Trey R. Barker's Blog, page 9

CopStories: A Little Sinus Medication

It was a simple traffic stop.

Not even my traffic stop, actually.  A local department had been first to see a car that had been skulking around a local ag place.  Supposedly someone had seen someone in that car with a red gas can.  The thought was they were stealing gas.  The local department, being close, made the traffic stop and waited for me.

I arrived, talked to the driver and passenger, and marveled at how hinked-up they were.  Nervous and fidgety, sweaty, lying through what was left of their teeth.  I absolutely believed those two were as deep in the bullshit as was possible to be.

But I had dick.  I could prove no crime.  I talked to them as long as I legally could, went back and forth again and again over their obviously bullshit stories, but had nothing.  So eventually I let them go.

Which bugged the shit outta me.

I had a rider that night, a woman who works in our civil department but who wants to get out on the road.  So she rides and learns what she can.  The stop bugged her, too.  We both stood there, watching the car drive away, and I'd bet good money that we both had our heads cocked like a dog seeing something it didn't understand.

As we're standing there, it occurred to me that we were on a straight line away from the ag plant.

So I backtracked.  Not looking for anything specifically, just seeing what there was to see.

While we were looking around a communications tower location, I said to my rider, "Ninety-nine times out of 100, there's nothing to see."

We'd stopped there because of the sheer amount of copper at those installations.  They constantly get hit by thieves.  I just wanted to make sure.  So we checked it and, as I'd predicted, found nothing.

But less than a ten of a mile up the road, we found some items in the ditch.

My gut said, 'Dude, this is connected.  This goes with that car you just let go.'

I gloved both of us up so we could investigate and the first thing we found was a length of bicycle inner-tube, with a piece of PVC pipe on one end.  When I picked it up, my rider wrinkled her nose and commented about the smell.  I didn't smell anything because my sinuses absolutely suck.

But even I noticed the damn thing was soaking wet.  My sniffer may not work all that well, but my eyes are still pretty good.  This tube was dripping wet.  So I put it down and turned my attention to the coolers.

I had her stand behind me, telling her it could be dangerous, pointed the top away from me, and began unscrewing.  My plan, which I thought a good one [at the time] was to slowly open the container, get the top off, and just get a light whiff to make sure it was anhydrous.  Once I'd confirmed it, then I'd get the official machinery moving.

Look, the problem is that the official machinery is fucking expensive and time consuming.  It's a huge use of resources.  Fire departments, health departments, cops, ambulances, possibly haz-mat crews.  It's no small undertaking so I wanted to be sure.

(As my rider pointed out, can you imagine if we'd called everyone out first?  Everyone's moving and getting amped up 'cause they've got a call and teh cooler turns out to be full of…water?  Holy balls, Batman, they'd'a taken the cost of that call-out outta my paycheck until…like…2027!)

I have limited experience with meth labs.  I don't try to be something I'm not, to know more than I know.  I try to do things as well as I know how, as well as I've been trained.  But I also try to draw from experience.  And my experience is that those containers only ever contain fumes, or maybe traces of residue.

Never have I had a container that had anhydrous still in it.

And I've damn sure never had one that was under pressure.

So I'm turning that lid…slowly…slowly…ever so slowly.

BOOM!

Fucking exploded off and I damn near shit myself.

In all the crazy shit I've done and seen as a copper, real fear doesn't come along that often.  Usually training takes over and your time is spent playing that out.  Or you've seen scary stuff enough that it's just not scary anymore.  You breathe your way through it, compartmentalize, sort it out, etc.

I was scared when I fought the PCP junkie for 14 minutes in an attempt to retrieve my gun.

And I was scared to death when that lid came off that cooler.

In seconds, snot had plugged everything.  My eyes were on fire and gushing tears as though someone had hooked up a damned water hose to the back of my head, my sinuses felt like a bomb had gone off deep in my head.  The upper part of my throat was burning.  I was spitting up a nasty chemical something.

For just a few seconds, I thought I was done for.  I thought I'd ingested the chemical, rather than getting doused with fumes.  It was that strong.  There was no way, I thought, this was simple fumes.

I checked my uniform and bare arms, looking for signs, while my rider asked – I think, some of this is a bit hazy – if I was okay.  I told her to call an ambulance and she laughed.

Because that is exactly the kind of joke I would make.  See, this was one of those moments when my carefree, fun-loving, constant jokes personality got me in trouble.

But when I looked at her, my face a complete mess, my breath hitching and heavy, her eyes got as big as planets.  She ran to the squad and got the ambulance and cops and fire and everyone else moving.  In other words, she called out the official machinery that I hadn't wanted to call until I was sure.

Uh…yeah…standing there thinking I might be dead?  That was pretty much all the confirmation I needed.

But my rider had her own moment of hilarity amidst the chaos.  She ran to the squad car, yelling at me, "I don't even know where the fuck we are!"

So I'm trying to tell her exactly where we are even as I'm slowly dying.  Tough to form words, much less thoughts, with a head full of anhydrous ammonia.

It wasn't long before everyone was there, scurrying all over the scene and trying to figure out exactly what had happened.  The rest of the night – that I can tell you about right now, maybe more if and when there is a conclusion to what happened after I got out of the hospital – was a blur.

I do remember sitting in the ambulance [I had actually just refused transport to the hospital.  Either I thought I was okay enough to drive myself or I really thought I was a Man of Steel] and having my partner from the Academy calmly ask for my weapon.

"Ain't giving you my gun," I said.

"Yeah, you are…and you're keys, too."

"How the hell am I supposed to drive myself to the hospital if you have my keys?"

"Yeah, about that…sit down and shut up."

Apparently it was decided, somewhere higher up the food chain than little ol' me, that me and my rider were going to the hospital and doing it via ambulance.

And then my rider decided to give me grief.  "So, dude, what about that 99 times out of 10 thing?"

"Well…I don't know…call this the one, I guess."

But it was nice, comforting, to have so many people being anxious both for and about me; medics and cops, firemen, nurses, even reporters.  However, all of them took the opportunity to yell at me for opening the thing before grudgingly admitting they were mostly glad I wasn't dead.

Yeah, you read that right.  They yelled at me first, then said the other.

Like an afterthought.

Thanks, guys.

 

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Adventures in Hospital Land, Pt. 3: Dude, don't say that!

A short update.

Went to my doc the other day.  He wanted to see how things were going twelve days hence.  Poked. Prodded.  Listened.  Laughed at what I'd said to the heart doc.

Then said, sort of out of nowhere, "I'm glad we did the stress test."

"Uh…me, too?"

"Finding that blockage in your stent was a good catch."

"Sure."

"If we'd gone any longer, and if we'd had an event…I'm not sure you would have made it."

Notice how it was 'we' up until the part where I die?

Of all the things I wanted the doctor to say, that was so not on the list.

The blockage had been minor, but it was in a stent and apparently that concerned him.  So he told me I could have died.

I love this doc, really I do.  He does not varnish anything.  When I had cancer, he didn't really even tell me.  He started with who my oncologist was going to be.  I'm good with that.  Don't screw around, don't dip it in powdered sugar, just give it to me.

But this time?

"…not sure you would have made it."

I coulda used some varnish.  Just a little.

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Adventures in Hospital Land, Pt 2: It's So Warm

And they're pumping those fluids….

So there's this tech: John.  Yacks and yacks and yacks.  No doubt trying to put me at ease.  Admirable enough goal, I guess, considering I'm about to get all kinds of medical crap jammed up my femoral and into my black little heart.  But, dude, shut the hell up.  Take your goatee'd face and zip it.  I'm fine drowning in my own self-induced mental drama.

He was nice enough, don't get me wrong, but I don't respond well to the standard pitch.  It was the same way at the police academy during my physical fitness test.  A pile of young pups started running with me, "You can do it," "Keep working it," and "We have faith in you."

Yap yap freakin' yap.  They got on my nerves so bad I actually slowed down…hoping they'd decide I had no chance and they'd leave me alone.  Eventually, they moved on to some other hapless recruit, I got back into my head, my comfort zone, and beat the required time by better than a minute.

So I dig the sentiment, but I prefer a little edge, such as the text I got before surgery from Officer Friendly: "I get first dibs on all your police gear."

Now that's motivation, baby!  Damn sure gonna survive…if for no other reason than to keep his grubby fingers off my stuff.

And still they're pumping and pumping those damned fluids into me….

So John babbles babbles babbles.  He took me into the room, which was, just like during the heart attack, fucking polar cold, and he told me that when the doctor arrives, I needed to announce my name and birthdate in a loud voice.  It's a security check to make sure they've got the correct patient.

We wait and wait and wait.  Finally the doc came in and I said, "Dude, you were supposed to be here an hour ago."

The doctor's support staff gasped.  The doctor, without missing a beat, said, "Damn cops.  Pulled me over.  One mile over the limit!  They're never eating donuts when you want them to."

Had I not been restrained and drugged, I would have laughed my ass off.  Obviously, this is the right doctor for me.

So Goatee John nudges me and I announce my name: "Johnny Rocket, here for an amputation, sir!"

"Shaddup," the Doc says, and immediately gets to carving.

Pump pump pump, more and more fluids, endless fluids, an ocean's worth of fluids…starting to be a problem….

"Trey," John said, "Look over here."

I half expected a magic show, maybe some wall puppets of a beating heart or something.  Instead, it was a giant screen TV.  But instead of, I don't know, a Dirty Harry flick, it's of what the doc is doing to me.

I thought: wow, that could be a torture device.  "If you don't anzer de qvestions, ve vill do zis to you!"

But I've got a better idea for torture.

"Uh…John?"

"Yeah, buddy?"

"So this fluid thing you guys are doing?  And the fact that it's about ten fucking degrees in here?  Pretty quick, it's going to be a problem."

"What's that?"

"Getting a little floaty, John."

"I – uh – sorry, I don't get you."

"In a very few minutes, I'm going to start raining a nice, warm, spring rain on everyone."

He started at me a second, and then I saw a glimmer of understanding.  "Oh, no problem.  Hang on."  He turned to the entire team.  "Doc, he's got to piss, that all right?"

Here's the thing.  I'd said it to him quietly to preserve some last shred of dignity, since everyone had already seen my junk and shaved around it and used a truly small piece of cloth to cover it (told you, it was reeeeeeaally cold in there).  So I didn't really need him announcing to the team I needed to pee.

"Pee all you want," the doctor fairly shouted, interrupting the completely unrecognizable song he'd been singing.

So John, confidante that he'd become, grabbed my manjack and moved it all around to get me set up in a urinal.  (Gotta tell ya: that's an excruciatingly odd sensation, a guy helping you piss.)

And then?

Absolutely nothing.

A bit of performance anxiety.  Couldn't squeeze a drop.

Lots of people watching, plus it's just weird to be told to piss when you're on your back and you have no idea where the hose is pointed.  Goes against every bit of toilet training and social reinforcement I've had for my entire life.

Nothing happens and nothing happens and now it's starting to hurt and still I can't get any action.

Still fluids are pumping, like a freakin' pressure pump, blasting into me….

And so finally, after I've begun shaking from the need so badly that the doctor has actually put pressure on my bladder, I let go.

It explodes and I feel oh so much better.

And…somehow…warmer.

"John, dude," I said.

"Oooops, sorry.  Didn't get you lined up right."

Are you kidding me with this?  This is exactly – exactly – what happened during the heart attack in February, 2001.  Pissed all over myself then, too.  Lots of fluids, an extremely cold room, that time a stainless steel table, and a tech who will probably never have kids because he has a problem getting the hose in the hole.

Either the team was really good with poker faces, or they didn't care, or didn't notice.  Exactly none of which helped my sense of humiliation.  John moved me around some, and the next time it was all in the cup.

What's the Meat Loaf line?  One out of two ain't bad?

That was about it for excitement.  The team murmured to themselves frequently, pulled some seriously long bits of equipment out of a nearby cabinet, did their thing, and then just stopped.

"That's it, boy," the doc said.  "We're done."

I raised my head, looked down the length of my body, and yelled, "Where the hell are my tits?  I came in for breast augmentation."

"Best of luck with that, then," Doc said as he left the room.

They took me to recovery, I fell asleep and, in fact, am sleeping still.

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CopStories: Honestly…it ain't my dope.

We get goofy calls all the time.  It's the nature of the beast…and quite frequently, the beast is insane.

When I'd been at the Sheriff's Office like twenty minutes or something, I answered the phone and got this:

"I need to report a robbery."

"OmigoshhangonletmegetapenI'llgetallyourinformation."

It was very exciting.  Not quite the first time I picked up the phone but close, and here was a guy reporting a robbery.

"When did it happen?"

He thought for a bit and said, "Well, I've been back six months.  Lived in Chicago for the better part of probably 18 years."

I stopped writing.

Then, full of thoughtful analysis, he said, "I'm gonna say just about 19 years ago.  About twenty."

Okay, well, first of all, turns out he wanted to report a residential burglary, not a robbery.  And second of all…well…it was twenty years ago.

That call didn't last much longer.  To this day, though, I'm convinced it was a real call and not one of my new co-workers screwing with me…though that has happened on the odd occasion.

The point here is we get strange phone calls.

About a week ago, we get this:

"Yeah, I've got some dope."

"Uh…okay," the dispatcher said.  "And?"

"Well, you should come get it."

A few minutes after this call, dispatch calls me.  "Uh…30?"

"Go ahead."

"Can you respond to [blah blah blah address]?"

"Ten-four.  What's the problem?"

"Uh…not really sure.  But apparently he's got some dope."

He chuckled and off I went.  I've gotten those calls before.  Usually, it's someone who has partaken, along with a 'friend,' of said dope stash.  Then the 'friend' uses more than they've paid for and the owner of said stash calls in a huff and wants to file a complaint for theft.

And yes, there is a direct correlation between the amount of drugs you consume and whether or not you're inclined to call the cops because someone stole your drugs.

So I get there and am quite surprised to see a local, fairly well-known mope.  Last time I saw him was last summer when I arrested him for battery.  The last time before that was when I arrested him for disorderly conduct.  Before that…battery and disorderly conduct.  Getting the picture?

"James," I said.  "How's it shaking?"

"I've got some dope."

"Well, everybody needs something."

Shaking his head, as though somehow I were the problem, he took me to a strip of land between his and his neighbor's detached garages.  There was a little jungle in there, the kind of strip that always gets forgotten.  Weeds and old bags of garbage and rusty beer cans.  Sometimes an old license plate or a shirt tossed aside while painting the garage or something.

And sure as shit: dope.

Growing wild.  Illinois ditchweed.  With just a smidgen more than 0.0% THC.  Smoke up, baby!

This crap is everywhere and I say smoke as much as you freakin' want.  You'll spend three days puking your guts up.  But harvesting the herb will beautify drainage ditches all over the state so you'll have done a good thing.

In James' case, he had quite the nature preserve: eighteen or twenty plants.  The tallest was about 18″ high, while the smallest were less than 6″ tall, but the sheer amount surprised me.

"This ain't mine."

"You sure?"

He looked askance at me.  "Really?  You think I'm that stupid?  I'd plant a bunch of weed and then call you about it?"

I opened my mouth but chose instead not to speak.

"I got a kid now, Trey.  I can't afford to have this shit around."  His chest puffed a little.  "I'm grown up."

This from a man in his late '30s.

"A kid, huh?"

"Well, not mine biologically, but my girlfriend's.  I call him mine."

"Good for you, James, good for you."

I was serious about that part.  James has always been a pain in the ass, but not particularly malicious.  His thing has always been getting drunk (with a quick spliff or two, but not much) and then picking a fight with someone.  And ten times out of ten, he chose the wrong person with whom to fight.  Ten times out of ten, he got his ass beat.  What I arrested was usually the left over, bloody mess.

So I started pulling the weed.  Who knew where it had come from.  Maybe the previous owner had planted it, though there were some plants growing out from between the concrete foundation of the garage and the driveway.  Maybe a bird ate up some seeds somewhere and crapped them out under the tree.  I took a Wal-Mart bag from James, dumped the plants in, and tossed the bag in my squad trunk.

"You know," I said.  "I'm surprised you didn't pull it, dry it, roll it, and smoke it."

He nodded.  "I'm grown up."

"Right.  I forgot."

"Kiss my ass, Trey."

Then he paused, winked at me, and said, "Dude, you want a beer?"

And suddenly all was right with the world.  That was my good old James, always good for a few beers and then a few arrests.

 

 

 

 

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Adventures in Hospital Land, Pt. 1

 

So I had a stress test a few days ago.

I figure what the hell, it's been ten years since the heart attack and it's probably time to get in there and do some mopping, maybe a bit of window washing, some bush trimming…whatever.

Honestly, it's something that's bugged me (read: worried me) for a while and lately, when I exercise, there's been a bit more chest pressure than normal.  The pressure's always been there, like an annoying uncle who usually just quietly drinks his Thunderbird at family get-togethers.

Lately, though, crazy unc has been drinking more.  It hasn't progressed to the 'Wow, Uncle Slobodon's grabbing that woman's ass again.  He shouldn't have his tongue in her ear, should he?  Does he even know her name?" stage, but I can see it coming.

The pressure, when I'm exercising, has been there since the heart attack.  Never pain, never anything scary, just a constant, gentle reminder than it's probably not going to be a bad guy who kills me, or my wife, but rather the inexorable build of heart disease.

So I'm sitting with my Doc last week and I mention it, just to be on the safe side, and next thing I know, that son of a bitch has me hooked up to wheels and pulleys and bells and shit that you know – KNOW – is going to cost me the better part of half my annual salary.

I got a call from the hospital scheduler.  In a surprisingly nasal, and pissy tone of voice, she says, "We schedule them on Wednesdays."

"That's going to be tough," I said.  "I work the night before and that night and it's going to be tough."

"Oh, well…in that case, let me explain something: we schedule them on Wednesdays."

Ah, got it.  As flexible as the highway between Midland and Odessa.  Like Henry Ford famously said, any color you want as long as it's black.

"You'll need to be here at 7 a.m."

"Yeah, but I don't get off work until – "

"You'll need to be here at 7 a.m."

There was a looooonng silence and in it, I heard – clearly – the threat of Nurse Ratched.

So of course I deferred to her.  Because I always do exactly what the authority types tell me.

But then she hit me up for money.  She demanded that I bring the entire co-pay…up front.

"Well, I'll pay as much of it as I can."

"You'll need to have the entire co-pay."

Now I'm getting pissed.  What she's saying, without speaking, is that if I don't have the entire co-pay, I'll not be allowed to take the stress test.  In other words, the test is extremely important…unless I don't have the money.

I mention that and it moves her not at all.  She couldn't possibly give a crap.  She wanted her money and that was that, like a really militant street whore.  'I get mine or you don't get yours.'

I have no problem paying the entire co-pay, and eventually I will, but this is an expensive damned test.  My part of the bill was something like $358,265.97 and she wanted it all right then.  Part of me, the really sassy part, wanted to march straight up to her the morning of and, with great flourish and flamboyance, write her a check for a million dollars.  A check that would, by the way, be just as worthless as one for $358,265.97.

The test itself wasn't too bad.  I got there early, got my IV full of thalium or thumpium or something…coulda been thermin or all I know…hehehe, a little musical joke.  Then sat around for a half-hour while it coursed through my veins, no doubt radiating me like the water around Fukashima.  Then the tech took 15 minutes worth of pictures to see what my baseline circulation was.

A nurse shaved me – which wasn't anywhere near as fun as I'd hoped! – and attached all kinds of freakin' cyborg bullshit to me, then they put me on the treadmill and let fly.

And we flew at exactly 1.7 miles an hour.

Dude, come on.  My great-grandmother could walk faster than that and she's been dead for a quarter-century.

Doc said he wanted my heart rate up to about 150.

"Doc?  This 1.7 crap ain't gonna get it."

"Yes, yes, it will," he said.

"I don't think so, babe, I do 4 miles an hour on a 5% grade at home."

"Don't you worry, I've done this a few times before."

I shut up and just kept walking.  And walking.  And walking.  Slowly, the thing sped up, which I'd expected, and moved to a steeper grade, which I'd also expected.  After seven or eight hours – or maybe just 12 minutes – the thing stopped.

But it stopped at 4.2 miles an hour and on a nearly 20% grade.

Holy balls, my legs are still screaming.

When I was done, they gave me a towel for all my Manly Sweat, and then put me in some sort of SUV-sized chair and rolled me back to waiting so I could get a second set of pictures.

Let me tell you, there's nothing quite like being rolled around a hospital by two older woman in a giant SUV-chair.

I kind of dug it.  'Cause I'm a bad man.

Two days later Doc calls and says there are some abnormalities in the results but he's not sure if that's from the damage ten years ago or some new blockage.

So he casually mentions an angiogram.

He said it nicely, but it had the same undercurrent as, "We schedule them on Wednesdays."

That, then, is the story of how I found myself talking to all manner of hospital registration people in preparation for Monday.

And what did she say to me?  This scheduler woman at a hospital an hour south of here?

"You'll need to be here at 6 a.m."

"Yeah, but…I can't – "

"You'll need to be here at 6 a.m."

Any color you want, baby, as long as it's black.

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