Sudden Response (7 page)

Eight inches, pretty impressive, she thought and could definitely be a problem moving him, but they were going to have to do it.

"Please don't tell my wife," he said, sounding mortified.

"Our only concern right now is getting you to the hospital. What you tell your wife is your business," Eric said casually, but she

didn't miss the humor in his eyes.

"Do you think...do you think one of you could possibly get it out?" Sean asked, sounding hopeful.

Eric threw her a horrified look as he shook his head frantically. She had to agree. There just wasn't enough money on earth to

make her want to put her fingers up some guy's ass and retrieve an eight inch vibrator. Nope, not going to happen.

"I'm sorry, sir, but we can't extricate something embedded in your body," she said smoothly, inwardly thanking OEMS then and

there for that little rule. The only time they could attempt to remove something from the body was if it was blocking the airway.

Since his ass wasn't required for breathing they were good to go.

The man nodded solemnly. "I understand." He swallowed hard. "Can we go now?"

"Yes, we have a few options here, Sean. We can get you back into your pants to protect your privacy-"

"That's fine. Please, let's just get going I want to get the most embarrassing event of my life over with," he said, panting.

"Okay," Eric said, nodding. "We're going to help you stand then one of us will help you pull your pants up."

"I can't stand up," Sean pointed out.

"You can remain bent over, but you should be able to use your legs to stand. We'll help you take it slow," Joe said.

"Okay," Sean said with a small whimpering sound.

Without a word they moved into position and carefully helped him stand up by pulling him up by his arms. Once they stood they

stared across the man's back at each other. Eric gestured with his eyes for her to get the pants. Joe adamantly shook her head.

He gestured again, harder this time. Nope, wasn't going to happen.

"Eric, I'll hold him so you can help him with his pants," she said, giving him a shit eating grin. Yup, she trapped him into it, but

she wasn't feeling guilty about it. Not in the least. Not after this weekend.

He glared at her, mouthing, "Bitch".

"Hurry, please!" the man sounded like he was in extreme pain.

"Sir, is this hurting you?" she asked, concerned.

He moaned softly before saying in a strained voice, "Not exactly."

Eric got into position with the pants. "Step into them," he said.

The man shuffled his feet, moaning softly as he did it. He began panting, causing Eric to send Joe a nervous look. Eric pulled

up the pants and stood up behind him just as the man groaned loudly. His body shook beneath Joe's grip.

She bit her lip to stop from laughing. Eric turned his head quickly away, making choking sounds. He was having a hell of a time

not laughing.

Sean seemed oblivious to it as he continued to moan and shake. Joe glanced down at her pants and boots, making sure the man

hadn't just made a deposit on her. If he did they were going in the trash. It was one thing to get puked on or bled on in her job,

but quite another to have some guy with a sex toy fetish come on her shoes. She sighed with relief when she spotted the white

mess on the bottom of the mauve shower curtain.

"I'm sorry...didn't mean to," Sean said, panting softly.

"Don't worry about it," Joe said, knowing Eric was beyond speaking at the moment. He threw the bag over his shoulder and

grabbed Sean's other arm.

"Time to do the shuffle," Eric said as he avoided her eyes. It was a good thing too because she knew one look from him and the

damn would burst open.

Chapter 8

"I'm hungry," Eric announced as he plopped down heavily on the couch near Joe, well more like practically fell on her. He

threw his arm around her shoulders as he leaned back against the faded material of the overstuffed couch. "Go cook for me."

She snorted. "I'm not your bitch."

Eric sighed heavily as he leaned into her even more. "It's really not healthy to live in denial."

"Uh huh," Joe said absently as she flicked through the channels of the station's large flat screen television. It figured the one

time the station was empty and she had control of the remote there would be nothing on.

"Why are you not seeing to my needs?" Eric demanded as he stole the remote from her.

Normally she would steal it back on principal, but right now she really didn't care. They'd already been held over on their shift

by four hours to cover two downed trucks. A lso, thanks to three bang outs, people calling in sick, they'd been going all day and

hadn't had a chance to grab food. In fact, they'd just got back to the station a half hour ago. A fter cleaning out the truck and

replacing supplies she crashed on the couch, counting down the minutes until she could go home, order a pizza, shower, get her

laundry done and hopefully crash early for the night, knowing she would be back here bright and early tomorrow morning.

Just as she was picturing her big comfortable bed and imagining how good that first moment when her head touched the pillow

would feel the station phone rang, shattering her little fantasy.

Eric groaned as he got to his feet and made his way, unhappily, to the phone on the old rickety desk everyone was supposed to

use to write up their reports, but didn't. With a resigned sigh he picked up the phone and leaned against the desk.

"Hello," he said as dread filled Joe.

Dispatch wouldn't screw them over again, would they? When she saw Eric's jaw clench she knew her answer. Yes, yes they

would.

Eric rubbed the back of his neck as he tried to reason with dispatch. "We were supposed to be off four hours ago.....Yeah, I

know you guys are short staffed, but we've been going all day." He stood up and began pacing around the area as far as the long

tangled chord would allow.

"We don't mind doing emergencies, but-" Whatever dispatch said had him closing his eyes and dropping his head back. "They

called 911

because he refused to take his pills?" he asked in disbelief.

With a lovely mixture of softly spoken swears, Joe stood up and made her way back to their freshly stocked and cleaned

ambulance, knowing there was absolutely no way they could refuse this call since it came in as an emergency and they were

still on duty. Well, they technically could, but she actually wanted to keep her job.

Even though it was her turn to drive she climbed into the passenger seat and pulled out an emergency run sheet. Not even thirty

seconds later Eric yanked the driver's side door open, jumped in and slammed the door shut, rocking the ambulance violently.

"This fucking sucks," he said as he maneuvered the ambulance out of the parking bay. "Next time they ask us to come in and

cover their asses we're saying no," he snapped as he flipped on the emergency lights with a little more force than necessary.

She gave a noncommittal "uh huh" as she started to fill in the paperwork with their information, knowing that by the next time

dispatch asked them to fill in they'd be over this bullshit call.

*********

said, sounding put out.

Joe quickly looked over the restraints as she frowned. "If I insist about what?"

He jumped out the back of the ambulance and closed the doors as Joe took the front position on the stretcher. "On making me

spaghetti for dinner," he said innocently, hoping she'd just give in and do it. He was a starving man after all.

Joe snorted as she guided them to the front door of Nicholson House, the shit hole residential program that decided to call 911

because one of its residents decided to refuse his meds tonight. This was a purely bullshit call.

Over the years they'd seen their share of fucked up nursing homes that hadn't known when one of their residents had been dead

for two days, bed sores that turned into five inch craters on patients' backs and legs, patients left tied to chairs in the middle of

a hall for days with huge puddles of piss and shit around their feet, but residential programs in his mind were the absolute

winners in the incompetency category.

Most residential programs were run by bleeding hearts, at least in his opinion. They were more concerned about the patient's

"feelings" then they were about their staff's safety and well-being. Dangerous work conditions, flax rules, and piss poor

treatment caused high turnovers in most of the residential programs he'd come across. It was just common sense that if you

always took the patient's side on everything without question and fucked over your employee for doing his job that you're going

to piss off a lot of good employees and be left with the ones who could care less, and more often than not didn't bother to do

their jobs.

Nicholson House in his opinion was a prime example of a fucked up residential program. Twelve years ago when they started

out as EMT's, Nicholson House had been ruled with an iron fist. The seasoned staff was well trained and took no bullshit from

the patients. They did their jobs without fear and were fair with the patients. Every shift was run smoothly. They knew where

the patients were, what they were doing, and if a patient stepped out of line there wasn't any hesitation to bring them back into

the program.

Now.......

Now whenever they got a call for Nicholson House they usually found the staff smoking outside by their cars, watching

television, or drinking coffee in the kitchen while bitching about their jobs. The patients? Well, in his mind a residential

program that catered to violent mentally unstable patients might want to know where their patients were. Call him crazy, but if

he worked eight hours in a two level home with sixteen dangerous individuals, some of whom really did listen to the voices in

their heads, he'd make it a point to know exactly where they were and what they were doing and damn well make sure all the

sharp objects in the house were locked up.

He bit back a choice word or two as they pulled the stretcher up the cracked walkway of the dimly lit yard and past a group of

five employees smoking. One of the employees acknowledged them with a small wave, but other than that they were pretty

much ignored.

"Hold on," Eric said as Joe raised her hand to knock on the door. "I have a feeling about something," he said, stepping past her

and opening the unlocked door. He shoved the stretcher to the side of the walkway, not wanting to leave it unsupervised in the

house or scare the hell out of the residents with it. The sight of their stretcher had set off more than one fight in programs like

this in the past. Since mental patients, the ones known to be difficult, were usually the last to find out they were being

transferred to another psychiatric facility they usually got a little paranoid when they saw EMT's and a stretcher suddenly

appear. Since he liked to avoid helping restrain a patient that wasn't even his, he'd leave the stretcher outside until they needed

it.

They walked into the large house and shut the door behind them. Joe gestured to a sign above the alarm that read, "Door must

remain locked and armed. No excuses!"

"Nice," he grunted as they walked past a large living room with three patients playing a video game.

A young guy the size of a linebacker suddenly stood up, glaring at them. "You fucking better hope you're not here for me!" He

took a menacing step towards Joe.

"Take another step towards my partner and I will be," Eric promised as he smoothly slid in front of Joe who muttered an

exasperated,

"puhlease" probably at his protective posturing since she rarely took threats from patients seriously, no matter their size, which

really pissed him off most of the time. Kind of like now.

The man hesitated, shifting nervously. Not that Eric blamed him. He'd hate having no say in his life, never mind being the last

one to find out a major life decision had been made for him without his input. Not that he didn't understand the reasoning behind

it.

A s the person who usually had the misfortune of being the bearer of the Section 12, the legal document that pretty much took

away all of a person's rights, he knew the reasoning behind not telling the patient the news until the last minute. Some patients

did not take it well, he sure as hell wouldn't, and they went through several predictable stages, denial, acceptance, outrage, and

violence. Then again a large percentage of the patients accepted their fate without striking the messenger. He knew it wasn't

always easy to tell how a person would react to a Section 12 and for shit pay he'd probably pass the buck off onto someone

else, too. Then again he wasn't a pussy and didn't believe in bullshitting people.

"Oh thank god you're here!" a man with a serious lisp announced a little too dramatically for Eric's comfort. With a bad feeling

Eric turned to see the new comer and had to bite back a curse or two as the guy pressed his hand to his heart. The guy was at

least four inches shorter than Joe and was basically skin and bone. Eric quickly glanced at the guy who could easily pass as a

linebacker for the Raiders and back to the guy who was being paid to keep him in line.

Yeah, right.........

Whatever happened to hiring the right person for the job? Eric wondered. This twig of a guy might be the nicest guy on earth,