitude to the Emperor’s ambition, a blood sacrifice on the altar of Napoleon’s ego.
I shook myself. The mind was wandering and getting me no nearer to enlightenment. I shivered at the memory of marching on numb feet until I realized that the apartment really was cold. I’d turned the heat down before I left on my twenty-four.
I was tired and preoccupied. That was enough for today.
I turned up the heat, finished my drink, and had a hot shower. I still got all excited that heat and hot water were available at the turn of a knob. I felt sorry for people who took indoor plumbing and central heating for granted. I toweled off and went to bed. The cat curled up on my feet, and between the glow of alcohol, the steam of the shower, and the warm weight of the long-haired beast on my ankles, I drifted off to sleep.
I woke in the early afternoon, pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt and made a pot of coffee. As I wandered around the apartment in the old converted textile mill, looking out over the city, I reflected on how lucky I was to have found this job. I really didn’t want to have to leave.
EMS was good. I was happy there. I could practice my art without the weight of a blade on my hip. The faces changed often enough and the workforce moved around enough that I could maintain m
y anonymity as easily as mustering out of the Legion and joining the Black Watch after six months, a boat ride and some work on my accent.
I finished my coffee. I shaved, studying at my reflection. It’s never easy to dispassionately assess oneself, but the face in the glass still looked about thirty, like it always had, as far back as I remember.
That was a long way, but not all the way. I had no memory of my childhood, of my true age. I suspected memory was only good for so far back. Events in the past are viewed like objects in a pool. Sharp and clear near the surface, increasingly blurred and obscured as they settle to the depths. The bigger and more important events fade slower, but they do fade.
I sat on the couch and the cat hopped up on my lap, beaming at me with large amber eyes. I scratched his head, smiling back at him. He was, almost certainly, the world’s oldest cat. I had long since grown tired of watching those around me grow old and die, and he certainly wasn’t going to lynch me for urging his cells to do a little housekeeping and maintenance every time I patted him.
I didn’t have a good explanation for my own longevity. I couldn’t heal my injuries like I could other people’s. I healed faster than normal, and I healed from injuries that a normal man couldn’t. I suspected my cells just repaired and renewed themselves. Whether it was a case of not aging or of very slow aging, I couldn’t say.
I eventually gave up. I couldn’t figure what that foreign patient could have noticed, or where he could be from, and the self-examination was making me maudlin.
There would be time enough to worry. Tonight, I’d go to fencing club at the local college and get some exercise. It would be nice to pit my years of encounters survived and dirty tricks learned against the crowd of brash young fencers. Perhaps I could even use my prowess to impress some athletic lass with an interest in swordplay and loose moral standards.
Had to get some living in. My next ambulance shift would be here soon enough.
Chapter 5
OR TOO SOON.
We grabbed the bags from the ambulance and entered the house. Looked around at the empty foyer. We could see a den beyond. Wood paneling, fishing pictures, photos of a man in a World War Two era Marine Corps uniform, with a First Division patch and the Fourragère, so it had to be 5th Marines, a black and white wedding photo, and a worn recliner upholstered in faded brown plaid facing an old console TV. I assumed the engine crew, the visiting nurse, and probably the patient were in the house somewhere.
‘You think they need three firefighters and a nurse in there to work him, or could they spare somebody to point us in the right direction?’ Nique wondered.
‘Draggin’ hose and wipin’ ass they can do,’ I replied. ‘Helping the medics find the patient, not so much.’
‘Ambulance!’ she called.
‘Marco!’ I shouted. So far, nobody had ever called out ‘Polo!’ in answer, but I held out hope. Nique dug me in the ribs with an elbow as a firefighter, probably the probie, since he was running, pounded down the stairs and waved us up. He started to lead the way, then got an eyeful of Nique and held a hand out.
‘You need help lugging that?’ he asked, indicating the bag on her shoulder.
‘Thanks,’ I replied, handing him the cardiac monitor. ‘You’re a prince.’ I walked past him up the stairs.
‘I don’t think he was talking to you,’ Nique grinned. ‘Pretty sure he was flirting.’
‘Hey, I’m comfortable in my sexuality,’ I replied. ‘I can accept his flirting.’
I heard raised voices in the bedroom as we reached the top of the steps.
‘Hey, guys,’ said Nique, addressing the wall of turnout gear coats in the doorway, ‘watcha got?’
The sea of Nomex parted for her smile and I caught sight of a short, wide, middle-aged woman in a scrub smock with whimsical puppies printed on it. She was arguing with an elderly man who was sitting on the bed in a t-shirt and boxers, his skinny arms covered in shrunken tattoos, blurred and faded to the point of being unrecognizable.
‘What’s going on today?’ I asked.
The nurse drew herself up as if posing for a statue entitled ‘Indignation.’ ‘Mr Harris needs to go to the hospital.’
‘I told you, I’m not goin’,’ the man said, exasperated.
‘Mr Harris.’ The nurse rolled her eyes, which isn’t something I’d care to see again. ‘You can’t walk unassisted.’
‘I walked out of the Goddamn Chosin Reservoir, I can walk in my own damn house!’
‘Mr Harris, the doctor’s orders are for you to transfer to the wheelchair with assistance.’
‘The doctor doesn’t know shit!’
‘There’s no call for that kind of language,’ the nurse said.
‘OK,’ I interrupted before things got even uglier. I addressed the nurse. ‘Do you have a med list? Great. Could you give that to my partner and I’ll talk to the patient. Thanks.’ I directed her toward Nique with my most charming smile. She seemed to thaw a bit. Probably didn’t get smiled at very often.
I squatted down beside the bed. ‘Hi sir. I’m Sean, I’m a paramedic. What’s going on today?’
‘He needs to go—’ the nurse began, but was cut off. I imagine Nique asked her a question. Or punched her in the larynx. Either way, I was happy.
‘Sir—’ I resumed.
‘I’m not going to no hospital.’
‘Alright,’ I said calmly. ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I just want to see what the problem is today and see you get headed in the right direction. That may not be the ER. You know where you are and what date it is?’
‘I’m at 139 Elm St and it’s January 15th,’ he rapped out with his jaw thrust belligerently forward.
‘Good enough for me,’ I replied. ‘Now, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, but let’s work through this, alright sir?’
‘Frank,’ he corrected.
‘Frank. Pleased to meet you. You fought in Korea?’
‘How’d you know that?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘My grandfather was at Chosin,’ I lied. ‘You a Marine?’ I had seen his photos; not that I needed to after hearing him invoke that name. I could never make up my mind which was colder, the retreat from Moscow or from Chosin. Probably Korea, but the spiritual chill was less. At Chosin, we brought out our wounded, most of our dead and most of our gear, hobbling out on frozen feet just the same, but with heads unbowed. By that time, I’d learned the trick of acquiring a pair of boots a size too big and doubling up on my socks, so I didn’t get frostbite too bad.
‘Baker Company, Fifth Marines. What outfit was your Grandfather in?’
‘Fox Company, Seventh Marines,’ I replied. ‘He used to talk about it once in a while. Tell me, is it true the rifles used to freeze up? He said they had to thin the oil with aftershave or something.’
‘Hair tonic,’ Frank corrected me, like I knew he would. I recognized something in his eyes. A familiar look, one that told me he was watching something half a century and half a world away.
‘That’s right,’ I smiled. ‘He used to say every time he went to the barber shop he’d start shivering.’
He grinned. ‘I’m not surprised. You never forget that cold.’ He gave me a much friendlier look. ‘Is your grandfather still alive?’
I nodded. ‘He’s in Florida. I guess he’d had enough of snow. We generally go down there for Christmas and he comes up to see the rest of the family for a week in the summer.’
‘Next time you see him, tell him Frank Harris from Baker Five asked if his balls have thawed yet.’
I chuckled. ‘I will.’
‘I walked out the whole way. I couldn’t feel my feet by the time we got to Wonsan.’
‘So, what’s going on today?’
He looked down and grumbled a bit before answering. ‘I been fallin’ a lot lately. I’m not gettin’ around like I used to. My kids want me to go into a home.’
I nodded in sympathy. He was a proud man; it couldn’t be easy to admit he couldn’t
be independent. I noticed a glucometer on the nightstand.
‘Diabetic?’
‘Yeah,’ he sighed.
‘How’s your sugar running?’
‘It’s pretty good.’
I smiled. ‘So how’s it running?’
‘180, 200,’ he replied.
‘Your fingertips getting numb?’
‘Yeah.’ He stared ahead. ‘Vision’s getting blurry. Feet gettin’ numb too. Worse than Korea.’
‘How often you check your sugar?’
‘Couple times a week,’ he admitted.
‘How often did you clean your rifle?’ I asked.
‘OK,’ he sighed again. ‘I read you.’
‘Now, your sugar isn’t something they’re gonna fix at the ER, but you should call your doctor and get it under control. You do that, and maybe you can stay independent.’
‘Mm,’ he answered.
‘So, I’m gonna make you a deal,’ I said. ‘You show me you can get up and walk to the bathroom, and you call your doc and make an appointment to discuss your blood sugar, and then I’ll sign off on you staying home. Deal?’
‘Deal.’
He managed the trip, and called his doctor while Nique and I talked the visiting nurse down from her hysterics. No, he doesn’t have to go. No, we don’t have to take him, this is America, he has rights. Sure, call my supervisor, I hope foul language doesn’t bother you.
We did eventually clear up with a refusal of transport, and some very sour looks from about 300 pounds of angry nurse.
‘You were really compassionate with that guy,’ Nique observed.
‘He’s a proud old war hero, he’s lost his wife, obviously, and now diabetes is eating away at him. On top of that, Nursezilla is telling him he needs to have help to get up and take a piss. I’d be surly too.’
‘You think he’ll be OK at home alone?’
Out of Nowhere (The Immortal Vagabond Healer Book 1) Page 3
