It started out as a long night the day before; with the usual new-clee-ar action on the home front. You know, those days/nights where you really ask yourself if the whole ball of wax that you have saved for years, that huge rubber-band collection of frayed nerves and left-over soap chips, compiled together in an ever growing dust bunny of confusion. I believe it is called life. I was up all-night. Probably had a beer; or 6. Or 8. Whatever it was it didn’t matter, since I would be attending the mass called work. If it is recalled correctly I sat in the dark of the early morning, bemoaning the depressing thoughts of the day’s actions/reactions to detonations occurring earlier in the sunlight.
Leaving before dawn, grasping the Styrofoam cup of Joe that would awaken what little remaining cells of function remained.
I remember, as always, checking the surf in the night moon light on the way to the station.
My alcohol level was not flammable, but without a cleansing shower, I probably was reeking through my glands. So I crept into the station, headed upstairs to the dorms, and gladly got naked and showered in some ice cold watery goodness. It was 545AM, after a 15 minute rejuvenation of some sort.
It is funny, reliving the tracks of water left on the tile floors in my head. It is equally amazing to my feeble/aged mind that I can hear the wind coming through the 3rd story windows that day. The white washed, Clorox scented walls of the dorm bath; the equally disarming sound of early morning Mynah birds chirping their irritating asses off. Maybe I would have slipped and fell if I had been more or less sober. But I remained standing.
God more coffee, please. Everyone (except the station ghosts) still hibernating. Had to creep into the dorm, grab my uniform, and stealthily creep my ass out. Mission accomplished. I like to brew coffee at the station. Nothing better than getting 12 to 20 cups of legal high going in a huge coffee maker. You are, after all, making for a party of 10 or more, just like station cooking, you better have some pride, and not just shove the shit in there, but measure, clean, rinse, and portion the grounds/water with some class.
Petrol for the troops, you know.
Brew, pot, brew. Noting the extreme amount of stress cells that were running amuck in my brain, I figured that the best thing to relieve generalized stupidity is…. The newspaper. Somebody out there in the world has got to be more fucked than I. Great. Seems like the world has decided that all the other clowns/fools/deviants are to be granted immediate reprieve of sorts. Thanks.
My crew isn’t even near awakening to even COME to work, and here I am sitting at the station, feeling sorry for myself and drinking life sustaining coffee to get thru the next 5 minutes of doubt and frustration.
Not even thinking about alarms.
Oh yeah, alarms. You know the loud sounds that come over the squawk box, that shatter the silence that comes over the usually raucous sounds of station life, after dark. Death, fire, birth, disasters don’t care for clocks, do they? No they do not. They don’t give a fuck about you, your schedule, and your problems, you at all. Why? They pay your salary.
The watch that is working/sleeping now, is not my crew, but the off going watch. Watches/crews can be a differing as the gains of sand. The crews on now, while talented, and dedicated, were a tad more ‘anal’ than most.
“Tines DOWN when the forks are put in the dish rack; why is the truck parked .5 inches away from where it should be?; the dish soap was diluted too little, etcetera”
Not bad; just different than my own.
Diffused fluorescent light, due to incoming rising sun light, refracting into unwelcome lasers into my caffeinated head.
Fucking Mynah birds.
“Engine 5; imminent child birth, 1940 Paula Drive; Co-response, imminent child birth, Engine 5, at 1940 Paula Drive, cross streets Koko Drive, and Paula Place, at zero- five-fifty-nine”
Great. Somebody has to decide to be expelled from the womb NOW. Thanks. What the hell.
Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Out to the apparatus floor. Out to the locker. Crew on duty sliding down the poles from the dorms, from the sleep, from the respite of death, sickness, and heat.
“Hey, Mark! What the fuck, man? Whatchewdoing here so fucking early man?”
“ Fuck you right back you fat fuck, get outta here, I’ll go, I am here already, call it a early out, my man”
“Oh sure, then you want 3 pay backs for 1 ya shit”
“Go wash the shit out your eyes, doofus”
“Shoots, man, thanks”
“ No worries, bro, have a good one”
“Stay safe, Mark-O, stay safe”
“You know that my brother”
And with that, we are on the road and out the door.
Gearing down, up the ridge, up the hill. Gathering my thoughts on what faced ahead. Child birth. Soon. Maybe. Many times, if not more often than not, it ends up being a close call, just a over reaction to labor pains, a anxious father/mother/lover/in law, whatevers, getting all in a twitter, and jumping the birthing gun.
Probably another.
I guess my mind changed gears when the little boy standing in the door way said as I entered his home said “ My Mom is being bornded” . . .
OK.
Gear switch.
Slam shift into brain lock, drive that gearing into compound, grab your balls, hitch the cerebellum, and cram that selfish as sorry to be me, attitude and try to drown out the screaming female voice coming from the living room. Or there about.
But first; by pass the dumbfounded look of (assumed) father standing in the entry way to the living room, where his wife (assumed) lay back down, legs spread, night gown hitched, basketball stomached, on the floor.
Just ignore the fluid of some sort, on the floor, don’t slip, cause that’d be great, falling ass over heels into a birthing Mother, now wouldn’t it?
Kneeling, sliding, tossing the trauma bag. Grabbing without looking into the bag; right to the birthing kit, grabbing at the same time, the smock, the squee-gee, the forceps, clamps and sack for the plecenta. Blanket. Oxygen.
“Cap,(short for Captain) I got crowning”
Just let nature take its course, which is it. Just guide, clean, and get Dad to cut the umbilical. Easy. Really; just silence the sounds all around you, just concentrate on what your job is.
Human life.
What will this child be like?
Please bring joy to this world, man, please. Just for your own good, kid, it will make your existence so much more enjoyable for what really little time you will have here.
“Shoulders out, Cap”
“Baby is clear, Cap”
Greeeeeeeeeeeeahhhhhhh. Softly. Greeeeeeeeeeah. Louder.
“Boy, Cap, zero-six-fifteen”
Dad is frozen, small kid brother with the neighbor, Mynah birds just as irritating as earlier.
Placenta out.
Somebody took the child that just came to my catchers mit, some unseen hands, some body. I am busy. Placenta and all else that can be or is needed. Who knows? Just do what you are trained to do.
Help people. Help yourself.
Not tired.
Stabilize Mom. Comfort Dad. Assure new brother.
Clean up the scene.
Get your gear.
Back the Ambulance up, get our truck out.
Down the hill to the station, re-load the trauma kit, get cleaned up.
24 hours to go.
I am not tired, I am adrenilized more than I can handle.
My crew here now.
“Hey, Mark! We Aunties, or Uncles?!?”
Fuckers.
Who knows what or where that life will lead, who knows what takes us on paths we choose.
But paths and journeys they are, and always, somewhere….
Mynah birds will irritate.
Aloha.
Good Kine Peoples
Not a Right
And a Goof.
Drake U 1979
Foot @ Work
Happiness
3 minutes
Off into the sunrise
I Gotta Stick!
Ah C'mon Papa!
No She Did NOT!!!
MIL & BIL