**********
It was a Wednesday, only my 3rd day on the job with the Houston Fire Department (HFD), Emergency Medical Services division. I, Peter Wells, was a newly hired Emergency Medical Technician straight from the Fire Academy and still used to civilian life. I had just finished 4 years of duty as an Army Medic and was an alumnus of the infamous 'Goat School' at Fort Hood. The final exam is they shoot a real live bleating goat – if you can keep it alive for 30 minutes you pass, if not you fail. They don't do that anymore... much too politically incorrect, but I admit it was good real life training.
The HFD at that point in history was having trouble getting and retaining EMT's due to the buereaucratic attitude that they were 'Firemen first and EMT's a very distant second'. Accordingly they were running trained firemen through their EMT training later as an afterthought... and with a low success rate, so there was a constant critical shortage.
I was part of a new pilot program where they recruited ex-military medics and nurses who had the right attitude and training to get all of the endless EMT training and needed certifications then run them through Fire School. A good idea that worked... they should have kept it (but that's another story).
Riding to the scene of an auto accident that day we received an update report on the radio: a car in a hurry to get his wife in labor to the hospital runs stop sign and doesn't see the guy on the motorcycle currently already in the intersection; they collide, and the car (as usual) wins. Bleeding badly from his right arm, shoulder and leg the cyclist (Tiny) staggers over to the car undoubted looking like some grim Viking refugee from Valhalla to see if they are alright. The driver of the car, the husband, sees Tiny and is certain that he's going to get clubbed like a baby seal... pisses his pants and then faints. The wife, whose water broke about the time they hit Tiny, was screaming like the Furies and started to do the bludgeoning herself, whacking her unconscious husband with her handbag in an attempt to revive him.
Bemused, Tiny was still standing by the door when we pulled up with all of the sirens wailing. He then calmly asked for us to "check on the pregnant lady first, it looks like she's in some distress," and then he immediately passed out onto the pavement. Come to find out, in the crash he suffered a cut to his Axillary artery and was in some danger of bleeding out. I tended to Tiny, got him stabilized and an IV hooked up while my senior training partner looked on, and once he could tell I had the situation well under control he went to check the vitals of the woman (still shaking and beating on her husband) and then reviving him. We then called for the backup EMS unit from our station to come and pickup the pregnant lady while we took Tiny to the hospital.
That should have been the end of the matter, but this was merely the start. Later that afternoon while cleaning and restocking at the station, I noticed that in the hurry to check Tiny's shoulder wound and locate and clamp off the bleeding artery, I had pretty much cut off his denim jean riding jacket, his "Colors." They were bloody, pretty much soaked actually, and a ragged mess. Anyone else would have thrown them out without a second thought, but I had learned just enough of biker culture from hearing dorm chatter while in the Army that I knew this was extremely important to him. It took three washings to get most of the blood stains out, and I found that one of the 3rd Unit crew had a wife that sewed and got her (for $20) to reassemble the jean jacket from where I had cut it all apart. By Friday evening I had the repaired jacket back and I took it with me to the hospital after my shift ended.
Tiny was doing well. Except for a few nasty cuts and the resulting blood loss, there was nothing broken and no internal damage. He had been waiting for the final doctor's ok to release signature on his forms and was otherwise ready to leave the hospital, so it was excellent timing. Upon seeing his Colors, more or less clean and reassembled, he nearly cried and gave me a huge bear hug that nearly squashed me (I'm nowhere near his huge size) and he vowed eternal thanks and obligations of future debt. Wow, just seeing him that happy made it worth the time (and the $20 I didn't really have at the time).
We talked a bit about ourselves and our jobs, I mentioned that I was new to the city and had just left the Fire Academy dorms and was renting a dump efficiency apartment by the week that was probably smaller than the hospital room we were in. Tiny gave me the address of the apartments where he worked and then showed me the choice of the two available units that were in the relatively best condition, and offered a sweetheart of a deal on monthly rent. I chose the upstairs one with the recently repaired plumbing and a decent working AC unit and moved in the next day. I assumed that we were now even. Silly me, we weren't even close.
After a few weeks on an intense OJT (on the job training) schedule where I was essentially nearly always on duty and lived for a full week at a time at the station, things started to finally calm down. My direct shift trainers had a good look at my skills and prior training and reported back to the chef instructor that I knew my shit and could be trusted with sharp instruments without injuring myself or others. Soon I was on the normal schedule for a Unit Crew, three days on (24/7) at the station day and night, and then three days off. It was surprising the number of classes and seminars that always seemed to get scheduled for those days off, but I still managed to start putting together a home life (ok, studying usually, but at least I was home). In six months or so I felt I could get completed with the last of my training requirements to become an intermediate EMT-I (most folks usually took a year to get out of "training" status) and then start another hard year of classes and training to test to EMT-P (Paramedic) which was pretty much the top of the normal EMT tree.
I didn't go to bars or have much nightlife. I worked, came home, studied some more and occasionally visited Tiny every week or two, watched a game together on TV and discussed the importance of first-rate home brewed root beer (Tiny's one remaining vice). So things went for a couple of months, and then I meet Allison Blair.
**********
Like Tiny, I met Allison 'professionally', but fortunately this time she wasn't the patient. She worked the retail industry as an Assistant Manager at an upscale woman's clothing store that was part of a small but growing chain. She had called 911 when a customer collapsed in the store (nothing serious fortunately, probably just dizziness due to low blood sugar) and after the embarrassed customer had left I had a few minutes to chat with Allison at the checkout counter while filling out my paperwork.
Since by nature I tend to be extremely shy and I'm conscious of my relative shortness as a male (I'm only about 5'8," and I would have preferred to have gone into the Navy instead of the Army, but I was scared I'd get immediately sent off to Submarine School) so I tend to compensate by coming over to women as extremely self-assured with a cocky attitude. In my defense, I'm also in excellent physical condition due to my military experience and the uncertain needs of my job (firemen probably pump way more weights than police do). In her case, I was awed by her exceptional good looks. She was a stunning beauty nearly 6 feet tall with long "dirty dishcloth blonde" hair, at least a 9 on anyone's scale and obviously totally way out of my league. Even with no ring on her finger, I doubted I had even the slightest chance with her, so I did the only thing I could think of to do under the circumstances... I immediately jokingly proposed marriage to her. To both my delight and horror she instantly accepted.
Mercifully we didn't actually run out like the two love crazed kids we were and immediately tie the knot, and we actually managed to have a few dates before her personal items started to slowly, but surely, drift into "our apartment." Within a month, she had given up her own small apartment and we were living together, but it was almost over between us even before it really began.
When two people start a close relationship the first few months are really all about learning what things the other person does that bug the shit out of you. In my case, I'm a compulsive "neat-freak," where she definitely tended towards being a slob. She was also rather emotionally 'high maintenance' who felt the need that we ought to be doing things together every time we were home together. My work hours (or rather days – three on then three off) meant that I'd only be home half the time – I also usually worked every single major holiday (the highest peak periods for calls for EMS service). She was also extremely impulsive and had an unfortunate tendency to job hop. Every few months she would decide that the path to becoming a full Store Manager was always a little better or easier at some other company and she would suddenly change jobs without any prior discussion between us. These were all rather annoying to me at times, but I thought I could deal with that. We constructed some rules about housecleaning that both of us could live with but there was nothing I could do about my work schedule and she understood and tried to accept that.
Then there was the matter of Allison's drinking, an ongoing crisis that only I seemed to recognize or acknowledge the existence of, which caused regular problems for us throughout our entire relationship.
**********
Looking back now, much older (wiser?) and with 20/20 hindsight, I'm inclined to blame much of her problems on her relationship with her father (also an alcoholic and who may or may not have abused her as a child). She was definitely raised in a troubled house where both her parents drank like fish and fought seemingly endlessly. She was smart and very pretty but also lonely and troubled. A small legacy from an aunt plus a minor scholarship was enough to get her out of the house and into a state university. There she scraped out a degree in English and learned to party like there was no tomorrow. Fine, that's what college (and military dorm life), is for... but after college was over the old habits didn't die off. She started the day with a drink, had more as soon as she got home from work and wanted to drink until either late at night or early in the morning or until she passed out. Not good.
