“Find the foot.”

“The foot?”

“The foot.”

“Whose foot?”

“Don’t matter.  Find the goddamn foot.”

“Why do I have to find the foot?”

“Because you’re an EMT.”

“What, am I going to do CPR on a foot?”

“No, you’re going to put it in the saline container.  When you find the thing.”

“On ice?”

“No, goddamn it.  Jesus, you are an EMT.  Put it on ice and you’re going to give it frostbite.  We want the foot intact.”

“It’s severed off.”

“Look, all this talktalktalk is not something we can do right now.  Find the goddamn foot.  And you, you’re an EMT too?”

My partner nodded.

“Well, help him.  You two are on foot patrol.”

We started walking.

“Where the hell’re you two going?”

“This way.”

“The foot’s that way.”

“You know where the foot is?”

“No, I know where the windshield got smashed and where the body flew and it was in that direction and I don’t think the foot got up and walked anywhere on its own, so it’s somewhere over there.”

Somewhere over there was swamp.  Florida is nothing but swamp.  Nothing but swamp and car crashes.  I hate swamps and I hate car crashes.  I should’ve probably moved to any other state in the world, but with my luck I’d get in a car crash on the way and end up flying off the road into a swamp.  I was staying put.  For the safety of everyone.

My partner was an idiot.  Is an idiot.  Is and was and will be an idiot.  A high school dropout.  No idea how he became an EMT because the EMT test is hard, but I guess it’s not that hard, because here he is next to me and he’s throwing those feet of his all over the place, this way and that, searching in the swamp and my partner finally speaks and he rarely speaks, but maybe it’s because he never has anything intelligent to say and he says:

“Do feet sink?”

“You mean severed feet?”

“Yeah.”

“No idea.”

“Because if they sink, we’re never going to find it.”

“We’re never going to find it anyway.”

“Don’t be negative.”

“So is being positive believing that we’ll find a severed foot floating in water?  Because if that’s positive, I don’t want to know what negative is.”

“This is the worst part of the job.”

“Looking for severed feet?”

“Yeah.”

“How many severed feet have you looked for so far?”

“Just one.”

“Was it this one?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you find it?”

“I’m looking for it now.”

“Me too,” I said.

The sun’s setting.  Sort of.  Will be soon.  The sun’s red, like the ozone hates the world.

“Don’t say that.”

“What?”

“‘Me too.’”

“Why?”

“It means you were raped.”

“What?”

“Me Too Movement.”

“What?”

“It was a movement.”

“I know.”

“It means you were raped.  If you say that.  Never say ‘me too.’”

I let that one go.  I had a feeling any reply would go into bad territory, worse territory.  It was like talking to the town drunk.  I needed some silence.  If we found this guy’s foot, we might be able to rush back, look like heroes.  Maybe even be heroes.  They could attach it back on his body.  They can do magical things nowadays.  The doctors.  The doctors are opposite of us.  The doctors are at home right now drinking champagne sauvignon, if that’s a real thing.  I made that up.  It sounds real though.  Maybe it is.  The doctors have chandeliers in their closets and maids in their attics.  And we’re ankle deep in muck.  We’re minimum wage looking for hacked-off body parts.  We’re the nothings of the world.

“I found it.”

“Where?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing what.”

“It’s not a foot.”

“What did you think was a foot?”

“A log.”

“You thought a log was a foot.”

“I did.”

“You can’t tell the difference between a log and a foot?”

“I can.  I just told you.  It’s a log.”

I held one of my feet up, out of the water, said, “What’s this?”

“That’s a log,” he said.

“Idiot.”

“You’re the idiot.”

“We’re both idiots.”

“I won’t argue with that.”

“I will.”

I let it go.  I could just image.  I love his silence.  On the ambulance, he never speaks, because he sleeps all night.  If I turned my back, he’d lie right down in this swamp and fall asleep.  Forever.  Just drown while snoring.  He can sleep anywhere.  I’ve seen it.  I’ll be driving to a heart attack and he’ll be in back on the gurney drooling with dreams of Audrey Plaza all over in his head.

“Aubrey.”

“What?”

“Aubrey Plaza.”

“Did I say that?  Did I say her name?”

“You did.”

“What did I say?”

“You said I’d be drooling on a gurney.  You’re an asshole.”

“I said that out loud?”

“You did.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“I’m real sleepy.  Tired.”

“Fuck you.”

“I said I’m sorry.”

We sloshed around.

“I can’t believe I was talking to myself.”

We sloshed around some more.

“We’re never gonna find that foot.”

“We can just give him yours.”

“Or yours.”

“I need my feet.  I can’t look for feet if I don’t have feet.”

“I hate feet.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.  There’s idiots with foot fetishes.  I’m the opposite.  I don’t want to see a woman’s foot.  I can’t have sex if I see a foot.”

“Imagine what you’re gonna be like after this.”

“Oh, I’m already fucked up.”

“I know.  Me too.”

We locked eyes.  I couldn’t tell if he was mad or happy or stupid or lost or sad or dead or what.  Some people, it’s hard to read them.

We never found the foot.

We just gave up.  We spent a while too.

We got back and the other ambulance was gone, with the patient.  Six cars were in the wreck, one truck.  Five ambulances showed up.  One guy, he didn’t have a scratch.  But there was one corpse.  That’s how it works.  Same crash and one person dies and the other one is perfectly fine and then a bunch of people somewhere in the middle.  Nothing makes sense.

Later, when I got home that night, I remember standing at the door and I dropped my keys and I bent down and my feet were right there.  Jesus, there they were.  Always right there.  So reliable and weird looking and useful and stupid and perfect.  Jesus Christ.  Nothing mangled or slaughtered or destroyed about them—just perfect feet.  I wanted to hug them, but I’d have to break my back to do it.  Instead, I just went inside and went to bed, my feet sticking up, the blanket bulging where they were, like two miniature ghosts looking at me.  Kinda scary with so little light in the room.  And all those actual ghosts of all those actual patients who died so near to my face.

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