Shawn Grady - Tomorrow We Die

If the dead do not rise, Let us eat and drink,
for tomorrow we die.

SAUL OF TARSUS

Contents

I spent the day chasing the Angel of Death.

Being a paramedic can be a hard life, living in an ambulance for twelve hours a day, parked on street corners, inhaling reheated 7-Eleven burritos and Red Bull. There are shifts that wear on you, when no matter what you do, even if you run calls as smoothly as possible and do everything just right, that despite all the kings horses and all the kings men...

Death walks in without remorse.

Ive seen peoples spirits leave them before my eyes. And there is always something different in the room right then, something transcendental, as if unseen ushers are escorting a soul from this world. The entire week had been like that for my partner and me always one step behind the Reaper.

So you can imagine my surprise when we actually caught him.

The harder my partner pushed on the gas pedal, the longer 395 northbound grew.

I pounded on the dashboard. Come on, you pig.

Thats all shes got. Governors kicked in. Bones hunched over the steering wheel, bouncing his head to an inaudible rhythm.

I felt our momentum level out at seventy-five miles per hour. The management made sure to keep our speed under control, among other things.

I sat back in my seat, placing my right foot up against the dash and the door. Is this our third cardiac arrest?

He nodded. Just sifting with his scythe. Folks better break off a hyssop branch, if you know what Im saying.

I had no idea what he was saying.

But that wasnt unusual.

My partner, Thaddeus McCoy, had been called Bones for as long as Id known him. The nickname seemed especially fitting, even beyond his surname, given that he wore black medic pants not the dark navy blue like everyone else and a black leather belt that wrapped around his front with no visible buckle on it. His pants tapered down near the top of his boots, giving his uniform a 1960s Star Trek appearance. He sported a wiry body frame with pale Germanic skin, closely cropped straw-colored hair, and a well-groomed moustache that, were it shaved any smaller above his lip, would bestow upon him a Charlie Chaplinlike countenance.

Our call had come in as an unknown man down on the sidewalk at First and West, in front of the church unknown if conscious or breathing. Which, at the risk of sounding jaded, was generally code for drunk guy on the street corner. But one thing Id learned as a medic was to never judge too early. And based on the updated report wed received from dispatch, this sounded like the real thing. A couple minutes into our response the dispatcher advised us that per an off-duty park ranger on scene, our patient was pulseless and apneic, and bystander CPR had been initiated. She also mentioned that the Reno Fire Department had a working structure fire just north of downtown and their next-in unit would likely arrive several minutes after us. If this guy had a chance, we were it.

Look, Jonathan, Bones squealed in a high Mr. Bill voice, holding the radio microphone up by his side window, light posts and cars whizzing past, Im the fastest mic in the world.

I refused to respond to his impromptu puppet, knowing that if I so much as acknowledged it, I would find myself talking to a derisive plastic microphone for the rest of the shift. I turned my focus to the map book in my lap. So you want to take Mill downtown and then jog over to First and West.

This time Bones spoke in the guttural voice he uses for our ambulance, Medic Two, which through the outpouring of his hyperactive imagination has also grown a sentient, albeit simpleton, personality. Yes, Jonathan. That sounds good.... And I love you.

Thats great. I cringed with the realization that Id just validated his anthropomorphic creation.

Jonathan, in Medic Twos deep, gravelly voice he continued, I love you.

I patted the vinyl on the dashboard as if it were a horses neck. Thanks, Medic Two.

Jonathan?

Yes?

Do you love me too?

There was no escaping this now.

Yes, yes I do, Medic Two.

More than Medic Seven?

Yes, more than Medic Seven.

Good. I love you too.... Jonathan?

I looked up at the ceiling of the cab. Yes?

Im not a pig. Im really fast.

Youre right, Medic Two. My bad.

Bones greeted other vehicles in Medic Twos voice as we wailed passed them on the freeway. Hello. Hi. I love you.

At the Mill Street exit, we hit heavy traffic. Most cars pulled to the right, but one older model GMC pickup skidded to a stop in front of us. Bones locked up our brakes and laid on the air horn. I lurched forward in my seat, held tight by the shoulder belt.

Pull to the right! Bones motioned with his hands, mouthing his words with exaggeration. Pull. To. The. Right.

Getting impatient, I picked up the PA mic. Pull to the right. Yes, you. Pull to the right.

The driver turned his wheel and rolled right, giving us just enough room to squeeze by on the shoulder to the left. Bones shot a friendly glance his direction as we passed. Already five minutes into our response, the chances of our patient surviving decreased exponentially with every second lost. With permanent brain death occurring after six minutes in cardiac arrest, time was running out.

We shot past County Hospital and screamed west into the heart of downtown Reno. We wove between and around taxicabs and shuttle busses and passed weekly motels. The snow-covered Sierras disappeared behind the towering casinos. We swung over to First Street, and Bones killed the siren save for a couple whoop-whoops as he brought the box to a stop in front of the church. There on the sidewalk, in the shadow of a hundred-year-old vine-covered Methodist sanctuary, knelt a balding park ranger doing chest compressions on a pale man in a long black overcoat.

Medic Twos on scene no fire department, I reported to dispatch and opened the door. The spring air felt brisk. I grabbed the defibrillator off the gurney in back and brought it to the patients side, kneeling by the park ranger. Go ahead and stop compressions.

The patient looked to be in his sixties, sporting a scraggly gray beard and wispy hair. Yellowish vomit oozed down the side of his face. His eyes were in a fixed and dilated stare. Bones cut off his shirt. I placed the defibrillator patches on his chest and looked at the monitor to examine his heart rhythm.

Coarse V-fib, Bones. Charging to one-twenty. Im clear everyone clear. The park ranger held his hands up and glanced at his knees.