Ambulance Driver Files A Day in the Life | Kelly Grayson
“Your eyes look a little puffy there, AD,” the cop observes with a smirk. “Did I interrupt your nap?”
“And your eyes look a little glazed, Foster,” I retort. “You been eating donuts?” It’s oh-drunk-thirty in the morning, and I am in no mood.
“Wait’ll you see what I brung you,” Foster chuckles good-naturedly. “You’re gonna loooove this guy.”
“What are you pawning off on us this time, Foster?” Bitchy partner asks, rather…well, bitchily.
“DUI stop,” he replies. “Found the guy passed out at the wheel, parked not-so-carefully in that building right there, with the engine still running.”
Foster points with his flashlight at a gaudy Cadillac with its nose buried in the brick wall of a ground floor apartment at Methamphetamine Acres Low Income Housing Development. Funny thing is, it almost looks like it belongs there. Meth Acres is a wee bit…seedy.
“So was he injured?”
“Not so’s you could tell,” Foster shrugs. “He just started complaining of a chronic back problem the moment I told him he was under arrest.”
“Stainless steel allergy,” I nod sagely. “It’s rarely life-threatening, Foster.”
“Still, I need you to check him out and clear him medically.”
“You fucking know we can’t do that, Foster,” BP flares in disgust. “If you want him cleared, take him to the ER yourself!”
“What my partner meant to say, Officer Foster,” I explain unctuously, “is that the meager diagnostic skills and equipment of Borg paramedics are not sufficient to indemnify the Big City Police Department against civil liability if we do clear this man medically and he does indeed turn out to have a medical condition that is aggravated by sleeping on a thinly padded concrete bench in the drunk tank. What would effectively absolve you of responsibility is if someone with MD after their name pronounces him fit to spend a night in the drunk tank. What we can do is examine him and pronounce him stable enough to take a five minute trip in the back of your cruiser down to Big City ER, where they can examine him further.”
“Huh?” Foster blinks.
“We can’t clear him, Foster,” I sigh. “Only a doctor can do that. And you can take a drunk to the hospital just as easily as we can. You’ll be in and out in twenty minutes, tops. By then the donut shop might even have a fresh batch of eclairs.”
“Fuck that,”Foster demurs. “I’ll just take him to jail.”
“Excellent choice!” BP nods hopefully. “So we can tell our dispatcher that we were canceled by the Police Department, right?”
“Uuuhhhh, y’all go ahead and check him out anyway,” Foster hedges. “Just to cover the bases, you know?”
Sigh. Evidently Foster’s Chronic Krispy Kreme Toxicity has begun to degrade his hearing.
Shaking my head in resignation, I open the rear door of his cruiser. His subject is sprawled out on the back seat, hands cuffed behind him, snoring peacefully.
Aawwww, they look like little angels when they’re sleepin’ like that! Who’s my adorable widdle dwunk? Who’s my widdle dwunky wunky…
BP opens the opposite door and rudely prods the guy with the toe of her boot. “Hey asshole, wake up!”
Said asshole does indeed wake up, eyes blinking slowly in drunk time as he carefully registers where he is, and what is happening. When he finally gets his bearings, I see him take a deeeep breath, and…
“Aaaauuuuuugggghhhh! My back, muhfucka! I got a back condition! Aaaaauuuuugggghhhh!”
“Can’t examine you lying there in the police car, Sir,” I point out reasonably. “Why don’t you scoot out here and stand up?”
“Aaaaauuuuggghhh! I can’t move! I got Herculated discs! Aaaauuuuggghhhh!”
“So you said, Sir. However, I’m not crawling into the back of that car with you. You’ll have to get out here if you want us to examine you.”
“I can’t move, muhfucka! Is you deaf? Aaaauuuuggghhh!”
“Last chance, dude. Get outta the car.”
“Fuck you, muhfucka! I’ma sue all yo asses!”
“Did you hear what he said?” I ask BP.
“Sounded to me like he said, ‘due to the physical limitations imposed by my medical condition, I would greatly appreciate your assistance in exiting the vehicle,’ didn’t it, Foster?” BP asks innocently.
“Or something like that,” Foster says dryly, taking one of the man’s arms and motioning for me to take the other. “Okay, on the count of three…three.” Together, we bodily drag the guy out of the cruiser and stand him up, to the accompaniment of his outraged bellowing.
“Aaaauuuuuggghhh, my shouldahs! I’ma sue all you cracker muhfuckas, you hear me? I’ma have yo jobs!”
“You can have mine,” BP retorts. “All I do all night is deal with worthless motherfu -“
Her snappy reply is cut off by the sound of Mr. Back Pain horking up a big one, “Sssskkkkkknnnnnnnxxxxxnork!”
Instantly, he finds himself bent over at the waist, face pressed uncomfortably against the trunk of Foster’s cruiser. Interestingly enough, the maneuver does not bring about the expected screech of Genuine Faux Pain (TM).
Mr. Back Pain has suddenly morphed into Mr. Outraged Veteran. And he didn’t it without a phone booth to change in!
“I’m a Vietnam vet, muhfucka! It ain’t right y’all treatin’ a veteran this way! I’ma sue all yo asses!”
Foster silently hands me the guy’s driver’s license. He’s fifty years old.
“What outfight did you serve in?” I ask innocently.
“Airborne, muhfucka! All the way! Muhfucka take these cuffs off, I’ll whoop all yo asses!”
“Your first idea of seeking justice through civil litigation was the clear winner, Sir. Violence solves nothing.”
“I’m a combat veteran, muhfucka! I can kill yo ass ‘thout breakin’ a sweat!”
“No doubt you are a concentrated can of badass, Sir. If we’d have had more soldiers like you, Vietnam would be full of nail salons staffed by American girls. It’s no wonder the Army took you in at such a young age.”
“Huh?”
“You were fourteen years old in 1973, when they withdrew the last US troops from Vietnam. My history’s a little fuzzy, but I don’t recall the 82nd Airborne having an Explorer Post.”
“He was Agent Orange,” BP opines. “It was very hush-hush.”
“Fuck all y’all, muhfuckas! I’m a Vietnam vet!”
“Says here on your driver’s license that your name is Pablo Cruse, and that you were born in November, 1958. That makes you a little young for the ‘Nam, Pablo.”
“Thass my name, muhfucka! I’m Pablo Cruse! Y’all all gonna be sorry, cuz I got a Supreme Court Justice in my back pocket, muhfuckas! Y’all hear that? I’m related to a Supreme. Court. Justice!”
“You know, from the moment I laid eyes on you, Pablo, I said to myself, ‘now that guy is the spitting image of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.’ I had no idea you were so well connected, Pablo, and I’m sorry that we met under such difficult circumstances. Bu
t I want you to know that I’ve always been a fan of your music.”
“Huh?”
“You are the Pablo Cruise, right?” I gush. “I know all the lyrics to Cool Love.“
“Fuck you, muhfucka! I’ma sue yo ass!”
“Aww, that’s no way to treat a fan, Pablo!” I admonish. “No wonder you haven’t had a hit record in over twenty years. Sing it with me, dude. It would be an honor.”
“Auuuuuggghhhh!”
“Room full of faceless strangers,” I croon, “Here I am again. Suddenly my eyes meet yours, looks like I found a friend…”
“Aaaaaauuugggghhhh!”
“When you’re through torturing the drunk, AD,” BP interrupts dryly, “I’ve got our refusal signed. I’d kinda like to get back to the station.”
“Sounds good to me,” I shrug. “Pablo needs to work on his harmonies, anyway.”
“Upper left thigh,” the cop points. “Underneath the hem of her shorts.”
The woman, swaying on her feet, pulls up the hem of her shorts to show me the puncture wounds there. Sure enough, it’s a fairly nasty dog bite. Problem is, it looks like it happened quite some time ago. Perhaps even yesterday.
“Where did this happen, Ma’am?” I ask curiously.
“Right fuckin’ here!” the woman slurs, waving her arm around to encompass…the Earth, I guess. “I wanna know whatcher gonna do ’bout that fuckin’ dog,” she hiccups. “You cocksuckers need to fuckin’ arrest that bitch. Do yer fuckin’ jobs, whydoncha?”
“She says this lady’s dog bit her,” the cop explains, gesturing toward a bemused family standing in their back yard. The woman, shaking her head in amused incredulity, is holding a shaking, timid little Chihuaha in her arms. Her husband is holding the hand of a little boy of perhaps eight years.
“Not that fuckin’ dog, dumbass!” the drunk woman snarls. “Great big fuckin’ dog! She’s fuckin’ hidin’ him!” The woman pushes herself away from the bumper of the police cruiser and extends a middle finger toward the family standing on the sidewalk. “Where’d you hide yer fuckin’ dog, bitch?” she screams.
“You scream at those people one more time, Ma’am,” the cop warns, “and I’m taking you to jail.”
“Fer whut?” the woman asks indignantly.
“Public intoxication, public use of profanity or lewd behavior, and disturbing the peace,” he recites. “For starters.”
“Yer all a buncha cocksuckers, you know that?” the woman sneers at me spitefully. “Aintchu gonna look for the fuckin’ dog?”
“I’m not here to look for dogs, Ma’am,” I explain shortly. “I’m here to give you medical care and to take you to the hospital if you want.”
“I ain’t goin’ to no fuckin’ hospital!” she vows. “I’m gonna go kick that bitch’s ass, just as soon as you cocksuckers shoot that fuckin’ dog!”
“Okay, you have two choices,” the cop tells her in no uncertain terms. “Either you shut your mouth and get on their stretcher, or you go to jail.”
“I ain’t goin’ to no fucking’ hospital, and you cocksuckers cain’t make me!” At that, she lunges away from the police car and aims a slap at my face. I step back in time to avoid it, because frankly, she’s moving at Drunk Speed. I could have finished the New York Times crossword before her hand reached me.
I grab her wrist as it goes past, put one hand on her shoulder, and allow her momentum to carry her into an unceremonious face plant on my stretcher. I am not gentle.
“Oooowwwww!” the drunk woman hollers indignantly. “Yer a fuckin’ paramedic! Yer s’posed to be nice to me!”
“Well, ‘nice’ went out the window with the second time you called me a cocksucker,” I inform her as I plant one knee in her back,” and ‘gentle’ took the bus right about the time you swung.”
“Nice move, AD,” BP grins approvingly as she straps the woman down.
“Want to press charges for assault?” the cop asks me. “Taking her ass to jail would suit me just fine.”
“Nah,” I demur, “just flex-cuff her to the stretcher, would you? We got it from here.”
“Besides,” BP points out, “as soon as you get her there, the jail nurse is gonna look at her leg and demand that she be taken to the hospital to get stitched up. We’ll wind up transporting her anyway.”
“I don’t want this cocksucker ridin’ in the back with me!” the drunk sneers at me spitefully. “He might try to rape me or somethin’!”
“Not to worry, Ma’am,” I assure her. “My membership in Skankbangers International expired in 1997. Besides, my partner is going to ride in with you. Feel free to talk some shit to her, though. She enjoys it.”
“Gee thanks, AD,” BP rolls her eyes at me as I slam the rear doors.
“Dude, that was just wrong,” the cop chortles. “Why you wanna punk your partner like that?”
“If I wanted to be merciful, I’d ride in with her,” I tell him. “This chick better behave herself with BP, or getting mauled by a Rottweiler is gonna feel tame in comparison.”
“Woman comes home drunk, starts showing her ass and busting up the furniture, so her fiancé locks her out of the house. She wants back in, so she kicks out her living room window,” Deputy Buzzcut explains. “She’s got an itty bitty cut on her lower left leg, but she bled like a stuck pig. She smeared blood over half the carpet in the house.”
“I got here first,” Rookie Deputy volunteers, “and she was walking around the house stark naked. I made her put a shirt on.”
“And you should waited for your backup to arrive,” Buzzcut grins. “I coulda supervised while she looked for some clothes to put on.”
BP rolls her eyes as she walks in the house, both deputies following closely behind. Inside, there is a weary man in his mid-forties trying to clean up the mess she has made of their home. It’s a shame, too. It’s a very expensive home in a very affluent neighborhood. He sighs and picks up a picture of them together, picking shards of broken glass from the frame, and I begin to understand why Buzzcut wanted the rookie to wait for him. The woman is about half her fiancé’s age, and absolutely gorgeous. Dark, flowing hair, nice tan, fetching green eyes…
…and an impressively large pair of expensive fake hooters. I am awestruck.
*Sigh.* Why do all the prettiest ones always turn out to be absolute psychos?
“So where is this chick at, Buzz?” BP wants to know.
“Down the hall, last door on the left,” he says disinterestedly, still surveying the havoc this woman has wreaked in the living room as BP trudges down the hallway where he pointed.
“Uh, wait for me, BP,” I call out. “I’ll go with you. She might still be…dangerous or something.”
BP rolls her eyes again and flings open the door. She pauses for a moment, and says, “I’m BP of Borg, Ma’am. You wanna put your clothes back on while I talk to you for a little bit?”
Instantly, both deputies appear behind me. “She took her clothes off again?” Buzz asks hopefully.
I’d answer him, bu
t I’m concerned for my partner’s safety, not to my mention this woman’s…uhhh, welfare. I need to be in that room. Behind me, the deputies are jostling for position.
The woman is sitting there on the daybed, stark naked and holding her son in her lap. She has a superficial cut on her leg that could probably use about three sutures, if she were so inclined. Then again, the cut has stopped bleeding, and at most it would make a small scar if left alone.
The woman smiles winningly, reaches across the bed and grabs a clingy halter top, stretches her arms over her head and sloooowly, seductively pulls the top down over her rack. She’s still naked -and I mean, without adornment of any kind, including body hair – from the waist down, though. Over my left shoulder, Deputy Buzzcut stifles a whimper.
Her son doesn’t seem to notice, his attention firmly held by the SpongeBob movie playing on the television. Perhaps Mommy parades around naked like this all the time.
I watch silently as BP makes a perfunctory attempt to convince the woman to go to the hospital. She doesn’t appear too concerned about her leg, however, and signs a refusal. Wordlessly, BP hands me the clipboard and walks out of the room, having to squeeze past the two deputies blocking the doorway.
I linger a bit longer. “Uh Ma’am, you sure you don’t want to go get that stitched up?” I ask hopefully.
“No, I’m fine,” she assures me, flashing me a beauty queen’s smile. The eyes are pure Charles Manson, though.
“It could get infected,” Rookie Deputy points out. “We could help you walk out to the ambulance and – “
“I’m fine,” she cuts him off, stretching like a housecat.
“Tetanus shot?” Buzz offers.
“My tetanus is up to date,” she purrs. “Thanks, anyway.”
“Want me to clean and bandage that cut?” I offer. “No charge, even.”
“It’ll be fine, boys,” she says, shooing us out the door. “Thanks for coming, anyway.”
After once again asking the fiancé if he’d like to press charges, we file back outside. BP is waiting on us, arms folded with a disapproving look on her face. “What a psycho bitch,” BP fumes. “And her little boy had to witness all that! Scarred for life, I’ll bet.”
“They don’t really scar all that much,” Buzz says authoritatively. “They make these little incisions under the armpits, and they fill ’em once they have the implants in place.”
“I was talking about her son,” BP corrects scornfully.
“I dunno,” I disagree. “My mother had no sense of personal decorum, either. She walked around naked more than once, and I turned out all right. Then again, my mother looked like Ernest Borgnine. If she’d had Emerson Biggins Sign like that chick, I may have gone further in life.”
“Don’t feel too sorry for the kid,” Buzz opines. “He probably got to nurse from those.”
“I’ve never been jealous of a five-year-old before,” Rookie Deputy observes.
“Boobs like that are not realistic,” BP argues. “I can’t believe men find that attractive.”
“I’m a purist,” I confess. “I much prefer real over fake. Then again, if you squint your eyes real hard, and the light is just right…”
“Bet they taste real,” Rookie Deputy muses, to the general agreement of everyone with a Y chromosome.
“You guys are such pigs,” BP says in disgust.
“Hey,” Deputy Buzzcut protests, “you say that like it’s a bad thing…”
It’s 3:00 am, and we’ve just turned north onto Fydalla Ho Expressway, heading back to our station after dropping off a little old lady with sepsis at Big City Memorial ER. We’re heading north, and the truck in question is headed south with his headlights off, weaving all over the road.
“Now what is this idiot doing?” BP wonders aloud, gripping the wheel a little tighter and slowing down.
“Running from those idiots,” I answer, nodding at the approaching police cars as the truck driver finally sees our ambulance and jerks the wheel to avoid us…
…only to discover that one should not make sudden steering corrections at warp speed, because he promptly starts fishtailing, and winds up wiping out in the parking lot of Roscoe’s Rib Shack and Lawnmower Repair. I watch in my side mirror as the truck rolls over onto its side, the roof resting against a utility pole on the corner.
“Whoa. Did we just cause that?” BP asks.
“Looks like we just unwittingly stumbled into the middle of a high-speed chase,” I realize. “Wanna turn around and watch the show?”
“I’m game,” BP grunts. “This is the most entertainment I’ve had all night.”
By the time BP gets our rig turned around, the driver has already managed to bail out of the vehicle and lose the cops. The two officers pursuing him are combing the area with their flashlights, but the kamikaze driver is nowhere to be seen. BP eases our rig up onto the curb, just north of Roscoe’s parking lot, when I notice a shape detach itself from the shadows behind Habib’s Motor Hotel and Fish Market. The shape skulks in the alley for a moment, then tries to scale the fence behind the property.
“Behind the hotel, boys!” I call over the PA system as BP hits the guy with our spotlight and bloops the siren. Instantly, the cops sprint for Habib’s, joined by a number of their compatriots who have just converged on the scene.
It’s at this point, to borrow a LawDog-ism, that things go rodeo. I watch as the shape detaches itself from the fence and disappears under a rugby scrum of sweating, cursing men in navy blue uniforms.
Presently, our kamikaze driver squirts out of the pile like a greased eel and takes off across Habib’s parking lot, with no less than six of Big City’s Finest in hot pursuit. He does a credible imitation of a broken field runner, faking several officers out of their shoes and breaking one tackle by leaving the pursuing officer holding nothing but a pair of pants.
You know, a lot like a Barry Sanders highlight reel, except that here Barry is buck nekkid and all the linebackers are carrying sidearms.
“Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do…” BP chants as she watches in rapt fascination.
After leading the cops in several dizzying circuits of the parking lot, Barry finally gets himself surrounded, and the officers close in. Obviously reliving those heady playground days when he was the kid everybody wanted on their side in Red Rover, Barry lowers his head and charges…
…and turns the prettiest backwards somersault you have ever seen, courtesy of an NFL-quality clothesline from a pissed-off shift sergeant.
“Thus endeth the pursuit,” I chuckle. “I’ll bet that smarted.”
“Not painful enough,” BP observes wryly. “He’s still fighting.”
And she’s right. Barry is on the ground, but still wrestling with a couple of officers who are struggling to get him cuffed. I watch in morbid fascination as both of the officers stand up…
…while a third lights him up with h
is Taser. Barry arches his back, then collapses like a marionette with his strings cut. He does the Burnt Worm for perhaps a bit longer than was necessary, but still nowhere long enough for the pursuing officers to feel any measure of satisfaction.
“Howdy fellas,” I greet them as I stroll over. “Nice night for a little run, ain’t it? You’re looking a little peaked there, Foster. Need some oxygen? Or perhaps a donut?”
Foster, by way of reply, wheezes something profane and extends his middle finger, then bends back down and places his hands on his knees. His younger, more physically fit compatriots think I’m funny as hell, however.
“All this shit over a stolen truck,” the shift sergeant mutters in disgust. “Can y’all meet us at headquarters?” he asks. “He’s got a little knot on his head and a nosebleed, and we’ll need y’all to check him out before we take him to jail for processing.”
“No problem, Sarge,” I answer agreeably. “We’ll be happy to.”
On the way to the police headquarters, BP informs me, “You know it’s a Borg policy that we don’t remove Taser barbs, right? So if they ask…”
“I tell them that we’re not allowed by company policy. Yeah, I got it.”
Outside the rear entrance to Big City Police headquarters, the shift sergeant is waiting with all four doors of his cruiser standing open. “Fuckin’ bastard puked in my car,” he growls. “It smells like a Goddamned brewery in there.”
He tosses me the guy’s wallet, and I extract his driver’s license and copy down the information onto my paperwork.
Isaac L’Darius Horton, birthdate of…today!
“Hey Isaac,” I call cheerfully, leaning into the car. “Happy birthday, dude! You know, we all were wondering what to get you, but you’re a hard man to shop for. What do you buy for the man who has everything he can steal? All the cops figured they’d chip in and get you something you really needed. Hope you enjoyed your ass-whipping, dude. It came from the heart.”
Isaac burbles something about the cuffs being too tight, so I back out of the car and motion for the shift sergeant to haul him out. With a world-weary sigh, he reaches in and drags Isaac bodily out of the car and props him up against the fender. “Say,” he asks, as if just thinking of the idea, “can you take out the Taser barbs before y’all go?”
“No can do, Sarge,” I shake my head apologetically. “Against Borg policy.” I hold up Isaac’s driver’s license next to his disheveled, dirt-streaked and bloody face. His Afro is full of vomit and bits of gravel from Habib’s parking lot. “Isaac,” I tell him, “this is a night of firsts for me. Not only am I involved in my first police pursuit ever, but I have also met the first individual ever who actually looks worse than his driver’s license photo.”
“Come on, man! My fingers is goin’ numb!”
Sighing, I worm one finger between Isaac’s wrists and the steel bracelets, and check his capillary refill and distal pulses. Everything looks fine. “Cuffs look loose enough to me, dude. Not like they’re cutting off your circulation or anything.”
“They too tight, man!” Isaac insists, his breath a fetid fog of malt liquor-fueled ketoaldehydes.
“Hold on there, sport. I can loosen those for you,” the shift sergeant offers magnanimously. He stands Isaac up, still holding onto the Taser cartridge and wires, and lets go of the cuffs briefly to fish his handcuff key off his belt…
…and Isaac slowly topples forward, doing a perfect face plant right at my feet.
“Oops,” BP observes sarcastically, smirking at the embarrassed sergeant.
“I’d have given him a 10, but he didn’t keep his toes pointed and his feet together,” I offer wryly.
The shift sergeant just stares from me to his prone subject for several seconds, still holding the slack Taser leads in one hand.
“Oh well,” he shrugs, “Looks like he pulled the Taser barbs out, at least.”
“Kiss my ass, AD,” Bitchy Partner retorts good-naturedly. “This was the only place to park that’s still close to the scene.”
“Yeah, but all those people standing there flashing the gang sign of the International Bystander Society are wondering why the bolance be parked across the skreet and not comin’ to pick up their homey. It’s bad public relations.”
“Gang sign?” she asks. “International Bystander Society?”
“One arm pointing at the ground and the other arm waving frantically,” I explain. “Come on, let’s go on in.”
“It’s an assault,” she points out, obviously not thrilled with the idea.
“It’s at a friggin’ convenience store, BP. Customers are still walking in and out. How dangerous can it be?”
Sighing reluctantly, BP puts the rig in gear and we cruise slowly up the street. We find a man in his mid-fifties sitting in the parking lot next to a sizeable puddle of partially congealed blood. He’s sitting up, still leaking blood from his nose.
At least, I think it’s his nose. It’s hard to tell because the poor man’s face is wrecked.
I kneel next to him and gently place one hand on his shoulder. “I’m AD of Borg, Sir. Can you tell me what happened?”
He turns his face blindly toward my voice, and facing an empty section of parking lot, replies, “Nuttin.”
Pheeewwww. Bourbon breath. Just how much you had to drink, buddy?
“Nothing, huh?” BP observes sarcastically. “If you didn’t such an honest, uh…face, I’d say somebody kicked your ass.”
“What’s your name, Sir?” I ask.
“Felix LeJeune,” he answers agreeably, although through the grotesquely swollen lips and the drunken slur, it sounds more like Feebleshoom.
My mind sometimes fixates on some twisted little observation like that, and it’s all I can do to banish the thought. If I’m not careful, I’ll wind up calling him Mister Feebleshoom for the rest of the call.
“Who beat you up, Felix?” I ask. “And with what?”
“Leroy Johnson hit me,” he answers, “with his fists.”
Leeblejossa Hibmee Wittifix? Did his mother not like him or something?
A bystander notices my consternation and offers her translation. “He says Leroy Johnson beat him with his fists. I saw the whole thang, too.”
“So what happened?”
“He brung me up here to pay mah phone bill and get a carton of Newports, and when I come out tha sto, Leroy had him on the ground, jest a beatin’ on him.”
“And he only used his fists?” I ask incredulously, looking at Felix Lejeune, aka The Elephant Man. “Was he knocked out?”
“Naw, he been awake tha whole time,” the woman assures me. “I tole him ta call the po-po, but he ain’t want me to. So I jest called tha amma-lance instead.”
I shake my head in wonder and turn my attention back to Felix. When I say he got his ass kicked, I mean a world class ass whippin’. Beaten like he stole something. Or slept with the wrong man’s wife. Both of Felix’s eyelids are swollen the size of tangerines, the pupils completely obscured. His lips and cheekbones are pulp, his nose is obviously broken, and his mandible too. He makes Sly Stallone at the end of Rocky look downright pretty.
I walk my fingers down Felix’s cervical
spine and ask him if he can move everything. He can. I listen to his chest, palpate his body carefully for other injuries, and find none. It appears Leroy confined his tender ministrations to Felix’s face. And as drunk as he is, Felix is also oriented to his surroundings and the events leading up to our arrival. He’s totally lucid.
As sure as God made little green apples, the armchair quarterback QA medic is going to have a conniption fit if I don’t immobilize his spine. But damn it, his exam is benign and he’s a reliable historian, even this drunk. And if I strap him down, it’s going to be one ugly fight and suctioning party all the way to the ER.
“Come on, Felix,” I grunt, helping him to his feet. “Let’s get you to the hospital where they can wire your face back together.”
“Muhfebbish dabab?” he asks me.
“Yes, your face is that bad,” I confirm. I’m gaining confidence in my ability speak Felix’s dialect of Drunkese.
BP is just finishing obtaining a set of vital signs when the back doors of the rig open, and a deputy sheriff pokes his head in. “How you doing, Mister…LeJeune?” he asks, consulting the notepad in his hand.
“Ahfeebie purblegoo,” Felix smiles drunkenly in the general direction of the deputy’s voice. The deputy looks at me questioningly.
“I think that was ‘I’m feeling pretty good’,” I translate.
“Aaahhh,” the deputy nods, then consults his notebook again. “Well, you just let the medics take care of you, and I’ll take your statement at the hospital. Your lady friend gave us a description and an address, so we’re gonna go arrest this Leroy Johnson character.”
“Aimpebbish nochobbish,” Felix announces firmly.
“He said ‘ain’t pressin’ no charges’,” I furnish. “Wait a minute,” I say disbelievingly, turning to Felix. “Whuddafuck you mean, ‘aimpebbish nochobbish‘? Dude, he caved your fuckin’ face in! You’re looking at tens of thousand of dollars in medical bills!”
“Aimpebbish nochobbish,” Felix repeats obstinately, shaking his head for emphasis.
“Drug deal gone bad,” BP mouths silently, giving the deputy a knowing wink.
The deputy and I stare at each other for a few seconds. “You heard the man,” I shrug. “He ain’t pressin’ no charges. Let’s roll, BP.”
BP climbs out the rear doors and the deputy slams them behind her, still shaking his head incredulously.
On the way to the ER, I try to pry some details of the assault from Felix, but he isn’t forthcoming with much information. Shifting gears, I try another tack.
“You’re not looking to deal out some street justice yourself, are you?” I ask. “Because you’re too old for that kind of foolishness, and you’re going to be in the hospital for a long time. You ain’t going home tonight, Felix.”
“Ain’t gonna whoop on nobody,” he assures me. “It’s over.”
“Look, this ain’t like some bar fight where you buy each other a beer afterwards and then go hit the titty bar together,” I point out. “Somebody beats you as bad as he did, he was trying to do you permanent harm, Felix. He needs to be punished.”
“Ahbleebafa gibness,” Leroy mumbles. “Gobble jushleeblejossa.“
“Yeah, well I believe in forgiveness, too,” I mutter, “and God will indeed judge Leroy Johnson. But if the bastard had beaten me like that, I’d be trying to arrange the meeting as soon as possible.”
When I wheel Felix into the ER, we are met with impressed stares by the nursing staff, and a low whistle from Dr. Godchaux. “Now that’s what I call a beating,” he murmurs appreciatively. “What’s this gentleman’s name?”
“Mister Feebleshoom,” I say automatically.
Kevin pauses at the patient board, a dry erase marker in hand. “You wanna spell that for me, AD?”
“Uh, I meant Felix LeJeune,” I correct myself, blushing like a tomato.
Chuckling, Kevin scrawls “FL, assault” in the empty spot next to Room Ten on the white board. We lower the stretcher outside Room Ten and help Leroy to his feet, and steer him to the bed.
“I’ll be in to see you in just a moment, Mr. LeJeune,” Dr. Godchaux calls out. He turns to us as we step outside the room, “So, any loss of consciousness? Presumably the cops are on their way here to take his statement and document his injuries?”
“No loss of consciousness,” I confirm, “and the parish deputies are on their way here. Not that it’ll do much good,” I add, perhaps a little too loudly.
“Aimpebbish nochobbish!” Felix shouts defiantly from his room.
“He ain’t pressin’ no charges?” Dr. Godchaux repeats wonderingly, in no need of translation. Work fifteen years as an urban ER doctor, I suppose you gain a certain degree of fluency in Drunkese. Godchaux shakes his head knowingly. “Drug deal gone sour, I’ll bet.”
“That’s what I said,” BP agrees.
“I think you’re both wrong,” I disagree. “I rode in with the man, and we chatted. I believe I have gotten a glimpse into his heart. My guess is, he was sitting out in the parking lot, drinking a wholesome glass of milk and holding his daily devotional with his good friend and fellow Christian, Leroy. There ensued a spirited theological debate, perhaps over differing interpretations of church doctrine. Things got heated, and it erupted into regrettable violence. Obviously, a Christian man doesn’t go bust a cap in someone’s ass when such disagreements inevitably occur. A Christian man forgives, and turns the other cheek. And I think it’s obvious that Felix LeJeune is a fine, Christian man. You should both be ashamed of thinking so poorly of him.”
Bitchy Partner and Dr. Godchaux just stare at me dubiously.
“Or it could have been a drug deal gone bad,” I hedge. “Whichever.”