expensive music

Expensive music always has a monster baseline, “Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom” that jumps your bones up and down. Pulsing just above the baseline is the clap line, “Clap, Clap…Clap, Clap, Clap…Clap…Clap, Clap, Clap…Clap, Clap…Clap…” off beat and chaotic in a way that frenzies up the juices of the soul and gets them jiving toward the heart. Finally, in this three-seated coaster of sound, the front seat is reserved for the voice line “Gracias por Dios, vive Jesus Cristo”, delivered poorly in tone but with the voice of a lioness rich in hope. Amplify this concoction of lines to the fifth power, and let your ears be punished for the sake of a musical cleansing.

Listening to this beautiful ear-beating did not cost me a dime, but nevertheless, it was costly. It was costly because of where it was being published; not at an outdoor stage or at one of Ecuador’s many Discotecas, but rather, from the inside of a rickety ambulance, tearing at 140mph through the western half of the country to its elevated/mountain dwelling capital city. And it was costly because it was sounding through the air behind the most expensive thing possible; a human life.

What was wrong with the girl? I couldn’t tell you. Its name was 20 letters long and not easy on the tongue. But I can tell you that it was a vampire, and its teeth put her into a critical state at 9pm on a humid Saturday night. And the hospital balked, put its hands up, and shrugged. Operating in a world of uneven vampire remedies, it did not have a shot, pill, drug, or machine that could cure the bite. So they did the next ‘logical’ thing. They wheeled her into an unfortunate mans hearse and sirened her off to Quito. To stroke the conscience, and comfort the family, they threw two doctors into the back of the van. Ben and me…

Let me explain what an Ambu is to a medical ignorant like myself. Basely, it is a piece of stretchy rubber that, when inflated, is about the size and shape of a rugby football (more round than an American football). On either side of the Ambu rests a small hole for a tube to be attached to. Hooked up to an oxygen tank it doubles as an angel and a demon. An angel, because when squeezed with force, fills the lungs with fresh, clean air, sustaining life. A demon, because when squeezed with force, fills the fingers with fresh callouses, the hand with clean muscle cramps, and the mind with shots of frustration.

And it was in this juxtaposition, between angels and demons, between hope and despair, sleep and alertness, that Ben and I found ourselves pumping prayers from our hearts to our forearms, through our fingers, and into the failing body of a mother of two…

More than once, as my body jolted back and forth, and my stomach ran in the gerbal cage, I looked at Ben with the knowledge of necessity. Ben needed to check her eyes, to check her pulse and feed her shots, to whisper confidence into her ear and hold her hand. I needed to squeeze the Ambu, to catch her saliva on my leg, to stroke her hair, to pray to God. Her mother needed her lioness voice, an offbeat clap, and soft eyes for which to see her daughter. And finally, our bus driver, in some backwards way needed to remind me of John Candy’s “Uncle Buck” and needed to drive like a drunk Ricky Bobby in “Talledega Nights”.

None of us, the five of us, had the luxury of choice. We, all of us, needed to perform, all the way to Quito…

So the Lord God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock

and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly

and you will eat dust all the days of your life.” -Genesis 3:14

And there were snakes in Quito. Born to operate with coiled grips and sharp lickers, they dealt out injustice, one hospital at a time.

“No you may not bring her here” hissed the first.

“We just don’t have the right treatment” slipped the second.

“Can’t sleep here” gumped the third.

And from the king of the pack:

“Sorry, no treatment.”

“But this is the best hospital in Quito.”

“Well, we just don’t have room.”

“So which is it, you don’t have treatment or you don’t have room?”

“You don’t speak good Spanish, you need to go.”

And the venom stings worse, when applied to the veins of a crying mother. Worse, when pumped into a fading oxygen tank. Worse, when tapped into the skin of a dying patient 10 stretcher lengths from help and a renewed life. And then the music in our van stopped, and silence entered with a deep breath, a bitter sigh, and the realization of what must be done next…

Guayaquil. 6 hours. 6 hours!? 6 hours. Another drive, this time an oxymoron. Cutting into the shaft of daylight, the beauty of the creviced Andes stood next to the ugliness of the previous hours, the light of our world against the darkness inside the ambulance. Hope pushed up against despair. A decision from where I now sat, in the front seat, cheek pressed up against the dashboard. Remain in darkness, ugliness, and despair. Or reach for beauty, light, and hope?

For the young girl’s family the decision was easy. From the backseat, rising above the familiar sound of the Ambu, came a hearty laugh, and then another. And then another. And then a constant. Somehow, a dying girl was funny. But maybe not. Maybe in that moment, the girl wasn’t dying at all. Perhaps for them, dying wasn’t even a consideration, never even a possibility. Maybe this was what holiness is; catching the giggles in the midst of the absurd…

How many times can one stare imminent disaster in the face, and avoid it by the margin of a paperclip? This was the question yet again as we hit the heavily trafficked streets of Guayaquil, this time with a driver holding bloodshot eyes and fidgety hands. He was a man possessed by the wheel, driven by the adrenaline of maximum speed. But if there ever was a need for such addiction, it was now. Three hours earlier, the oxygen tank touched empty, and the only air our girl was receiving was the dry, dirty air from the inside of the van. Each breath was a crossed finger, a minor miracle.

And so it was with great charm and little tact that we slammed the brakes and busted her through the doors of Louis Espernaza Hospital in Guayaquil. And it was with great conviction and little argument that the doctors received her. And it was with great speed and anxiety that we pulled out of the parking lot before they changed their minds. And it was with great relief that we looked back and saw her fading from our reach…

With finality in our hearts at last, we moved back up the coast, toward our final destination. Stretched out in the previously occupied gurney, behind the sounds of chatter from the front, I began to scribble a soft poem. I found no luck in this poem, partly because of the endless bumps and swerves that were still fancying our aforementioned madman. Rather than continue to labor, I instead closed my parchment and began to hum a new tune. My mind found the right pitch, and I let it play me through the night…

“T’was grace that brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.”