In Extremis
written by: Tony Covatta
Busy businessman Andy dropped his shirts off at Jiffy Cleaners on Saturday mornings on his way to the golf course. He’d shoot the breeze with Mortimer, the frail, short manager, always frowning, stringy brown hair flopped over worried forehead.—“Mort doesn’t have a friend in the world,” Andy would exclaim to wife Amanda, every time the name came up.–This Saturday Mort was inert, slumped in his chair behind the counter, hands on chin, elbows on knees, staring at the floor. The racks of laundered shirts looming unattended behind him.
“Hey, Mort. What’s happenin’?” Andy’s usual opening salvo.
Silence for too many seconds. Then—
“My arm hurts. Feels kinda tingly.”
Andy had heard somewhere that tingling extremities often precede stroke. It had happened to guys he knew. He couldn’t remember who. Someone… someone… tip of my tongue…. Anyway–“Mort, you need to check that out. Might be serious.”
“I don’t have time. Nobody to run the shop. I’ll feel better.”
They briefly debated what, or whether, to do anything. Andy threatened to call 911. As he left, Mort stirred himself, pleaded, “Don’t call that number, Andy. I hate hospitals.”
Andy still had time to kill. Restless, he drove over to Bob’s house. Bob and he weren’t close, but Andy thought he had heard that Bob owned Jiffy Cleaners. It was only a few minutes away. He would warn Bob about Mort’s symptoms. Pulled up opposite Bob’s sprawling house, the blinds drawn, he saw no one, heard nothing. Saturday. Were they out of town? Late sleepers? Mustn’t impose.
Shapeless worries bouncing around his cranium, he had to do it: “911?” He rushed answers to the droning operator’s questions, then headed back to Jiffy, parked out of sight, listened for the siren’s doppler effect.
EMS arrived. Andy sprang from his car, charged into the now crowded shop. Booted and gear-laden, the crew of five was trying to clamp a blood pressure cuff on resistant Mort. “Take that man to the hospital—” Andy blurted. But got no further. The burly EMS captain backed him out the door, arms extended, making himself large,
“What’s with you, buddy? We’ve got this. Who are you?”
“I’m a customer. Come here all the time. When Mort said his arm felt kind of funny, I figured I ought to do something.”
“Buddy, this Mort looks like he’d rather lie on the floor dead than leave the shop if no one’s here to replace him. Nice guy, I’d say. But how is this your business?”
No answer. Andy slunk to the course. After finding a spot on a foursome and playing his normal eighteen, he checked back at the cleaners. A clerk he’d never seen before. “Where’s Mort? The hospital?”
“Nah, he went home. His wife had a bad time last year. Mort hates meds, docs, insurance companies, all of them.”
That night, over his drink as she was fixing dinner, Andy told all to Amanda: “Mortimer could have died. What do you have to do to help a guy?”
Amanda knew the tune. “Not how I see it, my love. If you really knew Mort, you might have avoided this ‘crisis.’ By the way, Uncle Ray and your partner Jim were the guys who suffered strokes after their arms and legs felt tingly.”
- In Extremis - February 4, 2026
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- Donut and Hole - December 6, 2024
