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“I need to stop at McDonald’s on the way, and pick up something to eat. I’m starved.” Abby stretched the ‘a’ in starved into next week.
I looked over at her from the passenger seat and shrugged my assent. Shifting my gaze back to the road, I wondered that Abby would choose McDonald’s. I knew from talk around the office that the morbidly obese Abby was diabetic (type II), and that she had some liver troubles, and that she’d been trying to lose weight, but was gaining instead.
“I’ll be right back.” Abby had pulled up beside the Golden Arches. She hoisted herself out of the car and hustled in her way to the door of the beaconing house of fat and sodium. Shaking my head, I unzipped my backpack and pulled out this morning’s New York Times Crossword and a blue ballpoint. In tossing my backpack onto the floor, I pricked my finger on the safety pin holding the shoulder strap my dog had chewed through. Cursing, I reclosed the pin. When Abby returned to maneuver herself back into the driver’s seat, I had completed one and fourteen across, as well as two and three down, and I was still sucking my stuck fingertip. “I really shouldn’t eat this crap.”
I very nearly allowed myself to agree aloud and strongly with Abby on that count, owing to her weight and her sundry medical problems. “What’d you get?”
“I didn’t get a burger, though,” Abby sounded proud of her restraint. “I got a chicken sandwich.” I rested my chin in my hand, accidentally drawing a mark with my pen beside my right eye. My hand still smelled of the garlic from the fresh pasta sauce I’d made the night before. The car already smelled of a deep fat fryer, and Abby hadn’t even closed her door. I was glad to have had my leftovers for lunch.
Five down starts with C-O and has nine letters. The clue for five down, I scan the list, says “terribly fat”. I quickly fold the paper in half and glance sidelong at Abby. Of course, she’s driving and paying absolutely no attention to me and certainly none to my puzzle. Still, I stuff the crossword into my pack and stare sheepishly out the passenger side window at the scenes of San Francisco’s Mission District as they slide by.
Some few minutes later, we pulled up in front of the white house on a steep hillside that was our destination. I saw by the car’s clock that we had five minutes before our work-funded Spanish class was set to begin. As another co-worker’s car pulled in behind us, Abby opened her McDonald’s bag and set to her food like a hyena with hands -- afraid some other hungry beast would snatch her hard earned meal. “I’m sure that SeÔora Velasquez won’t mind if you eat during class. She’s pretty laid back.” And when that didn’t slow Abby down, I said, “You don’t have to eat it all before we go in.”
Abby opened her mouth to talk and I cringed. She changed her mind, chewed a bit more, swallowed – some – and then managed, “I don’t want to be rude and eat in class.” She went back to her sandwich.
I put my hand on by backpack, and tried to work out what etiquette required of me. Must I remain here while Abby tears through her lunch as a kind of thanks for the lift, or could I head up to class and leave her to follow when she was through? I was still working on this moral conundrum when Abby suddenly threw down her sandwich and made a sound from the bottom of her throat that made me wonder if the hyena analogy I’d made in my head had some strange and inexplicable power.
Then her hands moved to her throat and I knew she was choking. “Oh god,” she said. At least I think that’s what those sounds were intended to be. Though her face was red, she was breathing.
“Cough,” I told her. “Cough.”
“Shut up,” was her response. And with that, fluids began to pour from every orifice in her face, save her ears. She opened her car door and struggled to stand.
“Try to cough. Keep coughing.” I was unfastening my seat belt. Abby was supporting herself by the door and the roof of her car. As I made my way around the car, encouraging her to cough all the way, our co-worker, Carla, got out of her car and was hurrying, ashen, to Abby’s side.
“Oh, Jesus,” Abby said even as she retched. She was clearly in a great deal of pain and was panicked to boot.
“Try to stay calm, and keep coughing. As long as you can breath, you’re alright.” Abby did not seem reassured.
“Should we do the Heimlich?” Carla’s voice was shaky, and her eyes darted all around the street as if looking for an escape route. We stood on opposite sides of Abby. I shook my head no.
Fluid continued to stream out of Abby’s eyes, nose, and mouth. The rivulets of drool now showed traces of blood, and I thought, “That chicken must have some rough edges to make her throat bleed.”
I said, “You’ve got to cough.”
Abby started to say something, but was interrupted by a heaving retch that seemed to start at her toes. It seemed to stop, however, somewhere below the blockage in her throat. She still could hardly wheeze the air in and out. Bent over her car, she struggled to say, “Hit my back.” Carla and I looked at each other. “Hit my back, god-damn-it.”
Carla raised her hand and began to slap her lightly between the shoulder blades. “Don’t hit her back,” I said to Carla. To Abby, I said, “We can’t hit your back. We could make things worse. You’ve got to keep coughing.”
Abby was now sobbing, retching, coughing and streaming as she bent over her door. She turned on me, her face contorted in agony, fear, and loathing. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” She stopped for a wracking cough. “If someone” gasp “asks you” sputter, retch “to hit their back,” gasp “hit their back.” She looked for sympathy to Carla. “Please hit my back.”
“Don’t hit her back,” I said as Carla raised her hand. “I know you’re hurting and scared. I know you can’t breath very well.”
“It hurts,” she screamed and then was doubled over with retching.
“I know it does. You’ve got to listen to me. I’m a CPR instructor. I can’t hit you on the back. It could make things worse. As long as you can talk, you can breath. As long as you can breath you can cough. As long as you can cough, you can get yourself out of this mess. Now cough, damn you.”
“You’re such a fucking asshole.” I tried not to take it personally. I told myself it was the chicken sandwich talking from deep in her throat. “I’m a CPR instructor too, and you’re supposed to hit me on the back. Fucking hit me on the back.”
“I’m sorry,” I tried to make my voice as soothing as I could. I looked at Carla who appeared to be in almost as much pain as Abby herself. “You’re not right. As long as you can breathe and cough on your own, I am not to touch you. Stop wasting your energy arguing and cough.”
“Fuck you. Hit my back. Hit my back. Fucking assholes. Don’t you care that I am hurting? I’m scared. Hit my back.” Of course, all this didn’t get out in one stream, it was interrupted by retching fits and garbled by all the fluid that continued to flow from her face. The blood in her saliva was getting thicker. I wondered if she was going to pass out, and I cursed myself for leaving my CPR mask at home.
“Please try to cough.”
We went back and forth like this for what seemed a very long time. I was amazed at how much energy she was putting into the fight with me, instead of the one with the sandwich in her windpipe. I was amazed also at how much energy it was taking for me to hold up my skipping record end of the conversation. Her abuse of me and also of Carla - for our inaction - increased in ferocity.
“You son of a bitch. I can’t stand it. Hit my back.” I felt my resolve strain and then tear.
“Ok,” I said, and began to wonder if she could sue me later for hitting her back, for breaching the standard of care, when I knew full well as a CPR instructor that I should not touch her. “If you can holler like that, you probably won’t actually choke on this thing.” Wondering about a possible suit, I hit her solidly between the shoulder blades.
“Harder.”
I hit her a bit harder.
“Harder, damn you. Harder.”
I hit her a bit harder.
“Harder.”
This time, the chicken seemed to be dislodged. Abby collapsed in a coughing fit, and then vomited in the street. She looked up at me and said, “thank you. Oh god. Thank you.”
I shook my head and said, “You’re welcome. You should go to the hospital. Do you want me to drive you there?”
“I’m going to Spanish.”
Carla and I both tried to persuade her to go to the hospital. I explained that her throat had undergone serious trauma and that it might swell shut. She walked up the steps of the white house and into the Spanish class. Carla and I reluctantly followed.
A few days later, as I sat at my desk, Abby approached me. “If you hit someone’s back, you shouldn’t hit them so damn hard.” I looked up smiling, remembering how she’d insisted that I hit her back harder and figuring this for a joke. One look at Abby’s face told me she was dead serious. “My neck and back hurt now, you hit me so hard.” I began again to think about how a law suit would go for me, and was glad that Carla had been there to witness the whole unbelievable mess. “Why’d you hit me so hard?”
I almost started to argue the point with her, the crazy bitch. I took a deep breath. “Abby, do not start with me.”
“You shouldn’t have hit me so hard.”
“Do - not – start – with – me.”
“My neck hurts.”
“You’re unbel…” I stopped myself. “Abby, do not start.”
“Besides,” she changed tack. “I was an instructor too. I taught police officers CPR. You’re supposed to hit-.”
“Do not start with me.”
“But-.”
“Do not start with me.”
And so it went until, eventually, she wandered back to her desk.
Part of me thinks that I should have left it at that. Part of me is very pleased with what I did next. I got online and looked up first aid for choking. On each site was the dictum – If the victim can breathe or cough on their own, do not touch; encourage them to cough. I printed out these directions from five different sites. On each printout, I highlighted the line that proved me right. I put them all on her desk.
Strangely, Abby has not brought up the event since.
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