Everybody knows what the expression “to be taken for a little ride” means. It means that the guys in the fedoras and overcoats offering to give you that ride don’t plan on driving much past the next alleyway. It is not a phrase meant to induce reassurance in the person hearing it. “Come on Bugsie, we’re going for a little ride, see?” is how most people tend to hear it, even those who haven’t seen any black and white gangster movies lately.

Why, then, do paramedics ever use this phrase? Paramedics, whose job description pretty much amounts to: “Go barge into the homes of elderly persons in crisis, who are terrified of whatever it is that made them call 911 in the first place, and haul them away in a truck.” What is it about “Well, dear, what do you say we take a little ride?” that the uniformed utterer imagines will cause a little old lady who only ten minutes ago was watching the Price is Right when the chest pain started, to respond, “Why certainly; I’ll just let myself be strapped to a metal cot and be carried away by you strangers and leave all my belongings in the hands of your uniformed friends here who by the way really look as if they could care less about me or my things and anyway it’s been maybe a whole month since the last time I was presented with a huge doctor’s bill that I can’t pay”?

Of course there are some people who are so sick when the paramedics come that they could be told that the paramedics wanted to drive them to a hospital on Mars and they wouldn’t have the strength to object. But most people coming in contact with paramedics have a reasonable sense of what’s happening to them and what will need to happen next. The proposition that they “go for a little ride” either seems exceptionally strange to them, or they are simply confirmed in their belief that paramedics are people who weren’t smart enough to get a real job in some place like a supermarket.

The woman who was being asked for perhaps the dozenth time if she didn’t want to go for a little ride, thought that the young man who kept asking her that question was a real pest. “No I do not want to go for a little ride” she said again in a voice that would have been frosty if she weren’t slurring so badly. “I just want to drive home. Why can’t you just let me drive home?”

Morton “Two-Forty Morty” Banks looked nervously down at the paramedic emblem on his uniform shirt. Then he glanced nervously at Cookie Crenshaw and the small audience of cops just waiting to hear how he proposed to explain to the lady why she couldn’t just drive home. Then he furtively glanced at the scene around him.

There were three paramedic units, five fire trucks and apparently every single police vehicle west of the Willamette river, all stopped with their lights flashing, blocking two of the three west bound lanes of Highway 26. Had it not been early Saturday morning, commuter traffic would have been backed up onto Interstate 5 all the way into Vancouver. Virtually all of the standing vehicles had their radios channeled into their PA systems so that the usual “One Adam 12” stuff that comes over any police or fire department radio was being broadcast out at high volume, the voices of multiple dispatchers simultaneously screaming out routine messages to the uniformed throng.

The woman who just wanted to drive home was Finalist Number Two, and here is how she won the title. As Finalist Number One climbed up the Sylvan grade on Highway 26, driving at 12 mph in the fast lane, Finalist Number Two had inexplicably managed the transition from northbound Interstate 405 without incident. Ascending the Sylvan grade close on to both Finalist One and 85 miles per hour, the scream of bare tire rim on pavement finally caught her attention. She found the racket extremely annoying, realized that there was nothing she could do about it until she got home, and so stepped even harder on the accelerator to hasten her arrival, driving her new Thunderbird to a personal land speed record of just under 100 mph during the last few seconds of its brief automotive career. Just as she passed the Zoo and Forestry Center she overtook Finalist Number One.

Now, maybe 20 minutes later, the scene was, in a hectic, noisy, stroboscopic sort of way, oddly quiet. The fire was out and despite all the commotion the whole thing had taken on the static, frozen quality of a battlefield tableaux. What had very recently been a brand new white Thunderbird was now lying on its roof, nestled in a large bed of crushed glass, blackened and still smoldering from the conflagration that the fire fighters had minutes ago finished knocking down.

Next to the Thunderbird was something that looked very much like cars in the movies look when they come out the other end of those crushing machines that they use at wrecking yards. The object was now about the size of a refrigerator, though maybe not quite as big as some of the newer refrigerators you could see on TV late at night. Cookie Crenshaw noticed that the tires were miraculously untouched and thought that if there were still such a thing as junk men, one of them could show up, attach a rope to it and probably just roll it away.

Two-Forty Morty looked up nervously at the woman and again considered how to reason with her. “I’m just going to drive home!” she announced.

It will not surprise the knowledgeable reader to learn that Finalists One and Two both walked away from the collision the way that drunk drivers always seem to. There are many theories to explain why this happens so often, but no one really knows. That’s just the way it is. They kill, but cannot themselves be killed. Under normal circumstances Finalist Number Two would have killed the driver she rear ended while going in excess of 100 mph, and would have walked away apparently unscathed just as she did on this morning. But this was not an ordinary competition. This was a rare Finalists Competition, and so Finalist Number One, the rear-endee, also walked away. Unlike Finalist Number Two, however, he did not wish to drive home. He had decided that it would be be wiser to just go back to bed and forget about the whole thing. This he did in the back of one of the parked patrol cars, asking the officer to be sure to wake him by noon.

The ‘Two-Forty’ nick name referred to the heart rate Morton Banks was said to reach during routine tasks like taking a blood pressure or attaching EKG electrodes, when he appeared to reach a level of anxiety that in anyone else would cause a passerby to call the paramedics. Two-Forty Morty could generate anxiety the way a male porn start could generate testosterone. It was a natural ability. It just happened. There was nothing in particular that would set it off and it had only one speed: full tilt sweaty. Morty Banks was a bright, experienced paramedic who had got well along into what was turning into a successful career without ever committing a serious blunder, and who believed fervently and passionately that he was always on the verge of committing a serious blunder. Morty Banks would go to his grave never having experienced a moment of genuine self-confidence. But he was young and there was plenty of time for many more moments like the one he was sharing with Finalist Number Two.

“Ma’am, are you sure you wouldn’t like to take a little ride with us?” Another paramedic crew had just wheeled up a stretcher and stood waiting. Two Forty Morty smiled and motioned toward it invitingly.

“I’m just going to drive home,” said Finalist Number Two, leaning casually against the patrol car parked closest to the recent Thunderbird lying dead on its back.

Paranoids sometimes have real enemies and naturally anxious people sometimes have a good reason to be anxious. Two-Forty Morty had a terrific reason to be anxious. That reason was the sore neck of Finalist Number Two. Sore in the back of the neck, in one specific place. Sore to the touch when he’d first approached her, crunching through the broken glass to stand at her side, greeting her, introducing himself, laying his arm lightly on her shoulder, very gently working his fingers along the bony back of the neck the way he had done so often that it was second nature. Sore when he touched that one spot and she quickly winced and drew back. Sore like a broken neck.

To understand an unstable cervical fracture, visualize one of those short stubby ice cream cones – the sort with the flat bottom. Stand one of those up. That’s the series of neck bones with the spinal chord running through it. Now imagine that you balance a watermelon on top of it.

Two Forty Morty looked at the wreckage and realized he was in a classic lose-lose situation. At all costs he had to keep Finalist Number Two from moving her head around. He had to find a way to get Finalist Number Two from the vertical to the horizontal while keeping her head and neck as still as possible. In the worst case scenario – the only scenario that ever played in Two-Forty Morty’s head – the very act of getting Finalist Number Two onto the stretcher would itself cause her to move suddenly, the broken bone in her neck would slice through her spinal cord, and she would collapse onto the highway like a middle aged drunk puppet whose strings had been cut.

On the stretcher that had just been wheeled up were two small sand bags covered in bright orange vinyl and a stiff cervical collar. The collar would keep the head from swiveling and the sand bags would be placed on the cot near each ear, with a final layer of gauze and tape to complete the immobilization. Two-Forty Morty took a small step toward her. He was completely focused on her neck and was desperate to gain even a little bit of control over the woman’s movements. But his movement caused her to stiffen and raise her hands defensively.

“A little ride. It would be best for you to see the doctor, don’t you think?”

“I have my own doctor, thank you. I’m going to drive home now and if it will make you happy, I’ll make an appointment tomorrow.”

So Two Forty Morty asked again. And again. He asked in a louder voice to make sure she could hear him.

“I don’t WANT to go for a little ride. I WANT to drive home. IF that is acceptable to you people.”

“Well Ma’am, you sort of can’t do that,” said Two-Forty Morty finally.

“And just why can’t I?”

“Well, your car. I mean, look.” He gestured at the upside down smoldering wreck. At which point Finalist Number Two did the very thing that Two-Forty Morty was desperate to keep her from doing. She turned around, looked at the car, threw her hands to her face and began to sob, her shoulders heaving. “Oh Jesus! My Thunderbird!”

“Ma’am you can’t be moving around!” he yelled. He quickly put a hand as gently as he could against the back of her neck to try to support it as much as possible while she calmed down. Instead, she shrugged him off violently, stood away from the patrol car and started pacing. “Look at my Thunderbird!” she wailed.

“Ma’am, PLEASE!” pleaded Two-Forty Morty, standing well away from her.

And miraculously, she calmed down almost instantly. Had he been less stressed by his predicament he would have realized that the woman had not calmed down as much as she had simply lost track of her situation. At her current blood alcohol level, she could pay attention to any one thing for the better part of 20 full seconds before her brain simply reset itself.

Two-Forty Morty looked at the suddenly passive Finalist Number Two, looked at the stretcher hopefully said “Now how ‘bout taking a little ride with us?”

“I just want to drive home” said Finalist Number Two slowly, obviously loosing patience. “Can you please just let me do that?”

And Two-Forty Morty, before he could stop himself, said, “But Ma’am, your car…” and Finalist Number Two looked at her car, her jaw dropped open, she pointed at the mess and started waving her arms around and screaming. “My Thunderbird!” and Two-Forty Morty nearly had a stroke.

 

The main school of thought regarding the origin of life on Earth says that it was a wildly improbable event. But a competing school of thought says that life is wildly probable – so probable that it arose multiple times before the advent of the particular version of life that we are a part of. It’s just that arising is one thing, while hanging on and not going extinct is another thing altogether. From the multiple beginnings point of view, life kept arising and then getting wiped out, over and over again. Then there was that one time when the biotic stars aligned just so and it wound up spreading out to such a degree that it was no longer vulnerable to extinction from those very forces of chaos that had created it in the first place.

Some very similar process is certainly responsible for the large number of suburban white teenage boys who talk and dress and act as if they were urban black teenage boys.

No one will ever know exactly where or when it happened, or who it was that it happened to, but once upon a time some white teenage boy of a low self esteem not about to get any higher discovered that if, after enough hard practice, he started talking black while at the same time copping an attitude that he was legit, real, on top of things, chill, telling it like it was, yo! no doubt, and learning to walk in a way that said he didn’t need to hurry because a guy like him was there already, and if he started dressing in a way that you had to dress if you were going to walk and talk like that – well then, two unlikely things kept happening to this white lad – or rather not happening to him.

The first of which was that when by random chance he found himself in the company of actual black teenagers, they did not lay a little paradiddle on his face on general principle – whether because they found him entertaining or were just so surprised at the sight of him that he had already come and gone before they really knew what had happened, or just simply because they did not recognize an echo of themselves in the strange act of this white boy; and the second of which was that when he took his new persona to high school – and this is probably the crux of the matter – he was not laughed out of class but instead, the students who mocked him were seen by just enough of the other students to be losers themselves and just, you know, all white by comparison and really who are those loser white dweebs anyway? and then Hattie tells Mattie, and the next thing you know it’s taken hold and become an unstoppable thing the way these things do and sure, not really a majority thing, but then the earth is mostly rocks and salt water and not living things so it’s all good, yo.

But before that one unknown pioneering white teen, there were others like him down through the decades who were either ignored or ostracized and thus did not set any trends in motion in the same way that perfectly adequate self-replicating molecules arose from time to time down through the eons but never caught hold, the failure (in both cases) being a matter not of quality but of contingency.

Among these early pioneers, there was one who stood out by having been directly tutored by a group of black Marines in between fire fights on the bank of the Perfume River near Hue in Vietnam. This morning he had finished examining Finalist Number One, had found absolutely nothing interesting, and had sent him off anyway with another paramedic crew just to be safe because Finalist Number One could have had a tire iron embedded in his skull and not felt any pain. Then the captain from the engine company that was hosing down all the spilled gasoline and sweeping up the broken glass, got off the radio and took him aside to tell him that his house had burned to the ground during the night.

“But with no loss of life” the captain added quickly. “I mean your friends. They’re all fine.”

George thought about this for a moment, then let out a long, deep sigh and looked himself over. “I’m fine too, looks like. Life do go on.”

“It sure do”, agreed the captain and walked away.

George looked over at the ex Thunderbird and was surprised to see Two-Forty Morty standing next to the driver with an expression on his face that said the oncoming freight train was going to hit them before they’d have time to jump off the tracks. Another crew and a truckie from the engine company stood nearby with a stretcher, looking hopeful. He saw Cookie Crenshaw and two other cops watching. He walked over and stood next to Cookie.

“My Thunderbird!” Finalist Number Two wailed and began sobbing.

“Ma’am, oh please try not to move!” begged Two-Forty Morty.

“How long these two be entertaining you like that?” George asked Cookie.

“Oh, only about a minute. Seems a lot longer, though. I think Morty’s worried about her neck.”

George looked around at the wreckage. “Surprised she still have a neck to worry about. There be miracles in this world.”

“Bigger miracle would be if she consents to go anywhere with Morty.”

“Hard to figure. He so commanding and all.” He looked at the cop standing next to Cookie. “I’d be grateful for the use of your handcuffs.”

The cop looked at him as if he were speaking in tongues. When George merely smiled at him encouragingly, the cop looked at Cookie who pointed at his cuffs and nodded slightly. George walked up to Finalist Number Two, made a motion for his partner to stand behind her and keep both his hands on her head and neck. Then he looked down, smiled warmly and said “What it is, darlin’?”

Finalist Number Two looked at him uncomprehendingly. George said to her, “Got yourself a little banged up, I see. Need to go with my man Mr. Banks here to talk to the doctor. Not enough beautiful women in the world, is the problem – so we can’t be losing you just because we couldn’t get you into the doctor.”

“I have my own doctor. I will go see him today.”

“And I hope you do. But right now you in Mr. Banks’s care, and he’s taking you to the emergency room doctor.”

“He is doing no such thing.”

George’s smile reversed direction and he shook his head sadly and opened up the hand cuffs. “Then you’re going to have to come with me to the Multnomah County Jail. Cuz darlin’, you under arrest. Put your hands behind your back. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney.”

Finalist Number Two gave a quiet sob, one fat tear came rolling down her right eye, collecting mascara along the way. But she didn’t scream and she didn’t thrash around. “Please don’t” she said in a small voice.

“Law says I got to arrest you, you won’t go to the doctor,” said George. “Not my decision to make. Now you go on and put your hands behind your back and I’ll put these on real gentle, don’t you worry none about that.”

“Couldn’t I just go to the doctor? I’ll go to the doctor. With him. That person.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder at Two Forty Morty.

“Well, then if that’s what you gonna do, you’d best sit down on that stretcher and get yourself tucked in under the blanket. I hadn’t finished reading you your rights, so officially I hadn’t finished arresting you, so I guess maybe we can forget about it.”

She sat down then was helped to lie down and by the time she’d been immobilized she’d forgotten how she came to be on the stretcher in the first place and announced that she was going to drive home now if there was anyone intelligent enough to understand what that simple statement meant. As the stretcher was wheeled away with Two-Forty Morty and three truckies at the corners and George standing on the stretcher’s lower support, arresting her again while she quietly cried and said she’d like to see the doctor after all, George reached out and handed the cuffs back to the cop as he glided by, like a rider on a merry go round putting back the brass ring. The small gaggle of cops and fire fighters applauded softly.