Bringing Out the Crazy

I've said it before.

In fact, I say it a lot. It's my coined phrase... my signature... and I imagine I'll probably get many years out of my little adage... that adage being:

"Death brings out the crazy in people."

Don't get me wrong, death brings out pretty much every emotion in the human experience- then amplifies those emotions to a deafening degree. I see death bring out the sneering resentfulness and stubborn self-absorption in people. Death can also bring out the shining heroism and glowing compassion in people as well. If you belong to an Evangelical church, death will often bring out the noodle-casseroles and jello-based desserts in people, right before it brings out the awkward hugs and uncomfortable silences.

But first and foremost, death will always bring out the crazy in people. Hand to God, when someone dies, their loved ones will do the weirdest shit.

 

For example:

One time, when I was on the scene of a death, the dead guy's mother was out of the country and had to be informed of the grisly situation over the phone by her other children. When she recovered from the initial shock, she asked the decedent's older brother to take a picture of the dead body for her, a request that sounded... kind of reasonable... I guess. Until you really think about it. I mean, sure, I take pictures of dead people because that's my job. Funeral homes will take pictures of dead people in order to record and sometimes show case their abilities in making a stiff look “lifelike”. But no one was quite sure what purpose would be served by snapping a picture of this guy's dead body for his mom. Even the son who had received the request looked more than just a little uncomfortable with what he was being asked to do. See, his mom wasn't just asking for a photo, per se. She wanted her older son to take a picture of the dead body with his phone right then and there ...and then send that pic to HER phone.

The poor guy approached me and the investigating police officers with the request, looking as though he wanted nothing more than to lie down next to his brother and die. Because, really, what was he supposed to do? His frantic mother wanted what she wanted and no one was really in any position to deny her anything at that point. She was heartbroken, hysterical and probably in a state of disbelief. Doubtless she wanted nothing more than to be back home with her family.

But, come on!

I couldn't think of many more demands that a woman could make of her children that were as grotesquely cruel as what she was asking this guy to do. Seriously, camera phones are for to taking pictures of your friends while you're all having dinner together, or while you're ice-skating in Central Park... or when your kid is taking his first steps at the neighborhood playground. You don't whip out your phone and snap a pic of your dead brother after he hanged himself the garage. I don't care how much his mom bellows and wails. I don't care how much she says she wants it or how much she thinks it will help her. THAT PHOTO ISN'T GOING TO MAKE ANYONE FEEL BETTER; not the woman to whom it was supposed to be sent and certainly not the brother who was being coerced into taking it. How the hell was he supposed to take that picture? Were we supposed to drag the dead guy inside and position him in a bed? Should we cover him up to his neck? Should we just send her a typical scene photo like one of my pictures? What, exactly, did his mom want here and how would her son know when he had it. I can't imagine this tormented brother taking picture after picture and looking at each one with a critical eye and saying,

"No, that one's no good... he's blinking."

The stricken brother appealed to us with his eyes as we listened to the faint howls of his mother drifting out of the phone he held to his ear. I think he was hoping we would tell him that such a thing wasn't allowed. Then he wouldn't be faced with the problem of either actually taking the picture or telling his mother that he really, REALLY didn't want to.

The problem was, not one of us had ever been hit with that request before and subsequently, not one of us knew if it was actually illegal... or just in very poor taste.

Fortunately, we were all saved by the decedent's OTHER brother who was under no moral compunction spare anyone's feelings.

"That's the sickest damned thing I ever HEARD! We're not doing that! We are absolutely NOT doing that! What the hell is she thinking?"

I didn't say it, but I definitely THOUGHT my respone at the top of my lungs:

She's NOT thinking, she's bringing out the crazy.

I'm certainly in no position to judge.

My own father died less than a year ago... very suddenly. It was a world-tilting experience, like a sink-hole had opened up in my chest. I'm not too proud to admit that on various occasions, I found myself bringing out the crazy. In the week after his death, I spent an entire afternoon sifting through his closet, looking for his hair and fingernail clippings- anything to prove to myself that in the vacuous ache of his absence, he had actually been there. I stared blankly across the smoky wasteland of my brain at people who attempted to express their condolences. They all ended up just babbling endlessly and examining their fingernails in an effort to escape actually looking into the emaciated nakedness of my grief. I pawed through Dad's trash. I stole Dad's socks. I drove Dad's truck around the block a dozen times and ate all the candy bars he had hidden in the glove compartment.

My mom definitely took the crazy trophy though. In the weeks following his death she marched out more crazy than a Hunter S. Thompson novel. And never was it more evident than when she bought a cemetery plot.

My Dad had always maintained that he wanted something ridiculous done with his body in the event of his death. One time he said he wanted to be fed to a polar bear. Another time he said he wanted his ashes sprinkled over his favorite fishing camp... in Russia. But his favorite plan involved us getting his body taxidermied. Then he wanted us to sit his preserved corpse in a corner on major holidays with a tape-recorder hidden under the chair so he could continue to terrorize the entire family with tawdry songs and bad jokes for years to come.

That's why I was so astonished when my mother informed me that she had bought a cemetery plot. I'm not saying that I actually expected her to get Dad stuffed or anything (which it turns out IS illegal) but I expected... no, rather... I hoped for something a little bit more in tune with the kind of guy he was. Of all the things he ever suggested we do with his body- burial was never one of them. Dad didn't live in captivity, it didn't make sense that he should die in captivity

"Mom... " I remember saying to her, as she enthusiastically read off all of the great features that this cemetery plot advertised. "Dad didn't WANT to be buried..."

"I'm not getting your father STUFFED!" Mom snapped- like she thought it was actually a course of action that I was going to champion.

"Mom, I'm NOT saying that we should STUFF Dad." Did I really just say that? "I just know that Dad didn't really want to be buried... he wanted to, I don't know... do something FUN."

"Look," she said, her voice taking on a high-pitched metallic warble that always proceeded a real first-class middle-eastern-melt-down. "This was a great deal, I got the plot on Craigslist for a fraction of what it was really worth, and it's big enough that it can hold all of us!"

All of us? This was a new development. Now not only was Dad getting buried... but all of us were apparently getting buried with him. Like an Egyptian pharaoh or something. And my mom was talking about this grave like it was a vacation home at the beach that would accommodate everyone and where we would now be able to gather for summer vacations and Labor Day. Crazy.

Anyway, Dad's ashes are now in the ground- not surreptitiously scattered around the Playboy mansion or hiding away in a salt-shaker so we can sprinkle him on the ice-cream of dinner guests whom we don't like anymore. I haven't seen this bargain cemetery plot yet, but I can't say I'm in too big of a hurry to join my family members for another century or two of dysfunction. And I don't care how cozy this cemetery plot is, when I grow up... that is to say- when I get dead, I want to be a med-school cadaver. I figure it will be a good way to get more mileage out of my tattoos.

To be fair, my mother's particular strain of crazy really wasn't too exotic. I've had people say, do and ask for some of the wackiest shit you can imagine. One lady insisted that her boyfriend's death be investigated as a homicide. She was certain her lover's demise had been orchestrated by his psychotically jealous ex-wife... despite the fact that he had died of pneumonia in the hospital where he had been transported after contracting the illness while he was locked up in the county jail. Furthermore, his hospital room had been under 24-hour guard while he wasted away. But this woman did not care.

"Look," she had shrieked at me over the phone when I dared to point out the sheer impossibility of such a plot. "I don't know HOW she did it, but I KNOW it was her. I've seen CSI, these things DO happen."

Then she went on to ask how long his sperm would be viable after his death, and how to go about collecting some of this sperm so she could still bear his children.

And then there's the TransAm family.

A middle aged woman had died in a local hotel while she was in town visiting family with her mother. She had a pretty significant medical history and her death was altogether natural, albeit messy. She had been brewing up a pretty spectacular gastro-intestinal bleed just prior to her terminal event- an event which had clearly involved her brain-stem hitting the "purge" lever just prior to checking out. The end result was that the whole scene looked like a puke grenade had detonated in her room.

The dead woman's mother was remarkably unruffled, all these factors considered, and consented to have the body held by one of our local funeral homes until her husband (the dead woman's father) could come into town and weigh in on what should happen next. I talked to the decedent's doctor back home, who agreed to sign the death certificate. Every aspect of the investigation went just swimmingly and as far as I was concerned, the whole affair was over and done with a minimal amount of fuss.

I should have known it was too easy. I had even felt a nagging sensation of discomfort as I pulled away from the hotel. There was some dissonant chord playing in my ear, a sour little song saying that something about this situation was not resolved. But it wasn't until the following afternoon that this woman's death staggered out of the background and began scratching at the front door... specifically, the front door of the funeral home.

The on-call guy, Larry, at said funeral home had left 6 or 7 messages on my voicemail by the time I noticed I had missed any calls. Each of these messages was notably more frantic that the last, like the crescendo of screeching tires right before you hear the crash. The final message had reached a peak of desperation that made me cringe as I listened.

"Grace," Larry warbled into the phone, "I REALLY need to talk you about that body we picked up at that hotel yesterday... I mean... I REALLY need to talk to you."

The feeling was in no way mutual. In fact, after the 6^th message, pretty much the last thing in the world I wanted to do was talk to Larry. But I did... dialing the phone slowly since each digit felt like another step towards the electric chair at my own execution. I couldn't be certain what kind of crisis warranted 6 phone calls on a Saturday afternoon, but I was absolutely certain that I wanted no part of it.

Larry didn't even bother with a greeting when he picked up the phone. He had seen my phone number on his caller I.D. and simply began our conversation with:

"You're never gonna believe this one."

"Don't speak too soon, Larry. There isn't much I don't believe anymore."

"Well, this has never happened to ME before," he insisted. Then he went on to describe how the parents of the dead woman had shown up at the funeral home at 10 a.m. As it was a Saturday, there wasn't a living soul in the office. Most funeral homes provide an on-call service for new cases, but don't have store-front hours on weekends. At this particular funeral home, there was a sign in the front window stating as much. Undeterred, these two had meandered a few laps around the building, peeking in windows and rapping on doors until they were struck with the revelation that maybe they should ring the on-call phone number on the sign. When they did, they reached poor Larry and informed him that they were waiting in the parking lot to collect the body of their dearly departed daughter and drive her back home to be buried. Then they explained to Larry that they wanted him to position their daughter, sitting upright, in the impossibly small back-seat of a 2-door Trans-Am.

Horrified, Larry had tried to contact me in the hopes that I would be able to veto the whole plan on the basis of some state-law or another. When he couldn't reach me, he explained to the mourning parents that without my go-ahead, such a thing could not be done. He had hoped that this road-block would be enough to call the whole scheme into question, forcing the parents to consider some other options. But oh no. They had made their decision and they wanted to drive their daughter home THEMSELVES, in THEIR car and they would sit in the parking lot and wait until Larry was able to reach me on the phone.

"They've been out there for 2 HOURS, Grace... 2 WHOLE HOURS! I tried to tell them to go get something to eat and I'd call them when I got ahold of you. But they wouldn't go. I don't know what we're going to do. The body has been in that sealed bag since we got her- I can't imagine what kind of mess we're gonna find if we open it... AND she's been laying flat- she's completely rigored. I tried to tell them, but they won't listen!"

To say Larry had a point was putting it mildly. First of all, the body had been completely smeared with vomit when we had shoveled her into the bag 20+ hours ago. Not only that, but when someone dies, every biological function that keeps their fluids inside of their body stops working. It doesn't take long for dead bodies to start... seeping. They seep saliva, they seep mucus, stomach contents, urine, feces. It's not pretty, but it's the truth. Once the soul departs, a human body is little more than a big, leaky, skin-bag of... stuff. This woman had been sealed in with her... stuff... for the better part of an entire day. And these people wanted their stuff-covered-daughter seated in the back-seat of their Trans Am so she could take in the fresh air on the way to her final resting place. But that wasn't the worst of it. The woman's body was in full rigor-mortis. Every muscle was locked in position as she lay flat on the funeral home's prep-table. Maneuvering her past a folding front seat and into position in the back seat would have been hard enough if she had simply been alive and unwilling... Dead and rigored, it was virtually impossible.

"Look, Grace," Larry panted. "Is this even legal? Please tell me it isn't legal."

I had bad news for Larry.

The local laws stated that these people were absolutely allowed to transport their dead family member wherever they wanted within the state by whatever means they chose... provided they had all the proper paperwork (they did) and she was in the ground within 24 hours of leaving the refrigerator.

"God-damnnit Grace! Don't tell me this!" Larry howled. "I CANNOT stuff this woman's corpse in the back of that car!"

"I don't know what to say, Larry. I guess you can tell them that taking her out of the body-bag would constitute a public health risk... and it would ruin the upholstery..."

Larry groaned.

"Oh, my GOD," he sighed heavily. "OK, I guess I'll figure something out. But PLEASE call me if you think of anything to stop this."

"Uh, sure Larry. I'll do that."

He hung up.

Later that week, a couple of Larry's co-workers obligingly showed me the security camera footage of Larry, cramming the stiff, unwieldy, bagged body into the car. The whole ordeal lasted no less than 30 minutes, during which Larry employed the use of the prep table, some bailing wire, a crow bar, various lawn-care implements and both feet. The decedent's parents hovered just out of view and never charged forward to protest Larry's tactics. The woman's father shook Larry's hand before they left and just like that, they were gone... with the silhouette of a large, amorphous lump reclining across the back-seat. I'm not too proud to admit that the funeral home guys and I howled like monkeys at Larry's misfortune and made plans to present him with his very own, DVD copy of “Weekend At Bernie's” for Christmas.

I suppose it was a bit calloused of us, to laugh at Larry's gruesome Saturday like that. And I know that most of the world would be appalled if they knew the kinds of things that make us giggle- those of us who work, exclusively, around death. But the truth is, death wears on you after a while. Living in a world populated by the devastated friends and family of the deceased, permanently set against the backdrop of crisis and tragedy... the despair clings to your sleeve like cat hair. It follows you home and then sets up on the living-room couch like a pushy guest who won't leave and never relinquishes the remote control.

The truth is... you have to laugh, it's the only option.

otherwise, you'll go cr... well, you know.

I Like Cops, Part II: Melts in your mouth...

I really hate suicide.

I expect most people do.

It's not a particularly uncommon sentiment.

I don't imagine you'll find many folks who think that immediate and total self-destruction is a really GOOD idea. I know that in some cultures and at certain points in history, suicide was considered an honorable course of action... especially if one had been defeated in battle or had dishonored their family/clan/sect in some fashion... whatever. But, as a medical examiner, I have never encountered a scene in which the deceased person was found hunched over an altar in full Samurai garb with a katana jammed through their gullet. Nor have I ever been on a call in which a perpetrator was caught with a garrison of imprisoned adversaries in his basement- all of whom died after chewing mortal wounds into their wrists rather than face the shame of capture. Therefore, I must maintain that these days, there aren't a lot of valid reasons for suicide.

That said, I suppose my rationale for hating suicide isn't exactly typical. I mean, sure... I appreciate the thought that suicide tears a hole in the metaphysical cohesion of the human race and all that happy-horse-shit. But more than anything, I hate that suicide takes one person's problems, and makes them EVERYONE'S problems. The kind of devastation that a suicide leaves behind, in my opinion, is never justified. I don't care how unhappy the person was. Suicide is mean... REALLY mean. And judging by my professional experience, suicide and murder are neck and neck in terms of which act causes a more tumultuous aftermath. Death is messy and heart-breaking, even under the most natural circumstances. Suicide takes all of the difficulties that we, as human beings, have with death.... mixes them with napalm and sprays them all over anyone unfortunate enough to be in the vicinity. Suicide is Death, weaponized.

THAT said-

I will admit that there have been a couple of situations in which I was compelled to concede that suicide was probably the best option for all parties involved... logically speaking. I remember one instance in which a guy with a raging case of throat cancer decided to end his life in his back-yard gazebo with a hunting rifle. His larynx had been removed so he couldn't speak, nor could he chew or swallow his food. There was no hope that he would ever be able to engage in either of these activities again. He had raw, seeping, open wounds all over his neck and face which were, no doubt, unbelievably painful. He was no longer able to lie down, but had to sleep in a reclining chair in his living room. The list of suffering went on. The fact was: throat cancer was (and is) a vicious beast of a pathology. The guy left behind a note that basically stated: “Look, I'm in tons of pain... all the time. I can't do this anymore.”

I looked around they guy's living room, which had essentially been converted into a make-shift hospital. I looked over his body, noting all of the physical markers that testified to his misery. And after doing so, I pretty much concluded that this poor dude had every right to end his own life. Furthermore his family, though sad, gave every indication that they agreed with me... even though none of us said as much out loud. He was even considerate enough to do the deed outside where there wouldn't be too much of a mess- which may sound calloused, but just think about it. Imagine trying to get over a loved one's suicide. Now imagine trying to get over a loved one's suicide when their blood is splattered all over the carpet... It makes a difference.

The other suicide in which I had to admit that it wasn't such a bad idea, well, it was something along the same vein. It happened back when I was a paramedic and we had been called to retrieve a woman who had been found in her home at an assisted living facility for the elderly and infirm. She had been found unconscious on her floor after having taken pretty much every medication she could find... and in case you weren't aware of this little fact regarding elderly people... they tend to have LOTS of pills around. We already had her loaded onto the stretcher when I spotted the suicide note. It came in the form of monogrammed stationary in a lovely shade of textured, egg-shell white. The handwriting was a sweeping, graceful script, heralding back to a time when the written word was more than a means of communication... it was an art. Moreover, the note itself read less like your typical “Goodbye cruel world!” drivel, and more like our girl was a veteran socialite who was graciously excusing herself from the season's most esteemed formal ball.

In essence she stated:

“My lovelies, I've had a marvelous time. Thank you so much for your hospitality, but it's late, I'm terribly exhausted and I really must be going. Ta-ta!”

Of course that's not an exact quote, but that was kind of how her suicide note felt. And given it was so eloquently stated, I was inspired to give her leave to exit with all the dignity and grace she commanded. Ta-ta indeed, I thought to myself as (despite our earnest efforts) she continued to deteriorate into cardiac and respiratory arrest while enroute to the hospital. You were truly a lady in every sense of the word... Daahhh-ling.

No other suicides I've investigated has ever been so... clean. And recently, I had one of the more... ambiguous suicide deaths, the kind that really makes me uncomfortable. But I wasn't uncomfortable about the death nearly so much as I was uncomfortable with my own reaction to it. While the throat cancer fellow and the wonderfully polite woman really seemed to be doing themselves a favor... it could be argued that this guy really did the whole human race a favor.

I know, I know. I'm a terrible person for suggesting such a thing. But every now and then I have to admit I run across folks who I'm really not too sorry to see removed from the planet. And the only people who seem to understand this sentiment, are the police. Cops are always on hand to witness the chaos with me and as a result they're are familiar with the ambiguous nature of “tragedy”. This is another reason why I like cops, because they get it. They're exposed to many of the same twisted depravities that I am exposed to... They see how death can be a blessing, or a necessity... or even a joke. And cops always have to deal with the suicides... right along with me.

So, in honor of their work, sacrifice and humor-

*****                                         I Like Cops, Part II:                                            **************

Melts in Your Mouth... Not on the Side of the Highway at 3 a.m.

The call came in innocuously enough. It was dispatched as a gun-shot suicide and I went... because I have to. 

 

I found myself standing over the inert corpse of a young man who had decided to end it all by shooting himself in the chest. It was a little unusual due to the fact that generally, gun-shot suicides usually shoot themselves in the head.

Recently though, this has not been the case.

While it is true that men are more likely than women to commit suicide via self-inflicted gun-shot wound, more and more often I see guys who opt to leave their heads and faces intact.

This guy was one such character.

I'm not sure if he took it to the chest because he wanted to look good in the event of an open casket. If that was the case he probably should have planned for some way to be found before a week had passed between his death and the discovery of his body... a week in a hot, humid environment. I don't mind “decomps” (decomposed bodies) so much anymore in an aesthetic sense, but I DO mind decomps when they're found in ridiculously inaccessible locations. This guy had decided to close himself up in the tiny closet of his back bedroom before pulling the trigger... leaving us with not only the unimaginably miserable task of investigating his stinky suicide, but ALSO leaving us with the dilemma of how to get his oozing remains out of his apartment. On the upside, his family wasn't actually THERE to witness the mess. He had been discovered by his girlfriend who came to check on him after he never showed up for his weekly, court appointed anger-management classes.

I clearly remember my own double-take when I heard this information, and I recalled passing the forlorn, mousy-looking girl as I got out of my truck and followed the cops into the residence. She had all but cowered in the hallway as she waited outside, clutching the decedent's ecstatic little dog to her chest as we surveyed the scene and tried to make heads or tails of what had happened with this guy. The dog was clearly having the time of his life, wiggling happily as he tried to climb out of the girl's arm and get a really good whiff of everyone who passed him. She, on the other hand, was staring at the floor, trying unsuccessfully to angle herself in such a way so that no one would see the shiner she was sporting: a purple halo around her left eye. We all saw it.

“That was his girl-friend?” I asked the officer who was briefing me on the situation.

“Yeah, she came in and when she smelled the place, she freaked out and called 911. I guess she's a nurse or something... anyway, she recognized the smell. She didn't actually see him.”

“I don't know... maybe she shot him herself and left him here to marinate for a few days before 'finding' him. Did you see that black eye of hers...” all this as I pressed on the guy's chest, causing a small volcano of putrid fluid to bubble up in the chest wound.

The cop kept talking, nervously tugging on her collar and shifting her weight from side to side. She and the other police officers at the scene were clearly rattled, but I opted NOT to give them any shit about it. One REALLY has to be exposed to a LOT of decomposing bodies before being rendered immune to their... unpleasantness. For starters, their odor is truly, indescribably rank... I mean eye-watering, gut-churning, lunch-in-your-throat gross. Secondly, they're visually disconcerting in that, after enough time passes, they hardly even look human anymore. These particular officers could hardly stand to glance at our dead guy. And it probably didn't help calm their nerves at all when I mentioned that his arms might fall off if we tried to drag him out of the closet by his limbs. After that gem, everyone had retreated back into the kitchen and did their best to look very small and extremely busy when I called for help with moving the body. But the one, female cop had bravely stepped forward into the the mouth of madness... er... closet of madness and stood as my assistant, babbling away, as I went about my grisly business.

“Well” she said as she locked eyes on the far wall, determined to avoid actually watching me work, “We ran a criminal history, it looks like this guy has a couple of domestics with the girl-friend out front. He's also a known meth-dealer... Looks like the mother of his kid has a restraining order against him... along with the mother of his OTHER kid- which actually hasn't been born yet...”

The officer went on as I gave the guy's pockets a pat-down... thereby locating his cell phone, which had inadvertently been glued into the back pocket of his jeans by all the dried blood. I handed the slimy device to the officer who turned it on and began scrolling through text-messages- a standard practice in suicides because text messages have become the most common means by which people send their farewells to friends and family. This guy was no exception. The barrage of text messages we found on the phone indicated that the pulverized girlfriend out front had actually had enough of getting the shit kicked out of her. She had broken up with our dead guy.... an act for which she kept apologizing... again and again.

“I'm sorry!” Her text message read, “I just can't do this anymore- please don't be angry with me!”

“Whatevs, biotch!” He had texted back, “You're a stupid cunt and I'm gonna make sure you don't get invited to my funeral!”

(One should note that while sharing this tender goodbye with his now-ex-girl-friend, he was intermittently sexting some OTHER girl who apparently hadn't yet caught on to the fact that this ass-hole was an abusive, two-timing douche.)

The officer and I finished up in the closet and emerged to talk to the girlfriend. She was sobbing uncontrollably by that point and, in between gingerly wiping tears away from her bruised and swollen eye, kept wailing:

“It was MY fault! He did this because of ME!”

I've dealt with battered women before, and I know better than to try to tell them anything they aren't ready to hear. When I was a paramedic I had to transport a woman to the hospital who had been forcibly held down by her boyfriend who had then turned a clothing iron on it's highest setting and proceeded to “brand” her 6 or 7 times with the scorching surface.

“I just LOVE him SO MUCH”, she had wailed, hanging over the edge of the stretcher like a rag doll. We had no choice to transport her in that position because the most severe of the burns had been centrally inflicted, directly on her buttocks. Thus, the mere act of sitting resulted in excruciating pain. “I don't know what I'd do without him!” she howled.

I resisted the urge to tell her that, for starters, without him she might be able to actually sit down.

Similarly, I resisted the urge to tell this, latest, girl that her boyfriend had clearly done this because he wanted to and, quite frankly, he probably did her a huge favor by bowing out of her life... and his own for that matter. I also resisted the urge to tell her that, knowing what I know about the human race, she wouldn't have too much trouble finding another ass-hole who would be happy to treat her like dirt as well... if it's what she really wanted.

As I said my farewells to the girlfriend (who ended up keeping the guy's dog- YAY happy ending!) I turned back to the apartment and my stalwart, female officer was now helping the funeral home load our stiff onto their cot. She rejoined me in the kitchen as the decedent was rolled out and we gave the apartment one last look for anything of consequence that we may have missed.

We picked up a few more bongs, an ample supply of marijuana, a rather large baggie containing what I can only assume was cocaine, a couple of syringes and a few sets of hand-cuffs. I was just packing up my supplies in the kitchen when I spotted it.

“Oh, MAN! Look!” I called to the officer.

Her eyes followed my gesture to where I was pointing. In the corner of the kitchen counter, was a large jar of fun-size M&M packs... you know... the kind people give to kids for Halloween.

The officer groaned.

“Oh my GOD, I am SOOOOO hungry...” she wailed.

“Ugh... me too” I agreed. This call had dropped at 3pm and it was now inching toward 7. Obviously, neither of us had eaten, and now that the rotting corpse had vacated the premises, our appetites had returned with all the vengeance of a wrathful spirit who liked to beat his girlfriend and wanted his dog back.

The officer glanced at the jar, then glanced back at me.

“Soooo... I'm allergic to chocolate...” she began, “but if those M&M's were never there... I certainly wouldn't miss them- these things escape our attention all the time.”

“Oh, jeez, no... I COULDN'T eat his M&M's.” I protested. “I have NEVER taken anything from a scene for my own keeping... that's just something you DON'T do...”

And I meant it... to this day I never ate a single one of those M&M's.

Suicides are like buses, in that you can expect them to come along with some degree of regularity. And it wasn't too long later, I found myself standing on the side of a rural highway at 1:30 in the morning, getting another briefing on another suicide... a briefing that began with a grinning officer walking up to me as I blearily tumbled out of my truck and into the confused, dancing web of spinning police lights.

“Hope you're up for a hike!” the sergeant hollered over the roar of a passing semi-truck.

As it turned out, this dead guy had hanged himself from a tree... a tree which stood no less than 3/4 of a mile from the road, walled in behind long acres of 8-foot tall blackberry bushes... At least I think they were blackberries. With all the flashing strobe lights from the emergency vehicles, the foliage looked like a grove of glittering disco-balls.

Growing up in Arizona, I never really learned an appreciation for plants with thorns. In the high desert no greenery had a chance to grow large enough to be threatening in any way. As a child, I remember hearing the story of “Sleeping Beauty” and how her castle was surrounded by brambles so thick that no one could find a way through them. I was completely incredulous at the time. How could such a thing exist... brambles so thick no one could find a way through them! Impossible!

or so I thought...

“I'm gonna take you through, okay?” another officer called to me as he raised a machete (where the hell did he get a machete) over his head and commenced hacking his way through the tangle.

I stepped in behind the officer and was quickly engulfed in the thicket... as well as engulfed in astonishment. I could barely move 6 inches forward without snagging my clothes, my bag, my hair on a million inch-long thorns that seemed to eagerly lean forward to stab me. The otherwise short hike began to feel more like we were trying to swim through an ocean of rusty fish hooks. The path that the officers had already cut prior to my arrival had been swallowed up by the darkness and the going was slow. Whereas a brisk pace would have gotten us to the site of the suicide in less than 10 minutes, we were wrestling with nature for no less than an hour before my escort and I burst through the last of the blackberries and found ourselves standing on a sharp slope which dumped out in a creek bed 15 feet below. Our arrival won us an enthusiastic round of applause from the group of deputies who had been standing by at the scene, waiting for someone with some form of authority to tell them they could go home.

"Hey guys!" I called to them as I scrambled across the shifting dirt to join the 4 of them where they stood, crowded on a small patch of weeds- perhaps the only level ground in the immediate area (and the only place where one could avoid slipping down the embankment into the darkness) "So," I said, glancing around me, "... where's our guy?"

They pointed upwards.

"Damn," I whistled "He's really up there, isn't he?"

... and he was. It's another misconception that suicidal people hang themselves from great heights and are found dangling above the earth like an old-fashioned lynching. I would estimate that as few as 5% of suicidal hangings are actual "full-suspensions". Usually people misjudge the amount of give in their ligature, they mis-gauge the height, they underestimate how far their neck can actually stretch- and they end up with their feet resting on the ground- sometimes they even end up on their knees.

Not this guy.

This guy had climbed up into this tree as high as his own weight allowed. He then looped a piece of twine around his throat a few times and flung himself off the down-hill side of the tree. The end effect being that he was no less than 15 feet off the sloped ground. Getting him down was going to be a serious chore.

"Well... shit." I said frankly, staring up at our incredibly inconvenient situation.

The deputies all tittered like a gaggle of kindergarteners. I blinked at them in surprise for a second, then dimly recalled some of the information the sergeant had offered prior to my adventure into the black-berry wilds:

The dead guy's family had suspected he was depressed and contemplating suicide, and this general area was something of a hang-out (tee-hee) for him when he was low. When the guy didn't come home from work, the family had come out here looking for him. Upon finding his car with the suicide note taped to the dashboard, they called 911 and the search had commenced. Almost all of these deputies had been clamoring, tearing and hacking their way though the foliage for no less than 5 hours before they had finally located the suspended corpse.

Now, in the dead (tee-hee) of night and dizzy from dehydration and hunger, the sheriff's deputies were all haggard, torn, bleeding and deliriously jubilant that the whole ordeal was nearing it's end.

(I've often said that when I'm working, no one's ever happy to see me. I'm the Grim Reaper's publicist and my presence means I'm cleaning up after my one and only client. However, this adage is NOT true when it comes to cops. They're always delighted to see me. If I have arrived on their scene, it means they are, officially, in the home stretch.)

"Sooooo," I turned to my cohorts "who has an idea for getting him down?"

They all stared at me blankly. Apparently all higher brain function had ceased around midnight and not one of them had prepared for the inevitable problem of how to retrieve the dead guy from the tree.

"Ummmm- we... could... uh..."

It WAS something of a quandary, Our guy was no dainty flower... and he was SO high up in a tree that was precariously placed on SUCH a steep slope. Attempting to climb up, cut the rope and lower him down was not a possibility. Nor could we just cut it and let him fall. Not only would it have been a profoundly indecent act to drop the guy like the inert meat-sack he now was, we also ran the risk of his body hitting the ground and rolling 100 yards downhill into a creek... presenting a whole other conundrum.

"Let's call the fire department...." one of the officers grinned, an idea that prompted a chorus of cheers from the others.

"I think that's a brilliant idea!" I responded

Let me explain.

There's something of a sibling rivalry between the firemen and the police. Everybody loves firemen. Firemen are the public's favorite. They're all strong and healthy and high-profile and shit. They save lives and put out fires and blah blah blah... The thing is, firemen don't really DO a whole lot. They hang around in their station, they lift weights, they cook chili and they play with their equipment a whole lot... that is to say, they practice cutting cars open with the "jaws of life". In some systems, fire-guys go on emergency medical calls and slap oxygen masks on people. But all in all, firemen don't really have to do much thinking and they don't really have to deal with the ugly side of emergencies... the side where people are misbehaving and someone has to make them stop, the side where someone has to thread through the complicated story and figure out what, exactly, happened and who's to blame. The side where people who don't want to be handled... have to be handled. Firemen emerge from the smoky carcass of a building, smeared with soot but shining like rubber-suited-messiahs. When it comes to their conscience and reputation- firemen just don't like to get dirty.

Police, on the other hand, catch shit from everyone. Police get blamed for everything. Police have to stick around after the blood stops flowing and the fire is extinguished... and figure out how to make sure it all doesn't happen again. Then police have to write long-ass reports explaining everything that was done and why. (To be fair, firemen have to write reports too. But their reports generally consist of two sentences: "It was on fire. We put it out".) Police get stuck with the hard job. Meanwhile, everyone's cheering for the fire department and women are flinging their panties at them in a shower of pheromones and adoration.

And that's why, that night, we decided it was officially the fire department's job to get the dead guy out of the tree.

I won't go into profound detail, suffice to say the fire-department was awoken out of a deep sleep and appeared on scene looking tousled and indignant... a situation which probably was NOT helped by the fact that when they first glimpsed the corpse, they became visibly flustered and admitted that they thought we had called them to get a CAT out of a tree. No joke... they actually told us that's what they believed they heard over the radio.

“Dude...” one of the deputies marveled (while the others snickered and made little meow-ing sounds behind their hands) “... why on earth would the Medical Examiner want you to get a cat out of a tree?”

The lieutenant, who was clearly about as bright as a damp matchstick, shrugged in a pouty fashion and stomped off to go cry in the bushes.

The firemen's confusion and general disgruntlement only added to our delight. Had they been chipper and enthusiastic, it totally would have taken all of the steam out of our passive-aggressive locomotive. The Sheriff's deputies, in contrast, became increasingly more jovial since not only was the whole ordeal nearing it's end, but they ALSO got to inflict a deplorably inconvenient and thankless situation on a bunch of prima-donnas who were accustomed to adrenaline charged scenarios with crowds of cheering witnesses.

The hose-haulers huffed, and grunted and barked orders at each other and us. Their scowls deepened with every step they took. They heaved and hauled and, even with all their ropes, pulleys and well-maintained muscles, it still took eight of them to wrestle the dead guy down from the tree and out of the blackberry grove. When they DID finally have our decedent packaged up and ready to go on my stretcher, they didn't hang around for a split second longer than necessary. The whole crowd of them clamored back onto their truck and retreated back to the fire station where, doubtless, they spent the rest of the night braiding their hair, eating s'mores and spooning with each other for comfort.

On the other hand, the deputies, sergeant and I took a few minutes on the side of the darkened highway to cop-a-squat, bust open some bottled water and shoot-the-shit. They passed me a bottle of water and invited me to perch on the rear bumper of a squad car along with them. Overcome with their generosity, I dipped into my jump bag and presented each of the officers with a fun-size bag on M&M's which I had been saving for just such an occasion since... well... since the LAST suicide I had been on... one in which I truly felt the dead guy would have WANTED to bequeath his candy to a group of deserving individuals.

“Man, I needed these...” one of the officers grunted as he tilted his head back and dumped the bag right down his throat.

“Yeah,” one of the others agreed as, one by one, he happily flipped the candies up into the darkness and caught them in his open mouth. “Seriously, Grace, Thank you sooooo much for this.”

“Don't thank me,” I told him. “Thank Alex Quinn*.”

“Who's Alex Quinn?”

I grinned.

“Just one of law-enforcement's biggest fans.”

“Awesome! Hey...” the officer glanced around and noted that I was not actually partaking in the impromptu snack. “Aren't you gonna have any? Do you want some of mine?”

“Nah, “ I said, waving away the candy. “They're for you guys.”

“Well, thanks again” he said, shrugging. “I'll see you later, I was supposed to be off a couple of hours ago.”

One by one, the officers got back into their patrol cars and sped off into the night... off to face whatever curve-balls the human race could throw at them. Each took a second to thank me for the M&M's and asked that I let my “friend” know that they appreciated his gracious donation to the Oswald County Sheriff's Department.

Maybe I should have felt guilty. I don't think it was necessarily criminal to *ahem* redistribute that dead guy's M&M's to the police, but I know it wasn't exactly ethical either. Oh well. On judgment day I guess I'll just have to take the heat for that one.

Or maybe I won't.

Maybe when I stand before the throne of the almighty, Alex Quinn himself will appear and state that, by giving away his M&M's, I knocked a few minutes off his sentence in purgatory or something... maybe I'll be rewarded...

To be honest, I don't care. I just wanted to do something nice for the cops... because I like cops. They're decent people, on the whole...

… and I think if most people knew cops like I know cops, they'd want to shower their local police force with M&M's too.


(*Of course his name isn't actually Alex Quinn... you think I'd incriminate myself like that?  Come on...)

Occupational Hazards

Every job comes with a downside.

This isn't news to anyone. Work is just that... work. Even the best jobs are going to have drawbacks. And no matter how much someone may love their job- there are bound to be aspects of that job that irritate the living hell out of them.

My job is no exception.

Of course, I don't suppose it's a surprise to anyone to hear that being a medical examiner isn't all sexy out-fits and ominous music... no matter what those prime-time crime dramas would have you believe. Though exciting at times, being a medical examiner also comes with a profound amount of drudgery and logistical land-mines. The funny thing is, I'm not really bothered by the things that one would expect. I'm not particularly put off by blood and gore. I cringe to admit it, but dead babies and small children don't really upset me. Notifying the next of kin of a loved one's death barely registers on my radar anymore.... even when they scream and cry and threaten to come burn my house down unless I take it back 

It wasn't always like this, naturally. I had to develop an immunity to the more unpleasant facets of my job. And now that I have that immunity, it amuses me to gross out cops and fire-fighters as much as possible. In fact, nothing tickles me more than drawing vitreous from a the eyes of a dead body while the police are still in the room with me. It's a process that involves jabbing a 2 inch long, 18 gauge needle into the eye of a corpse and sucking the eye-ball-jelly (vitreous-fluid) into the attached syringe. What can I say, it tickles me to watch men with guns stumble around, looking for a place to vomit. Some of the old-school veteran cops will even pull me aside and ask me to do it in the presence of the brand-new, hot-shot rookies... because who doesn't love a good hazing?

Sadly though, even my cast-iron stomach and calloused mind-set cannot protect me from every little sling and arrow that my profession hurls at me. My personal philosophy is that every job turns out to be difficult in ways you can't anticipate. It was true when I was a paramedic, (too much flagrant abuse of the emergency medical system- if you're simply running a fever, you don't need an ambulance, you need an aspirin and a good night's sleep) . It was true when I was a coffee barista, (Are my hands supposed to be shaking this much? I've only had 6 Americano's today) It was true when I worked for that costume shop (random, middle aged guy spent an entire afternoon trying on every women's “sexy-firefighter”, “sexy police-officer” “sexy bank-teller” costume he could get his hands on.)

It's still true now. Even though I love my job and plan to retire from it many many years from now, sometimes... being a medical examiner sneaks up and bites me right in the ass.

Fr'instance, this is a little story I like to call:

"NOTHING SAYS LOVIN' LIKE HOME-MADE SOILENT GREEN"

I'm an okay cook. I don't pretend to be amazing at it, but I can put together a pretty decent meal. I can steam rice, bake a chicken, toast... um... toast, and not to brag, but I'm a BOSS at desserts. So, one day, when I got it into my head to make something stew-ish in a crock-pot that had been given to me, I figured the production would come off without a hitch. I mean, crock pots were supposed to be easy, right? You throw in meats, vegetables, a few spices, turn it on and 8 hours later... you eat whatever is inside. At least, that's what I had been TOLD about crock-pot cooking and I was certain this endeavor was well within my skill set. How hard could it be?

As far as I knew, stew and soups and other substances of such a nature all had beans in them. I'd bought some dry beans from the store and set them on the counter-top to soak overnight... or over a couple of nights, maybe. I really wasn't sure. I'd gotten busy and lost track of how long the beans had been sitting in water. But I figured that a longer soaking time just meant they'd cook that much faster, so I didn't worry about it. Besides, when I gave one of the beans a squeeze, it didn't seem slimy or soft. I took that to signify that my beans were of an acceptable character and would cooperate with my plan.

Next, I tossed in some sliced up sausage... turkey kielbasa to be exact. Having lived in the deep south for a spell, sausage, rice and beans were ingredients intrinsic to virtually every recipe... and southern cooking was supposed to be the best in the world... right?

Speaking of rice, didn't I have half a bag of dry rice lurking in the cupboard somewhere? In it went.

I threw in some canned chicken, some pre-mixed spices, an onion which had been waiting it's turn in the fridge for longer than I care to admit. I stirred the whole mess around a couple of times, took a picture to send to my mother (“See Mom? I TOLD you I could be domestic if I wanted to!”) turned the temperature on “high” and popped the lid on the pot.

Two hours later, giddy with anticipation, I revisited my soup/stew/thing to see what kind of progress I'd made. I wasn't particularly hungry, but my husband had buzzed through the apartment in between work and going out to play cards with his friends. HE seemed utterly delighted about the whole crock-pot adventure and I couldn't wait to present him with a big, tasty, steaming bowl of... well... whatever the hell I was making.

I removed the lid from the crock-pot, took in a long, deep whiff of my creation-

-and nearly vomited.

I remember stumbling back in utter confusion and terror. I slapped the lid back on the crock-pot and gestured wildly at my face as though I was trying to swat away an enraged wasp. This couldn't be happening! How did this happen? What in God's name had I DONE?


My stew smelled like a dead body.

And not just any dead body. My stew smelled like a dead body that had been laying in a sweltering apartment for at least 2 weeks. My stew smelled like decomp.

I retreated to the living room, surrendering my kitchen to the strange substance that was lurking in my hand-me down crock-pot. Mentally rewinding the evening's events, I tried to reconstruct my hap-hazard, impromptu recipe in my mind. Sure, I occasionally kept blood samples in my 'fridge when I'm on shift and I haven't had a chance to send them in to the main office for toxicology. But I didn't recall dumping any test-tubes in with the sausage and onion. Maybe it was the onion, I thought to myself. That onion was probably bad... it was sprouting roots, after all. Or maybe it was the beans, maybe I left the beans to soak for too long and they started to rot or something...

At any rate, it didn't matter now. And I have to admit, this wasn't the first time such a thing had happened to me.

As most existentialists and emo teenagers can attest to... everything is dying- all the time. And if something isn't dying, it's because its already dead... and rotting. On a biological level, absolutely nothing is on it's way to becoming MORE alive. Every second that passes is simply marching every thing and everyone further down the road to death and decay. (except for maybe Styrofoam and Hostess Twinkies)

 

After sitting in my first autopsy, I walked around my world for a day and a half, marveling at how the atmosphere positively simmered with the scent of putrefaction

It isn't a fun thought, which is why most people probably don't think it very often. A medical examiner, on the other hand, can hardly avoid thinking it. The smell of decomposition, especially human decomposition, is unforgettably distinct. Once someone's olfactory nerves have encountered the odor of a rotting cadaver, the imprint of that experience is forever seared into their mind. They may recover from the isolated incident that first introduced that smell to their brain-stem, BUT, on a fundamental level, they will NEVER be able to forget that smell. Moreover, if they ever smell it again... or anything like it ever again, their subconscious will buck like an angry colt, screaming: “That smells like DEATH!” 

 

It's happened to me before.

And that's exactly what was happening to me now. Something in that stew, some combination of molecules and chemicals was just close enough to make it smell as though there was a ripe, hacked-up corpse mixed in with the kielbasa.

I grabbed my phone and my lap-top and stumbled out onto my apartment balcony, narrowly avoiding gagging as I did so. I've never thrown up on a scene before, even on the most juicy, grotesque scenes imaginable- the kind that would be rated NC-17 if someone caught them on film. But something about this scenario writhed in my stomach like a Kansas tornado. Perhaps it was the fact that I had been planning on eating whatever came out of the crock-pot... and what was in the crock-pot made me, irrevocably, visualize a fleshless skull... covered in maggots.

I dialed Henry's number as I fought to keep my stomach from inverting.  I figured he, of all people, would understand what I was going through. My trusty co-worked had been a medical examiner for over 20 years. His entire world had to be so mired in disgusting sensory parallels by now that he probably had to have sustenance pumped into his body via I.V. After the stories he'd told me, it was a wonder the man could stand to breathe.

“Hello?” he answered on the first ring... See? Trusty.

“Henry? I need you to come over here right now and smell my stew!”

No response.

“Henry? Did you hear me?”

“Um... yeah, hey... Grace, look... uh, is this some kind of euphemism, because you know I'm a married man...”

“No, goddammit! For some horrible reason, the stew I just cooked smells exactly like a rotting corpse- and I don't know how I managed such a thing, but you're the only person who can reliably tell me whether or not it's just my imagination!”

“What?”

“I'm serious!” I was on the verge of bawling. “I don't know WHAT combination of ingredients did it, but you know how it is... it smells just enough like a dead body to make me physically ill. For fuck sake... I'm on my balcony, hiding from my dinner. I'm afraid it's gonna crawl out of the kitchen and attack me or something. It's stinking up my entire house, what the hell just happened?”

Henry was laughing too hard by that point to be of much help. On the upside, he did offer to take me to Kentucky Fried Chicken for a consolation dinner in the event that my appetite EVER returned.

Nor was my husband particularly sympathetic. When he called later on that night to tell me when he would be home, I relayed the whole sordid tale to him and his reaction was less than ideal.

“Well, don't throw it out, “ he said. “I might still eat it.”

So I was trapped in my home with that stench for another 4 hours until he could come home and discern whether or not he found my abomination appetizing.

Turns out... he did.

Despite my protests that the stew smelled like Bubonic plague, my husband insisted that he had no idea what dead bodies smelled like and consequently, the stew smelled just fine to him.

“See! It's delicious!” He chirped at me as he shoveled spoonful after spoonful into his mouth. I don't know if he thought he was being compassionate and supportive by eating the stuff, but if that was his game it completely back-fired. I refused to kiss him for a week.

Later on, I discovered that both beans and human decomposition produce copious amounts of the gas methane, which may or may not have been what I was smelling. Either way, the crock-pot went back into the cupboard and likely will not be seen or heard from ever again. The memory is just too painful.

Moreover, I'm thinking I might petition Oswald county for some kind of compensation. I'm hoping I might be able to get them to fund an all-fresh, all natural super vegan diet for me. After all, because of my job, my world is quickly turning into a really disgusting place....

… and a girl's gotta eat.

I Like Cops, part 1: TO ALL THE SQUIRRELS I'VE LOVED BEFORE

I've never been on a scene like that before.

I suppose it was only a matter of time. Events like those are kind of like waiting for a bus... sooner or later, you know one is going to come along.

When I really think about it, I suppose I have to acknowledge that there are certain situations that will, surely, come to pass in my professional life.

I know that, sooner or later, I'm going to come across a severed head.

I have no doubt that, eventually, I'll have to deal with a crispy-critter (the euphemism for a person who either died in a fire, or died and then was set on fire- accidentally or intentionally) .

I'm certain a drowning is on my horizon.

And there's no way I can avoid an auto-erotic asphyxiation... they happen WAY more often than people realize.

Some milestones have already come and gone, including the "Asphyxiation-by-Helium" death (remember when you were a kid and inhaled the helium from balloons so you could talk like a munchkin... and your Mom made you stop because it was "bad for you"? Well, turns out she was right) the "Guy Dropped Dead of a Heart-Attack at the Gym" death (When they tell you to check with your doctor before starting any work-out routine, they mean it) and most recently.... the "Suicide-by-Cop" death... officially known as the "Officer Involved Shooting"... I just had my first one.

It really wasn't as interesting as one would think

It's not like there was a lot for me to do. By the time I got to the scene of the whole debacle, every available officer in a 3-county-radius had arrived and was standing around trying to look serious and important. The entire residential neighborhood where the shooting had occurred was taped off. The event took place on a Sunday so EVERYONE in the little suburban cul de sac was home and setting up deck chairs in order to watch the whole tragedy unfold before them while they reclined on their front porches and sucked down beer. News vans were piled up on top of each other with cameramen and stern-faced reporters straining for a glimpse of the body or an idle sound byte uttered by a careless officer or detective... ANYTHING that would make THEIR news report the one that people would watch.

I just kind of stood there, wondering exactly what my role in the whole episode was supposed to be. After all, it's my job to collect the body for an autopsy and pull together the pertinent information by which the pathologists can determine cause and manner of death. In this case, there was no question what the cause of death was... I mean, about 300 eye-witnesses (and their i-phones) could attest to the fact that they guy had taken a single shot to the chest. So as far as I could tell, my work was done. But everyone and their supervisor had to show up and help oversee the investigation as to whether or not the death could have been avoided... and until THAT question was answered, the stiff and I weren't going anywhere.

We had to wait about 5 hours. The details of the scene investigation were profoundly tedious so I won't describe them. The circumstances aren't particularly unusual, so I won't divulge them. Suffice to say that the officer truly had no other choice than to shoot this guy... and the guy knew that, heck, the guy counted on it. What's more, the "Major-Crimes Detectives" came to that conclusion and told me to get the body out of there ASAP just as the disaster relief team was arriving with pizza and coffee... so I didn't get any.

All levity aside...

The whole incident was truly heart-breaking. There was no real redemptive angle from which to view it. As crass as I may seem at times, I try to see where something true or decent or hopeful can come from a death. It makes my job bearable and keeps me nominally sane. But this event was nothing but complicated, stressful and sad for everyone.

Naturally, the decedent had a slew of problems which prompted the whole "Suicide-by-Cop" event, and I couldn't really attest to his character. But I noticed, as we were doing the official "walk-though" of his residence, he had recently painted a picture of a windmill in a field at sunset. It was a really good painting and it hurt my heart a little to see it.

The officer who actually pulled the trigger was not someone I knew well. But I recognized his name when I heard it, and I remembered that he was a super-nice guy who had been really helpful on a couple of my cases. And along with my empathy for the decedent's family, I couldn't help but feel terrible for Deputy *name omitted*. I couldn't imagine how he felt. Moreover, I couldn't imagine that moment that he must have experienced... that moment when he thought to himself, "Crap, I'm going to have to shoot this guy"....

Later on, I made the tragic mistake of checking out the local news online, where an incredibly brief and altogether un-enlightening article basically stated that a local officer had shot and killed a man... and no further information had been released.

Despite the fact that the "article" was completely uninformative and generic, people felt justified in posting up a storm of crazy comments. Some claimed that the officer was a dirty bastard who ought to be strung up. Others claimed that there would be a huge cover up conspiracy and any witnesses who tried to come forward with information would probably "disappear". In general, the assumption was made that the officer had gunned down the decedent in a fit of demonic cruelty while the decedent had been going door to door, passing out kittens and collecting donations for UNICEF or something. The truth never occurred to anyone... that this nut-job had been drunkenly waving a loaded assault rifle around on a temperate Sunday afternoon while small children played in their back-yards throughout the neighborhood. And the idea that a swarm of dark-clothed, goverment "cleaners" came through and sanitized the entire event was just ludicrous. The scene had been anything but hurriedly hushed-up. If nothing else, it had been deplorably boring and widely publicized. Everyone was afraid of screwing something up so EVERY detail of EVERY policy and procedure had been meticulously followed. Besides, the neighbors had watched the whole investigation from their front lawns. One of them even let me park in their driveway.

It made me sad. The chasm between the police and the civillians they're supposed to serve is tragically vast. And the fact is this: police are people. A lot of them are good, some of them are bad... just like any population... for example... a population of coffee shop poets... or a population of social-action protesters. A lot of them are good... some of them are bad. And if you don't believe me, let me tell you about some of the coffee shop poets or social-action protesters I've come across in my life...

There has been a lot of bad press. From the Rodney King beatings to the Occupy Movement, police forces have really (often deservedly) been lambasted for unnecessary force and brutality. And on a personal level, I know plenty of people who believe law enforcement officers are all power-drunk sociopaths with an open license to maim and kill. On occassion, that's true. As a paramedic, I was sometimes witness to some really deplorable behavior on the part of cops and I'm not proud to say that I turned a blind eye in the interest of maintaining good inter-agency relations. I once made out with a police officer with whom I was UTTERLY smitten but he totally blew me off afterwards. I've had more officers than I can count completely wuss-out on me when the time came to move a decomposing body.

But the fact remains,

I like cops...

The biggest problem is, people only hear about cops when they either assault someone, kill someone, or get killed themselves. Consequently, the majority of the populace is under the impression that all cops do is kill and die.

oh, wait... more specifically the impression is that all cops do is eat doughnuts, pull people over for speeding, kill and die.

In response to these misconceptions... and to remind people that when it comes to the law enforcement agencies around the country, they hear more about the exceptions than the rule... I humbly interrupt our previous series, "Can't Buy Me Love" and instead, offer up the following stories:

I LIKE COPS: Part 1

TO ALL THE SQUIRRELS I'VE LOVED BEFORE

-I was on the scene of a death the other day. The police had called me there because it seemed the decedent had crushed up all the pills in her medicine cabinet and then every last particle of those tablets had gone up her nose via a McDonald's straw. Another day, another overdose... It's a living.

After going through our scene investigation and drawing some blood samples for toxicology, there wasn't much more for us to do but wait. That's one of the more unfortunate facts of the job, I spend a lot of time waiting. I wait for funeral homes, I wait for chaplains, I wait for detectives, I wait for supervisors, I wait for phone calls. And usually, when I'm waiting, I'm doing that waiting in the home of a complete stranger who is somewhere nearby... assuming room temperature. Furthermore, when I'm waiting, there's always a police officer waiting with me.

It's during these intervals that I really get to know the local police. And I can tell you this: Cops are absolute, incurable snoops... and so am I. Technically, police aren't allowed to search a home without the consent of the legal occupants, probable cause, or a warrant. However, state law gives me permission to gain entrance to any area in which a death has occurred and effectively toss the place for any items or information that will assist in determining cause and manner of death. In short, if anyone in such a scenario has an open license to do anything they want, I do. And I use it.

Furthermore, my authority to freely snoop through someone's home extends to any officers who are assisting me in my duties. So when we're stuck waiting for whatever we happen to be waiting for in a given situation, the cops and I do what any overly curious public servants would do... we look around.

This situation was no different. Or should I say, this situation was a little different, in that the decedent was a hoarder and seemed to have a particular affection for old pill bottles and squirrel parephernalia. We had found medication bottles from up to10 years earlier, stuffed with practically anything you could imagine; safety pins, loose change, q-tips, razor blades. And squirrels decorated virtually every available surface of her home. She had posters, calendars, figurines, coffee cups, plush animals. To top it all off, (literally) the entire residence was coated in a thick, downy layer of dust. Every item had a soft, furry layer of filth blanketing it which broke loose and floated to the ground whenever the arrangement of kitch was disturbed. Which is perhaps why it took me a while to spot the actual squirrel.

"Oh my GOD!" I squealed to the officer "look at that!"

"WHAT?" he snapped to attention, alarmed. He had been sifting through a pile of battered, bodice-ripper romance novels and whirled around with one of them in his hand like he was ready to pommel someone to death with his autographed copy of "A Pirate's Passion".

"Over there! On the entertainment center!" In my excitement, I scrambled over a 5 foot tall stack of newspapers, vaulted the coffee table and scaled a mountain of dirty clothes before getting close enough to snatch the item off of the television. "Look!" I crowed to the officer, "look, look, look!"

It was a squirrel... a REAL one... kind of. The squirrel had been taxidermied and posed in a stance of snarling menace. It bore it's little plastic teeth and crouched low with it's crumbling, moth-eaten tail held aloft.

"Holy shit," the officer gasped in awe, THAT is AWESOME!" He pulled out his camera. "Dude, let me take a picture of you with it!"

What followed was a half-hour long photo shoot, featuring myself and the officer taking turns snapping pictures of one another, posing with the stuffed squirrel. He got one of me holding it up, game-show style, with my hands in a graceful flourish... kind of a : "...and behind door number 3, we have a LOVELY example of modern taxidermy with all the precicious flair of your favorite furry friend! The common squirrel!" On the other hand, I got one of him, nose to nose with the squirrel and an expression of un-blinking challenge on his face as he stared the squirrel down: "... ya think yer tough, big man... huh? Do ya?"

In the end, we agreed that the squirrel needed to be shared with everyone else, so the officer posed the little animal on the back of the couch so it would be the first thing the transport guys saw when they walked into the apartment.

It scared the crap out of them.

And because it's too short to make up an entry on it's own:

THE ROADSIDE RANGER

-I was on the scene of a death the other day and while we were waiting for the funeral home to show up and collect the body, the officer and I started talking about motorcycles. He told me about his Harley, and I mentioned that my 650cc crotch-rocket had a dead battery. The following day he paged me and offered to come by with his portable battery and give my bike a jump. As we were pulling the seat off my bike to connect the cables, he mentioned that he kept the portable battery in the trunk of his patrol car and usually jumped about 5 or 6 cars a day.

"It's just that a dead battery is such a small problem..." he shrugged. "And a tow truck will charge folks $50 just to come out and jump their car. I'd rather do it myself than have to deal with someone getting creamed by a car because they're hanging around on the side of the road, talking on their cell phone or wondering what to do."

Stay tuned for more nice stories about good cops... I have many.

Can't Buy Me Love

So, I'm going to let you in on a pretty significant little secret...

... one that movie-makers and reality TV producers have done their best to keep under wraps ever since the very first Disney cartoon princess pirouetted off a movie screen and into our collective psyche for all eternity... happily ever after, if you will.

Well, the fact is... you won't. There is no happily ever after. I should know.

I'm a newlywed...

... and it sucks

A LOT.

Maybe not everyone has had the same experience I have. Hell, maybe my husband's experience has been completely different from mine. All I know is that I feel the same way about marriage as a friend of mine felt about medical school. He had just ripened and fallen off the graduation tree and was looking for a downhill roll into residency. I had been trolling the streets for the broken and dying in an ambulance for two years and was thinking of upping my stats and going for the big "MD" myself.

"Chris..." I remember asking him, "What would you say if I told you that I was thinking of going to medical school?" I was fully expecting him to give the arched spine of my ego a luxurious little stroke like the eager kitten that I was. So many people had told me that I was too smart to be on an ambulance and should really go to medical school, I never imagined Chris would say anything contrary to that popular opinion.

"Well," he said, scrunching his eyebrows together and pausing to look up from his applications. "I would say that if you can think of anything else you want to do with your life, do that instead."

It was the most brutal advice I've ever gotten. His bare-faced honesty let all the helium out of the romanticized fairy-tale that I had envisioned. He made me face the truth: That becoming a doctor is a long, hard and expensive fucking path and unless you are absolutely bone-deep certain that it's what you're meant do... you might want to pursue some other options.

I did exactly that... and became a medical examiner, a job that suits me far better than practicing medicine ever would have for a myriad of reasons. For starters, I can't STAND living patients. They talk too much.

I think many people view marriage the same way that I viewed medical school: From the outside, looking in. It sure looks appealing and fulfilling. It sure has been touted as being a great thing to do. and if mass media and all the literature from "Modern Bride" magazine can be believed, marriage is the pinnacle of the human existence and should absolutely result in blissful contentment for the rest of your life... the same way that medical school should result in huge paychecks and infallible professional respect for the rest of your life.

The truth is, love is an angry bear that's just woken up from hibernation. Marriage is inviting that bear into your house to snack on your guts.

(Apparently, being a doctor isn't all it's cracked up to be either. But that's not my story to tell.)

Don't get me wrong, I adore my husband and I know we are going to live together until we either die... or kill each other. I don't regret marrying him and I feel about our relationship the way aspiring doctors should feel about medical school... I am absolutely bone-deep certain that this is what we were meant to do... but that doesn't mean it's fun.

Take, for example, the incident that I now refer to as "Vacuum-gate".

My husband and I had just moved from a 1 bedroom apartment to a 2 bedroom apartment. We agreed that we needed a new vacuum and my husband went out and purchased one. When he returned from this quest, I remember thinking the vacuum he had selected looked more like the Death-Star and asked my husband how much it cost. When he told me that it was a $400 vacuum that he'd gotten for $300, I almost swallowed my tongue. I wanted to say something akin to "DEAR SWEET CHRIST!!! Are you OUT of your fucking MIND?"

Instead I said, "Ummmm... that seems like a LOT for a vacuum.."

At least that's what I thought I said.

But judging from his reaction, I'm pretty sure in his mind, it sounded a lot like, "DEAR SWEET CHRIST!!! Are you OUT of your fucking MIND?"

What followed was a three-day ordeal that wasn't really about vacuums at all, but more about control, the balance of power, what does money mean to each of us and do I have any faith at all in my husband's ability to make a good decision.

It was perhaps the most miserable three days of my life, filled with tension and angst and clipped words snarled through grinding teeth. I was so overwrought with the conflict that it began seeping into my workday. I would roll into the scene of a death and as soon as the lead police officer was done giving me the details surrounding the incident, I would respond with, "Um... okay... yeah. That's all really interesting. Dude, tell me something. How much do you think is a reasonable amount to spend on a vacuum?"

(Just for the record, the officers of Oswald county generally agree that $100 is an acceptable price.)

Fortunately, Vacuum-gate was handled and filed away as an amusing newly-wed anecdote. But, like so many other mishaps, that little glitch (along with a few dozen others) was marital armageddon to me for a brief period of time. And if I wasn't absolutely dedicated to staying married to my husband, that incident (along with a few dozen others) could have easily been the straw that broke this camel's back.

Love is hard.

Marriage is harder.

And like virtually every difficult (but worthwhile) endeavor that exists, people think that they can take short cuts in love and marriage. They think they can get the "Cliff's Notes" version and just cram the night before the test. They think they can hire someone else to write the essays. They think they can skip the gym and just get liposuction. They think they can fake it... or worse... they think they can buy it.

They can't.

Bad things happen when people try to buy love... or buy a passing imitation of love. Purchased love is a scratchy, ill-fitting knock-off with fraying seams and a ragged hem. It might look good for a night or two, but a "love-ish" relationship brought about by money is never going to last. The construction quality is for shit. In fact, I offer up this little equation that I worked out to further convey my meaning.


Love + Money = Death

I offer up these cautionary tales as proof:

CAN'T BUY ME LOVE: Part I

I couldn't tell you what time of night it was when I got the call. It was the dead of night and I had been woken out of a deep sleep. I was told that I was going to a gun-shot wound to the head, but dispatch didn't feel much like elaborating. Nor did dispatch feel like giving me directions, but that was no problem since I'm pretty sure the scene had to have been visible from outer-space. With the spotlights from 6 police cars directed towards the front door and every interior light on, the house was lit up like the Las Vegas strip. What struck me as strange, though, was the fact that not a soul was in sight when I arrived. I parked my "death-mobile" in front of the modest, split-level home, hauled all of my equipment out of the front seat and approached the wide-open front door with more than just a little trepidation. Inside I could hear a woman screaming frantically in a language which was decidedly NOT English, but I couldn't actually SEE a single living person. I did, however, see the dead person as I poked my head in the front door and called out a cautious "Hello?" Before me was a typical suburban-home front-foyer, with all the expected decor and visual pleasantries. But as I glanced up the stairway to the second floor, I noted the feet of a dead body... poking out from the upstairs hallway. .

"Ummm.... HELLO?" I called out again, marvelling at the complete lack of scene security. I could be ANYONE walking in here... I thought to myself as I listened to the unbroken stream of caterwauling that floated up from somewhere within the house. I could just walk in here and start stealing the candlesticks, or taking pictures of the dead guy or...

"Medical examiner!" I yelled, after briefly considering calling out "Cat-burglar!" or "Nosey media!" as either one of those identifiers could have easily gotten me shot.

"Oh, HEY!"

An officer had wandered out of the up-stairs bedroom where our dead guy was laying. He waved cheerfully at me (the officer, not the dead guy) joined me in the front hall and filled me in on the evening's details.

"Guy's 58 years old," the officer said, gesturing to the feet at the top of the stairs. "Looks like a self-inflicted gunshot-wound to the head. Wife saw the whole thing. We're checking trajectory and all to make sure she didn't actually shoot him. But it all looks pretty straight-forward as far as who pulled the trigger. We're just having a tough time with her. She doesn't speak any English."

As though on cue, the steady cries from the back of the house crescendoed to a near inhuman, super-sonic pitch and I was pretty sure that dogs' heads were exploding throughout the neighborhood.

"Okay," I said "Well, I think I'm going to let you guys finish up your deal first. I'll go see if I can get anywhere with the wife."

He shrugged.

"Good luck."

I found the wife in a small living room toward the back of the house. She was cowering in a corner of a large couch and clutching a cat who squirmed in a grumpy fashion and appeared to be barely tolerating her grip. The woman's eyes bulged with terror and shed a steady flow of tears as she gasped out phrase after phrase of...

"Chinese."

This one word was growled by the clearly annoyed deputy who stood nearby with a pen and pad of paper in hand. I glanced around the room and spotted two other Asian gentlemen who seemed to be clad in only pajamas and running shoes. The deputy explained that the young lady had moved into the home 11 month prior. She had married our decedent "fresh off the boat" so to speak, and had been attempting to adjust to newlywed life since then... newlywed life with a complete stranger...

...who didn't speak a lick of Chinese.

And in case you missed this little fact earlier, the traumatized young lady on the couch didn't speak a lick of English.

"Wait, wait," I said to the deputy. "You mean to say, she ONLY speaks Chinese and our dead guy ONLY spoke English?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying."

"Well... okay then. Um, wow."

The young lady's entire interview was being carried out with the loosely-termed "help" of the two other men in the room who only spoke marginally more English than she did. Furthermore, the deputy asking the questions obviously didn't have a lot of experience with people for whom English was a second language.  His aggravation was evident.  The muscles around his jawline stood out in stark relief as he snapped question after question at the two gentlemen who struggled to understand. Then struggled even more in the attempt to translate the woman's howls into a cohesive, English sentence. Near as anyone could tell, the wife had been attempting to learn English with nightly classes, but her progress had done little to relieve the stress in the household. It appeared both husband and wife had underestimated how truly difficult a mail-order marriage would be. Instead of wedded bliss and unquestioning adoration, the husband had found himself alone in his house with a shy, nervous, wall-flower of a girl who needed assistance with even the most basic activities.  And who knows what she thought of him, but by virtue of the fact that he had killed himself rather than try to find a different, better option, I couldn't imagine he was too easy to live with either.

"She say things are better lately. She try. She try to say 'I love you'

"Okay," I addressed everyone in the room "Since I'm just getting here, can we review what we know so far."

"Right." said the officer. "Okay, so... today, she went to work at a Chinese friend's house where she watches their kids. She spent the whole day there while our guy left to do something else."

"Left to do what?" I asked

"She doesn't know. Anyway, he came to pick her up and took her to her English classes around 7. He left her there until he came to pick her up."

"What did he do while she was in class?"

"She doesn't know. So they come back home and-"

The officer went on to describe how the wife was under the impression everything was normal and went on with getting ready to go to bed (in her separate bedroom). She was in the kitchen, getting some milk when she saw her "husband" standing at the top of the stairs with a gun in his hand. (An image that must have terrified the living-shit out of her since no one in China owns a gun.) He said something to her... a phrase that will forever be lost to history... since he said it in FUCKING ENGLISH. He then proceeded to hold the gun to his temple and blow his brains out... right in front of her.

Pretty much every question that I asked for the rest of the night was uniformly answered with the phrase: "She doesn't know." The wife didn't know if the decedent had any friends. She didn't know if he had kids from previous relationships. She didn't know if he had brothers or sisters, or if his parents were still alive. She had no idea that the decedent even owned a gun. She didn't know if he was on any medications. She didn't know if he had ever attempted suicide in the past or had problems with depression. She didn't even know if they owned their house or rented it. The only information that could be recovered, we found by tossing the home-office and sifting though a mountain of paperwork on the kitchen table. Turns out our decedent was involved in a slew of lawsuits, he was taking antidepressants, and the house was being foreclosed on.

All of this essentially meant that this woman, who didn't speak any English and had the social skills of a 12-year-old, was now responsible for... well... everything. As legal next-of-kin, all of his problems were now hers... to have and to hold from this day forward.

My burning frustration with the language barrier and utter lack of useful facts fizzled out as I began to comprehend the reality of the woman's situation. Her panicked eyes flicked from one stranger to another, her face was a puckered caricature of confusion and fear. She squeezed her cat tighter with each heaving sob. It was painful to watch, but the worst thing about it was the knowledge that, even after having witnessed one of the most grotesque events imaginable, her trauma had only just begun. Soon she would be thrown to the lawyers, the collection agencies and all manner of swindler who wouldn't hesitate to rampage through the decimated landscape of her life until every last penny had been harvested. Who would help her? The two guys who were translating for her were just her employer and his brother. Already they were starting to look anxious and eager to leave. No one wanted any part of this whole mess and the blushing bride was essentially on her own.

I resisted the urge to have the translators tell the woman to catch the first plane back to China and try to forget any of this ever happened. As much as that seemed like her best option, it wasn't my place to offer that kind of advice. Then I resisted the urge to go upstairs and slap the shit out of the corpse on sheer principle, then demand that he explain himself.

Seriously...

My husband and I knew each other for 12 years before we even started dating. I absolutely worship him and I don't mind saying that he was stupid over me for at least 11 of those 12 years. Furthermore, you can say what you want about men and women and how we all speak a different language... but at least my husband and I share an alphabet. Yet even in the presence of all those advantages, there are days that I feel so discouraged over our relationship that I want to shoot myself in the head too. And given the problems that can be generated between 2 English speaking adults with common interests and an unshakable desire to make their relationship succeed, I could not even begin to fathom the tension these two had been living with.

It sounded like hell...  but what did he think was going to happen?

Did this guy think he could beat the system? Did he think he could somehow worm his way around one of the most mysterious and elusive emotions in all of human experience and just.... import it?   Did she think she had been rescued?  Did she think that a quickie marriage to a stranger in the magical land of America would solve all of her problems?


Did they think they'd found a loophole?

Maybe he did. And maybe when he realized that he couldn't manufacture the circumstances that make a loving and fulfilling marriage... he couldn't find a way out of his own scheme.

I guess that's the thing about traps... they look a lot like loopholes. Till they tighten around your neck and the only thing you can think about is how to get out if it.

It's a widely known fact that you can't cheat death, but this guy learned the hard way that you can't cheat love either...

and you sure as hell can't buy it.

Stay tuned for "Can't buy me love: Part II"