Black Flies #6

Shannon Burke's novel Black Flies tells the story of Ollie Cross, a medic in Harlem during the 1990s. Ollie is fresh out of college and is not ready for the harsh life of an inner-city medic. He is faced with horrible people, who some may argue, do not deserve to be treated. He experiences some bizarre and gruesome cases. In the beginning Ollie was just wanted to help everyone. As he learns more about the world he entered into, he starts to believe it might be better for Harlem if he doesn't help everyone. He starts to think that not everyone deserves help. When his former partner commits suicide, Ollie starts to lose his compassion. Another medic, Marmol, notices this and warns Ollie that this is not good. When Ollie remarks that that he knows who he is and won't lose sight of his morals, Marmol says, "You can get lost up here. This may not be the life you wanted, but here you are, and you're right on the edge of something. We all see it. Who you wanna be, Cross?" (Burke 160). Ollie is starting to lose his morals and his compassion for his victims. Even the other medics are noticing it and are concerned because they like the way Ollie was when he first joined them. Marmol really asks Ollie to consider what he is doing with his life, and if it leads to what he truly wants. It doesn't immediatly do much, however. Ollie continues working with LaFontaine, the most corrupt medic, and does't try to stop his inhumane actions. Ollie says, "Every time I worked with LaFontaine he'd do some f*cked-up thing to the unconscious or the helpless patients. It was like he wanted me to see and was waiting for me to goin him, but I didn't stop him, either. Truthfully, I didn't really care. I thought I already felt completely vacant inside" (Burke 162). While Ollie might not be directly participating in the abuse, he is still an enabler. In my opinion, this is just as bad as participating. It is really interesting how Ollie feels empty inside. Humans need compassion and the desire to do good things to fill them up, and without them Ollie is empty. He lost he love of life and all of the enjoyment that comes with it. Luckily Ollie stops working with LaFontaine for the most part and is encouraged by his new partner.



Ollie begins to work with Verdis, probably the most caring medic. Ollie originally does not help Verdis with the patients at all. He just sits there hollowly and allows Verdis to do all the work. Verdis seems to know that Ollie just needs patience and compassion and he will return to his former self. With Verdis by his side he begins to break out of his shell. Ollie starts working on his patients and even stands up to LaFontaine when LaFontaine wants to leave a man who overdosed. Ollie even finally gets his save. A young girl was electrocuted in the laundry room of an apartment building when the building caught on fire and the showers started going off. Ollie disregards the potential electorcution and shocks the girl and, "On the monitor her rhythm went flat for an even longer time, then bounced up with a heartbeat" (Burke 181). Ollie finally realizes that he loves to care for people and cannot just let an injury go untreated. He saved the girl's life, when many people would have just left her for dead. Ollie has managed to overcome the harsh life of a Harlem medic and remember his morals and compassion. He had a difficult journey, but he is finally successful at being a good medic. Not only is he medically capable, he is emotionally capable and is ready for whatever challenges might come his way.

Source

Burke, Shannon. Black Flies. New York: Soft Skull P, 2008.*Black Flies should be underlined

Black Flies #5

Black Flies by Shannon Burke is a novel about Ollie Cross, a medic in Harlem. Ollie did not get in to medical school so he became a medic so he could at least be working in a medical field until he was accepted at a med school. He realizes that life as a medic in Harlem is not easy. There are corrupted medics and police officers, people who abuse the medical system, and truly bizarre and challenging medical problems. Ollie gets through it with the help of his experience partner, Rutkovsky. However, by now Rutkovsky is starting to change and is not as helpful as he could be to his patients. In the ER one hot summer night, an old woman is calling for water. Rutkovsky goes to give her water, but then another medic remarks that if the woman was really thirsty she couldn't be yelling so loud. Rutkovsky stops with the glass of water in his hand and there is, "A moment of hesitation. Then Rutkovsky drank the water himself in plain view of the thirsty woman" (Burke 106). This just shows how life as a medic in such a messed up town can mess you up. Rutkovsky was never super friendly with his patients, but he always tried to make sure they were comfortable. By drinking a glass of water in front of a thirsty woman, he is trying to show off his power. Because Rutkovsky is old, I think that he feels as if he is loosing some of his power. He now feels the need to remind others that he does have that power, even if it comes at the expense of his patients. Later on, Rutkovsky freaks out and gets very angry when the son of a patient pulls a knife on him trying to ensure that Rutkovsky saves his mother's life. Rutkovsky's job as a medic is becoming shakier.



One day, Rutkovsky and Ollie are called to a scene where a crack addict is giving birth to her baby, supposedly a stillborn, and is cutting the ambilical cord with a broken crack pipe. The woman is HIV positive, had the baby two months early, and regularly smoked crack and took methadone while pregnant. While Ollie is questioning the mother, Rutkovsky is in another room with the baby. Rutkovsky insists that the baby is dead, but a cop that later came to the scene swears he saw the baby breathe. Rutkovsky covers the baby in a towel and the police take it away. A few minutes later the police man comes in and "'Well,' he said. 'That dead baby is breathing'" (Burke 118). It comes out that Rutkovsky wanted to keep the baby from having the experience the horrible world he was born into and it results in him getting fired. Back at the station, Ollie refuses to give out any information that would harm Rutkovsky. He maintains that he was treating the mother and didn't know anything about the baby. Ollie wants to remain a good friend and remember Rutkovsky as a good partner. I think that this news that Rutkovsky purposely attempted to kill a baby shows Ollie that even the best medics can be corrupted and that he should always be on the lookout for his morals going away. Later Ollie goes to visit Rutkovsky but they do not talk about the baby.



Life continues on for Ollie but he switches around partners. Then one day he again sees Rutkovsky and Rutkovsky admits to him that he didn't want the baby to have to experience such a horrible life. One day a call comes in about a man shot in the park. That man turns out to be Rutkovsky who killed himself. Ollie thinks that he did it as some sort of final joke. He shot himself in a location where he knew the medics who would be called and shot himself in a way that his face was completely destroyed, but he was still living and slowly bled to death. It was a gross thing, but I am hoping that it will serve as a reminder to Ollie that he cannot allow himself to be corrupted.

Source

Burke, Shannon. Black Flies. New York: Soft Skull P, 2008.*Black Flies should be underlined

Black Flies #4

In Shannon Burke's novel Black Flies the life of a medic in Harlem during the 1990s is revealed. Ollie Cross is a young medic, fresh out of college, who can't quite make it into medical school so he becomes a medic to get some experience. He discovers that being a medic is a difficult job, both physically and mentally. He works on the most damaged victims and struggles to understand the mindset of the world he entered. In this section, Ollie sees one of his fellow medics sort of lose it. This medic, Verdis, takes up ventriloquism and uses a pupet to talk to patients. Ollie starts to realize just how much the job can mess with one's head. He later works the Harlem Street Festival where the crowd continually surges due to fights, gunshots, and general unrest. At one point, teenagers begin to shoot guns into the crowd and the crowd stampedes. There are lost children, people burned by oil from the food carts being tipped over, asthmatics having attacks, multiple broken bones, and even mothers giving birth all at the same time. However, instead of being overwhelmed Ollie is thrilled. He feels the excitement of the pressure and his desire to help people. He realizes how he truly comes alive in the face of a crisis. Ollie witnesses LaFontaine, another medic, soaking a man's bandage in hydrogen peroxide and putting it on his head so that his hair became a brilliant orange as a practical joke. He is also warned about his partner, Rutkovsky, and how he is getting old and might not be able to keep up with the pressure. Ollie continually defends his partner and says Rutkovsky is the best medic he has ever seen. One day, Rutkovsky and Ollie go to the beach just for fun. They learn more about each other, and, for the first time since his girlfriend broke up with him, Ollie feels like he has a friend. Rutkovsky repeatedly tells Ollie to get out of the medic lifestyle. He also shows Ollie his Silver Star Medal from the war and Ollie realizes how special his friend is.



While working as a medic, Ollie sees some pretty weird things. One hot summer day, a woman is walking naked down Broadway, obviously out of her right mind. The medics bring her to a physc unit and she enters, "and sat in front of the intern: naked, tangled hair crawling with lice, rolls of grime-covered fat on her belly, black toenails, sweat running in clean rivulets down her filthy skin" (Burke 94). This is just disgusting to think about and, if this is what Ollie experiences every day, I understand why medics could get a little bit messed up. This is not normal society. If a person is continually around people with mental problems, they lose sight of normal. I think this helps contribute to the medics having weird habbits, such as speaking to patients through puppets.



Ollie and the medics often receive many fake calls. Ollie explains that, "By law, EMS was required to respond to all calls equally, so every night Rolly got loaded on vodka then called the ambulance and got a free taxi ride to a free place to stay with a free dinner and breakfast. He had over 320 ER visits that year" (Burke 98). This just shows how our health care system in the United States is often abused. While it is good that all calls are responded to equally when there are actually emergency calls, these fake calls can take away from time that medics spend treating people that actually need help. Ollie sees how he is often just used. The medics see this and it affects how they treat patients that actually need help. They can never be quite sure that every problem is real. They might then not treat every patient fully because they might think the person is faking. In a place as violence ridden as Harlem, the medics are always busy and they shouldn't have to waste time on fake calls.



So far Ollie is staying slipping in his morals. While he no longer speaks up when another medic might be abusing his patient, Ollie does not abuse his own. However, to me, being a bistander to injustice is participating in injustice. I was hoping Ollie would be able to change the medics and how they treat their patients. So far he hasn't done anything, but there is still time.

Source
Burke, Shannon. Black Flies. New York: Soft Skull P, 2008.*Black Flies should be underlined