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