Thursday, January 19, 2023

Men of the Skull Part 1, Chapter 27: Sucking Chest Wounds

For the most part, I've confined myself to posting chapters of my book, Men of the Skull, from Part II, which concerns Penn State.  Part I was about my time at Drexel leading up to my transferring universities.  To that point (2004 when I wrote that chapter, and until 2014) transferring schools was the most radical thing I'd ever done in my life.  I couldn't believe I had the guts to actually take initiative and do something that seemed so drastic.

Like climbing into wrecked school buses was ordinary, but I digress.


This chapter was the second to last of Part I, and, upon editing, will probably conclude Part I.  It's one of the best written chapters of Part I, and that's because I had some help.  A few years back, I posted an old story I'd written called "Disorganized Light."  I mentioned that a dear friend of mine liked it, and threatened to re-write it.  Well, he never did, but he DID re-write this chapter.  He read it as one of my reviewers once I finished the book in 2007.  Out of nowhere I received this chapter, re-written to the form you see now.  

Chris is an amazing writer, especially detective stories.  He introduced the 'dummy family' motif to the piece which I'd use while rewriting Part II.  In any case, his rewrite was far superior to the original (which I'd titled "It's Over") so I kept it this way.  Yes, I'll give him credit for that bit.  


However, none of that has to do with why I'm posting it now.  The piece concerns my final breakup with my first girlfriend, whom I call Julianne.  After this, I'd see her a few times before PSU took me in other directions.  I saw her once after college, and once at the bookstore pre-transition (She didn't recognize me.)  Well, I saw her again this past weekend.  I was visiting Wife and Daughter, and was in a grocery store, and there she was.  She'd aged, obviously, but still had her classic beauty and tiny nose.  She didn't recognize me (go figure) and I didn't say anything to her.  Even if nothing else has, that old wound has healed.  

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Chapter 1.27 Sucking Chest Wounds

 Saturday, June 28, 1986 World Court: Aid to contras illegal

           “The doors are blocked.  We won’t get them open until the towing equipment arrives, and we’re losing time!”  Don shouted from in front of the crippled school bus.

            “Let’s cut in from the roof,” suggested Allen.

            “OK.  You and Lance do it.”

            Don, our captain, had sent me with Allen to the roof of the bus, because we were the thinnest, so the initial hole could be smaller.  It was an advantage of speed that we needed, but a disadvantage when it came to handling the massive hydraulic K-saw.  I steadied Allen as he pulled the big buzz saw across the yellow roof.  Sparks were still flying as he finished his third cut and I worked to pry back the metal of our make shift entry… revealing two steel struts and another layer of sheet metal blocking our path.

Modern K-12 Saw 

(https://www.thefirestore.com/Partner-K-12FD-Fire-Rescue-Saw)

“What the hell is taking you so long?”  Don called up.  He had a couple of other guys using the Jaws of Life on a wrecked car nearby.

            “We’ve encountered some roof struts and a second layer of metal.  Five more minutes, I’m guessing” answered Allen.

            “People inside may be bleeding to death.  Cut between the struts and have Lance climb through without his gear.  He’s scrawny enough!”

            “You just wish you were still so thin!”  I yelled back at him as I stripped off my jacket and tossed it down to Mike, who was tending the saw’s hydraulic line. 

Three minutes later, I kicked open a flap into the school bus.

            “Watch it!  That cut metal will be sharp and hot!”  Don warned from the ground. 

I put my gloves back on, but could still feel the metal’s heat through them as I lowered myself through the narrow hole and jumped down into the bus.  A bit of the metal cut my arm.

            “Ouch!  Sonafabitch!”  I yelled.

            “Watch your language with those kids!”  Allen called down, smiling.

            I quickly triaged the injuries of the four people in the bus—one with a broken arm, two with head injuries, one of those unconscious, and one… shit.

            Allen dropped a first aid kit down to me, then lowered himself through hole.  As we worked on the unconscious head trauma, our priority, Don and some of the other guys were finally making headway on removing the emergency exit in the back of the bus.

“Julianne comes home from the shore today” I mentioned to Allen as I held the victim’s head while he put on a cervical collar.

            “How long has she been gone?”

            “A week.”

Allen finished with the collar, and we started strapping the victim to a short back board to immobilize the spine.  “Are you going to keep dating when you go up to PSU?” he asked.

            “I don’t know.  I guess it wouldn’t make sense really.”

            “Especially when it’s been in and out of the toilet so much with you being close,” Allen added.

            “Straps are tight.”

            “OK.  Let’s move her from the seat” Allen said.

            The door in the back popped open with a large bang as the Hurst tool did its job.

            ‘We need another short board, two long boards and two more people in here!” Allen called to the back.

            “Take care of that person, there, next” I said, pointing at the other head injury.

            Mike and another guy jumped in and started caring for the victim I’d indicated.  Don brought in the two long boards and a short board.  Allen and I strapped our patient to a long board and carried her out the back.

            “Why did you direct Mike to Victim One?”  Don asked us after we put Annie on the ground.

            “Victim Three was dead, so I thought number One took priority after this one.”

            “What do you mean Victim Three was dead?!  Victim Three wasn’t dead, but she probably is now!”

            “There was no card, so I did a quick exam and checked for a pulse… there wasn’t one, so I figured she was dead or uninjured.  Either way, it put her at the bottom of the list.”

            “No pulse, huh?  You think that’s funny?  Well, just so you know, you’re still wrong—you’re not a doctor, so you can’t pronounce people dead.  If that person’s family sued…”

            “The dummy has a family?  I didn’t know…  I’m really sorry.”

            “That’s why we practice” Don smiled.  “Are you sure there wasn’t a card that said ‘sucking chest wound’ on her?”

            “Not that I saw.  Besides, wouldn’t I hear a sucking chest wound?”

             “Sucking chest wounds might make a wheezing sound that you can hear, but accident sites tend to make a lot of noise of their own.  If you come across someone with a sucking chest wound that‘s louder than a siren, you can pronounce that person dead.  Now, get back in there!”

            Allen and I went back in the bus to take care of the driver.  We still couldn’t find a card detailing what her injuries were supposed to be, but this time I did notice a gear shift lever sticking out of the side of her coveralls.  “Still no pulse,” Allen called out to Don, “Is she dead, now?”

            “No, damn it, she has sucking chest wound, but she’ll be awfully damn lucky to be alive after you two guys are done with her!”

            “He can sure say that again,” Allen said quietly as we began to minister to another Resuci-Annie dummy.

            We spent the rest of the morning training in the junk yard.  We saved a lot of dummies that day; I felt even better about it than I had in the past, now that I knew they all had dummy-families waiting for them at home.

            After a shower, I sat around watching MTV while I waited for Julianne to call back.  Lenny was having a party tonight and I was hoping she would come along.  Julianne had never met Lenny—nor anyone else that I worked with for that matter, except Chrissy, who she knew from the Springsteen show.  Chrissy’d be there tonight.  She and Lenny were a couple now.

            I hadn’t spoken to Julianne in over a week.  Part of me wondered why she hadn’t bothered to call while she was down the shore.  Another part already knew the answer.  All of me didn’t want to hear it.  The phone rang as Phil Collins was singing to his drumstick “She reaches in, and grabs right hold of your heart.”

            “What’s up?” she asked as if we’d just spoken to each other this morning.

            “Lenny—the guy I work with—is having a party tonight.  Want to go?”

            “Sure.  What time?”

            “Seven?”

            “OK.  I’ll see you then.”

            “OK.”

            “OK, bye.”

            She sounded happy enough.

            It was a few minutes after seven when I got to her house.  She must have been waiting.  She came right out of the house and jumped in the car.  The trip to Lenny’s house was filled with hearing about how great Sea Isle City was and how much fun she had, but she seemed a bit cautious again, like she was editing and measuring her words.  Eventually, we pulled into Lenny’s front yard; his driveway was packed with cars.

            We followed the music into the open garage where we found Lenny pulling a beer from a nicely iced keg.  “Hey!  You made it!” he said, turning toward us.

            “Told you we would.  Lenny, this is Julianne.”

            “Pleased to meet you Julianne!  I’ve heard a lot about you.  Want a beer?”

            “No, thanks.  My parents would kill me if I came home with beer breath.”

            “Well, dating this guy has to make them suspicious, doesn’t it?” he said, nudging me. 

            I got myself a beer and followed him into the living room.  It was wood paneled and had a gold colored shag rug.  Several bookshelves full of knick knacks and a few books lined one wall.  Chrissy played with a high-speed stereo, which had a CD player and four huge speakers.  The cutting edge electronics clashed with the 70’s décor… but then what doesn’t?

            “Hi Lance!”  Chrissy cheered as she came over to hug me.

            “Chrissy!  You remember Julianne?”

            “Yeah.  Hi!” she said smiling.

 

            The stereo began to blast the new Peter Gabriel record.

            “This CD is awesome!” Lenny shouted above the music.

            “So’s the tape.”  I replied.

            “Huh?” Lenny asked unable to hear me.

            “SO IS THE TAPE.”  I tried again louder.

            Yeah, ‘So’.  This is it.”  He replied pointing to the stereo.

            I gave up.  The name of the new Peter Gabriel album we were listening to was ‘So’.  He must have thought I was asking about it.  Maybe he forgot that I worked in the record store with him where we played it to death every day.  In any case, my window for making a joke out of the fact that most people didn’t have a CD player was long gone, so I just smiled and nodded.

            We stayed for a couple of hours, but there wasn’t a lot of conversation.  When the party is at the guy-who-works-in-the-record-store-with-the-really-big-stereo’s house, music tends to dominate the evening.  Julianne followed me around and I introduced her to everyone, but she didn’t seem to be too interested in really getting to know these guys.  We said our goodbyes relatively early and started back to her house. 

            As the Rabbit sputtered down the road, Julianne stared out the window.  Finally, she spoke.                      “Lance, we, um, need to talk.”

            Uh oh.  Contrary to practical medical advice, I pushed my finger into my ear and wiggled it around in an attempt to reopen my auditory canal, so I could better hear that which I knew I didn’t want to.

            “I met some guys down the beach.  And it made me feel so… so wanted.  They made me feel sexy.”

            “And I don’t?”

            “You do, but this was different.  It was fun.”

            “Gee, thanks.”

            “That’s not what I meant.  It was fun playing the whole ‘chase’ thing with them.  It was fun flirting.  You know?  What I mean is…”

            “Well, we’ve been seeing other people for a while.  How is this different?”

            “It just is.  I don’t want to hurt you, but staying together would just hurt us both more.  And it wouldn’t be fair to me.  Or you.”

            “So, this is it?”

            “I think it is.  I’m 17, Lance - I think we both know this isn’t “it.”  I still love you, but I’m not ready to settle down right now.  I want to be fair to us both.”

             “Ok.”

            “I still want to be friends.”

            Oh shit – the “friends” line.  There wasn’t anything else to say.  No words can more quickly end a conversation between a man and a woman, leaving him dumfounded, than, “Let’s just be friends.”  I guess I should have been glad that she didn’t use them verbatim, but the familiar stabbing pain was back, stronger than ever.  I felt empty, and relieved, yet full of rage at the same time.  I knew I was just telling Allen this morning that it made no sense for us to keep dating when I went to Penn State, but somehow I didn’t expect it to end like this, with so much… ‘Fairness’.  I felt sick.

            The rest of the short ride was silent.  At some point, I thought I heard a faint wheezing sound.  I looked over at Julianne.  She looked fine… Too fine.  Oh, my God, it was coming from me!  Reflexively, I felt around my torso for a sucking chest wound.  She reaches in, and grabs right hold of your heart.

            As I pulled up in front of her house, she half-whispered, “Please don’t hate me.”

            Another cliché.

            She got out of the car and walked up her driveway. 

            I drove home to my dummy-family.


Next Chapter

 

 

 


Tuesday, January 17, 2023

Clog of Academia

 For the past few months, I've had writer's block.  More than a block- it's like a clog.  


Need me some academic Draino.  


My task is to write about anti-racism diversity trainings and relate them, if possible, to transgender trainings, y'know to reduce anti-transgender prejudice, which happens to be my dissertation topic.  What you thought I was writing about basket weaving or stamp collecting?  No, it's not about transgender osieric or philatelic tendencies.  (Look at me using the fancy words!  That's me book lernin'!)


As time has gone on, my fear of this particular piece has increased.  Anti-racism work is everyone's concern- I truly believe that, but I'm no expert on the topic, despite classes and papers.  Yes, I've felt the sting of prejudice and unreasoning hatred, but nothing like that experienced by people of color.  I don't feel adequately qualified to discuss the topic.  


I've been working on the piece little by little.  I started with an outline, and add a sentence of two daily, or double check a reference.  I actually fear working on it.  I guess I'm really screwed up.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1886_St._Croix_River_log_jam

In any case, I'll finish the damn thing sooner rather than later.  Today's NYT published an article on the subject that says clearly what I've been trying to write.  So, new reference and summary and then get it to my advisor.  If I get up the guts to brave that log jam and hopefully the flood that will follow.  


Be well.



Thursday, January 5, 2023

Computer Issues and NYC

 Well, no sooner did I post that last entry then my old computer melted down.  Blue screen of death.  Done for.  Kaput.


SO this is a new computer.  Better.  Stronger.  Faster. 


Now I'm catching up on emails I couldn't access (like school email) among others.  


During that down time, I went to NYC for a doctor appointment.  While there, Marion J. was kind enough to show me around the Metropolitan Museum and then join me for dinner in Greenwich Village (at a BBQ place that used waaaaay to much salt.)


Food Cart at Twilight


No Avengers?



Short legs


The hotel room was literally at 90 degrees despite me opening both windows to the single digit night air outside.  Sweaty uncomfortable night.  The appointment the next day was for GCS.  The upshot was this: lose 50 pounds and then we'll talk.  They could've said that on the fucking telephone and saved me the time.  


Since I was in the area, I decided to visit the grave of one of my heroines: Harriet Quimby.  She died over fifty years before I was born, yet her story really gripped me.  So much done in such a short life.  So, after a white knuckle drive through some of NYC's less touristy areas, I arrived at Kenisco Cemetery, where many famous people are buried.  






After leaving a purple rose for Harriet, and stopping by to see Lou Gehrig, I turned my car toward State College.  It was a long drive, but at least the weather was better on the way back then the rain I encountered on the way.  I arrived as the sun was setting, and immediately lay down, as my back hurt after all that driving.  



So, do I have any pithy comment or pseudo-wise conclusion after the trip?  After all, I saw some of the greatest works of historical art at the Met, walked the streets of one of the world's greatest cities (during a very cold day), and visited a large cemetery to call upon a heroine.  Well, aside from reflecting on my own mortality, which I always do when visiting a cemetery, I can't say that I do.  Having lived in a city for two years back in the day (84-86) kind of relieved me of the shock and awe of the NYC sights.  Still, I met someone who reads the blog and had a delightful afternoon in her company.  


I suppose that if I really think of it, I stood in front of art and objects over 5,000 years old, and the grave of a woman whose feats should make her extremely famous, but who time has forgotten.  So I suppose history can be fickle, or maybe it's just us.


Be well.