Black Flies, Post #3

In Shannon Burke’s novel, Black Flies, there is a large section of foreshadowing. In this fifth section of the book, Ollie Cross has developed tremendously as a paramedic. Much of this success, however, is due to his senior partner, Rutkovsky. A large issue arises at one point when the two of them respond to a call from a nursing home. Walking down the halls of the nursing home, they both find a dark, gloomy atmosphere. When they do get to their patient, they find that it is an old woman with liquid filling up her lungs. Rutkovsky says, “‘Don’t bother. Look at her, Cross. A hundred and one. We can’t do anything’” (66). The two paramedics are both faced with a hopeless situation, and all they can do is sit and wait. As Burke continues, it is obvious that there was a moral conflict about what was to be done. Rutkovsky makes his decision fairly quickly. Burke writes, “After a moment Rutkovsky reached over and lowered the head of the bed.” (66). By doing this, the paramedic was speeding up the patients suffocation as her lungs filled with liquid. This decision to euthanize the old woman shows a deep foreshadowing of events to come.

Following this section, the book moves more into Ollie Cross’ social life. Ollie talks about his girlfriend Clara, narrating how his relationship with her has been put on edge by his employment as a paramedic. At one point, Clara gives Ollie a ride to work and meets Rutkovsky. Burke writes, “She frowned immediately and I think she saw or imagined she saw Rutkovsky’s influence on me” (75). Ollie’s relationship is in trouble and becomes more unstable as the book moves forward. The effect of this is that Ollie becomes more entrenched in his life as a paramedic, separate from the ‘normal’ trends of life. Then Ollie talks about his parent’s visit to his apartment. This is an odd moment for Ollie because his parents haven’t seen him since the end of college. He explains, “Dad was silent, gruff, suspicious. Mom was smiling too much, trying to pretend she wasn’t intimidated” (78). Ollie’s life as a paramedic has a deep impact on his social life, and the way that this is drawn out is a great way that the author keeps the story interesting.

Black Flies, Post #2

As I read further into Shannon Burke’s novel, Black Flies, the realities of life as a paramedic are becoming more apparent. For the main character, Ollie Cross, the crazy world of hurt that he has to wade through is now less disturbing, more common place. Things that would have left him numb before have no evident effect on him. Cross also finds that his abilities as a paramedic are improving. On one occasion, Cross becomes extremely motivated to help a patient, a teenage boy. Cross is pound of how he handles the situation until he gets to the hospital and is told that he was wasting the ER doctors’ time. He explains, “The patient was off the board now and with his head turned to the side I could see he was missing the back half of his skull” (32). Cross realizes that he had been too excited to help the boy that he hadn’t seen that he was a lost cause. As time passes, Ollie sees that a paramedic needs an objective view, and that explained a lot to him about why the other paramedic’s handled themselves the way they did. Ollie comes to realize that there is a fine line as to how much one should care. At one point, a man Cross is treating and talking to has a heart attack and dies. Burke writes, “ I pretended it was an ordinary occurrence to have someone die in front of me” (39). Cross is making a progression to becoming a better paramedic. On the other hand, he has to be careful not to lose himself in the process.

Moving a little farther into the book, the psychological problems related to being a paramedic are discussed. At one point, Cross is called up to the station chief’s office. When he talks to Cross, the chief asks him a few questions, and after he is done he is told by a coworker that he was actually been psychologically assessed. Cross relates, “The chief had a doctorate in psychology. He wrote academic papers that he delivered at EMS conferences. The meeting was an examination” (44). The environment that Harlem medics found themselves in is detrimental to a person’s mental health, and Cross realized that this was true firsthand. Later, Cross describes some symptoms of this. He says, “Eagerness and thrill seeking in other’s misery is psychologically corrosive, and is also rampant in the EMS world” (44). This novel is fairly dark, but has a true sense of realism. This realism is what makes this book work.

Black Flies, Post #1

People don’t like to believe that bad things happen, that the horrors of the evening news don’t apply to their existence. Instead, people try to only look at the brighter side of life, because if they didn’t they would have to come to understand that life has a dark side. In Shannon Burke’s novel, Black Flies, the worst of life comes to the surface through the eyes of Ollie Cross, a rookie paramedic in Harlem. The book begins in an old, run-down apartment building where a kid claims to have hurt his arm. Cross and his partner, Rutkovsky, are suspicious of the boy, and are concerned about the group of youths that he is with. They believe that the boy is faking his injury, looking for free drugs. Burke writes, “He pretended to get ready to start the IV. Then there was a sound at the door and eight cops burst in, shouting to get down, throwing kids to the floor” (5). The author quickly reveals a darker landscape than most people would ever imagine, and shows all of the shady corners of the city. Cross narrates the frantic pace of his job and the details of his work. A few more pages into the book, Ollie Crosse relates one of his first saved patients. He elaborates, “We’d definitely saved his life. No doubt about it. He’d practically coded in front of us” (12). He felt the thrill of saving a life, and this motivated him a lot in his work. If he didn’t feel dedicated to help people he wouldn’t be able to tolerate his job.

As the novel progresses, Cross discovers more about how the paramedics worked together in a kind of close-knit community. He describes how he was hazed a bit at first as a result of a botched job. This occurred in a park when he wasn’t able to get a breathing tube down an asthmatic’s throat. When his partner had to do it for him he was made fun of. He describes, “I went down to my locker and found a taped sketch of the grim reaper on my locker. I guess a joke had started up about how I’d tried to miss my tube on the asthmatic on purpose, how I wanted my patient to die, how I got off on dead patients” (13). There is a dark sense of humor attached to the paramedics’ conversation and jokes. Cross talks more about hazing later with another paramedic. As a hint, one of the medics put a transfer form in the mailbox of someone they didn’t like. When the man found it, he went out to his car and found another large hint from another paramedic, LaFontaine, that he should leave the precinct. Burke writes, “I saw that there was something propped up in the driver’s seat. I stepped closer. It was a dead dog. LaFontaine had used some sort of wire to attach the paws to the steering wheel so it was like the dog was driving the car” (21). This book is terribly dark, and the author doesn’t leave out any of the details. I believe that this novel is shocking in its bluntness, but that it does succeed in carrying the idea across to the reader.