Gripping Story

The Deaths of Firenzi
by Peter Neibert

Look­ing up into the glare. Around the edge of the bed, both sides, tall forms in white out­lines,
back-lighted.

“What are all you peo­ple doing in my room,” said Firenzi.

“There’s noth­ing to be alarmed about now,” said the voice. “You’ve had a prob­lem but it’s under con­trol. You’re in the Coro­nary Care Unit…”

“What the fuck…”

“Please try to keep calm. It’s very important…”

“Coro­nary Care Unit where?“
”…of McGill Uni­ver­sity Hos­pi­tal,” said the voice.
“Are you all frogs? I want a white doctor.”

“Eng­lish is spo­ken here, Mr. Firenzi. It’s very impor­tant that you keep calm now. The IV in your
arm is giv­ing you a liq­uid val­ium solu­tion to relax you. We must ask you to help now by
avoid­ing any excite­ment to your­self.“
The voice paused. Firenzi replayed the con­ver­sa­tion in his mind, and squinted toward the voice, “I get it — I’ve died and you’re the voice of God.”

“Not so. I am Dr. Mac­Quil­lan and you are still alive. Do not worry. You are the guest of the
peo­ple of Canada and the Province of Que­bec — not exactly heaven, but all costs of med­ical
insur­ance are provided…”

“No. I have to get out of here. No… I got places to go, asses to kick…”

“Please,” inter­rupted MacQuillan’s voice. “No excite­ment,” the words con­tin­ued to flow in a low, sooth­ing tone, “we will con­duct some tests to con­firm — to check — but our pre­lim­i­nary
obser­va­tions sug­gest your con­di­tion may be rather on the seri­ous side.“
“How much on the seri­ous side?”

“Well, for sci­en­tific objec­tiv­ity,” said the voice, “we have to keep an open mind…”

“Fuck your open mind. How much?”

“Mr. Firenzi, I am obliged to ask you to calm down or we can­not con­tinue this con­ver­sa­tion –
it’s not good for you.… If you look up to your right…“
Firenzi rolled his pil­lowed head toward the right and squinted against the light — there was a
brown box with knobs and dials and meters, like a stereo ampli­fier.
”… you can see the heart mon­i­tor. The wires attached to your chest run to there. You can see
your heart rate on the screen: 79, 85, 77 — con­stantly chang­ing. You need to calm down to keep the num­bers as low as pos­si­ble — never over 70 or 75 in your condition.”

“Which?” asked Firenzi.

“Which, what?”

“70 or 75 ?”

“If I may advise you, this would not be a good time to push your luck. 70.“
Firenzi exhaled — long and slow — and let his fin­gers uncurl from their fists to lay flat on the
sheet as he stared at the mon­i­tor: 78, 69, 67, 71, 65…

“That’s bet­ter,” said the voice. “Rest a few min­utes and then the for­mal­i­ties — there are always the req­ui­site forms. Unavoid­able sign of civ­i­liza­tion, but, cheer­fully, Made­moi­selle DuP­lessis will assist you.“
Firenzi closed his eyes to shield them from the harsh light as he awaited the cheer­ful assis­tance of Made­moi­selle DuP­lessis. Soon her voice issued from the top of her shade — no face in front of the light. She sat down in a chair next to the head of the bed, where at last Firenzi could see her face, but he didn’t care any­more.
She placed the forms one at a time on the clip­board and held it for Firenzi to sign. “This pre­miere one iden­ti­fies you to the Min­istry of Health. One has taken the lib­erty of pro­vid­ing the par­tic­u­lars from your driver’s license — the other spaces you do not need to fill in as you are an Amer­i­can. You see, just sign here.”

Firenzi squinted under the glare to read the form.

The num­bers dis­played on his heart mon­i­tor began to rise, 55, 68, 92, 99 — “God­dammit, they
told me Eng­lish — all these forms are in French — how the hell do I know what I’m sign­ing?”  95, 99, 108…
“M. Firenzi, if you do not calm down, it will not mat­ter what you sign…”

He exhaled slowly, 95, 89…

And signed the form, 82, 77.

“Frog fuck,” he said. 87, 81, 76.

And signed the rest of Made­moi­selle DuPlessis’s many forms with­out focus­ing on them. 65, 71, 63…

And then she was gone but oth­ers kept com­ing and going, bring­ing in new machines and
rig­ging up a jun­gle gym of racks, clamps, hang­ers, tubes, wires, upside down glass bot­tles,
plas­tic bags with clear liq­uids.
Firenzi heard a low buzz, a hum of voices in French and Eng­lish.  Scotch, Irish, Aus­tralian — and even Indian and West Indian, the Canucks don’t call them nig­gers, won­der why.

Through the cur­tain silently appeared a short man in a white coat. He glanced once more at the paper on the clip­board before tuck­ing it under his arm.

“Oh, Mr. Firenzi, allow me to intro­duce myself.” Beam­ing, trilling his R’s, run­ning the syl­la­bles up and down the musi­cal scales as he talked, bob­bing his head from side to side as he bounced up and down on the arches of his feet like a ten­nis ball drib­bling off the court. “I am Ran­jit Dah­jee, sur­gi­cal intern vis­it­ing from the Uni­ver­sity of Madras.” He bowed slightly. “I am today work­ing on the med­ical side of the CCU, the Coro­nary Care Unit — we have many orders here from the Doc­tor to pre­pare you for the surgery.“
“Like what?”

“Oh, a great many orders, sir — first, the enema…”

“For­get that, Ras­tus. What else?”

“Ran­jit, sir, Ranjit.…I must be con­sult­ing the Doc­tor on the mat­ter of the enema, but, if I may,
speak­ing as a sur­gi­cal grad­u­ate, I must offer to your­self my opin­ion that this is but a small
cour­tesy to the doc­tors — I have seen unspeak­ably dis­agree­able embar­rass­ments on the table — of course I am a sur­geon so I must speak of these.…”

“Next.”

“Well, then. Also we have here orders for installing the sec­ond and third Heparin locks – you
will be hav­ing many IV’s, trans­fu­sions…“
The Heparin locks, they were OK, just an extra nee­dle in each arm. Give them that. The nurses installing them, one on each side, all in white, lean­ing over him.
Then they were gone again and Dah­jee stood alone at the foot of the bed, smil­ing: “Mr. Firenzi, the Doc­tor wishes me to inquire as to the tim­ing of your last B.M.?“
“The tim­ing?” Firenzi con­sid­ered care­fully, “Less than a minute — what’s he care?”

“For­give me. I should be more pre­cise. How many hours — or days — have tran­spired since the last iter­a­tion?“
“Iter-what?” said Firenzi, “Ah. Only a few hours since the last iter — time.”

Dr. Dahjee’s face became very somber as he approached Firenzi and looked him seri­ously in the eye. “May I have your word of honor, sir.“
“Scout’s honor.” Firenzi started to raise his right hand in the three fin­gered boy scout salute but it was pulled short by the tubes con­nected to the Heparin locks and the nee­dles in his arm – have to be care­ful about moving.

Three white doc­tors appeared at the foot of the bed. The one in the mid­dle spoke with the voice he had heard before, “I am Dr. Mac­Quil­lan your car­di­ol­o­gist.” He ges­tured to his right, “Dr. With­ers will be your anaes­thetist,” and to his left, “Dr. Yonge, your tho­racic surgeon.”“Please tell me you’ve done this before.”

Dr. Mac­Quil­lan chuck­led, “Oh, yes, many times — don’t worry about us.” He glanced at the
vinyl binder in his hands. “We’ve been study­ing your chart hourly through the night and it
looks — knock wood — like you will be sta­ble enough to let Dr. Yonge open this morn­ing.“
Firenzi eyes darted back and forth, search­ing the room. He saw no wood.

Mac­Quil­lan con­tin­ued, “We have moved you to the head of the queue for the Car­di­ol­ogy Suite, the oper­at­ing room. We also had to move up the start­ing time to 5 a.m.“
“Glad to hear busi­ness is so good for you.”

With­ers and Yonge looked down at their feet. It was MacQuillan’s job to han­dle the patient
“Sorry we won’t have time for the nor­mal coun­sel­ing — you know — to help you pre­pare
men­tally for this, but we’ll tell you what we’re doing as we go along.“
“I was hop­ing to be unconscious.”

“Oh, you Amer­i­cans — always quick with a joke. I meant in the pre-op and recov­ery, that’s
when we’ll talk to you — Dr. With­ers will have you in dream­land dur­ing the operation.”

“Tell me what hap­pens now.”

“Some things have already begun to hap­pen — the val­ium and some other solu­tions we’ve
been giv­ing you through the Heparin locks have begun to do their work in calm­ing you down.
After the surgery, we’ll give you mor­phine — plenty of mor­phine to han­dle the pain…”

“Pain?”

“You’re not aller­gic to mor­phine are you?”

“Oh, no. No prob­lem. Give me lots of morphine.”

“Very good,” Dr. Mac­Quil­lan made a note on his clip­board. “Next the orderly will be here to
give you the sur­gi­cal prep — shave your body hair.“
“My chest?”

“Yes, and also fur­ther down.”

“Why ‘fur­ther down’?” 58, 69, 78…

“We need to take a vein from your leg.”

“For?” said Firenzi.

“We use it for the actual ‘by-pass’ around the clogged arter­ies of the heart,” said Dr. Mac­Quil­lan. “That’s why it’s called a ‘by-pass operation.’”

“I see.”

“So the pre-op prep — the shav­ing — must go all the way down.”

“Oh.” Firenzi envi­sioned the pre-op shav­ing would start on his chest and fin­ish on his legs.
Some­how it would skip the part in between.
He shrugged. 73, 67, 71…

Mac­Quil­lan con­tin­ued, “Also, in your case, we need to pre­pare to insert a bal­loon.
“Be seri­ous.” 66, 73, 74…

“We are very seri­ous. You have the type of con­di­tion where the heart might need a lit­tle extra
help re-starting after the operation.”

“You do this with a balloon?”

“Actu­ally, yes. We do it all the time — noth­ing to worry about.”

The doc­tors With­ers and Yonge looked stern faced while Dr. Mac­Quil­lan explained, “In the pre-op, right here, the tech­ni­cians will place the bal­loon next to the heart.”

Firenzi nod­ded to Mac­Quil­lan. How much trou­ble can it be if they do it with a bal­loon.
67, 63, 58…

The tall orderly in starched white uni­form, the one who had spo­ken before with the West
Indian accent, car­ried the plas­tic basin of soap suds to the side of the bed. Bril­liant white teeth — only then did Firenzi real­ize that there must be a face in that deep black­ness. A smile per­haps. Yes, there were eyes, whites of the eyes, must have been there all along. But the nose? ears? chin? who could tell? they must have a secret way to see each other, maybe that’s why they wear white uni­forms — so they don’t lose themselves.

Firenzi raised his head to watch the West Indian’s long black fin­gers stroke the razor lower on his chest and he stopped. Stopped. He put the razor aside, tow­eled off the soapy chest hair
cut­tings. Then he picked up the razor again and began to stroke lower, beyond the ribs,
shav­ing Firenzi’s lean stom­ach. The razor strokings came closer to his lingam.
“Oh, no. Oh, shit, no.”

“Sir?” the orderly said and stopped shav­ing, watch­ing Firenzi’s face.

“Sir?”

Firenzi exhaled slowly, 88, 81, 73… “OK” he said.

The orderly resumed shav­ing, slowly across the lower abdomen. Firenzi with his eyes closed
could feel it com­ing very close now to the cen­tral place. It stopped. Then a thumb and fore­fin­ger gen­tly grasped the penis by its fore­skin and laid it over on the other side.  The shav­ing resumed.

It can’t get any worse than this.
He opened his eyes. The white doc­tors were gone. The orderly was fin­ish­ing the shav­ing of his leg. On the left side of the bed along­side the West Indian stood the deep choco­late Dah­jee with his bob­bing smile. “Sir, we must now be doing just a minor pro­ce­dure, the catheter.“
“Gunga Din, no catheter.“
“Gunga Din? sir? Oh, another Amer­i­can joke. Very droll — to be sure.”

“No joke.”

“But I  must be telling you most cer­tainly, sir, the catheter is a stan­dard and most nec­es­sary
procedure.”

“No enema, no catheter.”

“Not to worry, sir. I assure you…”

“No fuck­ing way.”

Firenzi’s eyes glared. 69, 75, 78…

Dahjee’s head wagged from side to side as his voice became more rapid and musi­cal, trip­ping up the scale, “…the catheter is not like the enema…” and down the scale, “no, no, no, not at all like the enema. The body will need to evac­u­ate many flu­ids before the surgery is done. Oh, yes. Essen­tial — do you see?”

Firenzi glared.

Dr. Dah­jee pulled back the sheet, expos­ing Firenzi’s freshly shaved groin.

“No.”  78, 75, 79…

“But sir, there is really not a choice. Inel­e­gant but essen­tial. You must trust me on this,” said
Dah­jee as he moved up the left side of the bed to a posi­tion aligned with Firenzi’s pri­vates – now dis­played in the cen­ter of the bed.
The West Indian moved to the right side of the bed.

The two dark-faced men in white leaned toward the cen­ter, tow­er­ing over Firenzi’s pink penis.
Their dark skinned hands reached down for it.
Firenzi raised his head and saw his lower abdomen began to rise and fall rapidly. The orderly
held the glass catheter aloft in his left hand and with the long slen­der fin­gers of his right hand
cupped Firenzi’s pink penis, rais­ing it nearly ver­ti­cal against the black fin­gers as he straight­ened his wrist, let­ting the head loll against the deep pur­ple of the inside of his hand.
Dah­jee leaned over the bed to stretch his white-sleeved arm toward Firenzi’s pink phal­lus,
shrink­ing now before the lotus fan of the orderly’s black fin­gers and pur­ple palm.
“Wait.”

“But sir, really, there is no more time.”

Firenzi watched Dr. Dahjee’s choco­late hand take hold, and the black orderly’s left hand low­ered the thin glass tube, poised only an inch above the tiny ori­fice. Firenzi was push­ing his butt into the mat­tress, draw­ing his pelvis down­ward, to keep his penis free beneath the glass tube. He could push no further.

“Wait. I’ll make you a deal.”

The two men fixed them­selves immo­bile above Firenzi’s groin and turned their dark faces
toward his face. Toothshow­ing smiles. Dahjee’s red cast mark between his eyes.
They lis­tened. Nothing.

Then finally Firenzi spoke again.

“I’ll make you a deal… My car’s in the short term park­ing lot… ”

The two dark faces turned down­ward again and Dah­jee guided the glass catheter to the opening.

“I’ll…I’ll…”

They stopped again, motion­less, smil­ing, lis­ten­ing respect­fully. The catheter was
gen­tly seated in the open­ing, rest­ing delicately.

What was the deal?

Firenzi real­ized that he had noth­ing to deal with.

The dark hands moved quickly push­ing the glass tube down into the open­ing, straight­en­ing
the penis up as another hand swept around from behind to con­nect the black tube to the
glass.
Shiva & pain

It can’t get any worse than this.
Dah­jee reap­peared through the cur­tain. His bril­liant white teeth show­ing in a broad smile.
Only one last pro­ce­dure and then you will be ready, quite ready, for the surgery.”

“I’m thrilled,” said Firenzi, exhausted. “What’s the pro­ce­dure?“
“Intra-aortic bal­loon.” At the foot of the bed Dah­jee held up two cel­lo­phane cov­ered pack­ages:  one enclos­ing a slen­der wire and the other a shaft, a hol­low gold col­ored tube, each per­haps three feet long, and placed them on the side of the bed. The West Indian held a small tray from which Dah­jee picked up a syringe. Firenzi had never seen such a long and men­ac­ing nee­dle.
“What are you doing with that?”

“Not to worry, sir, it is only Novocain.”

“Novo­cain? I don’t have a fuck­ing tooth-ache down there.”

Dah­jee looked puz­zled, “How ‘fuck­ing tooth-ache’?” He grinned again, “Aha! Another Amer­i­can joke. Always joke. I am learn­ing now Amer­i­can cul­ture. Thank you for being my teacher…“
Dah­jee leaned down to inject the Novo­cain at three close inter­vals in Firenzi’s pelvic
diaphragm, just to the left of the scro­tum. “Just a moment, sir, and it will be quite numb, I
assure you.“
“What?”

The Deaths of Firenzi (Con­tin­ued)
Page Two (of four)




“Noth­ing to worry about,” Dah­jee smiled, placed the syringe back on the tray, looked again at the tray and whis­pered some instruc­tions to the orderly, who promptly dis­ap­peared through the cur­tain.
“OK, what’s this about?”

“Dr. Mac­Quil­lan told you about the intra-aortic bal­loon, did he not?“
“No. Maybe.”

“The bal­loon? To help restart the heart?”

“Yeah, I guess so…”

“This is merely to place the balloon.”

“Well, sir, to get next to the heart — under the breast bone — we must be start­ing from here.“
Firenzi could not think what to say as his head rolled to the left and he looked again at the gold col­ored shaft. 58, 68, 76…

“No feel­ing here now?” Said Dah­jee, not wait­ing for an answer. “I will just be mak­ing a small
inci­sion.” He squinted over the knife and nod­ded to the orderly to pull the scro­tum out of the way.  “Just here.” He said and looked again, as though to make sure he had got it right. “Not to worry it’s down out of your sight. Oh no, sir, you will never be see­ing the scar.“
He put the scalpel back on the tray.

The orderly handed him the wire and Firenzi closed his eyes.

“If it feels to you like it’s not going in right, please to tell me so immediately.”

It wasn’t pain. Just a pres­ence, an intru­sion. Firenzi peeked out one eye to see Dah­jee star­ing very intently at his groin, feed­ing the wire into it. He felt it snaking up over his stom­ach and under his ribs. Dah­jee looked at the West India man. They nod­ded quickly to each other, so far so good.

Dah­jee turned back to look at Firenzi over his groin, “How is that?”

“How in hell should it be?”

“For­give my poor expla­na­tion.” Dah­jee smiled and bobbed his head in an apolo­getic bow toward Firenzi’s groin. “It is a wire in the femoral artery — lead­ing from down here up along­side the heart to the aorta itself.” He tugged gen­tly at the pro­trud­ing end of the wire. “Very good, I think.“
Again Dah­jee looked at the West India man and again they nod­ded to each other. Then Dah­jee took the gold col­ored shaft, peeled off the cel­lo­phane and checked the black rub­ber at the top.  With intense con­cen­tra­tion show­ing in the lines at the cen­ter of his fore­head, at the round red caste mark,   Dah­jee began to feed the black tipped, gold shaft around the out­side of the wire into the slit in Firenzi’s groin — hand over hand like a boat­man han­dling a pole.
Firenzi saw it going into his groin. 76, 81, 79…
“Now I am using the wire to guide the bal­loon shaft inside the self-same femoral artery.“
Firenzi saw it going into him­self — a big black con­dom on a three foot gold prick snaking to his
heart. 83, 79, 81…

“You must be care­ful now to move as lit­tle as pos­si­ble. What­ever you do, do not sit up.
Absolutely do not sit up — on this there can be no nego­ti­a­tion.“
Dah­jee pulled the sheet over Firenzi’s pri­vates and waited for his answer.

“I give up.” 81, 72, 75…

“Oh, sir! Not to give up. Not at all. We are just now ready for the impor­tant surgery that will…”

“Sir?”

“Just let me be.”

“Of course, sir, but it may be help­ing you to know the func­tion­ing of the balloon…”

“After surgery it will squeeze the heart to get it pump­ing again.”

“In a word, sir, yes,” Dah­jee spoke quickly before Firenzi could cut him off. “Indeed, you will be inter­ested to know it is timed with the Electro-cardio-gram to pump a milli-second after the
ven­tric­u­lar contraction…”

Ven­tric­u­lar, tes­tic­u­lar… Firenzi’s atten­tion drifted to the tech­ni­cians and nurses who were com­ing and going, bring­ing things, check­ing meters, writ­ing on clip­boards, work­ing around the bed, clamp­ing things onto the jun­gle gym, mov­ing exten­sion cords, test­ing the motors below the bed and oth­ers behind the head­board, out of Firenzi’s sight. Tired, eye­lids heavy, maybe the drugs in the I.V. were finally work­ing, maybe he was just worn out by the ter­rors of this never end­ing day. He blinked his eyes as a sooth­ing voice began speak­ing close to his ear, slightly whisky voiced out of his sight he sensed the close­ness of the big tit­ted blonde cock­tail wait­ress at the Mead­ow­lands now in a white nurse’s uni­form — bulging boobs strain­ing the starched white front of a nun’s habit, pulling the but­tons against the eye­slits of the blouse. She was repeat­ing some­thing strange, the smooth flow­ing rhythm of a prayer, strain to hear it this time.

“Don’t try to talk.“
Safe?
“You’ve just had major surgery — don’t try to talk.“
Safe?

“Every­thing is all right. There is noth­ing to worry about.”

“Don’t try to talk — there is a tube in your throat. It will help you breathe. You may feel
dis­com­fort — but don’t worry, we are right here.”

Dis­com­fort?

“Don’t try to talk.”

Firenzi tried to raise his heavy hand to reach for his throat. Safe?

“Oh, don’t do that.“
He raised it again.

“No.”

From some­where appeared a small white towel folded flat. She took it in her hands, looped it
loosely around his wrist and safety pinned it to the rail­ing. “See, this is enough.”

She was talk­ing to another one, another nurse on the other side of the bed, they were tying down both his hands.

He didn’t have the power to over­come the safety pins or the agility to slip his hands free of the tow­els.  And his eyes began to feel that he could no longer breathe. No air was pass­ing through the tube.

Blocked.

Heavy lungs and press­ing eyes.

Throat chok­ing, stran­gling on the fat, snaking tube. No way to move his hands, no way to move him­self at all. The cack­ling, his chok­ing, filled his ears and the light, in the glare, he saw the sound of the foghorn. It was the tube. The tube made the foghorn sound.

A nurse spoke in his ear, “Don’t try to talk. Now, I’m just going to suc­tion it out and you’ll be all right.”

Safe.

The air started to flow through again, eas­ing the pres­sure on his lungs and eyes. But the
stran­gling tube was still there. He hacked and choked. What was the tube doing in his throat?
How did it get there? Where did it come from? If he could only get it out, he could get away from all this, be safe.

His throat tight­ened around the tube, con­strict­ing, stran­gling again.

“Don’t try to talk. Just relax,” said the whiskey voiced nurse. “You must have the tube to breathe — your-chest mus­cles are still too weak… Just relax… There… Relax… Easy.“
Safe.

He felt her gone — stepped away — then after a sec­ond, an hour, the air stopped and he saw the sound of the foghorn begin again. It was com­ing from inside him. The tube was stuck com­ing up his throat and out his mouth and there was no air and he was stran­gling again and no one came — hack­ing and chok­ing and the foghorn sound­ing. This can’t last. Hands can’t move. Can’t last.
Where. The snake arched out his mouth. And stuck rigidly between his teeth. The hack­ing and
gag­ging hurt his chest. Why such pain there? The foghorn stopped its mourn­ful sound­ing and
the air came through again.
The other voice spoke, the one he had heard, first heard, so long before — a day, a week — the white doc­tor with the sandy red hair. Mac­Quil­lan spoke to him in crisp, quiet cer­tainty, “In
surgery we packed you in ice to lower your body tem­per­a­ture, that’s why your skin is blue…” He turned to the nurse, “Can he hear me?”

“I think so.”

“– don’t be alarmed,” Mac­Quil­lan spoke on. “This is all nor­mal, noth­ing to worry about. We are
warm­ing you up grad­u­ally, but your skin is still cold to the touch. Dr. With­ers had you out for
almost four­teen hours — a lit­tle trou­ble wean­ing you off the pump — get­ting you started again –  but the bal­loon helped us.”

Firenzi couldn’t talk to ask and couldn’t move his hands to feel what he needed most to know –  had the catheter frozen?
Con­tinue read­ing on to next page


The Deaths of Firenzi (Con­tin­ued)
Page Three (of four)




Thurs­day 11 p.m.


The three doc­tors in white coats stood at the end of the bed, look­ing down on him. The red haired Mac­Quil­lan in the mid­dle point­ing at him, as he blinked, and the three gen­er­als in green com­bat fatigues stood at the stern of the boat, wav­ing at him to get on. As he ran toward the boat the engine roared and it pulled away. The red haired Buck in the mid­dle talked aside to War­wick and Stern. But then the boat was back at the shore again, Buck and Mac­Quil­lan wav­ing to him to get on quickly as the shadow of night passed quickly dim­ming the light and still­ing the engine of the boat. The father and the father and there was no son and there was no sun, there was only the scary ghost. Under the dark­ness two boat­men pushed their golden poles into the blood red river and the cur­rent swirled the boat around and around, as he felt it com­ing up inside, gag­ging, chok­ing and stran­gling him.

Now against the glare of the light Buck held up the tablet of the Num­bers high above his head – In numeri patria sancti — the blood red num­bers changed and changed again and again, never set­tling, never firm.

In the light they wore white habits starched down the front and they came close by his side but did not show their faces.

“Heart rate 90, jump­ing to 110.” The bitch nurse spoke to the big tit­ted one, “B. P. dias­tolic rac­ing at 210.” Then to Firenzi, “Now, just relax. You’re only hurt­ing your­self — get­ting so agi­tated like this. Nothing’s going to hap­pen to you — we’re here to take care of you. Just relax.”

“I think it’s the breath­ing tube he doesn’t like.”

“Well, it’s time he got used to it.” Then louder, to Firenzi, “I can’t take the tube out until you calm down — but then you’ll have to stay awake to breathe. Under­stand?“
“Think he under­stands?“
They stayed by the bed for a few min­utes, tak­ing blood pres­sure read­ings and watch­ing the heart mon­i­tor screen. The big tit­ted one let her hand lie softly on his shoul­der.
“Well, the num­bers are bet­ter now.“
Then to Firenzi, “Keep it calm like this a lit­tle longer and I’ll take the tube out for you.”

The big tit­ted one suc­tioned out the tube one more time, with­drew her hand from his shoul­der, and then the two nurses left together and he was alone.
Safe?

The num­bers out of con­trol. Stran­gling. Hands tied. Chok­ing, foghorn sound­ing in the bright,
daz­zling light. Voices.
Safe?
“OK, calm down — we’ll take care of it now. Don’t get excited all over again.“
“Want to try tak­ing it out?”

“You do it.”

“I mean, do you think he’s ready.“
“He looks awful when he chokes on it.”

That’s right, get it out now.

“Well, let’s make sure he under­stands.” Then to Firenzi, “Now lis­ten. Fol­low my fin­ger with your eyes.”

I under­stand, bitch. Total concentration.

“Eyes still crossed, but I think he understands.”

“Lis­ten, we’re going to sit you up now and take the tube out of your throat. But you have to stay awake to breathe. If you go to sleep, I’ll have to put the tube back in. Do you understand?”

“I think he under­stands.“
“Blink your eyes twice if you understand.”

Firenzi squeezed his eyes as tightly closed as he had strength left in his soul to do, opened them and squeezed them closed once more and then open again.
“That’s good.
That’s good. Tell me that’s good, you dried-up bitch. I’ll mea­sure my cunt along­side yours any day.


Fri­day
7:00 p.m.




Tooth-showing smile. Dah­jee appeared instantly from behind the cur­tain.


“Aha! Mr. Firenzi, you are awake?”

“No, I’m dead wait­ing for some­body to dust my eyeballs.”

“Oh, a joke, I must make a note of it. Do you remem­ber me?”

“Yeah — don’t test me on names.”

“I am Ran­jit Dah­jee, sur­gi­cal intern from the Uni­ver­sity of Madras.”

“Too long. Ramjet.”

“Ran­jit, sir. R-A-N-…”

I can barely talk, my eyes are crossed with mor­phine, the fuck­ing pain in my chest is enough to kill a horse, and Gunga Din whirls through the cur­tain to give me a spelling les­son. “Ram­jet.“
“My pur­pose is now to observe your incision.”

“You haven’t seen one before?”

“Oh, but of course, hun­dreds — I have myself cut through the ster­num, the breast bone, many
times. Oh, yes.”   Dahjee’s hands parted Firenzi’s gown in front and looked closely at the nar­row rail­road tracks of black, sur­gi­cal sta­ples astride the bright red inci­sion run­ning from the base of Firenzi’s throat straight down to his stomach.

“Now I am inspect­ing only to insure there is no ster­nal infec­tion.“
“OK?“
“Oh, yes. The inci­sion, very fine. Nicely done by Dr. Yonge of the Sur­gi­cal Depart­ment. Oh,yes.”

A doc­tor is a doctor.

“The chest tubes — are you need­ing them any longer?“
“You tell me.” When the nurses sat Firenzi up to take the big tube out of his throat, he had been sur­prised find two more tubes — these were sewn into his chest just below the nip­ples and ran off the side of the bed into a trans­par­ent plas­tic, radiator-like con­trap­tion. The blood set­tled to the bot­tom six inches of the nar­row tank and a yel­low fluid solu­tion had sep­a­rated from it to float on top, per­haps another three inches deep.
“Strictly speak­ing, sir, I am on the sur­gi­cal side, not the med­ical side.“
“So, what?”

“The Med­ical Doc­tor should say.“
So why does he ask me? “Ram­jet?“
“But, if you ask me, sir — the Med­ical Doc­tors play the golf game in the after­noon and go home
early in the evening — in their absence, if you were to ask me, sir, then I would be say­ing to you, enough, oh yes, quite.“
“So?”

“Well, sir, I can take them off in a jiffy. Sooner or later, must do.“
What’s the catch? the gotcha?

Read onto next page




The Deaths of Firenzi (Con­tin­ued)
Page Four (of four)


“Mr. Firenzi, you are per­haps won­der­ing about pain. Let me assure you it has almost no pain
– a not alto­gether pleas­ant sen­sa­tion as the tubes come out, dif­fi­cult to describe the sen­sa­tion – but def­i­nitely 95% not pain, espe­cially now while you still have the mor­phine. In a jiffy, sir.  After all,  you can­not be going through life with tubes hang­ing out of your chest for­ever –  oh, no, no, no.“
Firenzi nod­ded. Per­haps it was a yes, per­haps it was only fatigue. Dr. Dah­jee quickly used a
scis­sors to snip the sutures away from the tubes.
“Now, Mr. Firenzi, just relax please. You may want to close your eyes — but it will be not
pain, I assure.“
Firenzi closed his eyes as Dah­jee ripped the tubes lose from a depth of Firenzi’s body he had
never before known.

He was speech­less and he couldn’t make out the words Dah­jee was babbling.

Then Firenzi real­ized that Dah­jee was talk­ing to some­one else. Dr. Mac­Quil­lan, the Med­ical Doc­tor, work­ing now after all.
“I would have pre­ferred you talk to me…”

“Very sorry, sir, I had been given to under­stand you had fin­ished for the day…” Dah­jee
gath­ered up his scis­sors, the tubes and the plas­tic radi­a­tor and dis­ap­peared through the
curtain.

Dr. Mac­Quil­lan leaned for­ward to speak to Firenzi like a con­spir­a­tor, “In another two days
you can even resume sex.“
“When are you going to take the catheter out?“
“Before that! — a good sign, get­ting bet­ter already…” Dr. Mac­Quil­lan grinned and waved
jaun­tily with his left hand as he tucked his clip-board under his right arm and went out
through the cur­tain.
No fuck­ing laugh, thought Firenzi.

Fri­day
11:27 p.m.




Firenzi heard the big tit­ted blonde’s voice come from the over­head speaker, “Code blue in
three west. Code blue in three west.”
Dah­jee was already there with Firenzi. He had called in the Code Blue. On the high shelf, 101,
108, 27, 95, 00, 89.
Mac­Quil­lan and the oth­ers began to arrive.

The sound of foot­steps, run­ing foot­falls near­ing the cur­tain. Oxy­gen mask. They were
mak­ing a big deal of it. The whole…

It was breaking-up. The air was break­ing up in a web of black dots. He tried to blink them
away.  An instant of clar­ity and the black dots returned grow­ing big­ger, con­nect­ing to each
other. The blood red stream of num­bers, flowed, ever chang­ing, chang­ing again, and again,
never firm.
163, 28, 00, 09, 113…

Firenzi turned his face toward Dah­jee, the dark man con­nect­ing the black dots.

“Ram­jet,”

“Yes, not to worry, sim­ply precautions…”

“Ran­jit.”

“Right here, sir…”

“The mor­phine,” some­one whispered.

Dah­jee looked at Firenzi’s eyes, open but unsee­ing, and said to him again, “I am right here,“
He looked up at Mac­Quil­lan and spoke qui­etly, “not enough blood to the head, aor­tic
insufficiency…”

“Will you be join­ing us on the Med­ical faculty?”

“I am merely a sur­gi­cal intern, sir…”

“Thankyou,” said Mac­Quil­lan; then he spoke past Dah­jee to the oth­ers, “The num­bers are
clear enough — clas­sic arrhyth­mia,” Some nod­ded to Mac­Quil­lan as his gaze passed from one
to another.

“Crash cart,” Mac­Quil­lan ordered.

“Defib­ril­la­tor.”

The West Indian had been stand­ing with the crash cart just out­side the cur­tain. Code Blue
pro­ce­dure. He wheeled it quickly along­side the bed, push­ing the red defib­ril­la­tor to
MacQuillan’s right side.
Mac­Quil­lan spoke again to the white-clothed staff inside the cur­tain as he looked down to
adjust the volt­age dial, “We just need to keep him going long enough to get him into the OR.
and put in a pace-maker…”

“Ran­jit,” said Firenzi in a whis­per. The com­mo­tion in the room stilled to silence.

“Yes.” Dah­jee leaned down and lis­tened. Noth­ing more.

Mac­Quil­lan hes­i­tated, then placed the elec­trodes on either side of the red line down the mid­dle of Firenzi’s chest, ready to jolt the heart to pump again.

Dah­jee leaned for­ward to point to the heart mon­i­tor over MacQuillan’s shoul­der, “Please
for­give my impor­tu­nity, Doctor…”

Mac­Quil­lan kept his hands in place on the elec­trodes and waited for Dah­jee to fin­ish talk­ing.
”…but the same num­bers for arrhyth­mia can also mean ejected blood is flood­ing back into the
ven­tri­cle — reverse aor­tic dis­sec­tion from the chaf­ing of the bal­loon — would not the
defib­ril­la­tor be jolt­ing the heart in reverse?”

MacQuillan’s face flushed blood red, “There is only time for one Med­ical Doc­tor to say what
the num­bers mean.”

“Sir. Yes, sir.”

“They mean arrhyth­mia, pure and simple.”

“Sir.”

Firenzi’s lips moved, “Ranjit,”

Dah­jee leaned down to listen.

“Safe?”

“Clear!” shouted Mac­Quil­lan, and the elec­tric charge hit across Firenzi’s chest with a clunk,
jolt­ing his body so hard it shook the springs.

They turned toward the heart mon­i­tor, 108, 00, 33, 00, 00.

The num­bers, dou­ble zeros, safe in death.…safe from death in death

“Again,” said Mac­Quil­lan, “Clear!”

They waited, watch­ing the mon­i­tor, “00,” and MacQuillan’s face. He looked again at Firenzi’s
chest and tight­ened his grip once more on the elec­trodes. “OK, Again. Clear!”

Clunk, jolt­ing the springs.

“00.”

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