All Involved (17 page)

“Nurse, hi,” he says, ruining it. “Hi, Nurse. My name's Antonio.
Annnnn-to-ni-o
. But people that know me call me Lil Creeper.”

He giggles at that. He really cracks himself up. This is good news, I guess, because it means his morphine drip is working.

Pathology came back and said it was a low-grade astrocytoma, malignant as hell. But we caught it early, which is good, because if we hadn't, he could have been dead in twelve months or less. So, in a way, getting shot saved his life. Incredible. How is it the cockroaches of the world have all the luck but the good ones like Ernesto never seem to? I'll never understand that.

I check his intracranial pressure first, which is normal considering, and then his blood pressure. It's 139/90, a little on the high side, but that's perfect, because it means it'll still push nutrients to the brain through the swelling.

“My heart might be getting fast cuz you're close. Maybe you should check again?”

Yeah, right. I deflate the cuff, pull it off, and shine my light in his eyes. His pupils are reactive, constricting perfectly and symmetrically. More or less on one or the other might mean a problem, but for now, he's good enough for me to discharge to Skilled Nursing as soon as he's stable for twenty-four hours, and, according to me, that will be ten hours from now. I'm noting this when a sick feeling hits me. I
know
this patient.

This is the little junkie that Mrs. Nantakarn is sure stole every one of her good china plates last year for no reason, because it's not like you can sell them for anything much, and she had to buy them back at the swap meet a week later. Him and my brother were the same year in school. I'm sure they know each other. Of course, I don't need to draw attention to that.

“Look at you,” Antonio says. He squints like he's thinking. “I know you.”

Great, just great. Already I feel the side of me I'm so good at hiding at work about to come out. Just being near this fool brings the neighborhood out in me. Rather than wait for him to put together how he knows me, I decide to go on the offensive. “Yeah? Well, I know you, too. Why'd you steal all them pretty plates last year?”

He smiles like I caught him, but he's smooth too. He slides right out of it.

“I'd never steal nothing, Sleepy's number one big sister. Never in my life. You're insulting me saying that.”

I give him a look that says I-can-see-through-you, so-sell-your-bullshit-to-some-other-chick-that-don't-know-no-better.

He sees that and his face changes, almost looks more sad and vulnerable and that stops me for a second before he says, “Okay, but maybe I'd steal one thing.”

It's a setup. I see his shit coming a mile away. Grow up in my neighborhood and make enough mistakes with terrible guys, you can too. It wasn't easy, but I had to learn somehow. What ties all the guys that treated me bad together is how good they were at lying to me, and how stupid I was and ate it all up. So with this little one, I put my hand on my hip, like, come-on-I-don't-got-all-day. Cuz for his type, I don't, and I never will again.

He pauses way too long because he thinks he's smooth and I'm already turning to leave when he says, “I'd steal your heart.”

My laugh comes out so high and fast it surprises me a little. It's like a bark almost. This little boy couldn't have my heart if he cut it out of me. It's already kind of set on someone else, a good guy for once, except maybe that guy doesn't know it yet, or if he did know, maybe he wouldn't care, but I hope he would. I hope.

I guess I pause there, just a touch, and this kid, because that's what he is, all of nineteen, completely misreads it. He thinks it's for him!

“Come on,” Antonio says, all confident. “I'll take you to Sam's and everything! I'm good for it. I'll let you order steak and shrimp cuz that's what type of guy I am. I'll treat you
right
.”

Like this fool ever knew what it meant to treat a girl right. If I'd never left the block, that might sound pretty good, but I have, so it doesn't. Besides, no self-respecting girl in her right mind wants to go to Sam's Hofbrau. That place calls itself an adult cabaret, but it's just a dirty-ass strip club with pizza and fried food and ghetto girls shaking their soon-to-be-diabetic asses. It's where the gangsters and wannabe-gangsters throw money around like they're somebody, that's what my brother says.

“No thanks,” I say.

“Fine,” he says, “but you're missing out!”

I drop his chart in the slot at the foot of his bed and he knows I'm lost to him, so he starts serenading me with “Rock Around the Clock,” except he's not saying clock, he's saying something else that my
abuela
raised me not to repeat, but it's slang for penis.

When you've known as many bad guys as I have, you appreciate the good ones, like how rare they are. Like, how sometimes there's so few you get to thinking that there's only ever four or five you actually get to meet, and maybe two you got a decent shot at being with. I had my chance with Ernesto, and he was good—not just good, but good
to me
—even at an age when everyone is an idiot. Maybe Mr. So-and-So can be my next good one. I hope so, because that's a long time between good men, too long.

I puff at some hair stuck to the side of my face, but it's no good. It stays stuck. I look at my watch. I been up for twenty-two, no, twenty-three hours now and I'm getting that tired sweat you get from being up and around in one place too long, so I comb hair off my forehead with my index fingers and tie it back with a little black hairband I always keep on my wrist if I need it. I ponytail it and then flip the end of it back through so I got like a loop on top of my head.

When I'm a few steps up the hall, I decide to pray a little prayer. I shoot a glance behind me to make sure no one's coming up quick with a gurney or a wheelchair before I stop short, and I bow my head. I take my silver cross necklace between my fingers. It feels weird saying “my” about that. My
abuela
gave it to me before she
passed. I only have a few things from her, some dresses because they only fit me—all of them lacy and traditionally long and blue, because she wouldn't wear any other color ever—but this is the only piece of jewelry I have. My little sisters and cousins got the turquoises, the rings and necklaces. But this cross was my grandma's favorite, and that's why it's so special. I don't pray on it all the time, only when I really need to.

I hear the fluorescents buzzing above me and shoes squeaking far off, when I say my little silent prayer for my brother to not end up like Ernesto Vera in the alley behind our house, and then I pray for Ernesto's soul because he laid out there so long, longer than anybody should ever have to. Because I'm on a roll I say another little one for Fireman Anthony So-and-So to not be hurt and to come back safe so he can be kind to me one more time, so I can make him smile and show me his one dimple again. I don't want this to be the last time we ever see each other, and if I see him again, maybe then I'll have the courage to make it clear that if he wants to ask me to coffee, I wouldn't mind drinking some with him sometime, you know, whenever.

I put the cross back under my uniform collar then, and I feel kind of sheepish so I check both ways to make sure nobody saw.

MAY 1, 1992

2:41
A
.
M
.

I have a bad feeling as we enter the cul-de-sac and see our destination lit up like a Roman candle at the end of it. This fire turns adjacent bungalows orange with its light. Right then, I think if ever a place were suited for an ambush, this'd be it. My head's on a swivel as we roll up the street to the blaze. It has been ever since I came on shift, and I don't like what I'm seeing either. Around here, lookie-loos dot lawns in twos and threes—young black ones with hoods up and dumb-ass rags on their heads.

Suzuki and Gutierrez are behind me in the jump seats. My captain is sitting next to me, Captain Wilts. He's black too, but that doesn't mean he likes the look of this crowd either. I tell him I don't like what I'm seeing, and he radios the Strike Team Leader that there are just too many people lurking, trying to look like they're not paying attention to us as we go by. Yelling, I've gotten used to, being pelted by rocks too, but not this kind of quiet. There's about thirty people looking at us like we're dinner on wheels, but the STL says to trust our escort, and Cap nods so I take us in. I follow orders—that's my job, I drive the rig and pump—but I don't have to like them, I just have to keep the hoses charged.

California Highway Patrol has two cars on with us, both from Ventura County down here on Mutual-Aid. Good guys. Not used to what we do, but good guys. They weren't happy hearing we take civilian gunfire even during the best of times, that our rigs get bullet
holes and broken windows something regular. Now, in a run-of-the-mill emergency situation, we send a fireman to the hydrant, he opens it, and we squirt. But in the thirty or so hours since this riot kicked off, we've been learning this all over the Southland: you send one to the hydrant, he gets hassled, so you send two to the hydrant, and they get hassled too, so it's gotten to the point where you don't even bother opening a hydrant without two escort cars, each one blocking both ends of the block. It's good then, but everything's better when CHP has their guns out.

But this is a cul-de-sac in a neighborhood of run-down bungalows built too close together. It's an old block, something out of the '50s that was probably built to house aircraft plant workers like those down at Lockheed, the ones who came after World War II. Now it's all falling to pieces: peeling paint, fallen-down carports, and cars on cinder blocks. It's north of my district, which is 57s, so I don't know if this is Blood or Crip territory, but it's something. People are paying too much attention for it not to be, and worse, they're moving toward the fire—and us—like slow moths. None of that is my issue right now, though.

Right now, my issue is the cul-de-sac. If I wanted to lure firemen into a difficult situation to get out of, I'd do my arson here. Operationally, the only thing to do with cul-de-sacs is to lock off the opening. Only problem in this case is that's also our lone out. It's my job to know our outs, to park the rig head out, so we can pull up and leave with no wasted effort. No three-point turns. In and out clean. Here, we can't do that, and it makes me nervous when our only out is back the way we came, but the STL said knock these fires down, so I hook up and lay two lines before setting the pressure relief valve. I have the supply two-and-a-half and an inch-and-a-half down. I'm out of three-and-a-half because we had to cut and run due to a potential mob situation off Slauson a couple hours ago. Once we're going here, though, it goes fast and fine.

We have five engines so we knock it down fast. When it's still smoking, we start pulling back. In a standard situation, we stay on it
until there's nothing but ash, because if there's a rekindle, it's your ass and the asses of everyone on your company. That's not the case with martial law. Here it's just pulling lines out, squirting, knocking a fire down, picking up, and heading out because there's always five or ten more to put out. Once you get into a rhythm, it's kind of fun.

For one thing, there's no EMS calls for us tonight and there haven't been since it started. That's almost like a reward. There's no search and rescue going on tonight, only hosing. That's why all the trucks are back at the stations and the knuckle-dragging, holier-than-thou AO's actually have to do some real work for once.

I keep eyes on the crowd when the STL orders us to pull out. They've mashed into one mass near the mouth of the cul-de-sac and that's not good. Quick as I can, I check my water tank's full from the hydrant before disconnecting the supply line and grabbing Gutierrez. We both load the inch-and-a-half back in the transverse bed. Normally, we'd load it up nice and tight and pretty, but there's no time to be in inspection mode. Right now it's all about getting the job done and then doing another two blocks over, or three, or whatever. Speed is the priority, not orderliness. It goes against everything we've been taught, and it's beautiful. It's freedom, is what it is. I'd feel better about it if the crowd was further back though. Every time I turn my head it seems like they're bigger somehow, closer.

I nod to Gutierrez, and he knows to hurry the hell up. He sees them too. We quick-load the two-and-a-half and lift it up between us. We rest it on the tailboard for a moment before the final heft into the hose bed as CHP gets back in their cars and opens our exit up so all the engines can come out, but that's when I know something's wrong. The second CHP shuts their doors, a barrage of debris comes our way, and right behind it, bodies fly straight at us through the dark.

Who knows why? Some race shit? Some authority shit? Excuse me if I never stopped to consider the motive of fucking gangbangers because I'm too busy dropping hose and ducking a chucked rock
the size of a softball. The thing dents the back of my rig before hitting asphalt. By the time I pull my head up, somebody's on top of Gutierrez and one of his legs is trapped under the hose and he's struggling to get out of it. I lunge forward to tackle the cocksucker but I'm not fast enough. This big black sonuvabitch built like an offensive lineman slams half a jagged cinder block down on Gutierrez's face point-first.

I see the look on this kid's face then, the seriousness and the sickening glee, and I see the thing drop in slow motion, feeling the sound of it in my stomach when it makes contact with chin and pushes through it, the awful crunch of jawbone snapping under the weight. Gutierrez screams a sputtering scream as I smash into the smiling black bastard on top of him and send him half upright and tripping over the curb to fall on his face in the grass. I'm not the biggest guy in the world but I did put all my weight into it. What I'd do beyond that, I don't have to know because CHP's behind me with guns drawn and they pop off a warning shot that sends the kid scrambling away like a greyhound. As he goes, I see a shiny scar gleam on his shoulder, like he had surgery or something.

“Shoot him,” I say. “He got Gutes!
Shoot
him!”

But they don't. They let him get away, over a fence. That burns me up but I can't waste energy on it now.

I look down and assess the injury before me. It's bad—ugly bad. Cap's beside me. He sees it. Suzuki does too.

“Shit,” Suzuki says. “Hang in, Gutes!”

Through a new rip in his face, I see Gutierrez's tongue flailing like it's trying to get up and run away. The rest is worse, because I also see his jaw just hanging off, completely out of its left socket, so far out that I can see the flat whites of his molars.

My heart drops when I see that. I'm out of my jacket and ripping my uniform shirt off—because nothing in the first aid box seems big enough for this—balling it up as best as I can before putting it between his shoulder and his jaw, and I'm turning his cheek into it so it'll keep his jaw in one place for the moment.

“Keep the pressure there if you can,” I say to Suzuki. “Just for a sec.”

Cap runs to the radio as we lift Gutierrez and throw his arms over our shoulders to drag him to the cab. We don't have time for C-Spine. Best we can do is have Suzuki's hands on his neck, supporting it while we get the fuck out of here. I'm breathing thick and fast, and I'm babbling, apologizing with every word I can manage, I'm telling Gutes how fucking sorry I am, sorry that CHP dumb-ass didn't grease that kid right there, sorry I didn't trust my gut and leave the two-and-a-half behind, that if we hadn't left my three-and-a-half on the last run, I would've told him to leave it where it was on the grass, to not load it, but I didn't want to be without my last supply hose for the next one, and how stupid that all sounds now, how none of it was worth it. None of it.

Suzuki and I get Gutierrez into the shotgun seat of my rig. We lean him against the seat back as gingerly as we can before I'm jumping down and running around the front to my door. Suzuki does the same, scrambling into his jump seat behind and opening the window partition wider so he can support Gutierrez's neck. Cap's in the back now too, and he's strung the radio cord through.

To the mic, he says, “Firefighter Gutierrez has been injured.”

“Say again,” the STL's staff assistant says.

I'm shouting before I realize I'm shouting, “Some gangbanger hit Gutierrez in the face with a brick!”

Cap ignores me and repeats what he said before. CHP has the crowd all run off now. The four of them comb lawns and sidewalks, looking for strays, but I don't have time for that. I throw it in gear.

“How serious?” It's the STL now. He wants to know.

I'm front engine now and I should wait for a CHP cruiser to get in front of me, but I don't. I'm holding what's left of Gutierrez's jaw in its socket with my right hand because he's managed to twist away from the shirt while Suzuki keeps his neck supported, and I'm flipping my lights and sirens with my left as I put my foot down on the accelerator and speed out of the cul-de-sac.

“Extremely serious,” Cap says.

What he doesn't say is that Gutes has got a new hole in his face, some teeth turned around, and, I can't go into the rest.

Gutierrez is 57s—one of ours, and the worst cook you could ever imagine—and he's shaking as I try to hold his face together, shivering more like. It's shock. He's murmuring something about me needing to call his wife and tell her he's okay, telling me not to worry, telling me it's his fault for getting his leg stuck. Through the hole in his face, I feel the side of his tongue shuddering against my palm as he speaks.

“Stop talking,” I say to him. “Just stop.”

“Harbor-UCLA,” the STL finally says.

All over the city, engine convoys have been reporting civilians trying to slow them down or stop them so they can pelt rigs with bottles, rocks, cans—anything. They string themselves across intersections by holding hands Red Rover style, banking on you slowing down.

When Gutierrez whimpers, I feel a vibration in my wrist bone. Right then, I take a breath as deep as I can manage.

“So you know, Captain,” I say behind me to Wilts, “if anybody gets in my way, I'm running them right the fuck over.”

There's no response right away, only the directional wails of the sirens coming on behind me as the engines fall in. They're with me. All of them.

“You do what you got to do,” Cap says.

Nobody gets in my way, lucky for them. I'm happy about that, as happy as I can be under the circumstances, because I really don't need anything else on my conscience. Right now, Suzuki's still supporting Gutierrez's neck, but Gutes is moaning a little between breaths. I've managed to press the shirt so his jaw stays marginally in the socket. That freed up my right hand to drive, but it also made
the steering wheel sticky with blood, and the feel of it makes me hate myself. That feeling multiplies when I hear Cap relating details of the injury over the radio to the STL.

Vermont's the first major street I come to, so I bang a left but I'm going a little too fast and my right rear tire kicks up as I turn and it lands with a screechy thump that shakes the whole rig. Suzuki grunts and Gutierrez doesn't react, but all the same, I resolve never to do that again.

“Slow down, we're in a hurry.”

That's what I tell myself. I actually say it out loud. It's something my ex used to say to me. It was the one good thing she ever left me with, something to remind me to stay calm during storms.

“You're doing just fine,” Cap says behind me.

We roll by some National Guards building a sandbag fort on a street corner, on the edge of a supermarket parking lot, and I can't help thinking they'd do more good where we just were, but hell, I know a big part of their job is deterrent, not engagement. Still, it would've been nice to protect someone's neighborhood from burning to the ground without getting attacked by its residents, the very same people we're trying to help. That'd be too much to ask though, right? Fucking animals.

The CHP cruiser pushes up alongside me now. My guess is he's thinking this is my city, and I know where the hell I'm going, which is good, because I do. It's also his way of letting me know he's following my lead and the good news is, the streets are clear enough to allow that, which surprises me because I thought for sure curfew wouldn't work, not with how this city's going up.

I take a left on Gage but this time I'm going slow enough that my rig stays flat. I'm up the on-ramp and on the Harbor Freeway in a big goddamn hurry. My exit's Carson and I'm going over 60 now, but not much over. It's not advisable to push it much past that when you're carrying almost a full 500-gallon water tank and a 50-gallon fuel tank, no matter how full it is. We'll be there in five minutes.
We'll pull up, and everything will be fine. They'll swarm over like wasps wearing scrubs, take him away, and fix him.