Early AM

The insistent ringing of the phone woke me...geeze, not even 5 am, I thought glancing at the clock and feeling that dread calls at that hour bring - they are never good. My roommate's tearful, scared voice fills my ear. She's at work, getting punched in, but has seen a text message on her cell that scares her. It's from the ex boyfriend, stating that he is parked in front of our house and he has taken 150 sleeping pills. The time on the call is 2:30 AM...she's called the cops.
Ironically, it is not really fear for him that drives her call, but for me. We have an order of protection against the guy. She's terrified that it's a ploy to get one of us to come to his car.
Earlier the previous day, he had been calling her saying that he was going to kill himself if she didn't come back to him. At one point I heard her tell him, "You're drunk and talking stupid. I can't talk to you." She then hung up and told me what was going on.
My advice was to call the cops. A suicide threat, even from a drunk is to be taken seriously. I looked at her over my cup of evening coffee, it was around 7pm, "Mary, calling the cops is our best bet. If he does do something stupid and we do nothing how will you feel? This way, they'll take him in and he'll at least get evaluated. You know that boy isn't right. He needs help."
She looks at me and says maybe she should meet with him. I ask her if she is stupid. We've an order of protection because he beat her up before. This could be just a ploy. So we call the non emergency number and tell them what we can. Unfortunately the call came from a cell phone, and we have no home address. The guy is basically homeless. He had been attempting to move in with us, and I had been adamant that he could not. There was just something about him that set off red flags in my head. Let alone the fact that Mary is still going through a divorce , and I figure he's 'rebound' guy.
In response to Mary's current call, I look out my bedroom window, which faces the street. There sits the junker of a station wagon... if the call was made at 2:30 AM then Mary had to have seen it when she left at 4:30 for work. I can see uniformed officers looking in the car. Mary asks me to call her back. I watch from the window. A silent rescue squad pulls up. I see them load Ronnie onto a gurney. There isn't a body bag, and the sheet isn't pulled up. But as the squad pulls away, there is no siren, just lights.
I wait a bit and call the non emergency number, whom refers me to the hospital. The hospital wants to know if I am family. I fib a bit saying I'm the one he called with the threat. I just want to know if he was reached in time. I'm told they are pumping his stomache and will then admit him to the main hospital. Obviously it will be the psych ward for him. Which, in my opinion is where he belonged to start with.