the next one. And if it is a residential removal, we both go together.
I finally had a mission!
The beauty of the job is that I can just get in the van and go, and there is enough work that it keeps me as busy as I want to be in my retirement years. Sometimes, they even send me on road trips to pick up or deliver a trade job (a body that’s embalmed by another funeral director) or take a burial out of town in the hearse. I am in different places and situations every day, meeting people at every turn. It’s certainly never dull, almost like being back in the good ol’ Army.
The only time I almost quit was a couple of years ago right around Christmas. I was dispatched to a nursing home in the city. I hate doing removals there because of the parking problems, and to top it off it looked like it was going to be a white Christmas. It was snowing hard.
This particular nursing home was in an established residential section of the city, where there was just room enough for the building—nothing else—certainly no parking lot. The ambulance ramp at the rear of the building extends out to the sidewalk on a one-way street. Normally, this would worry me because I have to park in the middle of the street and block traffic, but the snow compounded my worries. Snow and ice make navigating the cot hard enough, but going down a slippery ramp with at least a hundred pounds of weight is a near-impossible feat. The only thing I had working in my favor was the fact that the call came in at eleven o’clock at night. That meant traffic would be light.
I got to the nursing home, parked the van in the middle of the street, and took the keys out, even though it was below freezing and I would have preferred to keep the heater running. I put the emergency flashers on, wheeled the cot up the ramp, and was buzzed in. A sleepy and slightly hostile nurse threw some papers in front of me and pointed me to Mrs. Jardeen’s room. Much to my dismay, Mrs. Jardeen was, to put it nicely, a big woman. I hefted her onto the cot, pulled the straps tight, and headed back out into the tempest. The staff at the nursing home hadn’t salted the ramp. Holding onto the rail with one hand and allowing the weight of the cot to pull me, I slowly slid down the ramp without incident.
I was so pleased with myself at successfully navigating the slushy ramp that I threw caution to the wind. Mistake. As I lowered one end of the cot off the curb it hit a patch of ice and swung wildly to the right. I desperately twisted the rear of the cot into the skid, trying to stop it, but the weight on the cot torqued it right out of my hands. The force I was using to pull the cot suddenly wasn’t counter-balanced and I fell backward. I ended up sitting hard on my rear on the snowy sidewalk. The first thing out of my mouth was, “Oh, shit!” I watched in slow motion as the front wheels swung back to the curb and hit it. The forward momentum of Mrs. Jardeen kicked the legs of the cot out. It flopped on its side in a growing snow bank with a sickening
I sat for a moment on the cold, snowy sidewalk, stupefied by the little drama that had just played out before my eyes. I finally got up and dusted myself off and tried hefting the cot up. She was far too heavy for me to dead lift—no pun intended. There I was, out on the deserted city street in the middle of the night with a flipped cot and my van blocking the road… in a snowstorm.
Making a quick decision, I ran back up the ramp and got re-buzzed in. I found the surly nurse and explained my situation to her.
She looked at me like I was crazy. “Honey,” she said, “I just got off disability. There’s no way I’m going out and lifting something heavy like that. Once Mrs. Jardeen went through that door she was no longer my responsibility.”
“What?” I was incredulous that she could be that callous.
The nurse pursed her lips.
“Is there anyone in here that can help me?” I nearly screamed at her. I pounded on the counter, my eyes bulging. I stopped and collected myself.
The nurse didn’t seem concerned. She pulled a strand of hair and looked at the ceiling, deep in thought. After an eternity she said, “Nah. I can’t think of anyone on tonight that can help you.”
“Oh, wait,” she said. “Jamal, he can help you.”
My spirits rose, but she quickly dashed them. “No, wait, he called in. Ain’t coming in on account of the storm.”
“Wonderful.” I didn’t know anyone in the city who could help me. I’d have to call my partner and wait for him to drive the twenty or so minutes. “Can I use your phone?” I asked.
When she offered it up, I nearly ripped it out of her hands. As I told the dispatcher at the funeral home what had happened, I heard him mutter, “Christ,” under his breath. I wanted to strangle him. He was in his nice warm home sleeping and judging me! But I kept it together long enough to slam down the phone on him after he told me he’d put a call in to my partner.
I stalked back out to the van, so mad at myself I wanted to scream. I like things to work as planned. I think it’s the Army in me. When I screw up and the plan goes awry, it makes me furious. There was nothing I could do at that point. So I did the only thing I could do for Mrs. Jardeen—I dusted off the snow that was accumulating on the cot cover and got in the van to wait for my partner.
Several cars pulled up behind me flashing their lights and honking, and each time I had to get out and tell them to back up and detour. I wasn’t about to leave Mrs. Jardeen alone, even for a second. It took forty-five minutes for my partner to arrive due to the snow and ice. He later told me that he wanted to laugh, but after he saw the murderous look in my eye decided against it.
The next day Tom called me into his office. I thought for sure he was going to fire me, and to be perfectly honest, I was so embarrassed I wanted to quit.
“Nicholas,” he said to me, “I heard about your little incident last night.” He laced his fingers together and stuck them under his chin. His serious face melted into a mischievous smile. “Sounds like you had quite the little adventure in the city.”
“Yes,” I said, sitting rigid in the chair facing his desk. “It was an absolute nightmare.”
He laughed.
“What?” I demanded.
“You should see your face!”
“What about it?”
“You’re so serious.” Tom was belly laughing. “I bet you were a sight to see last night. Blocking the street… body laying on the sidewalk… nurses basically telling you to go chase yourself.” The laughter was shaking his entire body. “Nicholas, you’re too serious.”
“I like to be as professional as I can—”
Tom cut me off. “I can remember this one time I let a cot fall off a ramp into the bushes. The ramp had no railing and I drove the cot right over the edge.” Tears were coming to his eyes. “A pebble got caught in the wheel and it turned suddenly and I basically lost control of it. Boy, was my father mad at me that day! Man, oh man. He wouldn’t talk to me for the longest time. And you’re sitting here all upset because you slipped on the ice. What? Did you think I was going to fire you?”
“Well, yeah—”
“Nicholas, you’ve got to lighten up a little. I realize you do your best all the time, but this job is so unpredictable you have to laugh sometimes or you’ll cry. The important thing is you didn’t hurt yourself last night. That nurse should be tied and quartered, but what can you do? Honestly, Nicholas, what can you do? You did the right thing, and that’s all I can ask. I wish I had two more of you.”
“Thanks. I guess,” I said.
I left his office that day feeling puzzled but relieved. I did learn an important lesson about my limitations. Our motto in the 7th Infantry was
And I still hate watercolor.
CHAPTER 12
