Life in the Hot Seat

I would never trade places with the cops who had to go out to Dori Swanson’s trailer that night. I would never say that I have a harder job than the medics who had to treat her dead body while her three kids wailed and screamed outside. I would never want to be the police chaplain who had to try to comfort them. But I will say this: At least they had a minute or two to get ready.

Three seconds ago, I had a chair under my ass and a word puzzle in my hand. Then the phone rings, and suddenly I have been transferred, shot out, struck in the chest.

I talk to the daughter, who is hysterical. Lots of people use the word “hysterical” when they really mean that a person is just very upset. My caller is hysterical.

Then I talk to her stepfather, who is neither upset nor hysterical.

“Is she breathing?” I ask.

“I’m not in the room with her,” Dad tells me. “I don’t want to be blamed for anything.” Then, with me still on the line, Dad’s cell phone rings. He sets me down and answers it. To whomever is on the line, he says, “Dori shot herself. . . . Yeah. Yeah, no shit. . . . I gotta go. Bye.”

There are many people in the world just like this man. I never knew that until I took this job. The tough part, the longer you do this job, is remembering that most people aren’t like him.

For the next four minutes, I try to convince Dad to keep his three children out of the room where their mother lies dying (or already dead). They can’t help her; at this point they can only endanger themselves. Despite my efforts, all I hear are screams overlapping screams; I am no more in control of this scene than I am of the moon in the sky.

At last, the cops and medics arrive, call a Code 4 (meaning okay, for now), and just like that, I’m disconnected from 874 Langer Drive. It’s like I’ve been dangling twenty feet in the air, hoping to be let down. Then somebody cuts my cord, and I’m bracing for the fall.

That’s the moment I first notice that my body is on fire. I am completely hot from head to toe. Kristen, the lead dispatcher, stands up at her console and tells me I did a good job. She tells me I stayed calm. 

I did? I don’t remember.

My hands and face are burning. My head is thick. Though I quit smoking about three months ago, I bum a cigarette off someone and head outside. It’s fifteen degrees out, and I don’t take my coat.

The cigarette tastes like shit to me. It’s been too long. I would put it out and go inside, but if I don’t take at least a few more minutes out here in the cold, Kristen will probably send me back out. Just relax, she’ll say. Take ten minutes. As if a full ten minutes is sufficient to wipe Dori Swanson’s mess off me.

I think, What a bitch. Who does that? Who blows their brains out in front of their kids? This is ridiculous. I never even met her. I gotta get back to work.

When I return to my seat, I’m hot and shivering at the same time.

The phone rings. I stare at the blinking line a moment before I pick it up. I remember a reporter I used to work with, before I worked at 911, who would look at his ringing desk phone and say, “What fresh hell awaits?”

If he only knew.

“911?”

“Hi. My neighbor’s clarinet is keeping me up. It’s 8:30 pm, for God’s sake!”

“What’s your name?”

“I mean, don’t you think that’s ridiculous?”

“Yes, ma’am. I do. What’s your address?”

And so on, until it’s time to go home.