Chapter One: And Here His Troubles Began

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The smell of latex paint filled the air, but Ian didn't notice. He had graduated from the city's paramedic academy nine months ago, but he had not received a unit assignment, so he worked as a painter for Sara's uncle. Unit assignments had reached some of his classmates even before the gray, wet, unseasonably cold July day of graduation. Others received assignments after graduation. Still others received no assignment. This last group included Ian.

Painting for Sara's uncle lacked glory, but it pulled in something of wage -- nothing to approach what Sara made, of course, but something. The job also got him out of bed, out of the house. Everyone understood at the job was temporary, just until he got his unit assignment; everyone wondered if temporary had become permanent. Ian tried not to think about it. He thought about it often.

The sudden collapse of his paint roller cover's cardboard core brought him back to present. "Damn," he said, flinging the dripping, ruined mess into an empty paint can. Cleaning the roller had been his goal, not crushing it. He rinsed his hands clean and dried them on his jeans. "I'll buy new one on the way back to the office," he said. "No," he said, after moments thought, "that'll just his him off," him being Ritchie, his partner all this week. “I’ll buy one on the way home, along with the orange juice.”

Ritchie finished laying his brushes and roller cover out to try and switched off the radio. Ian collected the five or six empty paint cans that lay scattered about the rooms they had painted and headed for their van. Ritchie followed, carrying nothing. The two men rode the service elevator to the street in silence. Ian braced himself for what Ritchie’s “you hear from the fire department, yet?” Ritchie enjoyed bringing up Ian’s failure. Ian suspected that Ritchie felt threatened by him; Ian had a college degree – from Brown University, no less – and was not dumb; Ritchie hadn’t finished high school and, I and had to admit, Ritchie was dumb. He was also irritating.

"Hear from the FD yet?" Ritchie asked as the elevator doors slid open and they walked out to their van.

"No," Ian said. He detoured to a dumpster and dropped off their paint cans and trash.
Ritchie, waiting in the van for him to return, wasted no time in getting annoyed. "Man, you coming or not?" he called. "You have to be the slowest person I ever worked with," he said as Ian finally started the van. "If I drove, I’d leave your sorry ass behind."

Ian checked his side mirror and pulled out into the street before replying. "Good thing, you can't drive then, isn't it?" he asked.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

“I think my meaning is abundantly clear.”

"Fuck you --"

"That’s original."

"-- you think you're all special and shit, going to an Ivy League college, going to paramedic school? I don't see you in an ambulance. Go in and save the world? Bullshit -- you can't even paint a fucking wall, for Christ's sake." Ritchie continued in this vein, but the observations were not new and Ian quickly turned out. What was he supposed to buy on the way home? A roller cover and - ? He told Sara he would pick it up, so she wouldn’t have to. Milk? Coffee? Picking up groceries was a simple task, and for the second day in a row, he was failing at it.

From here, his thoughts moved on to his lack of a crew assignment., the final step that actually put a paramedic in the field.

Not only did Ian remain unassigned, but as rich was no doubt reminding him, the next ‘medic class would graduate from the academy any day now, seeing the end of the list from Ian's class in favor of that of the new class. With connections, he might be moved from the old list to the new, but the city rarely bothered to choose such a course; the applicants outnumbered the available positions, and it had no need to.

In an effort to change the current of his thoughts, he deliberately considered his state assigned ‘medic number: 24601. The state assigned numbers serially (probably by a computer), alphabetically by last name as each group passed its exams, but he and Sara joked about it when the notice arrived from the Department of Health, informing him that he had passed his paramedic exam and been assigned Jean ValJean’s number. “They must have recognized your superhuman strengths,” Sara said.

A subtle check in the flow of Ritchie's speech brought him back to the present. Ritchie had abandoned his evaluation of Ian to complain about his wife. The change occurred several minutes back, Ian observed; Ritchie's development of this new theme was quite advanced: "another thing -- another thing that bitch does his fucking burn dinner every night..."

Ian soon tuned Ritchie out again, and sooner than he might have hoped, he was parking the van, handing in the keys, and punching out. He left the building without saying goodbye to Ritchie or anyone else.

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