Another rainy day, but despite the weather – or maybe because of it – the brownstones in Park Slope look even more gothic as we drive by in search of breakfast.

We pass gastronomic delights at every corner. “Metamorphosis,” Bronson marvels. “Like the Upper West Side. Remember in ‘The Goodbye Girl’? Marsha Mason lived right near the Museum of Natural History, and her building had graffiti and dented metal garbage cans and an immigrant landlady, and in one scene she gets mugged and her bag of groceries goes flying.”

I don’t know what to make of all this gentrification. “When I was growing up here,” I say, “you had to look over your shoulder just to walk home. Now, it’s all glitzy.” A hip young woman prances across an intersection carrying a yoga mat and a canvas totebag from Whole Foods. “And those same glitz-people oppose the Atlantic Yards development and the apartment buildings going up along Fourth Avenue, what used to be a total wasteland.”

“Everyone wants just enough gentrification to make it safe for them to move in,” Bronson says, “then they want it to freeze that way. And they wear those stupid ‘718’ shirts or the ones that say ‘Brooklyn.’ Please. They wouldn’t touch the real Brooklyn – Marine Park, Sheepshead Bay, Bensonhurst – with a 10-foot pole.”

Before we can get breakfast, we’re called to an “injury” in Sunset Park. We hit the gas and are quickly into a less-desirable neighborhood, where the buildings are ugly and there aren’t as many trees. We find an elderly Chinese man, about 75 years old, sitting in front of a storefront, bleeding profusely from the forehead. We stop the bleeding with some sterile dressings and ask the man what happened, but he speaks no English. Nearby, a heavyset black woman, leaning on a shopping cart, sips liquor from a strangled brown paper bag. She’s about 50, appears homeless, and is none too steady on her feet. “Did you see what happened?” Bronson asks her.

She slurs her words. “He fell over there,” she points at the curb. “I helped him up, and brought him over here.” She closes her eyes and takes another swig. “I speak Chinese.”

Bronson laughs. “Yeah, and I’m the pope.”

The woman caps the bottle and says: “I said, I speak Chinese.” She puts the flask in her pocket. “Now, what do you want me to ask him?”

To pacify her, I say, “Ask him if he felt dizzy before he fell.” To my amazement, she turns to the man and speaks what appears to be fluent Chinese. Bronson and I are dumbfounded as the man responds to her.

“He tripped,” she relays to us.

Bronson is excited. “Ask him if he hit his head. Did he pass out?”

The woman translates. “No. And no,” she tells us.

Bronson shoots more questions, rapid-fire. “Does he have any medical problems? Allergies? Take any meds?”

The woman rubs her face. “You’re confusing me. Slow the f— down.”

We help the man and the woman into the ambulance. I show him to the stretcher and put an ice pack on his forehead while Bronson seats the woman on the bench seat and asks more questions. “Any allergies? Meds? By the way, how do you come to speak Chinese?”

Maybe her father was an Army man stationed in Taiwan and she grew up there. Maybe she once interpreted at the United Nations, but now she’s hit the bottle.

The woman is affronted. “What does that have to do with anything? I speak it, that’s all you need to know.” She throws her hands up in disgust. “Aw hell, I don’t need this bulls—.” She jumps down from the ambulance, grabs her cart, and teeters away.

“No, wait!” Bronson shouts after her. But she’s gone. He shakes his head. “Unreal.”

At the Lutheran ER, we give the nurse the patient’s information as the doctor approaches us. “Who’s translating?” he asks.

Bronson says, “Doc, you’re not gonna believe this, but … a homeless, alcoholic, African-American woman.”

He looks around. “Where is she?” Apparently, anything goes in this multiethnic ER.

Bronson scratches his ear and explains that he angered her and she left.

The doctor stares at him. “Nice work.”

We get into the ambulance and drive back to Park Slope for our belated breakfast. I look at all the gourmet restaurants, each one more tantalizing than the next. A perfect world, with nothing missing. “You know what this neighborhood needs?” I say.

“What?” Bronson says.

“Reality.”

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.