Part 23: Positively 25th Street

After drawing blood a couple of times at the in Mount Vernon Square that the company had leased for the summer, I began working at Pharmakinetics’ main facility on East 25th Street, between Guilford and Barclay.

I had an excess of time on my hands until school began at UMBC in the fall. I kept my phlebotomy day job at National Health Labs near St. Agnes Hospital and took shifts when possible at Pharmakinetics. Two evenings a week I took an EMT refresher course at Arbutus Volunteer Fire Department. The activity filled my hours and reduced my sense of isolation by forcing me into social situations.

Pharmakinetics had two large interconnected rowhouses on the North side of the street that it used as a clinical facility. The second and third floors were bedrooms lined with bunk beds, with a total capacity of 25-30 participants. The blood-drawing room and front office took up one side of the first floor, and on the other side was a large day room and the security office.

Two or three off-duty Baltimore City cops were on duty at all times. The operation was designed very similar to lock-up facilities in which I’d worked in Memphis; heavy screens over all the windows, guards preventing any entrance or exit.

Once a study began, participants are forbidden from leaving the building or having any contact with outsiders who might slip in drugs or a weapon, or in some other way interfere with the results of the test for which a drug company client was paying good money.

Participants were sometimes wanted by the police. Enrolling in a Pharmakinetics study was a good way to take yourself off the streets for a while. The cops had an understanding with Pharmakinetics and were assured that the person of interest wasn’t going anywhere. On the day the trial ended, law enforcement would be waiting at the front desk to take the participant away in cuffs.

The role of the off-duty cops at Pharmakinetics wasn’t just security, but they served the catered meals that were delivered and also acted as sort of recreational directors – controlling the vast library of karate-chop videos, mediating disputes and whatever else was necessary to keep the place from degenerating into violent chaos.

When it came to drawing blood, most of the participants were downright professional in their attitude and approach. They bore the needles stoically, making it easier on both of us.

Many had been through several studies before and knew the routine better than the staff. Some had veins scarred from repeated sticks – or intravenous drug use – with inner arms that looked like ground beef. Pushing the needle in was like trying to puncture a rubber hose.

Doing sticks precisely on time was challenging. Every participant had to be done in the same order, without fail, within very exacting time limits.

On breaks, I’d step outside and walk around while having a smoke, soaking in the nighttime streetscape of 25th Street, sometimes wandering as far as Greenmount Avenue. The neighborhood was untidy and textured, so much more interesting than the antiseptic suburban community where the Murray’s lived. It’s a part of Baltimore they don’t showcase in tourism brochures.

I had no familiarity with or preconceived ideas about the area around Pharmakinetics. I didn’t know – or care – whether I “belonged” there. I didn’t know whether I should be fearful about walking around by myself at night, so I wasn’t.

I just walked and breathed it in.