LJ from Sunrays and Saturdays tagged me. I must say I have never been tagged before and was quite honored. It is 2 in the morning here in Boston and all I wanted to do was go for a midnight pee. But of course, the gentle, beautiful glare of the laptop called to me and said “Dan, wait, come here and hit refresh on your email one more time. You never know, this email could be the most important of your life. ” So I listened. Nestled amidst the viagra and car loan spam, was LJ’s “Tag, your it” email. Of course, now I have to wade through 72 profoundly mundane posts to find the standout in the crowd.
I chose one that I called Mr Viola because it was about a man named Mr Viola, obviously. Actually, he was my 6th grade Spanish teacher (1903 or thereabouts) and he was likely the first gay human ever . I lived in a world where the word gay wasn’t invented yet and Liberace was just plain freakish.
I hope you like the post. Oh, right, I forgot, I still need to pee. Ciao for now.
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Mr Viola
Mr Viola was not your typical Spanish teacher. He had this funny way of walking, possibly caused by his pants being pulled up into his armpits. I guess you could say he walked like a duck or a penguin. He was always playing disco music in the class during a lesson. We never understood why. All I knew is that we had to listen to a lot of Chaka Khan in his class. Whenever the class got out of control, he would turn his head, look at us and tug his earlobe, and say “escuche” in that exaggerated Spanish spoken only in a Spanish class. As a naive sixth grader, I did not know the meaning of the terms gay, queer, homosexual or fag. These are what the more worldly seventh and eighth graders in the school called him behind his back. The less worldly amongst us called him a nice guy.
In addition to his responsibilities as a verb conjugation specialist. Mr Viola was also the chaperone slash organizer of all of the school’s class trips to Washington DC. I have never been on one of these trips, overprotective Italians parents and all. But they certainly were much anticipated events by the rest of the school.
Awkward transisiton forward to the second part of this story while working as an EMT in Boston some 20 years later. I refer to these years as my Guts and Glory days. Being an EMT has always provided me with an arsenal of gruesome stories of blood and trauma that made my friend’s jobs sound mundane. Though those who were closest to me usually just rolled their eyes at my melodrama.
But at the end of the day, it was not images of body parts that I took home with me. Trauma was part of the job. The one thing that could never leave my brain was the suffering. The ever pervasive knowledge that humans experience profound suffering seeped into my skin more than the smell of exposed viscera. I never knew how to deal with it.
We got the call as “respiratory distress.” For a basic EMT, there is not a lot that we could do. The rule was “O2 and screw.” Put the patient on high-flow oxygen, grab some half-assed vitals, listen for breath sounds and drive really fast.
We arrived on scene to be greeted by an elderly couple on the porch. The look of panic in their eyes told me we had the right house. We were escorted in and tried to squeeze our way down the hall with the usual accoutrements of stretcher, jump bag, defibrillator and o2 tank. We entered the room and the unforgettable smell of a bed-ridden patient hit me for only a second. I have long since learned to breathe through my mouth so as to not excite my easily triggered gag reflex.
As I was “teching” the call, it was my partner’s responsibility to gather information from the couple. I could overhear the usual conversation about patient age, meds, allergies, onset of condition etc. The mom was crying. Crying because she is both sad and exhausted. I could tell this wasn’t the first time this patient had been rushed to the hospital. I wish I could console her. But really my focus was on a hollowed out figure struggling for each of his 30 shallow breaths per minute. His eyes were filled with a primal fear. He did not acknowledge our presence because dying distracts you. I heard my partner repeat back to the parents ,”HIV/AIDS”, “Pneumonia.” I called my partner to help me because history details are far less important at this point. My partner grabbed the patient by the legs and I reached under the patient’s arms, grabbed each hand across his chest so he wouldn’t hurt himself if he flails about. “On my count” , I said. “One, Two Three.”
The next 3 seconds took forever. As I lifted the patient, I looked on the wall and saw a photograph. On it, was an image of school children lined up on the steps of the United States Capital. They held sign in their hand saying “Thomas Edison Middle School”. The adult in the photo looked like the Mr Viola I knew from 1976. I nearly stumbled with my patient. That was him! That was Mr Viola! Those were my friends from school!
On the ambulance, I read the report my partner started to fill out. Name, Robert Viola. It was now confirmed. I felt my heart beat faster as I scrambled through years of memories trying to connect the images in my head with the person I was looking at. I saw no resemblance. Twenty years and a terminal illness can change someone’s appearance. But the left side of my brain knew for sure.
On the short ride to the hospital I stared through the condensation-soaked mask at a man dying. I barely remembered Mr Viola, but I found myself with tears in my eyes. Tears not because he was dying; dying takes but a few frames in a movie; but because I couldn’t stop thinking about his parents. I thought about how innocent life was when their little Robert was growing up. How proud they must have been at his teaching career. I thought about how life can seem so cruel as to allow you to smile and laugh when your fate is so unsure. I thought about how the parents have not been able to find the peace that the elderly so justly deserve. For an EMT, tears don’t usually come until after the adrenaline has made its way out of the body but I couldn’t stop. I held his hand in mine until we arrived.It was obvious that his body was resigned to its fate. I have always tried to console myself by hanging on to the belief that the brain gives out before the body does. Mr Viola did not know what was happening to him.
When the ambulance doors swung open, it was back to business. For the sake of keeping up appearances, an EMT never moves faster than he has to and absolutely never as fast as on TV. Remaining cool is part of the game. I gave a brief report to the triage nurse, transferred him to a hospital stretcher and left to fill out my paperwork.
I do not know if he died that day or the next or, honestly, ever. I never wanted to know how anyone is doing when the call is over. But to this day, I wish that I could see that picture again. I wish I could pick out my classmates and I especially wish I could see Mr Viola tugging his earlobe, “escuche clase.”
