Author Matthew Heneghan

Sometimes, it’s the other things that are the worst…

On a muggy evening beneath the magenta of a late July sky, my partner, Radnor, and I were stationed roadside waiting for that next inevitable call. As a paramedic, I loathed summer nightshifts. Stuck wearing ballistic plating beneath an itchy navy blue poly/cotton blend shirt and pants made for a less than ideal way to bask in the ambiance of a summer’s night. But such is the life of a first responder; discomfort, sweat, and anticipation of what comes next.

“You catch any of the Jay’s game before work today?” Radnor asked while casually oozing tobacco laden saliva into a water bottle turned spittoon.

“No. I was dead after last night’s shift — so I slept in as much as I could. Although, it seemed that today was the day that every neighbour decided upon mowing their grass for hours on end. Sleep was less than stellar. Why, who won?”

“Jays.” Radnor replied monotoned. He hadn’t ignored my initial statement. Among paramedics there resides an unspoken language bespoke to the vocation; his silence along with a subtle flutter of one of his eyebrows acknowledged my annoyance toward my neighbours. When trying to sleep during the day before a nightshift, rest is often interrupted by a bevy of inconveniences. Perhaps none the more than daywalkers. That’s what we called them — people with ordinary lives and palatable work schedules — daywalkers.

Radnor and I had been working together for the better part of a year, and we had both selected the night truck. The vampire bus, as it was affectionately anointed by the other medics on our crew.

“Alpha One-Nine, Alpha One-Nine, please respond to 5601 – Lincoln Way for a welfare check. Police have kicked this one on down to us as there appear to be some medical concerns for the resident. Out of town caller states that she has not heard from her father in over a week, and is requesting a check in on him. Known health issues. Patient lives alone. His wife passed away last year”

The metallic voice of dispatch crawled in through our speakers. Radnor and I simply listened as that’s all we could do. I felt the ambulance jerk into gear and begin moving. The guttural snarl of our aging diesel engine was eventually drowned out by the piercing repetitious call of our sirens. Darkness was rapidly swallowing the details of the city now. The flickering red and white of our lightbar glanced off houses, trees, stop signs, and store windows. Every now and then I would catch an ephemeral glimpse of myself in a passing window. A sullen reflection glared back at me. I looked tired. I felt tired. But if I’m honest, I barely recognized myself.

The address was situated at the end of a quiet residential neighbourhood, so Radnor killed the sirens and slowed the ambulance to a crawl. He peered out the driver side window and I did the same from mine. We were looking at the numbers on all of the houses, scanning for the one we had been dispatched to. The cantankerous thrum of the ambulance filled the otherwise quiet residential street.

“There it is. Second from the end.” Radnor said low.

“Roger. Let’s go see what fresh hell awaits, shall we…” I chimed. When the ambulance came to a stop, we each jumped out and began readying ourselves; grabbing gloves, trauma bags, oxygen kits, cardiac monitor — the works. But, also the standard.

This is where things get grim. By the time I had placed one foot onto the sidewalk proximal to the address, a pulverizing miasma of death scorched my nose hairs. “Oh, fuck!” I decried while placing a gloved hand beneath my nose. I did a quick scan of the area around me, looking for any discarded bags of garbage that may have been left out languishing beneath the simmer of a summer sun, but I observed nothing. Each time I looked at the house, the smell seemed to intensify, even with my having moved not an inch.

“Bloater?” Radnor queried. Almost as if to be taking bets.

“At the very least, I’d say.” Knowing now that we were about to encounter death, the question became what state of decomposition we were going to see. I hated these calls — especially in the summer…

Radnor and I began walking with acquiescing gait toward the front door. No lights were visible from the windows. It’s as though no one was home. In a sense, I suppose that really was the case. There were four steps leading to the front door. Radnor and I ascended them one behind the other. In a feeble simulacrum of optimism, I knocked on the front door and announced myself, “Paramedics!”

“…You’re going to have to knock a hell of a lot harder than that to wake this guy.” Radnor’s voice mocked from behind my shoulder. I placed my hand on the knob and twisted the handle. The door opened. Much to my chagrin. A blanket of darkness spilled across the threshold, but as my eyes grew accustomed to the bleak environment, unveiling itself to me were the contours of a living room draped in the remnants of solitude. Upon entering, my fingertips grazed the wall to my left in search of a light switch. The pads of my fingers felt the craggy dongle of a switch. I flicked upward and the light to the hallway came on, some of which poured into the living room to my right. The furniture, though sparse and somewhat out of time, told tales of a love that once filled the space with warmth. A duo of armchairs faced each other, their fabric worn at the edges, as if the occupants had once held hands across the divide, sharing whispers and laughter that now echoed off the empty walls. The fireplace, devoid and unlit, was framed by a mantle where photographs in silver frames captured smiles that time could not tarnish. This place was once a home. Now, it was home to something much less joyful and a lot more awful to inhale.

As we pushed further into the home, we continued to announce our presence. It was met by an eerie reticence. As we moved slowly my ears came to know of a ticking clock somewhere in the house.

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick…

It was subdued and horribly deafening at the same time. An odd juxtaposition, I know. But if you have ever had the misfortune of listening to a dead man’s clock, you’ll know what I mean.

I entered into what came to be the kitchen. Our work boots had transitioned from carpet to hard laminate flooring. Radnor found another light switch and turned it on. That’s when I saw him for the first time. A man bloated and bruised from time’s neglect. He was sitting — more accurately stated, slumped — in a chair at the kitchen table. A plate of food that had gone bad rested in front of him. The commingling of rotting food and decaying flesh made this sickening encounter all the more wretched. I was about to radio dispatch and inform them of what we had discovered, and that’s when I heard another horrible sound. A sound that bothers me to this day.

A slight distance beyond the kitchen, there was a small section of hallway that led to a rear sliding door. Laying on the floor next to an empty dish where food might once have been was a dog. It was a golden retriever, or something of the sort. Poor thing. I could count almost every rib on that dog. It was too weak to even bark, let alone be moved by our presence. The tiny whimpers overtook the ticking clock. Soon, they were all I could hear. They even drowned out Radnor’s voice for a time. I know that because I was suddenly startled by a hand careening with my shoulder.

“Henny! You awake? I called the cops. They’ll be here to take over scene in a couple of minutes. You good?” I was delayed in responding to him, but I would say something.

“…Yeah, man. All good. There’s a dog. We should get the cops to call animal control or something.”

“That dog looks like this guy feels — dead. He just doesn’t know it yet.” Radnor said while navigating the canine with a fatigued gaze.

Over the next fifteen minutes Radnor and I remained in that diseased kitchen waiting for the police to arrive. A painful whimper from the dog would flee his lips every now and then. Neither Radnor nor I said a word while we waited. We just lingered next to the dead and dying, listening to the fleeting seconds of a ticking clock, and the sad bemoan of a lonely pup. Such is the life of a first responder.

I don’t know what happened to that dog. All I am sure of is that to this day, the sound of a whimpering dog punishes my psyche each and every time. A challenge when living with two hounds of my own. The love they give in life is such a blessing. The pain I witnessed in that dog that day is something that will never leave me. It’s not so much the decaying corpse and smell of death that haunts me, it’s the other things…

Sometimes, as it turns out, it’s the other things that are the worst.