CHAPTER 3: THE QUIET GAME
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What started out as a routine call, just after his regular shift had ended, wound up having devastating consequences when a 53-year-old suffered a cerebral aneurysm while approaching the scene he was working. The pickup truck careened out of control as the sudden, intense, and fatal pain assaulted the driver's skull. The autopsy confirmed the driver had been beyond saving – absent the immediate appearance of a neurosurgeon and his team – before the vehicle clipped Derek 'Watty' Watson as he worked the pumps on Engine 51 and smacked into the edge of the front bumper.
The impact had thrown the C-shift engineer into the side of the engine then dropped him heavily to the pavement, rag-doll limp. At Hank's shout, both A-shift paramedics had raced to the fallen man, working rapidly to save Derek. The drop in water pressure had prompted Marco and Chet to retreat from the briskly-burning trash fire next to a building when Cap was unable to persuade the pump to do more than just limp along. The second engine and the ambulance had arrived simultaneously, a relief to everyone from 51s.
Despite the best efforts of the paramedics and the doctors at Rampart, Watty had lapsed into a coma. For the first two years after the accident, his parents had been almost daily visitors. Then Watty's father had suffered a heart attack. Although he'd recovered for the most part, he required more care than his wife alone could give. They lived with Derek's sister and her family now, about two hours away. There had been talk of moving Derek to a facility closer to the family but the insurance company had nixed the idea.
By default, Mike Stoker had become the most frequent visitor the young fireman had, a self-imposed obligation which he took seriously and which had become as much a part of his normal routine as showing up for work. The nurses in the long-term care unit Derek had been transferred to knew they could expect the tall polite fireman to visit once every ten days or so and stay by the comatose patient's bedside for about two hours each time.
When Stoker came to visit, he would bring a small thermos of coffee, the latest technical updates and departmental memos relevant to engineers, and a novel. He'd pour two cups of coffee, putting them on the adjustable table he rolled over to the bed. Most of the time, Mike began with a few stories about runs they'd been on recently, then moved on to the technical bulletins. Those new to the facility were always a bit surprised at how animated Stoker could become when explaining the newest technical innovations in the fire service to his unresponsive buddy, using his hands to demonstrate and drawing on the institutional paper towels to illustrate when necessary.
"Remember, if you have any questions, just jump right in and ask," Mike would say over and over again. "You'll need to know all this stuff when you get better. Don't worry though; I'll help you study for the recert." The frustrating silence emanating from the bed was balanced by the reassuring breath sounds and steady heart beats.
By then, the first cup of coffee would be empty and Mike would pour himself a second cup, topping off the half-cup he'd poured for Derek in order to warm it.
When the latest technical information had been imparted, Stoker would open the novel and begin reading aloud where they had left off at his last visit. He interspersed classics – Robinson Crusoe, Moby-Dick, The Count of Monte Cristo, Dracula, Don Quixote, Treasure Island, and The Call of the Wild – with mysteries like The Big Sleep, The Postman Always Rings Twice, One Lonely Night and The Maltese Falcon and westerns like The Way West, The Sackett Brand, The Quick and the Dead, Riders of the Purple Sage, and Shane. One of the nurses liked to spend part of her break sitting outside the room, just listening to him read, when she could.
When he'd reached a good stopping place in the novel, Mike would pull out the departmental memos and read them to Watty, joking that they were boring enough for insomniacs to use as bedtime stories. His final encouragement to the comatose engineer involved scooting the Styrofoam cup of coffee minimally closer on the table and telling Derek to drink up sooner rather than later, quipping, "Not even my coffee is all that good cold!"
By mutual agreement, the nursing staff waited until the coffee held no warmth at all before pouring it down the drain in the bathroom sink and returning the rolling table to its usual place against the wall. Stranger things had happened than someone waking from a coma due to the smell of good coffee.
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(25 August)
The run was exactly three days, two shifts, and one lifetime ago.
It had driven Mike straight from the fire station, still in uniform and empty-handed, to Derek's bedside. Once there, Stoker wasn't sure what he expected to happen. After perhaps twenty minutes, one of the older nurses noticed he was in the room but not engaged in his usual routine. She quietly brought in two steaming cups of coffee, placing them on the table which she then deftly maneuvered into place beside the unnaturally still firefighter seated by the bed. "Do you need anything?" she asked softly, certain the nice young man was in a great deal of pain.
"Just for Derek to wake up," Stoker said bitterly, voice rough with disuse, "and tell me how the hell to deal with this crap."
She was surprised by the dual layers of harshness in his tone. "Do you want to talk about it? To me, I mean?"
"No, ma'am, thank you," he said, adding automatically, "I'm sorry for my language." A fire won't mind your language, son, but a lady will, his father had once told him.
"Well, you just talk to Mr. Watson here, then. He's a good listener," she said kindly, prepared to leave him to work out things with the comatose firefighter, or himself. Sometimes that was best.
"He's not going to get better, is he?" Mike asked before she could make her exit, his heart sinking further when she hesitated. He knew the hesitation wasn't due to patient privacy; Watty's parents had been kind enough to waive that for all of the firefighters who visited their son. 'They are his family, too,' his mom had said firmly when the facility had questioned her decision.
"There's always a chance but the longer he stays in a coma, the less likely it is he'll wake up," Nurse Carson admitted. "He's doing well, considering. And," she added, hoping to ease his pain, "your visits are good for him."
"It's the least I can do."
"Oh?"
"He agreed to stay past the end of his shift because I was going to be late that morning. He was injured on the first run after shift change." Mike looked at his hands. "The run I should have been on."
"Are you here just because you feel guilty, then?" She deliberately pricked him, hoping he would give up on blaming himself. If that's the case, he's been carrying this guilt way too long. Whatever's just dropped on his shoulders looks like it'll take all his strength.
"No!" he exclaimed. "No," he said again, more softly. "Watty was – is my friend." It was hard, so hard, to think of Derek in the present tense when he was lying in a bed motionless and had been for more than a thousand days. "He's – ." Stoker's voice failed but his thoughts continued then crumbled like a fire-denuded hillside after torrential rains. He's not dead! Derek's not dead, but those kids, those kids – .
The nurse was prepared to help him deal with a lingering case of 'shoulda been me' and her lips started to form the all-too-familiar words. Survivor's guilt was something the nursing staff here was trained to recognize and combat; patients with a real shot at recovery did better once their loved ones moved past the negative emotions. Sometimes easing the minds of the 'other patients' – especially for the medically hopeless cases – was all the staff could do.
Something – the apparent contraction in his throat, the odd way his lips trembled, something – prompted her to change tactics. Instead of launching into her spiel, she laid a tender hand on Mike's shoulder instead, simply letting him know she was there but staying silent.
"All of them were gone. We couldn't save them. I couldn't save them," Stoker whispered finally, the dam he'd fashioned cracking under the stubborn silence of Firefighter Specialist Derek Watson and the quiet pressure of Nurse Adelaide Carson's honest concern.
"Them?" the nurse quietly asked him, the lost look on his face heartbreaking. Please let me soothe the new wound, at least.
"The kids, six of 'em," he replied brokenly. "They were trapped in a fire and I, we, didn't – , we didn't save them."
She remembered reading about a fire in the paper just a few days ago. Six kids had died, the police had found evidence of drug trafficking in the burnt out ruins, and the mother-cum-babysitter had been arrested on multiple charges. It was the kind of story that stuck in one's memory, even in a tragedy-drenched city like this. And one of her cousins worked as a medic part-time at the county jail; he often classified his female clientele as 'nuts or sluts.' According to Artie, the woman whose criminal negligence had precipitated the children's deaths had definitely qualified as a nut, even before the suicide attempt he'd interrupted. Surely there couldn't be two such events. "I – what happened?"
"We weren't fast enough." Whatever else might have contributed to it, the simple fact was that time had run out. For Billy … Winston … Davy … Maria … little Eliza … Michael.
"Is that, uh, what do you think Derek would tell you?" Adelaide asked.
"Nothing I could repeat to a lady," he said with a mirthless smile then sighed deeply, eyes closed, jaw clenched. "And then, then he'd pick apart everything, absolutely everything related to the run. Did you have your shoes on? Did you drive like a little old lady? Did you have problems with forcing the door? Did you balk at going into the house? Did you get mesmerized by the smoke and the flames? Did you eat your Wheaties that morning?" His voice trailed off to a mumble as his head sunk lower.
"What was that?" She had a feeling it was important.
"'Were they dead before you even got the call?'" he repeated softly but distinctly. "And then he'd repeat what I can't repeat to a lady."
"I can see why you keep visiting Derek. He's obviously been a good friend to you in the past." She hesitated, then forged ahead when he remained silent."So, are you going to take his advice?"
"Huh?" Stoker looked up at her for the first time in several minutes. Her brown eyes were filled with a compassion that seemed to go beyond that of her chosen profession.
"What you can't repeat to a lady," she prompted, one corner of her mouth turned up slightly.
Mike appreciated her gentle humor and the way it allowed him to regain his mental footing. "Intellectually, I know he's right. I've gone over it again and again in my mind. We've debriefed the technical aspects of the incident and, given the information we had, we did the right things. It was just too late." When Stoker chose to talk about it clinically – as he had for the past few days at the station and in the backroom at O'Malley's with Chet – he found his words came more easily, the raw emotion stripped out and tucked away to fester in another place.
"In other words, you're not to blame for the outcome – none of you are."
"Correct." His acknowledgement was tight, crisp and utterly meaningless, she realized. He knew what Derek would say about this run, knew it before he came.
"But you are still blaming yourself, aren't you, for … for something?" His eyes darted away from hers, toward the still form in the bed. He was uncomfortable with her insight, but unable to deny it. "Since you already know what Derek would say about the fire, are you going to talk to him about what you are blaming yourself for?"
Mike stared at his hands, feeling his throat start to close up again, and simply shook his head, before gripping the rail of Derek's bed tightly until he could take another breath. Adelaide stayed with him while his respirations stabilized, arm draped across his shoulders encouragingly. Her sad sigh trailed him when he slipped from the room, untouched coffee still steaming on the table, a few minutes later.
"Derek, you need to wake up," she told the comatose firefighter sternly. "I'll do what I can, but your friend Mike needs some help."
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