X-ray Chapter 4, part 4

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Ian's eyes adjusted to the half light, and he saw an oxygen tank standing in its wheeled cart in the hallway. The regulator was set at two Lpm, but the tank was empty. Lengths of oxygen tubing, strung end-to-end, formed a trail into the distance. Ian followed the trail. Frank followed Ian.

After a few feet, the hallway opened into a small living room on the left, but the tubing continued to follow the right wall to a bathroom before snaking back, crossing the carpeted floor in a series of lazy S-curves, and finally arriving at a small, hunched-over old woman in a shabby easy chair. An orange cat sat on top of a television set on the other side of the room, eyeing the two men as they approached. "I'm having trouble breathing," said the old woman, "I can't breathe. Mortimer -- Mortimer! Don't claw at the furniture. You know better than that!"

"What's going on today?" Ian asked. In the background he saw Frank open their O2 duffel and hook up their tank to the woman's oxygen tubing. Mortimer licked his nose.

"He knows better," the old woman said. "He does. Shame on you, Mortimer!"

"Yes ma'am. My name is Ian, what seems to be the problem, Mrs. -- ?"

"Oh, that cat. I'm having trouble breathing."

Ian nodded, and waited for her to continue. If she could speak in full sentences, there was a limit as to how bad things could be.

"I'm having trouble breathing," said the woman again. "I can't get enough air -- oh," she threw plastic cup at the marmalade cat, missing it, but causing it to dart from the room.

He picked up the cup and returned it to the woman. "May I check your pulse?" He asked, and when she offered her wrist "how long has your breathing been bothering you?"

The patient's story, once it was prized from a wealth of irrelevant information and a steady stream of abuse of Mortimer (who appeared to Ian to be a perfectly docile cat and who, he realized, was that she hadn’t realized that her oxygen tank had run out, and had no spare to replace it with, anyway. She was also very weak, and Ian wondered if she needed a cane, and perhaps a part-time caretaker. She couldn’t remember when her last meal was, but thought it was "sometime yesterday." They moved her to the stair chair and wrapped her up, and as they left the apartment they were careful that Mortimer, who was now nowhere to be seen, did not escape.

“What hospital?” Ian asked Frank is the all row down the elevator.

Frank looked at his watch before replying. “Rockland.”

At the hospital they gave a quick oral report and transferred their patient over to a hospital cot. Ian handed the O2 cylinder to Frank, completed his written report, and collected clean linen for the stretcher. He turned back just in time to see Frank open O2 duffel to replace the cylinder; the yowling orange streak steak that emerged from the bag was Mortimer who, having taken the opportunity to enter the bag when it was opened in the apartment, now took the opportunity to escape as the bag was opened again.

"What the hell," cried one of the nurses, "how the hell did a cat get in here?"

Ian glanced at Frank; Frank's face was studiously blank as he started to roll the stretcher back out to the bay in a strikingly urgent fashion.

Out in the bay, Ian and Frank tossed the unmade stretcher into the back of the ambulance, slammed the doors closed, and ran around to the cab. Frank started the motor -- clearly not waiting on the wait-to-start light, Ian noticed -- and pulled out of the bay, cutting off a taxicab to do so.

Twenty seconds later, once they were safely around the corner, both men burst out laughing.


[END OF CHAPTER]

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