What Goes Around, Comes Around

I have a confession to make. I routinely break the law.

I am a speeder. There, I said it.

They say admitting your problem is the first step on the road to recovery, so perhaps there is hope for me yet. Mind you, I’m not one of those menace-to-society speed demons, and I’m far from an aggressive driver. Heck, I drive my ambulance more cautiously than I drive my truck, and at higher speeds. I simply have two basic speeds – stop, and ten miles an hour over the posted limit. Or maybe fifteen. All right, maybe twenty miles over the limit on a couple of occasions.

I’ve gotten more speeding tickets over the years that I can count, and I’ve taken them all like a man. I didn’t beg, I didn’t offer excuses, and I paid my fines on time. As I got older, and after I became an EMT , I discovered that often I could plead a speeding offense to a non-moving violation, or pay well before the court date and keep it off my MVR.

I rarely even use my misdemeanor credit card. That is, I never invoke the public safety brotherhood to get out of a ticket. A number of reasonable officers have let me go once they found out, through their own questioning, that I was a paramedic. Usually, with nothing more than a verbal warning and on a couple of occasions, a world-class ass chewing that would have done a Parris Island DI proud.

Cops have a job to do, and I respect that. And most of the cops I know hate working traffic detail. It sucks for them almost as bad as it does for us. Aside from nabbing drunk drivers and the occasional narcotics bust, traffic detail isn’t very rewarding. So I admit to my speeding, sign the ticket, wish the officer a nice day in return, and drive away well below the posted limit. For at least a couple of miles.

But there is doing your job as a peace officer, and then there is being a chickenshit bastard.

(Insert standard anti-prejudice disclaimer here: I have nothing against cops. I love cops. Some of my best friends are cops.)

And aside from the badge-wearing, gun-toting, legally sanctioned extortionists that work for the Woodworth, LA Police Department, I get along with just about every cop I’ve met…

Except for the bane of my youthful existence. Back in the day, I used to train retrievers for a living. It was a great job for a redneck in his late teens and early twenties – good money, make your own schedule, and unlimited duck hunting opportunities.

I hunted in a little rice field town just south of the Arkansas state line, and I had to drive through the little hamlet of Booger Holler every time I went duck hunting. Now, I drove through there nearly every day, and I knew the town’s reputation as a local speed trap. I kept my guard up, and my speed down.

But invariably, I’d slip up one time, and he’d have me. The assistant police chief would park his cruiser right on the other side of the speed limit sign, hidden behind some semi trailers. And if you passed that sign at faster than 35.1 miles an hour, buddy you were written. The man wrote me at least one ticket a year for five years. The last ticket he wrote me, I was driving a new truck. My Nemesis pulled me over, sauntered up to the truck and flashed his Maglite in my face, and grinned.

“Well, howdy there STBAD (Soon To Be Ambulance Driver)! I didn’t recognize you in the new ride! Does the speedometer work in that thang?”

*sigh*

I supported this town. They should have erected a billboard thanking me. In addition to the pothole repairs, basketball courts and bulletproof vests I personally subsidized, I kept my insurance carrier fat and happy. They never had to pay a claim, but I paid them a monthly premium slightly larger than the gross national product of Uruguay.

But hey, what’s an unmarried male under age 25 with 3 speeding tickets on his record to do but grin and bear it?

Well, that and plot revenge. Sweet, sweet revenge.

Fast forward about eight years. I’m working a part-time gig at an EMS service in that same parish, and I get called as the backup unit on a wreck north of town. I arrive to find my patient already packaged by the first-in ambulance, so we load my guy in the rig and proceed forthwith to the Bandaid Station.

As I’m standing over the guy, fishing IV supplies out of the cabinet, I ask him his name.

“Floyd XXXX,” he replies through gritted teeth. I pause and look down at him.

“Assistant Police Chief Floyd XXXX of the Booger Holler Police Department?”

“I used to be a cop in Booger Holler,” he says. “Why, have we met?”

I swear I heard a Heavenly choir. The back of the ambulance was suffused with a warm, ethereal light.

Thank you, Lord, for this opportunity to smite mine enemy hip and thigh. And hopefully a few other places as well.

“Floyd,” I smile beatifically at him, as I put back the 18-gauge I’ve selected and choose a much larger needle, “I want you to know I have dreamed of this day.”

“So, where do I know you from, kid? Are you from there? Who are your – ouch! Hey, that hurt like hell!” Floyd says as I hook up the line to the huge IV catheter I’ve just inserted.

How do you like them apples, Floyd?

“No sir, your name just rang a bell, that’s all. I went to college with a guy from Booger Holler.”

Don’t recognize me, Floyd? I’m crushed. Then again, I didn’t recognize you, either. You’ve really let yourself go, Floyd.

“Floyd, I need to check out your hip and leg, so I need to get these clothes out of the way, okay?” I pull out my trauma shears and start ripping the seams of his trousers. On further consideration, I decide it’s easier to just go straight down the middle.

“Hey, is that really necessary? I mean – hey! Not my boots, too!”

I’m so sorry, Floyd. And they looked expensive, too. Was that full-quill ostrich skin?

“Floyd, I need you to tell me if any of this hurts,” I tell him as I bolster his pelvis and palpate his legs.

“Aaaaahhhhh! Goddamn right, that hurts! Holy shit!”

Okay, note to self: Floyd’s left hip and knee are extremely tender to palpation, although no crepitus is noted. I’d think a big man like you would be a little more stoical about the pain, Floyd.

“Hurts where, exactly?” I want to know. “Does it hurt here…”

“Aahhh!”

…or here?”

“Ouch! Goddamn, it hurts everywhere you touch, okay? Just don’t do that any more, please!”

“Floyd, can you feel me touching your feet?” I ask him as I rake the soles of his feet with my pen.

“Aahhhh, shit! What was that?” Floyd hollers as his toes curl and he desperately tries to pull his feet out of the straps.

Okay, Floyd obviously has distal sensory and motor function. Maybe I should have put the cap back on my pen before I did that, though.

“Relax, Floyd. I’m just doing my job.”

Which is exactly what you told me every time you handed me a ticket.

“Look kid, is all this really necessary?”

Was it necessary to write me for doing 40 in a 35 zone, Floyd? That ticket cost me $120. How about the ticket for doing 38?

“It’s okay, Floyd. We’re done. I just need to get a little information from you. How old are you?”

“I’m 51.”

Well, that’s about $200 less than my monthly insurance payments in those days. Do you have any idea what an unmarried male under 25, with three speeding tickets, pays for car insurance?

“How much do you weigh?”

“About 260, I guess.”

That’s about what I had to pay my lawyer to have my driving record expunged, so Podunk Ambulance’s underwriters would agree to insure me. Do you know how unemployable an EMT who can’t drive is, Floyd?

“Hey, can we loosen this collar a little bit? It’s digging into my neck.”

“Sorry Floyd, but I can’t do it. We can’t take it off until the doctor clears you. Usually they’ll do at least an x-ray of your neck before they clear you.”

Suffer, Floyd, suffer.

“How long do you think that will take? I kinda have to piss.”

That’s because I’ve given you half a liter of fluid, Floyd, with another half-liter yet to go. With any luck, they’ll be totally swamped and I’ll have the singular pleasure of watching you piss your pants right on my spine board.

“I have no idea, Floyd,” I say, standing up and surreptitiously squeezing the bag. “Hopefully, it won’t take long to – hey, we’re here.” We roll Floyd into the ER and give the nurse a handoff report.

A few minutes later, I hold my clipboard over Floyd’s head and hand him a pen. “I need your signature right here, Floyd.”

He scribbles his signature and returns my pen. I tear off a copy of my run ticket with a flourish and hand it to the nurse. I turn to leave, and then pause in the doorway. I turn around and walk back to the bed and lean over him.

“Hey, Floyd?”

“Yeah, what?”

“Have a nice day,” I tell him cheerfully. “Drive safely.”

Until next time…