Chapter 27: Summertime Livin’

06 June 1992 – Avocado Street, Springfield, Massachusetts

Jeff checked out his ambulance in advance of a ten a.m. to six p.m. shift with Connie Willis. Whoever used Ambulance Thirteen before them forgot how to restock after calls. Jeff had quickly learned that one of the biggest lies in EMS is: “the truck’s all set.” You checked your truck every shift, especially if the off-going crew told you that about your vehicle. If your partner said that, however, you took them at their word. Trusting your partner was essential.

“Hey.”

Jeff looked up to see Connie climbing into the truck. “Hey, Connie. How are you today?”

“When were you going to tell me your dad owns Valley Automotive?” she asked, casting him the Evil Eye.

“I didn’t want to color your perception by letting you know it was Dad’s shop. Is your car running better now?”

“Better? It’s running better than when I bought it! And he barely charged me anything!”

“Was it the distributor cap?”

“That and bad spark plug wires. You knew, didn’t you?”

“Dad taught me well. When did you figure it out?”

“I didn’t. When your father handed me the invoice, I was stunned at how low it was. He said to me, ‘Jeff let me know a friend would be bringing her car in and what its problem might be.’ Your dad hooked a thumb at the wall behind the counter when I asked who he meant. You’d think I would have noticed the eight-by-ten photos of you under that flag when I walked in.”

“I don’t know, Connie. I tend to blend into the background.”

“Right,” she snorted. “Dude, you’d turn my head.”

“I should be so lucky, Connie.”

She looked at him for a long moment. “It doesn’t bother you?”

“What?”

“That I’m gay? That you’re this close to me for eight or more hours a day, and I’m gay?”

“Why? Does it rub off? Is it contagious?”

Connie gave him another look.

“Look, do we work well together?” Most of his shifts were with Connie now that he was off orientation.

“I think we do. It’s only been about a week, but I like working with you already.”

“Does it need to be more complicated than that, Connie? My best friend died at twenty-two, killed on the last day of fighting in the Gulf War. Ken was my roommate in the Army for nearly three years. He mentioned a single girlfriend in all that time. Ken was looking forward to meeting a woman and settling down but never got that chance.”

“We get, what, maybe eighty years on this Earth if we’re lucky? So why should I care how someone else is happy so long as it doesn’t affect anyone else? Plus, you have to look on the bright side.”

“The bright side being...?”

“I can help you spot chicks and vice versa.”

“Guten Morgen, Frau Noke,” Jeff said as he pushed his stretcher into a nursing home bedroom.

This was their first call of the day. ‘Frau Noke’ was Mrs. Gertrude Noke, a patient he met during training. They’d taken an instant liking to each other. Frau Noke was a chronic renal failure patient, someone whose own kidneys didn’t work. She needed kidney dialysis to filter the urine from her bloodstream. She usually lived at home with her husband, Edgar. She resided at Pioneer Valley Nursing and Rehab while rehabbing from a mild heart attack before returning home.

“Guten Morgen, Gottfried,” she replied with a smile. She liked to use the German equivalents of CRVA’s staff’s names with them once in a while.

A thin older gentleman wearing an A-2 leather flight jacket sat next to her bed. The jacket appeared to be an original World War II issue item.

“Captain,” Jeff acknowledged the man with a nod.

“Sergeant, how are you this morning?” Edgar Noke asked in return.

Edgar Noke was once Captain Edgar Noke, US Army Air Forces. He’d been a B-17 navigator and was a veteran of twenty bombing missions over occupied Europe. He met Gertrude Osterlind while supporting the US occupation troops in Germany after the war. They returned to the United States and married in 1946. They had five children and eleven grandchildren.

“Heartbroken now, Sir. I thought I’d get Diese schöne Dame aus Deutschland all to myself today, yet here you are.”

“I’ll arm wrestle you for her.”

“What, and have you tear mine off and beat me with it? No thanks, Sir.”

“I don’t know, Edgar. His accent is better than yours...”

“Trudy, don’t you start...”

“Okay, Mrs. Noke, the warden’s signed your release ... Oh, good morning, Mr. Noke.”

“Hi, Connie. It was a good morning until your partner started talking about absconding with my war prize!”

“Well, that would leave the door open for me, so I can’t say that I share your level of concern.” Connie batted her eyelashes at the older man.

“Well, my spirits seem to have suddenly improved! Maybe this won’t be such a bad day after all!”

All four in the room laughed. The Nokes were favorites of the staff of CRVA, and they were still deeply in love after nearly five decades. The crews expected this kind of banter when they picked Mrs. Noke up at home. The crews were sure that it occurred all the time. The Noke household must have been a wonderful place to grow up. Mr. Noke stood as Jeff got the stretcher ready for Mrs. Noke.

“Well, Liebchen, I’m off to change the locks and throw your stuff in the street. That’s what you kids do at the end of a relationship these days, right, Connie?”

“That’s what I did to the last loser I dated, Sir.”

“Sounds like a fool to me if he warranted such an occurrence, my dear Constance,” Mr. Noke said, tipping his cap. He kissed his wife after she settled onto the stretcher. “I’ll see you tonight, Trudy. Love you.”

“Ich liebe dich auch, Edgar.”

Mrs. Noke smiled while her husband left the room. She looked like a girl of nineteen when she did. She once told Jeff that’s how old she’d been when she met the dashing Captain Edgar Noke in 1945. Mrs. Noke still had a hint of that smile as Ambulance Thirteen started its fifteen-minute ride to Riverside Hospital’s dialysis unit.

“I hope my future wife and I will be as happy as you and the Captain after fifty years, Frau Noke,” Jeff said while he rode on the bench seat next to the stretcher.

Mrs. Noke sighed, the smile expanding again. “There are times when I still have to pinch myself, Jeff. Germany, at the end of the war, was not a happy place. There was so much fear of what the Allies would do once it was over. Edgar brought me here to America, and I’ve never regretted coming. I certainly haven’t regretted becoming his wife. What about you, Jeff? There must be a young lady in your life.”

“Well, that’s a strange story, Ma’am.”

Jeff told her of Keiko, Allison, Heather and the strange relationships that bound them, both individually and collectively, to him.

“My, my, Jeff. Quite the ladies man, aren’t you?”

Jeff chuckled. “What a difference a decade makes, Ma’am. Ten years ago, I couldn’t get a girl to say my name if I tripped her in the hallway. Since high school, the other events in my life have been direct results of deciding to change how I was in 1983. These ladies...? The Fates have smiled on me.”

“Jeff,” Mrs. Noke said, looking at him like she was explaining something significant to one of her grandchildren, “you don’t think that they’re all part of your life for the same reason? They’re there because of who you are.”

“Hey! Jeff!” called Bill Harris, CRVA’s operations manager, when Jeff passed through the office the following week.

Jeff walked over to Bill’s office. “Hey, Bill. What’s up?”

“You interested in any overtime on the Fourth of July? Overtime pay plus double-time for a holiday?”

“Free money? Ah, yeah! The hardware store where I work part-time will be closed that day. So I wouldn’t lose hours there.”

“You’re working two jobs? You’ve been working here less than a month, and you’re already adjusting to EMS life?”

Jeff laughed. “Well, I worked at the store in high school and live in the apartment above the store now. It’s a great commute!”

“I’ll bet! Anyway, the overtime would be in your hometown of Enfield. The town’s asked for a truck to cover so their fire department ambulance could participate in their planned events. Since you’re from Enfield, you might be interested. I also figured you would know how to find the addresses of any calls you get better than the rest of us.”

“Yeah, I’m interested! I’ve never seen the town do this before.”

“Something new that the Select Board wants to try. I think the Sheriff’s Department, the State Police, and the other fire departments in the area are going to help out, too.”

With July 4th falling on a Saturday this year, the towns in the valley would hold a weekend-long celebration by spreading their celebrations out. However, Enfield was the town holding their celebrations on the actual holiday.

“What time do we have to be in Enfield that day?”

“The parade steps off at nine o’clock, so eight? That way, you can get to their fire station and check-in.”

“So, get here at seven to check the truck and drive back? Or earlier?”

“6:30 to be safe. We figure you’ll finish in town by four or five in the afternoon. The town’s going to let you eat at the cookout they’re having on the Common, too; you’ll have to stay available from there.”

“Sounds good. Who am I working with?” Jeff smiled at the answer.

“So you woke up at 5:30 a.m., left Enfield well before six, got to CRVA for 6:30, checked the truck so we could leave by 7:15 and get back to where you started by eight? All of that so you could go to a cookout you would have been at anyway?”

“Yes, but you left out three essential pieces of information.”

“And what would those be?”

“One: I’m getting paid to go to the cookout now. Two: we can post at my apartment if we want to. Three: I get to work with you, Bubblehead.”

“I’m gonna kick your ass if you try to hold my hand,” Stu Masterson warned him.

“I’m sure I’ll get to hold hands with prettier people today, Stu. Sorry to disappoint you.”

“You didn’t tell me you had a brother.”

“You didn’t tell me you were missing your two front teeth, either.”

“I’m not. What are you talking about?”

“You mean you’re not... yet.”

Stu chuckled. “Where are we going, hotshot?”

Jeff waved him up Route 21 towards the center. They checked in with the duty officer at the fire station, picked up a portable radio, and headed for the Town Common. Jeff directed Stu to the shady spot the police reserved for them. They’d be right across the street from where the cookout would be.

Stu and Jeff checked the ambulance one more time and then did what any good EMT would do while waiting for something to do: take a nap. They stretched out in the back of the ambulance after they checked the function of the radio first. They also set their alarms on their watches so they’d wake up before the volunteers arrived to set up the cookout.