We do not easily suspect evil of those whom we love the most.
-Peter Abelard
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As far back as I can remember, I have been terrified of ambulances. I am not afraid of much, and not until the past few years have I really been given reason to take approaching sirens as a source of fear.
But ever since their distant wail was comprehensible I've found myself paralyzed by them.
My first experience still sticks in my memory, clearer now than ever. It was a somewhat brutal exposure to the fear too, and although I try, I can't push it away.
--
I am four years old. I am standing on the corner adjacent to my preschool, gripping Cindy's hand. It isn't my first day, but even two weeks in I can't muster any sociability to let go of my sister and join my class. The other children dart carefree over the fenced-in asphalt, conquering the playground, swinging on the monkey bars, yelling until they're hoarse and exhausted, and even then scamper at each other with perpetual toddler force. I refuse to participate in the madness.
Cindy groans and wrings her hand from my little vice grip, shaking my entire arm in her attempt to pull away.
"Mark. Just go. Go. I want to go and talk with my friends today, okay? I stood with you all last week. Please."
She looks longingly in the direction of her giggling fourth-grade posse. The clique notices and she promptly drops my hand like it's acidic, stepping away, towards her friends. She shrugs and rolls her eyes and the girls erupt into immature and heartless laughter. "Geez Mark, don't you have friends?"
"No Cindy!" I yelp and cling to her thigh.
She shakes me off and kneels, taking hold of my shoulders.
"I don't want to stand here anymore. I want to go now. Look Mark-" She instructs, pointing with her eyes. "They're gonna make fun of me because I have to baby-sit my stupid little brother. Go!"
"I'm not stupid and I'm not little and I don't want to. Go and tell them you have to stay with me until the bell rings. Who cares what they think?"
"I do. And I'm not going to. Just- go and find somebody to play with. The bell is gonna go off in like, three minutes anyway."
I back up and stick out my chest in a fit of disdain. Then I turn, facing opposite my backstabbing sister, and traipse away, hoping she'll take my obedience as a guilt trip. Instead she just snickers and skips to join her sneering group of friends.
Dragging my backpack, I push my way through the mobs of elementary school children occupying this side of the playground. I'm nearly crushed to death by half the sixth grade flag-football team as they hustle over me, snagged in one another's arms as they all scramble for the ball plummeting towards earth. The playground monitor's whistle screeches loud and long and half the sixth grade flag-football team freezes on the spot.
"Hey!" The monitor barks. "You boys better watch out for the preschoolers! You are trampling your big feet over their territory, and almost over them." She jabs a finger at me and my face is instantly on fire. "Didn't the dean tell you the field is on that side of the play structure? Be careful!"
The future jocks hang their heads and shuffle away, but almost every other occupant this side of the playground is staring at me, entranced and entertained by my disruption. Ready to cry, I look back in Cindy's direction as if to say, "See?" but she is gone.
Two seconds later the chaos ensues again and I'm forgotten, but I still think all eyes are on me. I run to sit beneath the slide and conceal my embarrassing existence from the rest of my class. I kick at the woodchips, swinging my little legs and not paying attention as a girl, maybe a second-grader, falls from the monkey bars.
She had been hanging upside down by her knees, hair dangling towards the ground, cheeks red from the distorted gravity. She had been calling the name of a friend to show off, but no one heard her and she began to pull herself rightside up to find a better means of getting attention. As she fumbled for the bar, she misjudged and slipped, hand grabbing at the air once, twice, three times before her legs could no longer support her shifting body and they slipped from their place on the bars. She fell straight down, skull bouncing off the curve of the slide before landing with a 'snap' on her neck. Then she was motionless.
No one else noticed. The monitor was too busy shepherding the football team away from the area, the girl's friends were engaged in an intense round of double-dutch, the other kids bumbled over the play structure, absorbed in the fight to obtain a swing. I wouldn't have noticed either- I was distracted with sulking- but when she landed the woodchips rustled near my feet and I was forced to look up.
She was splayed and crooked, as one may picture a body after it falls six feet from a row of monkey bars. I gasped quietly and scooted back, pulling my backpack with along defensively, as if her mangled form would snatch it from me. Then I just frowned and stared, watching silently as she strained to blink, to twitch, to move. What just happened?
"Hey." I whispered, reaching out a bit. "Hey… are you okay?"
No response.
I look around, up at the flurry of feet above me on the playground. "Hey…what's wrong?"
The bell rings.
The kids stop their pandemonium and all rush as one, off the playground and to the school, away from us.
The girl doesn't move.
"Wait!" I lisp, standing up, craning my head to find Cindy, find the monitor, find anyone.
"Hey, the bell ringed. We have to go…" I scold the motionless girl. Panic nags at the back of my mind, but moreso I'm angry. I'm going to be late.
"Hey- what's wrong? Get up!"
I reach down and shake her shoulder. She opens her mouth and a breathless noise escapes. A little trail of spit seeps down her cheek. She makes no attempt to pull her legs up straight. I don't think she's okay.
Abandoning my backpack, I stand triumphantly and lean over her crumpled frame. "Don't worry. I'm going to get Mrs. Hawley. Wait here."
I make my way- first walking, then running- to the school, where the last stragglers are disappearing into the building. Havoc proceeds inside as the children file into their classes. The preschool wing is all the way at the opposite end of the building. I push and shove and trip through the students of diminishing size, until at last I stagger into my classroom doorway, where Mrs. Hawley is taking attendance.
"Oh, Mark! There you are. Kevin said he saw you on the playground, but we weren't sure if you were here or not!"
"Mrs. Hawley." I interrupt sternly. "There's a girl on the playground. She fell off the jungle gym. I don't think she's okay."
"What?" My teacher perks up her ears, standing quickly.
"There's a girl outside. She won't come in, even when the bell rang."
"Oh no. Mark. Where is she? Can you show me where she is?"
"Come on." I urge, grabbing my teacher's hand.
In the hallway, Mrs. Hawley asks the assistant principal, who is patrolling the halls, to sit with her class, and to keep and ear out.
"Now what happened Mark?"
"She fell!" I say, slightly annoyed. We exit the building and rush across the playground. "She's under here."
I duck beneath the slide and peek down at the girl again. "I brought Mrs. Hawley." I assure her. "It's okay."
Mrs. Hawley gasps and covers her mouth. She kneels and asks the girl, "Oh my God, honey, are you all right? Can you hear me?"
Another airless squeal from the girl.
I point. "She fell from there, I think."
"Mark, honey, can you go inside and tell the secretary to call 911? Hurry Mark. This is very important."
"Is she okay? What happened?"
"I'll explain later. You need to go and call an ambulance while I stay here and make sure she's okay."
My eyes grow wide and panic strikes in my throat. "O-okay." I rasp, and take off as fast as I can to the building.
I am significantly shorter than the desk at the front office, and pound my fist on the swinging half-door to get behind the counter.
"Hello? We need help. Mrs. Hawley says to call an ambulance. There's a girl that fell off the money bars and she might not be okay."
One of the secretaries leans over the desk and smiles down at me, almost condescendingly. "What was that little guy?"
"Call 911!" I scream. "There's a girl outside and she's hurt!"
That wipes the smile off her face, and she's instantly out of sight, behind the desk, looking out the window at the play structure while dialing in numbers with one hand.
"Hello, emergency? We need an ambulance to West Point Elementary. There's a girl-" She pauses to confer with me. "What happened?"
"She fell off the monkey bars! She's not moving!" I yelp, heart thundering in my chest. Hurry, lady, hurry up!
"A student says she's not moving. I'm not sure… No, no… Yes. Yeah… Thank you."
She hangs up. "They're on their way."
Frozen, I nod, and then turn to go back and help Mrs. Hawley.
"Oh no, dear?" The secretary calls. "It's probably best you stay in here for now. Here. You can come around and sit with me, okay? Come on."
She swings open the little door and I comply, reluctantly, staring around the desks and swivel chairs, out the big window, where my teacher and the girl are crouched on the ground. The girl still doesn't appear to have changed positions.
"Honey, would you like to color?" The secretary hands me some markers in a cup and a few sheets of typing paper. I take them to the windowsill and sit down, pressing my forehead to the glass.
"I'm going to leave you here with Mr. Friedon all right dear?" The principal steps out from behind his desk and walks up behind us. "I have to let them know the paramedics are coming."
She walks briskly to the exit and soon she appears outside the window, breaking into a run.
"Hey bud. Here. Do you want me to color with you?" The principal holds a marker in my face and then proceeds to draw a shakey dog, trying to hold my attention elsewhere, away from the sight outside.
"I don't want to color. What's happening to that girl?" I ask him.
"I don't know. But the ambulance is coming. Don't worry. Here, I can take you back to class. Who is your teacher?"
"Mrs. Hawley." I jab a finger at the playground. "No. I want to see if she's okay." I glue my face to the window.
Two seconds later sirens explode the silence. The fire department is relatively close to our school, thank goodness.
I pull away from the window and gawk at Mr. Friedon. Never before have I been in such a serious situation where the doctors actually needed to come to the person that was hurt. And they were coming fast.
They whooped down the street, blaring their ferocious horn that crippled eardrums and screamed at incompetent drivers to get out of the way. My four-year-old brain could not grasp the intensity of a medical emergency. All I knew was that ambulances meant someone needed a nurse very, very badly. And if an ambulance that loud was coming that quickly, the person must be very, very hurt.
"Oh no!" Was all I could say.
I found I was paralyzed, blinded by the red and blue bouncing off the office windows. The sirens were coming closer and closer, and Mrs. Halwey ran into the street to wave them down, and she was yelling, and they were getting louder and louder, and the girl wasn't moving, and neither was I, and the lights blared, but it might be too late, and it was just red, blue, red, blue, red
red
red
red.
--
Red.
On the floor, spread on the walls, smeared on the sink, seeping over the side of the tub, and out April's wrists. Red red red red red red.
I stagger backwards and bite back vomit. This isn't real.
Breathing is cancelled. My pulse in my ears and Roger's screams. Incessant ringing. The slosh of the tub. The drip of the faucet. And Roger screaming, screaming, screaming. Sound is cancelled.
April April April, red red red.
"Oh God Mark, call 911."
It's too late.
The numbers blend together.
"W-we need an ambulance."
"They're coming Roger."
"It's too late!"
I know.
I can't look anymore. Roger can't let go.
I can't step into the red. It's forbidden.
But the red shoots through the window from the ground below. And then the blue. The colors warp. The sirens blare. Again, I am paralyzed.
"Help me!" Roger cries.
I can't.
I stumble back to let the paramedics in. To take April away. Out of Roger's grip. Out of Roger's life.
--
Roger's life means nothing. He misses the toilet, now sparkling, a hint of ammonia and four bottles of bleach still lingers in the air, and pukes onto my shirt. Third shirt in two days.
His hands shake. His eyes are bloodshot. He, "…wants another hit God damnit!"
I stand up and reach for the towel, mopping at my shirt. I exit the bathroom and lock him in.
He'll run. He already has.
The sound of vomiting accompanies me as I change my shirt and neatly hang the soiled one off the fire escape. I put on a fresh sweater and walk back to the now silent bathroom.
He's bowed over the toilet bowl, unconscious.
Rhythmically I dial the three numbers and wait on the bathroom floor, enjoying the last few moments of silence before I'm frozen by the sirens again. Third time this week.
Soon Roger recovers and it's calm for maybe a good half-year.
And then comes Mimi.
--
She's shivering. Always.
I punch in the numbers.
She's cold. She's always cold.
Roger holds her. Ironically, her AZT buzzer goes off.
"Mark, tell them to hurry." She whispers.
Her second last words.
"Roger, I love you."
Then it is silent.
Soon come the sirens.
I'm motionless. I drop the phone.
--
I drop to the floor.
I haven't eaten in days. More than a week, last time I checked.
The vertigo clenches my vision, clenches my stability.
But it's not because I'm starving.
The paramedics will say it was because of my hemoglobin. Nine pills of Flouxetine Hydrochloride will wipe that right out. There is no oxygen being delivered to my blood, they'll say. My pH levels are imbalanced, maybe beyond repair.
First I felt tired. Then I felt nauseous. Then the confusion set in and the dizziness followed, and I collapsed.
Four hours I lay on the floor of the loft. I landed oh-so-perfectly, so that I could see, but not reach the phone, and so that I was forced to stare at the Fender guitar dead on the chair until the lightheadedness terminated my vision. The pill bottle bounced somewhere in front of me and rolled under the radiator.
First I swore.
Then I regretted.
Then I threw up. Weakly I rolled out of the puddle and apologized to Roger until I blacked out.
Collins came to visit.
Four hours later of course. It was Valentine's Day. And sadistically someone had planned Roger's wake on this day too.
Okay, he wasn't coming so much to visit than as to bitch me out for missing my best friend's funeral. Well, sorry I didn't make it you guys. I was a little busy overdosing.
With the pill bottle hidden (and probably melting) under the radiator, there was no evidence as to why I was half-dead. One could only assume (and they'd be half right) that I'd collapsed of pure and utter disappointment with the world.
Collins dodged the foam trickling from my mouth to check my very faint pulse. He pulled me into an upright, seated position against the couch before dialing those three fated numbers.
Luckily I'd be in a self-inflicted coma for the next three days, so I wouldn't have to hear, or see, or experience those ill-fated sirens. It was a bit uncalled-for. I was paralyzed already.
I'm terrified of ambulances. I'm not afraid of much, but there is one thing I am slightly more afraid of.
Death.
Come on ambulances, hurry up.