Cahty, 29

2:15 pm
"I take a couple uppers, I down a couple downers, but nothin' compares to these blue-and-yellow, purple pills!"
Cathy smiled at the image of her brother dancing around his apartment in his underwear singing this.
"Nice. Very 'listening-to-the-radio-in-2001'."
"Today's the day, Big Sis!"
"Yeah yeah, I'm working a twelve from three to three, can you come over around 6-ish?"
"Let me check my schedule..."
There was a long pause in which Cathy now saw him standing stock still, eyes slightly unfocused, with no expression on his face.
"Yeah, I think I can fit you in, Cath."
Her phone beeped.
She looked at the screen and saw "Matt" blinking.
And speaking of fitting things in...
"I have to go Calvin, Matt's on the other line."
"You're the only person who calls me that..." he responded, seeming not to have heard her.
"Okay, see you around six, bye!"
She pressed the "Send" button.
"Hey, Matt, what's up?"
She hoped she sounded light and airy, like she wasn't just counting the seconds until he arrived, but she didn't think she was doing a great job.
"Hey Cath, I'm on my way over...you got some time for...?"
He let the silence ask the question and she bit her lip.
"Hm, let me see," she paused, doing her best not to sound too eager, "Yeah, I think I can, ahem, fit you in..."
Matt laughed.
"Cathy, please, I'm driving..."
"I'm just getting in now," she said, "How far are you?"
"Maybe five minutes...see you soon..."
"Definitely."
She hung up and walked in to the lobby of Brookhaven Memorial Hospital.

2:50 pm
"I'm sorry again...I don't know where the hell I could've put them..."
Matt was buttoning his shirt.
"And again, don't be. I'm on the pill and I didn't notice any suppurating sores so we should be fine..." she held him from behind, her naked breasts pressing against his back, "Besides...it always feels better this way..."
"Can't argue with that," he said, turning around and kissing her on the mouth.
She pulled back smiling and then froze, "Matt, what's all that about?"
He looked down at his right hand where there was a large, swollen area on the side of his palm.
He sighed, "Nothing. So, these asshole paramedics brought this woman in about twenty minutes before I was headed over here, right? Heart attack, D.R.T. They just need a sawbones sig on the paperwork and everybody's happy. I figure, what the hell, makes me look busy so no one catches me up in anything important. I'm doing a quick once over, confirming that she is, in fact, dead and she starts seizing. I'm holding her down and yelling for the paras to lend a hand, but they're just standing there, gaping like wet-behind-the-ears interns! These guys have been on the job for years, Cathy. So I yell for them to pull their thumbs out and help me restrain this obviously living woman. They finally snap to and are securing her legs and arms and, while I'm trying to make sure she doesn't bite off her own goddamn tongue, she nips me."
"'Nips you'?"
"That's what I said."
"Well, are you okay? Did you have it checked out?" Cathy was concerned, chiefly for Matt (man was she in deep...) but part of her was wondering if this woman had something in her blood...which was now in Matt's blood...Matt who had just been inside her for about a half hour without any sort of protection...
She shivered before she could stop herself, luckily Matt hadn't seen; she didn't want to send the wrong post-coital message, specifically: sex with you makes me shudder.
"According to her records, she was just a regular, old cardiac arrest, no bugs or anything. But, get this, these afterbirths kept saying, 'Doc, she was dead, Doc! She was dead!'" he shrugged, "I got some peroxide on it and by the time I was done, it had clotted. It barely broke the skin, Cath, I'm fine."
She relaxed a bit.
"Good. And if you see her again, tell her I'm the only one who gets to bite you now."
"You can tell her yourself, last I heard they were sending her over her for the autopsy."
"What's your problem over there? That's the third stiff in twelve hours we've got from Mount Cedar...are you molesting the dead again?"
"I can't get hard unless they're hard..." Matt said wistfully, staring off into the distance.
"Christ, how did you ever become a doctor?"
"By sleeping with the right corpses." he said, taking her in his arms.
"Seriously, though, I wanted to ask you about..." he held up his right hand, indicating the gold band around the third finger, "...are you...okay with this?"
"Look," said Cathy, getting serious, "I don't know anything about your home situation, but I'm not looking for a husband. You're fun and you're hot and you fuck like a 20 year old...that's all I really care about."
Matt smiled.
"And that's just fine with me."
"Hey, how did 'the meet' go with my brother?"
"Oh, fine. He's a really funny guy. I told him that this isn't a permanent situation and not to figure me into his long term plans. He gets that, right?"
"He does, but I'll reiterate. He's coming by later for the re-up."
Matt laughed.
"Re-up, nice; you been watching The Wire?"
"You know it."
He looked at his watch.
"Hm, you should be getting to work, Nurse Franklin."
She looked at her own.
"I concur, Doctor Heller."
"Perhaps we can schedule another meeting for some time later this week?" he said in a detached, businesslike tone.
"Hm, yes," said Cathy, trying to match his gravitas, "Perhaps. I do have about a dozen other appointments though. There's a conference in town, of course"
"Of course, Nurse Franklin, of course. Well, call me if you find an opening."
He kissed her again.
"I may be able to squeeze you in. I'll keep you updated, Doctor."
"Thank you, Nurse, I'll do the same."
And with that, Matt left.
Cathy got herself cleaned up and made it to the nurses' station with about a minute to spare.

4:39 pm
Cathy was just entering Mr. Denton's room when her phone buzzed in her pocket.
She ignored it.
She wasn't the type of nurse to answer her cell when she was with a patient, that was just disrespectful.
"Afternoon, Mr. Denton. You rang?"
She watched his eyes look down at himself.
"You...need to use the bed pan?"
His left index finger tapped twice.
"All right, let me help you with that."
This guy was hardcore.
A couple of weeks ago, he was a breathing corpse, the living dead, but a few days ago, his call bell had gone off at the Nurses' Station. She'd called the electrician before she'd called the doctor.
This kind of thing didn't usually happen.
But, sure enough, when she finally came to his room, there he was, pounding on that button with his left index finger.
Two down, Mr. Denton, eight to go...
As she was replacing the bed pan and washing up, her phone rang again.
She dried her hands and looked at it.
It was a number she didn't recognize, but that wasn't too out of the ordinary since her brother lost his cell phone more than once a week sometimes.
She answered.
"Hello?"
Nothing.
"Hell-oo?"
She might have heard someone breathing.
She smiled.
"Calvin?"
There was a click and the beep that let her know she'd been hung up on.
She shrugged, closed her phone and dropped it in her pocket.
She would ask him when he showed up.

7:03 pm
"Speaking relatively, this is totally 'around six'."
"Uh huh."
They were walking through the basement towards the Nurses' Lounge.
"You know, for an Ent—" he began.
"Just! Just shut up! No! Stop! Okay, whatever. I don't care about Hobbits. I really don't."
Calvin subsided, looking pleased with himself.
"Anyway, sorry I'm late."
"No problem. I only have about ten minutes left on my break though."
"That's cool..." he voice became a gravelly whisper, "You got the stuff...?"
Cathy rolled her eyes.
"You are so lucky this is not a very well run establishment, you're too inept to be a real drug dealer."
They entered the Nurses' Lounge and Cathy looked around to make sure they were alone.
She opened her locker with a key and handed him a black plastic bag which he snatched and stuffed into his backpack with over-dramatized caution.
"You are such a fag."
"You are what you eat, Big Sis."
"All right, then you're also a pepperoni hot pocket."
"Burn. So how's Slump?"
"Don't know. He would had gotten off at seven in the morning."
"Gotcha."
"And I hear your thing with Matt went well?"
"Dude, he is so cool. We met in a Starbucks."
"Ha! Nice."
"Yeah, that's not all, he put it in a gift bag."
"Sorry?"
"Yeah, he said it would look less suspicious. He handed me a Body Shop gift bag...with heroin in it...while I was enjoying a caramel flavored iced beverage."
"You probably won't see that on The Wire..."
"It was awesome."
"Well, remember what I said before, he isn't a dealer and he's not going to become one. He just happens to be a guy who has some heroin—"
"—and I happen to be a guy that needs some heroin. It's ridiculous, but it works."
"And it's supposed to be good, right?"
"Are you kidding me? Slump almost blew his load on my papasan."
"And I'm never sitting on your papasan again."
"Suit yourself."
"Okay, I gotta get going. I'll walk you out."
"Thanks again, sis. See you next week?"
"Unless one of us gets arrested."
"Cool."
They walked up the stairs to the first floor in silence.
When they reached the door she held it open.
"Oh, did you call me from some number and hang up?"
"Not that I'm aware of."
"Hm. Okay, whatever. See you around , kid."
"Sho' 'nuff."
She watched him go for a moment, then turned and went back inside.

8:18 pm
"Fourth floor Nurses' Station, Cathy speaking."
It was Dr. Adler.
"Oh, not too bad, Doc."
She liked Dr. Adler.
Most of the doctors here were all right, but sometimes they could be real pricks.
"Aside from the usual, Harold Denton has had quite a breakthrough. Dr. Lewkowicz left a note attached to his chart asking that you be informed."
She listened for a moment.
"Pretty much like you said, Doc. Left index and ring."
She smiled and then laughed.
"He's already figured out the call bell, yes."
She listened and then nodded.
"I'll be sure to tell him, Dr. Adler. He'll be happy to hear it."
She paused.
"You too, good night."
She hung up.
Before she could turn away from the phone, it rang again.
"Fourth floor Nurses'—"
It was Betty, the nursing supervisor.
She needed Cathy in the ER immediately.
"On my way."
She hung up again and took a few steps towards the elevator before reconsidering.
This was an old hospital and waiting for the elevator would take ten times as long as just using the stairs.
She opened the door to the first floor's ER waiting room and Betty was waiting for her with a clipboard.
"Catty, we got sumptin special from Sweet Watta," she looked down at her clipboard, "a Miss Deborah Buntin, can ya bring dis down to the morgue?"
She pointed at a gurney with a large, zippered black bag resting on it.
"No problem." said Cathy.
She got behind the gurney and pushed it towards the elevator.
"God, this fucking thing..." she muttered under her breath.
After some time, the elevator finally arrived.
She pushed the gurney in and pressed the button for the sub-basement.
She noticed the smell almost as soon as the doors closed.
She'd smelled dead bodies before, but this one...smelled...like...
Her stomach writhed and suddenly she was taken back to the night she had returned to her apartment and found the raw chicken breast her alcoholic roommate had left in the microwave over a long weekend...she remembered how the surface of it seemed to pulse and ripple and the sound the flies made as they—
She clamped her lips around a moan and barely managed to stifle her gag reflex.
She was bent over double, eyes squeezed shut, gripping the gurney when she heard the moaning again.
Her eyes snapped open.
She wasn't moaning.
"What...?"
She heard the unmistakable sound of stiff plastic ruffling and then something cold and slick touched her hand.
"Oh my God...!"
She stood up straight and looked at the twitching, shaking bag on the gurney.
"Oh my fucking God!"
Cathy leapt into action.
"You're going to be just fine, uh...Deborah! Deborah, you going to be fine...just stay calm..."
She tried to get her fingers on the tiny zipper tab but both her hands and the bag were jittering wildly.
"Just hang on and try to lay still, Deborah! I'll have you out in a moment!"
The moaning continued, but muffled now as if the woman inside were chewing on the bag or...
"Choking! Oh fuck me sideways!" Cathy finally grabbed hold of the tiny zipper and raked it down, tearing it free of the twisting black fabric.
The smell hit her like a sledgehammer and she had only a second to take in the face of the woman in the bag (ohfuckingshit) before the elevator floor jumped up to meet her.

9:12 pm
"—atty? Sweet baby, are ya all rate?"
"Did I throw up on Miss Buntin?" Cathy asked in a thick voice.
There was a heavy, considering silence and then Betty burst out laughing.
"Nooo, sweety, but you did bump you' head and cut you' arm."
"What...happened...?" she asked weakly.
"Well, George was down in de boiler room and was waiting for the god damned elevator when you showed up, lying in a pool of puke wit Miss Buntin's head stickin' outta her boddy bag. He called a code an' we came ta get you. Now you're in de lounge."
Cathy looked at her left arm and saw a solid band of white about halfway between her hand and her elbow.
"The doc on call patched you up, he'll want to check on you."
"So...that woman's...alive?"
Cathy felt as if she were viewing the world from the bottom of a lake.
A frown settled on Betty's face, "Well...now...she—"
Betty's pager buzzed just then.
"Sweet Mother, anotha one?" she said under her breath. "I have to go, Catty. I'd send you home, but tings 'ave gotten a bit busy while you were out. Just lay here for a bit and the doctor will be down, then come back on up, all rate?"
With that, Betty hurried out of the room.
Cathy suddenly wanted to talk to Matt very badly.
She remembered what had happened to him and then saw in her mind's eye the Mount Cedar tag on Miss Deborah Buntin's body bag.
She reached into her pocket and dialed his number.
It rang three times and went to his voice mail.
She waited, feeling comforted by the sound of his voice and then hung up before the beep.
She didn't really want to leave this as a message.
She thought for a moment and then texted him the message "CALL ME PLEASE."
She closed her phone, put it back in her pocket and took a deep breath.
She was very tired.
She just wanted to sleep, go home and sleep some more.

12:42 am
Cathy's phone rang in her pocket, but she didn't answer it.