Mister Lincoln, Veteran of the Korean War
1982, Cambridge Massachusetts
I can read it to you too… here
In the near quiet of the driver’s seat, I reflected on the calls during the recent days riding with Aaron. Denny sent him, sent us, to 911 calls related to veterans, regardless of where we posted in the city. It also meant that we got dispatched to calls involving street people. His hands and his recall of his time in Vietnam helped those who could barely be helped. Denny sent me to calls involving young people being victimized, abused, or just in the wrong place.
In four days, we earned a reputation as the hot ambulance. We sprinted from North Cambridge down to Kendal Square for a 111B. “26, Respond to Mr. Lincoln and his cane.” Mr. Lincoln was known to all crews. We told stories of how Mr. Lincoln swung his cane at people who were better off than him; or people who ignored him; or people who had paid attention to him. He stood in front of the big post office building threatening pedestrians and cars with his cane.
Mr. Lincoln, a Korean War vet, acknowledged Aaron as an army medic by using the honorific “doc.”
Mr. Lincoln shared his remorse and shame with Aaron, “Doc, I am so sorry. I did it again, didn’t I? What are they going to do with me?” Aaron flashed me hand signs. “Stay,” “Ok,” then after getting Mr. Lincoln to sit on the granite curb, Aaron flashed me the hand sign for five with all four fingers and the thumb spread wide. I knew the plan. I fetched Aaron’s bag from between the seats. The five-sign stood for either “five” or “fifth,” we were never particularly clear on that. Aaron’s use of code “five” stepped beyond the boundaries of established, legal, protocols. It worked for Aaron. Even better, it worked for his patients.
I placed the bag between Aaron’s feet. Aaron lifted a Zippo lighter and a pack of cigarettes. He shook one free, offering it to Mr. Lincoln. He then flipped the lighter open, igniting the cigarette behind the cupped hand of a combat veteran. An army’s medical symbol, the caduceus, had been engraved into the stainless-steel Zippo plus the date: “1970.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
Aaron reached into his bag, where he had a plain Hershey’s chocolate bar. Aaron slowly unwrapped it, like a kid with a special treat. He moved deliberately while Mr. Lincoln puffed. He broke a piece off, eating it himself. He offered me a square, then carefully he offered Mr. Lincoln half of the bar. I sat on the curb next to Aaron. I’ll admit the smell of folks who lived on the street proved challenging for me. My nose curled away from Mr. Lincoln.
We were three friends, three veterans sitting on a curb sharing chocolate and a smoke. Except neither Aaron nor I ever smoked. Nor was I a veteran. Mr. Lincoln enjoyed the smoke, stubbing the butt into the same street where he once swung his cane at people walking by.
“My friend, you might want to find another corner today. I don’t think the PD needs to find you here today.” Aaron stood, offering the old man a firm grip to help lift him to his feet. Once up, Aaron handed over the last two gifts. I’d seen him do this before. Aaron placed a fifth of gin wrapped in a five-dollar bill into Mr. Lincoln’s hand. Aaron forged Mr. Lincoln’s signature on the ambulance run form. He forged the signature, once again, on the “Against Medical Advice” release form.
The first time I helped Aaron with a “Code Five,” he said: “A drunk will die sober faster than he will die drunk.” Geez, man, if anyone went through Aaron’s bag during a shift, he’d get sacked in a second. You can’t carry booze on an ambulance. And nobody would ever recommend giving a patient a cigarette, at least not since World War II.
To Aaron, his “Code Five” protocol had everything he needed. Nicotine to calm, chocolate to bring up blood sugar, and booze to lift a soul one fifth of a gallon. I should add that I had previously looked in Aaron’s doctor’s bag. He carried a purple heart and his dog tags in there. He also had an old army shirt with rank, name tape, sweat stains, and a frayed neck collar. Aaron was always ready to treat and comfort one of his brothers. He spoke the right words and offered the right touch to bring peace with him, even if that peace meant passing a soul from his hands to Death’s hands. Peace is peace. We all find peace where peace is offered.
When called to a 111B, a rowdy street drunk, Aaron gifted a fellow vet with one minute of calm; one minute of kindness; one minute of brotherly understanding; one minute of warmth—both men knowing the demons would return for that is what demons do. Demons return. Unlike Death, demons prove themselves restless and furtive.
I did not yet know demons. I witnessed hints when they visited Aaron often enough. I suspected that the Captain, my own father, had a few demons of his own. I had seen my father, a Boston police officer, being haunted. I ought to amend my statement to say: I had not yet met my demons. Frankly, I never thought they’d come for me. At twenty, strong, healthy, educated, loved, and working a summer job while living with my family, I believed that I was not the person demons came for.
Aaron double parked at a CVS, hopping from the rig. Returning, he handed me a small jar of Vick’s VapoRub. After handing me the white paper shopping bag, he said, “Learn to apply it just below your nose on the upper lip. Do it quickly and quietly.”
Aaron said, without saying, “Never shy away from a patient again.”
I heard that lesson. Instead of telling me to man-up and toughen-up, he offered me a trick he learned a decade ago. Aaron walked into the suck with a ramrod straight back and eyes opened for the hundreds of things that may kill him or kill me. Never wince, never look away. He did say, “Alex, it isn’t your pain. It isn’t your stink.”
August 1982
For the last call of the day, Aaron and I pushed Unit 26 through the city from Haskell Street near Porter Square to the big post office building. “26. 111B with a cane. Post Office.”
“26. Responding for Mr. Lincoln.”
Aaron dropped me at the light when I saw Mr. Lincoln. Aaron said that he would loop the block to find a safer place for the rig. I grabbed Aaron’s Code 5 kit. I removed only the cigarettes and chocolate bar. I cannot get away with all of Aaron’s tricks. I swiped Vick below my nostrils then exited the rig.
I walked Mr. Lincoln back to the demi-wall near the granite steps of the large post office building.
“Here, sit.” I tapped the stone next to me. “What’s going on today? Are you ok?”
Mr. Lincoln kept talking. He talked about the incurable rudeness of the people who walked by and those who stepped over him while he slept. I put a cigarette down on the granite. I also placed a plastic Bic lighter. He picked both up.
I put my hand on his back. I could feel emphysema or pneumonia crackling inside of his barrel-shaped chest. I watched his carotid artery pulse at his thin lizard-like neck. At a rate of one hundred, it ticked faster than it should. He demonstrated irritation. I don’t know how his heart keeps beating week after week, month after month living on these streets.
After a few puffs, the rate of speech slowed. Speaking was a great vital sign, Aaron had said. It told me nearly everything. When speaking in complete flowing sentences, even when ranting insensibly, you know the A-B-Cs. Airway works. Breathing is happening. Circulation moves blood throughout the body. Short choppy sentences can foretell problems. One- or two-word sentences offered in a staccato rhythm between labored breaths indicates very real problems. And there was no reason to grab a wrist to take a pulse when you can see a carotid pulse bounding like Mr. Lincoln’s. Without a BP cuff, I know that his blood pressure is at least 90-over-something. Given his medical history, his BP could be disastrously high, even lethal. There is nothing we can do about that. He won’t remain in shelters for long. He never follows through on the required regimes of medications to keep himself healthier.
Aaron parked then joined us. He tore off a bite of Mr. Lincoln’s chocolate.
“Tough day today?”
I walked to the ambulance. I grabbed the metal clipboard while the two vets talked; while Mr. Lincoln talked; while Aaron listened. I returned to the demi-wall, sat, then started completing our run form. There is not much to write for a fellow who lives on the street. I then prepared the AMA—the Against Medical Advice form. We use the AMA to demonstrate that that patient refused treatment and transportation. We do call it “against medical advice,” knowing full well that we often recommend that people do not get transported and we suggest that they fill in the AMA.
“Mr. Lincoln?” I interrupt. “Would you like to go to Cambridge City Hospital or the VA today? We can take you?”
The abbreviated version of his answer was “no.” The complete answer involved him cussing at the treatment from the staff at both the VA and Cambridge City. I filled in his AMA / no-transport form. I put a blue ballpoint pen and the clipboard in his hands. With barely a look, he scribbled loops through the middle of both pages. Which I hoped Denny would accept as a signature. If not, I could re-write the forms then forge a better signature before end of shift. From my thigh pocket, I pulled out my frozen bottle of seltzer. The water had been thawing at the margins, yielding cool sips.
We sat longer than Denny would have liked and shorter than Mr. Lincoln wanted. Aaron patted the man on the leg offering him a ride as a kindness. “We can take you to a shelter or another neighborhood if you’d like.”
Aaron and I crossed through Harvard Square before Uncle Denny, our dispatcher, squawked at us again.
July 1984
In 1984, I often partnered with a tender soul named David. He and I responded to a man-down call near the big post office. David spoke his own name with an extra-ordinary soft “D” and an open soft “A,” an accent not common to our streets. That he worked for a few months surprised me. That he drifted away did not.
A call came in for us. “Unit 23, respond near post office at Mass and Inman. Man down.” I double keyed the mic in acknowledging the call from Denny. We wheeled east with the lights on. David chirped the siren at a few intersections.
One lady stepped into the road to wave. We parked between the two crosswalks and the two lights that pointed up Inman Street. People walked by. I did a quick scan to find my old friend Mr. Lincoln laying on the sidewalk next to a half-height wall made from granite. He had found a niche between the stairs and shrubs. Approaching, I swiped Vicks under each of my nostrils, then leaned in. “Mr. Lincoln?” I tapped his shoulder. His response was slow and incomplete. People walked by. Some looked at what we were doing, some did not. I tried to roll him over to his back. He held himself in the curled position of a sleeping dog. I put on a pair of gloves while walking back to the rig.
“He’s alive but not well. He is barely conscious.”
“Drunk?”
“I don’t know. Not sure I care. He’s not well. Bring the stretcher. I’ll see what I can find.”
Mr. Lincoln resisted me. I tried to remind him of our past friendship. He yelled at me like he had yelled at many others while swinging that cane. I pulled and tugged him from the corner. I forced him to roll over. He remained balled up. Instead of fighting with him, I examined what I could. I pulled up three layers of shirts. The skin near his low back and along his spine looked faintly yellow. I pulled the shirt up, exposing his ribs. I observed profoundly deep and large bruising. The coloring informed me that he had been hurt the night before or the day before. My heart broke for the old vet.
One asshole in an expensive grey suit with a perfectly executed Windsor knot barked at us while we worked with Mr. Lincoln. He said, “An ambulance. Is that how the city removes trash these days?” I can confirm that the man’s tie matched Harvard’s crimson.
David pushed the stretcher in front of me, preventing me from chasing that bit of human scum. I listened to the unspoken words. Right. Aaron’s voice came into my head. “Focus on the patient.”
We lifted Mr. Lincoln to the cot. David withdrew himself and his nose, displaying the same rudeness that Aaron trained out of me. I’ll have to introduce him to Vicks VapoRub, I thought. We loaded the patient then David returned to the front the second he got the cot locked. I was able to roll up Mr. Lincoln’s shirt and see that he had been severely beaten, likely kicked, or stomped. David did not use the lights nor the siren en route to Cambridge City. We wheeled Mr. Lincoln into an ER that knew him well. They knew him by sight. They knew him by smell. The first nurse told us to leave him in the hallway. I briefed her once. Then I briefed her again. Her response each time was, “We’ll get to him.”
He lay there all day. In and out of the E.R., we found Mr. Lincoln curled under the same blankets we had covered him with. I went to one of the doctors to describe the bruising and beating that the patient endured. “I’ll give him an exam.”
Late in day, the evening shift informed me that he was just sleeping it off and that when he waked, they’d street him. I again described the bruising and the injuries. I again heard, “We’ll get to him soon.”
On the way out, I walked up to the hospital bed that had been parked in the hallway for six hours. He smelled of old shit and new urine. He smelled of old urine as well. His odor resembled the smell of an underground T stop on a warm July day. Absolutely nobody had cared for this man during the hours. I touched him and felt nothing—no tension whatsoever. I pulled my stethoscope from my pocket and listened. First to his back as I could get to that easily. I then rolled him over. He rolled easily. His chest sounded as empty and hollow from the front as it did from the back. I looked up at the clock over the nurse’s station: 15:23.
I returned to the young doctor. “Mr. Lincoln is dead. I think he died a few hours ago. I feel a rigor in his fingers and his cheeks.” Mr. Lincoln’s cheek held the flat impression of his hand and the wrinkles of the hospital bed.
Mr. Lincoln, a veteran of the Korean War, spanned the arch of my rookie year at Atlantic Ambulance Service. With his passing, I felt my soul shift. The next time we rolled in, the bit of wall where I had parked Mr. Lincoln for his last lonely moments was clear and open. Someone had wheeled Mr. Lincoln to the morgue. Unless he possessed VA paperwork, dog tags, or something that proved that he was an American soldier, he would be cremated as an indigent and a pauper.
Is it better to be ignored by the gods or hated by them. The ancient myths failed to answer that question for me.
The End
Hey team, I. M. Aiken here: I used excerpts of my novel “The Little Ambulance War of Winchester County” to craft a short story. If you enjoyed this story or any of my stories, please either buy books or recommend them to friends and peers.
I am recovering nicely from my injuries. I got the internal fixators removed from under the skin on my forearms just over 2 weeks ago. I am touch typing again with 10 functional fingers. And yesterday, I swam laps. While a third of my current norm, I did it.
At present, I am recording novel #3 called “Captain Henry: 2½ insurrections, 2 wars, 1¼ centuries + a story of love”. This novel that I wrote several years ago accidentally highlights the 1870s and the Iraq War of 2006. The 1870s when the US passed expanded civil rights laws, the 14th Amendment, and Posse Comitatus Act. More on that later. I landed on the story because Captain Henry is my own ancestor and his life, when I learned of it, screamed to be told.