Ambulance Masters

Ambulance Masters

by Raymund Hensley

Copyright 2011 by Raymund Hensley

Smashwords Edition

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Dedicated to…

Beeru

THE FOLLOWING OCCURRED IN DECEMBER 2007. THE NAMES OF THOSE INVOLVED HAVE BEEN CHANGED TO RESPECT AND POSSIBLY ALSO PROTECT THE LIVING. MANY, IF NOT ALL, EVENTS HAVE ALSO BEEN CHANGED. OR ENTIRELY MADE UP.

CONTENTS

Article from The Honolulu Rag

LATER

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

AFTER

Article from The Honolulu Rag…

Snow! In Hawaii?

by Pilart Kolopowawski

(published July 7, 1947)

Snow fell over the Hawaiian Islands this Monday morning, resulting in a series of automobile crashes and decapitations.

It’s a mystery! cried a Kaimuki resident. My brother is without a head because of this snow! I’ll never look at life the same way again. My fear has a new name, and it is Snow. What’s going to happen to me next? Whooping cough?? It’s unfair. The sun will melt this blasted devil snow away, but what will melt away my grief? Whisky? Yes.

The morning wasn’t all grief and whisky. Children played in the white mystery with their parents and various types of cats. Foobow Bowman, female, age 8, was laughing.

It’s a miracle! she said, throwing balls of ice onto faces and backs. I’ve always wanted to play in snow, ever since I was a little girl. Watch me throw this snowball at that passing car! See? What could be better? Well, I’ll tell you. The love between a man and a woman and sometimes a woman with another woman. Listen…times are changing. So what, who cares?

Her mother, Hadafrow Bowman, agrees.

It’s true. She’s happier than the time I gave her shoes made of genuine cat bone. Praise Jesus. She’s laughing her cancer away. Right?

Snow-women popped up island wide, carrying signs that read Beware the Oort Cloud and Nemesis 1.5 light years away and Extinction every 26 million years.

Hadafrow Bowman’s rabbi (Hebrew for My master), Rabbi Brutus Caliente, contacted this reporter via email.

See? he wrote. We were right. L'Chiam!

Meteorologist Pat J. Irelander was skeptical about the apparent snowfall and cautioned about possible radioactivity.

I’m no scientist, but I’m sure it shouldn’t be snowing in Hawaii. It’s weird, and like my mum still says, people should not be playing in weird things. Are they daft? I’m not. Thanks, mum. Thanks a lot.

When asked what could be responsible for the strange weather, Mr. Irelander said, I can think of three things possible for this freak of nature. One: Global warming. Two: The coming apocalypse. And three: Aliens…and their radioactivity. That’s all I got, he said. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m betting on the aliens.

Mr. Irelander raised his hands as he ended his sentence, slowly backing away.

At 7:10 in the evening, the snow stopped falling with piles measuring between 1 to 80 feet. H-1 Freeway eastbound will be closed until motorists and Major Warren Ty’s motorcade are shoveled free. Dump trucks filled with salt, state workers are hard at work melting the snow endangering the streets.

The elderly are advised not to eat the snow.

LATER

SMEARING a small amount of dog feces on an insect bite will relieve the itching and swelling. Was it normal for an ambulance to have such dung? Cakers gave the Russian woman CPR, pushing down on her chest quick and hard, at one point even punching it. City lights filled the ambulance—blue, red, blue, red, blue, so forth and so forth. We were speeding and rocking. Cakers put the cardio-pump over the patient’s face and worked it. He yelled at Tranzam to drive—

Faster! Faster! Faster!

Cakers stared at the plastic pump.

Holes? This old thang is useless now! He growled and threw it against a wall and looked around.

Get over here, he said to me. I have to find something important. Take over.

He grabbed my hands. I pulled away.

No! I yelled through the roaring engine. I’m scared! Look at my eyes! They’re shaking so much!

He laughed.

You want this woman to die?

I do not! I threw my clammy hands out. Here. Take them and do what you must.

He put my hands on the woman’s chest. I pumped.

I’m a hero! I thought. I can save this woman’s life and be a hero.

Something in her chest cracked. I jumped back, gagging. Cakers pushed me away and took over and pumped and pumped, grunting and grunting, his eyes darting from me to the woman. The look of worry on his face chilled me, and I couldn’t stop shaking. I pulled at my hair and shook my wet head and opened my mouth.

I’m in deep! I wanna go home! Gadzooks, man!

How very, Cakers said, rolling his eyes. I imagined them going all the way up his head and back again. This really happened, for all I knew. Here was a man capable of anything.

Tranzam stepped on the gas. I fell back in mighty pain, barking and inarticulate, my legs quivering in trepidation. Was I in shock? Was this how it felt? I went with the flow and shrugged and gave my legs permission to thrash about to-and-fro as Cakers didn’t even try to understand.

I was going to die. Just accept it. We were going to crash into something hard. I was going to go sailing through the windshield at such a high speed, my face would turn to ice and hit a fire hydrant and shatter; stray dogs and stray bums would eat the bits and smile. Those bastards! And what would my tombstone say? I had it all planned out: To install the latest version, click HERE.

It was a metaphor.

The ambulance swerved past a little girl on a pogo stick and zoomed down Hotel Street as saggy prostitutes gazed out from smoky bars, spitting blood through holes in their teeth. One of the beasts shook a fist at us.

Slow down, sucka! What’s all the hullabaloo?!

Tranzam rolled down her window and roared, Prepare, peasant, for your comeuppance! then rolled it back up and focused on the road. The ambulance turned hard into the business district of Honolulu where the skyscrapers of law and magazine offices were dark. Cakers covered his head and cried out Waaaaaaah! as open bags of needles spilt over his head. A defibrillator thudded onto the patient’s nude, aged breasts that jiggled.

CAKERS found the injured in a ratty apartment in China Town—an 80-year-old Russian woman on the bathroom floor, unconscious, face twitching, body covered in mosquito bites. Cakers said when he grabbed the Russian’s arm, it felt like worms were moving under her skin. The jumpy Chinese woman in room 11-F, petting a fat rainbow-colored cat, said that Mrs. Yuen had been collecting the mosquitoes for a science experiment she was preparing to teach her class at Kapiolani Community College. She grew the mosquitoes in a large fish tank in her bathroom, on dead kittens she recently found in the girl’s bathroom at KCC.

Long story short, I was thoroughly perturbed.

Cakers ran to the old woman and batted the bugs away. Mush! Mush! Mush! He could tell by the deep gash on the crown of her head and the wet floor that she had slipped violently and flew head-first into a sharp end of the aquarium. He looked at the Chinese woman.

Please tell me you tried to give her CPR.

What’s CPR? Do I eat it?

Cakers shook his head.

Are you an ostrich? Are your eyes bigger than your brain?

The ambulance cut through a sudden rage of rain that punched the windshield.

The old woman wobbled on the stretcher.

Let’s have a squint at this dame, Cakers said. He covered the hole in her head with his plastic-covered hands. Black things glooped out between his fingers, and he was mumbling something about saving her…saving her. A boom box blared opera as I put the dark, drippy contents in a Ziploc bag with my pinkies in the air.

My hands were quivering. But not much.

I was getting used to this.

Smashing! I said. I’m getting used to this.

That’s what my ex-wife said.

Marriage. I could say to your face that I didn’t need it, and I’d be fibbing, fibbing, fiiiibbinnnng. Sorry. It’s bad, but how does a man admit that he needs someone else to help him through the aging process. It would be seen as weak, no? Yes?? The hard side of me told me to sit down and shut up. Man up. Make fists. Don’t smile. Don’t cry. Love is for pansies.

The soft side of me wanted a woman to touch me in all those secret, greasy places. It had been too long! And she would have to be smart. Someone I could talk to. Not just someone with nice bone structure in the face. Someone I could trust. Someone I could feed. Who else would be willing to go to the store and buy those bare minerals? Those condoms? Those facial creams? Who better to trust than your lover?

ROAD BUMP.

The old woman’s hand landed on my lap. I grabbed it by the wrist—her mosquito bites popping under my palm—and flung it onto her jiggle-belly.

The ambulance jumped again, and the hand was on me again.

Ewwwwwwwaaaahhhhhh! Cakers, get this twit off me!

Eyes still closed for business, the Russian woman’s mouth yawned. Things were moving inside.

Jesus! Cakers, do you think she ate those mosquitoes?

That’s what my 1st wife always did as she gobbled her daily vitamins. Maybe that’s what killed her. Mosquitoes burst with diseases. God rest her stink soul. So what, who cares?

The body moaned: Mooooooannn…

Mosquitoes flew out of her mouth.

Ack! I knew it! I swatted away the tiny, buzzing fiends.

Cakers bolted to the front of the ambulance and gripped Tranzam’s shoulders and stared through the windshield. Headlights blinded me. Another ambulance. We were going to crash.

Here it comes, mate! Cakers said. Hold on! This is the bee’s knees! MUSH! MUSH!

Every ambulance has a moniker.

Cakers named his Atom.

Always on the move.

ONE

THE woman has no bones in her hands, and she walks around like Mr. Burns from The Simpsons. She comes by once a week. I try not to look at her droopy eyes. This place has a weird odor. Disinfectant. Where am I now? What is this desk I’m setting behind? What do all these forms mean? Why does that elevator open every minute? Will it ever stop vomiting people? Will they ever shut up? Is this a dream? Am I dead?

I’m working at the Department of Human Services because if I don’t—my mum constantly reminds me—the government will cut off my health and dental benefits. I can’t be here. I’m no good with people. I can’t talk to people. When I try, I always end up shitting in my mouth.

It’s this office gig or a real job at the mall. The cushy job is a no-brainer…for someone lazy…uncertain.

Why worry? The future is bright. If the Japanese religion, Happy Science, is right, I’ll only have to work four hours a day in the year 2200. The future is a bright, shinning place.

I’m very young. Early twenties, if I’m remembering correctly. I hold off my filmmaking and writing activities, and every day at the office makes me nauseous. Who are these people that come in to apply for health benefits and whatnot? Who are these ex prisoners with their crazy eyes? These sad-faced geriatrics? These mothers with their obnoxious babies? These people in depressing wheelchairs?

I feel like I’m at a hospital.

DHS has an aura of struggle and frustration.

People stand in a long line, waiting, angry, grumbling, fake-coughing, hips cocked to one side. Gadzooks, man. There’s always a sense that someone’s gonna explode—go totally BATTY.

Take me away from this dreadful place. Help!

(no answer)

I work the files—that’s my main job. Here, I learn that Nguyen is properly pronounced as No’when, not Nee’gu’yen. I travel down the aisles, from cubicle to cubicle, taking out files and putting in files, wondering how long I can milk this before I have to go out and get a real job at Sears. Little did I know it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. My coworkers—these Case Workers—seem to understand that we’re all on the same sinking boat.

One person I don’t like: An old woman with light, death-skin. Cranky, cranky hag. I am told she was just diagnosed with Cancer, and—scold me if you wish—I think good riddance to bad rubbish. She radiates negativity. You could hit it with a sledgehammer and it would bounce right off and smack you in the noggin. Why torture yourself? Why piss in your cereal? Instead of hanging around or even thinking too much about this evil crone, I make my time with the other workers—the positive ones.

We are all smiles.

At lunch, they all gather in the meeting room and watch disgusting things on the large TV—things like Faces of Death and Banned from Television. Are they trying to tell me something? I don’t participate in these breaks…just continue working so I can get the hell out of Dodge. I distinctly remember hearing a surprised female voice shoot out from that room while they all ate pizza:

Jay’sus! That train hit her and she just exploded!

Is this what you want, boy? Working your days in cubicle after cubicle your whole life? It makes you so sick. If so, then get to it. Do something. MOVE. If you’re not growing…you are dying.

The main honcho in charge is a 50-ish Asian woman. One day she summons me into her office to discuss my situation. As we talk the talk, she plays a fine classical tune on the stereo.

Hear those violins? They represent horses slaughtered on the streets.

I like this lady. This is the type of woman I can see myself growing young with. Such wonderful years ahead of us.

I never see her again, though.

I’m out of DHS after three months.

I learned a lot from my stay. How much of a selfish bastard I can be sometimes, for example. But there was a more pressing lesson. I had to move my feet. Get BUSY. Use life well. If you are not growing, you are dying. What did I want to accomplish? What was my calling? My purpose? Was there a deeper meaning to my work? Is it true that passion makes the universe run? Are we all connected? It would be years before I would learn the secrets of the universe. Who was God or Ishvara or Yahweh or El or Ra or Shangdi or Tenri-Ō-no-Mikoto or El Cantare or, as Hunter S. Thompson once said, the Great Magnet? I could use this ‘Magnet’ to my use. It/he/she would help me. That was the promise, wasn’t it? But what direction should my life go in? What to focus on? Whatever it was would be pure zaniness. That much I knew. Indulge. Damn everyone. Damn the masses. Damn the rigid Left Brain thinkers. My soul begged to be set free. At last! My imagination could take the wheel. Where would they take me? To the land of milk and honey, where you can do what you love until the cows come home. And what medium would I work in? I had many choices—many interests.

Yes, there would be many distractions. I knew this.

But I was young. Time was on my side.

Wasn’t it?

Around seven years later, I snag a gig folding clothes with kids seven years younger than me…although I look seven years younger than them. I try not to have regrets. It could be worse. I could be a bum.

Gadzooks.

SINCE I was a little boy, I’ve had scary dreams of a man sitting on my chest. It was a beast from the dream world, interrupting my fantasies of making love to pure women and of flying across the sea and of riding on the backs of lions.

Whenever this man appeared on my chest, an intense fear consumed me. It was amazing. My body was frozen—except for my eyes: Wide and wet and wild and blinking constantly. Sweat was inevitable. Maybe I was being abducted. I had skipped most of high school to go to the library and learn about ESP and the occult and aliens. That was my schooling, growing up. Maybe this was it. The big one!

This monster had surprised me ten times before, in the span of a week, throwing such a fear at me that I wished for the taste of cringing, cheap vodka and OJ.

If I ever wished to not feel, it was during those paralyzing nights.

I was a man of 28?

Whenever I have that outrageous dream, the beast’s face comes into view through a gloom of heavy darkness that blankets my cold, concrete bedroom.

This night was no different.

It was a weird man—the head structure opaque.

The beast-man’s drool was cool on my chest. I was afraid that if I screamed, it would startle the monster and give it the bright idea of tasting me. Luckily, my mouth was frozen with a mighty fear that kept it open for God only knows how many seconds. Jesus Christ…don’t let it have been hours.

I remember suddenly shaking and letting loose a fury of wild blinks. I was in control now. Or was IT controlling ME? The thing laughed or maybe cried, I’m not sure which. In any case, I was able to move my toes and the ghost vanished. But not before throwing its head back and throwing up a silent scream, then throwing its head forward and producing an audible string of airy vowels—its quivering lips mere centimeters from my now unblinking eyes.

It simply said, confusingly:

"The Universe is in a giant body, and your body is The Universe.

And then I woke up, my mouth still ajar. I made a scared scarred sound: A soft, drawn-out, vibrating moan that grew louder and louder. The pitch also rose.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

To my surprise, I was more wet than ever before. Was I shaking? It was like nothing I had even seen: My entire bed was drenched in my own liquid, my own clear filth. I shook my head like a wet dog, trying to forget that weird, unlikely, nightmarish reverie. It worked. I thought of flowers and turned on my fan and it cooled the wetness dominating my sheets sticking to my skintight skin, forcing a smile on my lips and a wiggle in my hips. I fell back to sleep and, this time, dreamed of women. But not normal women. Alien women. Women with no torsos—just a pair of legs that forever bent over, inviting me to goose, enticing me with sexual horror.

And horror it was.

My body said Yes, but my mind said No.

And yet I found myself thrusting vigor into those jiggling alien thighs from the rear. Did I vomit in my mouth? The mind is strong, but the body is weak. A smart man once said that, and he was right. God forgive me. I wanted to cry but nothing came out my mouth, only weird raccoon sounds. SHAME. All over my face that dripped down my neck and stained my shirt, if I was even dressed at all. Was I still thrusting power? I didn’t want to look down. I think what disturbed me most was the fact that this mystery-lover had no head…whatsoever. Not even a stump for me to play with. And yet it was laughing at me.

A dove