6. Sophie
CHAPTER 6
SOPHIE
M onday’s shift started off with a bang, two cars crunched together and their drivers out brawling. It took me and Miles both to break up the fight, then I patched up one driver and Miles took the other. Then the cops came and arrested them both.
Our next call was a guy who’d stepped on a tack, demanding a tetanus shot and a “real doctor.” I examined his sole and found no trace of a pinprick, and when I called Miles over, the patient piped up.
“I had my boots on.”
I gaped at him. “What?”
“The tack pricked my boot.”
“Then, how would you— Why would you?—”
“Let’s go,” said Miles.
That started a chain of silly-ass calls — a guy with a bruise he thought might be cancer. A lady who’d dropped a book on her foot. A “wreck” where some kid had got in his mom’s car and driven into a snowbank at two miles an hour. We skipped our break for a “dog bite” that was barely a scratch, and then came the call every first response team dreads: a patient trapped on a high floor, with the power out.
“This had better be real,” groused Miles, as we passed the tenth floor. “I swear, if we get up there and he’s messing around…”
I adjusted the stretcher. “It’s severe chest pain, right?”
“I’ve been on chest pain calls where the guy took a Tums, and by the time we arrived, he was totally fine.”
We eased round the corner and up nine more flights, and found the guy in the hallway writhing in pain. Miles crouched down beside him.
“Hey. Where’s it hurt?”
The guy rolled on his back, then back on his side. He curled in on himself, clutching his gut. “I don’t know,” he gasped. “It keeps spiking. It’s kind of down here, then up in my chest…” He cradled his belly and groaned long and deep.
“Is it a sharp pain?” said Miles.
“Yeah, sharp. And deep. Like being stabbed… oh, God. Oh, God.”
“Are you able to pass gas?”
The man moaned in pain.
“Any nausea? Vomiting? Diarrhea?”
The man shook his head, then seized up and screamed.
“All right,” Miles said. “Let’s get him on the stretcher. Sir, can you straighten out? Put your knees down?”
The man didn’t answer, just shook his head. We half-lifted, half-rolled him onto the stretcher, and coaxed his knees down so we could secure him. He yelled the whole time and bit the sleeve of my coat.
“Watch it,” said Miles. “Keep clear of those teeth.”
I nodded and lifted the head of the stretcher. Miles grabbed the foot and we started downstairs. Four floors down, I was sweating. Eight floors, Miles was too. The patient kept yelling and thrashing around, fighting the straps holding him on the stretcher.
“Try wiggling your toes,” I said. “To distract from the pain.”
The man kicked and howled. Miles hissed through his teeth. My arms were tingling, my fingers gone numb. A headache was pulsing behind my eyes. I felt bad for Miles shuffling down backward, craning over his shoulder to scope out the turns.
“Eighth floor,” he said.
I grunted, uh-huh . My legs were like jelly, my jaw clenched tight. Eight floors to go. Sixteen tight turns. My knees might explode by then. Or my ears, from the screaming.
“You’re doing great,” said Miles, and I thought he meant me. Then, I saw he was addressing the patient, encouraging him in the gap between screams. “Seven more floors, we’ll get you on the bus.”
The lights flicked back on at the second-floor landing, and Miles’s outraged snort almost made me laugh. But I’d run out of breath for that, so I just rolled my eyes, and together we staggered down the last flight. We loaded the patient into the bus, rechecked his vitals, and Miles stood up.
“Okay, I’ll drive. Reeves, would you?—”
Pthbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbt.
Miles stared at me. I stared at him. I thought it was him at first, farting up the tight cabin. Then I glanced at the patient, caught the look on his face, shock, relief, horror. Embarrassment. And still he kept farting, pthhh-bthhhhh-bbbbbbb-ffffffff .
“Is that… better?” said Miles, when he was done.
The patient gaped up at him, red as a beet. “Actually, yeah. I think, uh, I’m fine.”
I’d have busted out laughing, but I didn’t dare breathe. I leaned out the door, gulping fresh air.
“Let me just check your stomach.” Miles coughed, then knelt. I bent to help him unhook the straps. The patient sat up.
“No, really, I’m fine.”
Miles checked him anyway, but sure enough, he was fine. He jumped out and left us in our gross, farty bus, and Miles slumped on the cot and buried his face in his hands.
“Nineteen damn floors for that. For a damn fart.”
“Thirty-eight floors, if you’re counting both ways.”
Miles did a groan-laugh and heaved himself up. “All right. Let’s get out of here before he needs to burp.”
I laughed, and we piled back in front. Our shift was ending by then, and an idea struck me. Miles wasn’t in the worst mood, and he had to be hungry. He hadn’t eaten in twelve hours, and neither had I. Maybe this was my moment to hold out an olive branch.
“Hey, Miles?”
“Yeah?”
“Want to go grab some breakfast?”
He frowned. “What, now? We need to drop off the bus.”
“I meant after that. I’m starving. Aren’t you?”
He wrinkled his nose. “I was , till that fart.”
I bit back a sigh. So much for my olive branch. I’d hoped if we talked away from the job, without the life-and-death stress to amp up the tension, we might find some peace. Some understanding between us. Clive had watched us this morning on our maintenance check, and from the look on his face, he’d heard about our fight.
“You still have to eat,” I said.
“Who are you, my mom?” Miles scowled, then he softened. “You know what? Okay. Meet me out front when you’re ready to go.”
An hour later, I found Miles on the front bench, legs stretched out long, staring up at the sky. He stood when he saw me.
“My car’s over there.” He pointed, and I saw he was parked right by me. “You want me to follow you, or should I pick the place?”
“Follow me,” I said. “The diner okay?”
Miles nodded, and we headed over. I found us a booth while he put in our orders, and soon we were both tucking into tall stacks of pancakes. We ate in silence at first, then I broke the ice.
“So, uh, that fart call. Was that your dumbest?”
Miles laughed. “Hell, no. Not by a long shot.” He sipped his coffee. “I mean, that man was in actual pain. When he called for help, he thought it was urgent. My dumbest, let’s see…” He leaned back and smiled. “Well, we had this guy one time, called us for a zit.”
I blinked. “A zit?”
“Yeah. Like, a pimple.”
“Was it infected?”
Miles snickered. “No. But this guy got online and found this creepypasta about some girl got killed by a zit. It was on her forehead, between her eyes, and the story went, the pus backed up into her brain. And this guy believed that and called 911.”
“For a zit.” I grimaced at a forkful of buttery pancake.
“People call for all kinds of things. Sometimes, they’re stupid. Other times, they sound dumb, but you get there and…” Miles trailed off, frowning, and set down his fork.
“What were you going to say?”
“Nothing. Doesn’t matter. Hey, you did well today, keeping hold of that stretcher. That stairwell was tight, and you didn’t bump once.”
I stopped eating, suspicious of the sudden praise. “No, what were you saying? You get there, and…?”
Miles pushed his plate away. He leaned back, looking tired. “We got this call one time, me and my partner — not the one who just left, but the one before him. It sounded ridiculous, a man stuck in his pant leg.”
I laughed without meaning to. “Stuck in what? ”
“That’s what we said as well, like, what the hell? You’re stuck in your pant leg, you take off your pants. But we get there and it’s this old guy, frail as a bird. Glasses so thick they’re almost spheres. He’s got all mixed up dressing and crammed both legs in one… leg… and he’s fallen and got stuck that way for, must’ve been days.”
“Oh, no. Oh, no .”
“We check for a pulse, but he’s been gone a while. And Wood — that’s my partner — goes ‘who called 911?’ By that time, the cops are there, and they head out back, and that’s when they find his wife on the steps. She’s run to get help, and the top stair gave out?—”
“Oh, shit! ”
“—and she’s just lying there staring up at the sky. She was still alive, barely, with her neck all, uh…” He held up his finger, crooked ninety degrees. “She was trying to talk, then one of the cops, this asshole shouts out ‘That one dead too?’ And the look in her eyes, man, her light just went out. And then she died, knowing she was too late. And we’re sitting there after, me and Wood in the bus, and he says to me, why’d we make all those jokes? Because we joked the whole way, while those poor old folks…” Miles wiped his mouth. Raked both hands through his hair. “Turned out she’d been gone a few days on vacation, and she must’ve come home and found her old man like that.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” I said. “You couldn’t have known.”
Miles sucked a deep breath, held it in. Blew it out. “I showed up for my next shift and Wood wasn’t there. Never called, never quit, just disappeared. I went by his place and his stuff was all gone. All empty rooms when I peeked inside. Never saw him again, and I still wonder, is he okay out there? Is he alive?”
I had no answer for that, so I said nothing at all. I thought about taking Miles’s hand, but I didn’t know him that well. After a while, he reached for his coffee.
“This job,” he said.
I opened my mouth, then shut it again. I knew what he meant, but at the same time, I didn’t. I’d seen a couple of DOAs, but nothing like that. Nothing that hit like a bolt from the blue.
“You can’t save them all,” said Miles, like he was reciting a mantra. His gaze had gone distant, fixed on something outside. He sipped his coffee, then gulped it, then let out a sigh. “Anyway, yeah. You never know what you’re getting. Any call can be that call, the one that’ll haunt you.”
I wondered what else Miles had seen on the job, what kind of scars he bore. My stomach felt sour.
“You were right,” I said.
“What?”
“The other day. I shouldn’t have taken it so personally, you venting to Jones.”
“Oh, that,” said Miles. He still seemed distracted. “It’s like I said. It’s a high-stress job. You done with your food?” He reached for his wallet.
“My treat,” I said. “I asked you to come.”
“No, no, let’s split it. Keep it simple, right?” He pulled out a ten, and I put in ten too, enough for our breakfast and a nice tip. I’d hoped if I treated him, he might loosen up, but I got the sense all that mattered to him was the job. If I wanted his trust, I’d need to earn it there.