Most of it is gone, now. No chance of it coming back. No walks on the beach through the tall grass, the hot sand burning the soles of her feet, running toward the water and feeling the cool water of the Atlantic soothe the barely bearable pain. No more romantic nights at her favorite restaurant, talks of future plans over a bottle of wine and an appetizer, then some dancing till midnight. There will be no parties at the house, no more friends invited for a get-together at the last minute, the days of sharing stories with her girlfriend while the men smoked cigars are over. No more raising children, and watching them take their place in the world, and then seeing them become parents, and helping that generation establish a foothold in this world, and then, those children having children. The cycle of life has played out in front of her for ninety years, and she has been a big part of that cycle, until about ten years ago, when she lost her hearing, then broke her hip, then had the congestive heart failure, and the copd, and the slow, agonozing death march began.

She has the memories, and that is about all. And pictures in the little room she shares with the other little old lady. And she has strangers who come in the middle of the night, and lift her off the toilet, and clean her bottom before putting her onto a stretcher and take her away from the last place she considered home. Then more strangers in a bright room, putting IV’s in her arms, talking to her, not knowing she can’t hear them, smiling at her, laying her back, flat, cutting off her nightgown, punching her in the chest, breaking her ribs, sticking a tube down her throat, filling her veins with adreneline, pushing her heart to its limit.

And then, declaring her dead at 0430.

It’s summer, beautiful, eighty degrees, slight breeze, no humidity. My street is dead quiet. No kids. No dogs. No lemonade stands. No sounds of kids playing in the pool. You can’t mistake that for anything, there is a certain edge to the kids voices when they are in the water, their voices carry for blocks.

Where is everybody? Summer vacation is nearly half over, or maybe it’s actually turned and on the downhill slope.

There a no kids riding bikes, boys pedaling so hard their hearts feel like bursting, going nowhere in particular but in a big hurry to get there. I’ve walked the paths that hide from most adults eyes in this place, when I had dogs to walk. Without dogs a middle aged man walking through the woods looks fishy, and that is a shame, because there is little I enjoy more that a walk down a shady path, finding a rock to sit on, stretch and relax, waiting for sunlight to break through the leaves that flow with the breeze. There is something great about the fleeting warmth, then coolness the wind through the leaves brings. A simple gift, one with no need for reciprocation except for the simple appreciation of air, sun, shade and nature.

No kids in the woods. No haphazard forts. No goofy bridges over rain  engorged streams. No 2×4 ladders nailed sloppily to trees creating a stairway to nowhere. Everybody is gone, or more likely, inside, glued to their devices. Connecting.

I’ve got some connecting to do  today. And no electricity, batteries or any other man made distractions will get in my way.

We stop the rescue in front of a bunch of cops and a struggling female. She’s six feet tall, two-hundred pounds and wound up tight. The cops immediately drag her to the rescue door, and before I get out of my seat have opend the side door and are trying to drag the fighting woman in.

“What are you doing?”  I ask, refusing to join the melee.

“She’s intoxicated,” says one of the cops, gasping for breath.

“She’s off her meds,” says another, now inside the rescue and attempting to drag the intoxicated, raging female into the truck.

For her part, the patient is spitting, biting, kicking and insulting everybody from the female officers, Ghandi, Obama and myself to unborn children.

Six cops now, still attempting to drag the lunatic into the rescue where they will close the doors and be on their way.

Not today.

“What is her name?” I ask.

“Samantha, ” answers an older guy who has been standing by, watching.

Samantha is stuck in the side doorway. She isn’t budging, the cops are exhausted.

“Tired yet, Samantha?” I ask, innocently enough.

Wrong question. She went at it full throttle. When it became apparent she might injure herself I stepped into the rescue through the rear doors, grabbed the back of her shirt and launched her into the rescue and onto the stretcher. Some fancy strap work and a pair of handcuffs later we had an immobilized patient on the way to Rhode Island Hospital.

She cried all the way there. I sat behind her, doing my best to put together a cohesive report.

I have no idea who she is, what her medical condition is, what medications she is not taking, if she really has AIDS like she claimed before spitting in my face or if I can actually do this for another year.

I spent about ten hours today listening to my custom made Classic Rock station on Pandora. If you are like me and about ten years behind the times and don’t know about Pandora, http://www.pandora.com/

you are missing out!

Top 10 Rock and Roll Moments in the “Other” Lt. Morse’s life (to date):

1983 ish  U2 with my friend Jon. A little over an hour of the most inspired singing I ever heard. The entire arena stood on the back of their seats, singing as one. Bono mentioned at one point that he should be paying us.  After the show I broke my arm while in a drunken footrace through the streets of Providence. Had a few more, went to the ER, got the bone set, got home just in time to fly to Block Island with my dad. The pilot let me take the controls. I’ve actually flown under the influence .(he wouldn’t let me land)

1979 ish Rick Derringer at Dave’s Beach, New Bedford. At the end of the show, just as Rick started Rock and Roll Hootchie Koo, The Black Diamonds, a notoriously bad motorcycle gang rolled their Harleys to the front of the stage and proceeded to party. The biker chicks got on stage and took their tops off. The place went wild, Derringer tried to continue but between the boobs, bloodshed and beer bottles in the air the show had to go. It was the first time I ever saw boobs without being involved. One of the bikers didn’t like my fascination with the show. I barely escaped.

1980 ish Dead Kennedys, Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel. The show had been sold out for weeks. I went anyway. The bouncer let me in the side door, being a regular and all. I managed to get on stage, shimmy up a pole on the side and dive into the crowd from twenty feet. Miraculously, they caught me, I surfed the crowd for a while and they planted me back on stage. I don’t remember much after that.

1990 ish Triumph Video Shoot. Another sold out show, this time I didn’t get in until after it was over. I went to Lupo’s with my friend who shall remain nameless and his girlfriend. When the club let out, I drove to The Civic Center, parked like I owned the place and walked into the backstage door, with my nameless friend’s girlfriend. They were filming the video for “Follow Your Heart.” I managed to get in the final cut. On the way home my nameless friend’s girlfriend, who was sitting in the front seat between us got very familiar with certain parts of my anatomy, and whispered all kinds of nasty things in my ear while I drove. I never told my friend. She wasn’t a keeper anyway.

1985 ish Drinks and Prawn with Ozzy. I was tending bar. Ozzy walked in with his road manager and two members of his crew. Four hours later,dozens of shrimp, three bottles of Moet and Chandon and 1 of Stoli later, after some nice conversation with a lonely man on the road named Ozzy my brush with fame ended. He gave me and my future wife backstage passes and great seats to the following night’s show.

1972 ish, AC/DC at Rocky Point. Riding bikes with my best friends. We heard a thunderous racket in the distance. As any self-respecting boy will do, we followed the cacophony. Two miles away, on the Midway was the source of the noise. We hopped the fence, ditched security and mingled our way to the front row. Bon Scott was still alive. I knew nothing about the band, but have been a fan ever since.

1995 ish, AC/DC at The Fleet Center. We got tickets at the last minute, backstage. A giant stone wall had been erected, and we were right behind it. Making the best of it, we sat back and got ready to listen. The lights went down, Angus started some brilliant guitar work, Brian Johnson appeared, sitting on a giant wrecking ball, it started to swing, eventually knocking the wall down. We had the best seats in the house.

1983 ish, REM at MIT. I have no idea how I ended up at MIT watching REM before they got big. I do remember having a great time. Later I met a topless dancer and took her out to dinner. When I came to I realized she was a transvestite. Close call, got to slow down!

1983 ish, Carlos Santana at Lupo’s. Closing time.  Roomful of Blues finishing up their set. One more song, a new guy takes the stage, hits the first notes to Black Magic Woman, the place went nuts. Carlos and Roomful rocked the place till four.

I ll leave it at that, there are so many I could go on, maybe some post down the road. Nothing like a good ole classic rock Saturday and a trip down memory lane!

Oh, one more thing. The number 1 Rock and Roll moment of The Other Lt. Morse’s life:

1985. JR’s Fastlane. Thursday Night, July 12th. 2315 hrs. Dancing with the future Mrs. Morse, she was wearing tight jeans, red high heels, a Rod Stewart tour shirt tied at the bottom, sleeves cut off, hair done perfectly wild. She was also wearing something called Clinique, a provocative perfume if ever there was one, and still a staple gift  at the Morse Mansion on birthdays and Christmas. A cover band called Strutt was playing hard rock favorites.The way she moved…

The old Lt. Morse was gone forever.

Thank God!

I’ve been reading a lot of short stories from The Clarity of Night

http://clarityofnight.blogspot.com/2010/07/uncovered-short-fiction-contest.html contest, this one written by Peter Dudley really hit home.

http://cornerkick.blogspot.com/

SMOLDERING

As slow as winter, fear seeped into our speech.

Its icy tendrils crept among our minds and
Insinuated themselves around our hearts.
Its fragments latched onto words and tumbled
Through our cabled veins on the blood
Of twenty-four seven news.

Politicians and pundits coiled and bit,
Rattling their tails and sabers.
Their forked tongues spit venomous words:
FascHISSt.  SocialHISSt.

TerrorHISSt.

We wrapped ourselves in unfurled flags
Against fear’s relentless freeze.
In the false heat of patriotism,
We danced around crackling pages
Consumed
Focused on the flames
Ignoring
Ashes that rose and collapsed
To smother us under
a silent, colorless blanket.

Buried deep, our collective soul
Smoldered and survived
Until the blue, white, and red embers
Of our better selves rekindled
Melted away our fear
To shine and sparkle once more.

by Peter Dudley

Thank you Peter!

End stage renal failure. Diabetes. Congestive Heart Failure. Hypertension.

Bag of Meds. Distraught family. Three flights of stairs.

Desperation fills the room. It has it’s own scent.

Diapers. More medications.

Two teens, tired, scared. A mother. A patient.

A life nearly over.

She’s thirty-seven. Won’t be thirty-eight.

IV failed, no pressure in the veins. Blood glucose 11. Glucagon in the triceps.

No flinch, cold, dead flesh.

Minutes pass, a flicker of the eyes, an opening.

“Hi Mom.”

Eyes closed.

Transported to the ER.

I don’t know why.

One call mixed in with dozens.  Uneventful until you look deeper. 

A two year old had his finger crushed  in a door. He’s a tough little guy, his five year-old sister appeared more hurt than he did. She sat curled in ball on a couch, crying. Above her were five framed photographs of five kids. In the middle, his picture nearly twice the size of the others was our patient. The real Harry sat on his mother’s lap, opening and closing his fingers.

“The kids were playing and she closed the bathroom door on little Harry’s hand,” explained the mom as the big sister tried to shrink further into the couch.

“It was an accident,” she said, trying to console her daughter while helping her son.

Another boy stood guard, this one about seven. Noise from above indicated other children. I glanced above the couch at the gallery.

“Hands full?”

The dad appeared from the kitchen and pointed at the boy on the far left. He was five years older than the next kid in line. His parents must have been in high school when he was born.

“He just returned from Afghanistan,” he said proudly. He’s based in Florida. Marine.”

“Harry could be a Marine, he’s a tough little guy,” I offered. placing an ice pack on the little boy’s damaged hand.”

The parents exchanged the look that only people who have been married for twenty years and have survived some wars have.

I didn’t get it until me, Mom and Harry were in the truck. The little boy whose smile lit the dingy rescue all the way to the hospital has Downs Syndrome.

Little wars, big wars. An unexpected child. Three in the middle.  Then, an unexpected challenge.

Warriors come in all shapes and sizes.

Speaking of stories, Jason Evans is hosting a short story contest at his site, Clarity of Night. http://clarityofnight.blogspot.com/

The contest is open to everybody, so if you are so inclined, stop by and join the fun.

My cheery entry follows:

Useless

“What good are they if you can’t eat ‘em?”

“They’re pretty.”

“Pretty useless.”

Gallant tossed the stones into the water, picked up the seaweed, shook off the sand and ate it. All of it. He didn’t offer Beatrice a thing. Ever.

The stones sank to the bottom of the pond, nestling into the mud. Beatrice stripped off her clothing and dove after them. Gallant watched from the shore. After a few minutes he dove after her, grasped her hair and fought for the water’s surface. Beatrice didn’t offer any help; she never did. Eventually, he broke through, inhaled sharply and pulled his wife’s head above the water. She didn’t take advantage of the air, having made her decision the moment she saw the stones.

Gallant waited a moment, found treading water increasingly difficult, then let her go. She sank, and covered the pretty stones with her dead body.

Back on shore he shook the sand and fleas from his tenth wife’s wedding dress and stuffed it into his pack.

There will be other wives.

“Listen to him,” my young friend said, sipping a cold brew while sitting next to the pool at my daughter’s new home. “That’s the real world he’s talking about.”

As often happens at parties, my job as a  firefighter, EMT in Providence becomes the topic of conversation. With very little prodding people who know me know they will get an entertaining story. I have more stories than Aesop. I’ve retold some stories so many times I’m not sure if they are even true. I’m sure the basis of truth is there somewhere, but with the retelling the details get more graphic, the events more astounding and my role in the story much more heroic.

There are daring rescues, such as the woman who locked herself and her infant daughter in a rear bedroom then set the place on fire. We fought hard to get them out of that mess, hauling 1 ¾ line up three flights of stairs, forcing our way through a heavily barricaded entry, battling smoke and fire, finding the tomb the distraught mother had encased her and her baby in and liberating them.

There are ghostly retellings of tragic death. A man buried alive comes to mind. Hours of digging in a vacant lot where an excavator inadvertently dug his own grave, digging slowly, looking for the body, finding his hand, then his head, finally removing the body slowly as a crowd of spectators lined the hole, their silhouette forming an honor guard of sorts as the sun set behind them.

There are hangings, shootings, stabbings and mutilations aplenty to keep my listeners rapt attention. People love being on the inside, hearing first hand what the news media is unable to learn. It is a voyeur’s paradise when I get on a roll. One of my favorites involves the man whose testicles were the size of basketballs. A varicose vein behind them burst, they sat in a puddle of blood on his living room floor.

“Ya gotta lift ’em out of the way to stop the bleedin’!” he said, sitting at the edge of a filthy couch, smoking Marlboro’s, drinking Bud, listening to Metallica so loud paint chips fell off the walls.

There’s something about body parts that titillates just about everybody, especially when those body parts 1. Belong to somebody else, 2. Are excessively large or small and 3. Have managed to become the central part of a story.

I do love a good story. And I have lots of them. I try never to disrespect anybody, but as long as my patients remain anonymous, it doesn’t hurt to share them with people who love to hear them.

Problem is, it’s not the “real world” I’m talking about. The real world is right here, right now. We create our own reality, and sitting by the pool at my daughter’s new home is the reality I prefer.

As long as I can keep from becoming the topic of somebody’s story, the happier I will be.

I kept an eye on the patient while calling the hospital, just in case she started to levitate.

“Hasbro ER, this is Doctor SoandSo, go ahead.” 

“Providence Rescue 1, seventeen year old female, conscious and alert, currently under the influence of Demonic Possession, vitals stable with the exception of a slightly elevated heart rate.”

“ETA?”

“Two minutes.”

“Thanks, see you when you get here.”

You just know it’s been a long, hot summer when you can’t even get a rise out of the doctors.

I performed an exorcism en route. I think the demon left the seventeen year old and entered me. I have an odd desire to harm just about every person who calls 911 for rides to the overcrowded ER. Twenty-two calls in the last twenty-four hours, no emergencies.

http://www.projo.com/news/content/Providence_Strip_Club_Slaying_07-12-10_NKJ5R6_v13.1915562.html

An under 21 Strip Club that stays open until 0500 hrs? Never a good idea.

Funny how quickly the illusion of erotica and beauty is shattered by bright fluorescent lights. The girl, who moments ago captivated her crowd of twenty admirers with her sultry swaying, bleary eyed come-ons and spread legged suggestions didn’t look so good lying on the floor next to empty condom wrappers and mouthwash bottles. Her confidant stage swagger dissipated, as soon as the heroin entered her bloodstream, now just a simple girl, whose dreams were put on hold, overdosed, lying among the pubic hair, piss and who knows what other bodily fluid on the floor in the “Ladies Room” of a sleazy strip club in a sleazy part of the city full of sleazy people from all over.

There is no fun in this place. The women hold a temporary power over their admirers, but as soon as they leave the stage, or lap, of the people who pay not for their wit, charm, sexiness or personality, but rather her body parts, they become insecure, plain and boring once again. When they leave the club, their boyfriends count the money, score some crack or heroin and start to party. But the party was over a long time ago. Probably long before the girl ever entered the strip club and took off her clothes for a crowd of dead eyed men looking for a cheap thrill.

I hate these places.They destroy everything that is good about human sexuality and reduce it to body parts on a dying shell.

My patient survived her overdose. The guy that got shot did not.

“How do you spell that?”

K-A-R-A-Z-Z-M-A.

Karazzma. She named her daughter Karazzma.

Karazzma had stuffed some Play-Doh up her nose. Karazzma’s mom, an eighteen year old girl with another child a few months from being born and named Shazzam or something fussed over her daughter as we rode toward Hasbro ER. She insisted that a doctor tell her that Karazzma was okay, my opinion mattered not, even though I mentioned my own daughter had stuck a penny up her nose and lived to tell the tale, without having a doctor involved.

“I take care of my babies,” she said, proudly.

“Some of them other bitches wouldn’t have bothered to be responsible. They would have just let their baby be.”

Karazzma’s father, referred to as “my baby’s daddy,” was nowhere to be found. A married couple with a child, and an income is not entitled to the same benefits that a single female head of household is. There is no incentive to get married, and raise a traditional family, there is too much to lose. The baby daddies go their own way, free to be baby daddies to other women. There is no responsibility, no accountability, no repercussions.

Karazzma’s mother reached into her purse and retrieved the state issued and paid for medical card. Engraved on it are the important words.

Emergency Room co-pay   $0

Doctor’s Office co-pay      $0

Prescription co-pay    $0

Expecting Zero from parents  makes it easy for them to delude themselves into believing they are being responsible.

We arrived at Hasbro, and walked the children into the waiting room, to join dozens of other “responsible” people there for “free” services.

It’s cold down there, in the basement. No lights. The bulb is either broken, burned out or never was. Light beams from the cops flashlight lead the way. Down the stairs, stepping over some laundry, boxes, spiders and some tools appear then dissapear depending on the direction of the flashlight beams. They crisscross, casting shadows, illuminating corners, then move on, moving forward toward the back room.

Ladder 5 got there just before us, Joe told me he was dead. One of the cops agreed. Still, I had to see for myself. Not morbid curiosity, I’ve seen enough, but somebody had to declare him dead. Today, that somebody was me.

The light shined into the back room. In the spotlight, for the last time was our victim. Sitting on a wooden chair, extension cord doubled up, tied around his neck, thrown over a drain pipe and tied together haphazardly. Just a simple square knot, but tight now, the weight of the body creating tension in the wire. It will be imposable to undo that knot, I thought as I looked at the body. Impossible to undo that as well. He looked like a wax figure from the Ripley’s Believe it or Not Museum I visited at Niagara Falls when I was ten. I had nightmares about that place for years. I won’t be surprized if this guy shows up some night when I least expect it.

He was cold. And dead. And had been for a while, probably sometime last night. While the rest of us enjoyed the holiday, family, friends, some fireworks maybe, he drank a few beers, had a few smokes and hung himself in his cold, dark basement.

I left the chilly basement and the dead body, shaking off the creepiness of it all. In a few hours, or days I’ll have forgotten most of it.

I’m not so sure about the ten year old girl who found him and called us.

“Rescue 1, to Fire Alarm, advise the ER we have a twenty year old male, unconscious, multiple gunshot wounds, 80 over 40 heartrate 140 with shallow respiration’s, ETA two minutes.“

“Roger, Rescue 1, they have been notified.”

The mighty hunters bring their prey to the starving villagers, the bloody carcass dragged through the gauntlet, hungry eyes following the procession. They breeze past other, lowly hunting parties, whose contribution to the feast retreats to the background, invisible now that the Level 1 A is here. The village buzzes with excitement, games stopped, naps interrupted, lowly tasks put aside.

The village elders, dressed in their white robes leave their comfortable rooms and converge around the feast, touching it, probing it, sticking needles into it, shining light into its eyes. They order some underlings to skin the creature of its outer fur, leaving it naked under the harsh light .

The mighty hunters retreat, and tell the less successful hunting parties of their heroic feat, how they prowled around Potter’s Avenue and waited for the opportune moment to strike. “The city was angry,” they say, as their audience listens with rapt attention. “The radio told us of a wounded beast, huddled in some bushes, or maybe in a shelter next to a cave. We charged, found the beast lying in a pool of blood, fought the other beasts that had assembled, drove them back and captured our victim, strapped him to our stretcher, immobilized it, drugged it and brought him home.”

The other hunters can only wish they were there as they listen. Songs will be sung, stories told about this feat for generations, the legend growing with each telling. Children will listen, and dream of the day that they, too can join the hunt.

The hunters return to their cave, and wait.

“Rescue 1, in service.”

If  the signers of the Declaration of Independence could see what has become of  “Independence Day” they would puke.

“…And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

What we have created is an insult to the sentiments expressed in this quote taken directly from the original declaration. We are a secular society. Blue vs. Red. Black vs. White. Rich vs. Poor. Corporate vs. welfare. Union vs. management. Even our divisions are divided. Public sector unions vs. private. Fiscal conservatives vs. cultural conservatives. Fiscally conservative liberals vs social liberals. Racial divisions exist even among people of the same race. New Blacks vs. established Blacks, Dominicans vs. Peurto Ricans, Vietnamese vs. Chinese.

Every man for himself, and let “Divine Providence” sort it out.

Our government needs to give up over governing and let our people be.

“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

Have “We the People” given our consent to this train wreck we call our government? Corruption reigns at all levels of government. City Councils, State Legislatures, the Congress of the United States, the Presidency. Sure they claim nothing illegal is going on, elect or appoint ethics commissions and all that, but what has become of our government is corrupt at its very core.

Our leaders are winners of popularity contests funded by political parties whose philosophies change in the direction of the money flow. An honest, ideological person who by some miracle wins an election is quickly indoctrinated into the abyss of favors, deals and alliances that render him useless, except as a tool for the entrenched powers whose once noble vision of a government whose primary purpose is to provide an environment guaranteeing “Unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” has become a nightmare of greed, self-serving and power grabbing.

“Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,” is quickly being replaced by “Existence, Government Dependence and the Pursuit of Escape.” Did you ever wonder why suddenly our society is inundated with distractions? Cell phones. I-pods, Facebook, X-Box, Networks. What happened to friendship, conversation, quiet nights, introspection, and peace of mind? How long have we lived a life without fear, remorse or guilt? Somebody always wants something from us, needs something or demands it.

Self-made and maintained happiness, the very essence of what the signers of The Declaration of Independence risked their lives, fortunes  and sacred honor for is ridiculed by present mores and values, questioned by society and looked upon as selfish and abhorrent when compared to what is considered civilized by today’s standards.

I am tired of apologizing for my success. I’m tired of being forced to support an ever increasing burden of social programs. I’m tired of feeding school kids breakfast so their parents do not, tired of providing free health care to illegal immigrants, of providing housing to people who refuse to work, tired of speaking Spanish to people who live here, take  the benefits  but contribute nothing, tired of people who take it all for granted, swear in public, spit on the ground, flick their cigarette butts  onto the streets and dress like thugs. I’m tired of people expecting a free ride.

I’m tired of my government existing to make life easier for a population all to eager to have life made easier for them.

“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

That’s about all. Thanks for reading.

Addendum: http://rescuingprovidence.com/wordpress/?p=371#comments

I warned you about the bi-polar nature of the blog author!