A Thousand Naked Strangers - Kevin Hazzard Page 0,33

have no plan, we don’t bother discussing it. I simply jump on JJ, straddle him, and try like hell to hold him still. It’s like wrestling a freight train. Chris reaches in with the forceps. I hear the clink of metal on teeth, a garbled cough, the furious thump of tail against clay. The old woman is praying now—“Praise Jesus! Thank you, Lord Jesus!” JJ’s eyes go wide and zero in on me. Chris can get up at any time and run. I’m in the compromised position of spooning a totally freaked-out ninety-pound pit bull whose mouth, at any moment, will be violently set free. I have no exit strategy.

Chris grunts, swears, jumps to his feet, and yells for me to get up. I don’t think, I just move. I’m on my feet and backpedaling almost before I realize it. “Did you get it?”

“No.”

“Is he still choking?”

“I don’t think so.”

JJ is up, legs wide, panting, head swinging from side to side. The T-bone is out of his airway but stuck in his mouth. An improvement but not a cure. And that’s as good as it’s gonna get. I ask the old woman if she has a vet. She nods. We dust our pants off while she starts the car, and once she’s ready for us, we grab JJ. He dips his head toward his left shoulder like he’s going to play. His tail wags. A truce. I ease over, grab his collar, and unclip the chain. Then we walk him to the car, lift him up, and put him in the back. With two quick hops, he’s plopped down in the passenger seat.

“JJ! Get in the back!” the old woman yells.

But JJ isn’t budging. He almost died, and now that he hasn’t, he’s going to soak it all in. It’s the front seat or nothing from here on out.

17

(Un)Prepared for the Worst

Chris has just eaten Chik-fil-A, and it’s starting to talk to him. Gas, cold sweats. Evidently the cramps have begun, because he’s fidgeting now. He’s gotta go. But he can’t.

“How long do we have to stay?” he asks, practically levitating in the passenger seat.

“According to the memo? It’s gonna be a while.”

We’re one of two Fulton County EMS crews assigned to participate in a disaster-preparedness exercise. Someone has set off a dirty bomb. We’re surrounded by radiation, and the casualties—the dead, the dying, the slowly melting—are everywhere. It’s all fake, part of some federally mandated program to see how well we’ve incorporated the lessons of 9/11. In short, should the worst (re)occur, how will the first responders respond?

Not well, evidently. Communications are nonexistent, and at least three different people have claimed to be in charge. Patients are scattered about, and no effort has been made to separate them by severity. Worse yet, every medic, cop, and firefighter taking part in the exercise has either willfully or accidentally wandered into the radiation cloud. We’re all melting.

None of which concerns Chris. “I mean, seriously. Who stages an event like this without giving any consideration to a bathroom?”

I shrug. “Surprise, surprise, the government shit the bed.”

“Yeah, well, I’m about to shit my pants.” He swings his door open. “I’m going to the dollar store. Anybody wants to see a real mass-casualty incident, tell ’em I’ll be in the men’s room. Third stall. Show these idiots what a dirty bomb really looks like.”

After he leaves, things only get worse. The fire department’s decontamination tent collapses. Half the patients get bored and wander off. A car chase lures away nearly all the cops providing crowd control. And then, finally, the mess becomes a full-fledged clusterfuck.

“Where’s Chris?” Our supervisor is sweating and agitated, screaming like this isn’t a drill but the real thing.

“Bathroom.”

“Bathroom? What the hell’s he doing in the bathroom?”

“Well, uh, I believe he said he had to—”

“Get him back here! Now!”

Turns out the first ambulance to leave the scene—stuffed with more than a dozen patients—has broken down. Now our supervisor can’t find it, can’t make radio contact, nothing. It simply disappeared. Chris is laughing when he emerges from the bathroom. He laughs as we load our own batch of radioactive patients. And he keeps laughing until we reach the hospital, where, abruptly, he stops. Nearly every nurse, doctor, and janitor on staff is in the parking lot. They are scared, angry, and confused. Evidently no one has told them this is just a drill, that the county is staging a disaster, and that they, the ER staff of the closest hospital, will receive