The Last Shift of the Month

Night Shift

Chapter 30: The Last Shift of the Month

October 31. The date on the CAD system showed 10/31, the date that was the last day of the month and the last shift of the month and Halloween, the three identities of the date coexisting, the last-day identity the dispatcher's identity (the shift that completed the month, the twentieth shift, the shift that would close October's account in the body's ledger), the Halloween identity the city's identity (the holiday that produced costumes and candy and parties and the particular behaviors that Halloween produced, the behaviors that would generate calls), and the month-end identity the calendar's identity (the page turning, November approaching, the year's tenth month yielding to the year's eleventh, the yielding the time's passage, the passage relentless and indifferent).

Delia arrived at 9:43 PM. She parked in the third row, second space from the end. She walked across the lot. The lot was the same lot — the same cars, the same spaces, the same gate, the same badge reader. But the air was different tonight. The air carried the smell of October 31 — the smell of leaves and coolness and the faint chemical trace of fog machines and the smoke from the fire pits that the neighborhoods set up for the trick-or-treaters, the trick-or-treaters who had been out since dusk and who were now, at 9:43 PM, mostly home, the children's Halloween over, the adults' Halloween continuing, the adults' Halloween the one that would produce the calls.

She badged in. She walked the corridor. She sat at Console 7. She logged in. She put on the headset. The headset was the headset — the Plantronics, the noise-canceling, the microphone at the corner of the mouth. The headset did not know it was Halloween. The headset did not observe holidays. The headset observed the phone line, the phone line that carried the calls, the calls that came when they came regardless of the date.

Marcus was at Console 6. The thermos was on the desk. Marcus was already logged in, already on the headset, already taking a call. Delia could hear the murmur of his voice — the bass register, the measured pace. Marcus did not observe Halloween either. Marcus observed the calls.

The shift began.

The first call was a noise complaint. A party on Cooper Street in Midtown, the party loud, the music audible from the street, the caller a neighbor who described the party as "out of control" and the description's accuracy uncertain because "out of control" was a subjective assessment and the caller's threshold for control might differ from the party's actual state, and the dispatch's role was not to adjudicate the caller's assessment but to send the officer who would make the professional assessment, the officer dispatched Code 1, routine, the officer who would drive to Cooper Street and observe and determine whether the party was, in fact, out of control or was merely loud, the loudness and the out-of-control-ness two different conditions that the officer would distinguish.

The second call was a medical — a man at a house party on Highland Street, intoxicated, vomiting, his friends concerned. Delia followed the protocol: is the patient conscious (yes), is the patient breathing (yes), is the patient choking (no), the protocol determining the response level (Alpha, non-urgent), the dispatch sending EMS without lights and sirens, the response proportional to the emergency, the emergency the manageable kind, the kind that the night shift handled routinely, the kind that was the background noise of the job.

The third call was Halloween-specific. A caller reporting a person in a clown costume standing on the corner of Poplar and East Parkway, not moving, standing still, the standing a cause for concern because the standing was motionless and the motionlessness was, according to the caller, "creepy." Delia took the information. She dispatched an officer, Code 1. The officer would go to the corner and determine whether the person in the clown costume was a threat or a prop or a person in a clown costume standing on a corner on Halloween night, the determination the officer's to make, the dispatch's role the sending, the sending complete.

The Halloween calls came in waves. The waves corresponded to the night's phases — the early wave (9 PM to 11 PM) of noise complaints and party-related calls, the middle wave (11 PM to 1 AM) of the escalations that the parties produced as the alcohol accumulated and the inhibitions diminished and the conflicts that had been avoided at 9 PM became unavoidable at midnight, and the late wave (1 AM to 4 AM) of the aftermath, the DUIs and the assaults and the medical calls that were the residue of the celebration, the celebration that had started as fun and had, for some, ended as emergency.

But beneath the Halloween calls — beneath the parties and the costumes and the noise and the particular mayhem that October 31 produced — the regular calls continued. The regular calls did not observe Halloween. The regular calls were the calls that the city produced regardless of the date, the calls that the city's circumstances generated from the raw material of the city's conditions — the poverty and the violence and the illness and the loneliness and the accidents, the conditions that did not take the night off because the night was Halloween.

At 11:12 PM, a medical call from Park Avenue. An elderly woman, fallen in her bathroom, conscious, complaining of pain in her shoulder. The call was not Halloween. The call was a fall. The fall did not care about the date. Delia followed the protocol, dispatched EMS, logged the call.

At 11:47 PM, a domestic on Getwell Road. A couple arguing, the argument physical, the woman calling from the bedroom. The call was not Halloween. The call was a domestic. The domestic did not care about the costumes or the candy or the parties on Cooper Street. Delia followed the protocol, dispatched police, stayed on the line, logged the call.

At 12:15 AM — November 1 now, technically, the date changing on the CAD clock, October yielding to November while the shift continued, the shift indifferent to the calendar's boundary — at 12:15 AM, a car accident on I-240, two vehicles, one overturned, injuries unknown. Delia dispatched police, fire, and EMS, Code 3. The accident was not Halloween, or was Halloween only in the sense that the driver of the overturned vehicle had been at a party and had left the party and had driven onto the interstate and had lost control, the losing of control the connection between the holiday and the accident, the connection that the system did not draw but that the dispatchers understood, the understanding the experience, the experience of working every holiday and seeing the holidays' effects on the city's emergency profile, the profile changing with the holiday the way the profile changed with the weather or the time of day, the changes predictable in the aggregate and unpredictable in the specific.

The night continued. The calls came. Delia worked.

She was tired. The tired was the month's tired — not the tired of a single night but the accumulated tired, the twenty-shift tired, the thousand-call tired, the tired that had been building since October 1 and that was now, on October 31 (or November 1, depending on which clock you consulted), at its peak, the peak the month's contribution to the body's load, the load that the body carried and that the body would continue to carry into November, the load that did not reset with the calendar, the load that accumulated across the months and the years, the load that Marcus carried for ten years and that Delia had carried for six and that the carrying was the work within the work.

The tired sat in the body. The tired sat behind the eyes, in the temples, in the jaw that had been clenched for twenty shifts, in the shoulders that had been engaged for a hundred and sixty-four hours, in the hands that had typed a thousand calls into the CAD. The tired was physical and the tired was beyond the physical — the tired was the weariness that the calls produced, the weariness of sustained empathy, the weariness of being the voice for a thousand people in their worst moments, the weariness of hearing and receiving and processing and dispatching and moving on, the moving-on the discipline and the discipline the cost and the cost the tired.

But the tired did not reach the voice. The voice was the instrument and the instrument was maintained by the discipline and the discipline held at the end of the month the way the discipline held at the beginning. The caller at 12:15 AM on November 1 received the same voice as the caller at 10:07 PM on October 1, the voice unchanged by the month, the voice the constant, the voice the thing that the training produced and the practice maintained and the discipline protected. The tired was in the body and the voice was beyond the body, or the voice was the body's best product, the product that the tired could not degrade because the voice was the job and the job was the priority and the priority was the caller and the caller deserved the voice, the full voice, the steady voice, the voice that said "help is on the way" with the conviction that the words required regardless of whether the dispatcher was on the first call of the month or the last.

At 2:33 AM, a call from Mrs. Pemberton. The number appeared on the screen. Delia pressed the key.

"Memphis 911, what is the location of your emergency?"

"This is Eunice Pemberton at 3847 Mynders Avenue. There are people in costumes walking past my house. They're looking at the house. I think they might be trying to get in."

Halloween. The people in costumes were trick-or-treaters — late trick-or-treaters, or party-goers walking home, or people in costumes on the sidewalk on October 31, the people doing the thing that people in costumes did on October 31, which was walk around, and the walking-around was visible from Mrs. Pemberton's window and the visible was the concerning and the concerning was the call.

"Mrs. Pemberton, there are a lot of people in costumes tonight because of Halloween. Are the people on the sidewalk or are they on your property?"

"They're on the sidewalk. But they're looking at my house."

"They may be admiring your house, Mrs. Pemberton. Are your doors locked?"

"Yes. They're locked. But I don't like people looking at the house."

"I understand. Are the people doing anything threatening? Are they trying to open your gate or approach your door?"

"No. They're just standing there. In costumes."

Delia did not dispatch. She did not dispatch because the call did not meet the threshold — people on a public sidewalk in costumes on Halloween were not an emergency, were not a police matter, were the public using the public space for the public purpose of Halloween. But Delia did not dismiss the call either. Delia did not say: "Mrs. Pemberton, this is not an emergency." Delia did not say: "Ma'am, it's Halloween, people are going to be in costumes." Delia said the thing that Mrs. Pemberton needed to hear, the thing that was the connection, the thing that was the voice.

"Mrs. Pemberton, I'm going to note this in our system. If those people approach your property or if you see anything that concerns you, call back. Your doors are locked. You're safe. Okay?"

"Okay. Thank you, dear."

"You're welcome. Have a good night."

"You too, Delia. Be careful out there."

Be careful out there. The words were Mrs. Pemberton's words, the words of an elderly woman expressing concern for the dispatcher who answered her calls, the concern the reciprocity, the relationship between the repeat caller and the dispatcher flowing in both directions, Mrs. Pemberton caring about Delia the way Delia cared about Mrs. Pemberton, the caring the human thing that existed inside the system, the thing that the protocol did not create and the protocol did not measure and the protocol did not require but that existed anyway, existed because the people were people and the people cared about each other.

Delia smiled. She smiled in the dark of the dispatch floor, at Console 7, the smile invisible to everyone except the smile's owner, the smile the private response to the private moment, the moment of an elderly woman on Mynders Avenue saying "be careful out there" to a dispatcher on Poplar Avenue at 2:33 AM on Halloween night.

The night continued. The calls continued. Halloween yielded to November. The parties quieted. The costumes were removed. The city settled into the post-holiday hours, the hours that were not Halloween and were not regular but were the transition, the transition from the holiday to the day-after, the transition that the dispatch floor processed the way the dispatch floor processed everything — call by call, incident by incident, the floor the mechanism that processed the city's output regardless of the output's source.

At 4:17 AM, a call. A medical, Park Avenue, a man in his sixties experiencing chest pain. Delia followed the cardiac protocol. Dispatched EMS, Code 3. Stayed on the line. The wife answered the questions. The protocol generated the determinant. The response was sent. The EMS arrived. The call resolved.

At 4:42 AM, a call. A domestic on Getwell Road — a different address from the earlier Getwell domestic, a different house, a different couple, the same call type, the domestic violence call that the city produced every night at every address on every street, the domestic the city's constant, the city's frequency, the frequency that did not observe holidays or months or calendars.

At 5:01 AM, a call. A car accident, I-240 again, a single vehicle, the car striking the median barrier, the driver conscious but dazed. Delia dispatched police and EMS. The routine dispatch, the Code 2 response, the call handled with the voice and the protocol and the dispatch.

The shift was ending. The month was ending. The October that had contained the twenty shifts and the thousand calls and the weight and the adaptation and the cycle and the life — the October was ending, yielding to November the way the night was yielding to the morning, the yielding gradual and certain and unstoppable.

Delia worked the last calls of the month with the particular focus of the end-of-shift dispatcher. The focus was the focus of a person who could see the end and who was working toward the end with the knowledge that the end was there, was coming, was close. The focus was not diminished by the proximity of the end — the focus was maintained by the discipline that maintained it always, the discipline that did not recognize the proximity of the end as a reason to diminish, the discipline that said: the caller at 5:30 AM receives the same voice as the caller at 10 PM, the voice unchanged, the voice the thing.

The clock on the CAD read 5:44 AM. Sixteen minutes until the end. Sixteen minutes until the headset came off. Sixteen minutes until the month was over.

The phone beeped. Delia pressed the key.

"Memphis 911, what is the location of your emergency?"

A noise complaint. Fireworks — somebody setting off fireworks in a neighborhood in Whitehaven, the residual celebration of Halloween or the premature celebration of November or just the impulse of a person with fireworks at 5:44 AM, the impulse the emergency, the emergency the call, the call the last call of October, the last of the thousand, the last of the month.

Delia dispatched. She logged. She typed the narrative. She typed the disposition.

The phone was quiet. The queue was empty. The city was transitioning from the night to the morning, the transition happening outside the windowless building, the transition that Delia could not see but could feel — could feel in the change of the calls, in the decrease of the call volume, in the particular stillness that the dispatch floor achieved at 5:50 AM, the stillness that was the shift's closing, the shift settling into its final minutes the way a piece of music settled into its final notes.

Marcus capped the thermos. The capping was the signal — Marcus's signal, Marcus's gesture that said: the shift is ending. The thermos is empty. The cap goes on. The cap does not go on until the shift is ending. The capping the declaration, the declaration wordless, the declaration Marcus's.

Barnes made her final circuit of the floor. She walked past each console — past Bailey at 4, past Rodriguez at 5, past Marcus at 6, past Delia at 7, past Thompson at 8, past Tasha at 3 — the circuit the supervisor's closing, the supervisor checking the dispatchers one last time before the shift change, the checking the care, the care the standard.

The day shift arrived. The day-shift dispatchers came through the door — fresh, rested, their bodies adjusted to the daytime, their circadian rhythms aligned with the sun, their faces the faces of people who had slept at night and woken in the morning and driven to work in the daylight, the faces the contrast, the contrast the thing that the night-shift dispatchers saw every morning when the day shift arrived, the contrast between the rested and the depleted, the contrast that the night-shift dispatchers did not resent but noted, the noting a recognition of the difference, the difference that the schedule produced.

The handoff. Delia briefed the incoming dispatcher on the open incidents — the car accident on I-240, the domestic on Getwell, the fireworks complaint in Whitehaven. The briefing was brief — the information transferred in the efficient language of the dispatch, the language of codes and addresses and dispositions, the language that compressed the calls into their essential data and passed the data from the outgoing to the incoming, the baton passed.

The incoming dispatcher sat at Console 7. The incoming dispatcher adjusted the chair. The incoming dispatcher put on the headset.

Delia stood. She removed her headset. She placed it on the console — placed it the way she placed it every morning, the headset set on the dock, the dock the headset's resting place, the resting place where the headset sat during the hours between the shifts, the headset waiting for the next night, the next shift, the next dispatcher who would pick it up and put it on and become the voice.

She picked up the photograph of Jaylen. She placed it in her bag. She picked up her bag. She stood.

The last shift of October was over. The month was over. The thousand calls were logged. The weight was carried. The voice had spoken.

Delia walked the corridor. She badged out. The door opened.

The morning was there.