by Tina Martin
The woman standing nearest to Carter (who had given up her coat) was near tears as she watched the homeless woman’s condition deteriorate before her eyes. She dropped to her knees and asked Carter, “What else can I do?”
“Ah…ah…try to hold her still,” Carter instructed her. “As still as you can.”
“Okay,” she replied, using her body to hold the woman as tight as she could. A few other folks joined in.
Then the worst happened.
The woman suddenly stopped shivering and her bluish-purple eyelids folded shut. Her chest rose up, down, but not up again. She’d stopped breathing.
“She’s not breathing!” Carter told the 9-1-1 operator. “Did you hear me? She’s not breathing!”
The operator told Carter to calm down yet again, asked if he knew CPR and once he confirmed that he did, she instructed him to begin chest compressions. Carter folded the coats down, placed his hands on the woman’s chest – one on top of the other as he’d learned – and after thirty compressions, he tilted her head. With her chin up, he pinched her nose, nauseous at the thought of giving this woman mouth-to-mouth, but what other option was there? Overcoming his fear of germs to save a life, he sealed her pale, chapped lips with his soft, slender, warm ones and pushed a long breath in her mouth.
He repeated this once more.
“Come on. Stay with me.”
He started chest compressions again. “Come on. Don’t die on me,” he said frenetically. The sounds of the screaming ambulance sirens settled him, but he didn’t stop CPR just because help was almost there. He needed to get this woman breathing again. He pinched her nose, and with lips-to-lips, gave her a forceful breath.
No good.
He started compressions again, thinking now that she was already gone and it was too late to keep going, that those few minutes he wasted previously by walking away from her were the minutes he now needed to save her life. But he wasn’t about to give up. It was his duty as a citizen, a human, a Good Samaritan.
Lips-to-lips again, he forced another breath in her mouth while silently saying a prayer, asking God to help him – to give him the strength to save this woman. He couldn’t save his mother, or his brother, but he could save this stranger and for some reason, he felt he had to, as if this would be recompense for all the bad he’d done in his life.
As he was starting another round of chest compressions, he felt the woman’s chest rise up. Her breathing resumed.
Thank God, Carter thought, breathing heavy as if trying to catch his own breath.
The paramedics plowed through the crowd with a stretcher. Carter gave them a quick rundown on what had happened as they secured the woman on a stretcher and wheeled her away. Unable to walk away now after such an emotional ordeal, Carter hopped in the back of the ambulance with her, his heart about to jump out of his chest with anxiety, fear and worry. She was breathing now, but would it last?
Chapter 2
The homeless woman woke up groggy in the hospital a few hours later, hysterically looking around trying to discern where she was – odd-tone beeping machines, clear tubes running out of her arms, intravenous fluids hanging next to her bed, a triple layer of white blankets holding her hostage – she was definitely in a hospital though she felt like she’d transcended into another universe, somewhere foreign where people among her class of society were forgotten like yesterday’s celebrity gossip. She vaguely recalled her ride to this place, barely remembering a team of paramedics working on her in route to the hospital. She could hear their voices echoing in her mind, yelling for equipment, warming blankets, someone telling her everything was going to be okay, the calming voice of a gentleman. Everything else was a blur.
“Is she gonna be okay?” Carter asked the nurse as he stood next to the bed, looking at the woman with his arms folded.
The homeless woman recognized the man’s deep voice almost immediately – her rescuer – the voice from the ambulance saying everything is going to be okay. The voice from the street asking, are you okay and what’s your name? His voice was the last she’d heard before her near death experience, so it was easy for her to recall it. The worry in his expressions made a permanent impression in her memory.
“She’s gon’ be taken well care of in this facility,” the nurse replied in a thick, country, elongated accent. She had the kind of voice that would make a person want to do some line dancing out of the blue, or listen to Reba McEntire. “We have a warming blanket on her and fluids to counteract the hypothermia, but Sir, she appears to have been traumatized. Right now, we don’t know if it’s her mental state due to the hypothermia or something else. It’s a waiting game for the moment, but just so you’re aware, the doctor may recommend institutionalization.”
The homeless woman’s eyes had since closed, but she was still awake, listening to the nurse and thinking about how good it sounded to be institutionalized. So what if she had to take sedatives and a bunch of other pills she really didn’t need, listen to crazy folk mumble, hum and rock back and forth all day while watching in-house ping pong tournaments – anything was better than living on the streets. Besides, after a few months in an institution, she was bound to flip her lid sooner or later, right? Join the masses?
“No, I don’t want her in a place like that,” Carter asserted, his voice absolute, clearer than satellite radio.
“Is she a relative of yours?”
“No. Not a relative. Actually, she’s an ex-girlfriend.”
Lie, the woman thought as she listened to her savior and her nurse go back and forth. She was intrigued at this man’s initiative to take the lead in her healthcare – even telling fibs he assumed would be to her advantage.
“She has no family,” Carter told the nurse. “Only me.”
The nurse flipped through some paperwork. “Um, the admission report says she’s homeless.”
“Uh…yeah, she was. We got into a fight a few weeks back and she left. I had no way to contact her and it just so happens I saw her lying on the sidewalk while I was on my way to work...”
The nurse frowned and jerked her head back a little, her eyes skeptically analyzing Carter.
The homeless woman’s eyes were still closed, so she couldn’t see the expressions on the nurse’s face as Carter told her bits and pieces of the story he made up on the fly.
“So she’s your ex-girlfriend, and she was living with you?” the nurse quickly recapped. From her tone, it was obvious she wasn’t buying a word he was selling.
The homeless woman cracked her eyes long enough to see the nurse throw her right hand on her plus-size hip, her forehead still decorated with wrinkles.
“Yeah…just until she could find a job and a place. Look, why all the questions?” Carter asked testily.
“Standard procedure. We like to ensure we’re releasing a patient where they will be well taken care of and if you’re unable to take care of her, you need to speak up now. In addition to the hypothermia, she’s been diagnosed with pneumonia.” The nurse scanned the chart again. “We’re even going to keep her here for a week, maybe two, so like I said, if it’s gonna be any trouble…”
A week, the homeless woman thought, secretly celebrating in her mind. If she knew she could use a hospital for her temporary home, she would have fallen sick a long time ago, or at least faked an illness. There were many occasions a hospital bed would’ve came in handy – the fall heat, winter cold and not to mention rain. In the streets, she slept wherever she could, often resorting for the bare ground – grass, dirt, bugs and all. Compared to that, the hospital bed felt luxurious, so much better than a cardboard box, a bed of grass or the cement sidewalk.
“I’ll take care of her,” Carter said, his voice low and uncertain but convincing enough to finally get psycho-nurse off of his back. Besides, he looked so professional – dressed in a crisp white shirt, silk black tie, black slacks and shoes that cost more than what most people grossed in a month – you just knew he was loaded. For some reason, people with a lot of do
ugh always seemed to come across as believable, even if they were telling more lies than underage teens toting fake IDs on a bar-hopping adventure.
The woman cracked her eyes open again and saw him standing next to the bed. She remembered his face, his caramel skin, thick eyebrows and pink lips. She even recalled his smell, probably a combination of a fresh soap, like Zest or Irish Spring, mixed with aftershave lotion or some expensive cologne that rich men wore – not because it smelled good (which it usually did) but simply because it cost a lot of money.
She remembered how concerned he was, how panic had overtaken him, but why? She had no clue who he was – never seen him a day in her life. How could she ever forget a man who looked like that?
“Sir, what’s your name?” the nurse asked him.
“Carter Williams,” he said strong and bold and by the way he enunciated his name, the homeless woman knew he had some high-ranking position within the structure of his company – probably one of the big wigs who sat on a top floor of an Uptown tower with other professionals their rank who were smart enough to make a six figure income, yet didn’t have the skill set to type a simple business letter. He seemed like he would fit in fine there – at one of the top floors with an amazing view – using his executive assistant to fetch coffee for him while he spent the first hour of every morning shooting the breeze with colleagues, catching up on sports and reading the business section of The Charlotte Observer. Even the name Carter came off as exclusive, especially for a black man. Carter Williams – sounds like it could be the name of the next black president.
“So I just want to be clear,” the nurse continued. “When she’s released, she’s gonna stay with you Mr. Williams?”
“Yes,” Carter answered quickly. “She’s going to live with me.”
“And this squabble or disagreement between you two isn’t going to cause you to throw her back out on the street again, now is it?”
“I didn’t…” Carter blew an annoying breath. “I didn’t put her out the first time,” he said tersely, which worked in his favor to add to the believability of his story. “She left and moved in with some of her college friends.”
Pinocchio ain’t got nothing on this guy, the homeless woman thought. Carter was a very quick thinker.
“Oh, so she’s…um…early twenties?”
“Yeah,” Carter drawled, feeling like he was being unjustly interrogated but not wanting to blow up then and there. How would that help anything? “She’s twenty-four.”
The homeless woman got a kick out of the fact that Carter thought she was a bit younger, when really, she was twenty-six. She was so frail and under-kept, she could pass for early twenties. Before she lost everything she was once vibrant, beautiful and sophisticated, a graduate of UNC Charlotte. But even with a wealth of knowledge, she couldn’t find a job in the recession, leaving the once beautiful, hard-working woman who was once full of life now dirty and gritty. Close to death.
“Ah…you said she was only going to be here a week, right?” Carter asked the high sprung, country-talking nurse, who apparently missed her calling as a detective. Private investigator even.
“Yes Sir, unless the doctor sees fit to release her any sooner or keep her longer.”
“Okay, and also, will someone wash her up? She smells bad, her hair needs to be washed and—”
“Mr. Williams, we will take care of that.”
“Soon, I hope.”
The nurse turned up her lips and rolled her eyes.
The homeless woman cracked her eyes again, saw the nurse leaving the room and Carter pacing back and forth near the windows. He took his Blackberry from the front pocket of his shirt, dialed a number and said, “Julie, hey it’s Carter. I’m not going to be in today and I need you to clear my calendar for next week. I’m taking some time off.”
Time off, the homeless woman pondered, taken completely off guard by this. Was he taking off time to attend to her? That’s the way it seemed, but why? No one had helped her before. Now this guy, a complete stranger, was having a woman named Julie cancel his important meetings to free up his time.
“Yes, I’m aware of the town hall this morning,” Carter told Julie, “But something just came up.”
After a few more seconds, she watched him slide the phone into his breast pocket again. He was bound to be heading her way next, especially since the nurse had already left the room. As he approached the bed, she opened her eyes wider, staring up at the ceiling, only blinking to relieve the dryness.
Carter sat in the recliner next to the bed, staring at her for a moment, feeling a sense of relief to see her eyes open, but her empty stares took him back to earlier this morning when he found her. The same way she stared up at the lights on the ceiling was the exact way she was staring up into the sky this morning…didn’t even care if snowflakes landed in her vision. He glanced at his phone when he felt the vibration and saw it was his best friend, Terrance.
“Hey, man. What’s up?” he answered, his eyes locked on the woman.
“What’s up with you, playa?”
Carter laughed it off. He knew why Terrance was calling. They’d went out to a bar last night and Carter picked up a beautiful woman named Camille. They chatted for a while over a few drinks and then left together. Typical Carter style. It didn’t take much effort for him to pick up a woman. He was just that good and that fine. His mesmerizing eyes would have any woman hypnotized and following him to his car in no time. “Tee, why are you calling me so early, man?”
“Just thought I’d check to see what went down with Camille last night after y’all left the spot.”
“Nothing went down.”
“Yeah, right…like I’ma believe that.”
“I’m serious, Tee. Nothing happened.” If he wanted something to happen, it would’ve happened. But when he left the bar with Camille, they went to her hotel where she made no reservations about asking him to come up to her room. He followed her there and after unlocking the door, she attacked his lips and clung on to him like a pair of jumper cables on a battery. Carter stopped her attack. Besides, he was the aggressor in any physical relationship. A woman coming on to him this way just wasn’t appealing. “Anyway, I’m a little tied up at the moment.”
“By who? Camille?” Terrance said cackling.
Carter chuckled quietly, looked back at the woman to make sure he wasn’t disturbing her before deciding to leave the room to talk to Terrance in private. He stepped out into the hallway, saw a few nurses walking by along with visitors. “Tee, I’m at the hospital right now,” he said discreetly.
“The hospital?” Terrance’s tone suddenly went from a playful one to one of a more serious nature. “Er’thang cool, dawg?”
“Yeah, I’m fine…here with someone else.”
“Who?” Terrance asked, his curiosity peaked.
“Um…a woman.”
“What woman? Camille?”
“Would you get Camille out of your head? No, I’m not with her.”
“Then who?”
Carter scratched his head, not knowing quite how to explain this to Terrance. He didn’t even understand why he was there, so how could he explain it to someone else? “Well…ah…how can I put this?” He thought for a moment more. “I don’t know her…I mean, she was lying on the sidewalk and I noticed her on the way to my building this morning—”
“Wait a sec…you’re at the hospital with a homeless broad?” Terrance asked shy of laughing.
Carter sighed. “Yeah.”
Terrance let out a loud belly laugh, mostly because he was always loud and he actually had a belly. Unlike Carter who was ripped and athletic with a body that could be considered the eighth Wonder of the World (and was to every woman whom he came into contact with), Terrance was tall and stout with a big mouth and an appetite to match. He was a manager at a local fast food chain and it was apparent that he spent most of his time eating than working.
“I’m serious, Tee. I’m here with her right now.”
&n
bsp; “Carter, I don’t know who you think you’re talking to, but I know you ain’t at the hospital with some bummy chick you found on the street. Ain’t no way.”
Carter let out an uncomfortable chuckle. “Actually I am, and I think I’m gonna stay with her until she’s released.”
“Dude, are you serious?”
“I believe I said that already,” Carter said growing agitated. “Look, man, I can’t explain it and I wouldn’t usually do something like this but there’s something about her that resonates with me.”
“Nah. You just had a little bit too much to drink last night. What could you possibly have in common with a bum, Carter? You of all people…Mr. Head Honcho himself is gonna stop to help somebody? Nah. I don’t see it.”
“I don’t care what you can’t see…I’m telling you what I did. I feel a strong connection with this woman and I have no idea why. I feel like I had to help her. I mean, no one else would. She was just lying there…about to die. What would you have done? Left her there?”
“That’s what I usually do. That’s what everybody does, well besides you, apparently. I mean, they have shelters and community outreach programs to help people like that, right?”
People like that.
His friend’s words were harsh but were they true? Was he wrong for helping someone? Whatever happened to love thy neighbor as thyself? Or did that not apply to people who didn’t live in homes? People who had no place to go?
“Yeah, if you say so, Tee, but this woman needed help. I couldn’t leave her to die.”
“Sounds to me like you’re losing your swag, man. Did Camille diss you last night or something? Got you looking for homeless broads now?” Terrance chuckled.
“That ain’t even funny first off and second, I don’t get dissed. I’m the one that do the dissing.”
“My bad, dawg,” Terrance said. He had mad respect for his friend when it came to dealing with woman. Watching him pick up chicks at times was like an art form. Not every man could master it so perfectly but Carter had what it took on every level to sweep a woman off her feet. He had the looks, the money, the job, the crib and the cars. And not to mention the man had enough swag to fill any room he walked in.
