The loneliest hours
It’s 1am, and you’re starving but you got nothin’ in your fridge. It’s 2am and your baby’s spiked a 105 degree temperature. It’s 4am and you hear a scraping sound on your window. If any of these scenarios sound familiar, you’re very grateful for the folks who work while the rest of us sleep. In Charlottesville, the streets are almost deserted between midnight and 6am, but a select few toil away the dark hours, policing our streets, treating medical emergencies and serving up grub to fellow night owls. Here’s a glimpse of an evening in their lives.
11:20pm
Greenbrier Emergency Animal Hospital veterinarian Tracy Biel says she always wanted to be a nurse, but she discovered early on that human medicine wasn’t for her. “I grew up on a farm, so animals are all I have known,” she says. Working the night shift is tiring, she adds, and it sometimes takes a toll on her marriage. But she “makes it work because I am extremely proud of being part of a professional team that provides prompt, state-of-the-art, high-quality, compassionate emergency veterinary care in an efficient, respectful and conscientious manner.” Plus, there’s nothing better than treating the burns of a dog who has saved his owner from a house fire, or reuniting a lost pet with her owner, she says. Remember, though, when you get a pet, “whatever you thought they would eat and or do, prepare and plan for it because they will eat or do it at least once,” Biel says. “And if given the chance, they will probably eat it or do it again!”
1:26am
Brandi Allen is the third-shift manager at Littlejohn’s Deli on the Corner. She likes what she does, and some nights it’s very entertaining. Like tonight, when “a group in here was singing for half-an-hour at the top of their lungs.” They sang UVA songs, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and “some new stuff that was on the radio,” she says. “They were having a good time.” Allen, whose first job was at a fast-food restaurant when she was 15 years old, says most of her customers are nice, but “sometimes we get some drunk, obnoxious ones who like to come in and be rude and nasty.”
Marquis Underwood is assembling sandwiches at Littlejohn’s until school starts later this month, and he returns to work full-time for UVA Dining. “I’ve been in the food service business all my life,” he says. “It’s not a boring job. You get to see different stuff. We got a concert tonight.” For the most part, he finds his customers “very entertaining. You say ‘hi,’ and they take it from there.”
“I’ve been dealing with students for years,” says Tyrone Thomas, a cook, who works at Littlejohn’s from 11pm to 7am. At 8am, he reports for duty at UVA’s Newcomb Dining Hall. “I love the atmosphere,” he says.
1:59am
Cop: Lieutenant Victor G. Mitchell, a midnight shift commander with the Charlottesville Police Department, considers starting the canine program in 1990 to be his greatest accomplishment during 30 years as a police officer. The real key to success in any job is pride, he says. “If I was a dishwasher, I would take pride in it.”
3:21am
“During the day it’s so busy,” says Martha Jefferson nurse Lila Smith. “But at night, most of the patients are asleep, so the ones who are having problems, you can really do your nursing one-on-one. You can concentrate and not be interrupted.” She calls it “face-to-face nursing,” and says she loves it. “We do hospice on this floor,” she adds, and during the night she has “time to spend with patients and their family the way I want to.” There are 24 patients, four nurses, a charge nurse and two aides on Smith’s floor. “We’re at maximum capacity,” she says. “Most of the time we are.”
–Photography by Ron Rammelkamp