FALLING, FAILING TO FIND (2009-11-03)

CHAPTER TWO

Hospitals are the worst place in the world to be, especially when you're sick. This is widely accepted but like so many other parts of life, knowing how things are doesn't have shit to do with having an alternative. What, in Noah's case, could he possibly do? It took six guys and Karla to get him up off the floor in that hallway and safely loaded onto a gurney. Everybody, including the patient, could have used a drink by that time that was all said and done. The EMT continued to shine his small penlight into the patient's eyes, then mutter something into his handheld radio about the him "remaining unresponsive". This was an odd observation, speaking more to the technician's lack of interesting stimulus to offer than to Noah's willingness to be stimulated. One of those interior moments where a couple people were focused entirely on assessing and improving the condition of a man they had never met, while two others were aware of the filth of the surfaces they were forced to work in, continually checking the latex gloves on their hands to be sure there were no rips or breeches of the antiseptic barrier they provided. All of these are important, certainly and who is to say which might be more or less important to each, given the situation and broad tableau of a lifetime, each of the participants living their own, primarily, and involved peripherally in the lives of the others. They were joined by this moment. One particular spot in time and there wasn't any point in trying to document the minutiae or draw more complex connections than there were to be had?

Which is to say that there was probably no way in the world for either Noah or the ambulance driver, much less Karla and any of the other people crammed together, to know their connection. It would be weeks before the connection was apparent to anyone there and this, right here, if it were possible to pin the "by golly, by gosh" factor to life conclusively, might find a soft spot to poke it in. Who would ever guess that Abigail Bradley, after the struggle of getting the patient into the ER at St. Thomas Sacred Heart Hospital, and a long day that had included speaking with a number of people at the counseling center and talking at length with the EMT, James, she had been assigned to the rig with, about the risks of letting her daughter get her nipples pierced or standing her ground and disallowing it, knowing full well she'd pack up, steal a car, and run to San Francisco to live in the streets. Abby figured she would, at least, be living on the streets without the risk of infection for open wounds on the tender aureoles and that, of itself, was an argument for denial,regardless of the cost to the family.

Abigal, or Abby as her friends knew her, (Abbey Road to her partners in the bone cart) had done all of this while she raced around dealing with one medical emergency after another. By the time they'd reached the Crow's Nest and contacted the reporting party she was ready for anything. The call had come in as a traumatic full arrest which could describe a number of conditions but all are arrived at by a serious fall. The fall and its serious might be predicated on a number of factors such as the speed of the person before taking the fall, their mass combined with their general state of health, or their age. This makes sense because a curb can be life-threatening to a 93 year old man weighting 86 pounds while a drop of several hundred feet from a rocky cliff to the jagged surface of stones below might just as easily result in a number of scratches and a bruise or two that would be used to punctuate the story told days later by the young healthy man who experienced it. It was relative, see? Like life.

It hadn't taken long after arrival on the scene to come to a more correct and less threatening assessment of the situation by the emergency medical professionals.

"Male, 6 feet, 250 pounds, early 60s, ETOH," went out on the radio to the crew standing by in the emergency room, readying triage and preparing for whatever might be rolling in to them next. These terms each had meeting and combined to paint a reasonably accurate image of what the situation was here on the ground. Noah was indeed a man, which he had never had any cause to question nor would they had they been standing there when he'd been fantasizing about the soft fleshy surface of a thigh belonging to a woman half his age.

"early 50's" he would've corrected them, if he could. He thought it might be important, not so much in the medical profile as setting the record straight with the young girl he hadn't gotten to first base yet. Did they still have bases? He doubted it but had nothing to go by. A woman twenty years younger than himself might still be a mother to this girl and that meant he had no real frame of reference beyond his own desire. Yes, "early 50's" seemed important, given the uncertainty.

He would have responded to the "ETOH" portion of the message if he'd been on far enough on the inside of the lingo to understand what was being passed forward as a matter of medical record. The letters were an abbreviation commonly used in the field, short for ethanol, defined by the Random House dictionary as " a colorless, limpid, volatile, flammable, water-miscible liquid, C2H5OH, having an ether-like odor and pungent, burning taste," and understood to be alcohol. Funny how dignified it could sound in scientific terms. Much more upscale than the popular "booze" or classic "hooch" so frequently referred to around the bar. Odd, as well to find himself being characterized as a scientific esters and spirits when they were actually describing a condition. A condition that people on both ends of the ambulance, sitting at the bar or waiting near the sliding doors of the hospital's ER, recognized more readily as "drunk".

Which he was and he wasn't. Noah dangled in a nether land between the two states, sober and plastered and the moment with its props and playthings might push him either way. Another shot of scotch would be enough to set the whole party wheel in motion once again, for sure. But he might just as readily turn sharply in the opposite direction with s blast of cold air from air-conditioner running in the back office for the comfort of the co-owners and guests. That would've been enough and more than enough to put him back on his feet and walking down the path he'd been hell bent on following as soon as he found heaven walking into the co-ed restroom and was anxiously awaiting when he suffered the "traumatic fall".

"Ouch! Wouldn't that hurt like hell?"

Abby didn't know but assumed it would. She knew that having a baby breastfeeding has been almost enough to set her to tears. And here was the child now seeking permission to bring the same anguish to her own delicate flesh. It is a funny world, right. A circular world and she was beginning to suspect that you were never, no matter how much you believe you were, ever quite finished with anything. Most of the things familiar in her life had been back around at least once. Not always in the same visage. She hadn't expected to find this returning to give a quick twist and open her eyes wide at the insistence of her teenager. She wished she at least had friends who were going through the same thing and might model or teach through exposition, their own ways for handling the question at hand. Or at nipple. The tip of the problem, you see?

And now they've got this drunk here and it looks like they'll be hauling his big ass all the way down to the hospital because they are not medical doctors, except in case of indigent patients that the ambulance company doesn't want to be responsible for transporting to a hospital that doesn't want to be responsible for treating or admitting them. Then they're expected to dispense such drugs and perform such treatment as might be required to get the patient up off the floor where they found and moving on to the next place they were likely to be found, in pretty much the same situation. Life, huh? Go figure. So, they did a quick assessment and decided it looked as if the guy were probably covered with some kind of health insurance and would be able to foot the majority of a visit to the emergency room even if nobody in town could afford more than that without it. This was cause enough to transport, which they proceeded to do, concentrating on almost anything up to and including the wayward half-formulated plans of her rebellious teen, except for the guy in the back.

Who was dying. He was no doctor but Noah, even unconscious, was aware of something. he was aware of something being wrong and there was nothing jumping out at him, assuring him that everything was under control and it would be taking a turn for the better very soon. It wouldn't or if it did it wouldn't be the kind of better he had hoped for. It might be one of those "better for everybody in his life but him" scenes that were popular in movies and made for a pretty good movie of the week but weren't going to be much comfort to him. He was dying and that couldn't be good for him. Not in the state things stood right now. Not as they'd stood when he'd leaned against the wall and drawn his breath, practicing the lines he was going to wow the young girl with when she walked out of the toilet and right into his love trap.