Deiner Run

David Collier

Deiner Run



         “I’m sending you a Deiner Run,” Stephanie yelled from her computer on the other side of the office. “You want to pick who goes with you?”

         While swallowing my last bite of macaroni from the hospital cafeteria, I looked suggestively over at my friend Avery sitting across from me at the table.

         “Sure,” Avery responded to my expression.

         “Yeah, Avery’ll go with me,” I yelled back to Stephanie. Immediately, both of our pagers buzzed. Avery took the pager from his pocket and read the page.

         “Room 461,” he said. “Ya ready?”

         I responded with a slight nod and then we both groaned as we stood up from the table. We left the office and headed towards the elevators. It took us the whole length of our walk to ease our minds and bodies into the back nine of our late night shift.

         We had made it to the transport elevators and were waiting at the doors when Avery broke the silence.

         “I bought Tracy her first tricycle for Christmas. It’s been one hell of a time tryin’ to put it together though,” Avery said.

         “Yeah, how so?” I asked.

         “Well, the thing is I only have a half an hour before my mother drops off Tracy after I get home from work. I don’t want bike parts laying around when she comes home so I’ve been assembling the tricycle in the attic.”

         “That has to be cold, huh?”

         “Not only cold, but the ceiling is only about five feet from the ground, so not only am I wearing a coat, I’m also crouching over the whole damn time I’m up there.”

         The bell rang on the elevator and the doors opened. We took the elevator to the fourth floor. As we stepped out of the doors we were walking next to each other until I turned right to walk down the hallway. Avery turned left.

         We both stopped and turned towards one another with a questioning glare.

         “Where ya off to bud?” Avery asked.

         “Room 461,” I quipped.

         “Yeah, it’s 461 – East,” Avery said. I checked my pager and read the black text against the pale green light. He was right.

         “But…that’s pediatrics,” I said. Avery shrugged his shoulders and continued down the hall while I walked quickly to catch up. The large cream-colored automatic doors with the small, face-sized windows opened before us. As we approached the front nurses’ station, centered in the hallway, a nurse stood up from behind her desk. She quickly made eye contact, and without saying a word walk in front of us until we reached the room. Right before we were at the door the nurse stopped and turned facing our direction.

         “You gentlemen are doing us a big favor. We’d usually bring it down ourselves, but we’ve been under staffed all day,” the nurse explained.

         “It’s not a problem, we know,” I said softly.

         “Okay then. The bag is already zipped and is on the cart. I’ll make sure the doors are open for you guys,” the nurse said.

         “Thank you,” both Avery and I murmured.

         We opened the door and entered. The room was unusually cold, and the bag resting on the mortuary cart was only half occupied. Avery walked over to the head of the long, cool steel stretcher while I took the other end to steer. As we left the room two blotchy-eyed nurses peeked from over the nurses’ station. We moved quickly, and the nurse had already opened both of the automatic doors. Less than a minute later we were standing at the elevator bay with the down button illuminated in white. It was silent as we waited. I glanced over at Avery’s face and saw that he had faint red lines tracing his eyelids.

         “I need to look when we get in,” he muttered.

         “What?” I asked surprised, but rather softly.

         “I need to look,” he replied in the same deep tone. “Just real quick.” The elevator bell made its modest ring and the two doors opened. We pushed the cart in the middle, and then we each took our place on opposite sides. I pushed the button for the basement and the doors began to close in front of us. As soon as they were completely closed Avery turned towards the stretcher and reached over to the zipper on the top of the bag.

         “C’mon man,” I said. “You’re going to get us in trouble.” The elevator had made its slow descent.

         “Just real quick,” he pleaded as he unzipped the bag. He ran the zipper far enough down the bag so the dull outline of a girl’s doll-like face could be seen underneath the thick plastic that covered it. Avery stared motionless.

         All of a sudden the elevator stopped and the first floor light was illuminated.

         “Damnit, zip it up, hurry!” I said. Avery broke from his trance. He began to zip the bag back up towards the head, but it became stuck halfway. He gave one strong pull, but the zipper remained unmoved.

         The doors of the elevator began to open slowly and both of us turned towards the front. I took a quick step forward to appear unwelcoming. Behind the sliding doors stood an old, middle-aged woman nurse with a stiff perm and about eighty pounds overweight.

         “Sorry, going down,” I said, in attempts to break the awkward silence. The nurse said nothing, just nodded her head. As the doors slowly closed, her eyes locked onto the tampered bag, and then she shot us both with a cold and suspicious glare. Eventually, the doors were fully closed and we made our last descent.

         “Sorry, that wasn’t – “ Avery began.

         “It’s whatever,” I interrupted. I wasn’t mad at him. It just wasn’t something that needed to be talked about.

         Coming off the elevator the Deiner’s Room was only twenty yards away. We entered the door code and pulled the stretcher inside. We opened up the door to the refrigerator that stood about eight feet high off the ground. There were two of these large cooling compartments. Each could hold two stretchers at a time.

         We went back upstairs. After taking a few more separate transports it was time to leave for the night. We checked-in our pagers and closed the office. Walking to the employee parking garage, Avery and I recalled the most strange runs each of us had that day. Both of us neglected the last run we took together.

         Before we parted ways towards our cars I stopped and turned towards Avery. “I don’t want to find you three days from now, all frozen up in that attic,” I said jokingly.

         Avery smirked, “Yeah, well I guess it ain’t really that cold.”

         We both said goodnight and went our separate ways.