Black Flies

by Shannon Burke

  The mother lay back with her eyes darting about, unable to keep still. I scrawled her vitals on the call report. I tried to get a line into her and couldn’t because of her scarred veins, and because she wouldn’t stop fidgeting. I was trying on her other arm when Rutkovsky came to the door.

  “Don’t bother,” he said. “You can’t kill a crackhead.”

  “How’s the baby?” I asked.

  “The baby’s dead.”

  “The cop said it was breathing.”

  “It’s dead. Stillbirth. An HIV-positive crackhead who’s also been taking methadone during her pregnancy. Whatta ya expect?”

  He walked out. A minute later I went to the other room for a gauze four-by-four. There was a towel over the baby’s face. Rutkovsky was writing his report.

  “Treat the mother,” he said.

  The towel looked as if it wrapped a can of tennis balls—something tiny.

  “Treat the mother,” Rutkovsky said again.

  A wave of uneasiness swept through me. I looked at the lump beneath the towel. Rutkovsky shifted impatiently. I felt him getting ready to say something derisive. I turned and walked into the hallway. I stood there a moment, thinking about it, thinking I’d go back in and check that lump beneath the towel, but I didn’t. I just went back to the room with the mother. A minute passed and then two Lenox Hill medics arrived. Rutkovsky hated these guys. They were from the Upper East Side and Rutkovsky thought they were pampered losers with expensive equipment. They were out of breath and excited and Rutkovsky eyed them with the disdain he had for anyone who got excited about anything.

  “Where’s the baby?” they asked, bursting into the room.

  “Dead,” Rutkovsky said.

  “Where is it?”

  “Calm down. It’s dead. She’s a junkie and crackhead. It was a stillbirth.”

  “Where is it?” they said for the third time. Rutkovsky looked annoyed. He pointed to the lump in the towel with his pen.

  “Always treat a newborn,” the first paramedic said.

  “Did you read that in the protocol book?” Rutkovsky said.

  The first medic didn’t answer. He just flung the towel off, looked at the baby closely, then gathered it up and clambered down the stairs. Rutkovsky rolled his eyes. “The fucking cavalry,” he said, but I noticed the tip of his pen was shaking. A minute later we brought the mother to the ambulance. Rutkovsky was quiet for the whole ride to the ER. We went in and handed the patient off to the nurse and as we walked out the two cops I’d seen earlier waited at the door to the ER. An EMS patrol lieutenant waited with them. Rutkovsky was ahead of me, and the lieutenant stopped Rutkovsky by putting a hand on his shoulder.

  “Sorry, Rut. I have to ask for your badge.”

  “What the fuck did I do now?”

  “You know that dead baby you covered with the towel?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well,” he said. “That dead baby is breathing.”

  We weren’t allowed to drive our ambulance back to the station. Rutkovsky and I sat next to each other in the back of the lieutenant’s Suburban. At one point the lieutenant stopped at a bodega, turned to us, gave Rutkovsky a significant look, and said, “You two aren’t supposed to talk to each other. I gotta get some cigarettes.” Then he stepped out of the Suburban and left us alone.That minute was a gift to Rutkovsky from an old friend who’d once been his partner. “Don’t tell them anything,” Rutkovsky said.

  “What can I tell them? I was in the other room.”

  “Good. Keep saying that.”

  “I was treating the mother.”

  “That’s right.You were treating the mother. I’ll deal with them.”

  The lieutenant came back and offered Rutkovsky a cigarette. He glanced at me, at my badge with no bars, and did not offer me one. At Station 18 we saw the chief talking with the two cops. The lieutenant walked us up to the second floor. Flung a door open. There were three chairs, a desk, and a fourth chair against the wall.

  “You’re in there,” he said to Rutkovsky. “You,” he said to me. “Come on.”

  Farther down the hallway he opened another door and left it open. It was a classroom with eight or ten desks and anatomy posters on the wall. A window with bars overlooked a concrete courtyard. I went in. The lieutenant shut the door. I waited two hours until a tall, slender man in civilian clothes with a large head and bad posture opened the door and waved to me. This was the medical control physician, Doctor Towers. I followed him to the room Rutkovsky had gone into. There were three chairs behind a long desk. The chief sat on the right. A short, intense-looking man with thick glasses and a black mustache sat in the middle. I saw from his bars that he was a captain. Towers walked around and sat in the third chair. The captain with the thick glasses spoke first, and throughout the interrogation was the leader. His name was Captain Russell.

  “Well your partner just fucked himself,” he said.

  “He didn’t fuck himself,” the doctor said tiredly. “He’s civil service. He’ll be taken off the road, but he’ll just be reassigned. He won’t even lose his job.”

  The captain turned on the doctor.

  “You sound like you want him to lose his job. After twenty years of service he has one fuckup. As if anyone would even know what happened if this was in the hospital. As if it doesn’t happen all the time in the hospital.”

  “We have different problems inside.”

  “Paid three times as much and have half the responsibility and risk. That’s the problem.” Russell slapped his notebook down and turned to me. “You know why you’re here. The reporters are outside. We gotta tell em something. What happened?”

  “I was with the mother. She was my patient.”

  “Right. And you never saw the baby,” he asked disdainfully.

  He could see what defense I was going to take.

  “I did see it for a moment. When I came in.”

  “And what did you see?”

  “I saw the mother cutting the cord with a crack pipe.”

  The captain and the doctor both scratched notes. The chief sat back silently. He seemed separate from the other two, who were angry at each other. He watched me calmly. The captain held a sheet close to his eyes, then looked up.

  “Did you see the baby breathe?”

  “No.”

  “Did you look closely?”

  “I hardly looked at all. It wasn’t my patient.”

  “Did you ask the mother about the baby?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said it was dead.”

  “Did you ask anyone else?”

  “I asked Rutkovsky. He said it was dead, too.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “I asked the cop.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said it was breathing.”

  “And what did you think?”

  “I didn’t think anything. It wasn’t my patient. Rut’s birthed fifty babies. I thought he ought to know whether it was breathing or not.”

  “When did you ask Rutkovsky about the baby?”

  “I went out to get a trauma dressing. The bag was in the hall. I asked him then.”

  “Where was the bag?”

  “In the hall,” I said.

  “Why out there?”

  “There was blood all over the floor in her room and she’s HIV positive. We didn’t want to decon all our equipment.”

  The two scribbled notes. The chief sat silently. Towers asked, “When you asked about the baby, did you not look yourself?”

  I hesitated slightly, then said, “Rut’s the senior medic. I’m a rookie.”

  “So you let him do whatever he wanted?”

  “I let him treat the most critical patient.”

  The captain frowned.The chief shuffled papers.They both knew it was standard procedure for a rookie not to question his senior partner. They knew I was safe in this defense. They weren’t going to pressure me on this. After a moment, the chief
spoke for the first time, taking a completely different tack.

  “We’re not here to investigate a matter of malpractice, Cross. At least not with you. You were treating the mother. The mother was your patient. That’s clear. You may have been unobservant, but there was no breach in conduct. At least with your patient. What we’re looking into is Rutkovsky’s motive. It’s happened before that medics lose sight of why they do the job and what they were hired for. Particularly here,” the chief said. He paused, then asked, “Did you know I’d talked to Rutkovsky about putting him in an administrative position, and that he was very ... resistant to the idea of a transfer?”

  “He didn’t tell me that.”

  “Did he ever talk about working in an administrative position?”

  “Not.”

  “At the job today, did you hear him say anything about this baby’s chances for survival? About its chances of a decent life?”

  “There wasn’t a lot of discussion going on.”

  “Did you know that the baby’s almost certainly brain damaged from the mother’s drug habits? Or that after lying in that pool of HIV-infected blood the baby’s most likely infected himself?”

  “I didn’t think of that.”

  “Do you think it’s possible that Mister Rutkovsky, with his greater experience, would have known these things?”

  “Yes.”

  “And knowing this, and being in a state of mind where he felt ... defiant and unappreciated, isn’t it possible he thought he might as well end his career with an act of ... misguided euthanasia?”

  I didn’t answer. The captain looked up from his papers. Towers shifted. They were all looking at me, waiting to hear what I’d say.

  “I have no idea,” I said finally. “If he did, do you think he’d tell me?”

  The captain’s head looked like it would explode. He slapped his notebook down and leaned forward. His eyes were large and intense behind his glasses.

  “I’m only going to ask this one time. Then that’s it.You’ve had your chance. You’re provisional. We can do what we want with you. Tell the truth now or your case goes to the board. Did Rut intentionally withhold treatment?”

  “I don’t know”

  “Give us an answer. Yes or no.”

  Forced to make a decision, my answer was easy.

  “No,” I said. “He made a mistake.”

  The chief looked to the side. He betrayed no emotion, but I thought he was annoyed. Given a different, more subtle line of questioning they might have gotten more out of me. The captain turned his notebook over and set my badge on the desk. “You’ll be on the road till the committee comes to a decision.”

  “What about Rut?”

  “Rut’s on his way to a job filing reports in the records division.”

  The New York Daily News

  September 6, 1993

  Medics Smother Baby in Harlem

  Fire officials yesterday ordered an investigation into why an ambulance crew failed to treat a newborn infant.

  Tara Thompson, 33, gave birth last night at 6:00 PM in an abandoned building in Central Harlem.

  According to Thompson, the emergency crew failed to treat the infant, and instead, thinking the infant was stillborn, covered him with a towel. A second ambulance crew from Lenox Hill discovered the mistake. Both baby and mother were taken to Lenox Hill and are in stable condition.

  “While they were filling out paperwork my baby was being smothered,” Tara Thompson said, wiping tears from her eyes. “When you call the ambulance you expect them to bring you to the hospital, not try to smother your baby.”

  Deputy Mayor Marcus J. Clement met last night with representatives of the Emergency Medical Service and the city’s Department of Investigation, which looks into complaints of mismanagement. He said he planned to brief Mayor Dinkins about the matter.

  “It’s a serious question,” Clement said. “We’re trying to find out what happened, why it happened, and how we can make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

  The names of the paramedics were not made public.

  I slept for ten hours that night and woke up feeling more rested and less anxious than I had in months. That afternoon, the first day of my weekend, I listened to the Yankees on the radio, and at one point, sort of absently, I picked up the phone and tried to call Rutkovsky. I didn’t get him and as the phone rang I realized it would have been awkward to talk to him. I didn’t want to be involved in whatever happened to him and I was glad he didn’t pick up. I left a message on his machine and then unplugged my phone and went to bed early and slept deeply and without interruption for another ten hours. I woke early the next morning and immediately left the apartment. It was the best time of the year in New York. The heat of summer had finally broken with a crisp, cool wind from the northeast. I stopped in the Ramble and studied chemistry and for the first time in months felt I was making progress. I walked up to the North Meadow. I spent a few more hours there spread out in the grass, propped on an elbow, with an MCAT book open in the sunlight. I walked to the east side of the park and then back through the Sheep Meadow. I stayed out till past dark and when I returned to my apartment I realized I’d left the phone unplugged. I didn’t plug it back in. I lay on the couch, thinking I’d rest a minute, and woke up eight hours later at six in the morning. I didn’t read the papers or listen to the radio that day, and that afternoon, I went back to the station. I hadn’t talked to Rutkovsky or anyone else all weekend. I’d hardly thought about that baby job or what had happened to us and I realized I didn’t have to.What I’d said was technically true—it wasn’t my patient. I couldn’t be held accountable. I just went back to work and was partnered with Verdis. I did not see or talk to Rutkovsky again for a month.

  An elevator with failed brakes in the Riverside projects: longboards propped against the basement wall, bandages and cravats and two-inch medical tape set out, residents peering from cracked doors and one teenage girl in the laundry room with a cell phone to her ear, saying, “Probably ten people dead inside and I’m gonna have to walk to the twenty-fifth floor with all my clothes.”

  The fire guys whacked metal wedges into the door’s seam and Verdis, Marmol, Rivett, LaFontaine, and I all lounged around, waiting. It was the week after the baby job and we’d all heard that Rutkovsky hadn’t shown up for his administrative job, that he’d hired a lawyer and was going to try to work the streets again.

  “I wouldn’t be holding my breath,” Marmol said. “I love the guy, but no way they’ll let him back to work the streets.”

  “He made one mistake,” I said.

  “That was no mistake,” LaFontaine said. “He did what we all want to do. Take one of these crackheads. Say, ‘Fuck.You.’”

  “That’s what you want to do, anyway,” Verdis said.

  LaFontaine laughed.

  “Well, that’s true. It is what I want to do.” Then, turning to me, “You were there, Cross. Tell the truth. He knew what he was doing, right?”

  “No,” I said slowly. “The baby was dark blue. It looked stillborn to me.”

  “Agh. CYA. Bullshit. You might’ve been fooled. But not Rut. He’s been out here twenty years. He was trying to do the right thing.”

  Marmol tossed a smoking cigarette butt at LaFontaine.

  “Smothering a baby ain’t the right thing.”

  “Depends on who the baby is, what it’s got wrong with it,” LaFontaine said.

  I glanced at Verdis. He was shaking his head.

  “Rut was freaking. But he didn’t try to kill no baby.”

  “What do you think?” LaFontaine asked Marmol.

  “I don’t need to think about it,” Marmol said. “Not my problem. I wouldn’t have done it. But all this shit out here, I understand why someone would.”

  LaFontaine raised his cigarette, was about to say we were dreaming if we thought Rutkovsky didn’t do it on purpose, that anyone would, that it was the only rational act, when there was a loud squawk and the elevator doors gave way at once.W
e all jumped up to see a tangled mess of limbs in contorted, grotesque shapes, tossed grocery bags, blood and eggs and a bag of Cheese Doodles covering the writhing bodies. LaFontaine, who’d been the farthest away, was already stepping past us. He was the first one into the elevator, bent over, calling for a longboard, reaching for a patient.

  In the next weeks a few strange things happened. One day on the subway I felt I couldn’t breathe and I had to get off and walk around, calming down. I slept a lot, but didn’t feel rested. I’d started stammering, couldn’t get my words out, and when I did, there was a tremor in my voice. To avoid thinking about the baby job, to avoid thinking at all, I tried to work as much as possible. I was partnered with Verdis for the month, and he was about as competent a partner as I could ask for. He was thorough, methodical, good natured, gentle and couldn’t have been more patient. But the more patient he was, the more it got on my nerves, and every minute I was with him I wished I was working with Rutkovsky. I still considered Rutkovsky my real partner. I still had hopes that he’d get reinstated somehow, that we’d work together again.

  “Rut! Rut! Hey, open up!”

  I stood outside Rutkovsky’s apartment knocking. I waited. I knocked again. It was a month since I’d last seen him.

  “Hey, Rut! It’s me!”

  I heard footsteps. The door opened. He looked at me sullenly.

  “Hey, Rut. I just stopped by. How you doin?”

  He didn’t answer. He just turned and walked back into the apartment, leaving the door open. His apartment was a mess— clothes everywhere, half-eaten food on the floor, empty beer bottles, wine bottles, and Jack Daniel’s on the windowsill. He sat on his bed with his elbows on his knees and spoke in a barely audible monotone. I said I’d heard he’d tried to get reinstated.

  “What else can I do?” he said. “I mean, can you imagine me behind a desk?”

  “I can imagine it,” I said.

  He bristled.

  “Well, I can’t. I gotta get back on the streets. I’m a medic. I wanna work as one.”