Going in Style (14 page)

Presently, the tears stopped.

The total wait for the ambulance was forty-five minutes. When it did appear, it raced through the park, siren wailing, cutting
over the grassy areas and finally pulling up next to the bench. A small crowd had now gathered at a discreet distance, and
the two white-clad paramedics, accompanied by Al, had to push their way through. One of them immediately opened Willie’s shirt
and put a stethoscope on his skinny chest. It took less than ten seconds before he said, “We’ll need the stretcher.” The two
men returned to the ambulance.

“What happened?” asked Joe dazedly. He seemed preoccupied with something, distracted.

“I nearly went crazy,” said Al. “First I dial nine-one-one, an’ I get a busy signal. I wait a minute, try again, same thing.
Can you believe it? A busy
signal from the emergency number! All right. I look up Elmhurst General Hospital, try them instead. I get through, explain
that I think my friend is havin’ a heart attack. They say, sorry, we can’t do nothin’. You want an ambulance, best bet
is
to call the fire department. The only way the hospital sends an ambulance is if a doctor requests it, or the police.”

“Jesus…” said Joe. “Jesus.”

“Anyway, I hang up,” continued Al. “Then I get an idea. I call back the hospital, get the emergency room, tell ‘em my name
is Dr. Alan Feeney. I got a patient needs an ambulance immediately, I say. I hear some talkin’ in the background, and then
another voice comes on and asks if I’m affiliated with the hospital because their records don’t list no Dr. Feeney. I tell
‘em I’m new, that I signed in last week, and that maybe my name ain’t entered in their computers yet.”

“That was quick thinkin’, Al.” The paramedics were returning with the stretcher.

“Didn’t do no good,” said Al. “Turned out, they don’t have no computers. Anyway, after I hung up, I called the local fire
department. They got only one cardiac arrest unit, the guys tells me, and that one’s out. But they’ll put me on the list,
and when their truck comes back, I’ll be next. I feel like cursin’ ‘em, but anyway I give ‘em all the information they want,
and I hang up. I decide to try nine-eleven again. By this time I’m going crazy. I’m so frustrated I just wanna kill myself.
I mean, here I am in the center of the biggest city in the world, with my friend maybe dyin’—and I can’t get anyone to help
me. No one.”

The paramedics placed the stretcher at the foot
of the bench. Then the two of them lifted Willie onto it, removed the blanket and jacket, and covered his body with a sheet.
“Ready… up!” said one. They grabbed the stretcher at the ends and bore it to the ambulance. Joe and Al trailed behind, exhausted,
impotent.

“He ain’t movin’,” said Al quietly, as one of the attendants climbed into the back of the ambulance and helped to hoist the
stretcher aboard.

“I know,” said Joe. “I know.”

“You his family?” asked the older paramedic, indicating Al.

“Friends,” said Al.

“We’re closer than his family,” said Joe. “Can we come along?”

The paramedic nodded. “Ride with me.” He extended a hand and helped Al and Joe aboard, while the other attendant raced around
to the front.

“Thanks,” called Joe to the women who’d supplied the blanket and jacket. He couldn’t be sure if they heard. His last sight,
as the doors closed behind them, was of the old lady who’d sat with them on the bench. She was trudging slowly up the path,
out of the park, her head shaking back and forth. Even at this distance, Joe could see she’d forgotten her handbag.

The ambulance started out, siren wailing. Willie’s stretcher was on a raised platform, and the attendant was bending over
him, injecting something. The medic was in his late twenties, Joe judged; he had thick, black hair curling down his forehead.
After several moments, he turned the knobs on a radio and spoke evenly into a microphone. Joe caught only a few of the words.
“Cardiac
… pressure, ninety over sixty five… vital signs… respiration… beginning—”

“Is he alive?” asked Al.

The attendant looked up. He seemed not to have heard. His eyes were harried, frantic. “You know, they’re supposed to have
another goddamned man in here,” he said angrily. He made some adjustments on a small metal box, unraveled two long, rubber-clad
leads. “I mean, I can’t do every goddamn thing myself. Guy’s sick, they gotta get a replacement. That’s the law, for Chrissake.”

He reached over, pulled the sheet to Willie’s waist and quickly unbuttoned the old man’s outer shirt. He used a razor to cut
away the straps of the undershirt. He held the insulated metal prongs at the ends of the leads against Willie’s chest. “Do
me a favor,” he said to Al, indicating the metal box with his chin. “Just hit that button.” He paused. “Go on. Don’t worry,
it don’t matter how long you press it, it’s all set automatically.”

Al hesitated.

“Go on, it’s okay.”

Al pressed the button. Willie’s body flopped and arched like a fish out of water. It seemed his ribs might burst through the
skin of his chest. The paramedic immediately placed his stethoscope just below Willie’s collarbone. “Okay,” he said after
a moment. “Okay.”

Al looked at Joe apprehensively.

“He gonna make it?” asked Joe.

The paramedic held out his palm, tilted it back and forth. Joe nodded.

The ambulance threaded its way through rush-hour traffic, its siren screaming ineffectually at the
slow-to-pull-over cars. It seemed to Joe that they’d been traveling for hours. Willie had electrodes attached to him now;
a bluish trace on a tiny portable oscilloscope registered his tenuous, flickering connection with life.

“I had to wait at the phone until they came,” said Al. “They needed someone to give ‘em directions. That nine-one-one… it
took so long.”

“You done real good,” Joe reassured him. “There was nothing more anyone could’ve accomplished.”

At the hospital, there was an impressive display of activity when the ambulance arrived. Two attendants ran out to meet it
on the concrete ramp, and quickly hustled the gurney-borne Willie through automatic-opening steel doors. Inside, Joe and Al
caught a glimpse of Willie being rolled rapidly through the tiled hallway, oxygen tank and intravenous cart already connected
up to him. His face was lost beneath the rubber breathing mask, and the rest of him was covered by a blanket. Already, thought
Joe, he looks less than human.

“Are you the people who called the ambulance?” asked a nurse behind the emergency desk.

“Yeah,” said Joe.

“We’ll need some information.”

Joe and Al supplied the statistics as best they could. Willie was seventy-four years old. He lived with them. His only relative
was a daughter who resided somewhere in Pennsylvania. They did not know his mother’s maiden name. His Medicare card was at
home. As far as they were aware, he had no supplementary medical insurance. He had no family physician.

“There’s a waiting room to your right,” said the nurse, when the forms were completed. “We’ll let you know how he is when
his condition stabilizes.”

They thanked her and headed down the corridor.

The waiting room was small—six wooden benches, two vending machines, three ashtrays, a public phone. For the most part, Al
and Joe sat in silence, watching the progression of injured people arrive and leave—boys with gashed arms; feverish, screaming
infants; moaning old ladies; a man whose bone protruded through, the skin of his forearm. It was as if the city were providing
a seminar; these are the signs of suffering—blood, bile, sputum, and pus. At 7 p.m., Joe bought a bag of peanuts from one
of the machines. He gave half to Al.

“We’ll have to bring Willie some pajamas,” said Al. “Maybe also a toothbrush and stuff like that.”

“We have time,” said Joe. “We have time.”

A moment later, an intern entered and came over to them. “Joseph Harris?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but your friend died a half hour ago.”

Joe nodded slowly and swallowed. He had known, of course, that it would be so, but hearing the pronouncement, hearing somebody
say
it, seemed almost worse than the death itself.

“There was nothin’, uh, could be done?” asked Al haltingly. “I mean, I know he was an old man… but maybe a transplant, somethin’
like that?”

The intern shook his head. “No, it’s not really… Technically, he was dead on arrival. His heart still showed a faint beat,
but his brain activity had
completely ceased. We worked on him a while, standard procedure, but apparently he’d died even before he entered the ambulance.
Sometimes the resuscitator will get a heart started again, but, uh…” He shook his head. “I
am
sorry. He was a close friend, I gather.”

“Yes,” said Joe.

“Would you like some coffee? I can get you some coffee.”

“No, that’s all right,” said Joe. He turned to Al. “You?”

Al motioned no.

“Uh, as far as the remains…” said the intern hesitatingly, “uh, you can just notify the hospital within forty-eight hours
as to their disposition. Right now, don’t worry about a thing.” He paused. “Sorry.”

Joe nodded. He waited till the intern had gone, then headed for the phone. “I guess they done what they could,” he said.

“I guess so,” agreed Al.

Joe put a dime into the slot, dialed, waited, finally heard a voice.

“Bender? This is Joe Harris.” The funeral home director was no stranger. When you reached a certain age, people in that line
of work became sickeningly familiar.

“How are you, Joe?” said Bender.

“Okay,” said Joe. “Listen, uh, I’m down here at Elmhurst General with Al, and, uh… Willie just died.”

Bender clicked his tongue. “Gee, Joe, sorry to hear it.” The ritual sympathy of the professional mourner.

“Yeah, well…”

“Was it a long term kind of thing? Something he had?”

“No, just like that,” answered Joe. “Doctor said his heart just gave out.”

“Shame,” said Bender.

“Anyway… could you send somebody down here to pick him up?”

“Sure,” said Bender. “No problem.”

“Me and Al will come over there tonight or tomorrow and settle on all the arrangements with you. And let’s do it up nice this
time, okay?” He paused. “Fuck the Social Security, we’re gonna be taking care of it.” He looked at Al, who nodded agreement.

“Look,” said Bender, “if you want to work out financing, there’s no—”

“This will be cash,” snapped Joe. “Dollar bills, American money.”

“Please,” said Bender, “I didn’t mean to insult you. If I did, you have my apologies.”

“Yeah, right,” said Joe. “Okay, so go ahead with the arrangements.” He hung up.

They took a bus back to their apartment, where they sank heavily into kitchen chairs.

“Rough day,” said Al.

“Yes,” agreed Joe. He forced himself up and over to the refrigerator, where he took out a bottle of cold water. “Want some?”
he asked Al.

“Huh? Oh… yeah.”

Joe poured two glasses, and they both drank. “Maybe Willie didn’t amount to much,” said Joe, “but he was a helluva stickup
man.”

Al, too spent and drained to manage even the faintest of smiles, could only nod.

Later, after Al had called his nephew, the two men went out. Joe was carrying a large paper bag. They walked for several blocks
through the residential neighborhood, until they came to a corner where the street light was broken.

“Let me have the noses,” said Joe.

Al dug into his pockets and handed him the three Groucho disguises. Joe bent down at the curb and threw them into the sewer.
A few feet away, he spotted a garbage can. “Over there,” he said.

While Joe held open the paper bag, Al removed the clothing and carefully stuffed it into the pail, being sure to cover each
item with its own layer of garbage.

Across the intersection, they paused before another pail. “Boy,” said Joe, as he crammed a pair of trousers beneath some watermelon
rinds, “this is the longest day I ever lived.”

The last item of clothing was a gaberdine jacket. “Dammit,” said Joe, “I was so excited this morning, I forgot to wear one
that I didn’t want to keep.” He hesitated, then shoved it savagely into the can. “Aaaahhl” he moaned.

A car honked at them just as they were returning to their building. It coasted to the curb.

“I think it’s your nephew,” said Joe.

A man got out and came toward them. The darkness still concealed his face.

“Pete?” said Al uncertainly.

“Al, are you okay?” came his nephew’s familiar voice.

“Yeah.”

The three of them walked into the dim light
cast by the building’s lobby. “How are you, Joe?” said Pete.

“Well… gettin’ by,” said Joe.

“We felt terrible when we heard about Willie,” said Pete, returning his attention to Al.

“Yeah, a shame,” said Al.

Kathy got out of the car and came over to join them. “We called you back, Al,” she said. “We were worried. We were wondering
why no one answered.”

“Ah… me an’ Joe just felt like a walk,” said Al. “We didn’t wanna stay cooped up.”