When the landline phone would ring, we'd jump. There was never any warning, unless maybe we had our scanners on - The phone on the wall would just start ringing, loudly. We'd pick it up, dash down an address on paper, and go jump in the ambulance. It might come after hours of silence - just without warning.

We knew the streets, everywhere - which streets went where, how they merged, where the worst intersections were - practically all of Boston, mentally indexed in both alphabetic and topographic order. Even the little dead-end two-block streets were all mapped out, ahead of time. The address we wrote on paper was usually all we needed to get there.

When the landline phone rang, I jumped. I picked it up. Dispatch was on the line. "We need you to go down to ... hold on ... " (talking over his shoulder) "OK we need you to go down to 667 ..." and I thought "Hah - 3".

He corrected himself - "that's 663 ... " and I said "Tremont". "Yeah Tremont street" he said. Oh, my house. 663 Tremont. OK, I thought, what's going on at my house tonight? Hmm...

He continued "See the assault victim, 663 Tremont, supposed to be somewhere out in front". I didn't have to write it down this time, well, since it was my own address. I told my partner - come on let's go.

But somehow it was just a call like any other. I wasn't even worried about it being my own house - detached, just going on a call to another familiar Boston address.

Of course I knew how to get there. Night time, late, like 2 am, no traffic. After driving for a while we pulled up in front of my house. A woman was sitting on my front steps, the townhouse steps that lead one story to the main entrance. Her face was in a rag, she was trying to get up for us, couldn't quite stand. Somebody with her had called 911.

Her jaw had been smashed with a brick. Not sure if it was factured but it looked bad, her lower lip was torn. Seemed like that was it though - a one-hit assault without other injuries. There were rags and mess, maybe some vomit or blood, on the front steps.

We tore open some gauze packs, punctured a pack of saline solution to irrigate around the mouth, check for loose teeth & stabilize for transport. Finally packed her up in the back of the ambulance and drove off to City Hospital.

I stayed up really, really late that night. We were out cruising the city streets almost until morning light. My partner dropped me off at home in his truck, just as first light was starting to show. Didn't really matter, I could just sleep all morning since nothing was going on that day.

Sleep lasted only a few hours. I was irritated by a growing noise - a kind of periodic "shissh" that gradually woke me up - pulled me up out of my sleep, like a diver who lost his weight belt - rising up to the light above. Shit, what time is it? It was already daytime and I really wanted to stay asleep. But after another few minutes of hearing this noise, I was finally irritated enough that I sat up, in sunlight, no way I was going to get back to sleep. I looked over at the window, outside was Tremont street, the usual Boston daytime. A world away from the night on the Ambulance. I looked out to the bright outside, where the hell is this noise coming from - looked down - and saw my father down on the sidewalk outside. He was sweeping something on the front steps.

I went downstairs to sit in the kitchen. He came in, said something about a mysterious bloody mess out on the front steps. Oh, that. It almost didn't connect.