Rescue - By Anita Shreve Page 0,49
it. Emotional anxiety coupled with physical damage to backs and knees from having to lift patients causes many rookies and veterans to leave the field before their time. Some go back to school to study to be nurses. A few of the younger ones try for the police academy. Others merely drift away or, in the case of his first partner, Burrows, die in their living rooms. Burrows in his last year a burnout and, at the end, a cardiac. Webster, out of service, heard about Burrows’s death an hour later, which sent him into a frenzy. If only he had been on duty. He was certain he could have saved his old partner, whom he’d come to love like a cranky uncle.
Only once has Webster had to deal with personal burnout. After Sheila left, Webster was unable to answer a single call. He lay on the couch as he watched his mother take care of his two-year-old daughter. It wasn’t entirely burnout that was causing his paralysis, but it was the job that took the brunt of his anger: the bloody messes, the fat bodies, the houses that smelled of urine and cat food, and the sudden deaths of teenagers, suicides the worst. He’d seen guys lose it at the scene, screaming at the rookie and terrifying the patient. He’d watched them sob in public or throw equipment back at Rescue. Worse, he’d known them to start down the short path to alcoholism. Unwilling to resign, the burnouts always found a way to force themselves off the job.
After Webster spent a week on the couch, his mother stood over him and told him he had no choice but to be the man he used to be. Webster was his daughter’s sole provider. Even now, he can see the way his mother looked at him: a sheet of parental anger over eyes filled with sympathy. Her fists were knots on her hips. She and Webster’s father would help when they could, she said, but Rowan was Webster’s responsibility.
After that day, Webster has never let himself get close to burnout. He can’t afford to.
“The weather’s going to be good tonight for the rehearsal dinner,” Webster says to Koenig to change the subject. His tall partner, who both runs and smokes, looks younger than his forty-seven years, with his close-cropped blond hair and his light brown eyes. Once a math teacher at a private school, Koenig had his own personal burnout. He decided he needed a job that wouldn’t bore him to death. Webster was surprised to learn that being an EMT paid better than being a math teacher. So much for four years of college. Koenig, relieved never to have to enter a classroom again, loves his job, and it shows. Webster has never had a better partner and doubts he ever will. Often the two switch roles to keep up Koenig’s skills. Webster doesn’t want to lose his partner, but he hopes for Koenig’s sake that he gets the lead position on the number two ambulance when it comes in.
“You like the guy?” Webster asks. The wedding isn’t exactly shotgun, but it came on fast because Jim (Joe, Jack?) has to ship out next week for Afghanistan.
“I’m worried for the guy, but I’m worried more about Annabelle.” Annabelle, who at twenty-one shares Koenig’s height and love of running. “I might get to like him more when he gets back,” he adds. “He’s rabid right wing, which is normal for a guy committed to the military. I never go near politics with him. But Annabelle worked for Obama. I don’t know what the hell they talk about.”
“How’d they meet?”
“Blind date.”
“Sometimes, they end up the best,” Webster says.
Unlike meeting your wife at the scene of an accident she caused because she was drunk, which ought to have told Webster all he needed to know if only he’d been paying attention.
“I just hope he doesn’t come home with a head or spine,” Koenig says. “I know Annabelle. She’ll stick with him forever. But, Jesus, one week of a marriage, and then you’re taking care of a guy you hardly know, wiping his ass and trying to teach him to talk again. No kids? Main breadwinner? What kind of a life is that?”
“Hey,” Webster says, “you’re getting ahead of yourself. Let the girl get married. Enjoy the wedding, Koenig. It’s your only job tomorrow.”
“That and writing the checks.”
“Right. Oh, jeez, I almost forgot.” Webster fetches an envelope from his back pocket and opens it