Life and Limb
Chapter 1 (Roy)
A companion piece to the Season 2 episode Audit, written by Preston Wood and directed by George Fenady. Dialogue from this episode is underlined. I made a few tweaks to the episode as aired. I do this for fun not profit; the characters (with the exception of V.A. Columbus) are not mine but the mistakes (without exception) are.
Above me, I hear the creaking, groaning wood. Splatters of wet concrete fall all around me, like oversized drops of dangerous gray rain. 'There's sixty yards of concrete up there. When that thing lets go, it's gonna wipe this place clean.' The foreman's words echo in my head. My patient's right leg is skewered on a piece of rebar, his left leg is broken. Johnny is wedged underneath part of the debris surrounding Milt – the patient, his name is Milt – trying to cut through the rebar. Johnny won't give up, I know, but there might not be enough time. I'm next to Milt and hear another loud groan from the wood. Up top, I know there are men working feverishly to reduce the pressure on the form above us, to prevent the concrete from bursting through – a gray fountain of death that could sweep us all away. Down the road, I know there is an ambulance with Joe Early, MD, FACS, in it, speeding toward us.
I don't want to do this. But look at the lives at stake: Milt, Johnny, me, perhaps even the foreman and the rest of our crew.
Versus one leg … which Milt has already suggested he leave behind.
The saw is in my hand.
Between the pain meds and the tourniquets, his leg is numb. I know if I'm going to amputate, I need to do it soon. The concrete splatters are becoming more pronounced, the groans louder, the face of the foreman grimmer.
I see Captain Stanley's eyes. He knows the math as well as I do, better maybe given those experiences in Korea he doesn't talk about. We share that, Not Talking About The War. Our own separate wars, true, but that doesn't seem to matter.
Whatever I'm going to do, I need to be doing it.
The saw is in my hand.
=+++= / +====
Milt called me 'doc' earlier and I almost lost it. Just for a second, I was back in Nam. I guess it was the way Milt said it, like he'd said it in grim circumstances before. The men would yell 'medic' when they were hit, but they'd call me 'doc' once I was there beside them. 'Come on, doc, give it to me straight,' they'd say. I always tried to.
"How long will it take?" Milt asks, echoing those too-young voices. He knows I don't want to do this, but time is running short. He's asking me to cut off his leg and save his life.
I look away, I can't meet his eyes. "Oh, not too long," I respond. I swallow hard against the bile that suddenly fills my throat. Milt tries to convince me it's the right thing to do: he doesn't dance, he doesn't bowl, most of the time he's just sits around, he's got a strong union, he'll get a desk job. He's trying to comfort me, instead of the other way around. I almost laugh. If this is any indication, this guy can survive the psychological trauma of amputation.
I'm just not sure I could deal with hacking off another man's leg.
I delay my decision, leaving Milt for a moment to call Rampart again.
"Rampart, we're runnin' out of time. This man wants me to take off his leg. What am I gonna do?" I'm pleading here, wishing I didn't know I have the skills to do this, wishing I didn't have the procedure in my head, wishing most of all I didn't have the experience in my hands.
"51, I can't advise you on that. Nobody can. Whatever you do, you've got to decide."
The knot in my stomach is growing. I swallow. "I understand. 10-4, Rampart." I look up at the wall, watching another small board pop, another small jet of concrete shoot out. I glance at Hank. Before I realize it, I'm back beside Milt. I'm sweating now, knowing the decision I have to make.
The saw is in my hand.
More pops, more creaks. Milt pleads with me to get it over with, telling me he knows what he's talking about, that this thing is gonna let go and soon.
'There's sixty yards of concrete up there. When that thing lets go, it's gonna wipe this place clean.' The foreman's words in my head again. He knows the score, and I'd bet he knows it the same way Cap and I know it, the way Milt knows it.
I look up at the wall again, breathing hard, then look away. I lick my lips, trying to dig the salty sweat from the corners of my too-dry mouth. The saw is in my hands. I lock my eyes onto Milt's and I start to form the words – .
"I got it!" Johnny shouts, head popping up from under the debris. "He should be clear now."
I want to kiss him, to hug him, to shake his hand, to pat him on the back. My partner has come through and saved the day again. "Great," I say, relief washing over me. "Let's get out of here!" Chet comes over to help Johnny lift Milt out, and carry him to the Stokes Marco has ready. Milt screams when they jolt his leg setting him into the Stokes, but I think it's a beautiful sound compared to the screams stored in my head, the screams I've been trying not to hear again.
Cap and the others lift the Stokes and we head out quickly, Lou the foreman leading the way. Johnny packs up the biophone. I've got the drug box and the hacksaw, which I no longer see as an improvised surgical tool, but as an implement designed to cut through metal bars, lead pipes, stubborn chains, hard plastic, wood if need be, all kinds of things.
But not human flesh and bone. At least not today.
=+++= / ++===
"Sure glad that was you back there, not me," Johnny says as we leave Rampart.
"Thanks," I reply with light sarcasm, a bit shaken by this admission.
"Just being honest," he says with a tired shrug. I know he is, and I don't blame him. The look on his face – when Lou first suggested amputation (although not in so many words), when Milt, a few seconds later, reached the same grim solution to the problem of how to get a trapped man out of a pit about to be filled with a choking gray flood of concrete – was an instinctive rejection of the idea. When he popped up to announce he'd gotten through the rebar, the presence of that hacksaw in my hand wasn't lost on him. I couldn't really be sure what he thought of me.
I climb into the squad with a heavy sigh. Johnny settles into his seat with one of his own, then leans forward, grabs the mic, draws a breath to put us back in service – .
And lets his mic hand fall into his lap instead, turning toward me.
"What were you gonna do back there?" Johnny asks, voice rough with emotion. It's a question I've been asking myself. Would I have done it? Was I about to tell Johnny to give it up and move over so I could – ?
"I don't know," I say, meeting his eyes. I have to meet his eyes when I answer him; maybe I'll be able to see his thoughts, divine his opinion of me now. "I really don't know." I lick my lips nervously. Then I stare through the windshield, trying to sort out what I'm feeling. I can sense Johnny's eyes on me then he picks up the mic and makes us available. I start the engine and pull out, each of us silent, tired, and lost in our own thoughts.
=+++= / +++==
The rescue gods were kind to us the rest of the day. We had enough calls to keep us busy but they were mostly bread-and-butter runs: difficulty breathing, possible heart attack, even a kid with his head stuck through the bars of a metal fence. The only MVA we rolled on didn't even require a pry bar to gain access to the victims. The runs were well within my comfort zone, unlike that run at the construction site.
Now, however, it's almost two in the morning, and I'm still not asleep. The dorm is cool, quiet. I can just isolate the breath sounds of each man, so deeply asleep are my shiftmates, my brothers. A splash of moonlight through the window enhances the serenity of the moment. I close my eyes again, hoping that all I'll see is the inside of my eyelids.
Fat chance.
As quietly as I can, I get out of bed and pull my turnouts on, hitching the suspenders over my shoulders as I step lightly through the room. I need to make a couple of phone calls. I use Cap's office, knowing I'll be able to close the door.
=+++= / ++++=
I hate waking Joanne in the middle of the night, because I know what it does to her. As soon as she picks up, I take care of the preliminaries: "Jo, it's Roy. I'm okay; Johnny and the guys are okay." I say the words slowly and distinctly, so she can't misunderstand them while the fog of sleep is still clearing. When I hear her sigh of relief, I continue. I don't need to tell her there was a tough run; she knows that's why I'm calling at 2:30 in the morning. "Hon, I need a phone number from my green address book. It's in the nightstand." I can hear her turn on the light and open the drawer, rustling around for a moment. "Can you give me the number for V.A. Columbus? … Sorry, it's under V, not C. … Yeah, I got it. Thanks, Jo. … Love you, too, Mrs. DeSoto, more each day."
I hang up the phone, content for just a moment to wallow in the depths of my wife's love, to fortify myself. You're a lucky man, DeSoto, a very lucky man, I tell myself, not for the first time.
Then I dial the number she gave me. The phone rings several times before someone picks up, but I expect that.
"V.A.," the still-familiar voice says. I'm relieved; there are a lot of crossed-out numbers on that worn page.
"Vee, it's Roy, Roy DeSoto," I half-stammer into the phone.
"DeSo! How ya been, man?" comes the warm response, even though it's the middle of the night there, too. DeSo. It's been a long time since I've heard someone call me that. Memories flood through me, between one breath and the next, sweeping aside the outer perimeter of my defenses.
"Been doing pretty good, Vee, pretty good," I reply, thinking that, for the most part, it's true.
He hears the lie in my voice, knowing like Joanne does that Roy DeSoto doesn't call in the middle of the night just to chit-chat. "DeSo… what's got you jacked up enough to call me?" I can't say anything for a moment; I know he can hear the roughness in my breathing over the phone. "Talk to me, or I'll come out to LA and kick yo' skinny white ass, doc!"
"You can't," I say, choking on my next words, my throat so thick I think I'm going to suffocate. An old maelstrom of guilt and grief swirls around me, pushes me to fess up. "I made sure of that."
"Man, are you stuck in that hole again?" Vee says, regret and dismay coloring his voice. "You know you saved my life. You know you had to take off my leg. You know you did right by me, straight on down the line. You know it, DeSo. You gotta stop taking this trip. That's an order."
"I know," I whisper. "It's not what I did to you, not exactly…."
"What you did for me, buddy, for me. Not to me." We've covered that ground before too.
"I know," I say, a broken record, rubbing my hand across my eyes. When my fingers come away wet, I'm glad I decided to use the office. I don't want one of the guys to come in and find me all teary-eyed.
"Then let me ask you again, what's got you jacked up enough to call me in the middle of the night? Take a deep breath and just tell me, man. I got your back."
I got your back, he says, and I don't care if it sounds like a cliché because he really does and I want that comfort right now. It's like a macho version of Joanne's love, which is what I need right now. She'll be ready to comfort me when I get off shift, but right now, this particular brotherhood is what I crave.
I breathe in as deep as I can and hold it as long as I can and then let it out. I let it all out. "We had a run, a construction accident. They were pouring concrete in a basement and a form broke. And all this stuff – the wood, the frames, the rebar, the concrete, everything – came down and trapped this guy, one of the workers. One of th-the rods got him, right through the thigh. When we cleared enough of the crap away, I could see he wasn't going anywhere until we could cut that rod free."
"This is starting to sound familiar," Vee says dryly and I envy how well he's chained his demons.
"Yeah," I say. "And, the wall they'd been pouring was looking like it would collapse any minute, and just fill that room, wipe it clean away. That guy would've been wasted if it woulda let go, and probably taken a couple of us with it too, unless we … left him and ran."
"I believe I've played this course before, but with live rounds." Another joke.
"You know it, Vee." I lick my lips again.
"He asked you to take his leg off, didn't he, DeSo?" Vee says, cutting to the chase.
"Begged me to, told me to get on with it," I admit.
"Lemme guess. He was a brother, too, right?" It's like an Instamatic flashcube goes off in my head. No wonder my skull'd been stirred. No wonder Milt calling me 'doc' had tripped my wire. It's not like he had been the first patient to ever call me or Johnny that.
"Yeah, Vee." I give a little laugh. "He was real dark-skinned like you, too, with a sense of humor a hangman would appreciate." I pause, remembering how Vee had joked back then, saying he'd been skewered by a bee, pinned to the wall like a butterfly specimen.
"And?"
"I had the saw in my hand, Vee."
"Surgical saw, this time, I hope?" he asks clinically when I don't continue.
"Hacksaw. It was all we had." The trauma box had a few scalpels, but no bone saws. It's not like Rampart expected us to perform that kind of surgery in the field. Dr. Early would have had one with him, of course.
"Better than a K-bar, man, better than a K-bar," he murmurs, not quite able to make it into a joke. I wince, remembering. Memory lane leads in-country again. Tourniquet on, not enough morphine in to make it all good, scalpel to cut the skin, the fat, the muscle … and a lousy military knife with only a few inches of serration to saw through the bone. That's the scream you don't want to hear.
"Did you have to – ?" he asks finally, disrupting the playback in my head.
"No," I break in, able to see the familiar wood paneling in Cap's office again instead of Vee's leg, to hear Vee's now-calm voice instead of his gawd-awful screaming. "Johnny got through the rod before I could – . We pulled him out, packed him up, and took him straight in. Chances are he … and his leg … will … be fine." My breathing is rough again and I want to vomit into Cap's trash can, as impolite as that would be.
"But you're not fine, DeSo." It was a statement. And a question.
I struggle to pull my sh - stuff together and answer him like a grown man should. "When Milt suggested … takin' his leg off, my partner was shocked, you could see it on his face, the revulsion. Then he grabbed the tools, crawled underneath the debris and started workin' on that rod, tryin' to get the guy loose. And he stayed under there, workin' on it, even though he would have been a goner, … no question, … if that wall had … let loose too soon."
I swallow hard, recognizing the other demon in the room now. No wonder I'd felt like all my buttons had been pushed! A black man in a helmet begging me to cut off his leg before the wall collapses on him, … my partner crammed into a space he could not have exited in time if the wall did give way, … both of their lives held in my cowardly hands. I'm more disgusted with myself than before.
"So, while he's doin' that," I say before Vee can prompt me, "I'm openin' up my mental medical books, tryin' to visualize how I was gonna make the incision, who would hold 'im down and how, what I would use to stop the bleedin', what would be a good retractor, … how many minutes I would need to do the job, how best to protect the … the stump." Stump. I hate that word. How many times over there had I seen a stump where a leg or an arm had once been? That's the image I kept seeing when I closed my eyes tonight, bloody stumps on parade.
"If this is the same partner you've told me about, DeSo, he's a helluva rescue man. And I know, better than most, that you're a helluva medic. So, it sounds like you guys were working both ends of the problem. What's wrong with that?" He's calm and rational, I'm dropping letters like a hayseed.
"Vee, you don't get it, man. While Johnny was in the thick of it, actually doin' something to free Milt, I was … diddy-boppin' along, chattin' with the hospital in a safe zone, merrily plannin' to hack off a leg. What kinda person does that?" I ask angrily, more loudly than I intended.
"Easy, DeSo," he murmurs.
"And then, I couldn't do it." Louder.
"Don't beat yourself up. You didn't have to this time," Vee reminds me.
"But I should have amputated, dammit!" I yell into the phone. My hesitation had put everyone at risk. The safest and quickest way to get everyone out of there had been for me to take off his leg. Milt had been ready and I just couldn't do it.
"Wh-w-y-hy?"
My head spins, because suddenly I'm hearing two voices, not one, asking the same question I'm ashamed to answer. Vee's from the receiver … and Johnny's from the open doorway since I'd never got around to actually closing the door. Johnny's standing there, bunker pants on, pressing his palms against the doorframe. He's got his inscrutable face on, and, as I meet his eyes, I wonder just how much he's heard. What can he think of me?
"John," I say, not sure if his name is a question … or an answer.
