Page 16 of Keeping It Professional

“So, uh, that fart call. Was that your dumbest?”

Miles laughed. “Hell, no. Not by a long shot.” He sipped his coffee. “I mean, that man was in actual pain. When he called for help, he thought it was urgent. My dumbest, let’s see…” He leaned back and smiled. “Well, we had this guy one time, called us for a zit.”

I blinked. “A zit?”

“Yeah. Like, a pimple.”

“Was it infected?”

Miles snickered. “No. But this guy got online and found this creepypasta about some girl got killed by a zit. It was on her forehead, between her eyes, and the story went, the pus backed up into her brain. And this guy believed that and called 911.”

“For a zit.” I grimaced at a forkful of buttery pancake.

“People call for all kinds of things. Sometimes, they’re stupid. Other times, they sound dumb, but you get there and…” Miles trailed off, frowning, and set down his fork.

“What were you going to say?”

“Nothing. Doesn’t matter. Hey, you did well today, keeping hold of that stretcher. That stairwell was tight, and you didn’t bump once.”

I stopped eating, suspicious of the sudden praise. “No, what were you saying? You get there, and…?”

Miles pushed his plate away. He leaned back, looking tired. “We got this call one time, me and my partner — not the one who just left, but the one before him. It sounded ridiculous, a man stuck in his pant leg.”

I laughed without meaning to. “Stuck inwhat?”

“That’s what we said as well, like, what the hell? You’re stuck in your pant leg, you take off your pants. But we get there and it’s this old guy, frail as a bird. Glasses so thick they’re almost spheres. He’s got all mixed up dressing and crammed both legs in one… leg… and he’s fallen and got stuck that way for, must’ve been days.”

“Oh, no. Oh,no.”

“We check for a pulse, but he’s been gone a while. And Wood — that’s my partner — goes ‘who called 911?’ By that time, the cops are there, and they head out back, and that’s when they find his wife on the steps. She’s run to get help, and the top stair gave out?—”

“Oh,shit!”

“—and she’s just lying there staring up at the sky. She was still alive, barely, with her neck all, uh…” He held up his finger, crooked ninety degrees. “She was trying to talk, then one of the cops, thisassholeshouts out ‘That one dead too?’ And the look in her eyes, man, her light just went out. And then she died, knowing she was too late. And we’re sitting there after, me and Wood in the bus, and he says to me, why’d we make all those jokes? Because we joked the whole way, while those poor old folks…” Miles wiped his mouth. Raked both hands through his hair. “Turned out she’d been gone a few days on vacation, and she must’ve come home and found her old man like that.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” I said. “You couldn’t have known.”

Miles sucked a deep breath, held it in. Blew it out. “I showed up for my next shift and Wood wasn’t there. Never called, never quit, just disappeared. I went by his place and his stuff was allgone. All empty rooms when I peeked inside. Never saw him again, and I still wonder, is he okay out there? Is he alive?”

I had no answer for that, so I said nothing at all. I thought about taking Miles’s hand, but I didn’t know him that well. After a while, he reached for his coffee.

“This job,” he said.

I opened my mouth, then shut it again. I knew what he meant, but at the same time, I didn’t. I’d seen a couple of DOAs, but nothing like that. Nothing that hit like a bolt from the blue.

“You can’t save them all,” said Miles, like he was reciting a mantra. His gaze had gone distant, fixed on something outside. He sipped his coffee, then gulped it, then let out a sigh. “Anyway, yeah. You never know what you’re getting. Any call can bethatcall, the one that’ll haunt you.”

I wondered what else Miles had seen on the job, what kind of scars he bore. My stomach felt sour.

“You were right,” I said.

“What?”

“The other day. I shouldn’t have taken it so personally, you venting to Jones.”

“Oh, that,” said Miles. He still seemed distracted. “It’s like I said. It’s a high-stress job. You done with your food?” He reached for his wallet.

“My treat,” I said. “I asked you to come.”

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