Labors

Stoney wobbles up and raps at my window with scabbed and bloody knuckles. The window whines as it goes down.

“Boss. You got a cigarette?”

I don’t. I quit a week ago. I give a nod to Morgan sitting beside me. He shakes his head, won’t look at me.

“C’mon, man,” I say.

From the face he is making you would think I had asked him to take my Sunday, a twenty-four hour long shift, but he starts rummaging in one of the secret pockets inside his jumpsuit, pulls out a pack of Parliaments, and hands me one. Everyone hates the jumpsuits, and to be fair they’re pretty ridiculous. We look like airplane mechanics. But I like them.

I pass the cigarette to Stoney. His smile reveals some gaps, but the teeth he does have are surprisingly white. He holds his lighter upside down to get to the last bit of fluid inside, and manages to strike a flame. He stares at me with a squinting, milky eye, the smoke swirling lazily around his head.

“Stay out of the underground,” he says. “You can’t help but leave something behind. Never be the same.”

I don’t know what the hell he means, but I get a little knot of anxiety in my gut as he lurches away down the sidewalk into the crowd of students and shoppers. I wonder how Meg is doing, if she’s wondering about me.

“Prophecy.” Morgan punches my shoulder.

Stoney makes all sorts of cryptic statements. Sometimes they come true.

*

I don’t make plans. Things happen to me. Becoming an EMT is something that happened to me.

*

We’re parked outside a Thai place eating dinner when the radio crackles.

“270. What’s your location?”

I flip the lid of my drunken noodles closed, wash down a last bite with a sip of Coke, and slip my phone into one of my pockets. I had been surreptitiously looking at photos of Meg and I from our trip to Europe, her “dream trip.” She planned it, booked the plane tickets, made all the reservations. The photo I keep coming back to is us standing in front of a painting: Hercules dragging Cerberus, the vicious three-headed dog, from Hell. You can’t tell from our smiles, but we’d been arguing the whole day. I remember being angry and exhausted, sick of her leading me around and cramming a million things into every single hour of the trip. But whenever I look at that picture now, I find myself imagining it was real, that our smiles were the truth.

I pick up the mic. “270. Central Square.”

“Stand by.”

The woman on the other end of the radio is Susan, the daytime dispatcher. Susan works sixty hours a week in the tiny dispatch office at the tiny ambulance company we work for. She is round and pale and has nothing behind her eyes, not that I can see anyway. Nothing like Shaughnessy, the night dispatcher, that complete psychopath. He’s got all sorts of awful behind his eyes.

Morgan has his fingers crossed, holding them in front of his face.

“270. Take the call. Mount Auburn Hospital. Patient in the ER going home. Priority three.”

Morgan groans. “Fuck you, Susan.” 

I acknowledge and hang up the mic. Mount Auburn is all the way on the other side of Cambridge, there’s no way we’re the closest. Either everyone is busy, or Susan is doing some other unit a favor, or she just doesn’t like Morgan and I.  

“Don’t worry,” I say. “We’ll milk it. For real. We’ll make it our last call.”

“It better be.” Morgan is shoveling curry into his mouth as he talks. “I cannot stay late again. Lisa will lose it on me.”

I nod and pull out into traffic. “I got you.” 

Getting a last-minute call isn’t so bad for me. I have seniority over Morgan even though I’ve only been an EMT for a little over a year, so I drive the ambulance, and he sits in the back with the patient and does the paperwork. I live in a dilapidated house in Brighton, five dudes in a five bedroom house, all students except me. I’ve been there for three months. My bedroom doesn’t have storm windows. It’s only October but the cold is numbing at night, and when winter comes I’m pretty sure I might just freeze to death. But that’s okay. No one is waiting on me. No one will lose it if I get off work late.

*

Meg once told me she loved me. I tried to say it back but nothing came out. When I finally did say it, things had already gone bad.

*

We milk the call. Hang around in the ER parking lot for a while before calling our arrival. Wipe down the stretcher with disinfectant. Chat to nurse Wyatt about his Grateful Dead bootlegs, which always gets him going no matter how many patients are slumped in the waiting room. We chat up our elderly patient, who has a broken ankle and tells us every detail of how his granddaughter left her Darth Vader action figure on the front steps and he didn’t see it because he wasn’t wearing his glasses. We drive him slowly to his house, admiring the stately trees lining Memorial Drive with their leaves going red and yellow and orange, ready to drop any minute. By the time we arrive and leave him in his armchair in front of the TV with his sweet, fussing wife we’re only fifteen minutes from the end of our shift.

“That is how you do it,” Morgan says.

“I told you I got you.” The ambulance rumbles as I take a sharp left heading back to base. Shortcut. I’m speeding a little, rushing to get back so we can give the ambulance a quick wash and Morgan can get home. There’s a hard, little ball in my gut and I shove it way down.

“270.”

It’s not Susan. It’s Shaughnessy. Morgan and I shoot each other terrified looks. We’re only blocks from base.

“No.” Morgan is gripping the dashboard. “He must have come in early.”

“270,” I say into the mic. I press down on the gas pedal despite knowing there’s nothing I can do to protect us. 

“Porter Square T. Chest pain. Possible syncope. Priority one.” 

Shaughnessy’s voice is gravel like cigarettes wrapped around the thickest, most cartoonish Boston accent you’ve ever heard. He knows our shift is over. I can hear his happiness over the radio. It drips out of the mic and spills everywhere.

“Fucking sadist,” I say.

“No,” Morgan says. “Fucking racist. He’s always pulling this shit with me.”

Morgan isn’t wrong. I’ve heard Shaughnessy mutter slurs a few times although he’s savvy enough not to direct them at anyone. He’s racist as hell. And Morgan is the only black guy who works at the company. But I know this one is on me. Shaughnessy hates my guts even more since last week when he saw me putting in my earring at the end of my shift. He didn’t say anything, just stared at me goggle-eyed, mouth open, the gravelly faggot not spoken but implied.

“You have ALS on the way?” I say into the mic. Chest pain is automatically advanced life support, a call for paramedics, not EMTs. I turn on the siren and lights and pull a U-turn, heading for Porter Square.

The radio crackles but Shaughnessy doesn’t say anything, just leaves the channel open, breathing into his mic. I can see him sitting there with his feet up on the desk, his thermos of coffee, a beat-up paperback mystery. Smiling at nothing.

“I know how to do my job, 270. You do yours.” Long pause. “ALS is tied up.”

“Received,” I say. Morgan is shaking both middle fingers at the radio, mouthing fuck you.

The sun has gone down.

*

It was after what I did to Meg that I became an EMT. Maybe I felt like I needed to do something to balance it all out. When I think about it now I can’t remember making the decision. It feels like it was forced on me somehow, like it was fate or a penance. Now, I’m stuck with it.

*

The Porter Square T station is pretty deep underground. Deep enough that our portable radios probably won’t work so I make sure my phone is still in my jumpsuit pocket. I call us on arrival and just get a grunt in response. I park half in the bike lane and half on the sidewalk, leaving the lights flashing. The wind has picked up, and the few scabby trees planted along the sidewalk are skeletal and bare, already having dropped their leaves. We throw the jump kit, oxygen, and the semi-automatic defibrillator on the stretcher and wheel it inside the glass pavilion that is the entryway to the T. There’s an elevator and a long escalator trundling down into the earth but there’s no one on it.

“Elevator,” I say. It takes forever to come. Morgan texts furiously while we wait, silently fighting with Lisa. I hear a muffled croak and look up to see several black shapes silhouetted by the big yellow moon. They must be crows hanging out on top of the pavilion. Another croak, and the biggest shape taps at the glass. Actually, they’re all big. Maybe there are ravens in Porter Square. Or maybe I just haven’t seen a crow in a while.

The elevator dings, Morgan mutters, “fucking Shaughnessy,” under his breath and we push the stretcher on. It travels down, shuddering like the cables are going to give any moment.

*

We step out onto the platform and a strong, pungent breeze blows through the tunnel. I smell popcorn and something fruity and slightly rotted, and I don’t know why but a pomegranate springs to mind, bright red and round like a Christmas tree ornament. I’ve only eaten a pomegranate when Meg bought them on a whim at the supermarket. We had to look up how to open them on the internet, how to score the skin with a knife, pull them apart, and slough off the seeds into a bowl. I liked the pleasant pop of the seeds between my teeth, but they were an awful lot of work.

“270. Can you hear us?” Morgan is speaking into the mic clipped to the collar of his jump suit. Nothing but static. We’re on our own.

There are about a dozen people milling about the platform, some sitting on benches, staring at their phones, craning their necks to peek down the tunnel. They look like they’ve been there waiting a long time, so long they’ve become part of the infrastructure. I scan for someone who looks like they might be having a heart attack and see way down the platform is a small group of people, a couple of them waving at us.

“There,” I say. 

The stretcher clicks and clacks over the reddish-brown tiles. We don’t rush. You never run into a call. You stay calm and you think about what you need to do. The train tracks head off into the distance, gently curving like a slow river.

“Take me.” It’s a skinny man sitting on a bench in oversized jeans, oversized sneakers, and a gray hoodie a couple of sizes too small. I know him.

“Theo.” He’s a regular, a frequent flyer as we call them. He’s ten feet away but I can smell the awful sweetness of the mouthwash he’s holding in his hand. It’s still three-quarter’s full which means he still has a bunch to drink before he ends up incapacitated on the tiles. “What are you doing down here?”

“You’re here for me? I need a bed.” He staggers to his feet.

“Not this time. Head to the street and we’ll send somebody to take you.” If someone is really having a heart attack down here the paramedics will probably end up meeting us and transporting the patient. We would end up taking Theo to the ER by default. Morgan is glaring at me, so I know he’s come up with the same scenario. 

I pull the stretcher, picking up the pace. When I glance back, Theo is hobbling toward the escalator holding up his pants with his free hand.

*

I know I’m irredeemable. I always have been. It took Meg a long time—two years and a bit more—to figure it out. “You killed it,” she said. She was curled up in a ball on the sofa, holding herself, done crying, eyes hollow, haunted. “You killed everything we had planned.”

*

“He’s having a heart attack.” The woman’s gray hair is long and hangs loose down the back of her purple puff coat. She’s freaked out, I see that right away. So are the two guys who are also hovering near an old man seated on the tiles with his head down, both hands on his chest. “He’s going to die.”

I nod. “We’ve got it.” Most of the time when we get a call like this it turns out to be nothing. Someone fainted because of low blood sugar. A panic attack. Bystanders always think someone is about to die. When the old man looks up at me though, and I see his bloodless face, his grimace, the sweat pouring down, I start to worry. Morgan is already slinging the jump kit and the oxygen to the ground; I take the defibrillator and I lower the stretcher. We crouch beside the old man.

“What’s going on, sir?” Morgan is already ripping open the plastic on a fresh non-rebreather mask and hooking it up to the oxygen. “We’re here to help.”

“You took fucking forever.” I wasn’t expecting the deep, barking voice, the almost inhuman snarl. “I’m having a fucking heart attack. My chest.” He’s gasping for breath.

“We got here as soon as we could. Does the pain go down your arm?”

“My left arm.”

The sweating, diaphoresis, is a bad sign. The radiation down the left arm is a bad sign. 

“We’re going to get you on the stretcher and get you to the hospital.”

“No,” he says. “No.”

“It’s okay. It’ll be okay.”

The bystanders and even the woman in the purple puff coat are still there but they’ve all backed away. This is no longer their problem. Morgan has the oxygen flowing and the bag on the non-rebreather mask is fully inflated. He tries to slip it over the man’s mouth, but he starts struggling.

“Wait!” I grasp his wrists to stop him from flailing at Morgan. “This will help you, it’s…fuck!” The old man sinks his teeth into my forearm and shakes his head back and forth ripping at me.

“Stop! Stop!” I don’t think, I just shove the old man’s forehead back and he loses his grip. Morgan grabs at him, fighting to slip the mask over the man’s mouth. I want him to succeed, not so much to help him breathe at this point, but to stop him from spitting on us, which he’s now doing. I catch a glimpse of the woman in the purple puff coat and she has her phone out, recording.

“We’re trying to help you,” Morgan shouts. 

He’s got one wrist and I’ve got the other. The old man is still writhing, and I watch as his face shifts  from terror to confusion to rage. He’s strong, breaks my grip, and punches me in the nose. I fall backwards and roll toward the tracks, hear a clatter, and watch my phone go over the edge.

“Fuck!” I sit up holding my nose. My eyes are blurred with tears and the old man has three heads, all of them staring at me with open mouths showing big yellow teeth. I blink until he’s normal again. Morgan scoots away on his ass and holds the oxygen bag protectively to his chest.

“I’m sorry.” The old man is crying. All my anger drains. He’s terrified. Then he slumps forward, falling onto his face.

I can’t feel a pulse. We’ve got the old man on his back on the stretcher and his lips are turning blue. I open his coat to reveal a white button-down shirt soaked through with sweat and try to undo the buttons, fingers fumbling. I yank the shirt open with a rip and a button flies off. His chest is sunken, covered in coarse gray hair. Morgan has the oxygen hooked up to the bag-valve-mask now, holds the mask over the old man’s mouth and begins to rhythmically squeeze, pumping air into his lungs.

“270. We need ALS.” Nothing but static from my handheld. Morgan stares at me, wide-eyed. “Defibrillator,” I say.

I grab the semi-automatic defibrillator, turn it on and go to place the pads but the old man’s chest is slick with sweat. I crawl across the tiles to the jump kit and root around inside until I find a towel then crawl back and wipe him down. I manage to stick one pad on his right side beneath his collar bone and the other on the left side. I can feel his ribs. Purple Puff Coat is still recording us. I attach the pad cables to the defibrillator and turn it on.

“Hands,” I say. Morgan sits back holding the bag-valve-mask to his chest. I have my hands in the air like someone is holding a gun on me.

“Analyzing heart rhythm.” The voice of the defibrillator has a flat, robotic authority. We all wait: me, Morgan, Purple Puff Coat, the two guys staring open-mouthed.

“Shock advised. Press the flashing button to administer shock.”

My hand shakes as I push the button. I’ve done CPR a half-dozen times and I’ve seen the paramedics shock a patient, but this is the first time I’ve ever had to use the defibrillator on my own.

“Stand clear. Stand clear.” I do as the defibrillator tells us, moving back. It chimes loudly for several seconds, then there’s a dull thunk, and the old man’s body jumps. “Start CPR.”

I wonder what the odds are that someone whose heart needs to be shocked, who needs CPR and is so far from the hospital or from real help, will survive. Not high. I start pushing down on the old man’s chest. My back is to the tracks. The far wall in front of me is decorated with a mural showing rows of green cypress trees lining a dirt road that winds off into the distance. A large owl is sitting in one of the cypress trees, staring back at me with huge, yellow eyes. Why? Why would someone paint a Mediterranean scene in the Porter Square T station? I continue compressions. 

“Analyzing heart rhythm.” 

Morgan and I glance at each other, limbs and expressions frozen, all activity stopped. The old man’s waxen face is calm and terrifying. I remember how Meg looked that day in the hospital, the bulky bandages on her wrist, the distance between us that we could never manage to cross again, and it’s the same. I’m ready to shock the old man again, ready to do whatever it takes.

“No shock advised.” Robotic. Matter of fact.

“What?” Morgan’s eyes dart back and forth between me and the defibrillator. “For real?”

Suddenly I’m moving. “Let’s get the stretcher up.”

We dart to each end of the stretcher. The old man is surprisingly insubstantial, and it goes up easily.

“Ride it,” Morgan says. “I can push it.”

I step onto the stretcher and start chest compressions again as Morgan shoves the jump kit and the oxygen next to the old man’s legs then starts slowly pushing us toward the elevator. There’s a rush of wind and a screech of brakes as the train arrives and I imagine my phone being crushed into dust. But the old man might live. Nobody gets off the train, but Purple Puff Coat finally stops recording and gets on without a backward glance.

It’s hard to do the compressions while bouncing over the tiles but I try, I try my hardest, I want to bring the old man back from the dead, I want to get him to the surface, I want it more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life. We make it to the elevator and Morgan pushes the button and I keep doing compressions, feeling something give way, a rib maybe, but I keep going, my arms aching. The elevator dings and the doors open.

I catch a glimpse of a woman walking by, turning to look, as Morgan pushes the stretcher into the elevator. Her face is pale. Her eyes are the same dark brown I’ve looked into a million times, but I can’t tell if there’s anything behind them. She turns away and the doors close.

*

I didn’t murder anyone. What I did was meet a woman at a bar, go back to her place and have sex with her, and then lie about it to Meg. At the time, I didn’t even blame myself; she had come up to me, she had kissed me. It just happened. But that’s not true. I made it happen. I did it because I knew it would end things between me and Meg, and I was a coward, and I couldn’t say what I wanted. I’ve been paying a lot for my cowardice. It’s hard to figure out when it’s enough.

*

The paramedics are arriving with flashing lights as we come outside, people moving out of the way as they pull up beside us. The cars passing by on the street are a blur, my brain is a blur, and somehow the old man is loaded into the paramedics’ ambulance and they’re taking Morgan along for the ride to help, telling me to follow behind them, meet them at Mass General. They’re crossing the river into Boston for this one, getting him the best care they can. They drive off with sirens wailing leaving me standing on the sidewalk by myself. 

Shaughnessy is barking at me through my hand-held, asking me to report, asking my location, but I turn it off with a soft click. It’s a lot, to quit. I imagine what it might be like. Quieter. Freer. I feel lightheaded in the crisp, cold air.

Putting our stuff away, I find Morgan’s cigarettes on the passenger seat. Theo is hunched on a bench nearby, his bottle of mouthwash beside him, and I walk over, offer him a smoke. He takes it, pulls out a lighter, flicks it. The little orange flame is like a beacon, and I bend toward that tiny bit of warmth, light my cigarette. I sit down on the bench and we smoke together. I look for the crows but they’ve vanished. I feel the faintest vibration in my body, another train arriving underground, deep beneath our feet.