Holding Still for as Long as Possible Read Online Free Page A

on the stretcher. Checking with Dispatch about where to take him. The practical, mundane motions of life-saving happen slowly. This job had taught me to be patient. There’s so much standing around, waiting, because some things you can’t rush.
    My first call ever was a twenty-two-year-old male shot in the head. I was so brilliantly wide-eyed and determined, with empathy reserves likes a fat-cheeked squirrel, watching the city race by on the way to the call. We waited outside the high-rise building for the 10-2s, who arrived only to amble up the long concrete walk, bitching about how they were just about to book off shift when they got this call. A parade of cars following them, pulling up on the lawn, followed quickly by the TV cameras.
    â€œYou just starting ?” the taller one asked us as we got into the elevator.
    â€œYeah, it’s our first call.” I didn’t tell them it was my first call ever .
    I felt as if my shoulders were attached by strings to the elevator wall, pulling me up straighter. The Canadian flags on our uniforms, the shiny yellow EMS stitches, letters aglow — it was as if we were action figures, hollowed out but purposeful. I felt proud, and totally, absolutely terrified.
    At the door I stepped to the right while the cops knocked with their nightsticks. I’d been instructed to never stand right in front of the door, to avoid contact with fists, bottles, spit, bullets, a myriad of possible projectiles. My partner, Carl, a mid-thirties joker type, seemed completely relaxed. In my right pocket were a pair of pink panties Amy had folded in three. A good-luck charm. My mouth tasted like coffee whitener. The hallway of this particular high-rise smelled like cumin, paint, and mould. Carl shifted his weight from right to left and swore. He was not excited to be working with me. I was trying very hard to look like I knew exactly what I was doing. I put on my institutional green latex gloves that I carried in my left pocket. They felt inadequate.
    After what seemed like five hours, the door opened slowly. Our patient was not, as anticipated, lying in a pool of his own blood next to a screaming girlfriend, but rather standing, facing us. A shining round black hole between his eyes.
    â€œHoly fuck,” I said, before I could stop myself.
    â€œHoly fuck indeed,” said Carl, sighing.
    I heard the pound of more cops arriving, treading down the hall. I couldn’t take my eyes away from the gunshot in the victim’s forehead. I managed to bring into focus a girl behind him, who stood up from a bright red futon couch, reaching out her arms, as though about to cheerlead.
    â€œJesus!” she said to us. “It’s Jesus. Jay-Jay is the second coming of Christ. It’s the only possible explanation.”
    Jay-Jay / Jesus told her to shut the fuck up. She sat back down, spread her hands over her face, eyes popping between the Vs of two long fingers. The 10-2s talked to the girl, who seemed more shook up than the victim, while we boarded and collared Jay-Jay / Jesus. The bullet was somewhere unknown in his body, and we wanted to protect his spine.
    Other cops sectioned off the area. I felt like the solid centre of a wasps’ nest, tunnelling my sight to the victim. Carl attended, asking the patient what had happened, what his pain was like, his medical history. I attached a C-collar around his neck, and fastened him to a board with a series of complicated seatbelt straps. Jay-Jay was on a cell phone to his mother up until the very second I bookended his head with tightly rolled and taped salmon-coloured sheets. Jay-Jay / Jesus spoke as lucidly as you or I, telling his mom to calm the fuck down, that he was all right, and answering Carl’s questions.
    I knew then, as Jay-Jay swore at me, at his girlfriend, at his mother on the phone, that I was going to have to cultivate a firm belief in something. That not believing in anything was going to be more of a hassle,