Eugene was a urinator. Without fail, whenever we picked up our homeless regular from the underpass of the West Side Highway, he was sure to use our ambulance as his own personal toilet. It was no accident, no failure of bladder control due to illness. We had taken him to numerous ERs, where whatever condition he might have had, could have been treated. But Eugene admitted that he had nothing medical that precluded him from marking his territory like a feral cat. Eugene was proud of his urinary control and told us he made sure to pee on every societal institution he came in contact with. On top of being a urinator, he was also a cantankerous and angry man. He used abusive language, particularly to me as a woman who, he felt, should have no issue cleaning things, as it was something women were just supposed to do. Regardless of how much we begged him to relieve himself elsewhere, he was sure to reserve a portion of his liquid waste for the door or the step-well or some other corner of the tiny space we called our workplace. He was very matter-of-fact about it and told us we should be grateful it was just urine.

Our ambulance is our home for eight hours, five days a week and we needed to have some control over our environment given that our other places of work-the street, peoples homes, offices, everywhere else really, were unpredictable. We liked our familiar truck, with its arbitrary intercom system and it’s non functioning, first generation computer terminal, which was promised to be on-line in the near future. We had a gas vehicle, which would eventually be phased out for the diesel workhorses that held up better to 24 hour constant use, and we enjoyed the occasional backfire which could be mistaken for gunshots. We were a little protective of our vehicle, which technically belonged to the city though we treated it as if it were our own.

I guess you could say that thanks to Eugene, our ambulance was the cleanest in the fleet. Following a Eugene transport, we would spend an exorbitant amount of time hosing down and flooding the patient compartment with every cleaning solution we had on hand. Then, for good measure, we would use our own personal cleaning products for a secondary wipe down. It’s citrus scent made us forget the ammonia produced by Eugene’s overworked kidneys.

We had just finished an extensive clean up of our ambulance from a trauma job when we received the familiar address that let us know Eugene was looking to go to the hospital again. I was working with Quinn, who resolved that something needed to change in our relationship with the passive-aggressive urinator. When we pulled up he immediately began negotiating.

Eugene seemed almost apologetic but it was out of his hands, he told us. When he needed to go, he was going to go. It was almost a Pavlovian response, he tried to explain. He was just used to peeing in ambulances and he didn’t really want to stop. He suggested that, perhaps, he could switch it off with a substantial donation of cash. We checked our pockets but our monetary reserves were a little low for the bribe he was asking for. It looked like we were going to be spending more time soaping up the back with disinfectants.

As Eugene searched through his scattered belongings for his Medicaid card, he told us he wanted to go a particular hospital on the Upper East Side. Despite his lack of electricity, he had managed to become familiar with a new radio advertising campaign for one of the big hospital chains and he felt that it resonated with him. “We go the extra mile for our patients!” they proclaimed. He liked that. The closer hospitals that he usually went to barely went the required mileage, in his opinion. On the East side there was a hospital that was not only standing by for possible customers, this one was asking, no begging, for him personally to come in and be treated by their welcoming staff.

Quinn made a deal to take him there, without the requisite argument about going to the closest 911 receiving, if he could hold his urine in. Eugene reluctantly agreed.

He got in and laid himself down on the stretcher. He wasn’t going to sit on the bench seat for this ride to update his hypertension meds; he wanted the gold star treatment. Quinn was remarkably accommodating. He smiled and even got him a pillow. Pillows were rare commodities in pre-1995 EMS. We were already going the extra mile and we weren’t even a part of that healthcare system.

As I sat in the back with Eugene, I started writing my paperwork for the extended ride to the other side of town. It was probably just an extra six or seven minutes or so but going across Central Park was like leaving your own territory. Things were quiet initially, when I suddenly heard a squelch from the novelty intercom on the wall. I had always felt the intercom was a needless addition to this generation of vehicles. Our truck had big, wide open square between the patient compartment and the cab. You could always hear each other without even raising your voice. But I knew my partner had been itching for an opportunity to use it and here he had found it.

Quinn was a master voice impersonator. Over the intercom he sounded like an elderly woman. “Hello, hello?” he said in his female voice. “Is there a Mr. Eugene on board?”

Hearing his name, Eugene reacted. “What?” he asked. “Is someone talking to me?”

“Yes,” said my partner. “My name is Mary and I work in the kitchen of the Extra Mile Hospital. Have you heard our new slogan?”

“Yes,” said Eugene proudly. “You go the extra mile! That’s why I’m going there. I heard good things about this place.”

“Why thank you, yes!” said ‘Mary’. “We certainly do go the extra mile. Which is why we set up this service to take your meal order while you’re on the way to us, so its hot and ready when you get here.”

“Meal order?” said Eugene. “Is it lunchtime already?”

“Well, almost,” my partner answered in character. “You see, we believe that good nutrition is the hallmark of excellent care. We think that you’ll heal better with nice hot meal in your stomach. That’s part of our new philosophy of going the extra mile.”

“Why ain’t that something?” smiled Eugene. “Other hospitals should do the same thing! How come they’re all not doing it? All the other places are really stingy with the bologna sandwiches. They should be listening to you!”

“Yes, that’s true. Everyone should. But they don’t. But you’re not just getting some cold, dry sandwich. We’d like to set you up with a real hot meal. You’ve got to make a selection and we will present it to you at the ER.”

What the hell was my partner up to? It was genius, I had to admit. I was dying inside at how he had come up with this idea on a whim and here he was, going through the motions, finally making use of that intercom. It was difficult to stifle my laughter but I did as Quinn, as Mary, presented Eugene with several culinary choices. They sounded like descriptions off a high priced menu with random French phrases thrown in that Quinn had been learning in preparation for an upcoming vacation to the City of Light. Eugene could choose from Filet of Sole de Parlez-vous (filet are you speaking), Ah-la-Vache Prime Rib (literally, oh my cow), and Pork Chop au Revoir. Eugene chose the Good-Bye Pork Chops.

“That’s wonderful, sir,” she told him. “It comes with a side of green beans and mashed potatoes. There is a nice red wine reduction added to the gravy and a hint of garlic to the potatoes.”

“That sounds fantastic!” said Eugene. He had such a big smile on his face. I almost felt sorry for this man who had caused me so much disgust and scrubbing related back pain. I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to be getting any kind of meal at his hospital of choice, not even a stale sandwich wrapped in plastic. As someone who’s eating plans have often been interrupted by a dispatchers voice over the radio, I had some empathy for his upcoming plight.

“Ok sir,” Mary told him. “I’ll put that order in. Just remember the order is number E-as-in-Eugene, two, three, four. You got that? E234.”

“I got it!” said an extremely satisfied Eugene. Then he looked at me and said, “See? THAT’S why I wanted to go there.”

All I could do was nod in agreement. This was certainly quite a hospital he thought we were headed to.

We made it to the big hospital on the wealthy side of town and Quinn opened the back doors. As I hopped out, Quinn asked Eugene how he was doing. “I heard you could order lunch here,” he said to him.

“Yes! And I did!” Eugene told him.

Feeding people seemed to be a successful strategy that hospitals should probably look into actually doing. Eugene was already a different person, a pleasant person. He’d probably be an ideal patient for everyone involved, after a nice, hot meal. It seemed to be a small price to pay for a better working environment.

“You’ve got an order number for your meal, don’t you?” my partner asked.

“Yes I do,” said Eugene. “E234. When do I get my food?”

“Good, right after you’re registered, just tell them your number,” said my partner. His tone now turned a shade more serious. A concerned look was on his face. “But I’m going to tell you something. Don’t forget your order number.”

Eugene was all ears.

“The food they cook up here is outstanding. It’s made by chefs with Michelin stars to their name. In fact, it’s so good the staff likes to help themselves to the food. They might even tell you that you’re not entitled to a meal just so they can enjoy it themselves! But you’ve got an order number, right? Don’t you forget it.”

“I won’t!” replied Eugene with all seriousness. “Thank you.”

I was feeling really bad for Eugene until we transferred him over to the hospital stretcher and I noticed he had pee’d on our stretcher, violating the initial agreement.

“I had to. I’m sure you don’t mind. I little extra elbow grease never did any harm to no one. Make sure you clean it real good,” he told me with a big smile when I saw what he had done.

“Enjoy your pork chops,” I told him with a tinge of sarcasm.

“Oh I will,” he told me. “While you’re cleaning up that stretcher.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have taken that much enjoyment in it but I did, especially when we returned with another patient. After leaving the ‘Extra Mile’ Hospital, we had gotten hit with another job very close by and brought the patient back to the same place. We found our previous patient, Eugene, tied to the stretcher he was on. He was screaming mad, yelling at every employee who walked by.

“Look at you! I know you can’t pass by a plate of beautiful pork chops without helping yourself! I know it! You don’t look like someone who could stop themselves from eating even a free bologna sandwich that didn’t belong to you!”

The nurse triaging our present patient gave us a nasty look. “Thanks for bringing that one in,” she told us. “He’s been nothing but abusive and threatening violence on everyone here. Thinks he’s getting fed, a voice named Mary told him, he says. If he keeps this up he’s going to psych.”

“I WANT MY GRAVY WITH THE RED WINE!” we could hear him in the back ground. Everyone could hear him.

“Sorry,” I apologized. “He wanted to come here. He saw your ad.”

The nurse shook her head, “They could have saved us a lot of problems by not sending out advertising. How much did all those billboards and radio ads cost? We’re short-staffed enough without asking for more people to come here.”

I understood her complaint and empathized with her and the rest of the ER that now had to deal with Eugene. She signed my paper and as I was leaving she let me know that Eugene had soiled his stretcher not just once, but two times since we had left. The man certainly had a powerful urinary system.