Love & Loss

A little context if you care to listen

I find myself in a shit position

The man that I love sat me down last night

And he told me that it’s over, dumb decision

And I don’t wanna feel how my heart is rippin’

In fact, I don’t wanna feel, so I stick to sippin’

And I’m out on the town with a simple mission

In my little black dress, and this shit is sittin’

~Escapism, RAYE

I have 146 unread messages, seventy-five missed calls, and exactly one voicemail.

It must be really bad that my family learned how to leave voicemails because that would mean they would actually have to set up their own voicemail system. And knowing them, they would never bring themselves to do that.

Unless they have to.

I allow my text-to-speech app on my phone to read them aloud, one by one, while I spoon a hefty mountain of cold oats into my mouth. A ripe blueberry bursts between my molars and I murmur with pleasure.

Michelle, con mác dịch này! Where are you? Pick up your phone! Your father and I are worried sick!

Skip. Ignore.

I shove another spoon of oats in my mouth. I grip my free hand on the steering wheel and switch lanes.

Your sister says she’s sorry. Come home! Now! Or I’ll—

I ask Siri to skip that part. Twenty-five-years of living with my mother has taught me that her death threats mean nothing.

The next message is from my father.

Michelle, this stunt of yours has gone on long enough. Ba is getting too old for this. Come home so we can talk about this like adults!

I scoff and skip the message. The next one is from my sister.

Michelle, it’s me. Nothing happened between us. I swear on my life. I’ll never do anything like that to you. Just come home.

Come home.

Come home.

Come home.

I ask Siri to set my phone on ‘Do Not Disturb.’ My phone goes eerily quiet with the exception of my GPS showing me the route to my next destination. I sit back into my driver’s seat and breathe a long sigh of relief. Sweet quiet. Just me, the EMS truck, and the road.

My EMT partner looks at me with horror written all over his face. “You have to be a fugitive on the run. There’s no other explanation.”

“Maybe I am,” I tease. I play into his fears and catch a glimpse of an unsettled shudder crawling all over him.

“Come on, Michelle. You and me, we’ve been partners for the last three months. We’ve saved lives together. And you’re playing all those messages on our hands-off speaker, too. You owe me some kind of explanation.”

“What would you like explained to you, Harper?” I ask begrudgingly, making sure to put emphasis on his name. Harper and I joined Houston’s EMS Rapid Rescue Squad three months ago. We started at the same time although I had one more year of experience than him. Despite my callous exterior, I actually like Harper most of the time. He tries to be vulnerable with me, having begun his transition at the same time we met. I’m one of the first of our EMS team to use his pronouns correctly and consistently, but I do it out of respect and not because I’m eager to make a best friend.

“I don’t know…” Harper trails off. He adopts my sarcastic attitude having experienced most of his life as a woman and occasionally surprises me with his sass. “I just want to know your hopes and dreams, your greatest fears, and maybe WHY I KNOW ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT YOU?”

“What do you mean? You know everything you need to know about me.” I say, scraping the last of my oats into my mouth. “My name is Michelle Vuong. I’m your partner. We save lives together. Sometimes I crack a joke or two that you find hilarious even though it’s not really that funny and you go off about your personal relationships and where you are in your transition even though I never really ask and—”

“Is that what you really think about our relationship?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow.” Whether that ‘wow’ stems from Harper’s amazement, hurt, or something else entirely, I have no idea because I’m not looking at him. I’m pulling into the driveway of a man who allegedly got so drunk and high off of drugs that he defecated all over himself, slipped, and fell.

Or so we were told by the 911 dispatcher. I don’t think the dispatcher knew if it happened in that particular order.

“You are unbelievable, Michelle.”

“Unbelievable like a miracle or unbelievable as in the existence of unicorns and sparkly vampires?”

“Haha, very funny.” Harper muses.

We get out of the EMS truck and knock on the door. The door flies open. The smell that wafts straight into our noses should be considered a form of assault. The smell is what I can describe as a mixture of garbage left out on a hundred degree day with the sourness of rotten meat. I gag almost instantly. The tears in Harper’s eyes tell me he’s not holding it down any better than I am. We walk inside, shielding our noses with our sleeves and searching for our man. We call for him and hear a groan echo back at us.

We tread carefully through the corridor and into the living room. Feces smear all the walls and the carpet, leaving no crevice spared. My eyes water, and I blink back the tears. My nose wrinkles with each step, slowly shriveling up and dying with each whiff.

“Sir! It’s EMS! We’re here to help!”

“Over here!” The man calls. We follow the direction of his voice. It leads us to the kitchen. A naked man lies immobilized on the floor, wrapped up tightly in spring blue bed covers. Feces smear his face brown and his feet stick out at the bottom of his makeshift wrap. He’s also not alone. A woman stands next to him. She’s dressed in a bathrobe and holds a lit cigarette between her fingers. Her indifferent expression pans over to us and fades to impatience.

“About time you both got here. I wrapped him up for you so he won’t make a mess in your ride. You’re welcome.”

“Are you the wife?” Harper asks.

The woman scoffs. She takes a huff from her cigarette and blows a fume of white smoke. The smoke acts as a temporary perfume to the foul odor putrefying the place. “For now. I’m filing for divorce tomorrow. I can’t take this shit anymore.”

Literally. The limitations of my imaginations cannot fathom with physical and figurative shit this poor woman has gone through with her poor excuse of a husband.

“Good for you,” I say. It earns me a dirty look from Harper.

“How did this happen again?” Harper asks the man in the blanket.

The man turns to him with his blown up pupils. The pupils are the size of asteroids, black and round craters offset by his wide and loopy smile. The man giggles. “I’m a poo-poo burrito.”

“Roy’s an alcoholic.” The wife answers on her husband’s behalf. “He also does bath salts. Not the Dr. Teals you find at Walgreens.”

I finish shining a light in both of Roy’s eyes. The slow reaction confirms the wife’s story. “Alright, Roy. Let’s get you to the hospital.”

“I’ll go get the gurney.” Harper says with a sigh. I don’t even blame him. I wish I could say that this is the first poo-poo burrito case we’ve had but it’s actually the fifth case we had this month. Gotta love Houston. But I won’t complain. It’s all part of the job. Chances are, Roy will live. He might not be pleased that he’ll sober up to some divorce papers, but he’ll still be breathing. And that means it’s a job well done for me and Harper.

Harper and I transfer Roy to the nearest hospital. The doctors take over from there while we get to wash and clean up. I eagerly await our next call. I like staying busy. It makes time fly faster and frankly I’ve never been the one to sit still. When Harper meets me outside the restroom, I wait to hear for our next mission.

Except there is no mission. Harper reminds me that my shift has been cut short today. Last week, I was assigned to teach a class of high school students who’ve traveled to Houston to compete in some medical competitions. SOSA, MOSA, or HOSA. Something like that. No one at the fire department wanted to do it, so it fell on me.

Just when I think the day can’t get stinkier.

Harper saunters off after breaking the bad news, so I take the EMS truck and leave him at the hospital. Knowing Harper, he’ll find a way to get back to the fire department. I go off to teach the class.

I teach three one-hour sessions of first aid techniques to a bunch of giggling, ambitious, and hormonal high school students. For the most part, they behave well. They manage to stay chatty while staying attentive to each step of procedure. I start to ease into the role of instructor, coaching students through suggestions and observations. And then I catch myself thinking, hey teaching isn’t so bad.

But then I spot two students in my final session. Partners. A girl and a boy. Their laughter echoes across the room as they struggle to carry each other across as they practice performing the fireman drag. The boy teases her at first for her slowness, but he quickly sets aside his humor to encourage her. He cheers for her despite her embarrassment and reminds her just how little distance she has left. She takes longer than the others, collects sweat on her forehead, and shakes at her arms from exhaustion. But when she finally crosses to the other side, the boy smiles widely and pushes back the damp hair sticking to her ruddy face as if to say, You did it. I’m so proud of you.

The girl nervously looks over her shoulder at me, worried about my judgment. Maybe I do look like I’m judging. I’ve been told by countless people in my life that I look unapproachable. Sometimes irritated. But really, I’m envious of how the boy looks at her. He looks at her like she’s his whole world, and I can’t help but wonder if anyone has ever looked at me the same way.

The final session ends briskly. I leave as soon as possible, hoping to forget about the boy, about my auto-wreck love life, and focus on finding my EMS truck in the parking lot. I get in and look at the time.

4 p.m.

See, if I only had one job, I would turn the sirens on and speed on home, eager to jump right in my sheets. Except I don’t. My night job takes me right to the ocean.

The first thing I do is greet the girls. All of them.

Kiki, Miesha, Yarely, and Cady have worked at The Enchanted the longest. Mikayla, Josephine, and Samantha just hit the two month mark. And I? I came in last. Not that it was ever a problem. The girls welcome me with open arms as I climb up the ramp to the yacht. It’s the usual squeal, hug, and fuss. They fuss over my hair, catching a strand that missed the scorching wrath of my curling iron. I apologize and give them the same tried and true excuse: I drove an hour from my job and had no time. This, of course, prompts them to shower me with excessive compliments to balance out my insecurities. They tell me my lashes ate, my waist is snatched, and that I’m the perfect mix of cute and sexy. I don’t even bother to hide how I devour their compliments every time. My girls can make anyone feel like a goddess on earth. Perhaps it’s because they’re paid to do it, but I take what I can get.

Standing together, we look like sisters from different mothers. Our uniforms consist of white bra tops that fit one size too small, black shorts that roll up our thighs when we walk, and heels so steep they bring us closer to God. But other than that, we feel as comfortable and riveting as we look, and so far I’ve had nothing but fun with this job. Also, I can’t complain about the extra income. Just the sound of flipping through a thick wad of cash at the end of the night brings a smile to my face.

We hear Hughie call to us from across the deck. Hughie isn’t actually his name, but the girls and I call him that because he reminds us of Hugh Hefner. He’s ninety-years-old but has the spirit of a fifty-year-old womanizer. It also helps that he’s rich and occasionally refers to us as bunnies.

“OHHH LADIESS!!! THERE ARE GENTLEMAN WHO ARE WAITING TO BE SERVED!!!”

“Yes Hughie!”

We rush in to bring out the champagne bottles. I reach for a lighter that I keep inside my bra and pass it to all the girls so they can light up their sprinklers. Once we’re lit, it’s showtime.

The party starts when the music blasts. In single-file order, we bring out the champagne, raising the bottles up and down and flashing our sprinklers. The glittering lights illuminate our night-lit faces as we parade down the deck. The passengers hoot and holler as we disperse to our assigned tables. I make my way down to table ten, making sure to walk with a pump in my step, smile brightly, and make eye contact.

I peer through my lashes at the two gentlemen seated before me, and they immediately peak my interest. The older one seems about twenty-eight and the younger, twenty-one. Most men I serve on The Enchanted are much older, nearing the end of their fifties or midway through their sixties. As expected of young men, they try to cover up their nervousness with an ample spritz of cologne and self-inflated confidence. My nose is still deaf from my mission earlier today, but the cologne is a more welcomed alternative to what I had experienced.

I pump my champagne bottle upward, allowing the twinkling from the sparklers to light up different parts of my body before removing the sparklers from the bottle. I hold the sparklers as close as I can to my top without burning myself. The attention I draw satisfies the older one who follows my every movement before I douse the sparklers in a bucket of water. I catch the younger one looking away out of embarrassment or modest; I can’t tell.

“You’re gorgeous.” The older one remarks as I pop open the champagne bottle. The cork flies in some indeterminate direction. I pour a glass half-way full. When I try to pour another one, the younger one interrupts.

“I don’t drink.”

I set the bottle down. “We have sparkling cider.”

“And she’s considerate.” The older one runs his hand down his beard in intrigue. “You’re an angel, my dear.”

A ghost of a smile haunts my lips.

“I’d like that.”

The younger one looks up at me with his dark brown eyes, shadowed by double-layered lashes. They’re full and thick and blink back at me slowly. They remind me of the desert at sunset, vast and teeming with life beyond a first glance. He has a deep complexion and a long and sharp face. It makes him look more severe and serious than he actually is. When he catches me studying him, he glances at his empty glass which confirms my suspicions. He’s shy.

I set out to bring back a bottle of cider and hear a snippet of the conversation I’m leaving behind.

“Brother, you’re not home anymore. Ease up. Talk to a woman or two. It’ll do you some good.”

“When you said you were taking me to a yacht, this wasn’t what I had in mind.”

The older one swivels back to me. “Excuse my friend. He’s consumed himself with studying and needs an occasional reminder that the world exists outside of the university library.” He says this with a wink which I laugh at. I always find that laughter loosens people up, men especially. The younger stubbornly fixates on his empty glass.

“I’ll come back with the cider.”

I head to the cooler and run into Miesha. She’s grumbling under her breath rummaging for the right brand of red wine and is digging so hard that all the bottles sound like they’re on the verge of breaking. When she sees me, she immediately sighs with relief.

“Oh thank god, it’s you Michelle! You gotta switch tables with me! I can’t stand him!”

I arch my brow. “Stanley?”

Miesha widens her eyes and nods vigorously. I know Stanley. In fact, all the girls on deck know Stanley. Stanley has the patience of a toddler and smiles with veneers so blinding that they rival those of our current gariatric president. It’s all to make up for his colonoscopy bag which he doesn’t take care of well. Sometimes it leaks and smells. But as someone who deals with literal shit and body fluids on a daily basis, it’s not a problem for me.

It also helps that he’s rich.

“I’ll take him. But half of your tip from table ten goes to me.”

Miesha squeals with gratitude. “Thank you Michelle! Also he wants the Barolo 1979. Table three.”

She disappears, leaving me to bring out the goods to Stanley. I take a moment to remind myself and my aching feet that my shift will be over in just a few hours. I can deal with Stanley as much as I can deal with another case of patients on bath salts. I set out with my best face. When I come back out on deck, I walk into the absence of music. The air stills. I hear fragments of an on-going argument.

“It doesn’t belong to you!”

“You best believe it does belong to me because I was with you from the beginning! I built that business too! I was with you when it was just us two boys, because we were boys damn it, and we was just fishing. I helped you turn it into that seafood market! I suggested we make it a surf and turf restaurant on water! Every important decision, every event, every crash, I was there! ME! And now you wanna give it all away!”

“I’m giving it to my son!” The first man quivers.

“I thought I was your son! All these years you took me under

your wing and fed me lies that one day this business was going to be all mine! Me!”

“I’m going to die soon, Roy. What do you want me to do? Leave my wife and kids nothing?”

“You could give it to me! I’ll take care of them!”

“You’re holding a gun to my face. You’re scaring me.”

A long pause turned the air thick. “Guess not.”

Then I hear it. The sound. That unmistakable sound I wake up to so often in the middle of the night, on the Fourth of July, when I’m arriving on scene. It’s an unmistakable pop that sounds nothing like the movies make it out to be.

Screams ensue. Passengers disperse. I rush to round up my girls, even tossing aside my heels in the process. Most of them are already hiding in the bunk room with Hughie. I count and count again. Someone’s missing.

Miesha.

Yarely tries to hold me back, but I run to table three. Miesha is hiding behind a flipped table with the two gentlemen I’d served earlier. The older one is cradling the younger one in his arms and bits back the urge to break down from terror. The younger one is clutching his shoulder. His hands come back red with blood. Miesha looks up at me. She’s sobbing and shaking, holding the younger one in her arms. She’s shaking so violently that when she looks up at me, her eyes widen and she trips over her own words.

“He…he got shot. S-Stray…bullet. I-I think.”

“Let me see. I’m a licensed EMT.”

The younger gentleman looks up at me. He’s trembling. His lips turn blue. His dark brown eyes glance up at me. I see a small spark of relief cross light up those eyes.

“Let her look, Yousef.” The older gentleman coaxes.

Yousef’s hand is pressing dangerously close to his neck. There’s a chance that the bullet already ruptured an artery.

“I need to put pressure on your wound,” I say gently. “I’m ripping off a strip of your shirt, okay?” The linen shirt tears away like paper. I wrap it like gauze and ease the transition. Yousef pulls his hand away. I replace his hand with pressure. Blood gushes out, so I press harder. “We need to lay him down.”

Another shot followed by a splash. Meisha cries as more screams join the night. “Oh my god! I think that guy just shot himself and fell into the water!”

“Fuck.” I curse under my breath. He’s gone. I have to focus on Yousef.

“Lay him down. Please.”

The older gentleman helps me lay Yousef down gently. Yousef closes his eyes and starts reciting something under his breath. It’s in Arabic. The older gentleman chastises him.

“Don’t say shahada! Not yet! There’s going to be help right? We need to get him to a hospital!”

Yousef continues reciting. His eyes are closed as though he’s about to sleep.

“We will,” I reassure him. “The problem is we’re in the ocean!”

“Oh my god! This is my fault! I brought him here. He just wanted to study, but I brought him here!”

“I know you’re busy being remorseful and stuff but now’s not really the time—”

A thud shakes the deck. Great. Miesha’s out.

“What do I do?” The older gentleman shouts hysterically.

“Did she hit her head on anything?”

“No.”

“She’ll be fine. Most likely passed out from shock.”

The yacht makes a creak as it pulls into the docks. Paramedics

and EMTS stand and wait, ready to tackle the scene. Water search and rescue zips into the ocean with their speed boats, frothing up bubbles and foam behind. At the very edge of the pier, I see Harper standing with a medkit in hand. His eyes find mine, and a look of recognition and disbelief cross his expression. The expression quickly fades to stoicness.

The older gentleman falls to the floor and shouts, “Alhamdulillah!”

I check on Yousef. He’s finished reciting his shahada and seems pale and weak. He looks up at me and presses his hand atop of mine over the place he got shot as if to say, Don’t leave.

Comfort. That’s all people want when they’re scared and hurt.

I pulse his hand firmly, a gesture of reassurance before shouting out to the docks. “We got a young male with a shot wound and a young female with syncope right here!”

The paramedics storm in, including Harper. We work together to help strap Yousef into a gurney. Harper and I exchange hands, applying the right amount of pressure to reduce Yousef’s bleeding. We help Yousef up the ramp into the truck. I prepare to hop in but Harper stops me. His hands are already holding onto the doors.

“I’m coming with him!”

“You’re not on duty!” Harper barks back. I see he’s still mad. I abandoned him at Methodist hospital and took our EMS truck.

“Come on, Harper! I work here!”

Harper glances down at my bloody bottle girl outfit. His mouth opens as if to say something but he hesitates out of his own judgment. Instead, he says, “Go home, Michelle.”

He slams the EMS truck door in my face, and I watch as the truck drives off. I make sure to flip him off before I suck up my pride and drive back to my apartment. I climb three flights of stairs and fumble through my bra to fish out a tiny key and let myself in. I try not to trip over an endless array of moving boxes lining the walls as I find my way in the dark to my bed. I collapse with my blood soaked clothes, not even caring that I’m ruining my covers. My phone rings and I allow it to go straight to voicemail. The message plays.

Michelle, it’s me. If you don’t want to talk to me, that’s fine. But please let me know that you’re okay. That’s it. Just do this one thing for me, and I’ll never ask anything of you ever again.

A long wave of silence makes me think that the message is over. I close my eyes and allow myself to succumb to exhaustion.

I miss you.