Wrong Window

by Tony Burton

I couldn’t sleep. No amount of tossing, readjusting the sheets, or pillow-fluffing did any good. My sainted, very religious and very Southern grandmother would have patted me on the hand and said, "You’ve got a burden, dear. Pray about it." To her, a burden meant that God was trying to tell me something or get me to do something, and He was having trouble getting me to listen.

I wasn’t entirely sure that a breakdown in communication between the Lord and me was causing the loss of sleep that night, but whatever it was, I couldn’t get through it. So, since I was due at the hospital at 11:00 pm anyway, I got up and went in two hours early. I can always use the overtime, and we had been swamped lately, so every extra nurse was welcome.

Life as a travel nurse is not a bad thing, usually. You get to move around, spend a few months here and a few months there, seeing the country at someone else’s expense. It’s like America on a buffet, and I figured when I found the main dish that really woke up my taste buds, I would settle down and eat my fill. So far, this was my second helping of Daytona Beach, and I wasn’t full yet.

Anyhow, now it was Spring Break in Sunny Florida. Being male, I can always appreciate the expanse of young attractive women that this brings in like flotsam on the high tide. However, being a nurse, I can’t always appreciate the excess that accompanies the flow of college and high school students attempting to shake off the ennui of the previous winter’s learning.

As soon as I arrived, I saw the ER was at typical Spring Break capacity. There were the results of car accidents, fistfights, and a couple of minor scrapes from biking, and even walking, under the influence that came in, and they kept us busy for a while. Then, the atmosphere changed, as a set of parents rushed in with their eleven-month-old son.

The child lay there in his mother’s arms, twitching and convulsing. We took him immediately, and one of the nurses began asking all the necessary questions: Is he taking any medication? Are there any allergies? When did this start? Both parents stumbled over each other to try to answer the questions, but it seemed that their son was not taking any medications at the time and had no known allergies. They both had gone in to check on their kids (another son was four and sleeping in the same room), and had found their younger son in this condition. The mother stated that he had looked a little blue around his mouth and eyes, too, but he looked normal in those areas now.

An EEG machine was connected to the boy, and blood was drawn to test for anything that might have caused this. The brain patterns did not look right – they were out of kilter. The father asked if he might bring his younger son into the ER, since he would be very scared out there in the waiting room, with only the neighbor’s daughter watching him. I okayed it, and shortly a chunky, tousle-headed four-year-old version of the father was brought in by his dad.

One of the other nurses began trying to reassure the little guy, and brought him a juice after getting it vetted by the mother. As he guzzled the apple juice, he started to relax, and kick his feet as they hung off the edge of the gurney. While this was going on, the mother and father were involved in a discussion with the attending physician, again Dr. Rojas.

"Doctor, what do you think has happened to our son?" The mother was at a high-anxiety level, and the dad was doing his best to calm her, but he himself was pretty shaken. "What could make this happen to him?!" As the doctor was about to give some non-specific, vaguely reassuring medical double-speak, the older boy piped right up.

"Daddy did it!" We all froze, and then swiveled our heads to look at the juice-drinking elf. Daddy’s face was a mask of total shock.

"Wha… what did you say, punkin?" the boy’s mother asked in a shaky voice.

"Daddy did it. He put a pillow on Ebben’s face, and held it there, then he went out the window."

"Son…" Daddy’s voice was breaking now. "Tommy, Daddy did not come into the room and put a pillow on Evan’s face. You know I wouldn’t hurt Evan!"

Dr. Rojas’s face was screwed into a thoughtful expression, brought on by this exchange. She looked first at the father, then at the mother.

The mother, Mrs. Peters, began categorically denying that anything like this happened. "Doctor, my husband and I were both in the bedroom together. We were not asleep," and she blushed a little, "so I know he didn’t go anywhere. And he certainly didn’t go out any window!"

The little boy was adamant, though. "Yes! Daddy was in the room, naked, and put a pillow on Ebben. Then he climbed out the window and left."

The police were still there after dealing with some rowdy college students, so we called one in to talk with the Peters family. The mom, dad and little Tommy all went with the policeman into one of the exam rooms and shut the door.

After a while, the policeman came out, flipping closed a notebook. "How is the Peters boy?" he asked.

The doctor replied that there were abnormalities in the brainwave patterns, abnormalities that could be caused by brain damage brought on by prolonged oxygen starvation, or smothering with a pillow. The policeman nodded.

"We talked with the boy some more. I’ve already called for a squad car to go out there and investigate around the window of the boys’ room. They live on the first floor of an apartment building." He opened the little notebook again. "When we asked the parents, the window to the room WAS open when they went into the room, and they denied opening it themselves. Then, closer questioning of the little boy revealed that the person who did the smothering was blonde like his daddy, but had "drawings" on his back and arms that the boy saw in the moonlight. His father doesn’t have any tattoos." He closed the notebook and, saluting briefly, left the ER. We saw him reaching for his radio mic as he left.

We got pretty busy later that morning. About 1:30 AM there must have been a major drinking party that broke up, because at around 2:00 AM we had three different accidents with injuries involving alcohol, all within a block of each other. It was hectic, to say the least. The Peters boy had been moved up to the pediatric intensive care ward, and was under observation.

While treating the accident victims, I heard one of the police radios crackle and a then a bored voice reporting that a naked man was walking down the side of Bahia Mar Road, and had made several obscene and threatening remarks to passers by. He appeared, the voice stated with no surprise, to be inebriated.

The policeman shook his head and muttered something. Then he looked at me. "Guess you’ll be seeing that one, too. Anybody does anything like that, you know you’ll be checking him out, giving a psych eval, all that." I nodded, my mind focused on the suture tray I was putting together for another patient.

We got the accident victims all treated, most of them released to go home, but with two remanded to intensive care. Funny how that happens sometimes – the drunken ones went home, the sober victims were in intensive care. It always made me vaguely angry when that happened.

There was some noise, angry and drunken-sounding noise, coming from the waiting area, and in a moment the door slid open. Between two large and muscular officers was an ineffectually struggling man, who was making all the ruckus. The cops were quiet, like walking stones, their hands locked on the man’s stringy biceps. Once or twice he lifted his feet from the floor as if to sag down, but it made no effect on his forward motion, as the cops simply moved steadily on. A dirty blanket was draped around his shoulders and knotted around his waist with a piece of twine. He looked like a poor version of a shepherd from a Christmas play.

The trio stopped before the central desk, and one of the policemen stated dryly, "Sorry for the disturbance. This gentleman was walking down Bahia Mar, naked, and acting in an irrational manner. We need someone to check him out and do a psychiatric eval." I deferred asking if walking down Bahia Mar naked itself did not qualify as irrational.

I do the preliminary psych evals on most males that come in, and Ms. Benson does most of the evals on females. So, I grabbed a clipboard, and motioned the officers to bring their charge into Room 6. Room 6 is one of two psychiatric holding rooms, with padded walls, no sharp edges, doors that lock from the outside, and an observation camera in a small unbreakable bubble in the corner of the ceiling.

We arrived with a minimal amount of trouble from the struggling man – not that he didn’t try, he just didn’t succeed very well. They deposited him on the heavy four-point gurney, and stood back against the walls, faces impassive but alert.

I addressed our blanket-wrapped client. "I need to ask you some questions. First, what is your…"

"F**k you." The man obviously was not happy with his treatment.

I shrugged. "Look, here’s the deal. What I determine here will have a bearing on how these gentlemen," and I gestured at the policemen standing there like khaki-clad body builders, "choose to treat you in the near future. No matter how irritating it has been so far," and he gave me the finger. I continued without interruption, "It could be worse. And," I observed as I looked down at his feet, "You appear to need medical attention, because you are bleeding on the floor from one of your feet."

He looked down at the slow drip of blood, as though noticing this for the first time. His eyes widened, and he cursed again. "Do somethin’ about that!"

I looked into the pinpoint pupils of his bloodshot eyes. "I can’t, until you tell me some information. It’s the law. If you are conscious, I have to know this information before I treat a non-life-threatening wound." Not strictly true, but I DID need the info.

He glared at me, then reached up and adjusted the blanket across his shoulders irritably. "OK. Ask yer damn questions."

The man gave his name as Wilson Devitt, and reported that he lived "different places", but mostly at a small hotel just off of A1A, the Pink Flamingo. He also stated that he had no known allergies, "except for pork," and this was said with an attempt at a leer toward the police officers standing against the wall. I wrote all this down. I turned to the policemen and told them that they could take a little break outside the room if they wanted, as long as at least one of them stayed right outside the door. The man they had brought in was pretty ripe, and the mixture of blood, stale sweat, urine and other undefined but unpleasant smells was getting thick in the small room. They looked at the patient, at me (I’m six feet, about 230 and work out fairly regularly), and they left. I looked out the small window, and one stayed right there by the door, as I requested.

When I turned around, my scruffy patient was looking at his bleeding foot, touching it gingerly with a dirty finger and wincing a little. "Damn! When did I do that?"

"I don’t know, but I’m going to try to clean it up and put a dressing on it right now, as long as you cooperate. Alright?" The man nodded, still watching the slow drip of blood from the laceration on the side of his foot. "Lie back on the bed, and I’ll take care of your foot." I looked him in the eyes. "And remember, I’m trying to help. Any funny business, and instead of lying there comfortably, I’ll bring in the big guys from outside, and we will strap you down – understand?" He nodded, but didn’t look happy with it.

I had already donned protective gloves, so I began cleaning up the wound. It looked to be a cut from a piece of glass or sharp-edged metal, because the edge of the wound was not torn. He had just missed slicing into a tendon, and I told him this. "How did you get this, anyway?" I asked as I swabbed on the Betadine wash. He didn’t say anything, so I looked up at him. His face was distant, his eyes open, and his lips were moving, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. I had to repeat myself. "I said, how did you get this cut on your foot?"

He started, and looked down at me. With a strange sort of twisted grin, he stated, "Runnin’, I guess. I fell down one time."

I nodded. "I’ll take a look at the rest of you when we get this taken care of, and make sure you don’t have any other unknown injuries." After an intensive cleaning, I closed the wound with butterflies and applied a sterile dressing. Then, I instructed the man to stand up and get rid of the blanket.

His fingers fumbled at the knotted twine. I wasn’t about to let him get close to a scalpel or pair of scissors at this point, so I let him fumble. Finally he got it untied, and dropped the blanket in the corner with a curse. "That thing stinks, man!" He kicked at it.

I instructed him to stand in the middle of the room, and let me take a look at him from all sides. Aside from dirt, a few assorted body piercings and a tattoo that covered most of his back, there was nothing else to note. I did see that he was weaving a little on his feet, though, and seemed more unsteady than when he had come in. Then again, when he had come in, he wasn’t supporting his own weight.

"I… I don’t feel too good," he said, and leaned against the gurney. Shaking his head, he climbed back onto it, and lay down again.

"You have to talk to me, Wilson. I have to ask you some more questions, OK?"

"Ain’t answering no more questions," he muttered. "Don’t have to. Don’t gotta do nothin’." His eyes were half-lidded now, and his hands were slowly moving at his sides. "Damn kid… Now she’ll go with me… go back to Gadsden."

Curious at this turn of events, I asked him, "So you’re from Gadsden?"

"Yeah. Born there." His voice faded a little, though his lips moved. "Wanna go back, take my woman back, too. Damn kid."

"What’s wrong with the kid?"

He laughed then, a slow, weird sort of laugh, like a recording of a hyena played at half speed. "Not a thing, Doc. Nothin’ wrong with that kid now. He’ll never have no more problems ever again." Again that weird laugh.

The hairs on my arms stood up with that laugh, and with the statement he had made. It sounded all too final for the kid, whoever and wherever he was.

"Why won’t he have any more problems, Wilson?" I asked in a low, non-threatening voice.

"’Cause I stopped all his problems with that piller. No more breathin’ problems, ‘cause he ain’t breathin’ no more."

I paused in what I was doing, and paid closer attention to the man’s appearance. In addition to the tattoos on his back, his upper arms and forearms were decorated with what some might call body art, but that looked like cheap comic-book appliqués to me. Things began to click a little, so I decided to see if I could get him to talk a little more.

"Your woman pays more attention to the kid than to you, huh? That’s tough," I asked as I pretended to adjust the bandages on his feet.

"Not no friggin’ more, she won’t! She said, since the kid has asthma, she had to spend lotsa time with him. But she won't have to now. I made sure uh that…" his voice drifted off a little.

"My woman ignores me sometimes, too. How’d you do it?" I tried to keep my voice neutral as I focused on the soles of his feet.

He gave that crazy laugh again, really low. "No winder’s gonna keep me out, ‘specially when she don’t even lock it. Just climbed on in there, and there he was, asleep, th’ little bastard." He looked at me for a moment, eyes bleary. "You know what? That bitch even tried to tell me it was my kid once, but it cain’t be. He’s got red hair. Nobody in my family’s got red hair!"

He paused a moment, then went on. "Anyways, they wuz a extra piller there on his bed, an’ it wuz easy." Then he jerked his foot away from me. "Hey, whatinell you tryin’ to do to me, man! That friggin’ hurt!"

Without thinking, I guess I had squeezed his wounded foot. I was remembering the fuzzy, auburn head of Evan Peters. I stood up. "OK, I’ll be back in a minute."

Outside, I informed the policemen what the drunken patient had just told me, and also about the little boy who had been brought in earlier. Their eyes widened, and they asked for the address of the little boy’s family. I went and got it for them, and as the senior one of the two wrote it down, he growled. "Sonofabitch! That’s only four blocks from where we found this guy!"

He immediately got on the radio with the DBP dispatcher, while his partner stood outside the door to the room containing the man who was now a suspect. Casually, I went over to the Pyxis medicine dispensing system and retrieved two ibuprofen tablets, and then got a disposable plastic cup from the holder by the sink, filling it with water.

I returned to Mr. Devitt’s room now, with the water and the ibuprofen. "Those feet will probably start to hurt in a little while, Mr. Devitt. Here," and I handed him the ibuprofen and water cup, "You’d better take these."

With a grunt, he took the pills and the water, and gulped them down. I reached carefully for the cup, holding it by its rim, and took it back outside. I slipped it into a small plastic bag that we use for patient’s belongings, and handed it to the policeman. "You might want this," I said. "There may be one or two of my fingerprints on it, but I know it also has our friend’s prints on it as well," and I jerked my head toward the door.

The cop stared at me. "What does it matter to you? This might get you in trouble, doing this without his consent."

I shrugged. "You may not even need them. After all, he’s here now. And as for what it is to me…" I turned and started away, then said over my shoulder, "You didn’t see Evan, or his mother crying."

Soon, the police who had been interviewing Evan’s parents and brother had conferred with the policemen who had brought in Devitt. The investigating policemen at the apartment had found blood on the windowsill and the floor, unnoticed by Evan’s parents in their fear and hurry. None of the family members had been bleeding.

As for me, the circus never ends in a busy ER. Within a few minutes after leaving Devitt in the custody of the police, another nurse and I were working with a pair of football players from UGA and UF who had decided to take their rivalry up a notch, in the parking lot of Tanfanny’s Bar. Devitt was taken away, screaming and cursing, and that was the last I saw of him.

About a week later, I read in the paper how a drunken man, angry at his girlfriend for what he perceived as a lack of attention, had broken into the apartment building in the same complex where she lived, in an attempt to take the life of her child and thereby return her focus to him.

But, it was the wrong apartment, and he had smothered the wrong child, thankfully not to death. He had been apprehended while walking down Bahia Mar at two in the morning, naked, and further investigation showed both his fingerprints and his blood at the scene of the crime. He had been remanded to jail, pending trial.

I sighed, and laid the newspaper down in my lap. Across the way, behind the little silt fence that tried unsuccessfully to keep the sand off my apartment patio, young men and women frolicked in the sun, displaying their bodies like proud, sun-worshipping peacocks. I folded the newspaper, and put in on the ground beside me. The wind tried to blow it away, but I sat my cooler on top of it as I took out a beer. The paper wouldn’t get away. Neither, I hoped, would Devitt.