Better Health Begins At Home

Part 19 of 30 -- Psycho Squad

For a lot of the guys we deal with, the Psycho Squad is the best friend they have. And their so-called friends, the guys on the block, are their worst enemy. But try to convince them of that. They still turn and run. They always seem to think we're somehow the enemy. So we're bobbing and weaving, avoiding angry fists ourselves as we chase them up one alley and down another. You always hear these are mean streets, the alleys are no picnic either.

Then later I walk the hospital halls and see a lot of injuries, which is terrible. Mostly for our reputation. Because a lot of misinformed people think we have something to do with it. When we certainly don't. We play by the book, our only mission to help unfortunate souls and return them back as productive members of society. It's right there in black and white in our literature, and, frankly, my arm's getting sore lifting it to swear that we're clean. But that's a fact!

We might need to get some extra PR on this thing. One, it'd be a good way to keep the liability insurance guys happy and the rates lower. Maybe send our guys out with big foam gloves and hands, like in the stands at football games. A few huge pointing foam gloves and the public would have a better idea about us. They might even associate us with the football team, always known for playing clean. The rooms are padded, but the rooms aren't seen by the public very often. We might need to look into padding for the ambulances, the uniforms, everything. And rename the business Kid Gloves Psycho Squad, anything to keep our reputation.

How hard is it to believe that most of these characters -- several have a terrible sneer and gargle glass -- might run with the wrong crowd? You see it first thing when you're on a run. Most of the time I even leave a guy with the ambulance so we'll have tires when we get back! And of course windows, seats, a steering wheel, whatever we might need to keep a functioning unit. Then some of these neighborhoods are so tough, a gang of guys could pick up and move your ambulance just to set it in illegal parking. And that's mean. And to think these are some of the same guys I used to give butterscotch candy to as kids. This is the thanks I get? Hardly anyone just wants to be friends anymore.

Anyway, a perp might be pretty badly mangled by the time he's in the psych hospital. But I'm assuming they know the rules of their neighborhood: Don't look at someone else's girlfriend. Don't look at someone else's boyfriend. Don't mess with another guy's dog. Don't get in the way when they're dismantling a firetruck or Psycho Squad ambulance. Don't steal candy. Stop on the red, cross on the green, watch both ways in traffic, don't litter. I actually lost a friend a few years ago, knifed right in the heart. He'd unfortunately committed the trifecta of sins: Looked at someone's girlfriend, petted a guy's dog, and crossed on the red. But it's been a few years now and most of us have forgotten him.

So our job is hard enough just getting these crazies to the hospital, there's no way we want to extend our little visits by roughing them up. We're like everyone else: We want to cut every corner we can to get things done faster, not prolong the agony of being with these guys. And the only way to do that -- when the natives are cooperating -- is to bring 'em in clean and ship 'em out clean. Any trouble along the way means more paperwork, more explanations, and higher insurance. Plus dirty looks from nurses, definitely something we try to avoid...

Did I Miss Lincoln's Birthday?

Did I miss Abraham Lincoln's birthday?! Dammit! I even went through the day thinking vaguely about the 12th being vaguely familiar. I've been in a kind of stupor lately. I'm not saying it's related to me falling and hitting my head on the rock, but I'm not excluding that possibility.

But look at these words I'm spewing; I'm not that dumb, right? It's flowing like volcano from a massive earth zit, i.e., a mountain. I'm able to conceptualize, comparing mountains to facial blemishes and cross the wires of the contents of each one, a volcano and the stuff that comes from faces. That has to count for something... Could be I'm good at faces because I hit my head in the back, not the front.

Anyway, dammit again, I say. I was hoping to wish Abraham Lincoln a happy birthday on the actual day, none of this "President's Day" stuff for me. I won't have it. To have it is to say my education was nothing, and that's something I'm not eager to admit. There had to be something good about it. One, it made me a "lifetime learner."

I had some troubles with one reader within the last five years, calling me on my "ignorance" about Lincoln, The Great Railsplitter. The guy's basic point was why do I call him The Great Railsplitter? His contention was because it's an old cliche, nothing more. And, the guy said, it's likely that I don't even know why he split rails. OK, smart guy, rails were fences, I'm pretty sure. Wooden fences, imagine that. The olden days were crazy.

But let's get away from cliches, because I actually read (an audiobook) an actual book about Lincoln in the last year. It was one about The Great Thespian John W. Booth, who shot and killed the president. In summary, it's a crazy story of poor security up the ass. Imagine if you could just walk in the theater, unnoticed, and kill the president! No matter what you think of the president, he deserves better security than that! We can't have upheaval like that on a scale we can barely imagine.

It's kind of exciting listening to a book like that, better than reading it, for sure. When I read, I get bogged down, usually. Eye strain, so pretty soon I'm reading with one eye; I do that a lot. But if you're half sleeping and the remaining eye is doing double duty, it's easy to drift off. Audiobooks have problems too. It's easy to drift off and realize you just missed a chapter. Then it's hard to get back, and you end up hearing the same couple paragraphs a dozen times.

Since I missed The Great Emancipator's birthday, though, I don't want to spill all my knowledge, just save it till next year. He had a wife, OK, I'll give you that much. She was the First Lady of those times, sat at home knitting. Not like now, the First Lady in a New York high-rise costing the taxpayers a million dollars a day while she watches her kid romp through the room sitting on a lion. Times have changed.

Abraham Lincoln was a man of integrity, I've heard. Being The Co-Father of His Country, he decided to behave himself. He wasn't tweeting all the time about John Wilkes Booth being an overrated actor, which if you think about the theater over history, probably the mid-to-late 1800s is the most pretentious period. They didn't have microphones, they had to yell their lungs out, even in tender scenes, for the deaf guy in the last row to be able to hear. "WHAT'D HE SAY?" was their punishment if they didn't.

These days we have Abraham Lincoln, The Great Reader by The Fireplace, on the five dollar bill. Five times more valuable than the other Co-Father of His Country. And yet, somehow ignorantly trumped by Ben Franklin, on the 100, and not even a damned president.

Happy belated birthday to the late Great Top Hat Wearer.