typea_all (2 page)

     "You stuck me in the chest. Jesus, I'm gonna die."

     "You're not going to die, Mr. Reynolds. Just get up so I can move my arm and we'll see what happened."

     "What happened? You jabbed the needle into my chest."

     "You fell on the needle! I didn't jab it into you."

     "You don't know what you're doing. Take it out. Help! Someone help!"

     "Stop yelling. There's nobody out there. For God's sake, it's after 5, everyone else went home already."

     I tried to get up, to get him off me, but all I could do was slide around in the blood. Those damn shoes were supposed to have traction, but the edges kept hydroplaning. Reynolds was lying on the floor, now just blubbering and moaning, which was better than yelling, but my arm was still locked under him. On top of that, I was having a hot spell. Now I know what they mean about blood, sweat, and tears.

     "Please, try to lift yourself up. I have to get my arm out from under you."

     "I don't want to move yet. I can't. Leave me alone."

     "I can't leave you alone! You're lying on my arm, and I'm sliding around in your blood. For God's sake, the sooner you get up, the quicker I can get the needle out of your chest."

     "The needle that you stuck in there."

     "The needle that you fell on, you mean. You fell on it yourself."

     Then I remembered some psychology from college. "If you don't get up, all of your blood will drain out and you'll die for sure. And if I get sick from your blood, I'll sue your whole family so they’ll have to sell your organs to pay me." 

     That quieted him down, but he still didn't move, he kind of just lay there, like he was trying to sleep. I gave him a minute to collect his thoughts, and then used more psychology – I begged.

     "Please get up. My arm is starting to feel numb."

     Not a peep or a movement. Time for the big guns.  With my free arm, I pulled another tourniquet from my pocket. I reached around so the tourniquet was right in front of his eyes.

     "Listen, I have one free arm and one tourniquet. I'm a trained professional; I can tie it with one hand. If you don't get up in 10 seconds, I'm going to pull down your zipper and tie this sucker around Mr. Johnson.  Then if you do happen to live through this, you'll be peeing out of plastic tube for the rest of your miserable life."

     Never mess with a menopausal woman.

     "So it's your choice. Get up now and save Mr. Johnson, or wallow in your own blood and have Mr. Stubby between your legs."

     No movement for about five seconds. I wouldn't do it, of course, I'm a M. T. (ASCP).  I was also covered in this guy's blood and scared out of my support stockings.  But I figured a little extra incentive wouldn't hurt.

     I reached around and started tugging at his zipper. He gave a little shudder then jumped up.

     "You're crazy! You would really do it!"

     He was standing with the needle and holder sticking out of his chest, but I don't think it was in too deep. I grabbed hold of something and got to my knees, then I reached up and pulled out the needle.

     I got up and started looking for alcohol and gauze. The guy is crazy, but I couldn't let him walk out of here like that. And I didn't want to call for help.

     All of a sudden he went berserk. He started stomping on the two tubes that I completed until they broke.  More blood and glass on the floor. Just what I needed.

     "What are you doing? You're a lunatic."

     "You're the lunatic. You were gonna cut my penis off. All I needed was a little rest."

     "A rest! This isn't the YMCA."

     He looked around and started toward the door, but slid on some blood and fell again.

     "Please. Let me clean you up a little. I want to take a look at the wound."

     "You're not touching me again." Then he jumped to his feet and ran out the door.

     I thought about going after him. For about a second. Then I figured I better just clean everything up as best I could and figure out what to do. Okay, I had three choices.

     One. I could call for help and explain what happened. "This crazy person went berserk, and I had to threaten to tie off his penis to get him off of my arm."

     Two. I could clean up the whole mess, go home and explain everything in the morning.

     Three. I could walk out, change my name, have a sex change operation, and go into hiding for the rest of my life.

     I chose what was behind door number two, spent two hours cleaning up, and went home for the night.

I had hoped to go to the gym for a workout, but all in all, a pretty impressive first day on the job.

Chapter 2

     Home.

     After I quit teaching I decided I needed a major change in my life.  I moved to New Jersey. I love that state. The best thing about Jersey, though, is that it's not Pennsylvania. And the best thing about anyplace on this earth, including Devil's Island and Afghanistan, is that it's not Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

     I took whatever savings I was able to accumulate over the years and moved to a little seaside community called Longport. I got the cheapest rental I could find and started looking for a job.

     People in Longport don't take shit from anyone, they don't give up, and they don't kiss ass. That's why I fit in so well.

     Longport is divided between the rich town folks who spend the summer, and the retired – or soon to be retired – folks who live there fulltime. The full-timers are outnumbered by about 10 to 1 in the summer but they rule, and they like their town to be the same as it was 40 years ago.  They like neat looking streets, with room between the houses. They like it quiet, and they like the personal small-town feeling.  They don't want to fight for parking spots during the summer, when the hordes of tourists arrive, and they certainly don't want the tourists to have any say in the way things work in Longport.

     I found a small two-bedroom rental house closer to the bay than the ocean. One bedroom and a bath were downstairs, the second bedroom and bath upstairs in what was originally the attic. I slept downstairs and used the second floor room for watching television, ironing, and sewing. The entire downstairs had tile on the floor, with area rugs in the bedroom and living room. Upstairs was all carpeted.

     Luckily, it was dark by the time I drove down my street and parked. I sat in the car for a moment, thinking.  Before getting into the car at the hospital, I laid about an inch of newspaper on the seat. I keep newspaper in the car for emergencies, such as when I can't wipe a package off before putting it on the seat. 

     Too late now, I realized I needed those plastic seat cushions. I could keep them in the back, and then put them on the seat whenever I was dirty. That way, the seat would stay clean all the time. I could get extra cushions for the passenger seat and the rear so all of the seats would stay clean. So I grabbed a piece of paper and pen from the glove compartment and wrote myself a reminder to drive to Wal-Mart later that week to buy seat cushions.

     My uniform was covered in blood, my support stockings ripped and giving me no support at all, and my hair a mess. I didn't want anyone on the street to see me like that.  When I pulled in my driveway, I looked in the rearview mirror, the side mirrors, and turned my head so I could see up and down the block. No movement or lights outside, no sign of life at all. It was safe.

     I opened the car door and quietly raised the garage door. I started collecting the bloody papers from the car, when I saw a flash of light coming down the street. A police car. Shit.

     I had to move in a hurry but not draw attention to myself. So I quickly but casually turned and started walking to the house when my foot slid on a wet paper I had dropped and I went down on all fours.  My first thought was that these shoes were going out into the trash. My second thought was to start parking in the garage instead of in front of it. My third thought was some lie to tell the police officer if he stopped.  After all, there's nothing suspicious about a woman in a bloody white uniform kneeling in the driveway.

     "I just killed and quartered my husband, officer, and I need to get him out for trash day."

     That wouldn't work. How about the truth – or some portion of it?

     Sure enough, he stopped.

     "Can I help you ma'am?"

     "I'm fine, officer. Thank you very much."

     Then I saw the flashlight go on and aimed directly at my bloodstained ass.

     "Are you sure? Are you hurt?" he said as he got out of the car. "Do you live here, ma'am?"

     Longport police are wonderful. They'd be polite to a lady even as they emptied their clip into her.

     "Maybe I can help."

     I figured I had no choice. No hiding it. I stood up, but before turning around, I opened the top two buttons on my uniform. Nothing helps more than a little cleavage.

     "Jesus, ma'am. What happened to you? Are you okay?"

     "Thank you for your concern officer, but I'm okay.  I work at the hospital lab, and we had an accident, that's all."  Why else would I be wearing a blood soaked uniform?

     Officer Walker, according to his badge, looked down at the bloody papers in the drive and on my front seat. Then he looked at the open garage door to an otherwise very dark house. And then I think he looked at my cleavage, although it was hard to tell.

     He looked lean and muscular, in his mid-thirties, I would guess, with wavy dark hair sticking out under his hat. A little young for me, well maybe not, but a fine specimen of a man, everything the opposite of Reynolds. He was the kind of guy you'd sneak glances at in a restaurant, especially in uniform. He looked serious, but I could tell he had a kind face and a smile that would dazzle the pants off of many a young thing.

     "Sure you're not hurt? Anything that the Somers Point police should be aware of? Would you have any identification on you?"

     "It really isn't necessary officer, is it?"  Time to stick out the chest a little more. That's when I heard a door open on the other side of the police car and I saw his woman partner come around. She was rather short, a little chunky, and looked like a fireplug in her uniform. I knew right away that nothing funny could be going on in the back seat of that squad car between partners.

     "I'd just like to check, that's all. Anyway, an attractive woman like you shouldn't be out by herself, even in Longport."

     Is this guy flirting with me, or just distracting me until his partner knocks me to the ground and cuffs me?

     "I don't remember seeing you around the neighborhood. I live just up the street," he added.

     Longport is a very small community and the police patrol regularly. They know all of the full timers, by their face and by their cars.

     "I just moved in here a few weeks ago. Rented it from the Voci family. Oh, my license is in the car, I'll get it."

     As I started to move, his partner started to come toward me. Evidently the cleavage wasn't working with her, but Walker gave a look and she walked around the outside of the house instead. I think knowing the Voci's name helped.

     "Here it is, officer."

     "Brooke Castle," he read. "Pennsylvania license and gives a Philadelphia address."

     "I plan to change my license and registration as soon as I can."

     "That's a good idea.  Nice picture of you, by the way."

     I knew he was lying, of course. Nobody looks good on a Pennsylvania driver's license. It's against the law in that state.

     "Listen, while we're here, considering it's dark and all, would you want us to check out the inside of the house?"

     "No, that's okay, I'll be fine."

     Truth is, I don't just let anyone in my house. I like it clean. Some people might call it Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but I like to think of it as just being highly antibacterial. I rarely have people over to my place because they carry dirt. Cat dander.  Dust mites. Lice. Radioactivity.  Ebola.  Black Death. Whatever.  Once I clean a place, make it mine, I do everything I can to keep it clean. I even have these little paper booties for workmen that I have to let in.

     At my old apartment in Philadelphia, I was just the same way. Workmen had to wear the booties, or they didn't get in.  Friends could skip the booties, but I'd spend all night cleaning the place when they left. I'd keep a mental inventory of every place they walked, and touched for that matter, so I could wipe it down afterward. Worked out to a 2 to 1 ratio most times. For every hour someone spent in the house, I spent about a half hour cleaning up. Of course, if they used the bathroom, we're talking 3 to 2.

     Ryan was about the only person who had full access to my place, but I still sanitized the entire apartment when he left. Ryan hasn't been to my new place yet. I didn't know Officer Walker that well to justify all that cleaning.

     "If you're sure."

     He aimed the light around the front of the house, not looking too sure that he should leave. By that time, his partner returned and gave him a little nod. They waited until I turned on the light in the garage, and then they got back into their car. I saw him hitting keys on his laptop and looking at my license plate. Then in a few minutes, he gave me a wide smile and a little wave, and they drove off.

     I was right, he was flirting. Isn't cleavage great?

******

     It took me about an hour to clean the car, folding the dirty papers and placing them in the trash. I always thoroughly clean my seat when I sit on it with dirty clothes. I'm binary in that way, either clean or dirty but nothing in between.

     Cleaning actually relaxes me, and that night it gave me some time to think about how I got where I was. It was my mother's fault, may she rest in peace.

     "Be a teacher", she said. "Why do you want to be a medical technician?"

     "A medical technologist, mom, there's a difference."

     "Who cares?  Be a teacher and have the whole summer off. You can travel, meet men, do charity work. Estelle's Sophie is a teacher and she goes to Europe every summer."

     Sophie was a 200-pound lesbian who could bench press twice her weight and beat any man in arm wrestling. She doesn't go to Europe, she just tells her mom she does. I know because we were like best friends in college, and we stayed friends for a while, although I hadn't seen her in a few years. Every summer she goes to Ocean City, Maryland, and lives with Joyce, a petite 90-pound blond with short hair and even smaller breasts. When they walk hand-in-hand it looks like Jack leading the cow to market in some fairytale. My friend Marcie told me she saw the two together in Rehoboth Beach one summer, making out on a bench, and that you could hardly see Joyce. It was like Jonah being swallowed by the whale.

     "Mom, I want to be a med tech"

     "Why?"

     "I want to work in a hospital, do blood tests."

     "Why?"

     "I want to do research."

     "Why?"

     I gave up. "So I can meet doctors. Maybe get married."

     Against my mother's advice, I became a med tech. I became Brooke Castle, M.T. (ASCP).  Only thing is, I hated the job. I hated driving into town, in a dumb looking white uniform, and taking blood from sick old people. The hospital was really just hell with fluorescent lights. But most of all, I hated working in the summer.

     So after a few years in the lab, I had about all I could take of it.  I went back to school and became a teacher. Mom never said, "I told you so." She didn't have to. She had that "I told you so" look surgically implanted onto her face to save her the trouble.

     Whether it was because I was stubborn, or smart, I kept up my ASCP certification over the years, paying my annual dues and reading all of the journals. I didn't think I'd ever go back into the field, but I found the reading interesting.

     I liked teaching, for the first few years anyway. Then the kids, the principal, the routine, the lack of books, and almost everything else about the job just got on my nerves. When a student threatened to rape me, and the principal gave me his "you're taking it too seriously" speech, I quit.  I become a high school dropout at the age of 48, moved to Jersey, and went back into the trade.