Ch. 27 – Pulling the Rug Out

Goddamit, Tony, why do you have to be such a fatass! Derrick threw down the ripped shreds of Tony’s shirt that he had tried to drag his large mentor by.

Given what had just happened, Derrick had a hard time imagining they had any sort of cloth that was both thin enough to roll Tony onto without issue, and strong enough to withstand his weight.

Derrick blinked the sweat out of his eyes: sweat that also dripped across his brow and down his nose. Fuck, he was going to have to do this all alone. Fuck! Who else did Tony and Derrick know that could help? Granny Chu? Tony’s bargirl Sally? Neither of them were strong enough to help. And neither of them would brave the weather to come over, not that Derrick could blame them, given the shootings that had happened outside earlier that night. Derrick slapped himself with his prosthetic hand, which he immediately regretted. Calm down, Derrick. First things first, get Tony to the operating room. I can’t do shit in here.

The only other moving technique that Derrick could possibly attempt by himself was a blanket drag; instead of dragging Tony by his own shirt, Derrick could lay Tony onto a large blanket and pull that instead. What could he use in the room to move Tony? Tony’s bedsheets: too thin. Tony’s pile of dirty clothes, sitting on the area rug by the dresser: not large enough to lay him on. Wait, the area rug—

It was large and strong enough to hold Tony. And it wasn’t so large that it couldn’t fit through the door, as long as Derrick rolled up the edges as he dragged it. The problem was, the bottom was made of a grippy material which kept it from sliding around on the floor.

Derrick got down near Tony’s feet, which were sitting on top of the area rug, and pushed with all his might, moving Tony’s big, fleshy legs just enough to free the rug.

And then, grabbing the edge of the rug, Derrick hoisted it up and twisted, scattering dust, debris, and food crumbs around the room as it flipped upside down in the air. Derrick set it down with a whap, so that the slippery fabric side was facing downwards.

Then came the hard part. Debris scratched and scrabbled against the flooring as Derrick slid the rug across the floor to Tony, but there thankfully wasn’t much resistance. Derrick would need to roll Tony onto his side, so the rug could go underneath him.

Derrick’s fingers sunk into Tony’s fleshy back, as he kicked against the bare flooring for leverage, straining to move Tony onto his side. He had to keep Tony from reaching exactly ninety degrees, to avoid the knife’s handle coming into contact with the floor and being driven deeper into Tony’s torso.

It was like rolling a boulder up a hill, and Derrick’s whole body was burning as he held Tony there, and dragged the rug underneath. He gulped for air, and slowly set Tony onto the carpet. It was time to move him.

Derrick staggered to his feet, fully opened the door to Tony’s room, and then got down and grabbed the left edge of the rug, along which Tony was lying. Derrick breathed in, braced his core, and pulled. The rug started moving, but the extra friction created by Tony’s massive weight brought Derrick to a stop after he had managed to drag the rug half a foot, and then it stopped once again at the two foot mark.

Derrick grit his teeth, and wiped his sweaty hands on the rug, before pulling again, his legs burning and crying out for relief. As the rug, and Tony, inched along to the hallway, Derrick pulled it more and more to the side, making a wide, round turn, moving toward the operating room, until the rug made a hard stop, and slipped out of his grip.

The longer side of the rug, which Derrick had bent upwards to make it fit through the doors, had gotten caught on the exposed piping. “Shit!” He kicked the part of the rug near the exposed piping, making the caught part flop back to the center of the hall, and then kept pulling towards the operating room.

He was getting lightheaded. Blood pooled in his muscles, and he was gripping the rug so hard that he could feel each frantic heartbeat pulsing through his fingers.

Finally, he made it to the operating room door. A blast of cool air from the room’s airflow system hit his sweaty back, chilling it and unsettling his stomach. Derrick had the urge to sneeze, but he grit his teeth and pulled the rug the last few feet, and set it down next to the operating table. Derrick took a deep breath and rushed from corner to corner of the operating room, pulling out all the equipment that he had so painstakingly cleaned up the night before.

Instead of putting an oxygen mask on some random White Leopard, he was putting it on Tony. Instead of starting an IV on a complete stranger, he was starting one on his mentor and only friend.

There was a flash of Tony’s blood in the chamber; Tony’s blood was everywhere. The metallic scent was familiar, it usually helped Derrick get in the zone. But Tony’s clammy face, the naked wounds on his exposed chest, they made him freeze up: made it hard to think.

The operating room sapped all his strength away, as he ran from one side to the other, taking materials out of containers and cabinets. Derrick squinted at the monitor from across the room as he massaged the bag of oxygen-carrying blood substitute and stepped over a pile of single-use packaging that he had tossed on the ground earlier, in his mad search for supplies. Shit, what does that say—. “Blood oxygen levels and blood pressure are both low, connecting oxygen-carrying blood substitute to avoid hypovolemic shock,” he said out loud to himself. Tony was lying on the other side of the table, concealed by it, and Derrick’s heart dropped. What if he got to the other side of the table, and Tony had already died? A bruise blossomed on his hip as he banged into the oxygen concentrator, and Derrick leaned against the operating table to keep from falling over. The monitor’s beeping was incessant.

Derrick grit his teeth. He only had one pair of hands.

“Hang in there, Tony. I’m helping you. I’m going to make sure you’re okay,” Derrick said, almost breaking into a sob at the end of each sentence.

He spiked the bag of oxygen carrying blood substitute and activated the pump on the medical IV pole. What did Tony teach him about the pump rate? The numbers evaded him, and the flat plastic interactable surface wouldn’t register his button presses. “Whatwasitwhatwasitwhatwasit—oh fuck, right.”

The screen let off a beep as he set the flow rate, and the pump whirred to life, and the signature click click click started.

Derrick knelt down and put pressure on the stab wounds that the pressure bandages didn’t constrict sufficiently. He was buying time, and hopefully slowing the bleeding, but Tony wasn’t getting any better.

Hemodynamic instability indicated that a laparotomy would be needed, which mean that Derrick would have to make an incision to open up the abdominal wall and explore the cavity inside. Tony was likely bleeding internally, and Derrick needed to find out where it was.

The rug was filthy, and filled with crumbs. Derrick could try to operate on the ground, but there would be a much higher chance of surgical site infection, especially since Tony would be below Derrick’s waist, which was considered non sterile.

How the fuck was Derrick supposed to get his massive mentor from the ground onto the table? Anesthesia machine? Not helpful. Mayo tray? Useless. Gas cylinder cart . . .

Possibly useful. Their gas cylinder cart was mostly standard: one set of wheels and a stand on top of which the cylinder would sit. You could rest the cart up right, so that it sat on the stand and wheels, or lean it back to move it around on just the wheels. But their cart had two handles, one at the normal height, and another one way higher, meant to be used by robots in factories. And the cylinder supports ran through the length of it too, making it tall and strong enough to hold a grown man like Tony . . . Derrick hoped.

After getting Tony onto the bench, Derrick could snip the rest of his clothes off, wipe him down, and then gown up and get ready for surgery.

It all made sense—if Derrick could make it work.

The gas cylinder cart was standing in the corner of the room, next to where the cylinders were chained to the wall.

The oxygen concentrator and other devices were crowded around the operating table, leaving no room to lay the gas cylinder cart down next to Tony.

Derrick scooted the wheeled devices, to the point where the tubing running from them to Tony just ran out of slack, which created a large enough clearing. The cart protested as he pulled it by the lower handles and wheeled it toward the operating table, a high-pitched squeak accompanying each rotation of the wheels.

Lining its wheels a bit beyond Tony’s feet, Derrick lowered the cart down, bracing with his legs to handle more and more of its weight as it became horizontal.

Derrick held the strip of line near the IV catheter in place as he maneuvered the tubing clear of the cart, so that it wouldn’t get tangled up when moving Tony onto it, or when raising the cart up to vertical.

Something tweaked between his neck and shoulder, and Derrick winced, letting go of the line and standing up to massage out the cramp.

It was finally time to move Tony up onto the operating table. Blood pumped through Derrick’s fingers as he jumped up and down, shaking out his arms and feeling every muscle relax.