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    Cancel 160
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    Cancel 160
    Ebook100 pages1 hour

    Cancel 160

    By Bill Joseph

    ()

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    About this ebook

    During the 1980's I was the Captain of Nespelem District Tribal Emergency Services. Fire, Ambulance, Rescue and Search and Rescue.
    We were over worked and underpaid but none of us could imagine any other kind of life. We were Tribal members taking care of our own and this was our story.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBill Joseph
    Release dateDec 6, 2009
    ISBN9781476363080
    Cancel 160
    Author

    Bill Joseph

    47 year old Native American from the Colville Indian Reservation in North Central Washington State.I write about life as a Native American and a resident of Okanogan County.I don't take long moonlit walks along the beach, but I write about it.

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      Book preview

      Cancel 160 - Bill Joseph

      Cancel 160

      A Novella

      By William Joseph Jr.

      Written during the Hundred Years War

      Copyright 2009 William Joseph Jr.

      Published by Smashwords

      The e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. The e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.

      Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Thanks to the

      Vincents of

      20 West Dewberry

      For the crew of unit 160

      And the people of the

      Colville Indian Reservation

      Sharing stories is the tradition of my people. Before we were taught written words, we passed these stories from generation to the next generation. Natives still need to give our stories to the next generation, lest we forget our ways.

      Ambulances are real. The Colville Tribal Emergency Services exists as a program that renders care to the peoples of the Colville Indian Reservation. Necessarily, historic personages mingle and converse with invented characters. In some cases, invented characters have been placed in real events: in others, real events have been slightly or greatly fictionalized. Throughout the book, real places and locations are mixed in with fictional and invented characters based on living persons.

      NESPELEM DISTRICT

      I sit next to the fireplace alone rubbing my hands tightly together. Soot from a dozen house fires and blood of as many accidents had been ground into my skin and I wonder how could all of this filth be removed cupping these hands over my nose that sting with the scent of smoke and steam. I would leave this comfortable fireplace and try to scrub it all away but I’m expecting to be called to a holiday death. Hearing the commotion over my home scanner, I suit up in a blue jump suit uniform. I’m careful to place my new gold badge that reads, Captain, Nespelem District, Colville Tribal Emergency Services.

      In bitter cold of a winter midnight, I maneuver my command car around the HUD houses and onto Gold Lake Road heading into Nespelem. A small Indian town, without need for straight sidewalks and paved streets has snow slung to the roadside into rocky hills of ice. Slushy roads scrape the floorboards yet the car is determined to reach the next emergency. Red emergency lights mounted atop the car, in a dream, seems as it’d float the car away to someplace other than a suicide scene.

      Twenty-two years old and I'm wearing a Captain’s badge, I mumble. What kind of shit am I getting myself into?

      Snowflakes fall sparingly onto the command car then flutter about helplessly before floating to the ground. Red emergency lights make the iced flakes transparent. I hear patrolmen sign out at the scene while others veer away when the dispatcher announced that the victim has died.

      143 Nespelem, I call on the radio.

      Nespelem, go ahead 143, answers Marlene, the dispatcher.

      Confirm officers report of the Dead on Arrival.

      That's affirmative. DOA confirmed at 23:46 hours.

      143 Nespelem. Cancel 160 and all other responding rescue vehicles.

      Copy 143, cancel all emergency response.

      Three patrol cars are parked in front of a small white house on the corner of C Street and Cache Creek Road. I shut off the emergency lights and sign out with the dispatcher. At the front door of the Martin home a police officer stands guard. I recognize him as a new patrolman and slowly walk to the door.

      Hey Joe, how’s it going?

      Not too good, says the patrolman. Go ahead and go in. He stands aside to let me pass.

      I shake my head, Don't need to.

      Joe looks surprised and hurt. Isn't your ambulance crew going to show up?

      Nope, I canceled the response. They don't need to see this mess when there is nothing they can do -- especially this time of year.

      Well -- don't you need to go in?

      You see one of these; you've seen them all. Besides, if the officers need me they'll call me in. For now I'll stand out here with you.

      Joe nods, watching the bright headlights of passing traffic. His eyes dart back and forth not knowing what to think or do. Sagging from his hip is a black leather duty belt covered by a brown-oversized officer’s jacket. Joe shivers, slightly, and only with his hands. I feel warm enough. Underneath my blue jumpsuit is a heavy set of sweats. Over it all is my brand new gold badge and I think it looks extremely gaudy. Moving my chest left and right to catch that familiar reflection of red and blue lights just as my old silver badge used to. The gold of my new badge seems to absorb the light.

      I blow the steam of my breath into ice flakes that flutter about in cold and hard northern winds. Ice and moisture cakes over Joe's mustache making it look white and aged. I check my mustache, wiping off tiny icicles that make me look like something or someone that I may not yet be.

      Anecdotes of blood-rushing ambulance calls bar fights and good-looking nurses relax Joe from his officious stance, but only for a moment. Then Mrs. Martin and her daughter Evelyn come out of the house. The two sob bitterly and support each other in a labored march next door towards the main house. Joe turns into the wind so his eyes will dry. This is my first call, he says. Why did this suicide have to be my first call? Then, more silently, I don't think I'm cut out for this shit.

      I catch Joe eyeing my badge. I think it may not look so new to him. It may carry more weight with those who haven't been around a while and could explain why I walk about with a diffident air as though I had done this a dozen times today.

      Sergeant Millard and Carden come out the front door. Millard is carrying a large-caliber rifle. Carden notes the serial numbers off the rifle while Joe calls for the funeral home. Millard and Carden light up cigarettes, and with relief, breathe in the harsh smoke. I wash the blood off the rifle stock with gauze bandages and saline water then hand it back to Millard. Squinting in the cold wind and cigarette smoke he announces, That'll do--damn violent way to do it, eh Carden?

      Sergeant Carden nods in approval and takes the rifle, Guess he couldn't take another day in his wheel chair.

      The two sergeants go back inside and I quickly cover the blood stains in the snow and start to ramble: I remember back in the summer of `83 when there was a suicide attempt a day for a whole month on this reservation. Some of them were good friends of mine and some were relations of other rescue crewmembers. I had a hell of a time keeping the crew together that year. But we all stuck with it, we all - -

      I was the first on the scene, says Joe.

      I know. I heard you call in a DOA. That's when I canceled 160. There's no need for the crew to be here, not this time of year.

      Yeah, not this time of year. I mean - - with the holidays and all.

      We start some small talk to get to know each other by swapping lies and then confirm them with more lies.

      About then the police chief shows. Nearly running into my car he pulls to a stop and stumbles out of his command car. He brushes by us leaving a familiar stench of hard alcohol following about as his constant companion. Tired and grumpy he glares at us as if it is our fault he is called out at one o-clock in the morning. He closes the door behind him. Joe and I exchange knowing looks and shrug our shoulders.

      So how many of them died? How many of all those suicide attempts. How many died?

      I think for a moment, About thirty percent I suppose -- Giving a percentage was a mistake but it had slipped out.

      Sorry, I say. Guess I should leave statistics to the monthly reports, but we do it all, firefighting, crash rescue, search and rescue . . .

      And ambulance.

      Right, and ambulance.

      The funeral home

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