Heat Wave

 7/7/26

 

After three days of extremely hot weather, the church basement felt like a sauna today.  I thought the volunteers would probably serve a cold meal, but they had the stove on, adding to the heat.  

 

S., an alum, came in wearing their heavy black winter coat which had acquired some tears since the last time I saw them.  When we first met S. they were an ambitious young person with some college under their belt and always impeccably dressed.  After years in the drug-infested HIV SROs, they had gotten into crystal.  As the addiction deepened, they started pointing, injecting it with any syringe nearby, creating deep pockets of infection that landed them in the ER over and over.  The drug ravaged their mind as well as their body, reducing an articulate, polite person to shouting incoherently at nobody in particular.  It also created paranoia, so that despite the heat, I could not convince them to take off the coat.

 

Dinner was finished and the clients had either left or gone upstairs to group.  A few of us were still in the basement cleaning up when Mo, who covers the door, came down the stairs to talk to me.  “Someone is having an asthma attack in front of the church,” he said.  “a client?” I asked.  “Yes,” he replied so I hurried up the stairs and out the front door.  I found E., a skinny young man who seems to be mostly arms and legs, sitting on the stoop, hunched forward trying to breathe.  I recognized the posture, my mother used to do that when her COPD was making it hard for her to get enough air.  I called 911.  I have been doing this work long enough that I can pretty much answer each question before they ask it.  

 

E. tried to talk to me, but without enough air behind it, its such a quiet whisper that I can’t hear it.  Robin and Kevin, done cleaning up, came out and joined us, and we tried to figure out how an ambulance would even get to us with our street closed for blocks and all the buses full of soccer fans arriving back from the stadium.  Eventually the FDNY ambulance made its wound through the traffic on 9^th Ave. and took advantage of our closed block to approach from the west, going the wrong way on our one way street.  Both EMTS were smallish people, so Robin helped them boost E. off the steps and propel him to the back of the ambulance and then rushed down to 10^th ave to tell the traffic cop they would be coming through.

 

By closing time, my skin was hot to the touch like a burning fever and I was glad to get on the train and let the air conditioning wash over me.  When I got to Bay Ridge, an old white man pushing a potted plant in his wheelchair near the token bootht approached me as I headed for the elevator. “Do you have another target bag?” he asked, eyeing the bag that contained my computer and a book and the half eaten lunch I always forget overnight.  “No I just have the one,” I told him, but he didn’t seem to fully understand. “Do you have two?” he asked.  “I hear they give them out for free?” “No,” I said again, “I just have one and I don’t know if they give them out for free.” The elevator doors opened and I saw potting soil on the floor. His plant must’ve tipped on the way down. He got on the elevator with me, saw me yawning as we rode up, and offers me an unopened bottle of Coke. I often find people who have the least the most generous. “No thank you,” I told him. He kept trying to get me to take it, so I told him I can’t have caffeine that late. He seemed confused by this, so I said, “the caffeine in soda will keep you up.” “It’s decaf,” he said as the doors opened. He stayed on, but I stepped out into the windy night where the rain hitting my face felt like absolution.