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1:55 a.m. - 2003-08-19 One afternoon, the usual crowd of neighborhood children in my yard parted to reveal my friend Heather, cradling her right wrist in her left hand and crying. She had split her wrist on the top of our short chain-link fence, and her wrist was reacting as could be expected, with alarming, syrupy force. I do not remember where my mother was at the time--although surely she was home. I do remember feeling that it was unnecessary to roust her from whatever pursuit she might've been following, however, and led Heather into the bathroom. I held her wrist under the water, then poured peroxide over it, which was about as well-received as one would imagine. (I am amazed, in retrospect, that this did not result in violence). I then placed squares of gauze on her wrist, and wrapped the whole affair in winding gauze. Blood seeped through at first, so I wrapped a little more, and more snugly. When the crimson evidence disappeared, Heather was comforted, and I finished with a strip of first aid tape. Then we got popsicles out of the freezer, because it seemed like the Medical Thing to do, and went back outside to play. She probably should have had a stitch or two, but what she got was me, the champion doctor-player of the neighborhood. I hope she was young enough to avoid a permanent, potentially embarrassing scar. I have not--since--been so cavalier. But I retained that innocence through my first experience with lifeguard training 7 years later, skipping through with a spring in my step, never giving things a second thought. I studied hard, took my responsibility seriously, and arrested two drownings in the early stages, for which I was proud. Not that I was blind to the things that could happen. When my co-worker Christopher pulled a dying two-year-old from the non-swimming area of a local lake, I remember feeling crushed for him, and the baby...and uncharitably, silently angry at the baby's pitiable parents. Christopher was Not Quite Himself after that, and I never saw him again after he went back to college. But the situation hadn't daunted me, didn't stop me, didn't faze me. I resolved never to work at a lake, and that was that.
I was never foolish enough to think I was invincible. I simply did not think on a macro level in which things happened everywhere and constantly; did not ruminate, wonder or fear at the level I do now--from the sheer experience of having been alive so long. ...Which brings me to my secret embarrassment.
...The mask is very light, a little bulky, pale see-through sea foam green and nestled in a white triangular case with a pair of yellowy latex gloves. Both were issued me during the Spring recertification class, and now I can't seem to leave the house without them. The compulsive nature of this side effect is not lost on me. The empowerment of my initial Red Cr0ss classes has been reborn as a slightly different feeling. A "'Tis no wit to go" feeling, a dim anxiety, the realization that by carrying the mask, I am acknowledging a human propensity to collapse and break. I am recognizing my own human weakness (close to shops, schools, surface; 10 minute walk) which hasn't the heart to lie to me. My weakness reports--in quavering tones--that I might not risk my life if I were maskless, gloveless, and presented with an unconscious and bleeding peer of unknown pathology. Worse yet, my recertification instructor Jen, an EMT and acquatics supervisor, backed this course of action; looked right at me with those china-blue eyes, stroked her WWJD bracelet and repeated "Your first duty is not to create two victims." This is the sort of dilemma that I prefer to settle before it happens, but so far, negotiations have stalled. Only a child seems to have any weight with me--I would risk disease for a child. And only part of that is an altruistic knee-jerk response involving the pitiful sight of a child in trouble. I'm quite aware that the rum little buggers simply have a slightly smaller likelihood of harboring fatal blood-borne diseases. And so the mask goes with me everywhere, that grim reminder of mortal fragility, my permission slip for the least I can do...my anxiety in tangible, visible form. Sometimes I feel a little silly.
A woman was opening the stiff rear passenger door of a mangled Suburu Outback. Facing away from the suburu, on a sidewalk, was a Ford pick-up with a canopy. The Suburu had been hit violently from the front, and a wide band of glass glittered from one curb to the other. "Will you call 911?" I said to the bus driver. "Doing that," came the reply. I bounded off the bus--narrowly avoiding a teenage boy's hilariously ill-timed chat-up attempt--and ran to the intersection.
"Are you guys alright?" "I want my DAD," moaned one of the children. The other boy cried wordlessly. "We're okay, just scared," the woman said. "The bus driver called 911 for you guys. I'm a lifeguard and know first aid, so I want to stick around until help comes, just in case." "Thank you." "Is that the other driver?" I pointed at a 50ish man who matched the Ford--blue jeans, plaid shirt, baseball cap. "Yes, it is."
"I don't know what happened," the truck driver said sadly. "You okay?" "Yeah, I'm fine."
Finally 2 police cars arrived, spilling patrolmen onto the glassy streets, barking "Everyone okay?" and turning their attention and flashlights quickly to the wrecked cars themselves. A man arrived to pick up his son; one of the boys. I had survived any potential usefulness, so I tiptoed through the glass and faded slowly up the hill and away from the site, nauseated with adrenaline. I was fearfully glad not to have needed to do a damned thing, and felt rapidly less stupid for toting my mask and gloves around. Shit really does happen. ...Vulgar of me, I know.
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