“No.” Justin flushed. “I know all about sex.”
“Uh huh. I’m sure you do,” said Drifts.
“No. What I wanted to ask was, why don’t you like being called an ambulance driver?”
Drifts smile faded. “Why the fuck do people call us that? I’m never going to understand it. You don’t call a policeman a police car driver! A firefighter isn’t a firetruck driver! Why the hell am I known more for the fucking vehicle I drive than the job I do. I’m an EMT, dammit. I save lives for a fucking living!”
“Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you,” Justin apologized.
Drifts glared at Ramirez. “You set that up, didn’t you?”
Ramirez carefully kept his face blank. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m sure you don’t. I bet you-”
Whatever Drifts bet was lost as the radio called out, “Unit Triple-Three, we’re calling you out of Memorial hospital for a code one on a shooting!”
“Hell yeah!” shouted Drifts.
“Really?” asked Justin.
Drifts gunned the engine and hit the sirens. “Triple-Three responding!”
“Sam, wait till we get off the hospital property before you hit the sirens.” Ramirez scolded.
“Fuck ‘em, Leo! They can handle it!”
The dispatcher said, “Triple-Three, you are responding to Fisher and Thirteenth Street for a code one shooting. Police are already on the scene.”
“Acknowledged, scene is safe. Fisher and Thirteenth on a shooting!” He put the mic down. “Now this is what I am talking about! Finally, some hardcore action!”
“Are we really going on a shooting?” asked Justin again.
“That’s right, kid, we are going on a bonafide trauma!” Drifts called back.
Ramirez pointed in the map book. “Take a left on Leary then you can cut over on Fifteenth.”
The radio squawked, “Unit Three-Twelve.”
Dispatch responded, “Go ahead, Three-Twelve.”
“We just cleared from a refusal at Sixteenth and Fisher.”
“No. No. No. No. Dammit, no!” shouted Drifts.
“What’s going on?” asked Justin.
Ramirez held up his finger for a wait gesture. The next moment, Dispatch came back on the air, “Unit Triple-Three standby. Unit Three-Twelve, go ahead and respond to Fisher and Thirteenth on a shooting. Police are on scene.
“Shit!” snapped Drifts pounding the steering wheel.
“En route!” called Unit Three-Twelve.
“Those fucking bastards just took my call!” roared Drifts. “We haven’t had a good shooting in weeks! I know that was Andy on Three-Twelve. I know for a fact he ran two fucking shootings and a stabbing last week!”
Ramirez put the map book down. “Is there really such a thing as a good shooting?”
“Don’t start with me, Leo” Drifts growled. “I know you’re into this hand-holding bullshit, but I am in it strictly for the action! And we both know I don’t get nearly enough of it.”
Justin looked between the two of them. “What happened?”
“I’ll tell you what fucking happened! Our call got jumped by another crew!”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means that another crew was nearby, milking their refusal time. They heard our call, went available, and stole it from us!” Drifts roared.
“That happens?” asked Justin.
“It just did!” snapped Drifts.
Ramirez chuckled. “It’s a frequent occurrence. Sam, here, is a notorious call-jumper if he thinks it’s juicy enough for his diabolical taste. He, like most of the other people in this field, are trauma junkies. Some of them will do just about anything to get a ‘cool’ call.”
Drifts lit a cigarette, muttering obscenities under his breath. “When I see Andy again . . .”
Justin had a hard time concealing his own disappointment. “Do you think we might get another shooting tonight?”
Ramirez smiled at him. “Don’t worry, kid. As long as there are people, there will always be violence to deal with.
The radio called, “Unit Triple-Three?”
“Triple-Three,” Drifts answered without his usual radio operator voice.
“Triple-Three respond to Seventeenth and Connelly on a sick.”
Drifts blew up. “Motherfucking ass-wiping corn holes are having us run another clinic case to the hospital! Hasn’t anyone ever heard of chicken noodle soup?” He keyed the mic his radio voice returned, dripping with sarcasm. “Triple-Three responding to Connelly and Seventeenth on some poor soul who is sick!”
The dispatcher judiciously let the comment drop. “Triple-Three, you’re responding to a code three on a fifty-seven-year-old male at a payphone.”
“Acknowledged!” said Drifts. He slammed the mic down. Ramirez and Justin, sensing the EMT’s mood, kept their silence.
On their way to the call, they passed the apartment of their first call that night. The drug dealer still sat on the steps but was now surrounded by a small group of friends. The fat hooker was still on her street corner and gave the crew a little wave.
Ramirez held up his hand back at her.
Drifts shook his head “You really shouldn’t encourage that kind of shit.”
“It didn’t cost me anything,” said Ramirez.
“It will. Us or some other crew when she decides.” In a mock granny voice he said, “That those ambulance people are so nice! Maybe I should have them look at these bunions that have been paining me the last few years.”
Ramirez shook his head and said, “Connelly is your next left.”
Drifts turned the truck as directed. “Just wait and see.”
“Do you see our patient yet?”
Drifts flipped on the side lights. “Not yet. Wait. Is that . . . aw shit! There he is.” He pointed, keying the mic. “Triple-Three on scene.”
“On scene,” repeated the dispatcher.
The three of them looked where Drifts had pointed. Standing beneath the spot light of a street lamp was a man in a heavy overcoat, who was waving at them frantically.
“What’s this jack-off want?”
Ramirez shrugged. “I suppose there’s only one way to find out.”
He stepped out of the rig with just a clipboard. Justin followed him with a medical bag slung over his shoulder. Drifts flanked them with his unlit flashlight in his hand.
“Hello, sir. What seems to be the problem tonight?” asked Ramirez.
The man was lanky with a long, graying beard. He stared at the ground as he rocked himself on his heels.
Drifts tightened the grip on his flashlight.
Up close they could hear him chanting, “Oh, Lord Jesus! Oh, Lordy Jesus! Oh, Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, L-o-ord Jesus!”
“Leo here is a good enough guy, but I don’t think he’s quite up to that caliber,” quipped Drifts.
Ramirez tried again. “Sir, what seems to be the problem?”
“The problem,” the man turned his gaze upon the veteran medic, his eyes wild with the fire of his beliefs, “is that there is too much darkness in the world. Not enough people have faith, and so the light fades and the darkness returns.”
“Yeah, that’s called night,” interjected Drifts. “It happens every day with this phenomenon called the rotation of the earth. This process causes the horizons to turn toward and away from the earth, changing days into night and vice versa. It also causes this super nifty thing called gravity.”
The homeless man turned his eyes on the other man. “So mocks the follower of Satan’s shadow, known by the markings on his skin with the paint of damnation!”
Drifts cocked his eyebrow. “You don’t like my tats?”
The homeless man looked away. “Man falls for the fornicating lies of the woman. He goes with her and is infected by the darkness in the shadow of Satan’s womb.”
“I see,” said Ramirez. “And you called the ambulance why, again?”
The homeless man shook his head and began to pat his temples. “I did not have faith! I am now one of the tainted sinners! Soon my damned soul will be trapped in the hell of my decaying lifeless flesh!”
Ramirez’s head came up. “What?”
Beside him, Drifts brought his flashlight up. His intent was dangerously obvious. Behind them, Justin took a few steps back.
The homeless man looked at them with open tears and cried out, “I’m infected!”
Ramirez didn’t take his eyes off of their patient. “Sam, do you see anything around our perimeter?”
Drifts flipped his flashlight around and scanned the surrounding area.
The homeless man’s eyes followed the beam of Drift’s flashlight with hungry eyes, “Oh Lord Jesus, why have you given the follower of Satan your blessed flame? Surely, in the hand of an unbeliever it will burn, burn, burn the world to ash!”
“I don’t see anything, Leo. No one’s around, no deadheads, not even so much as a cat. I think whatever this guy is seeing is all in his deluded mind.”
“Deluded, precluded, disputed. I dispute Satan’s claims!” He stabbed a finger at Drifts. The tip of his finger edged out from the light of the street lamp into the darkness Drifts stood in.
Drifts shrugged. “Okay, whatever, man.”
The bearded man’s eyes fell upon the darkness engulfing his finger and screamed. The three of them jumped when the man leapt back as if scorched and fell to his knees. He curled into a fetal position while he held his finger and started to sob. “Lord, have mercy upon me! Have mercy! I have sinned against you again!”
Ramirez and Drifts looked at each other. The arch in Drifts’s eyebrow asked Ramirez
What the Hell is this?
Ramirez gave him a shrug.
I don’t know, but we better find out.
The medic stepped forward and cautiously knelt down by the other man. “Sir? Sir, are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?” The homeless man continued to sob. “Sir, may we take you to a hospital to see a doctor?”
The bearded man’s head came up. “No!”
Ramirez didn’t flinch, but Drifts came forward.
“Listen!” Drifts started to shout but stopped as Ramirez held up a staying hand.
Ramirez asked calmly, “Why not?”
The homeless man shook his head. “I cannot go out into the dark. That is where the sin is. I should know. I used to dwell in the darkness. I caressed the shadow like a lover, and it has tainted my spirit. The darkness has made me do evil, evil things in its name.” He pointed up at the light of the streetlamp. “But God gave me the light and I swore I would never ever touch the shadow again!” He looked down at his finger. “Now I have backslid against our Jesus.”
Ramirez nodded to himself. He stood up and looked from the streetlight above them to the closest one half a block away. Its light was out. He took out his own flashlight and shined it on the area below the streetlamp. His light beamed on an overturned shopping cart.
“Sir, were you over there?” The bearded man nodded. Ramirez looked at his partner. “Sam, will you check that area out for me?”
Drifts looked at him as if he had grown a second head. “Are you sure? What about . . .” the pause in his speech filling whole paragraphs of his unuttered expletives, “him?”
“We’ll be fine. Just check it out for me. Oh, and take Justin with you?”
“All right, if you say so. If you need me . . .”
“I know. Just let me know what you find.” Ramirez turned back to the man. “May I see your hand?”
The other man looked at him with uncertain eyes. “Are you going to try anything? You’re not going to try to take me back to one of those devil-made institutions are you? They have more of Satan’s shadows in them than there are out here!”
“I know.”
The bearded man stared at him. “You’ve been in an institution?”
Ramirez focused on examining the man’s hands. “Yes, but not the way you mean. I’ve treated people with different psychiatric illnesses and had to take them to such institutions for further care.”
His tone became accusing. “You’ve taken people to those harbors of Satan?”
“Yes, but only people who were dangers to themselves and others.”
“I’m dangerous,” the bearded man said matter-of-factly.
Ramirez looked up into his eyes. The medic’s eyes were hard, and the homeless man stared back without flinching. “I know.”
He released the hand he was examining. The bearded man looked down at it, breaking the spell.
“What’s your name?” asked the medic.
The other man’s shoulder straightened. “I’m Willie P. Jackson IV. I was named after my Daddy, his Daddy, and Daddy’s Daddy.”
“Well, I’m Leo. My partner over there is Sam, and the young man is Justin, my paramedic student.”
Willie latched onto the word. “Partner! What kind of partner? Two men should not fornicate! Lord Jesus says no!”
“No. We’re not fornicating,” Ramirez said dead pan. He pointed a thumb at the flashing ambulance behind them. “We work on the ambulance together?”
“Oh.”
“Mr. Jackson, were you bitten tonight?”
Willie shook his head. “No bites! The darkness tried to consume me, but it didn’t get me! No! No! No! But it did try to suck away my soul!”
“So you weren’t bitten by the dead?”
Willie’s eyes became fierce. “No dead have ever laid their rotten mouths on me! No! No! No! All that have tried I have sent them down the pit of despair with Satan and his unholy minions.”
Ramirez nodded. “What division were you in during the outbreak?”
Willie’s expression changed. He looked at Ramirez as if he had seen him for the first time. “You served during the outbreak?”
Ramirez rolled up his sleeve to reveal a crude tattoo of a shield with an interconnected C and Y. “I was in the Thirty-Eighth.”
Willie nodded. “I was in the Thirty-Fifth.”
Ramirez gave a low whistle, “The Thirty-Fifth was in the thick of some of the worst fighting during the outbreak.”
Willie’s eyes looked somewhere off in the distance. “The dark days. I committed many sins in the shadows that I still beg for forgiveness for. I killed the living and the dead alike. I can still hear cries out there!” He pointed out into the darkness. His pleading eyes found Ramirez. “You know what it was like. I can see it in your eyes. That time has left its mark on you, hasn’t it?”