chapter 2
fiction
HUFFINGTON
09.23.12
far side of the bed and started feeling the groin for a
pulse. It was faint, driven solely by the nurse’s compressions, but clear enough. I grabbed a finder syringe from
the tray a nurse held out to me and plunged it in. Nothing. Pull back, change angle, feel for the pulse again and
drive. The needle ground against bone. On this pass I
saw the flash in the syringe, pulled back to confirm, then
flung the syringe aside and
put a thumb over the hub of
the needle while reaching
for the wire. The nurse had
JOHN MONGAY’S
it out already, handle turned
BODY ROSE FROM
toward me. It threaded the
THE MATTRESS,
vein without resistance.
HUNG FOR A
I had the catheter in place
MOMENT, COLLAPSED. a minute
or two later, met at
each step in the process by the
right item held out at the right
time. No one spoke a word.
On the other side of the bed, Sasha stood with her
arms folded across her chest, nodding at two nurses in
turn as they pushed meds, placed pads on the chest and
warmed up the defibrillator. Her eyes were on the monitor overhead, where green light drew lazy lines across
the screen. At some point in the proceedings anesthesia
had shown up and put an endotracheal tube down Mongay’s throat; respiratory therapy was wheeling a ventilator to the head of the bed, looping tubing through the
bars of the halo and cursing at it.
“Hold compressions,” Sasha said. The nurse stopped
pushing on the chest. I saw for the first time that the halo
was supported by a broad sheet of plastic backed with
sheepskin that covered the upper half of the chest: the
nurse had to get her hands underneath it to press; with
each compression Mongay’s head bobbed up and down, up