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

Black Flies #3

Shannon Burke's novel Black Flies tells the story of Ollie Cross, a paramedic in Harlem during the 1990s. Ollie did not get into medical school so he is taking the opportunity to practice medicine while being a medic. He learns that medics are not always the "good guys" and often abuse their patients. However, he slowly finds himself blending in the with others and condoning the abusive behavior. The days are jam packed for a medic in the inner city. In this section, Ollie and his partner, Rutkovsky, experience a suicidal man whom Ollie stupidly bursts in on. A cop that often works with the Harlem medics, Pastori, "thinks" that a teenage boy is disrespecting him and forces the boy's boss to beat the boy up for Pastori's entertainment. Another medic, Hatsuru, encourages Ollie to block out everything about being a medic except for the medical aspects so that he does not become like the other medics. Ollie's morals are challenged when he is called to treat an elderly woman with fluid in her lungs. When Rutkovsky leans the woman backwards so that the fluid begins to drown her Ollie is forced to question it is best to let the woman escape her horrible life in the nursing home or save her life. However, the nurse comes in and Rutkovsky is forced to return the woman to her upright position so that she is no longer drowning. Back at the station the medics discuss whether a good medic is capable of not caring for their patients, but the issue is not resolved. Ollie knows he is becoming a good medic when he is able to keep up with Rutkovsky when they treat a patient with heart failure. Sadly, Ollie and his girlfriend, Cara's, relationship suffers because he is becoming more like the other medics with an "I don't care" attitude. On top of this, Ollie's family comes to visit and they are shocked that he works in an environment so different from the proper one he was brought up in. Back at work, Ollie and the rest of the medics and police men are faced with a problem when Mitch Green, a former boxer, is high and disturbing the peace. Another medic, Verdis, is kind to Green and is able to distract him while the other medics and police men pin him down. Even though Ollie is part of this "victory", Clara breaks up with him and he realizes that he cannot keep up both his medic self and his med student self.



A big shock comes to Ollie when LaFontaine, another medic, tells him, "Try to be the good guy. Try to be the hero. But not here. These people are animals. Give em a chance and they'll tear your head off" (Burke 56). Ollie is being fed the idea that his patients are not people, but animals and he is eating it up. This is one of the reasons he is starting to not care about his patients as much. He does not think that these people deserve the best help he can give them. This shows how he is becoming more and more like the other medics. I was hoping that Ollie would be different, but he sadly seems to be buying in to the medic way of life. It makes sense that Harlem was so crime ridden and poor during the 1990s. If the people were being treated like animals they would not want to make things better. If they were continually told they were animals, they would gradually begin to believe that. Hopefully Ollie will realize that this belief is wrong and will help everyone the best that he can.



When Ollie and Rutkovsky are called to help the elderly woman Rutkovsky opts to let the woman drown. Ollie says, " I guess I thought I wouldn't have drowned her myself, but she was a hundred and one years old. What did it matter if she died or not?" (Burke 66). Ollie is starting to question whether it is better to let someone die and escape from the horrible world around them or to save their life and let them continue living in the world. In some situations it might seem kinder to let the person die rather than live in a neighborhood so full of crime and poverty where they had no hope. On the other hand, if the person lived they could potentially make a difference. This is a touchy issue that has no definate solution. I think that Ollie will fall in with the other medics and use the excuse that the patient is "in a better place" to justify his lack of treatment.



Ollie is being forced to decide whether he wants to believe that his patients are good people who deserve to live, or if it is better to just let them die. So far he has wavered in his opinion, but I think he will soon be forced to chose a side. I am hoping that he sees the good in people and treats them to the best of his ability.

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

Black Flies #2

In Shannon Burke's novel Black Flies Ollie Cross is a medic in Harlem during the 1990s. Fresh out of college, Ollie did not get into med school so he decides to get some experience and becomes a medic. He experiences the many gruesome scenes that come with being a medic in one of the most violent, poverty ridden cities. He sees the dead bodies of teenagers who have committed suicide, helps to save an old asthmatic, rushes gun shot victims to hospitals, and learns how the some of the other medics abuse their patients just becuase they can. So far Ollie is just starting to become "one of the guys" and is begining to fit in with the other medics. In this reading Ollie is present when a diabetic dies and goes into an apartment only to find a rotting body. As disturbing as these occurences may be, he is eager to learn and help and pays close attention to everything going on around him. He is also called to speak to the chief and is warned to look out for his partner Rutkovsky who, though an exceptional medic, might be starting to burn out. He learns to watch out for LaFontaine, another medic who pretends not to care about anything and abuses many of his patients just because he can. Ollie continues to learn and adapts to the life of a medic.

One day Ollie and LaFontaine are talking and LaFontaine asks Ollie to guess what day he is on. Not understanding, Ollie asks what he is talking about. LaFontaine replies, "Seventeen days without anyone thanking me. I keep track," (Burke 35). Ollie has grown up in a stable family and is used to people being polite and grateful for help. He does not quite no how to respond to the comment and just sits there. Even though Ollie is adapting to the difficult life of a medic in Harlem, I think he still believes people are good and have just gone through hard times. He is starting to realize that not all people are naturally good and polite and just need a little help to break free from their current surroundings. I am shocked that people do not thank the medics that just saved their lives. A life is very valuable, and if someone saves it for you, that is a big deal. Thinking about this, maybe the patients don't say thank you because they do not feel as if their lives were valuable. They live in one of the worst, most poverty stricken, crime ridden cities in the United States and might not feel as if life is totally worth living. This is something I can continue to look for.

Ollie later mentions some things he has seen but the reader has not been given a full account of. The medics are sitting around talking and they talk about how messed up the city is. They mention things they see on a daily basis, like, "...a teenager giving birth in a hallway, a guy lighting himself on fire and jumping out a window, dozens of rotting bodies in various stages of decay," (Burke 49). Sadly, this is becoming Ollie's life. He is surrounded by so much destruction and despair. It has caused some of the other medics to abandon their morals, and this could very easily happen to Ollie. I am still shocked at how difficult like as a medic is. Dealing with all of these awful things on a daily basis would be too hard for me. I think Ollie is becoming more comfortable with all of these things because he experiences them every day. I continue to hope that Ollie does not become immune to these tragedies and become abusive like the other medics.

So far Ollie has shown an eagerness to help, but I am unsure whether he will be able to keep up that attitude when he is surrounded by so many horrible things. I think this will take a toll on his relationships and how he even views himself. Hopefully is able to remain a "good guy".

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

Black Flies #1

Shannon Burke's novel Black Flies is the story of Ollie Cross, a paramedic in Harlem in the 1990s. Ollie wants to go to medical school and be a doctor, but he does not have good enough MCAT scores to get in. In order to get some experience, Ollie works on an ambulance. He is shocked by what he finds. Ollie expected the medics to truly love saving people, however he learns not all the medics are the "good guys". They may treat patients, but they do not always do it with kindness and often abuse the people they are "helping". The patients are as diverse as the medics. Ollie encounters everyone from old homeless asthmatics to teenagers who have committed suicide to an obese man found rotting in his apartment. Black Flies recounts Ollie's experiences and how he responds to different emergency situations. When Ollie originally joins the Harlem medics, he is partnered with Rutkovsky, the veteran of the group. He immediately likes Rutkovsky because he is an excellent medic who does not abuse the patients or seek praise. So far in the novel Ollie is just adapting to the life of a paramedic and continues to be shocked by the people and injuries he comes in contact with.

Ollie's first real challenge comes when he is called to the scene of a teen suicide. A girl was found after jumping off a thirty floor building dead. It is not just the death that shocks him, it is the gruesomeness of it. Upon reaching the body Rutkovsky, "...bent and felt her neck and the back of her skill and lifted her shirt to examine her torso and saw what she'd done before she jumped - in rough, scraggly, red letters the words LIFE SUCKS were carved into her belly," (Burke 6). Ollie is just out of college and comes from a nice family. This is not something is he used to. Because the girl is obviously dead and does not require medical attention, Ollie is too stunned by what he is seeing to act. He watches his partner examine the body but does not participate. It must have come as quite a shock to discover the world is really so dark. I can relate to Ollie, coming from a nice family where I do not come into contact with death on a daily basis. This was disgusting for me to even read about! Just imagining the girl feeling so opressed by death that she would carve her stomach and jump of a building is enough to make me queasy. Reading this really made me decide not to go into medicine. Experiencing these things and having to be the strong person who acts and does not let the scene disturb them would not work for me. This scene broke my heart to hear of a girl so mad at life that she would kill herself, but also makes me squirm in disgust picturing the body.

I was also shocked to hear some of the terrible things the paramedics do. I would like to think that medics are the good guys who want to help everyone, but reading about these medics abusing their patients, leaving rotting dog carcases in each other's cars and taking pictures of them holding dead body parts really made me reconsider this thought. One of the medics that Ollie works with is LaFontaine. He likes to think of himself as the "big man on campus" who doesn't care about his patients and can take advantage of them. LaFontaine keeps, "... a snapshot of himself holding a fourteen-year-old girl's head like a bowling ball with his fingers in her nostrils, and in the alley in the background, forty-ouncers set up like bowling pins, as if he were about to roll her head at the bottles," (Burke 34). Ollie is once again shocked that a person he thought was a hero for saving lives could be so disrespectful to a dead girl. He is beginning to realize that things are not always as they seem to be. Someone may wear the medic outfit and save lives, but in actuality they are abusive to patients and disrespect them once they are dead. Picturing the photo is my head is very disturbing. Like Ollie, I like to think of paramedics as the good guys who like to help everyone as much as possible. I do think that one of the reasons these medics are so messed up is because of what they experience every day. They work in Harlem, so they see lots of nasty sights. After a while that takes a toll on a person and they become insensitive to it. I am hoping that Ollie does not fall into those habits and is able to remember that he wants to work in medicine to help others, not just make a pay check.

Black Flies is a very interesting account of life as a medic. I am hoping being a medic in Harlem is more gruesome than being a medic in most other places because if this is what is actually occuring all over the United States, that is a very disturbing thought. Hopefully Ollie is able to stand true to his morals and makes a difference in the lives of the people he helps.

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

A Million Little Pieces #6

A Million Little Pieces is James Frey's account of his six weeks in rehab for drug and alcohol addiction. At age 23, Frey has been an addict for over a decade. One day he wakes up to find himself on a plane headed to an unkown destination. His parents meet him at the airport and bring him to a treatment center in Minnesota. At first James does not want to get better, but with the help of friends and counselors he learns how special life is. He falls in love with Lilly, a crack addict and prostitute who is in rehab as well. James befriends an organized crime leader, judges, boxers, and everything in between. His friends would not all be friends outside of rehab, but being in the same situation brings them together. With a family program put on by the clinic James is able to reconcile with his parents and repair some of the damage from his past. James is tested and tempted, but through it all he is able to remain sober.



In this last section, James is released from rehab. The night before he leaves James can't sleep. He walks outside and thinks to himself, "I am scared. I am scared of leaving here. I am scared of losing the protection and security that exists within these boundaries. I am scared of going to Jail, I am scared of alcohol and drugs and I am scared of drinking alcohol and using drugs," (Frey 416). I think that being scared shows James is truly ready to live a sober life. It shows how James has realized how much better his life is without drugs and alcohol and is afraid of what will happen if he starts using again. James has gotten comfortable with being sober in a very controlled, safe environment, but being outside where there are drugs and alcohol is going to be very difficult. Hopefully this fear will help James resist the temptation of using and will keep him sober. After a long night, James says goodbye to his friends, counselors, and everyone who helped him out at the clinic. He even breaks the rules, once again, and says goodbye to Lilly and tells her he loves her. James is picked up by his brother and friend. When asked what he wants to do, James replies that he wants to go to a bar. His brother is disappointed, but knows that James will find a way to a bar and it would be best if he was there to watch over him. At the bar, James orders a huge glass of whiskey. He sits there with his nose in the drink, his body pleading for it. James looks up into the mirror behind the bar and looks into his eyes and is happy with what he sees. He realizes he has a simple decision, to drink or not. He calls to the barkeep and says, "Dump this sh*t down the f*cking drain. I don't want it," (Frey 429). James made up his mind not to drink, and was strong enough to turn down the addiction that was staring him right in the face. This is James' first time durning down a drink without something or someone there to stop him, he did it because he wanted to. He has come a long way from chugging gas station wine in the begining to turning down his favorite whiskey. Hopefully living sober will only get easier for James. At the very end James informs us of how all of the people in the story ended up. Unfortunately, not all of the stories have happy endings, but at least James has remained sober and has never relapsed. I congratulate him on his journey so far and with him luck with what is to come in his life.



Source
Frey, James. A Million Little Pieces. New York: Anchor, 2005. *A Million Little Pieces should be underlined, but BlogSpot won't let me