September 11, 2001. Two weeks passed as if only seconds.
Generalized anxiety was spooking bats from everywhere. Exhausted, Frank sat down to dinner. All he wanted was to enjoy Grandma’s meatloaf with the whipped baked potatoes and spinach soufflé, a quiet birthday celebration with Elizabeth. But, no sooner had they said grace than his cell phone vibrated against his thigh.
Damn, he thought.
“Hey, Preach, it’s Houston down at County Hospital. We sure need you.”
Houston, an RN in his church, called only in bona fide emergencies.
“It’s absolutely necessary? Today’s E’s birthday.”
“I hate to call you, but you said to.”
“Did I?” Frank groused. “I’ll be there.” Caught between kissing E and shoveling a forkful of creamy potato into his mouth, he opted for potato.
“Sorry, hon.” He grabbed his keys.
Houston had grown up on the streets and in the basement of the Green Street Methodist Church, where the Jesus Gang hung out. After a stint in the marines in the Gulf War, he got his GED and eventually his RN. Working the ER he didn’t get to church every Sunday, but he showed up more than most people who had no excuse. He worked every week with at risk kids in the Jesus Gang.
His father was black, his mother Mexican. Some white people in their SUVs checked their door locks when he walked by. But, once he let you “in,” he greeted you with a broad smile, a friendly grip and loyalty without limit.
Frank tried to catch him every now and then for coffee. Houston called him to come to the hospital last year: some locals shot up a house, killing everybody inside, including a five year old and a Bassett hound.
Tonight two police cruisers parked outside the ER, blocking the entrance and exit. Security patrolled the halls. Rev. Frank Chandler showed his Volunteer Chaplain credential.
“What’s the story? Feels like we’ve had a bomb threat or something.”
Houston said, “The EMTs brought in this guy. Middle Eastern descent, could be Muslim, 20 something, maybe 30. If this is some kinda hate crime, we got ourselves a situation. He’s unconscious, head wounds, severely beaten. Two cracked ribs.”
“What can I do?”
“That’s the thing. Staff needs some TLC, and they know you.”
“How come?”
“Cause some of his injuries have been incurred after admission.”
“You mean in the hospital…?”
“Yep.” Houston’s matter of fact manner worried Frank more than an alarmed tone of voice would have.
“The ER doc didn’t find no burns during the initial exam—I assisted. But an hour later, there was a new cigarette burn in the palm of his right hand.”
“How could that happen, Houston? This is No Smoking. You can smell cigarette smoke right off.”
“I don’t know. I swear he wasn’t alone long enough for anyone to get at him.”
“Can I pray?”
“Well, not with him. If he’s Muslim, hospital doesn’t want the appearance of proselytizing. But you just look me in the eye, and pray. They won’t know the difference.”
Frank stumbled through some words like “out of the depths we cry to thee, O Lord,” until a man in a dark suit with a silk tie and matching handkerchief in his breast pocket joined them.
“Mr. Dickerson, you remember Rev. Chandler, our Chaplain?” Houston spoke softly.
“Thank you for coming, reverend,” the man said, straightening his tie nervously. “You realize the sensitivities of the situation. If this patient turns out to be Muslim, and you a Christian—well, it might not look right.”
“I was a hospital chaplain in New York City, before coming here, sir. I can actually run interference for you. The nearest mosque is a block from my church; I’ll be glad to call the Imam for you.”
“No, no, won’t be necessary,” tutted Dickerson, “so long as we’re cognizant of how things look. We can’t keep this out of the media very long.”
“Hope springs eternal, I guess,” Frank muttered.
He checked with staff he knew in ICU. In contrast with ER, that unit was quiet. Nurses’ chatter had settled on Ground Zero, NYC.
“They say Islam is a religion of peace,” one woman said. “I don’t buy it. Mark my words, the World Trade Center was only the start.”
“My nephew was a fireman, went into the North Tower right before it crashed,” said a blonde nurse. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s ‘an eye for an eye,” pay back with a great big stick.”
Frank said, “My little brother graduated with his MBA in June, started working in the North Tower. He always was a morning person, liked to get to work by 6:30 a.m., have his quiet time.”
Frank pulled his thin line Bible from his pocket. “You ever read that whole thing about ‘an eye for an eye’?” he asked.
The nurses shook their heads, No. He read slowly:
thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. Exodus 21:23-25 (KJV)
“Well, there you go—the Word o’ God, can’t be any plainer than that,” the blonde woman ended grimly.
“I just wish we could nuke ‘em all,” another said.
Frank had to admit, the thought had crossed his mind. He wondered, “What kinda world will we have?”
When he returned to the ER, tension had ratcheted up. Houston explained, “Somebody’s putting their cigarettes out on the guy’s skin, right under our noses. New burns on his hands and feet.”
“Can I see him?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Houston shrugged.
By now the man was isolated in a glass walled cubicle, hooked up to monitors and IVs; a nurse was recording the readings in his chart.
A police officer stood guard at the door.
Listening to the clicks and beeps, Frank gazed through the glass at the bandaged discolored face. He wondered what it would look like if the man opened his eyes, or smiled. Had he passed this man on the street yesterday, would he have even noticed him?
His gentle features suggested nothing equal to the violence he had endured.
Counter transference! Frank dismissed the fleeting similarity he imagined to his little brother’s face.
“So he’s burned where?”
“In the palm of each hand, and in the center of each foot.”
Frank winced.
The sheet was discolored. “What’s going on there?” Frank asked.
“What the—!” Houston jumped as if jolted by a cattle prod. The duty nurse pulled back the sheet, revealing a puncture wound in the patient’s side, bleeding profusely.
The nurse let out an involuntary cry, then began immediately tending the wound. The police officer with a jerk of his head ordered them to clear out.
A few minutes later, a furious Administrator stormed into the ER. “Lock this place down, till we get whoever’s doing this!” he said in a low voice. “Send everybody elsewhere who’s not about to code!”
Frank began quietly explaining to people waiting that the ER had to be evacuated; helping them gather up coats, pocketbooks, magazines, shoes; suggesting they try Memorial Hospital, a level one Trauma center, 7.9 miles away.
At last, except for police and hospital staff on duty, the ER was empty and quiet. At 6 a.m. Houston went off shift. He normally rode the bus, but this morning Frank gave him a lift. As they drove past the church, Houston noticed something lying in the alley.
Frank felt like he’d been kicked in the belly. There on the ground behind the church was a body. Middle Eastern descent, 20 something, maybe 30. Something had clawed his head; his face, battered, discolored; cigarette burns, drilled into each palm and the arch of each foot. A puncture wound to the side had bled out.
The body was partially covered by a sheet of newsprint on which were scrawled the words PAY BACK.
Houston flipped open his cell phone and called 911. He knelt beside the body. “Brother Frank,” he said, “this is the man that was in the ER all night.”
Numb, Frank stared at that still, distorted face.
Houston jabbed the ER number into the keypad of his cell. “Ginger, this is Houston,” he said. “What’s going on there, right now?”
Then, he said, “Well, where he is now is here, in the alley behind Brother Frank’s church…. It’s the same guy, I’m telling you…. Only now he’s dead.”
Frank’s hands struggled to free his Bible from his coat pocket, to read a psalm or something. His Bible opened to the verse that reads
Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me.
Photo by Msry Fran
