Seeking Carol Lee

by Nace Phlaux

  I know it may sound funny, but the only thing that eased my mind that night was the fear of us being caught for the robbery. If they caught me, then fine, it was done. Out of my hands. But if we managed to get away with it, then the next hurdle—figuring out how to get both of us in the black again—would be even worse.

  Manny 1

  From: Emmanuel Quinn (emmanuel.quinn@episync.biz)

  To: rolandoortiz716@yahoo.com

  Sent: Thursday, January 3, 2013 12:06 PM

  Subject: Hey

  Hey Ro,

  How’re you doing? I know I’ve been kinda busy this week with the holidays and work, and I didn’t want you to think I forgot about you. I was gonna call you Monday, but my sister Kamica needed me to watch her kids since she got a last minute call to fill someone’s shift for the big New Year’s Eve thing going on at that bar near you. Did you go? Maybe you saw her there. Looks like me but no goatee or dreads. Wearing real bright pink or red lipstick. Always playing Family Feud on her iPhone when she gets a break. I think she puts in her contacts more than me though.

  For New Year’s, we bundled the kids up and tried taking them to the Mummers. By the time we got there, the place was too wild and cold, so we got hotdogs for everyone. Kamica took pics of the kids watching the floats. I’ll put them up on Facebook when she sends them to me. The kids are cute as all get out.

  We got back to her place, and the kids passed out, so we got to the drinking and made up for the missed NYE. She put on a marathon of that Catfish show and ended up waking up Kingston with her whooping at the TV. You ever watch that show? Every bottom they get for it, my sister’s going “You like him? How about him?” and I gotta tell her not all of us are like that. Then I gotta ask if that’s how I come across, and suddenly it’s time for a history lesson, complete with her pulling out old picture albums and showing me me dressed up in our mom’s clothes. Like every kid doesn’t do that. Didn’t you say you were an only child? Probably better off.

  But then I came into work the next day and found the place buzzing like crazy, and my team’s sitting around on Facebook. We still do the old school time clock punches, and the clock’s next to my boss’ office. So as soon as she heard the machine go choonk, she called me in and told me our whole system was on lockdown. That storm we had over the weekend crashed through the roof, flooded the fourth floor, and it all poured into our server room. Nothing in, nothing out, and no one had an ETA on any of it.

  These kids I got working for me… Get a few drinks in me the next time you take me out and I don’t know what I’ll say about them. But I try to be a good example for them. The only difference between us is I got here a month before the others. We’re all temps, and I would’ve been paid the same as them if I didn’t give my boss’ boss an ultimatum. But I showed up and they’re all playing Candy Crush or whatever the kids’re playing nowadays.

  I assigned them reports to work on and later on told them they could go home early if they wanted. Anything to make them hush with all the girlfriend and baby talk. I stayed as late as I could, finishing reports and what not. Can’t take a minute off if I want a car again. Now today we got more of the same going on, but they’re promising the servers will be up any minute. Regulatory has to go through the proper procedures, and we’re not mentioning a word of the screw-up to anyone external, otherwise it’ll be audit after audit from our clients. So you don’t go opening your mouth, ok?

  I know it’s short notice, but you have anything planned this weekend? I dunno what movies are coming out, but maybe we could see something or meet up somewhere for a drink. I’d really like to see you again. Hit me up when you can. Text my cell if it’s before 4.

  Thanks,

  Manny Quinn

  Assoc. Mgr – Physician Validation

  t: +1 (215) 680-3747

  41 University Dr.

  Newtown, PA 18940

  www.episync.biz

   Please consider the environment before printing this email.

  FOX 29 News Transcripts for January 9, 2013

  Thousands Left Powerless After Bulldozer Rampage

  Aired January 9, 2013 - 10:00 PM ET

  THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

  CARRIE BENNETT: Thousands without power in Bristol Township tonight after a freak accident involving a sleeping man at the wheel of a bulldozer. FOX 29 News’ Inari Twembly’s at the scene. Inari?

  INARI TWEMBLY: Thanks, Carrie. As you can see behind me, firefighters and crew from PECO still working on restoring power after twenty-three-year-old Croydon resident Michael Kressler drove a stolen bulldozer through the parking lot of a local body shop, across Edgely Road, and into the PECO substation located at the corner of Edgely and Mill Creek Road here in Levittown.

  AGNES DELSWETTER, Witness: Oh, it was the craziest thing I’d ever seen, and I been living in this town some forty years.

  INARI TWEMBLY (voiceover): Local resident Agnes Delswetter was walking Dutchie, her dog, along Edgely Road Wednesday evening when the passed-out driver of a stolen bulldozer plowed across her path and into the PECO substation that powers most of Bristol Township. The bulldozer was at a nearby construction site for what’s supposed to be a Bottom Dollar opening later this year.

  AGNESS DELSWETTER, Witness: We’ll be breaking out the covers tonight, oh yeah. Me and Dutchie here will be buried under some comforters ‘til they get this fixed.

  INARI TWEMBLY: PECO has not released a time frame as of this broadcasting as to when they believe residents will have power again. Nearby residents with electricity and heat are encouraged to check on their elderly neighbors, and several high schools and churches are opening their buildings to families tonight in search of a warm cot. Bristol Township Chief of Police George Peavey said earlier tonight that investigators are looking into how exactly Kressler started the secured bulldozer and whether the incident had any connections to the lengthy court battles Bottom Dollar went through for the permits to the location. But the main concern for tonight, he said, is keeping families safe and warm. This is Inari Twembly, FOX 29 News, reporting tonight from Bristol Township. Back to you, Carrie.

  Initiative: Carol Lee

  Call Log

  January 11, 2013

  Emp. ID

  Answer

  A0Y11H

  No answer.

  A0AF64

  “Wrong number, man.” Sounded high.

  A1Z995

  See notes below.*

  A01NP2

  No answer.

  A1MD87

  “No Carol Lee here. And Carol Anne’s out looking for TV sets.” Sounded drunk.

  A1XJ98

  Voicemail full.

  A0AHA4

  Straight to voicemail.

  *A1Z995 notes: Gentleman responded with, “No, but would you mind not hanging up? I just had a revelation, if that’s the right word, and need to pass it by someone as it were, but I’m the only one around. The lights’re on, but nobody’s home but me if you catch my meaning.” The gentleman then went on for 45 minutes about the “spirituality” of his home business’ online presence and the “energy” of search engine marketing and optimization. This continued until the phone went dead mid-sentence, possibly from his battery dying. Presumably insane. Did not attempt to reconnect.

  Eddie 3

  You’ll find out soon enough, I guess, but old age doesn’t happen to you like a light switch. It’s not like when we were younger and suddenly one day you’re allowed to vote or you’re eligible to be drafted or you can buy your own smokes or booze. All those pains you ignored as a teenager keep going, but you start to notice patterns. If every time I eat Mexican, I get a burning acidic feeling in my chest, then maybe I should stop eating Mexican. Then the pains come. A sore back once in a while isn’t unusual, but then you realize it’s been a week with the same knot nesting into the crook of your spine.

  It’s the fingers that get me. I don’t see you do it yet, but Dad’s face, by the t
ime Ma died, always had that twitch going on. If you only saw that, you’d probably think he had a kinda Tourette’s. I’ve worked with a couple of guys like that—some of ‘em just blinked real hard and others really had their muscles jerk. But if you looked at what Dad was doing when it happened, you’d see it was his fingers.

  By the end there, he was constantly stretching and curling those thick fingers of his as if the occasional crack that came from the exercise did something. But one time I came into the garage, and I guess he didn’t think anybody was anywhere near him ‘cause his hand seemed frozen in an awkward position like he’d held up four fingers with the thumb tucked inside. This time, though, the thumb didn’t want to return, and I saw him as he pounded the hand into one of the work benches. If I had to say, I’d tell you it didn’t do anything for him ‘cept pass the time. But in a few minutes, he slowly stretched the thumb back into a normal position, and by dinner, it seemed to be working without any issues.

  That pain doesn’t seem to ever go away, but you start to ignore it. It’s like a study I read about heroin: It’s not that there’s anything really addictive about it, nothing more than any other drug, I guess. But every moment we live’s so full of pain we get used to it. Taking a strong enough opiate like heroin makes us forget about what reality’s like ‘til the drug starts to wear off. But by then, we’ve felt what it’s like without all the pain we’ve desensitized to, like how we must’ve felt when we were babies.

  After that, why would anyone be stupid enough to go back?

  It’s when a new pain—and it can be at just about any strength—comes into play that you can feel all the chronic aches in your joints spider web into a throbbing reminder of just how old you’re getting. It was that rhythm I woke up to the day after the first heist, with my shoulder, neck, and back letting me know what they thought of the machine’s weight. A hot shower and a couple ibuprofen later and the pulsating dropped from a full-blown Jimmy Page song down to more of a Jimmy Buffett tune.

  Richter didn’t answer the coded knock on our shared wall, so I figured I’d use my new funds to get a real meal for once. There’s a little café across from the complex that can fry an egg as well as anyone else and always has a copy of today’s paper on the counter, so I walked over, trying to casually glance at the laundry room as I went. It’d been less than twelve hours since we ripped the machine from the wall at the other location and probably much less since anyone noticed, so I don’t know what I was expecting. Higher security. Cameras, maybe. I checked through the Courier while waiting for my food, but either they didn’t find the hole in the wall ‘til after press time or nobody gave enough of a shit. I guessed the latter.

  I was in such a good mood, I left the girl running the counter a decent tip before running around town. I filled my tank and got my hair cut and got a pint of vodka since I was there anyway. All right, maybe the barber wasn’t anywhere near a liquor store, but who’re you to judge me? That’s what I thought.

  With Richter not answering me and all my chores done, I was back to facing the boredom of unemployment. I didn’t want to head over to your place so soon, especially with Hayleigh’s words still ringing in my ears. I wanted to come back with a plan for the two of us to survive. That’s what big brothers are for, I thought. So, instead, I hopped on the R7 or Trenton line or whatever they call it now down to the city.

  I used to do this a lot during the summer—buying an Independence Pass and riding the lines for the day—but that was more of a citywide pub crawl. Sometimes if there was a concert at Penn’s Landing or a ballgame going on, I’d make my way over and hunker down for a couple hours. This time, though, I just wanted to get out of town for a bit—clear the cobwebs, as Ma would’ve said—so I hopped on one of the new train cars they’re rolling out with and watched as the towns flew by.

  Richter and the guys from the steel, they’re always looking for hidden messages and meanings and shadows controlling us like puppets from behind the scenes. Me? I’m more curious about these messages right out in front of us that don’t make much sense. I go down the Trenton line and see in big letters NO TRUST! and KNAVE spray painted where every passing train can see. On the Chestnut Hill lines, there’s SCREW NEKST and MOOSE YOUTH PHONOH sprayed over and over.

  Why isn’t anyone curious about those? Bring up 9/11 and these conspiracy nuts will fashion faeries and Illuminati and wraiths plotting to overthrow capitalism and bring about Armageddon. But no one questions what BUSKI means plastered across the back of an abandoned grocery store? It’s easier to deal with imaginary friends, I figured. Now, though? Well. Maybe I should’ve been paying more attention to the whack jobs.

  After a day of not getting anywhere with a plan, I grabbed hot food from one of the Amish stands in Reading Terminal Market and headed back to Levittown. It was one of the cooler days we’d had so far in the season, and I heard people talking in the market, saying it was a sign. A couple weeks later and obviously that was bull. I’m sweating my balls off in this room to tell you the truth. But that night, it felt good to have a warm meal in me as I rolled back into town, and the promise of a pint waiting for me at home may have helped that saccharine feeling in my gut.

  * * *

  When I got back to the Levittown train station down by St. Mike’s, something immediately seemed off. The traffic was busy for after dinner and well past the January sunset. But as I went up the parkway, there came a point somewhere near Mill Creek where the town just went dark, and then I noticed the traffic lights ahead were blinking. Power outage. Nothing new around here, especially in this season, but usually there’s a storm or strong winds to blame.

  I was only a couple blocks away from the complex when I saw traffic completely parked, and somewhere in the distance a mix of cop car and fire truck lights flashed like the Fourth of July. These couple of guys next door right now are barely lighting up the room, but I’m telling you, Bri, you could throw a hell of a party to all the strobes these guys had. I edged toward them slowly, mostly egged on by cars turning around rather than any real progress. I didn’t have much of a choice, seeing as how they seemed to be almost right outside the complex.

  My head was hanging out the window at first, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever was going on, but everybody and their cancer-ridden sister had to chainsmoke as they waited in line. I rolled up my windows and wished I had a drink or gum or something to distract me. I promised myself I’d get one of those trees or the crowns that smell like vanilla that every cabbie’s required by law to keep, but at that point, it was too late. My entire cab stunk already. Luckily, a guy with an old Oldsmobile pulled up next to me, the carbureted engine masking the scent and then some.

  The news stations on the radio didn’t seem interested in a power outage in the ‘burbs, but as I crept up to the intersection of Mill Creek and Edgely, where that substation is the cops like to park at, I could make out a bunch of emergency responders racing around what looked like a giant tear in the substation’s fences. A piece of the barbed wire that lines each of the chain-linked fences blew around in the wind and finally caught an unlucky bastard right in the face before someone ran him off to one of the ambulances on site and another guy moved to secure the barbs.

  I passed by Gary’s there at the corner across from the substation and smiled when I saw that whatever caused the damage did some to his place as well. I remember when his garage opened and took some of Dad’s business away and I asked Dad if he’d like me to do something about it. Rough up his guys, set fire to the place, whatever got the message across. He didn’t even look at me. Just mumbled something about there’d be water if God willed it. That was around the time Ma was still dragging him to church, so I just took it to mean he’d tell me if any bones had to be broken.

  Traffic finally opened up to let me into the complex’s parking lot, which was filled with people looking for a warm place with electricity. Even if the place wasn’t blaring bright into the darkened town like the world’s most depressing lighthouse, I sti
ll would’ve known the backup genny was running since the yellow emergency lights could be seen from the ground floor. It was only a couple months ago, I guess, that you and Hayleigh stayed here for that week after Sandy tore through the region. I don’t know if you noticed, but if you’re on my side of the building, you only have to deal with those lights, but the other side’s got to deal with the loud generator too. Small prices to pay, I figure, to always have power.

  So I guess everyone around here remembered the storm and headed straight for the complex when the lights went out ‘cause, Jesus, was there a freakin’ shit-ton of people outside the entrances. I pulled into a spot near the door I go through, and there’s this weird gaunt kid sitting in the car next to mine with the biggest Adam’s apple I’ve ever seen in my life. I guess I was staring at it when he turned and looked back at me with this sharp-angled ostrich sort of face that gave me the creeps. I got out of the truck, making sure to lock the doors, and shouldered my way to the door.

  I got dirty looks when I whipped out a key and got in without a problem, keeping the door tight against my body in case anyone got any ideas. And as I walked up the steps, I heard someone coming down them, and I looked up to see a girl backlit by the stairway lights, including the half flashing yellow. If I was a younger man, I would’ve found something interesting in the bits of curves the shadows made out, but when we passed each other, the scents of cigarettes and church wafted off her and overcame me, making me almost retch. I kept my composure to be polite, but her and the weirdo out front got under my skin and ruined anything left of that warm feeling I had at the market.