by Kurt Gepner
Norah gave her aunt a smile of gratitude for changing up the subject. "You two have been dating forever. Isn’t he going to marry you soon?"
"I think so," answered Susanna Rae with a hint of conspiracy.
"Really?" Evie asked, with a mix of wonder and skepticism.
"Yah. I’ll tell you all about it after I dry my hair. But haven’t you been watching the news?" Evie shook her head and Norah gave her a look that said I’ve just spent three days with a cranky husband and bored children in a U-haul. How could I have watched the news? Susanna Rae ignored her niece and pulled out her phone. She flipped the screen so the women could see. Then she brought up the current events. "Look at this: Seven tornadoes have hit Arkansas and Oklahoma. Make that eight. There’s one tearing through the University of Oklahoma, right now!"
"Oh, my God!" Evie was genuinely shocked.
"But that's not all." Susanna Rae asserted. "Tsunamis, hail storms, all this…" she said with a general wave. "And there’s been, like, eighteen or nineteen earthquakes."
"Where?" Norah asked.
"All over. Japan had an eight-point-two. There was a seven-point-two in Pakistan. California had a seven-pointer, a five-nine and a five point five. San Jose was at the center of one. The whole city is without power."
"That’s just crazy," Evie said.
"What about Tucson," Salvador quietly asked with an edge of dread in his voice.
"Nothing coming out of Tucson," Susanna Rae answered after tapping a query into her phone. "But I can tell you more after I dry my hair." And without further comment, she snapped her screen closed and abruptly headed off to the bathroom.
"Well, don’t take your time," Evie called after her sister.
Louis Armstrong once more interrupted the conversation and Evie hurried back to her chair and grabbed her phone from the end table. "What’s up, Little Girl? When are you getting here?" Salvador sat back on the couch, while Norah took up the chair in which her father normally sat. When he looked across at her, Salvador was certain that glacial water ran through his wife’s veins… if her frigid glare was any indication.
Evie laid down her cell phone when she’d finished talking to Lexi and looked between her youngest daughter and son-in-law. The steady whir of a hair dryer droned from the bathroom down the hall. Evie said, "Oh, come on, you two!" Addressing her daughter, she said, "It’s not like he’s the first man to be mesmerized by those eyes of your Auntie Sue. And I remember once, when you were five, you sat on her lap and pinned her head to the back of the chair, just so you could stare into her eyes."
"That’s different," Norah snapped back.
Salvador took a deep breath and looked down at the rug.
"It’s only different, because you make it different. Don’t you trust your husband?" Evie shot.
Norah narrowed her eyes at her mother and said, "Of course I do. That’s not the point."
"Well," Evie pressed, "it really is the point, when you get down to it. I look at hot guys all the time. Sometimes, I get flirty and out of breath when I’m talking to a man I find really attractive. That doesn’t mean I’m going to run around doing naughty things. Your father trusts me and I trust him, even when a pretty girl falls for his charming manners."
A smile tickled the corners of Evie’s mouth as she went on staring directly at her son-in-law. "Besides… I’ll tell you the same thing my mother told Hank: If you ever cheat on her, I’ll tie you up and cut off your balls with a pair of fingernail clippers."
Norah’s mouth dropped open and her eyes bulged from their sockets. Salvador’s head snapped up as he realized what he’d heard. And Evie let go of a ring of laughter that disturbed Emily’s slumber.
"Mom!" Norah scolded. "Why would you say something like that?"
Evie laughed even harder and began turning red. Norah grabbed the ornamental pillow from her chair and threw it at her mother. Evie caught it and squeezed it in a great bear hug, attempting to master the laughter that poured out.
Susanna Rae appeared in the hall doorway and asked, "What’s so funny?"
"I told them…" Evie began, but her words were cut off by a convulsion of giggling.
Norah sniped, "She told my husband that she’d..." It was Norah’s turn to blush. "She’d castrate him with toenail clippers, if he cheated on me."
"What?" Susanna Rae looked confused. "You can tell, he would never do that," she said while giving her sister an emphatic glare. "And why is it so funny?"
Evie had managed to get a hold of herself and said, "It’s not. But their expressions were hilarious!" Then she let another peal of laughter go.
Susanna Rae looked at Norah and shared a ‘whatever’ moment with her niece, then looked at Salvador and said, "She’s usually saner than this." Wasting no more time on the comedy, she left the room. A moment later the hair dryer was running again.
Evie shook her head. "Norah, just go sit next to your husband. He was smitten by a pretty woman. So what? Do you think, after leaving his home and everybody that he knows, to come live with your family, that he doesn’t love you?"
Norah saw reason and went to sit by Salvador. The couple held hands.
Once more Louis Armstrong belted: Give me a kiss. Evie glanced at the display and answered. "Are you finally moving, or are you calling out of boredom, again?" She smiled and winked at Salvador as she listened to her eldest daughter. "Okay. We’ll see you in a few. Bye."
CHAPTER SEVEN
A Rumba tune sprang from the gym bag that was sitting in front of the fireplace. Salvador jumped across the room and pulled a small, red phone from inside. Speaking in quick, staccato Spanish he said, {Hello? Yes. We got here an hour ago. What? No. It’s raining like crazy here.}
"Salvador," Norah said. "Tell them you’re spending time with your family and you’ll call back tonight."
Salvador briefly grimaced and said, {My wife is tugging my leash, again. I’ll call you later.} Then he stabbed his finger into the phone and ended his call. Flinging the gadget back into the bag, Salvador plopped back onto the couch.
Evie smirked at the young couple. "Well, if you two love-birds don’t mind," she said, rising from her chair. "I have to make a few more calls." She took a notebook computer from the bookcase and went into the dining room to sit at the table.
"What is wrong with you?" Norah hissed.
"Nothing!" Salvador spat back. "I’m just tired of you treating me like a little boy."
"Quit acting like one and I’ll quit treating you like one," Norah retorted.
"Why don’t you start acting like my wife, instead of my mother?" He accused.
"What’s that supposed to mean?" she asked with surprise.
"It means you’re always on me," Salvador said defiantly. "You’re always telling me what to do and talking for me, like I can’t think for myself."
"When you do think for yourself, you run up our bills and give away our grocery money. What am I supposed to do; let our girls starve?" Norah righteously asked.
"They’ve never gone hung…," Salvador started to say defensively, only to be interrupted by his wife, "Only because my parents have sent us money!" Norah was struggling to maintain her composure and her volume.
"I told you not to borrow from your parents!" Salvador was finding it equally difficult to keep his temper contained.
"They don’t expect…"
Whatever Norah had intended to say was drowned out by a pop and a scream coming from the bathroom at the same moment the lights went out. Smoke began pouring from the florescent bulbs in the two sconce lamps above the bookcases and from the stereo and the cell phone in the gym bag.
Salvador vaulted to his feet. Dual pops came from downstairs. They were low and resounding, from the large vacuum tubes of old television sets. In the dining room, Evie shrieked as a gas flame woofed from the heater grate in the wall. A bizarre sensation buzzed through him, like his guts were wobbling and he was spinning a hundred miles-an-hour on an office chair.
Out of the corner of his
eye, he saw the power lines through the window. The wires were jumping up and down with such force that the poles were swaying. Huge bolts of electricity lanced the ground and arced into the trees. An explosion reported from somewhere outside and Emily started screaming, jolted awake by the concussion that rattled the windows. Like a string of firecrackers, several more blasts, immense and resounding, drummed away in the distance.
With honed instincts, Salvador scanned his environment. He knew that Emily was scared, but fine. He blinked and shook his head against the disorienting wobble that buzzed in his brain and guts. Downstairs, he heard Abby’s frantic screams. Dizzily, he ran into the hall and to the end of the banister. As he was whipping around to fly down the stairs, he saw Susanna Rae jittering in the bathroom. Her body convulsed as sparks showered from the end of the hair dryer clenched in her fist. Small dots of blood were growing on her face, caused by tiny shards of glass from a burst, incandescent bulb.
Grabbing either side of the door frame, Salvador lifted his foot and kicked the hair dryer from Susanna Rae’s clenched fingers. Behind him, he heard the bang of furniture toppling and Norah shout, "Mom!" The hair dryer clattered into the bathtub and bounced around as arcs of electricity licked through the porcelain, into the underlying cast iron. Salvador yanked the cord from the outlet, but before the prongs let go, pulses of electricity surged through his hand. Deftly, he peeled the melted cord from his palm just as Susanna Rae hit the ground.
Turning to the staircase he shouted down, "Hank?!"
"Got it!" Hank shouted back up. "Abby’s fine! Extinguisher’s under the sink! In the kitchen!"
Salvador ran back into the living room at the same moment another explosion, somewhere in the distance, rattled the windows. A small fire was burning in the gym bag behind the baby carrier in which Emily was strapped. The poor little girl was frantic and reaching for her father. Salvador sprang across the distance and kicked her carrier away from the flames. Throwing a short blanket from the chair-back over the bag, he snatched up the whole pile. When he glanced into the dining room, he saw that the notebook computer was in flames and Norah was helping her mother to her feet.
"Throw it out the window!" Salvador shouted and ran to the door with his bundle. He whipped the front door open and crashed through the screen door, simultaneously launching his smoldering package into the street. Flames were already dancing in the windows of the house across the street. A red car was parked in front. He brought his attention back to his family. Taking the precious few seconds required for the task, he opened the screen door and slid the lock, to keep it open.
When he dashed back into the house, he saw that his baby girl was unharmed and screaming. Out of habit, Norah must have clipped the strap across her shoulders and she was arching against the restraints, howling like she was being murdered. The briefest thought of gratitude, that his baby was safely out of the way, glimmered in the front of his mind. Then he grabbed the now-burning stereo by the door. With one heaving twist it crashed into the street. A woman’s screaming came from across the street, but his view was blocked by the U-haul.
Launching himself from the porch steps, he ran through the drenching rain. An older woman, perhaps in her sixties stood, unharmed, in the middle of the street. She stared at her small house, watching as smoke vomited from an open blue door. Her curled, golden hair was already flattening against her narrow temples and drooped across the top of her oversized bifocals. "Is there anybody in there?" he yelled through the torrent.
"No," she cried.
"Stay out here!" He commanded and ran back to his family. He sped through the dining room where his wife and mother-in-law were pitching the computer and cell phones through the open window. Running past them, Salvador flew into the kitchen. A haze filled the room, but nothing was ablaze.
"Hank!" He called out.
From below, his father-in-law shouted back an answer. "The gas and main breaker is off! It’s out, down here!"
"Bring everybody up!" Salvador commanded. He grabbed the tiny extinguisher from below the sink. Ten seconds, he thought in evaluation of it.
Hank and Camille pounded up the stairs as Salvador got to the living room. He was searching through her purse. "Norah, where’s the keys to the U-haul?"
"In your pants pocket," she told him.
Salvador had to wait for Hank to clear the hall so he could get into the bathroom where he’d left his dirty pants. Abby was sobbing into Hank’s shoulder as he carried her. There was blood on his shirt, his beard was singed and his face was blackened. He smelled burnt. Deciding that Abby would be looked after, Salvador ran to the bathroom, where Camille had appeared and was helping his daughter to her feet. Alive; good. His pants were still folded on the back of the toilet. He seized them up and ripped the keys from their pocket.
When he ran through the living room, Hank was giving Abby to Norah who was inspecting the girl’s injuries. Evie was holding Emily, who was still screaming in terrified rage. Salvador didn’t stop. He ran outside to the back of the U-haul. In moments the door was sliding up and he was pulling a tan duffle bag from the back. He heard new screams from somewhere distant as he tore open the bag. After several years as a firefighter he had collected an entire ensemble of trade tools. The duffle bag contained all of that gear and he always kept it readily accessible.
Hank was suddenly there beside him, helping. First, he donned the trousers with boots, then the coat. He had a mask and air tank that was full. And finally he jammed on his gloves and helmet. He grabbed his large extinguisher and handed the little one to Hank, who was holding another small extinguisher.
A young girl, whom Salvador assessed to be in her early teens, ran around the corner of the picket fence that lined his in-law’s yard. She had a creamy complexion a little darker than his daughters’, with long, dark, kinky hair. "Hank!" She bawled. She was wearing pajamas and running barefoot through the water and gravel. "Mom is upstairs. I can’t get to her!" The girl had black smudges on her face and scratches on her arms.
Another explosion came from somewhere to the north of them. As they glanced in that direction, smoke and flames obscured their view of the distance. Not a single home was without them.
Through the din of rain and chaos, Hank shouted at the young girl while pointing at his front door. "Go in the house!" Up and down the street they could see the few people who happened to be home in the middle of the day standing in the rain, watching their homes burn down. They were waiting for fire-trucks to arrive.
As the young neighbor girl ran into his house, Hank sprinted toward hers. Salvador paced him. Over the tumultuous downpour, Hank shouted to his son-in-law. Pointing behind them, across the street, where the red car was parked, he said, "Dale works nights. He’s probably asleep." Salvador nodded, understanding that they would be saving Dale next.
Arriving at the front steps of the girl’s home, Hank breathlessly said, "Her mom’s a nurse. She and the kids are home with the flu."
A look of trepidation passed between them as they saw smoke and fire coming from under the hoods of the few cars that were scattered in drive ways and along the street. A block away, one car sat smoking in the middle of the intersection, with its hood up. A man in a dark blue suit, carrying a briefcase, was jogging away from it in the direction of the high school. Focusing on their present situation Salvador pointed, "There’s the gas shutoff."
Hank followed his arm and nodded, "Yeah!"
From a pocket Salvador pulled out a special wrench. Thrusting it toward Hank, he said, "Shut it off!" Then he reached behind his back and turned on his air.
Hank nodded, but before he went, he shouted out the floor plan of the house. "Straight through the door, past the kitchen, there’s a stairway on the left!" They clasped hands and parted.
Salvador sprinted up the steps and hit the door with the force of a ram. Flames peeled around him as he plowed through. On the other side he fell to his knees on the hot floor. The gas line was still providing fuel and the wood floor wa
s blackening in a widening circle before him. To his right, fire was gnawing at the edges of a six foot hole that had already burned through.
With the right conditions, a house can be entirely consumed with flames in a matter of minutes. The memory from his training dashed through his mind. Bright greasy tongues of blistering orange fire were casually gulping at the drapes covering the large front window.
Built in the same year, this house was nearly identical to his in-laws, except it also had a second story. He clambered straight ahead. Fire crept up the wall to his left. Dragging his extinguisher he crawled twenty feet before discovering the stairs. Racing up, he found the top floor completely saturated with black smoke. He paused, for just one precious second and listened.
Somewhere in the darkness, he heard a thin cough. He scrambled into the first room he found and discovered a young girl, five or six years old, in a bed. He scooped her under his arm and went to the next room. The bed was empty.
Across the hall from that room was another and once more he heard the thin cough. Rushing through the open door, he found a bed on the opposite side, in front of a window. He leaned across the bed, where a woman in a white T-shirt and panties was lying with her diapered toddler at her side. Clawing at the window latch, he couldn’t get it open. Balling up his fist, Salvador punched through, letting in the blessed fresh air. He pulled off his mask and pressed it over the woman’s face. When he was sure that it was fit well, he yelled out the window. "Hank! Hank!"
A ladder slammed against the window frame. Bless him! God bless him! The end of the ladder shook as his father-in-law shimmied up. When he got to the top, Hank had a crowbar in his hand and maroon blanket draped over his shoulder. He quickly used the crowbar to rake glass from the sill and chucked it to the ground. Then he flopped the soaking wet blanket over the edge to prevent any chance cuts. Seconds later, he reached out and took the little girl into his arms.
While his father-in-law climbed down, Salvador shook the woman. She began to stir. Hank was back up the ladder in less than a minute, struggling to catch his breath. At the same time, the house shuddered and groaned. It sounded as if the downstairs floor was caving in. Dark smoke billowed past, rushing for the open window. Salvador’s lungs felt shredded and every instinct screamed at him to gasp for fresh air. Briefly he squeezed shut his eyes and concentrated, forcing his body to obey him.
