of nausea.
Hammer looked around, pained by what she saw. This was why she had chosen her
profession, or why it had chosen her. The world was falling apart, and she wanted to
help. She focused on a young man who reminded
her of Randy, her son. The young man was alone, five chairs away. He was burning up with fever, sweating and shivering, and having a difficult time breathing. Hammer
looked as his earrings, his chiseled face and wasted body, and she knew what was wrong
with him. His eyes were shut as he licked cracked lips. It seemed everyone was sitting
as far from him as possible, especially those leaking body fluids. Hammer got up. Brazil
never took his eyes off her.
The triage nurse smiled at Hammer’s approach.
“What can I do for you?”
the nurse said.
“Who’s the young man over there?” Hammer pointed.
“He’s got some sort of respiratory infection.” The nurse became clinical.
“I’m not allowed to release names.”
“I can get his name from him myself,” Hammer told her.
“I want a large glass of water with a lot of ice, and a blanket. And when might your folks get around to seeing him? He looks like he could pass out any minute, and if he does, I’m
going to know about it.”
Some seconds later. Hammer was returning to the waiting area with water and a soft
folded blanket. She sat next to the young man and wrapped him up. He opened his eyes
as she held something to his lips.
It was icy cold and wet and felt wonderful. Warmth began to spread over him, and his
shivering calmed as his feverish eyes focused on an angel. Harrel Woods had died, and
he was relieved as he drank the water of life.
“What’s your name?” the angel’s voice sounded from far away.
Woods wanted to smile, but his lips bled when he tried.
“Do you have a driver’s license with you?” the angel wanted to know.
It blearily occurred to him that even Heaven required a picture ID these days. He weakly zipped open his black leather butt pack, and handed the license to the angel. Hammer
wrote down the information, in the event he might need a shelter somewhere, if he ever
got out of here, which wasn’t likely. Two nurses were making their way to him with
purpose, and Harrel Woods was admitted to the ward for AIDS patients. Hammer
returned to her chair, wondering if she might find coffee somewhere. She digressed more
about helping people.
She told Brazil that when she was growing up, it was all she had wanted to do in life.
“Unfortunately, policing seems to be part of the problem these days,” she said.
“How often do we really help?”
“You just did,” Brazil said.
She nodded.
“And that’s not policing, Andy. That’s humanity. And we’ve got to bring humanity back
into what we do, or there’s no hope. This is not about politics or power or merely
rounding up offenders.
Policing always has been and always must be about all of us getting along and helping
each other. We’re one body. ”
tw Seth’s body was in dire straits in the OR. His arteriogram was fine and he hadn’t
leaked any barium from his bowels, but because he was a V. I. P, no chance would be
taken. They had draped and prepped him, and he was face down again, and nurses had
pierced his tender flesh repeatedly with excruciatingly painful injections and a Foley
catheter, to relieve pain and check his urine for blood, or so he thought he overheard.
They had rolled in a tank of nitrogen and connected it to a tube. They began subjecting
him to what they called a Simpulse irrigation, which was nothing more than a power
wash with saline and antibiotics. They were blasting him with three thousand ccs,
suctioning, debriding, as he complained.
Tut me under! ” he begged.
There was too much risk.
“Anything!” he whined.
They compromised and gave him an amnesiac they called Midazolam, which did not
relieve pain, but caused it to be forgotten, it seemed.
Although the bullet was located on the X-ray, they would never locate it in so much fat,