Mommy, part 2

You could hear him screaming from the street outside. "Mommy! Mommy! Waa! Waa!"

The cops were a few steps ahead of us.

Inside, a large, 270 lb. teenage boy was screaming. His mother was crying. One of the cops tried to calm him down. "Sir, you need to calm down!" he explained, motioning downwards with his hands.

The boy continued to scream. His mother, still crying, reached over to him. In return, the boy threw a right hook, barely missing her chin. The cops tackled him, throwing him into the wall.

I grabbed the woman by the shirt and pulled her outside. As she watched her son get handcuffed by the police, tears ran down her face and she prayed the Hail Mary in Spanish.

"Mommy! Mommy!" he wailed. "It hurts mommy! It hurts!"

The boy had autism, the mother explained, and she did her best to take care of him. Lifting up her left hand, she explained to us that he had bit her finger last week, almost tearing it off.

He was a big boy, completely out of control.

A thin trail of blood ran down his left cheek, terminating at the base of his chin. There, the blood dried, forming brown splotches. The cops had shown surprising restraint, I thought, only applying force enough to restrain him, no more. Outside, the boulevard took notice as we brought him out on the stretcher.

"Mommy! Mommy!" he wailed, his cried echoing down the street. "It hurts mommy! It hurts!"

In the back of the ambulance, he began to kick and rock forth violently. People peered into the ambulance as I sat myself on his knees, tying his ankles to the stretcher with gauze. His mom peered into the back, still crying.

I cinched the last knot as my partner put the ambulance into gear. "It's okay, papi." I said, getting off his knees. "It's okay."

He rocked back and forth, still crying out.

I dimmed the lights and put my hand on his head, stroking it. "It's okay. It's okay. It's okay," I repeated softly.

The city rushed by as we sped down dark, crowded streets. Men and women walked about, oblivious to the boy's vacant screams. His eyes glowed with absentminded pain, his voice unceasing. The cop leaned back, motioning to me.

"I just feel sorry for his mother," he said. "She's getting her ass kicked."

I nodded in agreement. The boy needed to be put in a home, we commiserated. It wasn't doing him any good to be with her, sad as it may be.

I look back at him again, never ceasing to stroke his hair, and began to sing. "Rock-a-bye baby on the treetop..hmm-hm-hmm-hu-hmm-hu-hmm...when the wind blows, the cradle will rock.."

I didn't actually know all the words, so I hummed the parts I didn't know.

"Mommy. Mommy." He said, his cry growing softer.

The cop looked on, amused.

"Hmm-hm-hmm-hu-hmm-hu-hmm...the cradle will fall.." I crooned softly, always petting his head.

As we pulled into the hospital, he grew silent. My partner had called ahead, notifying the hospital of our arrival. I wondered if my magical calming would make us look stupid, that perhaps I had done too good a job in calming the boy. But as soon as we pulled him out of the ambulance, he roused again.

"Mommy! Mommy!" he screamed with a renewed shrillness as we stepped inside the ER. "Take it off Mommy! IT HURTS MOMMY! IT HURTS!"

A line of patients and paramedics watched, mouth agape, as we walked past the triage desk and into the bowels of the ER.

As we prepared to put the boy onto their stretcher, the staff psychiatrist approached. I think he needs to be chemically restrained, I said, meaning that the boy needed something to sedate him.

"No," he proclaimed, "I don't think that will be neccesary. He is calling for his mother. He obviously just wants to be with her. And we need to take those handcuffs off, they are hurting him."

The cop and I glanced at each other.

"Umm, Doc." I said. "I don't think that's such a good idea. On scene he tried to clock his mom in the face and last week he almost bit her thumb off. He really needs to be knocked down with some Ativan."

"No, No," the doctor waved me off, letting his hand linger dangerously close to the boy's mouth. "We just need to talk and to reason with him. He'll listen."

"Whatever you want to do, Doc." I shook my head. "As long as he's on your stretcher..."

We moved the boy to their stretcher. He began fighting instantly, nearly striking the psychiatrist with his foot. The cops reluctantly uncuffed the boy at the doctor's order. For ten minutes, he tried reason with him as staff struggled to hold him down. I shook my head.

"Fucking idiot." I said, staring at the doctor.

Walking away, I was surprised to find the boy's mother again. She was still upset.

"I've never had to call the cops before," she stuttered, wiping away tears. "He threw me down to the ground last week."

"You can't take care of him anymore." I explained, rubbing her shoulder. "You're gonna get killed."

"I know. I know," she cried.

I left her to be with her son. As I stepped out into the ambulance bay, I could still hear his cries in behind me. The sky was growing dark, and buildings poured dark smoke from their rooftops into the violet haze. "Mommy! Mommy!" the boy screamed. "Mommy, I hate you! I hate you Mommy!"

Comments

[Clark]

Good job with a difficult patient.

[S.]

I wish he'd gotten a piece of that shrink. What a dolt.

[Tyson]

Honestly, I was just hoping he would chomp on his finger. It would have been so perfect...

[Doc Shazam]

Tyson,

Will you consider adding an RSS feed?

[Tyson]

It's already there! Look on the right hand column...