2103 words (8 minute read)

Mac N’ Cheese

I wake to the tones.

It’s 0327 in the AM and my bones feel like broken glass.

“Medic twenty two, emergency response for a man down in front of the Pizza Blast at fourteen twenty seven Powers Drive,” the radio screams. Almost simultaneously our dash-mounted computer screen flickers on so it can tell us exactly the same information.

I look over at Tommy. He’s sitting in the driver’s seat, eyes shut.

“You know who that’s gonna be,” I say.

“I know who it usually is,” Tommy responds. He still doesn’t open his eyes but reaches for the radio and finds it without fumbling, “Twenty two en route.”

It’s about ten blocks away and I use every single one of them to curse whatever dog fellating asshole called 911.

“Can’t anybody ever, just once, ask that smelly little fucker if he’s ok instead of calling 911?” I ask. This is a completely pointless, idiotic question but Tommy responds anyway. He’s cool like that.

“Can’t that smelly little fucker just sleep behind the Pizza Blast like we have asked him to a million times?”

“I guess we’ll never know.”

“The universe is full of mysteries Elson, my man.”

“Indeed it is Mr. Sugarwater.”

We ride in silence, without the siren, just the surreal flashing of emergency lights. No need to wake up the whole damn neighborhood. I watch the spectral reflection of our ambulance drift across plate glass storefronts. I stare hypnotized until the Pizza Blast sign comes into sight. A glowing beacon in the night, calling all those lost souls who hunger for pizza. Come to me, it says, I will blast your taste buds with flavor.

“Twenty two on scene,” Tommy says.

“Copy twenty two. Have you on scene.”

The cops are already here. I can see they’ve roused the “man down” from his slumber and are harassing him about his sleeping accommodations.

As I slide out of the ambulance I realize I don’t know either of these cops. I can tell immediately there’s a lot more tension then there should be.

Fucking hell, these cops don’t know Mac N’ Cheese. Not that we really know him either but he’s local, homeless and he never gets violent so in my book he’s aces. We’ve been picking him up once a month for a couple years.

“Hey guys,” I say to the cops, trying to keep it casual, “hey Mac, you doing ok tonight?”

“Bo!” Mac says, “Tommy, what the fuck man, what the fuck? I don’t want no am’blance man. I don’t want it,” Mac speaks in a kind of fast mumble, heavily slurred by booze.

The older of the two cops looks like he’s about nineteen. For no good reason I decide to call him Columbo. Except he’s black so that doesn’t really work. He’s also really tall. I rename him Hightower. The other cop looks even younger.

I dub you, Tween Beat.

Tween Beat turns and I can tell he’s already pissed that I’m being friendly with his suspect.

“You know this guy?” Tween Beat asks.

“Of course I know him,” I say all innocent, “this is Mac N’ Cheese.”

It takes Tween Beat all of a nanosecond to decide he hates my ass. He sets his jaw and turns back to Mac, “That your name? You got any ID on you?”

“No ID man, no ID. Ain’t got no ID.”

Tween Beat takes a step forward and shines his maglite in Mac’s face, “Sir, what is your legal name? I need to run a check on you.” Clearly, these two cops are new to the neighborhood. Unless Mac has stabbed a couple people tonight or robbed a liquor store at gunpoint, this doesn’t even rate as a minor infraction around here. Most of the cops would just wake him up and move him along.

“Sir, what is your legal name?” Tween Beat asks even louder.

Well, it’s late and I’m tired and that’s about all that shit I’m willing to tolerate. I give Tommy a look and he rolls his eyes. I step over and interject myself between Mac and Tween Beat.

Mac smells particularly ripe this evening.

“He goes by Mac N’ Cheese man. Real name Mack Lankford. We all know him. He sleeps out here all the time. He’ll move along, he won’t cause any trouble.”

I turn and pat Mac on the shoulder. With gloves on obviously, I’m not a lunatic, “Ain’t that right Mac?”

“Fuckin’ right. Fuckin’ right,” Mac agrees.

“He’s trespassing and he’s drunk in public,” Tween Beat says.

“He’s not hurting anything man. We’ll get him moving along,” Tommy says stepping over beside me.

I guess since Hightower is the older and wiser of the two, he decides it’s time to take control of the situation, “Look fellas. Somebody called in a man down. Now we’re all out here in the middle of the night and the people who own these businesses are sick of this crap. We’ve got a mandate from our commander to clean up this kind of stuff.”

“This kind of stuff?” I ask.

“Vagrancy, loitering, drunk people wandering the streets of this neighborhood.”

“Shit man, you don’t let drunk people wander the streets this place gonna be a ghost town in no time,” Tommy adds, not helpfully.

I look at Tommy and he just shakes his head, holds his hands up in surrender.

“You guys gonna take Mac to jail?” I ask, honestly curious.

“We can’t leave him on the street,” Hightower replies.

“He lives on the street,” I think it’s a fair point.

“Look man, I don’t want to be here messing with him but now that we’ve been called, we can’t just leave him here,” Hightower counters.

“Uh huh. So are you going to take him to jail?”

The cops share a long look. I know exactly what’s about to happen.

“How about you take him to the hospital, get him off the street for the night, get him checked out?”

Horseshit. I love me some cops but that’s the oldest trick in the book. Saw that coming a mile away. I can’t blame the kid for trying though.

“OK guys,” I say then turn to Mac, “Mac, do you have a medical complaint on this fine evening?”

“No fucking way man, no fucking way.”

“Would you like to go to the hospital?”

“No no no. Uh uh, no way.”

Tween Beat frowns, “I can smell the ETOH from here. He’s altered. He can’t refuse.”

“What’s your name Mac?” I ask.

“Mac N’ Cheese.”

“Where you at?” Tommy chimes in.

“Pizza Blast, Dover Park.”

“What year is it?” I continue.

“Two thousand, fucking fifteen.”

“And who’s the president of the United States?” Tommy asks.

“Black Ass Obama!” Mac answers.

“For the record I find that racially offensive but I will accept it as a correct response,” Tommy says.

“That’s alert and oriented gentlemen,” I say, “He doesn’t want to go with me, he doesn’t got with me. I can’t kidnap him.” I should just take him to the hospital but if these guys wanna be hard-asses then fine, we’ll be hard-asses.

Tween Beat is unimpressed. He puts his hands on his hips and says exactly what I knew he was going to say all along.

“Alright Mr. Cheese, you can go with them to the hospital or you can come with me to jail. What’s it gonna be?”

Mac looks from me to Tommy then back to me. He seems worried but certainly not scared. Getting booked for the night isn’t a big deal to Mac, it’s more of an inconvenience than anything. The jail is like four miles from his stomping grounds so if he goes in tonight he’s got a long walk tomorrow.

“Well,” Tween Beat asks, “what’s it gonna be? Hospital or jail?”

“I’ll go with Tommy. Tommy and Bo,” Mac says.

Now, Mac can’t go back to sleep beside a dumpster. Now, these police won’t book him for public intoxication and jail him at taxpayer expense. Now, we’ll take him to an emergency room where a doctor will be legally obligated to give him a room, a bed and a nurse. God forbid he gets a rookie ER doc who actually runs a test or two on him because if that happens those tests will undoubtedly say that Mac is very, very unhealthy. At that point the doc will be obligated to order thousands of dollars in further testing and treatment that Mac doesn’t even want. All this to ensure that nobody in this big old chain of clusterfuck will get in trouble for not doing their job.

Because Mac insists on sleeping in front of the Pizza Blast instead of behind it.

Like always he wants to take his half dozen plastic bags of luggage with him and like always we have to tell him no. We let him take one so he has to spend a few minutes rearranging shit to his satisfaction. Like always he gets upset and Tommy has to talk him down. Mac likes Tommy a lot. As we get him loaded on the gurney we notice he has on some fairly new running shoes. Bright red and barely stained.

“Hey nice. Where’d you get the kicks?” Tommy asks.

“Church lady gave ‘em to me,” Mac replies.

“Nice, huh El?” Tommy says.

“A lot nicer than my shoes,” I agree.

“Smell better too,” Tommy winks and Mac laughs. Aroma of malt liquor and rotting teeth hits me.

“That’s just rude you guys,” I feign offense. They laugh more.

While we get ready to roll I watch the cops picking up Mac’s stuff and carrying it around back. I assume to throw in the dumpster. Mac will probably have it all back in an hour.

I have no intention of taking him to the fucking hospital tonight. I don’t see the point in wasting everybody’s time and money so I’m not going to do that. I am afforded the luxury of that decision because the PoPo and I don’t share a dispatcher. I’m private EMS which means I have a private dispatcher. That means they won’t hear me on the radio when I call in a few minutes and say we cut Mac loose after he refused transport.

Yes, this is possibly but not definitely less than strictly legal. Don’t judge me.

We drive to the park a few blocks away and get out. We sit around a picnic table with Mac and smoke cigarettes. Shoot the shit. He tells us the story of the church lady who gave him his new shoes. Mac doesn’t usually say much about his life before the streets but tonight he lets slip a couple things about a daughter who lives in San Francisco. Or at least she did three years ago, which was the last time he spoke to her on the phone. Since then he got rolled in McAlister Park and lost his wallet. Her phone number was inside. He happens to mention her first name, her age (approximate) and while bitching about her mother he lets a maiden name slip. Tommy pulls out his phone and pretends he’s texting a lady but I’m willing to bet he’s taking notes. Tommy fancies himself a private investigator of sorts. He almost made a serious run at bounty hunting before getting into EMS.

After twenty minutes we drive back and drop Mac off behind the Pizza Blast.

“Mac,” I say as he climbs off the gurney, “don’t you fall asleep out front again, you hear me?”

“I hear, I hear.”

“I’m serious dude. Those new cops don’t know you yet. Don’t you give them a reason to mess with you.”

“Ok Bo, ok Bo,” he gives a strange little wave as he walks away.

“You be cool, Mac N’ Cheese,” Tommy says.

“Cool, cool, cool.”

We watch as he makes a beeline to the dumpster and ducks in like he’s bobbing for apples. A few seconds later a piece of plastic bag luggage flies out.

“Redbull?” Tommy asks.

“Redbull,” I agree.