Sometime Tomorrow
[ colloquial title : Requiem for The Rocket ]
* * *
Sometime tomorrow, life will start again for most of us.
Sometime tomorrow we'll look around, and realize that it's been light out for hours. Sometime tomorrow we'll wipe the blood off of our hands, and glance at the clocks, and count the hours that we've gone without sleep. Worry and smoke will begin to clear, and people will begin to think again instead of simply doing what we can in the moment. We'll stop to breathe, finally, and we'll ask one another if it's really over.
And maybe sometime tomorrow, someone will begin to realize how strangely quiet it has become, and how strangely kind. Sometime tomorrow the cleanup team will come to hose down the ambulance bay, and amongst the charred rubble they will find a mechanical hand, and maybe then we'll all realize how very wrong we've been.
But that won't happen until sometime tomorrow.
Right now, no one misses him. Right now, no one cares. Wherever he is, we are glad it's not here to harp on us, and that's all the thought we've given him. He must be upstairs. He must be downstairs. He must be crushed and burning to a cinder beneath a two ton mass of twisted metal, in plain view of the triage doors. Sign off on this chart, run this to x-ray, look at these pictures -- here's one of Abby looking like hell. Where's Romano? Couldn't tell you. Check upstairs, downstairs, anywhere but under the helicopter. Here's a shot from Christmas last year.
Susan has Chuck, Abby has vindication, and Neila has acceptance; even John in his sweltering African jungle has the intimate comforts of a tenacious tropical goddess, and only the vaguest feelings of unease. The rest of us have sore backs and sore feet, soot in our eyes and a weariness in our bones, and no idea what we have lost save a Thanksgiving dinner and a decent nights sleep. We saved lives, tonight. We were real doctors, real nurses. Our brand new triage lays in ruin, our wards are overflowing, but it's over, finally over -- at least for tonight.
Sometime tomorrow, life will start again, for most of us. But sometime tomorrow won't come for him, now.
And what will we feel, then? Once the shock slides away, once we realize ... once the blackened prosthetic fingers become solid before our very eyes, what will we feel? Guilt? Remorse? Relief? What happens now that he isn't here to hate?
Some will remember the man, but most will remember the monster. Many will speak of the surgeon with reverence, but all will still think of the snake. Few will forget Dr. 'Rocket' Romano, but fewer still will remember Robert.
I, for one, shall remember all of them.
I will remember a man who never minced words, and never missed a stitch. I will remember the surgeon who teased me, taunted me, and taught me everything he could. I will remember his sharp tongue and his superb talent, his pessimism and his persistence -- his cruelty, his charisma, and his candid brand of kindness.
The rest of them may have respected him, but he never fooled himself into thinking that they liked him. I think he almost liked them for hating him, in a way; at the very least he never minded, never cared, never thought twice about anyone else's opinion. He could break them too easily with rudeness and idle threats, and those that backed down from him became fair game. I don't think that I did anything to earn his respect; it was what I didn't do. I didn't give up. I didn't give in.
He remained steadfast beside me when Mark died, spoke to me honestly when the rest of them only offered me hollow words of hope. I took his arm off with my own two hands, when all hope was lost for it, and I sat with him in the recovery room and held his one remaining hand. Together we've been to hell and back and hell again. He was my teacher, and my conscience, and my friend.
I shall miss him terribly.
But not until sometime tomorrow.
* * *
"Listen, I know I'm not a nice guy, all right? But at least I'm honest."
Dr. Robert 'Rocket' Romano
10.30.1997 -- 11.20.2003
[ colloquial title : Requiem for The Rocket ]
* * *
Sometime tomorrow, life will start again for most of us.
Sometime tomorrow we'll look around, and realize that it's been light out for hours. Sometime tomorrow we'll wipe the blood off of our hands, and glance at the clocks, and count the hours that we've gone without sleep. Worry and smoke will begin to clear, and people will begin to think again instead of simply doing what we can in the moment. We'll stop to breathe, finally, and we'll ask one another if it's really over.
And maybe sometime tomorrow, someone will begin to realize how strangely quiet it has become, and how strangely kind. Sometime tomorrow the cleanup team will come to hose down the ambulance bay, and amongst the charred rubble they will find a mechanical hand, and maybe then we'll all realize how very wrong we've been.
But that won't happen until sometime tomorrow.
Right now, no one misses him. Right now, no one cares. Wherever he is, we are glad it's not here to harp on us, and that's all the thought we've given him. He must be upstairs. He must be downstairs. He must be crushed and burning to a cinder beneath a two ton mass of twisted metal, in plain view of the triage doors. Sign off on this chart, run this to x-ray, look at these pictures -- here's one of Abby looking like hell. Where's Romano? Couldn't tell you. Check upstairs, downstairs, anywhere but under the helicopter. Here's a shot from Christmas last year.
Susan has Chuck, Abby has vindication, and Neila has acceptance; even John in his sweltering African jungle has the intimate comforts of a tenacious tropical goddess, and only the vaguest feelings of unease. The rest of us have sore backs and sore feet, soot in our eyes and a weariness in our bones, and no idea what we have lost save a Thanksgiving dinner and a decent nights sleep. We saved lives, tonight. We were real doctors, real nurses. Our brand new triage lays in ruin, our wards are overflowing, but it's over, finally over -- at least for tonight.
Sometime tomorrow, life will start again, for most of us. But sometime tomorrow won't come for him, now.
And what will we feel, then? Once the shock slides away, once we realize ... once the blackened prosthetic fingers become solid before our very eyes, what will we feel? Guilt? Remorse? Relief? What happens now that he isn't here to hate?
Some will remember the man, but most will remember the monster. Many will speak of the surgeon with reverence, but all will still think of the snake. Few will forget Dr. 'Rocket' Romano, but fewer still will remember Robert.
I, for one, shall remember all of them.
I will remember a man who never minced words, and never missed a stitch. I will remember the surgeon who teased me, taunted me, and taught me everything he could. I will remember his sharp tongue and his superb talent, his pessimism and his persistence -- his cruelty, his charisma, and his candid brand of kindness.
The rest of them may have respected him, but he never fooled himself into thinking that they liked him. I think he almost liked them for hating him, in a way; at the very least he never minded, never cared, never thought twice about anyone else's opinion. He could break them too easily with rudeness and idle threats, and those that backed down from him became fair game. I don't think that I did anything to earn his respect; it was what I didn't do. I didn't give up. I didn't give in.
He remained steadfast beside me when Mark died, spoke to me honestly when the rest of them only offered me hollow words of hope. I took his arm off with my own two hands, when all hope was lost for it, and I sat with him in the recovery room and held his one remaining hand. Together we've been to hell and back and hell again. He was my teacher, and my conscience, and my friend.
I shall miss him terribly.
But not until sometime tomorrow.
* * *
"Listen, I know I'm not a nice guy, all right? But at least I'm honest."
Dr. Robert 'Rocket' Romano
10.30.1997 -- 11.20.2003