A Lost Son
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The call comes in for a 15-year-old EDP – emotionally disturbed person – in Canarsie. “A polite way of saying a nut-job,” my partner, Bronson, says, reading the computer screen mounted between our seats. “Why don’t they just call it what it is?”
“And in Canarsie, of all places,” I add. Canarsie is a huge swath of two-story attached and semi-attached brick houses that used to be a great place. Now it’s a disaster area. “Things change,” he says. “Who’d have thought that below Fifth Avenue and above 9th Street would ever be called Park Slope?”
He’s right. In the 1970s, it used to be Irish bars and Italian gangs, with an occasional Puerto Rican turf war thrown in for good measure. Now you can’t spit without hitting a woman in hipster gear carrying a yoga mat.
“What’s going on?” Bronson says.
“I don’t know,” I say, confused.
He taps the windshield. “No, with the job. No PD yet.” The police usually show up for EDPs, in case the patient is violent. Rule no. 1 in EMS: Your safety comes first, then your partner’s. The patient is a distant third. “Let’s do it,” I say, getting out of the ambulance. I’m in one of those I-can-walk-through-fire moods. “Like the Indian in ‘Little Big Man’ who thinks he’s invisible.”
“I hate Dustin Hoffman,” Bronson grumbles as we push through the front door. “He’d hate you too,” I say. Then, after a beat, “If he ever met you.” Another beat. “Which he won’t.” I look at the ugly building we’re about to go into. “Because we’re in Canarsie.”
We’re met by a fat woman who points up the stairs. “Their son is freaking out again.”
We go upstairs and knock. “Come in!” someone shouts.
It’s a small, filthy apartment with bags of Goodwill clothing everywhere, more clothing than anyone could ever wear just sitting in plastic trash bags. Smack in the middle of the living room is a hospital bed. In it is an obese 50-year-old woman wearing a Winnie-the-Pooh nightgown. She’s not bedridden, but from the look of the sheets, she spends a lot of time there. Boxes of Pop-Tarts and Ritz crackers decorate the blankets. “It’s Andrew,” she says, crumbs falling from her mouth. “He’s in the bathroom. Again.”
We knock. “Andrew?”
The water shuts off and the door opens slightly. A meek face peeps out. Bronson says, “Show me your hands.” We don’t want any weapons. “Come out and show me your hands.”
He does. They’re wet, red, and chapped. His mother shouts, “He’s been washing them for weeks!” We take him into the living room, hands dripping. He’s a skinny boy in a starched Oxford shirt and crisp chinos. His hair is neatly combed. An unshaven fat man of about 65 comes out from another bedroom, Budweiser in hand, sweatpants hanging beneath his potbelly. “You his father?” I ask.
He swallows beer. “No.”
Andrew shrugs, air-drying his hands.
The man says Andrew was released from a mental institution a few weeks ago. “He’s been washing his hands ever since.”
“He on meds?” Bronson asks.
The man nods. “For bipolar disorder, anti-social personality disorder, and OCD.” He leads us into Andrew’s bedroom. In contrast to the rest of the apartment, it’s neat as a pin. His night table is neatly stacked with numerous bottles of pills, all full and unused, the labels all facing neatly outward.
“Noncompliant,” I say, and mark my paperwork. We go back to the living room. “Ma’am?”
The woman picks a cracker from the box. “Yup?”
“Can you tell us any more about your son’s condition?”
She turns away. “Nope.”
Andrew sits primly on the couch, knees together, looking like he was dropped there. The cops show up, take a look at the cast of characters,and chuckle. “Who’s coming with us?” they ask.
We look to the man. “Oh, no.” He backs off. “Not me.”
“Sir,” the officer says. “The kid’s a minor. I don’t care who, but somebody has to come.” The man crumples his beer can and tosses it to the floor. “Ah, hell! And it ain’t even my kid!” Once inside the Kings County psych ward, he makes a beeline for the bathroom. “Gotta whiz,” he says. Andrew stands near but doesn’t touch a cinderblock wall painted a glossy avocado green.
As I hand my paperwork to the administrator behind the Plexiglas window, a tall black man comes out of the lavatory, zipping his fly. He’s a gentle EDP I’ve seen roaming Park Slope in scuffed wingtip shoes, nose perpetually buried in a book. He’s reading now, the last page of a frayed paperback. Finished, he stops before us and thrusts the book into Andrew’s hands.
Andrew holds the book out by two fingers. “Germs,” he says. Then he tilts his head and looks at the cover. “The Hardy Boys Mystery #51.” He pulls his shirtsleeves over his fingers for protection and reads the back, engrossed now, as the tall man slopes away.
Ms. Klopsis is an emergency medical technician on an ambulance in Brooklyn. This column details her observations and experiences. Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of patients.