Free A Thousand Naked Strangers by Kevin Hazzard

doesn’t matter. Fucking snowing. I always keep it open. It’s because of this.” He tugs at the collar of his uniform shirt. “Girls love this shit.”
    The girls, the ones who get excited by uniforms—who aredrawn to them, who can’t resist—proposition him. In Walmart, at McDonald’s, at the gas station. While he’s transporting a patient. “Last girl pulled up while I’m at a red light and shouts, ‘I’ve never been fucked in the back of an amba-lance before.’ ” Jose shakes his head. “That’s freaky, right? People die back there. Love me a freak, though.”
    Jose admits EMS isn’t really his thing. It’s a job, and as far as jobs go it’s okay, but he’s not going to retire a medic. “Shit, I would’ve quit like a year ago, but these girls, man? Damn. These girls.” For now he’s good where he is.
    There are others. A couple of recent grads cycle through, people who had too much fun in college and need to bolster their résumés so they can get into med school. There are small-business owners—a contractor, a landscaper, a tax attorney—who need benefits and a steady paycheck during the lean months. There is a former cook and sommelier who has absolutely no idea how he ended up on an ambulance and wants out.
    Among the Tourists, I finally begin to feel at home—that I can fit in, that I can last. They aren’t freaks, they aren’t scary, they don’t know everything, they’re doing a job. Why they chose this work over something else is because it’s interesting. Each person has other things going on, and this job gives them just enough without getting in the way. From them, I learn that I can be here without being of here. I can be a dilettante. A Tourist.
    â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢
    â€œWhat the hell is that?”
    My partner, a part-timer who’s in and out so quickly that I never learn his name, says, “A balloon pump.”
    â€œAnd that’s what, exactly?”
    I’m standing in a stranger’s living room. There’s yellow shag carpet trampled to brown pulp by years of foot traffic; flowery wallpaper; and a TV but no couch. In fact, no furniture at all except a hospital bed, which has been wheeled in and made permanent—a double-wide trailer in miniature. Our patient is flopped on the bed. He has the soft, flabby look of a man who hasn’t stood in a year, maybe more. He’s in a diaper and smells like he gets nothing but sponge baths. He’s attached to an IV pump and a feeding tube. He’s been intubated, and machines breathe for him. Among other things, he’s kept alive by something called a balloon pump.
    My partner asks for the history, and the patient’s around-the-clock nurse reads from a packet of papers. She mentions the balloon pump and the IV pump, rattles off medications and drip rates, diagnoses, complications, procedures. I don’t understand any of it. I realize that for the last few months, I’ve gotten only a tiny peek at, taken the smallest bite of, this field. Until now, I’ve dealt with people having an acute and specific problem, people who—aside from having lost a few toes—are more or less healthy.
    This is different.
    Whatever confidence I’ve built up is gone. I back up and get out of the way, unsure what I’m supposed to do. I’m given very simple, direct instructions and still I screw it up.
    The hospital, when we get there, is a relief. Get him out, walk away. Forget patients like this exist. It was tricky getting him onto our bed, and it’ll be tricky getting him off. Nurses crowd the room; my partner confers with a doctor. An ER tech walks in. He sees that I’m overwhelmed and comes to take over the job I’m failing to do. “Mind if I get in here?”
    I jump back, hands up. “Not at all, you’re the pro.”
    â€œSo