All The King’s Horses

“Well maybe, baby, the gypsy lied”

– Bruce Springsteen, Brilliant Disguise

If I must die, this isn’t the worst week for it. I mean… my taxes are done. Am I being too nonchalant? Shouldn’t I give 25% more of a fuck? Be a little more panicked over unfolding events? Of course, hysteria never solved shit. But… yeah, maybe I am being too cavalier about this. Glib, even. Glib given the gravity of my mortality. But here’s the rub!: a long time ago, a gypsy woman promised me a firing squad. A cigarette & blindfold. A chance for last remarks. And this… This is not my firing squad. These shall not be my last remarks. 

What do you say, once we clear all this up, I buy you ladies a drink?

The two paramedics in the back of the ambulance smile shyly. They are petite except for the legs of rugby players. They treat me with a tenderness I am unaccustomed to. At least a tenderness I am not familiar with in the women who would normally hold me shirtless to a bed. The paramedics are tender until they pry – nay, rip! – off patches of hair from my chest to make a clear area for sensors. Chest hair doesn’t allow for a proper electrical reading, they say. And they’re not done with their hair extraction tape. They need more of a landing strip. They need fucking LaGuardia. Yow!, I mention. They murmur an apology for the hostile follicle removal. Oh no, I say to these valkyries, I’m kinda into it. More shy smiles. I may be in love with either of them. 

Do you ladies like espresso martinis?, I ask. I know a place.

Let’s get you through the night, first, one of the paramedics suggests. She’s the one with dark chocolate hair pulled back and braided. You want to sleep on it?, I say, that’s cool. Her partner, the EMT with the pixie cut & freckles, she says to me, hopefully you are only suffering acid reflux. But if that is the case, you probably shouldn’t be drinking tonight. 

Stuck along my torso are sensors; seismometers reading for tremors in the fault lines of my heart. They’ven’t found anything remarkable. Within the EKG spikes, they are scanning for tombstone shapes representing ST elevated myocardial infarction. It’s like looking for dorsal fins in the ocean waves at midnight. For now, it appears safe to go back into the water…

Yeah, this is nothing more than wicked ingestion, I assure the valkyries. Moctezuma’s heartburn. I spent the last week drinking mescal & eating street tacos in Oaxaca. Mexico. Oh?, the EMT with freckles says with overly-plucked perked eyebrows, so you travel? Yeah, I say, noticing the scolding glare from the other paramedic towards her partner. What is the silent message between them? “Be professional”? “Don’t encourage the flirtations of a man dying on the stretcher”? “I saw him first”?

Yeah, I do travel, I say. I travel, I eat, I drink and occasionally I write… Oh?, says the paramedic who’s suddenly lost her scold. Her head pivots so quickly at my words, her brown braid has swung around to smack her chin. So, you’re a writer?, she asks. 

My paramedics have warmed-up considerably after a very formal introduction at the pharmacy. It was the MinuteClinic nurse who suggested calling EMS. The nurse believed the pain I had been suffering for 14 hours was likely indigestion, but just to be sure, did I mind if she called 9-1-1? Just so they can run some tests and ensure my condition was not anything more serious. 

Sure. What the hell? Better safe & what… 

When the ambulance arrived at the drugstore, these valkyries – all business – came into the back with their EKG to survey my heart murmurs. Nothing out of the ordinary, necessarily, they diagnosed. But there was something nagging one of the EMTs. She recommended I go to the emergency room for tests with bigger & better machines to ensure it wasn’t anything more serious.

Sure. What the hell? Better safe & what…

Can I drive myself?, I asked the EMTs. I was parked outside. We’d prefer take you, the pixie-haircut freckled paramedic insisted. If your condition worsens, the other EMT told me, we wouldn’t want you to plow your car into a bus full of children. You’re very persuasive, I admitted. Let’s go. 

They wheeled me through the drugstore on a stretcher. Embarrassed by all the fuss, I refused to make eye contact with the shoppers waiting in line to purchase scratch-offs, toilet paper, Mountain Dew and cigarettes. Into the back of the ambulance with the ladies I went. I haven’t seen the driver as we’ve cruised to a nearby emergency room. There hasn’t been a siren. Urgency without rush. In fact, I am already starting to feel better. The paramedic with the chocolate brown braids asks if I am doing okay. Yeah, I assure her, this isn’t my firing squad. Am I going to have to sell one of my organs to pay for this ambulance ride?, I ask. Just an arm or a leg will do, the paramedic with the pixie cut says with a lingering smile. 

At the ER, I am processed quickly. My valkyries are hovering outside my room. Pretty nice digs for being an emergency room room. There’s even a TV. The paramedic with the chocolate brown braids comes in and helps me find the remote to put the game on. I ask for her name, but before she can respond the doctor interrupts us. He is smiling; optimistic when providing me his diagnosis. He thinks I will live to fight another day. Cool, I say, I was pretty sure this wasn’t my firing squad. He awkwardly guffaws at the gallows humor. 

What did I eat last night? I tell the doctor: salmon with spicy chili crunch, a whole head of broccoli, red wine, rice, tequila. This is probably just a sticky rice nugget stuck in the wrong pipe, I suggest. The doctor agrees. He applies nitroglycerin to my chest. I’m definitely feeling better. I text message Goose Odinson to tell him I am running late, but I hope to be at the bar by halftime. The doctor returns a short while later. Y’know what?, he says casually, change in plan. We’re going to go ahead and send you to 17th Street after all. The butcher shop?, I ask. I have heard the stories. Well…, doc says to me, they are better equipped to look at your heart there. We’ll put you back on an ambulance and have you on your way. Okay, thanks doc. I text Goose I’m a little unwell. Gonna miss the whole fucking game.

Blowing into the cupped palm of my hand, I determine my breath isn’t horrible. A whiff of armpits is worrying, but what’s to be done? I straighten my shirt and wait to be collected by my valkyries. Who the fuck are you guys?, I ask the bodysnatchers who arrive and tell me to strip down. They give me a nightshirt to wear and a new stretcher to climb aboard. These are not my EMTs. This is not my ambulance. Who are these cowboys? Chad, Tanner & Chode, or somewhere near. The weather has turned: skies have erupted. The sirens are on; the cowboys in the back of the ambulance are holding tight; I can see out the back windows: we’re on a highway; traffic in our wake is divided onto opposite shoulders of the rain-drenched southbound lanes; we’re cruising. Going kinda fast…, I say. It’s a “code heart” bus ride, Chad or Tanner or maybe Chode says, we like to go fast for hearts & brains. Tanner or Chode or maybe Chad yells at the driver up front, drive faster!, you drive like a nurse! One of the cowboys is a medic and is outfitting me for an IV. Chode or Chad or maybe Tanner tells me, hey, when we get to the hospital, you gotta tell Darrel he drives like a nurse. Okay?, he asks. I dunno. I dunno if I like these guys. They’re freaking me out. Do you know why?, Chode or Chad or maybe Tanner asks me, why he drives like a nurse? Because he is a nurse?, I guess. Yes!, the cowboys all laugh, Darrel is a nurse! Okay. Got it. Clever.

We arrive at the hospital. They carry me off the ambulance and push me towards the butcher shop. I am rolled past Darrel. I do not tell him he drives like a nurse. What’s a “cath lab?”, I ask as I am wheeled inside and moved onto a new slab. Its cold, but I’m given blankets. Octopus tentacles of suction-cup monitors & sensors are feeling-up my body. Someone tells me they are going to use a catheter to check my heart. See what’s going on. Maybe clean-up any issues. A catheter?, I ask. You mean you’re going… up my dick? I guess it’s true, the quickest way to a man’s heart… No no, one of the masked members of the pit crew tells me. We’ll go in through your wrist. But!, I say, there are no holes in my wrist! Not yet, says the masked crew member. 

A big TV screen is moved next to my slab. Are they going to put on the game? Other machines are wheeled over. There is the machine which goes “bing!” Then the cardio-god, Dr Kind, descends from Olympus. Do you know where you are?, Dr Kind asks. Cath-lab, I say. Yes, he agrees, is there anyone waiting for you? No. Is there anyone coming for you? Nope. Anyone we should contact for you? No, I say, only if I die. Dr Kind offers a stern response, saying, we don’t talk that way in here. Jesus, man… cut me some slack. Uh, yeah, no need to call anyone yet, I tell him. Not until we know what’s going on. 

We’re ready to go. This is going to burn, I am told. They are going to give me a drip of fentanyl. Really? Wow. Okay. The butcher shop doubles as an opium den. For the first time, I realize I am not going home tonight. The drip is slight. I stop feeling most things… I have to pinch myself to realize there’s an absence of pain, but wait… shit, doesn’t not feeling a pinch mean I am dreaming? You are not dreaming, Dr. Kind says to me. Sure, I say, which is exactly what a dream doctor would say. 

We’re about to begin the procedure, Dr. Kind says. Mmhmm, I hum watching the big screen. I am cognizant. Everything is crisp. Numb, but clear. I am watching the televised procedure. It’s my heart. The catheter which went up my artery is broadcasting live. Cool. And then. Oh, I say. 

Oh shit…

My eyes leave the big screen and roll up to the ceiling and keep rolling until they slide under my eye lids and into the dark interior of my skull. “Oh shit”, famous last words. 

Consciousness without connection. Unmoored. Consciousness without perception. Darkness as I’ve no eyes to see. There is no pain in my shoulders or lower back. The persistent nagging of minor aches is gone. So is the persistent nagging of guilt, remorse, doubt. The load we never acknowledge, yet carry every day… it’s no longer there. I am unburdened. A unique sensation. Removed from the self. History is blank. Removed from time. I cannot even dwell on it. The peace of nothing. 

My hearing is the first sense to return. 

Are you okay…?, asks a voice. It comes from a vast distance, from out of no where. Are you okay…?, the voice asks again. Mmm. Can you hear me…? Yeah. Are you with us? My eyes flutter and I see Dr Kind standing at my side. I can hear myself saying, “yeah, I have been right here all along.” No, Dr Kind says. No you have not. Your heart stopped, he says. We had to use the paddles to bring you back.

Oh. Shit. 

I have a single absurd tear sprinting down my cheek. I don’t know its purpose. I don’t know what triggered it. I am not sad or afraid or anything. Just dull shock. Why the tear? Was it the realization the moment, however long, of unencumbered consciousness was actually death. My first. Unlikely my last. 

Huh. Shit. 

Dr Kind explains what I am seeing on the big screen as they continue their work. It’s a moving landscape, varying shades of brown, with serpentine vines squeezing the throbbing fruit. Here are my fucked arteries. 80% blockage over here. They will take care of that in 2 days when I’ve had a chance to rest. Over here was a 99% blockage. A widow-maker. We’ve put in a stent to open the artery, Dr Kind says. Whoa, I say. 99? That’s on the high end. How could this happen?, I ask. We’ll run tests, Dr Kind says. It is not usual for someone of your age to have such a blockage. It is likely genetic, he says. Sure, blame my parents. But, could it be?, I ask after clearing my throat, caused by the good love of a bad woman? I tell him, I am no stranger to a broken heart, Doc. Or as they say down in Oaxaca, corazón roto. 

Dr Kind doesn’t blink. He asks, is there someone we can call? Nah, I say. If I survive the night, I will call people in the morning. Let everyone get a good night sleep. The cardiologist says, we’ll put you in the ICU for monitoring overnight, Mr Neverman. Dr Kind takes a breath and says, they call this heart failure. But it is the strength of your heart which has allowed you to survive this. A lesser heart would not have survived. 

Sure. So, Doc, maybe you could, uh…, I say before stopping myself from asking Dr Kind if he could phone either my original paramedics. The valkyries. But I don’t want to get them in trouble. Maybe?, he asks me to continue. I ask, is a nightcap in order? Something to take the edge off?

Without responding, Dr Kind leaves the cath lab. My cardiac event had interrupted his peaceful night at home. To Olympus he returns. The anonymous cath lab pit crew goes to work unplugging me from all of the machines. All the king’s horses. All the king’s men. I say to the masked crowd, I knew you weren’t my firing squad.