A Man-In-Need
Randel struggles to run around Lake Merritt. Can't get the breathing down. Panting. His baggy blue sweats cling like a large damp rag. He gives up, acts as if he has a cramp in his right leg, which he then rubs. Other runners pass, look on sympathetically. Randel touching the phantom pain, the bruised ego.
Randel eyes an attractive woman, blond pony-tailed mane, teal body suit, racehorse legs, breezing past effortlessly; a muse to continue. He'll never catch her these days.
He wonders about his health as he approaches the boathouse, its long narrow parking lot serving as part of the trail around the urban lake. If beauty can't stimulate, if exercise can't stimulate, what would propel his desire to better himself? He'd always taken pride in his physique, nurtured through a variety of sports -- athletic and sexual. Everything was a sport, but now he is tired, can't compete, women aren't attracted. Life has changed gears and he doesn't know how to shift, that over-thirty mid-life shift.
A string of seasonal jobs isn't doing the trick anymore either. When the funding fell through on the year round sports camp, five years before, he had accepted his plight and filled in the void between summer camps by working for temp agencies. In factories, banks, offices, warehouses -- he'd run the gamut of employment possibilities. However, the freedom and newness he once enjoyed from temp work isn't going to offer much comfort in the years ahead.
Randel walks slowly, contemplating his future.
Standing between the parked cars and the lakeside path a shabbily dressed figure appears. A dark, older man, slouched, trance-like, gripping a white plastic bag; the bag's contents stretch the limits of the plastic. The stranger's head is huddled in the hood of a red sweatshirt partially covered by an old, half-buttoned, black Oakland Raider's jacket. He’s standing in charcoal jeans and matching hightops, ragged and untied. Short grey stubbles accent a brown, weathered face. The man speaks softly, deeply, "s'cuse meh."
Randel wants to pass, but slows his pace to listen. There are so many street people these days. Randel isn't carrying any money so this time he wouldn't be lying when the inevitable question came around -- got any spare change? The older man notices Randel is at least acknowledging his existence, so he continues, gravel voiced, "s'cuse meh, broth'r...” "Brother" turns Randel off; brown skins use it to manipulate each other.
The man presses on in a dry husky voice, "Sorry t' both'r ya... "
Randel stops and gives a quizzical look, what can I do? They're at least ten feet apart. A comfortable distance.
The man shifts the bag to his left hand then extends his right wrist for Randel's inspection. Clues to his mystery are in three -- green, blue, red -- wrist bands, hospital patient tags. Randel, body turned as if to keep going forward, gazes sideways at the plastic bands, "Hmm..."
The man waits for more of a response.
Randel asks, "How ya doin'?"
" 'f 'u cou' hel' meh ou'..."
"I'd like to help you out but," Randel translates, then explains, "sorry, I don't have any money with me." This is true. He can barely help himself; temp jobs with no benefits -- life isn't getting any easier. Randel has the urge to start running again, but he doesn't. Instead he asks, "Anything else I can do?"
" ' jus' ga' outa Al'a Ba's. 'm na' doin' well."
"Alta Bates?" questions Randel, continuing to keep his distance, turns and faces the man. "Just got out of the hospital? Want to call someone? There's probably a phone in there," he says, pointing to the Boathouse.
The man smells, smells of urine and muck. Randel smells, smells of a distancing and noninvolvement.
"Ain' no panhan'lr," the man affirms and pats his soiled, empty pocket, "I ga' t' call..."
Randel is embarrassed. The man perceives Randel's distrust. It is accurate. Randel takes a step closer and asks, "What's wrong?"
The man lets out a slow, exhaustive breath. Here it comes. Randel wishes he hadn't been so inquisitive. Again the man extends his hospital bands toward Randel for inspection. Randel looks at the bands and nods with a blankness of meaning. The man says, " 'm dyin'... body's full a canc'r."
"I'm sorry," Randel says moving another step closer, pausing. "Why aren't you in the hospital? "
"Dey ga' a ge' ri' a meh."
"Got to get rid of you?" Randel grimaces, "You want to go back?"
The man nods.
A group of noontime runners pass by oblivious to this situation; the running looks so ridiculous, no apparent reason, no apparent purpose. Randel had run all these years and gotten nowhere.
"Let's see if we can find a phone," Randel suggests.
Keeping a polite, respectful distance, Randel moves toward the building. Under an archway, there's a lower side door marked Employees Only. Randel turns back briefly and sees the man struggling to move the few feet from where their conversation began -- the man needs help, he's not faking it, he wants more than spare change.
Peering through a half-fogged window, Randel sees a small group of casually dressed badge-dangling people seated around a table. A meeting, or maybe they're having lunch. The forbidding sign Employees Only causes him to hesitate once more and analyze the situation. He feels helpless in deciding what to do. How many others had this man asked before Randel came along? Is the man nuts?
Randel takes a calming breath, opens the door. All eyes turn toward Randel, who now uses the same lines that the man-in-need used, "Excuse me. Excuse me, sorry to bother you..."
They're staring, apprehensive -- a stranger walking in and interrupting them. He could see their defense mechanisms in place, wondering if he was hustling them, or loony. Black man in shaggy blue sweats. A black and blue fear. They appear to Randel the way Randel must have appeared to the man outside. It's not pleasant.
Randel changes to a more serious tone, "Excuse me. I'm not a panhandler..." They start to stand; his intrusion suggests a problem, someone in need. He continues, "There's a man outside who needs help."
"Should we call 911?" a woman asks.
Randel doesn't want to make that kind of decision, "I don't know. He just got out of Alta Bates. He's in bad shape."
Randel turns and starts back out the door. The woman who suggested 911 follows him. She seems to know how to proceed with giving and getting help. The other workers go as far as the door and window. Someone goes to a nearby phone.
The man-in-need is balanced between a black Acura Legend and a blue Honda Civic -- he's still holding the plastic bag like a life support system, an alien, lost in space and time. The woman asks the man-in-need directly, “What's wrong? (Randel recognizes her -- it’s Marta, his downstairs neighbor.)
He says he didn't get his medication. Final stage of lupus. Needs medication...security guard wouldn't let him back in...Nurse told security guard to let him in, but he didn't go back...
She assures him help is on the way, then asks his name. Randel hadn't thought of asking. The man's name is Ken. She introduces herself. An audience for this unfolding drama peers out from the Boathouse building. Randel and Marta exchange concerned glances and a brief recognition of each other.
Ken remains stiff, a scarecrow posture. Randel asks him if he'd like to sit. Ken nods.
"I'll be right back," Randel excuses himself and heads back through the Employees Only door as if he were an employee, another temp assignment. In the Meeting Room, he retrieves a metal, padded chair -- one that is run down and set off to the side. Onlookers notice and understand. They will never sit in this chair again. It is marked in their memory. The one with the slight tear along the beige plastic seat cushion, that's the one that that sick guy used. Needs to be fumigated, reupholstered.
Marta and Randel wedge the doomed chair behind Ken. Ken sits, sets his bag down. The sky starts to drip, then drizzle.
The questioning continues, “Where did you sleep last night?
Slept outdoors at 14th and Oak, about a hundred yards, a football field away. It had been a cold rainy night.
Randel shakes his head sadly. He didn't want to experience this, this pain, Ken's pain. But being a part of the care package that's being assembled for Ken feels good. Ken could be my father, Randel thinks -- Ken could be me, one or two twists of fate and that is me absolutely.
Marta continues, "Anyone we could call?"
"My dawdr'."
"What's her name?"
"Iveh."
"Ivy," Marta writes, "Does she have a phone?"
Slowly, Ken mumbles the numbers.
The last few digits are garbled. He's asked again, he repeats it carefully, making sure they hear correctly. Marta's good at helping, good at procedures. A good woman. She goes back inside the building to contact Ivy.
It's just Ken and Randel once more.
"Iveh, she'z awl I gaw lef'." Ken starts to cry. The plastic bag probably contains all of his possessions. Randel wants to comfort him. If Randel lost his own health, he'd have nothing left too. A plastic bag is not enough to live for. When life is all played out, what would he put in his bag?
Ken is crying. Randel remembers Ivy, and says sincerely, "It's great that you have someone, a daughter." Randel wishes he had a child, a link to this living world. Ken has more than he.
A siren is heard. Randel's eyes water. He didn't want to experience this. Not now while feeling so vulnerable.
Marta returns. Ivy will call Ken at Alta Bates in 30 minutes. They should have him there by then. Marta confides to Randel that Ivy has no transportation, and can't get to the hospital. The siren. Marta's empathy seems tempered by an awareness that there is only so much we can do for one another. She had done all that she could.
The fire engine stops along Harrison Street, up the hill from where they are. The red truck is slightly obscured from their view, sandwiched between a low hanging tree limb and the upper muddied crest of the slope. Framed between the brown hill and the brown limb, the red truck looks like a fresh wound, a gash, a tear, red in brown.
Three pairs of beige uniformed legs move quickly from the cab to the rear of the truck, then proceed down the hill. One of the emerging rescuers has a clipboard. The other two have various medical supplies and are putting on protective, surgical gloves as they approach this current operation. A second siren is heard approaching.
The Clipboarder collects info, mainly from Marta, then from Ken -- born in 1932, final stages of lupus, head hurts when he coughs. Scabs all over his body. Aches. Can hardly stand. Burning inside. -- The fire fighters are not about to extinguish Ken’s problems.
An American Medical Response / AMR ambulance pulls into the parking lot. This is the final act of the drama, when all the players are together for a brief climatic scene. Ken is saved, for the moment.
While the Clipboarder passes along Ken's data to the AMR personnel, Marta, Randel, and the fire fighters wish Ken good luck. Randel decides to remain at Ken's side as the fire fighters make their way back up the hill to their truck and Marta returns to the boathouse building.
The EMTs, a Filipino and a Hispanic, in their late twenties, very laid back, caring but calloused from picking up too many homeless people, have this routine down. They ask Ken to walk over and get on the gurney by himself and they’ll take him to the hospital. They go to set up the gurney.
Randel's left alone with Ken. He doesn't think it appropriate to leave until Ken is safely tucked into the ambulance. Randel never knew his own father, and never cared, until now.
The attractive woman with the racehorse legs trots by again. This juxtaposition of perceptions -- the gaps between homing and homeless, health and sickness -- leaves Randel with a sense of confused foreboding. Randel decides it’s time to leave.
Ken lifts his head up long enough to notice Randel backing away. Ken asks him to come closer, an intimate word. Randel has to fight off a resistance to get too close, not sure what will transpire. The EMTs note Ken's request and wait while Ken has a private word with Randel. Ken whispers in confidence.
Randel's not sure if he heard correctly, so he asks Ken to repeat. Randel leans in closer to hear. Ken touches his hand.
Ken would, please, like thirty-five cents for a pay phone.
He wants to call his daughter. He's too embarrassed to ask strangers. They'd think him a vagrant, a panhandler. Ivy. He wants to talk to Ivy. He doesn't want to have to ask others to do it.
Randel is moved. If Ivy is the most precious thing in the world to Ken, then the thirty-five cents represents the freedom, the independence, the dignity of that connection. And he asks Randel. This is Randel's chance to really help, a symbolic gesture of intimacy. Randel has thirty-five years, but not thirty-five cents.
When Ken's finger touches Randel a painting he had seen in an art book -- that image of God touching Adam, giving life to the world -- came to mind. The touch transmitted an enormous amount of energy and emotion. It broke through the invisible barrier, the one that had prevented each helping hand from touching Ken. No one had actually, physically touched Ken. Now Randel feels connected.
Randel puts his hand on Ken's shoulder and says, “Sorry, I don’t have any change, but don’t worry, you'll be getting the help you need now.”
Ken cracks a smile as Randel walks him over to the gurney. Randel gets a brief glimpse inside the bag, but what he sees doesn't register as anything meaningful.
Randel makes certain the attendants know about the phone call -- the importance of the call. They say they'll take care of it. Randel conveys this to Ken, reconfirms it to Ken, just in case Ken had not heard them talking.
Once Ken is on the gurney Randel wishes him well, again.
Then Randel turns and starts running. From now on he'll always carry spare change. A reminder. Faster. Help is inexpensive. That'll never happen again. Flying with unimpeded energy, a mile along the lakeside path, maybe he'll catch that beautiful runner. Better yet, he'll drop by and visit Marta tonight, she might understand. Need to get out of the city...
About the time Randel reaches Grand Avenue, gasping for breath, the AMR ambulance transporting Ken is also approaching the intersection. To go straight means that they'll take Ken to Alta Bates, a private, highly respected hospital. Ken was there yesterday. Ivy's going to call there. If the ambulance turns right, Ken's going to Highland, the county hospital for the indigent.
The ambulance veers to the right.
No emergency lights. They aren't in a hurry.
Randel’s brief burst of energy dissipates to a slow, heavy paced crawl. He sees himself in the back of the ambulance. " 'f 'u cou' hel' meh ou'... "
A Man-In-Need, © 2000 by John Kirkmire, © 2013 Kirkworkshop. All rights reserved.
return to stories page
Randel struggles to run around Lake Merritt. Can't get the breathing down. Panting. His baggy blue sweats cling like a large damp rag. He gives up, acts as if he has a cramp in his right leg, which he then rubs. Other runners pass, look on sympathetically. Randel touching the phantom pain, the bruised ego.
Randel eyes an attractive woman, blond pony-tailed mane, teal body suit, racehorse legs, breezing past effortlessly; a muse to continue. He'll never catch her these days.
He wonders about his health as he approaches the boathouse, its long narrow parking lot serving as part of the trail around the urban lake. If beauty can't stimulate, if exercise can't stimulate, what would propel his desire to better himself? He'd always taken pride in his physique, nurtured through a variety of sports -- athletic and sexual. Everything was a sport, but now he is tired, can't compete, women aren't attracted. Life has changed gears and he doesn't know how to shift, that over-thirty mid-life shift.
A string of seasonal jobs isn't doing the trick anymore either. When the funding fell through on the year round sports camp, five years before, he had accepted his plight and filled in the void between summer camps by working for temp agencies. In factories, banks, offices, warehouses -- he'd run the gamut of employment possibilities. However, the freedom and newness he once enjoyed from temp work isn't going to offer much comfort in the years ahead.
Randel walks slowly, contemplating his future.
Standing between the parked cars and the lakeside path a shabbily dressed figure appears. A dark, older man, slouched, trance-like, gripping a white plastic bag; the bag's contents stretch the limits of the plastic. The stranger's head is huddled in the hood of a red sweatshirt partially covered by an old, half-buttoned, black Oakland Raider's jacket. He’s standing in charcoal jeans and matching hightops, ragged and untied. Short grey stubbles accent a brown, weathered face. The man speaks softly, deeply, "s'cuse meh."
Randel wants to pass, but slows his pace to listen. There are so many street people these days. Randel isn't carrying any money so this time he wouldn't be lying when the inevitable question came around -- got any spare change? The older man notices Randel is at least acknowledging his existence, so he continues, gravel voiced, "s'cuse meh, broth'r...” "Brother" turns Randel off; brown skins use it to manipulate each other.
The man presses on in a dry husky voice, "Sorry t' both'r ya... "
Randel stops and gives a quizzical look, what can I do? They're at least ten feet apart. A comfortable distance.
The man shifts the bag to his left hand then extends his right wrist for Randel's inspection. Clues to his mystery are in three -- green, blue, red -- wrist bands, hospital patient tags. Randel, body turned as if to keep going forward, gazes sideways at the plastic bands, "Hmm..."
The man waits for more of a response.
Randel asks, "How ya doin'?"
" 'f 'u cou' hel' meh ou'..."
"I'd like to help you out but," Randel translates, then explains, "sorry, I don't have any money with me." This is true. He can barely help himself; temp jobs with no benefits -- life isn't getting any easier. Randel has the urge to start running again, but he doesn't. Instead he asks, "Anything else I can do?"
" ' jus' ga' outa Al'a Ba's. 'm na' doin' well."
"Alta Bates?" questions Randel, continuing to keep his distance, turns and faces the man. "Just got out of the hospital? Want to call someone? There's probably a phone in there," he says, pointing to the Boathouse.
The man smells, smells of urine and muck. Randel smells, smells of a distancing and noninvolvement.
"Ain' no panhan'lr," the man affirms and pats his soiled, empty pocket, "I ga' t' call..."
Randel is embarrassed. The man perceives Randel's distrust. It is accurate. Randel takes a step closer and asks, "What's wrong?"
The man lets out a slow, exhaustive breath. Here it comes. Randel wishes he hadn't been so inquisitive. Again the man extends his hospital bands toward Randel for inspection. Randel looks at the bands and nods with a blankness of meaning. The man says, " 'm dyin'... body's full a canc'r."
"I'm sorry," Randel says moving another step closer, pausing. "Why aren't you in the hospital? "
"Dey ga' a ge' ri' a meh."
"Got to get rid of you?" Randel grimaces, "You want to go back?"
The man nods.
A group of noontime runners pass by oblivious to this situation; the running looks so ridiculous, no apparent reason, no apparent purpose. Randel had run all these years and gotten nowhere.
"Let's see if we can find a phone," Randel suggests.
Keeping a polite, respectful distance, Randel moves toward the building. Under an archway, there's a lower side door marked Employees Only. Randel turns back briefly and sees the man struggling to move the few feet from where their conversation began -- the man needs help, he's not faking it, he wants more than spare change.
Peering through a half-fogged window, Randel sees a small group of casually dressed badge-dangling people seated around a table. A meeting, or maybe they're having lunch. The forbidding sign Employees Only causes him to hesitate once more and analyze the situation. He feels helpless in deciding what to do. How many others had this man asked before Randel came along? Is the man nuts?
Randel takes a calming breath, opens the door. All eyes turn toward Randel, who now uses the same lines that the man-in-need used, "Excuse me. Excuse me, sorry to bother you..."
They're staring, apprehensive -- a stranger walking in and interrupting them. He could see their defense mechanisms in place, wondering if he was hustling them, or loony. Black man in shaggy blue sweats. A black and blue fear. They appear to Randel the way Randel must have appeared to the man outside. It's not pleasant.
Randel changes to a more serious tone, "Excuse me. I'm not a panhandler..." They start to stand; his intrusion suggests a problem, someone in need. He continues, "There's a man outside who needs help."
"Should we call 911?" a woman asks.
Randel doesn't want to make that kind of decision, "I don't know. He just got out of Alta Bates. He's in bad shape."
Randel turns and starts back out the door. The woman who suggested 911 follows him. She seems to know how to proceed with giving and getting help. The other workers go as far as the door and window. Someone goes to a nearby phone.
The man-in-need is balanced between a black Acura Legend and a blue Honda Civic -- he's still holding the plastic bag like a life support system, an alien, lost in space and time. The woman asks the man-in-need directly, “What's wrong? (Randel recognizes her -- it’s Marta, his downstairs neighbor.)
He says he didn't get his medication. Final stage of lupus. Needs medication...security guard wouldn't let him back in...Nurse told security guard to let him in, but he didn't go back...
She assures him help is on the way, then asks his name. Randel hadn't thought of asking. The man's name is Ken. She introduces herself. An audience for this unfolding drama peers out from the Boathouse building. Randel and Marta exchange concerned glances and a brief recognition of each other.
Ken remains stiff, a scarecrow posture. Randel asks him if he'd like to sit. Ken nods.
"I'll be right back," Randel excuses himself and heads back through the Employees Only door as if he were an employee, another temp assignment. In the Meeting Room, he retrieves a metal, padded chair -- one that is run down and set off to the side. Onlookers notice and understand. They will never sit in this chair again. It is marked in their memory. The one with the slight tear along the beige plastic seat cushion, that's the one that that sick guy used. Needs to be fumigated, reupholstered.
Marta and Randel wedge the doomed chair behind Ken. Ken sits, sets his bag down. The sky starts to drip, then drizzle.
The questioning continues, “Where did you sleep last night?
Slept outdoors at 14th and Oak, about a hundred yards, a football field away. It had been a cold rainy night.
Randel shakes his head sadly. He didn't want to experience this, this pain, Ken's pain. But being a part of the care package that's being assembled for Ken feels good. Ken could be my father, Randel thinks -- Ken could be me, one or two twists of fate and that is me absolutely.
Marta continues, "Anyone we could call?"
"My dawdr'."
"What's her name?"
"Iveh."
"Ivy," Marta writes, "Does she have a phone?"
Slowly, Ken mumbles the numbers.
The last few digits are garbled. He's asked again, he repeats it carefully, making sure they hear correctly. Marta's good at helping, good at procedures. A good woman. She goes back inside the building to contact Ivy.
It's just Ken and Randel once more.
"Iveh, she'z awl I gaw lef'." Ken starts to cry. The plastic bag probably contains all of his possessions. Randel wants to comfort him. If Randel lost his own health, he'd have nothing left too. A plastic bag is not enough to live for. When life is all played out, what would he put in his bag?
Ken is crying. Randel remembers Ivy, and says sincerely, "It's great that you have someone, a daughter." Randel wishes he had a child, a link to this living world. Ken has more than he.
A siren is heard. Randel's eyes water. He didn't want to experience this. Not now while feeling so vulnerable.
Marta returns. Ivy will call Ken at Alta Bates in 30 minutes. They should have him there by then. Marta confides to Randel that Ivy has no transportation, and can't get to the hospital. The siren. Marta's empathy seems tempered by an awareness that there is only so much we can do for one another. She had done all that she could.
The fire engine stops along Harrison Street, up the hill from where they are. The red truck is slightly obscured from their view, sandwiched between a low hanging tree limb and the upper muddied crest of the slope. Framed between the brown hill and the brown limb, the red truck looks like a fresh wound, a gash, a tear, red in brown.
Three pairs of beige uniformed legs move quickly from the cab to the rear of the truck, then proceed down the hill. One of the emerging rescuers has a clipboard. The other two have various medical supplies and are putting on protective, surgical gloves as they approach this current operation. A second siren is heard approaching.
The Clipboarder collects info, mainly from Marta, then from Ken -- born in 1932, final stages of lupus, head hurts when he coughs. Scabs all over his body. Aches. Can hardly stand. Burning inside. -- The fire fighters are not about to extinguish Ken’s problems.
An American Medical Response / AMR ambulance pulls into the parking lot. This is the final act of the drama, when all the players are together for a brief climatic scene. Ken is saved, for the moment.
While the Clipboarder passes along Ken's data to the AMR personnel, Marta, Randel, and the fire fighters wish Ken good luck. Randel decides to remain at Ken's side as the fire fighters make their way back up the hill to their truck and Marta returns to the boathouse building.
The EMTs, a Filipino and a Hispanic, in their late twenties, very laid back, caring but calloused from picking up too many homeless people, have this routine down. They ask Ken to walk over and get on the gurney by himself and they’ll take him to the hospital. They go to set up the gurney.
Randel's left alone with Ken. He doesn't think it appropriate to leave until Ken is safely tucked into the ambulance. Randel never knew his own father, and never cared, until now.
The attractive woman with the racehorse legs trots by again. This juxtaposition of perceptions -- the gaps between homing and homeless, health and sickness -- leaves Randel with a sense of confused foreboding. Randel decides it’s time to leave.
Ken lifts his head up long enough to notice Randel backing away. Ken asks him to come closer, an intimate word. Randel has to fight off a resistance to get too close, not sure what will transpire. The EMTs note Ken's request and wait while Ken has a private word with Randel. Ken whispers in confidence.
Randel's not sure if he heard correctly, so he asks Ken to repeat. Randel leans in closer to hear. Ken touches his hand.
Ken would, please, like thirty-five cents for a pay phone.
He wants to call his daughter. He's too embarrassed to ask strangers. They'd think him a vagrant, a panhandler. Ivy. He wants to talk to Ivy. He doesn't want to have to ask others to do it.
Randel is moved. If Ivy is the most precious thing in the world to Ken, then the thirty-five cents represents the freedom, the independence, the dignity of that connection. And he asks Randel. This is Randel's chance to really help, a symbolic gesture of intimacy. Randel has thirty-five years, but not thirty-five cents.
When Ken's finger touches Randel a painting he had seen in an art book -- that image of God touching Adam, giving life to the world -- came to mind. The touch transmitted an enormous amount of energy and emotion. It broke through the invisible barrier, the one that had prevented each helping hand from touching Ken. No one had actually, physically touched Ken. Now Randel feels connected.
Randel puts his hand on Ken's shoulder and says, “Sorry, I don’t have any change, but don’t worry, you'll be getting the help you need now.”
Ken cracks a smile as Randel walks him over to the gurney. Randel gets a brief glimpse inside the bag, but what he sees doesn't register as anything meaningful.
Randel makes certain the attendants know about the phone call -- the importance of the call. They say they'll take care of it. Randel conveys this to Ken, reconfirms it to Ken, just in case Ken had not heard them talking.
Once Ken is on the gurney Randel wishes him well, again.
Then Randel turns and starts running. From now on he'll always carry spare change. A reminder. Faster. Help is inexpensive. That'll never happen again. Flying with unimpeded energy, a mile along the lakeside path, maybe he'll catch that beautiful runner. Better yet, he'll drop by and visit Marta tonight, she might understand. Need to get out of the city...
About the time Randel reaches Grand Avenue, gasping for breath, the AMR ambulance transporting Ken is also approaching the intersection. To go straight means that they'll take Ken to Alta Bates, a private, highly respected hospital. Ken was there yesterday. Ivy's going to call there. If the ambulance turns right, Ken's going to Highland, the county hospital for the indigent.
The ambulance veers to the right.
No emergency lights. They aren't in a hurry.
Randel’s brief burst of energy dissipates to a slow, heavy paced crawl. He sees himself in the back of the ambulance. " 'f 'u cou' hel' meh ou'... "
A Man-In-Need, © 2000 by John Kirkmire, © 2013 Kirkworkshop. All rights reserved.
return to stories page