R9 at Baker Lane

© Daniel Verastiqui

The ambulance swerved off the toll road at the Davis Lane exit, its aging tires barely holding to the wet asphalt. Jerry the Driver leaned on the horn, honking it impatiently at the red sedan parked at the stop sign. It was closing in on three in the morning and Jerry the Driver along with Billy the Tech were coming to the end of an uneventful but tiring twelve-hour shift. The night’s calls had been unexpectedly low-key for a typical Austin weeknight. There had been only one fatal car wreck early in the evening, followed up by a domestic violence call around midnight. Since then, Jerry had taken them on a winding path through Austin’s west side, snaking through Barton Creek on Bee Caves or Loop 360. The constant change in direction gave Billy the feeling of being lost in his own town.

The sprawling neighborhood just off of Davis was a maze of well-appointed streets and welcoming dead ends that made Jerry curse the rich and their...