by Tom Schreck
"They're going to need homes, you know." He finally looked at me.
"Gladys, too."
He stared at me and his jaw hung open.
"You mean…" Karl said
"I can't think of a more appropriate home."
"You mean…I get to…"
"Yeah, Karl, you do."
"But, I don't, I'm not sure…"
"You…and your family can stay at the Blue until you get your own place."
"You mean I can still live with you and Al?"
"…and Gladys and the entire TCB Band."
"Shit, Duffy, you really are crazy," Karl said.
"Takes one to know one," I said. The three of us laughed pretty hard while Al barked. Gladys, too tired to bark, purred a little bit.
"Hey, Duff," Karl said in a softer voice. "Newstrom and his boys ran into that storage shed before it blew, didn't they?"
"Yeah."
"Their own evil blew them up."
"Yeah. I think the good guys won this time." Karl and I looked each other in the eye for a long time. I'm not sure what I felt, but it felt good.
"Boy, we're some crazy motherfuckers, Duff," Karl said.
"Just cause you're crazy doesn't mean they're not out to get you, you know," I said.
I let Karl get some sleep and loaded up the hounds with a promise to look after them closely until he was released and back home with me.
Yeah, I know, it was nuts but what the hell?
49
Trina tried to talk me into heading to the clinic to do my paperwork, but I just couldn't see it. I can't say it felt like it was time to leave that job, but it just didn't seem right after all I had been through to worry about such trivial shit. Besides I was exhausted, in fact I was so exhausted I skipped AJ's. That's exhausted.
Back at the Blue it was just me and my ten pets. I watched Gladys lay down, totally wiped out, while her babies went to town on her built-in milk truck. Al lay next to his mom and kept his eyes open. I cracked a Schlitz and watched. I didn't turn on the TV and I didn't throw in an 8-track. I just watched, without thinking, just letting what was in front of me fill up my head. I did that for a long time, even sitting there with an empty beer, just watching.
I am in the clinic except I can't get in because the waiting room is jammed. The clients are all pushed together and barely able to breathe. I see Eli, Froggy, the Abermans, Sheila, and ones from the past like Sherry, and they're suffocating. I can't get in because the door is locked and they can't open it from the outside. Suddenly Claudia is behind me and she's laughing. Trina is behind her with her back to me and Monique is there too, with her head hanging down.
Inside the lobby sheets of paper start to blow out of an air vent and they're filling the lobby like water poured into an aquarium. The clients are drowning and I can't do anything about it. And then Karl is there peering out the window and he's in an Army uniform, except he's got on a Redskins helmet. Then, Walanda, the woman I got Al from, steps in front of Karl and she's bleeding from the head. She's ranting and raving like she always did, but half her head is missing. Then a loud bark…
…Wakes me out of it.
I'm on the couch, Al is at my feet, and the sun is up. The clock on the cable box tells me it's 5:15 a.m. Al won't shut up, his bark is in over-drive and he's getting on my nerves. I blinked my way to consciousness and tried to clear my head. So much for the belief I had exorcised my demons. Maybe there were new ones to meet and maybe Rudy was right and this shit was going to stick.
Al wouldn't shut up and there wasn't a chance of me going back to sleep.
5:30.
Fuck it, if I left now I'd get there by quarter to six and that would give me three hours to catch up on paperwork. It wouldn't be enough, but if I could get a signal to Trina, maybe she could stack the deck and together we could pull it off. I got dressed to drive to the clinic. As soon as I picked up the keys, Al shut up.
I didn't stop for the red lights and at this hour I don't think it mattered all that much. For the first time since the puppy mill, Saturday night, I realized the smell of smoke had gotten into something. It might have been my jeans or my running shoes or even my car. Thick, it made me a little nauseous and I opened all the windows wide which only made it worse.
I made the final turn down Central, and my stomach froze when I saw the parking lot. I saw the fucking Michelin Woman's car there. It wasn't even six yet and she was there reviewing my shit to fire me.
Fuck m e.
I turned into the lot, probably out of force of habit, because there was no way I was going in there to give her the personal joy of firing me to my face. The smell got worse and I started to get sick to my stomach, like my mind was really fucking with me.
Then I saw the dark grey smoke seeping out of the clinic roof. I stepped out of the El Dorado and as I did, I saw the lobby filled with clouds of white smoke.
A ball of fire the size of a refrigerator appeared in the lobby and raced to the front door, doubling in size. It exploded into the entrance way and blew out the glass all over the parking lot. I could feel the heat on my face twenty feet away. Claudia was trapped in there.
I sprinted through the front threshold, holding my arm over my mouth as much as I could. I couldn't see a damn thing, but I knew the office and took the sharp left after the reception area, into the director's office.
"Claudia! Claudia!" No answer. I coughed like a son-of-abitch as I felt my way around her desk. I felt for a handful of curly black hair and found it.
The fat bastard weighed close to three hundred, but I got my hands under her armpits and pulled as hard as I could. I ran backwards through Trina's small office, which filled with smoke. I wheezed and hacked but I wasn't on fire, at least not yet. The back of my head slammed into a wall, sending a wicked throb through my head. I dropped Claudia and had to find her underarms again.
Her body went limp.
I got a hold on her and drove my legs as hard as I could. I grunted and yelped with the effort and then I had to stop to hack out more smoke. One last pull and I dragged her out to the smoke-filled sidewalk. I pulled harder toward my car, dragging her to the front of it. I was out of breath, and began puking from the smoke.
I could hear sirens. When I looked down Claudia wasn't breathing.
The one in-service I think I actually attended covered CPR. I straddled her, swept her mouth clean and pressed my lips to hers and blew. I did it several times and then shimmied down her body, and compressed her chest. I went back up and puffed a few more breaths and repeated the compressions.
"Come on you fat bastard!" The trucks pulled into the lot. Claudia wretched and spit something up, part of it hitting me in the face. She coughed and coughed and moaned and started to rock from side to side. The next thing I knew there were two firemen pushing me out of the way and taking over. I took a step backward and fell down.
I heard the roof cave in the clinic, creating a loud 'whoosh' of air that sent billows of smoke and flames to the sky.
"Get back, you've got to get back," someone yelled. Whoever it was helped me to my feet and we ran together toward the back of the lot. As we did the clinic collapsed on itself. Seconds after, the ambulance carrying Claudia sped past me.
50
I sat there and watched the place burn. Trina was the first one there and Monique came by shortly after. We didn't say much; it just felt really weird.
A crowd of onlookers gathered. The fireman had the thing under control, but they continued to spray water on charred hunks of what used to be the clinic. I guess that's what they have to do to stop it from starting up again.
I walked up to a fireman who was changing his coat at the back of one of the trucks.
"The lady they took away-is she going to be-"
"You the guy who went in and got her, and did CPR?"
"Yeah."
"Well, pal, you'll never forget today. She was gone-flat lined and you brought her back. She was responsive and talking in the ambulance. How doe
s it feel to save a life?" he said with a big grin.
"There's no way I could explain it to you." I walked back to my small circle of co-workers.
"What do we do now?" Trina said.
"I'm taking a personal day," I said. Everyone laughed. I started to head toward the El Dorado, which had its finish singed. I didn't know what fucking universe I was in, but I knew one thing. When AJ turned the knob on his front door at 12:01 I would be behind him.
"Hey, Duff!" A voice came from the other side of the lot, a little down the street. I couldn't make out who it was, but it looked like some guy walking his daughter. I walked toward thetwo of them while they walked toward me. As we got closer I noticed it was Sparky.
"Hey Duff, hell of a thing," he said.
"Yeah, unbelievable," I said.
"Kristy," Sparky looked at the little girl. "Say hello to Mr. Duffy."
"Hi Mr. Duffy," Kristy had two little ponytails and blond hair. She could've been the Sunbeam bread girl.
"That's my daughter, Duff," Sparky said with a big smile.
"But, I thought Paula said-"
"Weird, Duff. Last night I got my first call from Paula in years. Asked me if I heard about some drill at the school. Then she says it was no drill and she saw some stuff no one else did. Said she didn't know why, but she followed you and your buddy out into the woods and saw what really went down. Said she heard all sorts of scary shit. Said she saw my counselor doing some sort of heroic stuff and she changed her mind about me and Kristy." Sparky smiled.
I looked at him with my mouth open.
"So when they get the clinic open, you'll still be my counselor, right?"
"Well, I don't know if I'll be around. Remember-"
"You had some paperwork trouble." Sparky nodded to the clinic. "Doesn't look like there's any paperwork for anyone to check, if you ask me."
"Sparky-"
"Paula says she's callin' the clinic and rescindin' her complaint about you breaking that confidentiality shit. Gonna say she made it up to get me in trouble," Sparky said.
"I think the files are kept in metal file cabinets so they are fire protected. They're probably in that mess somewhere," I said.
"Duff, my experience tells me that the right incendiary device combined with the right accelerant will raise the temperature of a fire sufficient enough to incinerate metal and reduce it and its contents to cinders." Sparky looked me in the eye.
"Say 'thank you' to Mr. Duffy," Sparky said to Kristy.
"Thank you, Mr. Duffy," Kristy said in the absent-minded way kids repeat things.
"Sparky-"
"I'll call for an appointment, Duff," he said. "We gotta go. We're going to the zoo and then the movies." He waved as he walked down Central Avenue.
51
I was on Schlitz number three, watching the local news report the fire at Jewish Unified Services was caused by a faulty electrical outlet. Jerry Number Two came in, but focused on his laptop, and AJ loaded the coolers.
I didn't mind.
Number four slid in front of me as the door opened and Trina came in. AJ asked what she wanted and she ordered a Jack and Diet Coke.
"You saved Claudia's life?"
"Don't remind me," I said.
"With CPR and mouth-to-mouth."
"Talk about nightmares."
"And there are no clinical records left. None to be reviewed, no treatment plans, no discharge summaries…nothing." I shrugged.
"Welcome back."
She leaned over and kissed me, ever so lightly, on the cheek. I could feel her brush up against me as she did.
"And you're not getting married any more," she said looking me right in the eye.
"Geez, I haven't given that much thought lately. I guess I've had some other stuff on my mind."
"You feel like getting out of here? I got a twelve pack of Schlitz in my fridge."
"The way to a man's heart…"
I threw some money on the bar and followed Trina out. We took my car to her apartment and Elvis sang us there with
Dylan's Don't Think Twice, It's Alright. We got to Trina's front door and I took her into my arms.
"Did I say 'Thank you' to you."
"You did."
"Not enough," I kissed her. We kissed for a long time and for the first time in a long time I didn't think of anything but how good it felt.
Trina broke the kiss.
"I'm glad Claudia wasn't the only woman from the office you wanted to kiss," she said.
"Talk about nightmares," I said as we headed inside.
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