my eyes open, it feels like i have been run through the stomach with a flaming spear. my ears are dead. the EMT hovering over me hasn’t had a shave in days. i am strapped down to a gurney. the wires, cables and cords inside the ambulance are swaying like the branches of a willow tree. The EMT is talking on a phone attached to the wall of the ambulance. he looks stressed. i hear nothing and everything goes from fuzzy to black and the pain goes away. i go away. There is nothing. just the abyss.
my eyes open, indescribable pain, feel like i have been shot in the stomach. the EMT stares me in the face. We must be only 3 inches apart nose to nose. He is talking to me but i do not understand a word. a cabinet in the ceiling flies open and medical supplies spread like confetti. i can read the cursing on the EMT’s lips. grabbing my collar he is shaking and yelling in my deaf face when, like an arrow striking a target my ears burst open. loud. everything is so loud. the EMT screams
EMT
Sir, sir, what type of drugs have you been taking…..drugs ! what kind…. it is important i know what type
with what feels like the strength it must take those Irish fuckers to throw those telephone poles in the highland games i unleash one word
ME
THIRTEEN
EMT
Thirteen pills? What kind of pills sir…
fuzzy to black i fall back – the sweet abyss – a total blank – once again i am completely gone.
my eyes open, the pain is back. this time i can hear and i am sure i can talk. the EMT is on the phone calling in my stats when The sound of the drivers voice comes barreling through the chaos. the conversation on the phone has jumped from vitals to directions. for a second i watch the willow tree of medical supplies swaying and then it hits me hard. WHAT THE FUCK, i am dying. right now. And these son of a bitches are lost. This realization pulls me into a solid consciousness. My head pops up and i yell
You guys are fucking lost?
slamming down the phone the EMT says in an authoritative voice.
We just got turned around
Turned around my lilly white ass you cock-suckers, i twist sideways and the straps pull tight. It feels like someone is turning the sword in my belly. Hey driver where the fuck are we!
DRIVER
Heading north on Piedmont ( shouts )
ME
Turn left at the Gold Club
DRIVER
The what club? ( shouts even louder)
ME
Just turn left between the huge strip club and the MARTA train station on Lindbergh – when that dead ends - it will put you out near the hospital
DRIVER
Got it!
i take my first real look around. The ambulance is a stone cold dump. This thing hasn’t been used since the eighties. The EMT suddenly dives into my face
EMT
Sir, it is very important you stay conscious – serve abdominal trauma and loss of consciousness can lead to a coma so s-t-a-y with me O.K.
a coma? you gotta be shitting me. Your fucking A right i will stay with ya. I think about my kids. i hope they are o.k. The EMT is looking for something he clearly cannot find. He complains nonstop about the condition of the ambulance and apparently their is a piece of standard operating equipment that is sorely needed to help me and the thing, this THING is no where to be found. a coma suddenly seems like an alternative to the combination of massive pain mixed with a comedy of errors.
DRIVER
Hold on!
A hard and fast left turn frees my mind to wander off…………. I begin to image myself a combat soldier wounded in the line of duty. The swaying of the ambulance at high speed helps me pretend i am in a chopper over Vietnam. i was shot in the stomach by a twelve year old NVC boy and the fresh face kid who was all i had left of my squad had successfully called in our EVAC. Looking down over the landing rails of the helicopter i can see through tracer bullets from small arms fire that hordes of malnourished NVC are cutting through our purple signal smoke and are over running our position. Thank god’ we just made it out.
the sands of my mind shift a bit more…….
i land on tour. the year before my band TRAIN and i performed for the troops at all the main military bases in the U.S, and Hawaii. This was during the early stages of the second Iraqi war. It was an amazing experience and i was exposed to the loss of life that comes with being in the military at times of direct conflict. Before my mind can make any sense of these thoughts and why i would be thinking about them while dying in the back of an ambulance the sound of the siren slices my skull and i hear the EMT saying into the phone we are ETA 2 minutes out with an overdose victim……………….. i feel my self falling backward again off the cliff and into the sweet inky black i go possibly forever.
