The Complete Collection. William Wharton
arrest herself, but we’re keeping him alive.
Now the moisture is drying around Dad’s mouth; his lips are drying and so are mine. Between breaths I take several deep breaths for myself and try working saliva into my mouth. I’m sweated down to my socks; black spots drift in front of my eyes like dust motes on the cornea. We keep working in silent desperation but nobody comes. This is a minimum Saturday-night staff and the rest of the patients are unattended.
We’ve been at it over twenty minutes when we hear the ambulance siren. It rolls up to the back door. Alicia leaves and an attendant comes running with her up the hall. The RN tells him to bring in a resuscitator. While we’ve been working, it’s gotten dark and there’s no light on in the room. It isn’t exactly dark but more bluish twilight.
He runs back, and two of them come in with the resuscitator. They lift Dad’s head and put the mask over his face. They get the oxygen going and Dad continues to breathe. They roll in a black leather stretcher and we lift Dad onto it while I keep up the cardiac compression.
One of the ambulance guys moves in beside me and takes over. I help roll the stretcher down the hall and into the ambulance. I go back to the room for my coat I’d dropped on the floor.
I’m absolutely dripping sweat. The RN is gone and only Alicia’s there. She hands me the coat, then leans into me. She lifts her head and we kiss, deep, a mouth-hungry, wicked-tongued, active kiss. My lips are numb and dry; I can’t feel anything.
‘I hope someday somebody loves me the way you love your daddy.’
I slip my coat over my shoulders. It presses cold sweat against me.
‘He’s a wonderful man, Alicia, he’s easy to love. You would be, too.’
‘Come and tell me how he is, will you, Jack? Come see me, huh?’
I nod. I know I won’t. My mind is somewhere else, partly in that ambulance, partly in Paris.
I turn and run down the hall. I jump into the ambulance and we’re off. They have the light turning and the siren whoop-whoop going. I take over cardiac compression while the attendant adjusts his resuscitator and prepares an IV of what looks like a simple saline solution. When he gets it taped on and running, he takes over again. His forehead is breaking out in sweat. The driver signals for me to come up front with him and I climb into the passenger seat.
‘How the hell do I get to Perpetual from here, anyway? I’m lost.’
I look out the window and we aren’t on the freeway! We’re on Washington Boulevard, too far south. I get him aimed in the right direction. He tells me they aren’t a regular Perpetual ambulance; they got an emergency call. I’m too scared, too tired, too exasperated to comment. I keep watch as we go through red lights; we’re making good time. But we’d’ve been there already if we’d taken the freeway.
They’re expecting us when we arrive. Dad’s moved into one of the emergency cubicles with a doctor and two nurses; they pull the curtains around him. I’m told to go outside in the waiting room. The pros have taken over; I’m ready, I’m not fighting. I’m so strung out I feel gutted.
I keep wondering if Dad’ll ever regain consciousness. I’m sure he can’t live long after a shock like this. I wonder how much brain damage he suffered; I don’t know how long he was alone in that bed with a diastolic under fifty before I found him.
Half an hour later, the doctor comes out. He motions me into a small room. I figure this is where he tells me Dad’s died. I’m ready. There comes a point where you’re ready to give up.
‘How is he, Doctor?’
The classic question, the dumb question.
‘Well, Mr Tremont, he’s still alive and that was a close one. Could you tell me exactly what happened?’
I give him the details, but I don’t exactly know what happened. This is a young doctor, probably doing his residence and he’s taking notes of what I’m saying. He has Dad’s charts there. I imagine Saturday-evening emergency is not ‘top gig’ for a doctor.
As I review what’s happened, I find myself getting mad again. I begin ranting about how my father can’t live outside a hospital and inform him I’ve already told Dr Ethridge this but was ignored. I lay it on about the ambulance driver getting lost. This doctor writes away, then looks up at me.
‘Don’t get upset, Mr Tremont, you’re overwrought.’
I’m having a hard time holding on; I don’t have the energy. Just then I remember the Mocks. I look at my watch and I’m already over an hour late. I ask the doctor for a phone; there’s a booth in the waiting room.
I call Pat and Sandy and tell them what’s happened. They’re most sympathetic and I’m needing sympathy. It’s beginning to register what’s been happening. I’ve been so busy fighting I haven’t had time to think.
I call Joan. I tell her as gently as I can. There’s a long pause on her end of the line. When she starts talking, she’s crying.
‘Mario and I will come to the hospital; you stay there. Don’t call Mother yet.’
I hang up but I don’t want to come out of the phone booth. The space of a phone booth is about all I can handle right then.
Finally, I go out and sit in the waiting room. I don’t know what I’m waiting for, except Joan. Before Joan arrives, the young doctor comes out again. He looks tired but not so grim. I swear he’s grown half a day’s beard while I was phoning. I wouldn’t be a doctor for anything. He doesn’t sit down, so I stand up.
‘Well, Mr Tremont, he’s out of danger for the moment. We’ll need to do more tests to find out what’s wrong. His BUN is up again and he’s dehydrated; that’s all I can tell you now. I’m putting him in intensive care. You might as well go home; there’s nothing more you can do.’
He looks at me carefully. I must look like hell; at least that’s the way his eyes register.
‘You came in the ambulance, didn’t you? Do you want us to call a taxi?’
I shake my head.
‘I’ve called my sister; she should be here any minute; she’ll take care of me.’
He stares a few more seconds.
‘All right, you rest here and if you feel faint, let one of the nurses know. Don’t worry about your father, he’s comfortable now. Dr Chad will call you in the morning.’
He turns away. That’s the first time I know for sure Chad’s taken the case.
About fifteen minutes later, Joan and Mario come in. She sits beside me; her eyes are red from crying. Mario is playing impassive male, but he’s breathing shallowly and has a bluish color under his half-day beard. I go over everything.
Joan wants to see Dad. I know why; she’s afraid he’ll die without her seeing him a last time. It’s amazing the way the living mind works about the dead. Joan persists with the nurse, who finally summons the doctor. He calls intensive care and explains the situation.
‘The two direct relatives may go up for a few mintues; but he’s unconscious, so he won’t know you’re there.’
Christ, I think; you don’t know where it is, Doc; he wouldn’t know we were there if he were conscious.
We go up. For some reason, the Muzak isn’t playing. Maybe they give the machines a rest on weekends. Maybe they only play music during visiting hours. It’s the same, though, small rooms opening onto a large monitoring center.
There’s the smell, the repressed silence, the instrumentation. They’ve pulled the curtains on Dad’s room and we can just make him out in the dark. He does look peaceful; he almost looks dead, but he’s breathing naturally. The IV is still on, the catheter in place, the oxygen tube fitted into his nostrils. He looks like one of the men in a capsule in that 2001 film. He doesn’t look as if he’s