White light. Cold.
White light and something cold…no, just cool, moving on his skin. A breeze, maybe.
Steve Dawes tried to make sense of the two things intruding on the blank quiet in his mind. For a while, those two things were his entire world.
White light. Something cool, moving on his skin. Not a bad feeling at all, really. Steve could spend eternity in this white place.
Into the white quiet, two spots of heat, of pain, intruded. Steve’s brow furrowed, faint confusion at the presence of the two spots of heat, of pain.
Steve’s consciousness slowly pushed itself toward the front, adding sensations, then half formed thoughts. Steve heard voices, but he couldn’t make out the words. It seemed like his head was wrapped in wool.
White light and cool skin, and two spots of pain forcing themselves into his white cocoon. Steve tried to figure out the two spots of pain. One was between his legs- what happened to Lil Stevie? he asked himself dimly. The other was on his backside- why does my butt hurt?
Steve told himself, in a dim half-formed way, that he should figure out how the confusing collection of senses added up. He opened his eyes, but he couldn’t focus. It was strange, when his eyes were closed all was white, but when he opened them all was dark. He pondered the mystery for a few seconds, until a memory coalesced in his mind.
Steve remembered jumping off the foot of the Emergency Room cot and running for the door. He recalled an incredible pain between his legs, and turning around to relieve the sudden pain and a pulling sensation. He had seen a police officer, a female police officer, stepping into the doorway as he whirled around. The officer had a gun of some sort in her hand. For Steve, all turned to white light in the next second.
The rookie police officer had just arrived at the ER to stand guard on the prisoner. She knew he had shot himself in the foot, and that EMS had found a pistol and narcotics en route to the hospital. She figured the hole in his foot would slow this suspect down, but she also knew how unpredictable and violent junkies could be when they needed a fix; not as bad as meth freaks, but not to be taken for granted. So, when Steve moved for the foot of the bed, making more noise than he realized, the young officer was ready. She stepped into the doorway, Taser in hand, and prepared to order the suspect to freeze.
In that instant, that officer saw something that would haunt her dreams.
She saw a huge man in a backless hospital gown, flinging himself off the end of the cot and starting to lumber toward her, off-balance. She saw the tubing of the urinary catheter, still hooked to the bag on the bedside, go taut under the gown. She saw the huge man begin to spin back toward the bed, reaching for his groin. She saw the back of the gown fly open, exposing his enormous back and rear end. And she saw, in a small part of her mind, a purple tattoo on the man’s rump. An Indian chief with the letter “B†on his face.
While the officer’s power of observation was engaged in one part of her brain, her survival instinct was also engaging a different part. She identified the huge man as a threat, raised the Taser, and fired. The darts hit the spinning man in the backside, right on the Indian chief. Somewhere in the back of her mind the officer heard an instructor say "You shoot where you look", but she didn't have time to follow the thought to its conclusion. The Taser sent a series of electric shocks into the man, who stiffened and fell facedown at the foot of the cart, his backside exposed. The officer felt her heartbeat racing, pounding, and took deep breaths to slow it down. She never took her eyes from Steve, laying on the tile floor. She kept the Taser at the ready.
The other officer and the ER doctor ran to the room. The doctor knelt down and checked Steve’s pulse, and took a second to check the urinary catheter, still anchored to Steve's bladder, the burns on his groin, and the dressing on his foot. A nurse and two paramedics moved Steve onto a backboard. The five of them hoisted Steve back onto the cot; the young officer maintained her Taser at the high ready position. Steve was screaming again, a highpitched wail. The doctor ordered that Steve be sedated; in a few minutes he stopped wailing and seemed calm. It wasn’t as good as a noseful of Oxycontin, but it was better than nothing. Steve nodded off again.
The young officer relaxed, and said to the older officer, "I think I'm gonna need counseling."
