Burned

Dr. Demarius Woodson was working the ungodly 36-hour emergency room shift at St. Thomas Hospital. His team was gettin’ her done as Demarius liked to say, swiftly but efficiently dealing with the gunshot wounds, cardiac arrests, stabbings, and sundry other emergency situations that filtered in throughout that particular Friday afternoon and evening. 

At 6’3” and a svelte 220 pounds, Demo, as he was called by everyone, was a commanding and reassuring presence. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he had broken all the neighborhood’s unspoken rules and walked away from basketball scholarship offers from all of the top universities, and an almost certain NBA career, to pursue his true dream. As a kid he would sit glued to the TV screen watching any and every medical drama and documentary that he could find. Now he could have starred in one.

He was the darling of the nursing staff with a background in general surgery and a specialty in orthopedic surgery, to boot. He loved the emergency room, figuring that his experience on the basketball court had helped prepare him for the pressure of dealing with life threatening situations and trauma. He preferred the adrenalin flow from what he called real pressure over that of a game. At only 32 years of age, he was a flesh and blood metaphor of a shooting star, and the top-rated black orthopedic surgeon in the tri-state area.

Friday night found Demo catnapping in the dark room, an activity that he had learned to excel in. He had trained himself to fall asleep quickly and was usually snoring gently within two minutes tops. Rarely was he not able to jump up when the next emergency rolled in and slap on his surgical gear with a mind fresh and clear. This Friday night was no exception.

“Demo,” he heard John speak his name as the door flew open. “We got us a serious burn victim!”

Demo was already on his feet by the time he heard the word burn. He caught himself for a second, did a ten-second breathing ritual that he used when he felt a punch of fear in his chest, and said, “Let’s do it.” 

The victim was wheeled in and Demo’s heart took another punch. This was obviously a young person, based on the size, and it was almost indeterminable what the sex and even color of the victim was. 

“There are a couple more, but this one took it the worst,” one of the assistants said. “Explosion over at First Baptist, evidently. No one knows what caused it.”

Demo took his place beside the victim at his or her right shoulder. First Baptist, First Baptist. Why was that sticking in his mind? He started barking out the orders, calm, firmly, as usual.

“The pulse is very low, barely anything,” he heard. Then he heard the flatline.

Within a couple of minutes the patient (victim?) had a heart beat again. Demo looked down with pity at the mess of flesh curdled up on the face, one eye totally missing, the other probably worthless, the nose melted off, and yet the mouth seemingly untouched. Though he would always block it out of his mind while doing his job, he would think of the parents when a child came in. It was his instinct to do so. Usually he could see the boy or girl and therefore form a picture in his mind of what the parents looked like. Again, it was instinct, and he was uncannily good at it. This one, though, gave no clues.

He shut it out of his mind and surveyed the damage. God, he didn’t know how the kid could make it but he had to give it his best shot. He always did. He wondered what the kid’s life was going to be like, the pain, the ridicule, the struggle, if he or she did make it.

“Pulse is getting low again,” the same voice.

Demo was about to calmly, firmly order the appropriate measures to stay the flatline. He raised his left arm to instruct his team and rested his right hand on the surgical bed, by the victim’s waist. Before the first word came out, he felt a powerful squeeze around his right wrist. He looked down quickly, a three-fingered and bloody mess taut around his wrist. He threw his gaze to the kid’s face, which was now turned toward him, the one eye almost bulging out, the lips squirming. Demo knew that the kid wanted to say something. He bent over and placed his left ear next to the mouth.

“Let…me…go.”

It was gurgly and awful. Demo wasn’t sure if he heard the voice correctly.

“What did you say?” Demo whispered. Calmly. Firmly.

The grip on his wrist tightened. Almost painfully so.

“Let…me…go… 

…Dad.”

As Demo was trying to digest the impact of the words he just heard, paralyzed for a second, another word gurgled out.

“Beautiful…”

Demo’s head shot straight up and he stood fully erect, staring down into the one eye pleading back up at him, his own eyes instantly overflowing with tears and dampening his surgical mask.

“Demo,” one of the assistants cried out. “Tell us.”

Demo, eyes riveted to his son’s eye, slowly raised his left hand into a stop sign. He saw his son’s lips twitch again and slowly lowered his ear to his mouth once more.

“Thank you Dad…”

Demo ripped off his mask and looked at his son once more. And then kissed his mouth.

Flatline.

“Demo! What next?”

Demo rose up, and shook his head.

“Let him go.”

———————

Dr. Demarius Goodson had trained for almost every conceivable occurrence. Almost, but not quite. 

Someone said, “Time of death 10:35 PM.”

Demo staggered out of the room after the damn flatline noise had been shut off and the body  covered. He barely made it out the door before falling backwards against the wall to steady himself, his legs strands of cheap rubber. He raised his hands to cover his face, that awful thick heaviness of disbelief and grief pressing down on him and whispering in a gravelly voice that it was here to stay forever. The other medical personnel rushed past him to see other patients, all grasping and patting his arm as they passed by, all clueless as to what to say.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, but finally he scrounged up the willpower and courage to go to one of the other rooms where they were shorthanded. He somehow made it through the next fifteen minutes or so on autopilot, until the on-call doctor could get there, and went back into the hallway, same routine, back against the wall, hands to the face. He heard a hospital bed being wheeled by him, could tell that it had stopped, and dropped his hands from his face to look, his face marred with a thousand tears.

An overweight, bald white man of maybe sixty years was laying there, the attendant leaving him in the hallway for a second to take care of some paperwork nearby. The man groggily looked over at Demo, seemingly noticing the name tag. 

“Ah, Dr. Goodson,” the man began. “I’m sorry for your loss.

“Huh?” Demo said. He shook his head. How could this guy know anything? He started to walk away.

“Just a minute, Dr. Goodson. I need to tell you something.”

Demo hesitated.

“Your son said to tell you everything is going to be okay.”

“What? What the hell are you talking about?”

“I was with him just a few minutes ago. He wants you to know that he’s sorry you had to see him like that, but that one day it will make sense. Beautiful kid, Michael. Said that he loves you very much.”

Demo shook his head back and forth, eyes squeezed closed. Tight. What was the guy talking about? At First Baptist?

“What do you mean you were with him a few minutes ago?” Demo said as he opened his eyes.

The man was fast asleep.

The nurse who had been filling out the paperwork came back over and started to push the patient. It was Lattie Burke, a fixture in the emergency room since before Demo had arrived there three years ago.

“Hey Demo, what’s up? Oh goodness, you’re crying…” she said.

Lattie obviously didn’t know about Michael. How did this man?

“What’s up with this guy?” Demo asked, walking behind her as she pushed the bed.

She stopped for a second and turned around. “Well, I’m in a hurry, but this guy just had cardiac arrest and we pulled him back. Flatlined for three minutes, almost.”

“When?”

She looked at the file. “Ten thirty-seven. Gotta go. You should get cleaned up. You’re a mess.”

Demo stood there as the nurse began pushing again. The man’s eyes fluttered open and he whisper-shouted while being wheeled away, “Beautiful…He said to tell you it was beautiful.”