A Step Of Faith Part 22

He never brought the incident up again. I think I liked him more after that.Two miles from Pevely was the town of Herculaneum, named after the ancient Roman twin city of Pompeii. It was also the city where the fictional character Richie Walters in the musical A Chorus Line was born.

An hour later I pa.s.sed through a town called Festus. (The name made me think of the singing deputy of Gunsmoke. I used to watch the reruns with my father.) Festus had a population of 11,643-double that of Pevely-evidenced by the town's largest edifice: a Walmart.

As Americans stopped building town squares and piazzas, Walmarts took their place.

-Alan Christoffersen's diary

I was glad to see a Walmart as I was running low on supplies. I bought fruit, a bag of mini bell peppers, a half dozen energy bars, a can of salted peanuts, a dozen flour tortillas, a package of sliced turkey, a bottle of Tabasco sauce, two large bags of beef jerky, Pop-Tarts, four cans of chili, and batteries for my flashlight.

For lunch I bought a V8 juice and a foot-long sandwich from the deli section. As I waited at the register, a large, unkempt woman stepped in line behind me, setting an industrial-sized bag of cheese puffs and a six-pack of beer on the conveyor belt.

The clerk was handing me my change when the woman suddenly clutched her chest and groaned out. "Oh, I'm having a heart attack. Call 911!"

The young woman behind the counter just stood there, frozen, her eyes wide with panic.

"Call 911!" I said. This time the young woman grabbed her phone and dialed. I helped the gasping woman to the floor in the middle of the checkout aisle. "How do you feel?" I asked.

"My chest," she wheezed. "It feels like an elephant's sitting on it. I can't breathe!"

"Try to stay calm," I said. "Help will be here soon." I looked back up at the clerk. "Did you call 911?"

"They're on their way."

"Help me over to the bench," the woman said.

"No," I said. "I think you should just stay here."

"No," she insisted. "The bench." To my surprise, she climbed to her feet, then waddled to a bench about twenty feet away from the aisle. I followed her, unsure of what to do. Fortunately it was only a few minutes before we heard the wail of sirens. Just seconds later, two paramedics rushed into the store carrying bags of gear. I stood and waved them over.

As the lead paramedic neared, I saw his expression change. He looked at the woman with unmistakable annoyance. When he got to her side, he knelt down and took her hand, placing a pulse oximeter on the end of her index finger. Then he glanced back at his partner.

"Ninety-seven," he said.

His partner handed him a blood pressure cuff. The paramedic said, "All right, Rosie. You know the drill."

The woman pulled up her sleeve and the young man strapped the cuff on.

"How am I, Doctor?" she asked.

"I'm not a doctor," he said. "Hypertensive. Nothing unusual." He turned back to his partner. "One fifty-eight over ninety-three."

As quickly as he had arrived, the paramedic unfastened the cuff and began returning his gear to its bag. His partner just stood there, his arms folded at his chest, his expression dour.

I watched the incident unfold with confusion. "How is she?"

The paramedic looked at me with a dull expression. "She's fine," he said. "She's diabetic and has mild hypertension, but other than that, she's fine."

I glanced over at the woman, then back. "Really? But she ..."

"Rosie's always fine."

"What do you mean, always?"

He stood up with his bag, turning away from the woman. "Rosie here is what we call a 'frequent flier.' She fakes heart attacks, then tells people to call 911."

I looked at the woman, who seemed oblivious to our talking about her, then back at the paramedic. "Why would she do that?"

"Because she can," he said sharply. "It's a rush for her. She gets a lot of attention and feels powerful that we all have to come running. And every time we do, it costs the taxpayers five grand."

"You're kidding me."

"I wish I were."

"Can't you do something about it?"

His eyebrows rose. "Like what? You tell me. Even if we knew it was her, if we didn't respond, some ambulance chasing lawyer would sue the city. The worst part is, last week while we were playing her game, a man on the other side of town had a real heart attack. Some bystanders kept him alive for nineteen minutes, four minutes short of what it took us to get to him."

"You're telling me that she killed him."

"We can't say that for sure, but he sure as h.e.l.l would have had a better chance of living if we'd been there."

I turned back and looked at the woman with disgust. "Did you know that? This game you play cost a man his life."

She scowled at me. "You think just because I'm poor I'm not ent.i.tled to the same care everyone else is?"

"This has nothing to do with rich or poor," I said angrily. "It has to do with need."

"It has to do with crazy," the other paramedic said.

"I have problems," the woman said.

"Clearly," I replied. "You're an awful person."

She just stared at me, her mouth gaping like a fish on land. I went back and got my groceries, then left the store.Drama aside, the rest of the afternoon was decent walking as Festus gave way to more rural landscape. Physically, I felt better than I had the day before, giving me hope that perhaps the worst was over. As night fell, I reached the Good News Church, a golf course, and Mary's Market, where I stopped for hot coffee. I pitched my tent and camped in a gully on the side of the road.

Every time I thought about that woman at Walmart, I wanted to slap her.

CHAPTER Eighteen

We cannot enslave others without enslaving a part of ourselves.

Alan Christoffersen's diary

I had set up my tent on a slight incline and woke the next morning with a crick in my neck, which I tried to release by cracking it, but it didn't help much.

I walked back to Mary's Market and bought some yogurt, coffee, and a giant homemade blueberry m.u.f.fin. I sat on the curb outside the store and ate my breakfast, then set out for the day.