Page 96 of Absorbed

Mark started chest compressions. “One, two, three, four, five…”

Water oozed from the pot-bellied man’s dark lips. There was no movement in his body. He didn’t cough or flinch. His eyes were vacant.

“Eight, nine, ten…” Mark called out.

Stacey probed the cold, wet neck with her fingers, searching for a pulse. She hovered her cheek over the man’s open mouth, listening for breath.

“Anything?” Mark asked, still pressing hard into the man’s chest.

Stacey shook her head.

“Breathe!” Mark yelled at her, never ceasing his pumping.

Stacey clamped her fingers over the man’s nostrils with her left hand, tilted his chin up with her right. She blew as hard as she could into the man’s mouth. It was like blowing against a glass window; the air had nowhere to go.

Stacey tried clearing his windpipe with her finger. Nothing came out.

She blew three more times. “It’s not going in!”

Mark took over, trying to blow into the man’s mouth. “Fuck!” Mark returned to pressing the man’s chest.

Paramedics ran up beside them.

“There’s no pulse. We can’t get any air in,” Stacey said as she scurried out of the way.

“Let’s intubate,” one paramedic said to the other. While Mark continued pumping the chest, the medics opened their kit andslid a metal device into the man’s mouth. They pushed a tube through the device and down his throat.

Stacey stood, frozen in place. The pot-bellied man’s body lay completely still as paramedics squeezed the ball pump attached to the tube. His empty eyes stared straight up at the sun.

“We need to move him out of these puddles,” a paramedic shouted. “AED STAT!”

Mark continued chest compressions until a third medic arrived with the gurney. The squeaking wheels rushed toward Stacey, and she startled, backing out of the way. The four men lifted the body onto the gurney and rolled it to a dry part of the deck.

Unsure what else to do, Stacey trailed them until they stopped in front of the bleachers.

She looked past the gurney, Mark, and the paramedics, to where the little old lady in the purple suit sat in the bleachers, weeping and watching.

The head paramedic held the AED paddles to the man’s chest. The limp body jolted with each shock. There was still no response in his eyes.

They squeezed the ball pump again. The man’s bloated face was blue-gray.

Stacey turned away, her hand over her mouth.

Two medics wheeled Jessie across the deck to the open gate and a waiting ambulance.

A large red fire truck pulled away from the curb. It cleared the way to the pool entrance for a second ambulance, its sirens blaring.

Police cars arrived, the lights flashing, and blocked the parking lot entrance.

One officer rushed to stand at the exit.

The ambulance transporting Jessie turned on its lights and siren and rushed out of the parking lot, the officer in the street waving him past oncoming traffic.

Another officer ran up to Melissa, who was standing by the gate.

Melissa talked to the officer, pointing and gesturing. Her hands and forearm were smeared with blood.Jessie’s blood.

A pizza delivery guy appeared by the gate.

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