A Trip to the Emergency Room…

As I left work I saw a young man running but nobody was chasing him, he wasn’t in your typical running gear and he appeared to be crying.  My cardio isn’t up to par so there was no way I could keep up with him as he turned the corner and disappeared.  Of course I start thinking to myself…hmmmm I wonder what the fuck that was all about, surely I’d never find out and surely I’d forget about this moment in 3.5 seconds…and then I turned the corner and it all unraveled. 

There he was, sitting on a ledge crying his eyes out.  I’d say he was in his twenties but I’m not a good at guessing ages because I lie so much about my age that I really don’t know how to guess an age accurately.  For the sake of this story let’s say he was in his twenties.  I stop, ask him if he’s ok, he cries harder…omg, my heart is pounding fast because I just want to find out what’s going on in his life…I’m nosy like that. I ask him his name, he says something…the words weren’t coming out very clearly…I asked him repeatedly could I help him, he cried harder.  Finally I got a bit aggressive because I couldn’t fucking understand a word he was saying and said to him “listen if you want my help you need to speak clearly because I have no clue what you’re saying” so I said to him again “what’s your name” he mumbles something, I catch “Lesley…Wessy…Lessy or Wesley”.  Phew, that’s a start…Ok so now I’m gonna call him “Wesley” for the sake of this story.  “Ok, what’s going on, why are you crying?” ramble, ramble, ramble.  I get aggressive again, “what, what are you saying?” “My mom, my mom is dying”.  Finally I knew what was troubling him, my heart dropped…I sat next to him and put my hands around his shoulder and tried to offer some comforting words.  I asked him questions that he could respond yes or no to because it was clear he wasn’t ready to speak in full sentences.  “Did you just find this out?” “yes” he responded.  “Is your mom in the hospital right now?” “yes” he responded.  Ok, I was getting somewhere! “Did you just run here from the hospital after you found out she was dying” “yes” he responded, followed by “She’s my everything, I can’t lose….her” My heart broke in two.  Now what?

Along comes this handsome young man on a bike, yeah he was super handsome and I mean super handsome.  He stops, “is everything ok?” he asks.  So I give him the rundown of what has transpired and he sits on the other side of the young man and puts his hand around his shoulder.  So here we are both consoling this young man.  I decide to make a move, no not on the handsome man on the bike but to get this young man back to the hospital to be with his family.  I ask “Wesley” would you like me to take you back to hospital to be with your family, he utters “yes” as he continues to ball his eyes out.  I ask the handsome stranger to stay with him until I went to get my vehicle which was 2 blocks away, he agreed to stay.  Now, truthfully speaking, I was sure that the handsome stranger was going to be gone when I got back.  I arrive back with my vehicle, shocked to see him still there and ask him “were you able to get anything else from him?” he said “no, but I prayed for him and his mother, we prayed together”.  Wow, who was this human being and where can I get me one of them?  He helped “Wesley” into my vehicle, wished us well and pedaled away on his bike.

I head towards the closest hospital, “Wesley” is crying out of control.  I’m not good with crying, my general rule of thumb is to avoid people that are crying or if they’re close enough to me in real life I lean in and generally say “You know I don’t do this crying shit but I’m here for you”, people in my life never seem to get offended by this, thankfully.  Anyhoo, “is this the hospital your mom is in?” I asked, he didn’t respond, so I raised my voice and repeated it again, he responded “no”.  Ok, off to the next hospital 5 minutes away.  Maybe she was just checked into the emergency, yeah that makes sense, my thoughts were all gathering and I was sure the emergency made the most sense…off we went.

It was literally a 5 minute drive from one hospital to the other but what happened next seemed like time had stopped.  He starts breathing really hard, I’m like “are you ok?” he won’t respond.  “Hey buddy, are you ok?” he rises his body up straight, I looked at him…I got scared because he looked so much bigger than me now, “hey buddy, you good?” and low and behold he just slumps over in the front seat, his head and arms fall down between his legs.  Holy fuck, is he dead?  I don’t fucking know what just happened.  I start panicking, “buddy, buddy, buddy” no response.  Do I touch the body?  Do I open the door and push him out?  Am I going to catch a case?  WTF just happened?  all of a sudden he rises up again, bigger, taller more alert this time.  Holy fuck, is he possessed with demons, is he on something?  I ain’t one to pray but I may have said a little prayer in my head.  He looks at me, I look at him…Is he going to kill me? attack me? I don’t know what’s going on but as quickly as he had risen up he slumped back down again.  He died, again…I put my fucking foot on that gas peddle trying to get to safety, I was sure my DNA was on him from the hug so I didn’t want to push him out of the vehicle just in case the local CSI team were good at their job.  I mean seriously, how could I explain dumping a dead body.  Plus there was the handsome guy on the bike, he was a witness that I was the last person to see “Wesley” alive…I AM FUCKED right now is all I could think.

He repeated this rise up and slump over a 3rd time.  By the 3rd time we are pulling in front of the Emergency entrance.  Now I’ve seen a enough shows in my lifetime where people just drop off the body and keep it moving but I also know these places have cameras, I was not going to be able to do this.  My “be crazier than him” mode kicked in…I got super aggressive with him as he had risen up one last time… “Listen Wesley, or whatever the fuck your name is…I don’t know what the fuck is going on with you but you need to pull yourself together so we can go find your mother, is this the place she is in?” Now no matter what his response was going to be this is where our adventure was going to end. He looks up and mumbles “yeah”.  “Ok good, now I’m going to come around and get you out of this car and you’re going to go inside and not fucking do this shit in front of these people, understand?” “yeah” he replies.

I get him inside, he can barely walk.  I sit him down in the first chair I see have a quick chat with the triage people and they don’t have anyone registered with the last name “Wesley”.  Fuck what am I going to do now?  He stands up all wobble legged, “I need to use the bathroom” my reply was “oh you can speak a full fucking sentence now” I had enough of this guy to be honest, I did my part.  “can you take me to the bathroom?” he asks.  Fuck, another full sentence…well now!  I walk him to the bathroom, he pauses and looks at me…”what?” I said, “I hope you don’t think I’m coming in there with you” he smiled, I said “listen buddy, this is where I draw the line, go piss if you got to piss” I push him in the bathroom and shut the door.  The nurse walks up to me and says “you can just leave him we will take it from here”…I thought that was odd so I asked “ah, really?” she was like “yep”.  Now a security guard is standing outside of the bathroom, hmmmm, I wondered if they knew him. Next thing we heard a bang. Pause, I currently smell something burning.  I’m back, I burned my food in the oven while I was writing this…I should’ve used the timer FFS…It’s ok I have a back up plan pizza now cooking (yes it’s all vegetarian food in the pic, hard to believe huh and nobody was rushed to the hospital because of my cooking) Ok, where was I…BANG…the security opens the door and low and behold he’s on the floor in convulsions. The nurse repeats herself “you can leave, we will take it from here”, “do you know him” I asked, she offered a comforting smile that he was in good hands.  It was time to leave, there wasn’t much more I could do so off I went.

I figured out who he was in no time via social media.  I knew his mom, we went to school together.  His mom passed away recently.  RIP “Ms. Wesley”. ~Holla