He bit back a choice word or two as they pulled the stretcher up the cracked walkway of the dimly lit yard and past a group of five employees smoking. One of the employees acknowledged them with a small wave, but other than that they were pretty much ignored.
"Hold on," Eric said as Joe raised her hand to knock on the door. "I have a feeling about something," he said, stepping past her and opening the unlocked door. He shoved the stretcher to the side of the walkway, not wanting to leave it unsupervised in the house or scare the hell out of the residents with it. The sight of their stretcher had set off more than one fight in programs like this in the past. Since mental patients, the ones known to be difficult, were usually the last to find out they were being transferred to another psychiatric facility they usually got a little paranoid when they saw EMT's and a stretcher suddenly appear. Since he liked to avoid helping restrain a patient that wasn't even his, he'd leave the stretcher outside until they needed it.
They walked into the large house and shut the door behind them. Joe gestured to a sign above the alarm that read, "Door must remain locked and armed. No excuses!"
"Nice," he grunted as they walked past a large living room with three patients playing a video game.
A young guy the size of a linebacker suddenly stood up, glaring at them. "You f**king better hope you're not here for me!" He took a menacing step towards Joe.
"Take another step towards my partner and I will be," Eric promised as he smoothly slid in front of Joe who muttered an exasperated, "puhlease" probably at his protective posturing since she rarely took threats from patients seriously, no matter their size, which really pissed him off most of the time. Kind of like now.
The man hesitated, shifting nervously. Not that Eric blamed him. He'd hate having no say in his life, never mind being the last one to find out a major life decision had been made for him without his input. Not that he didn't understand the reasoning behind it.
As the person who usually had the misfortune of being the bearer of the Section 12, the legal document that pretty much took away all of a person's rights, he knew the reasoning behind not telling the patient the news until the last minute. Some patients did not take it well, he sure as hell wouldn't, and they went through several predictable stages, denial, acceptance, outrage, and violence. Then again a large percentage of the patients accepted their fate without striking the messenger. He knew it wasn't always easy to tell how a person would react to a Section 12 and for shit pay he'd probably pass the buck off onto someone else, too. Then again he wasn't a pu**y and didn't believe in bullshitting people.
"Oh thank god you're here!" a man with a serious lisp announced a little too dramatically for Eric's comfort. With a bad feeling Eric turned to see the new comer and had to bite back a curse or two as the guy pressed his hand to his heart. The guy was at least four inches shorter than Joe and was basically skin and bone. Eric quickly glanced at the guy who could easily pass as a linebacker for the Raiders and back to the guy who was being paid to keep him in line.
Yeah, right.........
Whatever happened to hiring the right person for the job? Eric wondered. This twig of a guy might be the nicest guy on earth, but he had no business working in this particular residential program. Granted he'd known some really small guys that could kick ass when it came down to it, but judging by the way this man kept sending the patients nervous glances and shifting away from them, Eric really doubted that was the case with this guy.
"Are they here for me, Donny?" the linebacker demanded.
The twig named Donny noticeably swallowed and stepped back as he tried to wave it off. "No, they're not here for you, John."
The linebacker glared at Donny for another moment before nodding firmly and returning to his game. No doubt if the man was lying John would break him in two.
"What's going on today?" Joe asked Donny.
Donny bit his lip nervously. "We're having problems getting one of our patients to take his medication tonight," he admitted.
Eric shared a look with Joe as he ran a frustrated hand through his short hair. "Has the patient attacked anyone? Threatened to hurt himself or been requested by his doctor to be removed from the property?" he asked, trying to keep the frustration he was feeling out of his tone. There had better be a damn good reason for them being held over.
A damn good one.
Donny sighed dramatically. "We're hoping your presence will scare him into taking his pills."
Even though Joe was a good two feet away from him now he felt her go absolutely still the same time he did.
"You called 911 to scare a resident?" Joe choked out in disbelief.
"The pills are important," Donny said, frowning as if this should be obvious. "If he doesn't take his pills he becomes violent and then we have to call you. So we're just saving you the trouble now."
Eric felt like pointing out that they did not have to call 911 if a patient became violent. It was his job to keep the patient under control, not theirs.
"Where is he now?" Joe asked, sounding as impatient as he felt.
Donny gestured lazily towards the stairs that led to the second floor. "Oh, he's asleep."
"You called 911 for a patient who's fast asleep? A patient that posed no threat to anyone at the moment because he refused his pills?" Eric snapped.
Donny shifted nervously as he took a step away from them as if they were crazy.
"Sir, do you realize that when you call 911 for a nonemergency that you're taking away resources that might be needed elsewhere?" Joe demanded in an all business-like tone. Eric wouldn't have bothered with the niceties. He would have just called the guy a f**king moron and accepted the write up.
"It is an emergency," Donny muttered pathetically.
"Actually, we're not sure whether he took his pills or not," a woman said.
Joe and Eric looked past Donny to find a rather rotund middle aged woman walking towards them with a thick black binder and several prescription bottles.
Donny huffed at the woman. "I know he didn't take his pills tonight."
The woman held up the binder. "Tom marked the sheet that he gave the pills tonight."
"He did not, because he left five hours before the pills were due so he obviously messed up," Donny snapped at the woman whose face was turning bright red with embarrassment.
"The pill count doesn't add up either," the woman mumbled.
Donny rolled his eyes. "You're new here. You still don't know how this works."