Mickhi Dbrisk was not allowed on that plane he had found. He had no passport to board. Like many of the mostly black members of the Bed Stuy Volunteer Ambulance Corporation, he seemed annoyed and surprised that he even needed such papers in such a time of great calamity. Yet, even the devastation of the great earthquake did not waive the requirement to have a passport for international travel. Thus, though his ultimate role in the world to come was substantial, through lack of papers he wrote himself out of the history of the response. Art least the first wave … Continue reading ANFOM 9

Upon returning to work at Station 35 under Woodhull Hospital, Technician Adon is unable to escape the spectre of the Tremblor. He watches the pictures flash over the telescreen bolted within the 7-11 on Atlantic Ave. It was like 911 times 10,000. No one had any idea how many were dead, how many were wounded, and how many were trapped under the rubble buried alive.  His phone rings as he watches bodies pile up on the evening news.  It’s his friend and comrade Mickhi Dbrisk. A Jamaican EMT he went to school with and helped found the Banshee Association. A … Continue reading ANFOM 8

On 12 January, it was another morning in Port Au Prince. Everyone was getting ready for at least being awake and alive. Then the ground moved suddenly like a wave and then suddenly death was absolutely everywhere. Hysterical screaming, thousands and thousands of walls falling over onto the people under them. The earth shook and then swallowed in just a few moments over 100,000 to 250,000 to then maybe 316,000 souls. No one would ever know since the census had ended in 2004. The year of the last coup. Many, many more would perish from their injuries in the days … Continue reading ANFOM 7

On 11 January Emma Solomon also called Maya Sorieya, whispered now by many to be ‘the mother of Messiahs’ arrives in the Capital of Haiti. She is athletic in build. Olive tan skin, her brown hair is still flowing and while she appears exotic. She travels in on a Spanish passport still having much noble data within the space between her ears that must be passed quietly to underground on this island before most of them are wiped out by devils in the next 72 hours. Port Au Prince is unlike any other place on earth. The singular thing one … Continue reading ANFOM FRERE 6

Paramedic Victor Cange is weathering an ugly pink beanie. It’s really one of the ugliest hats anyone has ever seen. If it were day time a supervisor would have told him to take it off. He is working Transport Unit 808 out of the Transcare base in Canarsie, Brooklyn. He is fairly slim and wears thick black spectacles. It’s Christmas and he shouldn’t be here, but his seventh day adventist church teaches that Jesus wasn’t really even born on the 25th, not even really born in December. His partner is the tall, serious Jamaican named EMT Mickhi DBrisk. Michkhi is … Continue reading Anfom Frere Chp.5

We’re in the garage below Woodhull Hospital, a city block sized iron and concrete monstrosity. They had designed it originally as a prison, but now it’s a city hospital of ill repute. It’s the 21st of December, the KDT says. I punch in our numbers, I type GOD as the third rider. It’s a superstitious thing. My name is Scott Sevastra. I’m 33, that;’s when Jesus did his best work, so they say in the newer parts of the bible. I’m salt and peppered. I’m slightly overweight with silver freckled hair and spectacles. I wear spectacles, not glasses. That’s different. … Continue reading Anfom Frere Chp.4

It’s the 20th of December in the year 2009. Jeremy Mccgaffey has been dead for about one year. Most of the mourning aloud was long over. But his ghost remained.  Those fucking pagans from Gerritsen Beach tried to kill me and Maria, Nick and also Angelica on the damn Q train. This hate crime was defeated with fists and knives and the press machine. The FDNY EMS hired him immediately, he cut a whole long civil service list somehow. Then came FDNY in the Bronx at night, then losing his Maria slowly for almost two years. Then recently Maria left … Continue reading Anfom Frere Chp.3

Her name is Paramedic Barbara Danton. She works on a Tran-scare 911 unit out of Brooklyn Hospital. That is to say a commercial ambulance provider, the biggest on the east coast staffing a voluntary hospital unit in the city controlled 911 system. Ah the date, well it is 15 December now in the year 2009. The weather is poor and the streets are not well plowed in Downtown Brooklyn.  In her own words: “Only reason I’m out here this gorgeous Friday evening is that I don’t make a living wage and thus do an insane amount of overtime to keep … Continue reading Anfom Frere Chp.2

On the 10th of December in the year 2009 the snow dropped open and the sky fell out and then we all had a 7 foot ice coat. To keep warm I invited pugnacious and highly sassy Yelizaveta Kotlyarova to join me at the Wall Street Baths, called Spa 88 in the cavern tombs below the District Financial. The date is the 10th of December in 2009 of the Common Era. The snow still falls heavy on the Isle of Man.  Below ground, in the underground you can hear the rumble of the trains through the walls; three flights down … Continue reading Anfom Frere Chp. 1

I ask you now friend, in whose reality do you live? We all dedicate our actions to the future. But, what is it that we claim to do with our little lives as that future narrows? Have we all lost our faith in outer generations or a glorious world to come? Of course, all lives are both great and also quite little, but it was a matter of sure and soulful pretension; crossed of course a bit with the “sollidaritous” desire to teach a nation of certain newly freed slaves to fish. Allegorically speaking. The fishing and the slaves. More … Continue reading Anfom Frere