A Slight Inconvenience

I saw a man die recently. Seriously, I did. And it is tough to say which was worse; watching some poor guy croak, or watching the reactions of everyone else.

It happened at work. Now, I work in a bar/casino; we have a small casino pit, a poker room, and a cocktail bar. The unfortunate was playing poker (irony of ironies, he had just won a hand) when he started breathing hard and collapsed. Another player jumped in to provide CPR, and I as Security staff kept anyone who wasn’t helping out of their way. So, I had a front row seat to the action.

Not to mention a front row seat to everyone else ignoring it.

Seriously, I looked over to the casino tables (less than fifteen feet away, mind you) to see people still placing bets at Spanish 21 and Pai Gow Poker. The poker players were watching, concerned, but I could see some of them looking at one of the unused tables and quietly wondering among themselves if a new game could be started. I’m not even kidding.

Well, things went from bad to worse. The EMTs showed up and began their work, producing the arcane tools of their trade and stripping this unnamed gambler of his dignity as quickly as they stripped him of most of his clothing. I watched his skin turn paler and paler, and that’s when it happened. His body just gave up.

The EMTs didn’t stop working, nor did anyone else react, but I was up close and personal and I saw it. It’s difficult to put into words the difference that came over the scene, but there was one. For just an instant, everyone was quiet. Everyone who was looking saw it too. His body sagged, relaxed, seemed to flatten out. My stomach did a little flip-flop as I realized I’d just witnessed his transition from “person” to “corpse”. It was quick, it was subtle, but it was THERE. That irrational, gibbering part of me yearned for some kind of release; screaming, puking, something like that. But I was on-duty and had to keep the situation together. I looked around for someone reacting. No one was. Everyone simply moved away from that primal moment; no one in the room wanted to face it.

For those of you who have never seen it, death is not dignified. It is not stately. It is not peaceful, serene or even mystical. It is ugly, visceral, disturbing at some level that I am not prepared to discuss; not because I don’t want to, but because I lack the words. I don’t think they exist, in any language. One minute the man was there, present, a human being battling his body’s betrayal. The next he was not. Just like that.

But all around me, life went on. People kept gambling, drinking, listening to the juke box, ordering food (something I’m really NOT sure I’d do in a place where a man was in the process of dying) as the EMTs continued trying to resuscitate him. Even the pace of their work had changed, however; instead of quick, they were operating with the measured pace of people going through the motions. They too, I suspect, knew that he was gone. But their training meant that they had to try. And my job description meant I had to watch.

After forty-five minutes, the technicians began packing up. They covered his face with a sheet and collected their instruments. By this time, police had arrived (any time someone dies, no matter what the situation, the police have to make certain that foul play is not involved). I was giving a statement to the officer, so it took me a minute to realize that the EMT vehicle had left without taking the body. It was another hour and a half before the man’s corpse was taken away.

During that time, I had to stand guard, to make sure no one desecrated/messed with the corpse or possessions. (The mere fact that this was a worry speaks volumes about our society’s value system.) I had to smell the stench of death, watch the man’s bare limbs turn gray, then greenish, and more to the point watch a casino full of gamblers completely ignore his presence. Once again, I am not joking or exaggerating. People had to be warned not to trip on him.

I could go on about the mass of tangled legality that caused a corpse to be left on our poker room floor, but the upshot was this; since the man had no ID, the paramedics wouldn’t have known who to bill for the ambulance ride. Same with the Medical Examiner; he didn’t come either. So they did their work in public eating establishment and left the poor bastard lying there. The responding police officer was quite offended at the situation, and so was I. Other than the cook (who walked out of the restaurant mid-shift and never returned to work), and a waitress (who was so distraught she couldn’t get drink orders straight) no one else seemed to care. Everyone worked mightily to ignore it.

Eventually, we managed to get a private funeral home to come collect the body. Eventually, things went back to normal. It was determined that there was no foul play and that we as a restaurant/bar were not responsible (he didn’t have anything to eat or drink). But I will never ever forget that day.

In ancient times, death was a big deal. When someone passed away, the family would prepare the body for funeral services (usually burial, sometimes cremation) and do all the work themselves. Shrines were erected, tombstones etched, services performed. People were able to move past their own selfish fear of death to show some respect, courtesy and love by washing, dressing and in some cases providing for their deceased family member (look at the Egyptian mummification ritual for a good example).

So, to see the death of a man reduced to a minor inconvenience, a passing piece of interest (note; it was less than two months ago and no one talks about it where I work, even though we were all outraged about it when it happened) was disturbing in the extreme. And I came to one other conclusion.

Death scares us. It frightens us on a deep, primal level we do not even fully understand. No one wants to be near it. Oh, we’ll watch a million movie murders and not blink (maybe wince a bit if the celluloid demise is particularly gruesome) but put any normal person in a room with somebody dying and they’ll close up and pretend it’s not happening. “I’m glad it’s not me” was what was running through my head, followed by “wow, what a shitty thing to think”. My brain kept churning out dark humor and wandering away, wanting to be anywhere but where I was. The fact that someday, that was going to be me was not a thought I cared to be faced with.

To the common patron who attempted to save his life, I salute you. To those who make fighting the specter of Death their business and calling, I name you much braver than I. For most of us, facing death is something we’d rather avoid.

I know I would.

Wearing Us Down

I was recently at a get-together( I don't call it a "party"; no booze, no bad behavior, sorry but it's my definition) with some friends, which I found highly enjoyable. We talked, played Rock Band (which I mostly watched except for some off-key chorus help...I can't sing) drank too much caffeine, and talked about silly shit that made us laugh our asses off. After cuddling with some cute girls, I ended up out on the porch giving one of said cute girls a backrub while having the standard party spiral of unfocused conversation. Perhaps inevitably, the conversation drifted to relationships.

Well, the girl in question was a newly-minted adult; she'd just turned 18 (note to readers; I was NOT trying to score, so don't even think it) and talked a bit of some of the boyfriends she'd had. I listened to her experiences, and the talk just made me, well...sad.

Listening to the tales of self-absorbed, immature boyfriends (note; it didn't come across as a play for sympathy, just communication of information), I was struck by a thought; no wonder people are so cynical. Our young lives are never quite what we hope them to be, our first relationships (sexual or otherwise) often extreme disappointments. And with each passing failed attempt, we grow more and more cynical, and in some cases bitter, self-absorbed and manipulative. And then the cycle perpetuates itself. With each passing breakup and betrayal, we lose that much more of our "relationship idealism" and pass the emotional scar tissue off as "wisdom".

I most emphatically disagree.

What are we being "wise" about? Learning to mistrust the advances of strangers, simply because they ARE strangers? Automatically assuming the worst of our fellow humans? Assigning superficial, selfish motives to what could be acts of genuine kindness, simply because others have behaved in such a fashion in the past? If that is wisdom, then give me a bit more ignorance.

Of course, a certain measure of this is necessary to our survival; it is a sad but very true fact of human nature that a good portion of the species IS out for its own good, that a lot of people ARE just looking to get laid, and placing trust in strangers is sometimes really NOT a good idea.

But I think we go too far.

In closing, I don't wonder too much why there are so many empty, cynical people in this world. It is their lives that make them so. I try not to be counted among them, but it is often a struggle.

Remember that old phrase, "Practice random acts of kindness"? Well, I live by it, or try to. Like giving that teenage girl a backrub and listening to some of her problems (WITHOUT designs on her virtue) was one. A small, debatable act, but an act of kindness nonetheless. So paying attention to a cute girl with problems doesn't make me a saint.

I'd like to think it doesn't make me a sinner.