Code 57

It came across the pager at 2:36am. Fuck. I'd forgotten to turn the sound off and the ber, ber, boop, ber, booooop sang with a deafening blare in the tiny cave of a break room. Jeremiah glared at me from his makeshift chair bed on the other side of the room before his pager started buzzing on the table too. "God dammit," he mumbled, swinging his legs down and propping his elbows up to see what call had both of our pagers going at this time of night. Night shift was normally slow, and though we weren't 'allowed' to sleep, it was expected that those of us who were in school would spend the evenings studying in between the few lingering room transfers. Then it'd be off to bed ourselves, rolling uncomfortable chairs together, resting heads on tables, leaning against lockers, and drooling on ourselves. Sometimes the supervisor would even skulk off to the supply room and nap on the gurney. We couldn't get away with that, but no one was about to report him either.

It was evident that is what Matt had been doing when he burst through the door, interrupting Jeremiah's crotchety grumbles with one of his own, "It's a 57. Up on 6 Tower... The motorcyclist." My heart sank at that. We'd all been rooting for the motorcyclist. Poor guy was 26. He'd lay in his ICU bed with monitors beeping in a quiet symphony of depression. He was probably the most beautiful man I'd ever seen, despite the fact that he'd knocked out all of his teeth in the crash that had landed him here. He was going to be paralyzed from the waist down, but last week he'd wiggled his toes. He'd been making progress... How could this have happened now?

"Man, that's sad. I was really rooting for him," I said, and they both nodded in agreement.

"So was I--" said Matt,"--are you sure you're up for it?"

I could hear Jeremiah roll his eyes from across the room. I fixed him with a glare before replying to Matt, "Of course. I know you guys worry, but 57s really don't bother me."

Matt just shrugged, "Well that's weird, but okay." He looked at Jeremiah as an afterthought, "What about you? You good?"

"Duh," Jeremiah smirked and patted him on the shoulder on his way out the door. I followed behind. We stopped in the hall and looked at the pagers again.

"Well, it's on 6 tower, so we won't need the Hoyer lift. Off to the morgue then, right?"

"Yup."

We started down the winding corridors of the hospital basement, finally arriving at the morgue. With his hand on the doorknob, Jeremiah paused and lowered his voice to a whisper, "Are you sure you're good?"

I nodded, but he continued anyway, "It's okay if you're not. 57s are tough for everyone." I wish they'd just stop with this, but I knew it wouldn't end anytime soon. I was the youngest person they'd ever hired in this department: 18, pretty, and definitely only hired because the head of department was a perv and I'd worn a ridiculous, low-cut red dress to my interview.

I playfully slugged him on the shoulder before answering, "For the love of God, Jer, don't you start, too. You know my heart is blacker than the lot of you. Let's go."

He slugged me back and smirked, "freak." Jeremiah had shot his shot with me earlier in the year, taken being turned down like a champ, and formed a unique, tenuous friendship in the wake of the rejection. Jeremiah was good people.

I shoved him aside, scanned my key card, and stepped into the Morgue. My nose crinkled. It smelled like Wexcide (the hospital’s industrial disinfectant) and rot in here. The smells were by far my least favorite part of running a 57 call. Jeremiah made a gagging sound and grabbed for the Morgue gurney. It had a special tent that went over the top. It was tasteless if you ask me. I think covering the bodies in a sheet would have been classier… would have drawn less attention, too. Everyone knew what was under the bulky tent, anyway. Jer lifted the flap. “Good. No one inside.” He unlocked the brakes and I held the door while he wheeled it out into the hallway. “Did I ever tell you about the time fucking Donna left someone on there? Wheeled it all over the hospital… I already had the new patient in the sling when we discovered him there. God. The smell…”

I chuckled, but shooshed him as we rounded the corner. You couldn’t be caught talking like that in the hallways… even the basement bowels of the hospital weren’t safe for that kind of talk. Only our little breakroom was a safe place for that… and it depended on who was on shift. Matt and Jeremiah were by far the best companions for candid conversations. I suppose I was, too.

We made our way to the elevator and punched the 6. The hospital was quiet this time of night… terribly quiet, and it wasn’t hard to imagine ghosts walking the halls alongside you. I knew they were there. I could feel them, smell them. They touched me as I stepped along. The ghosts were especially prevalent around the entrance to the ICU. A thickness always hung in the air there (and in 3 West, the hospice cancer ward), even during the day. Jer and I both shivered as we stood at the doors, waiting for the charge nurse to pick up her side of the phone. “We’re here for the 57,” Jeremiah spoke in low tones, the reality settling into our bones. We were here for the 57. Here for the motorcyclist. Here, because he was dead in his bed. I swallowed.

The doors slid open and we made our way to the room. Neither of us needed to double-check the number. Jeremiah and I both had special rounding privileges in ICU. We’d been coming up three times a shift to help reposition the patients for the last six months. We both knew the motorcycle man. Intimately. We’d held his naked body up on many occasions, and whispered jokes in his ear to make light of the situation, while the nurses cleaned his backside. I could feel the vibrations of his laughter in my limbs as we stood outside of his room. The charge nurse came over, speaking softly, “He’s all cleaned up and ready to go. His belongings bag is on the chair. Let me know if you need anything.” She looked for a moment too long at his door before turning away.

“Wait– Ava,” I stopped her, “I don’t normally ask… but… what happened? I rounded on him yesterday…” I let my voice trail off. She knew what I was asking.

“He… Well, nothing. He…” she had tears in her eyes, “He found out. About the little girl in the car he hit… and… He just gave up.”

“Oh.” Jeremiah and I spoke in unison. Ava nodded and turned away again. This time we let her go.

I slid the door to his room open and we rolled the gurney inside. It was my turn to check on Jeremiah. He acted tough, but we both knew I handled 57s better than he. His breath was coming fast.

“Jer–,” I said, interrupting his daze. His eyes snapped to my face, “look at me. We’ve got this– I’ve got you. Follow my lead.” He swallowed and nodded.

I pulled back the curtain. The motorcycle man was covered in a sheet. It had to be removed to put him in the lift. I pulled it back, and his crystal blue eyes stared up at me, devoid of soul. If you don’t believe in souls, spend some time around dead people. You will. We’re different after we die. We are decidedly not there anymore, and what’s left…for lack of more eloquent language… is a sack of meat. These thoughts were interrupted by Jeremiah’s gag. “Go rub some hand sanitizer under your nose, Jer. I’ll start putting the sling under him.” Jeremiah did as he was told, and was back in a minute, apologetic as we maneuvered the body onto the sling. He stood by the bed with a hand on the patient as I walked across the room to slide the ceiling lift over. There was no reason to stand bedside, but training was engrained. You didn’t leave a patient alone with the bedrails down. I brought the lift over and watched as Jer adjusted the straps one last time. He leaned across the patient… okay, he leaned on the patient a little… and chaos erupted.

The body let out a gut rending moan– and sat up. In panic, Jeremiah yelled, “Shit, fuck… fuckity shit!” and shoved the body back down, only to have it sit back up. This cycle repeated several times, before I made my way to the bedside. Ava burst through the door seconds later, enraged, “What the hell is going on in here–” she screamed in a whisper, before her eyes processed the scene in front of her, “-oh.” She stepped back outside, but popped her head back in, “I’m sorry. Just be quiet, okay.”

“--But,” Jeremiah started.

“--He’s definitely dead. I checked,” she smirked, “Just gasses. Happens sometimes.”

She closed the door tightly as Jer and I each pressed down on the patient’s shoulders, keeping him in place on the bed. Our eyes locked over top of him and we both burst into a fit of insane laughter. We made our best effort to keep the snickering to a minimum as we went about our work, but every time the body moved, we’d start up again. I couldn’t look at Jeremiah the entire walk back down to the morgue, because when I did, I’d laugh again… and one doesn’t laugh when doing the solemn duty of transporting a body.

We made the rest of the transfer without further excitement, uncovering the patient in the morgue to find him partially sat up, but our earlier giggles had lost their luster. Jer gagged again as we opened the cooler and rolled out the metal pan. We didn’t speak as we craned the body in, but we silently agreed to treat him with the reverence he’d deserved earlier. Jer cleaned the tent and gurney while I zipped the motorcycle man into the body bag. He was still the most beautiful man I’d ever seen, though his cheeks had begun to sink, and the crystal blue of his eyes now had the unmistakable look of death in them. I touched one black curl on his head before I zipped him up all the way, “I’m sorry you stopped fighting,” I whispered, letting the curl spring away from my finger slowly. Jer came up behind me, body brushing along the back of me, too close, but a comfort nonetheless.

“Such a shame,” Jer said, “I really liked him.” I nodded and zipped the bag shut. We rolled the tray in together and latched the door.

We stood for a moment in the damp stink of the morgue before Jer slung his arm around my shoulder. I wrapped my arm around his waist and we made our way back to the safety of our little breakroom in the basement. Once inside, we sat down across from each other and laid our heads in our hands on the table. Jer looked up at me, “You know, Whit… You’re my favorite person to go on 57s with. Sorry, if that sounds weird.”

I propped my head up and smiled, “It does, but I get it. Same, Jer. Same.”

We looked at each other for a long time, words flying unspoken in the air between us.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said and laid his head back down.

I brushed my hand along his shoulder, “I’m glad you’re here, too.” I left my hand on his shoulder and put my head down too. We fell asleep like that with our heads on the table and our hearts in our throats.

Together, and glad to be there.

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Yes, this is a true story. This job was probably my favorite job ever. I worked as a hospital transport tech when I was in college. Code 57 was just a small part of the job. We more often transported alive patients to and from in-hospital appointments. We often transported samples and tissues (remind me to tell you about the time we lost the box of eyeballs). We were also required to respond to Codes (combative patients, CPR, lift assists– remind me to tell you about the sock and the psych ward). We made rounds in the ICU (remind me to tell you about the time my hand got lost in a pressure ulcer). It was a terribly exciting job and my co-workers were beyond fabulous. I am confident I would still be working there if I had not sustained a back injury that prevented me from doing lift assists. My friends who still work at the hospital often ask me when I’ll be back, and it’s been over a decade. So… an unsavory job? Yes, indeed. The perfect job for a freak like me? Indeed, as well.