Slippery When Wet

Getting sent to a Check Condition call is like playing Russian Roulette. It could be a whole lot of nothing, or it could be a whole lot of paperwork. Or people’s heads blowing off, or whatever.

The woman on the first floor lived alone, and normally when she had any problems with the plumbing she called the landlord. But the sounds coming from the apartment above her that mysteriously preceded the water coming through the light fixture in her kitchen ceiling made her think this was more of a problem for the police than a plumber. Lucky us.

My partner in the neighboring sector and I walked up the exterior wooden stairs to the second floor balcony. The triple-decker apartment building was in need of some repair — as per usual in the inner city with all its absentee landlords. The siding hadn’t seen a paintbrush in decades, the railing was missing balusters like a crackhead missing teeth, and the stench of a stale ashtray and cat urine lingered in the air. The apartment windows were draped in mismatched bed sheets and blankets while the nine light entry door was covered with stained and broken Venetian blinds.

Locked In

We gave a little knock hoping no one would answer, but because the door was partially ajar it slowly swung inward, inviting us to enter like a haunted house. I nudged the door the rest of the way open and surveyed what appeared to be an eat-in kitchen with half an inch of water covering the floor. To my left was a solid wood and heavily lacquered bathroom door with the muffled, panicked voice of a man on the other side.

The one bedroom apartment was clear except for the unknown person in the bathroom who was making sounds that were not quite words, at least not words that I could understand. We announced ourselves as the police and told whoever was in the bathroom to come out. For all we knew he could be lying in wait to shoot us in the face. A distraught voice replied, “I can’t!” in such a way that made me think he was at his wit’s end. It was as if he wanted to, but he couldn’t. I wasn’t sure what to believe.

Not Bob Vila

My partner and I fanned out to opposing sides of the bathroom door and again ordered the person to come out. The tense desperation in his second reply made me believe him — he was locked in. Which of, course, was odd, because that wouldn’t make any sense. Generally speaking, one would be able to lock and unlock a bathroom from the inside, not the other way around. Because if it was the other way around it would defeat the whole purpose of being able to do your business in private, like take bathroom selfies and surf social media.

In a well-choreographed tactical maneuver (this is sarcasm) I covered the door and my partner turned the knob. Lo and behold, the door was not locked! We pushed the door open and inside the bathroom was a twenty-something year old man in his birthday suit, soaking wet, with water spraying everywhere. The bathroom looked like an inner city version of a DIY renovation episode of This Old House — except Bob Vila was skinny, naked, and high as a kite. Let me tell you, this guy was no Bob Vila. Bob Vila would have turned the water off before getting naked and tearing the walls and ceiling open with his bare hands.

Another Planet

The bathroom ceiling was falling in, broken copper pipes were sticking out at jagged angles, horse hair plaster was all over the floor, the front half of the porcelain pedestal sink had snapped off, and part of the wall had been torn open. Water was pouring out from the broken pipes, flooding the apartment.

In a pure veteran move, my partner draped the naked man in a comforter he found in the bedroom and then we got the story. The guy told us he was locked in the bathroom (allegedly), he couldn’t get out, and went into full panic mode and tried to claw his way out — quite literally. It seemed he had done everything to escape except turning the door knob. After a few minutes of speaking with him, it was pretty obvious he had introduced a foreign substance of some sort into his system and his mind had taken its place on another planet

Take Him

It was clear to us that he was erratic, destructive, and needed medical attention, but even with our best verbal judo, we could not convince him to go. In order to try and stay put, he curled up under the comforter on the floor and would not budge.

A supervisor had shown up to check on us and the three of us stood around looking down at this man curled up under his covers like a 6 year old feigning sickness to avoid going to school. With arms folded our sergeant looked at him, then looked at both of us, then back at him, and said simply and matter of fact, “Take him.” Dang it!

Slippery When Wet

Going hands-on was pretty much the last thing I wanted to do, but nonetheless, it seemed to be our only option. We gloved up, pulled the covers off, and then it was like wrestling a lanky wet seal. He was wiry and wet and slippery and there wasn’t much we could hold onto. (I know that sounds weird, but, well, never mind). With my years of experience catching frogs barehanded when I was a kid and with a little teamwork, we were able to wrangle Slick Willy and get him to an ambulance and ultimately to the hospital where he belonged. Needless to say that particular game of Russian Roulette did not go in our favor, and in fact, everyone involved is now probably scarred for life.

Just add that to the list of things we don’t get paid enough to do.

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