He usually called from a pay phone on Broad Street. It seemed strange seeing him in his home. The front steps looked weak, I tested them with my foot before putting my full weight on each tread. The “Beware of Dog” sign was a nice shot of self esteem for the fifty year old mutt who lay chained to the inside stairs. He put a half-hearted growl out there for anybody interested. For his sake I stepped to the other side of the entryway as we walked past.
Too bad It never rains inside, I thought as we walked through a few rooms into a rear bedroom. This place could have used a rinse. It hadn’t seen the business end of a vacuum or broom in decades. Filth festers when it has nowhere to go.
Our patient lay on a couch, seizing. His vacant stare looked past us at something only he could see, his body shaking and rigid. It was a mild seizure and only lasted a few seconds. The shaking managed to loosen an empty pint of vodka from the filthy cushions.
“He didn’t take his meds,” said a dark lady who suddenly popped out of a doorway. “Said he’d drink a corner and be all right.”
We loaded him onto the stair chair and into the bright sunshine, careful not to fall through the porch steps. He seized again when we got him into the truck. When he came out of it I asked him how much he had to drink.
“A corner.”
I thought back to the empty vodka bottle and envisioned an inch of booze at the bottom, when tipped to drink filling the “corner” of the bottle.
We took him around the corner to Rhode Island Hospital.
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