Michael Christie - The Beggar's Garden

They sent the wrong paramedic, one I’d never met before. He had sideburns sculpted into hockey sticks and stunk of canola oil. He was in my doorway with the gulping eyes of a rodent and the shocker thing in a red nylon duffle over his shoulder. His partner was old and wheezed beside him from the three flights of stairs. It had taken me a while to answer the door because I was on the toilet, unable to pee for nervousness. When I stood, my hamstrings went pins and needles and I steadied myself on the towel bar while taking a minute to arrange my hair.

Is the patient inside? Sideburns said, looking primed, as though he’d been about to force the door.

No, I said.

Oh, sorry, he said, deflating. Then he sent a confused glance down the hallway in hopes of spotting the actual emergency.

This is 308, is it not? the old one said.

I’m the patient, I said.

Sideburns took a rapid, teaspoon-sized breath and strode in. They guided me to the floor right there, the old one cradling my neck so my head didn’t snap back, setting it on the bristles of my welcome mat. Then they rolled me to my side and a foamy pillow appeared beneath my ear. A light whipped my eyes. Breathing? someone said, and someone said, Good. I prided myself on my good breathing as I felt the sleeve of my housecoat roll up. Something squeezed my arm like a tiny, forceful hug and then it whooshed. A hand leapt inside my nightgown. Cold metal went on my chest. With someone listening to it, my breath sounded louder to me in my head. I felt like an instrument valuable enough to be measured and checked. There are rules for what they are doing, I thought as they rolled me to my back and I stared into the pagoda-shaped light fixture on the ceiling until it blew out my vision. The old one was still wheezing, like little stones trapped in his chest, and I worried about him then figured if he keeled over then me and Sideburns would just shock him with the shocker thing and he’d be ready for more stairs.

To be honest, I was surprised the fire department hadn’t come. Usually they’re first, especially for something like a heart attack. My stairs pose no problem for them, their lungs like great immaculate bellows after carting miles of hose up twenty-five flights of those training stairs I’ve seen near the highway. Beside the training stairs is a cinder-block building they burn for practice, which they must look forward to, X-ing days off on charity calendars that depict themselves shirtlessly soaping their engine. I picture them bunking down together in a big room, a slide pole in the middle, them bidding each other gruff goodnights, dreaming collectively of their most secret desire, the great inferno worthy of their courage. When they came before, they all had the same moustache and seemed disappointed that I wasn’t on fire or at least dead. To be honest, I prefer the paramedics.

And the paramedic who had come last week I prefer most of all. He’d spoken tenderly and stayed for nearly an hour. After he checked me out, I made him green kool-aid in the plastic jug, stirring it with my wooden spoon that’s stained green from all the times I’ve used it. He sipped, his elbow on my counter, pursing his lips until they disappeared, and said it was a slow night.

I asked him what days he worked.

Four on four off, he said, and I have tomorrow off.

Next came the exciting moment when he said my nightgown was an interesting colour, which meant he liked it very much, because people love to be interested, especially by the slumber-wear of the opposite sex.

I know this because I’ve always had guyfriends. It’s just how I am, I’m a social person. I don’t say boyfriend because I’m not a pedophile. I like grown guys. Men. I once had a guyfriend, a lifeguard at a public pool, who said he loved me for me. If someone tells you they love you for you, it means they will love you as long as you act like who they love — that is who they want to love. So that’s what I did. He said he liked cheerful, so I danced around his house to the radio and made cheerful kinds of food like pies or triple-decker sandwiches. In the end, he told me I loved too hard and that he didn’t love me anymore. This confirmed my suspicion that he was lying the whole time, so I guess I won.

Since the night the paramedic came, I’d passed five days of yearning and rehearsal, the bathroom mirror foggy with the lip grease of practice kiss marks. I’d rearranged the furniture twice, discovering a lively configuration I knew he’d enjoy. Tonight after dinner, I’d put on the same interesting nightgown before dialling 91 at least thirty times, snatching and replacing the phone for over an hour. There should be someone who picks up when you just dial 91, someone reassuring and pleasant, a service for people in almost-emergencies, because that’s what this was, not really in the life-threatening category. I just needed to see someone specific, but it was the sort of longing that could corrode something essential inside me if it stretched out for years. I reminded myself that emergencies are things that emerge, out of nowhere, and that there’s nothing more out of nowhere than love, before raising the phone a final time.

Nine-one-one, police, fire or ambulance? the operator had said, and I heard keys clicking while I envisioned a sportscaster microphone curving from her ear into her wiggling lips.

Definitely ambulance, I said.

Hold please, she said.

Ambulance, a nonchalant-sounding man said. Hello, I said.

Ambulance, he said again right away, exactly the same.

I’d planned on requesting the paramedic directly, but I didn’t know his name and something in the operator’s demeanour suggested an unreceptiveness to such requests, so I decided to take my chances. The important thing was that they’d send one. Fate would handle the rest.

I need an ambulance, I said.

Can you tell me who is in distress, ma’am?

Well … I am.

All right, what kind of symptoms are you experiencing?

My mind starved for something perfect to say, something that wasn’t really a lie, because I’d read in a women’s magazine that lies are toxic to budding relationships.

I’m having a tightness in my chest, I said, which felt as true as anything else at that moment.

You right now yourself, ma’am? How long has this tightness been going on?

Oh, a while now, I said, and my chest ratcheted tighter when he confirmed its tightness by naming it.

Are you experiencing shortness of breath?

Yes, I said, then noticing the rustling in the receiver that was from me.

Are you seated currently?

No I am not.

I’m going to need you to sit down, and please stay on the phone. Then I heard more clicking and he said paramedics were on their way.

Him telling me what to do had me feeling essential, like he couldn’t do this without me, like he needed me, which was true — he couldn’t send an ambulance somewhere if there wasn’t someone there who was waiting for it. I’d always secretly wished for a friend who’d call and give instructions: Bake a cake, he would say, or, Dance to the radio. And he’d speak with such gravity and conviction, I’d comply without any internal complaining or laziness, attaining beautiful, undreamt-of summits of personal fulfillment.

Is your skin pale, cool or moist? the voice said.

I don’t know, I can’t see myself, I’ll go to the bathroom—

No, ma’am, don’t get up, just stay where you are. Is there any pain? he said.

I listened to my body with my mind like an ear to a railroad track. The rumbling of something began faintly, almost the hush of a seashell, intensifying gradually as it approached, a train en route from a distant city I once knew as my home. My veins began a glacial ache, each of the thousands of bones in my feet felt cracked and prickly, and my organs suddenly seemed misshapen and crammed together all wrong. These discomforts fortified one another until they swarmed me like sickened wasps.