All  I could do was wonder if I was going to be on the news for this.  One minute I’m going through a bag of trail mix, picking out the chocolate chips, waiting in line to deposit a hundred thirty dollars in birthday checks.  I’m noticing the guy in front of me is sweaty in spite of the cold, mildewed air in this bank that time forgot, where all the tellers have retired twice already and the faux wood is chipped off the corners of the particle board counter-tops.  I’m thinking what a lousy life it must be, being a guy who sweats so much.  And then he falls over.

            Next minute I’m straddling him like it’s prom night pressing rhythmically on his chest.  He’s not so fat that my knees don’t touch the ground, but I’m still thinking it’s his fault as I notice the way the fat under his chin pools and reverberates my efforts back at me.  His lips are like sausages, and as I breathe into his mouth I hear the calls of “Faggot!  Faggot!” from the stupider kids in the life-saving course.  When the reporter sticks her microphone in my face, I see them in their living rooms saying it still, but knowing in their hearts that I’d just made something of myself.

            “It was instinct,” I’m saying to a woman in a blue blazer, her wrinkles hidden by pancake makeup.  “I took the course for extra credit my senior year, and it just kind of came back to me.”  My palms press into his chest.  My checks have fluttered to the ground around me.  The one from grandma.  The one from Aunt Lisa.  I worry about them being stolen for a second, but the crowd around me just stares.  I go in again to breathe into his mouth, my fingers gently closing his nostrils, and then I’m back at the compressions. 

I realize I probably should be next to him, not straddling him.  I realize that I’m pressing harder than I should and not counting.  I don’t tell this to the reporter.  I smile at her with my aw shucks ma’am heroism.  I consider shouting for help, but there are cell phones in hand already.  I say “Come on” between grunts, heightening the drama for the crowd and maybe for the emergency dispatch if they can hear me.  The reporter has her microphone in my face, so my every exhalation and soft curse can be heard by the whole metro area at five, six, and ten.  I hope my mom is listening, grandma, Aunt Lisa.  They’ll buy a dozen copies of tomorrow’s paper.  I’ll show it to my children.

But this guy isn’t cooperating, and I start to hate his limp face.  I blow extra hard into his mouth, and the reporter says, “Even in moments of quiet desperation, our local hero maintains his composure.”  I tell her that I do my best.  I start to count compressions.  I stop long enough to read my watch without trying to appear like I stopped.  Of course, I don’t know how long it’s been.  Is he brain dead?  Press. Press.  Breathe.  Is he going to fucking thank me after this?    Press.  Press. Press.  Come on, dummy.  The reporter’s face has fallen, cracking her makeup and her painted-on smile in a dozen places or more.  I keep pressing.

I keep pressing.

A man in a red windbreaker taps me on the shoulder and I move away.  They don’t pronounce him dead here, because that’s too much paperwork for them.  They take him to the hospital.  The reporter looks into the camera and says nothing.  The camera light goes off.  They pack up and go home.