Congratulations!

Picture it...
The Westbury...
Summer, 2010...

Ric and I were outside having a cigarette.  It was late summer and the air was still warm, but the evenings were beginning to creep in a little earlier and cooler than only a few weeks prior.  By about seven that Sunday evening, the sky above was kissing the sun farewell and a deepening gray began to blanket the city.  It was still light enough for the street lights to remain dim but the shadows cast by the surrounding apartment buildings crept along the streets like fingers reaching out to us.

The Westbury sits on the ground floor of The Parker Hotel.  Formerly known as The Spruce, this structure was once dubbed in the 20's as a "Bachelor Apartment Building".  But the 12 story Parker has deteriorated over the decades to become the cheap rundown low-income rental unit derelict that sits like an unwanted stepchild in the heart of bustling Center City Philadelphia.  Once home to traveling salesmen and single gentlemen, the current tenants can range anywhere from low income, decent individuals trying to get by to hustlers hosting assorted nightly tricks to drug addicts and alcoholics living out the last days of their American Dream.  It's not uncommon to hear of a body found either inside one of the scarcely furnished rooms or behind the building in the alley where they ended up after taking an ill-fated swan dive from one of the windows above.  The police are continuously called to that location to check out assaults, overdoses, suicides and everything in between.

The Westbury Bar seems like a little oasis in the drug infested desert that is The Parker.  Sitting on the corner of the ground floor, it's windows open up to the intersection of 13th and Spruce streets.  Intent on making the flailing bar turn around, the new owners installed several flat screens, applied new paint, revamped the dinner menu and brought in a large selection of bottled and draft beer.  The changes worked and the people, gay and straight, men and women, old and young seemed to flock to the new neighborhood hangout where they can sample a continuously changing beer menu while cheering on any one of the Philadelphia sports teams on television.

But once you step outside to have a cigarette, you're quickly reminded of the menace of brick and steel rising above your feet.  The Parker's entrance is nearly always active with the comings and goings of its residents, screaming at one another or asking for a cigarette or trying to sell drugs.  If you're a regular at the Westbury you sort of get used to the activity, like an African rhino gets used to the flock of birds that perch on his back, occasionally trying to swat them away with its tail.

And that particular Sunday evening that's exactly what Ric and I were doing, ignoring the buzz of activity going on near the entrance to The Parker.  In fact, it wasn't until we watched an ambulance pull up infront of us that we realized something may actually be happening.

Caught up in some small talk and our cigarettes, we watched as the ambulance pulled up to the curb.  Calls into The Parker were so frequent that no siren was even used.  It was as if the EMTs would just hang down around the corner and pull up at a given time, knowing full well their services would be needed.

The EMTs emerged from the cab of the vehicle and headed to the entrance.  Ric and I followed them with our eyes and both noticed the guy on the sidewalk not twenty feet away.  Obviously drunk or drugged, the disheveled man was down on his side trying unsuccessfully to right himself.  Armed with latex gloves, the EMTs knelt beside the man and talked to him, trying to figure out what he had taken and how much.  The man either couldn't answer or spoke too softly because the EMTs repeated themselves. 

Obvious that treatment on the scene wasn't going to cut it, the two EMTs tried hoisting the man up onto his feet.  Once erect, the man's legs buckled and curled like noodles and he was down again.  The techs have witnessed this time and time again and helped him back up onto his feet, each with an arm around the stumbling man's body.  They walked/dragged/carried the man over to the ambulance.  One of the EMTs held the guy up while the other reached for the side door.

And then it got weird...

Ric and I watched silently as the drunk was being hauled across the sidewalk to the ambulance.  The flourescent lights of the canopy over the entrance to the hotel started to cast an eerie white glow over the approaching shadows.  We sucked from our cigarettes as the one EMT reached for the handle and turned it.  He pulled open the door...

...and the sky suddenly filled with purple and gold balloons.

Like prisoners breaking free, these balloons burst through the metal doorframe of the ambulance and started rising into the air.  The EMT holding the man repositioned his grip as the 2nd tech let his grip on the man go to grab for the strings tying the escaping balloons together.

I don't know what was going through Ric's mind at that moment, but everything seemed surreal and didn't appear to be happening at all.  Sure, I had a couple of beers...maybe even more than a couple, but surely not enough to be imagining balloons pouring out of an ambulance.  We both stood and watched, not saying a word.  Our mouths hanging open in disbelief and wonderment.  I felt like I was watching a movie being told before me.  Some silly, over the top campy movie from the 80's like Police Academy, only geared towards the medical field.  Scrubs meet Killer Klowns from Outer Space!

Something needed to be said.  Anything that would explain what we were seeing.  This was just too weird for words...  Or so I thought.

"Congratulations!"  I shouted, a little too loud.  "You're our 100th overdose of the day!"

Ric turned to me in disbelief before realizing what I just said and burst out in laughter.

The tech who released the bouquet of colorful party favors struggled to get them back inside the back of the ambulance while the first tech struggled with the pesky little man needing medical attention.  The squeak of rubbing latex was loud as the tech pushed and prodded the purple and gold balloons back through the opening.  When most were in, one would pop back out and the EMT stretched his arm to get ahold of it.  Finally, after a few seconds (that seemed like several minutes) the balloons were back in their cell.  I can see them moving in the air, trying to get back out.  With one hand on the wall of colorful bouncing rubber the EMT reached out with his free hand to grab the drunk's arm and together, they tried guiding the man into the back of the ambulance.

As surreal as it was for Ric and I, you can multiple that 10-fold for the drunk, just by the look of unknowing fear and incomprehension on his face as he tried backing away from the attacking balloons.  But the EMTs won out.  They forced him up through the door and one followed behind, while the other closed the door and headed around to the driver's side.

We continued to laugh, Ric and I, as the ambulance pulled away from the curb and drove into the approaching darkness.  We were tearing up from laughing so hard, still not fully aware that what we just witnessed had actually happened.

"Oh, we gotta tell everyone about this."  Ric said, still laughing.  "No one is ever going to believe us!"

We flicked our cigarettes into the street and headed back inside the bar, laughing all to way to our seats.