by Ken Dickson
Aside from the geyser erupting from the ground at the hydrant’s former location, it was eerily quiet after that. No one knew what to make of the situation. It seemed like an awful lot of trouble just to take out a hydrant and damage a pool. In a heightened state, we waited in anticipation for more, and it wasn’t long in coming.
The roar of another engine caught my attention, and I turned to see a white tanker truck bearing down on Primera. It raced by the spike strips, passed the SUVs and then slowed to a walking pace as it neared the homes. Men leapt on it, trying to gain access, but locked doors and bars crudely welded across the windows foiled their efforts.
“There’s no driver!” someone shouted.
“They must be controlling them remotely. Get to the hill and find them,” ordered Steve. As men rushed into the brush at the base of the hill, two streams of liquid erupted from makeshift nozzles on either side of the rear of the truck, each a good two-and-a-half inches in diameter. The liquid spewed high into the sky and rained down on yards, home fronts and roofs on both sides of the road at nearly ten gallons per second.
“Gasoline!” someone shouted. A shiver ran up my spine. The gas cans were bad enough. What is it with these people and gasoline? It was as if they were privy to my worst nightmares. In response, volunteers from all but two of the homes poured from rear doors and sprinted toward the desert with Security close behind them.
Just then, the garage door of home three opened. The driver of a Honda Civic, the home’s supervisor, Diane, shoved the transmission into reverse and hit the accelerator before the door was a third of the way up. The car hit the door, and it jammed. By the time the car crashed through the broken door, her opportunity to stop the truck was gone. As dozens of gallons of fuel rained down upon the car, Diane leapt from the driver’s door and ran for her life. The garage door of home five had started opening at roughly the same time as that of home three. Carlos’s replacement, Andy Chu, floored the accelerator of his Chrysler minivan before the door cleared the roof. The door peeled the roof rack clean off as it careened backwards toward the tanker. He slammed on the brakes directly in its path, and it struck him broadside. The impact barely slowed the beastly fuel-laden truck, but it did damage the steering linkage.
As the tanker’s front wheels competed against each other for control, the tanker and van swerved to the south side of the road, the van’s tires complaining loudly as the truck shoved it sideways. The two vehicles crossed the rolled curbing and sidewalk, and tore through the lawn of home fourteen and then sixteen. Grass and dirt piled up against the van’s wheels as its tires plowed relentlessly through lawn. The impact with the curb jolted the steering of the tanker just enough to set the vehicles on a course back toward the road. As luck would have it, the growing dirt pile against the van proved too much for the tanker, and both vehicles ground to a halt against a street lamp near the cul-de-sac, sending it swaying like a metronome from the sudden impact. As the tanker’s beastly tires dug ineffectively at loose grass and dirt, Andy kicked madly at his door, rendered inoperable from the collision. When it refused to budge, he turned his efforts to the window. After a few kicks, it burst into uniform cubes of glass. He extracted himself from the vehicle and scurried to safety.
***
“Damn,” whispered Willy. “I guess that’s it.” He reached for the “flap” switch on the radio and flipped it to ignite the fuel. From their vantage point in the desert near the top of the hill, he and Antone held their breath in excited anticipation of the fireball. As the seconds ticked by, it failed to appear.
“What the hell? You fucking idiot, I thought you checked everything out.”
“I did, but I didn’t practice running it into a van. Must have knocked something loose.”
“Fuck. As usual, I gotta finish the job myself.” He sat the radio on the ground, stood, retrieved a lighter from his pocket and walked toward the fuel.
“Stop right there,” a voice demanded. Willy hesitated for an instant and then turned to face his adversary.
“Who the fuck are you?”
Nick walked closer, keeping his paintball gun aimed at Willy’s face.
“Your worst nightmare. Don’t move a muscle. At this distance, this will kill you just as dead as a .45.” Unafraid, Willy walked toward him. Nick should have pulled the trigger, but he couldn’t. At one time he’d been cold-hearted enough to do it, but not anymore. “This is your last warning,” he threatened.
“Why don’t you put that sissy pop-gun down and take me on man-to-man, you fucking pussy.”
Nick grinned, seeing a way out of his dilemma. “You don’t want to go down that path.”
“Hell, you’re older than my grandma. Give me your best shot, old timer,” Willy taunted, sticking his chin toward Nick and pointing to it.
Keeping his eyes on Willy, Nick placed the gun on the ground, well away from Antone, and then took up a boxer’s stance with his fists close to his face.
“Ha-ha, fucking old school. Look at him, Antone!” Willy laughed, pointing at Nick with his left hand. Antone, unsure what to make of the situation, noticed Willy reach into his right pocket. Upon seeing that, he laughed whole-heartedly. As Willy turned to face Nick again, the odds had changed in his favor.
Just like his deceased brother, Bull, Willy always carried a “Benchmade.” In this case, it was Bull’s own Benchmade, found in a storm drain six months after his death by neighborhood kids. You couldn’t mistake his switchblade. It had his name engraved right on the blade. Everyone knew Bull, and it didn’t take long to find its way into Willy’s hands.
His rage burned anew as he recalled his brother’s cold, lifeless body and disfigured neck on the stainless steel morgue table. One day, he’d drive Bull’s knife through the heart of his killer, but now he had a more urgent use for it. “Come on, Mohammad Ali, show me some rope-a-dope,” he sneered. As Nick sized him up, Willy’s thumb hovered over the trigger of the knife hidden in his hand.
When Nick made his move, the blade snapped into position and shot toward Nick’s belly. Once again, a contest of life and death, of fist and steel, played out, but it didn’t last long. Willy underestimated Nick’s speed. Nick’s fist connected with his chin before the knife made it halfway to Nick’s belly. As Willy fell unconscious to the ground, the knife dropped from his grasp and plunged right through the tip of Nick’s left shoe, its razor sharp blade miraculously missing every toe.
“Wasn’t expecting that,” exclaimed Nick as he lifted his foot and pulled the knife from his shoe. “That’ll teach me to pay better attention. Nice piece,” he proclaimed, examining the switchblade. “Now, what about you? You want to take me on, too?” Antone scrambled backwards to escape. He didn’t get far before he felt a steel muzzle against his neck.
“Steve, good to see you.”
Antone tossed his radio and reluctantly raised his hands. Steve secured them behind his back with wire ties and then did the same to Willy. Then, Nick spoke into his radio. “We got ’em!” Cheers filled the air, and I jumped for joy on the rock upon hearing the good news. Once again, Primera had been saved.
***
When Antone pitched his radio, it landed near Willy’s, knocking it face down onto the ground and pushing the throttle stick all the way forward. As Nick and Steve dealt with Willy and Antone, the tanker’s engine revved to full throttle. As its churning tires clawed at the earth, they finally gained purchase, driving the tanker and van hard into the damaged street lamp. Already strained to the limit, it swayed once and then buckled. Although its fall was initially slow, gravity accelerated it with each passing fraction of a second. When it finally impacted the gasoline-soaked sidewalk, the lamp lens exploded into a thousand sparkling shards. A flash marking the demise of the still-lit bulb ignited fuel vapors a split second later. As Nick finished his radio call and the hills erupted in cheering, destiny took a cruel turn. Flames raced toward the tanker, engulfing it. Twin arcs of fire followed the gasoline from the nozzles
to the gas-soaked lawns and homes on either side of the road.
From there, the flame front moved at the speed of sound, igniting fuel vapors filling the still air of the entire neighborhood in a single heartbeat. Home windows imploded and flames burst through them like a blowtorch, incinerating everything in their path. A mushroom cloud of roiling flame and dense, black smoke rose ominously into the air, and a thunderous boom echoed off the Gila Range and seconds later, the Estrellas. Minutes after that, a second boom reverberated off the mountains as the tanker exploded and another mushroom cloud rose into the sky, signaling Primera’s last breath.
***
That night, I worked feverishly alongside friends and neighbors to save the fruits of our labor without success. The fire department never responded despite repeated 9-1-1 calls, but several news helicopters transmitted a live feed of our downfall—it’s difficult to ignore mushroom clouds and sixteen homes burning in a peaceful residential community. With only garden hoses and the fire extinguishers from behind the homes, the heat, smoke and flames quickly overpowered us and forced us to let things take their natural course. Defeated, we stood by helplessly and watched our hope for humanity transform into glowing skeletons in the night. In the few remaining hours before dawn, even those crumbled to ash, and Primera was no more.
Demoralized, everyone gathered by my trailer to watch the last fires die. We sat silently on the rock, on chairs by my trailer and on the ground, stunned that fellow Americans could do this to us. As the sun neared the horizon and the last embers went cold, people trickled off to share the bad news with their families and friends. As they departed, I assured them that there would be another Primera but silently questioned the sense of that. Only Nick remained. “That son-of-a-bitch tried to stab me with this,” he said, producing the switchblade.
“Isn’t that evidence?”
“Technically, but I don’t think it will make any difference with all the other charges against him. Hell, he’s probably the one who killed Carlos. In any case, I know it doesn’t mean much, but I’d like you to have it.”
I hefted the knife, tested its action and admired the blade. I’d always wanted a switchblade, and this was a fine one. “Thanks, Nick.”
“You might want to clean it thoroughly. It’s probably got DNA from a few murder victims on it.” All of a sudden, the knife lost its appeal.
“I’ll sleep a lot better knowing that. You ought to go home to your family now. You’ve done enough here.”
“I suppose. Sorry about all of this. We were that close to preventing it.”
“Yeah. Get a move on.”
I watched as Nick backed out of my pad and weaved between the scattered SUVs. For the first time in a long time, I was alone in Primera.
Chapter 45
CASPIAN
It had been a long time since I’d remained awake for an entire night. After insomnia landed me in a psych ward in 2011, missing sleep was the last thing I would do, but I didn’t give it a second thought as I worked side by side with people I respected to save Primera, or as we mourned when our efforts proved pointless.
Now, as the sun crept over the horizon to begin another hot, dry June day, I sat on the rock and surveyed the rubble. Gone were giggling children, people eating breakfast on their porches and dogs playing fetch on lawns. All that remained were concrete slabs covered with smoldering debris, a few burned out vehicles where garages once stood, shattered sinks and toilets, exploded water heaters and a shallow, blackened crater filled with the splayed remains of the tanker and burned out carcass of the minivan.
I left the rock and walked down Shaughnessey Road. All but one lamppost remained, but the grass alongside them was brown or blackened in some places and yellow in others from the ABC powder of burst fire extinguishers. The shrubs and flowers were skeleton-like, carbonized stubs of their former glory. The playground, tennis courts and volleyball pits were undamaged—I wondered if anyone would ever play there again.
When I reached the bench at the end of the road, the hydrant still roared, sending a torrent of water high into the air only to collapse upon itself and rain down upon the bench where I’d once sat with my father. Huge gashes in the earth were a testament to the power of the water as it liquefied soil and redistributed it in alluvial fans in the nearby desert before sinking into the earth. I continued to the demolished pool. Barely half-full of murky water, it looked more swamp than swimming pool. Nearby, water starved filter pumps cavitated. They’d burn themselves out before long.
I returned to the road and gazed at Primera from the cul-de-sac, trying to imagine the beautiful neighborhood, but that memory would not come. I returned to the trailer and stared for an inordinate amount of time at the tires, longing to leave this behind. At one time, I’d wanted my own truck to tow the trailer. Now, I regretted not making that purchase.
With nothing else to do, I showered to remove the stench of smoke, changed into fresh clothes and went for a drive. I headed east on Pecos Road, merged onto I-10 driving north, then drove east on I-60 and north on the 101 toward Jessie’s place. We weren’t seeing each other anymore, and I hadn’t even spoken to her in quite some time, but I could think of no one else to turn to. I approached her condo, walked up the stairs and rapped the brass ring. Eventually, she opened the door.
What I saw next took me by surprise. She wore a man’s shirt, her hair was a mess, and she appeared startled to see me. A male voice called out, “Is everything okay?” A man approached from behind her, and not surprisingly, the shirt that she wore coordinated perfectly with the pants that he wore. His strong build, striking blond hair and chiseled features made me wonder if he were a celebrity. Two scars on his taut abdomen caught my eye: a small, angry looking one on his left and a nicely healed long one that curved around his belly button much like my own. Remembering how doctors had opened me to evaluate my damaged bowels, I wondered what the story was behind his scars.
“Yes, dear, everything’s fine. Ken, I wasn’t expecting you, but since you’re here, it’s as good a time as any to introduce you to someone very special.”
Studying her eyes, I found them alive with excitement.
“I’d like you to meet Caspian,” she announced with delight.
“What? You’ve got to be kidding!” I broke into an awkward laugh.
“That’s actually my middle name. Everyone but Jessie calls me Frank—Frank Stone. I’ve heard a lot about you. It’s nice to finally meet you.”
“I’m sorry to laugh, Frank. It’s just that I never expected to meet Caspian, I mean… you. It’s a long story.”
“Don’t worry. Jessie told me all about it, including the part where her life would be perfect once she met me.” He smiled lovingly at her, and I had to look twice to believe it: she blushed. I half-expected to meet the real Caspian someday, but it never occurred to me that it would be someone’s middle name. She’d done well, a far sight better than settling for me. I entertained sitting and chatting with them and learning more about Frank, who seemed vaguely familiar, but instead, I cut to the chase. “I’m sorry to drop in on you like this. I just wanted to tell you that Primera is gone.”
“What do you mean ‘gone’?” Jessie asked, stunned.
“It was attacked, and it burned to the ground last night.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“No. Thankfully, no one was injured or killed.”
“That’s horrible. Is there anything that I can do?”
“Not for Primera. I wouldn’t even go there if I were you. It’s not a pretty sight. But you can call around to see if you can help the residents if you wish.”
“I’ll do that right away. Oh, Ken, I’m so sorry.”
I hadn’t been paying close attention to Frank, but now noticed that he looked particularly distraught. “What’s up with him?” I whispered to Jessie, wondering why someone I’d never met was so upset over Primera.
“I shouldn’t tell you this…”
&nbs
p; “Jessie, don’t,” pleaded Frank.
“Of all people, he deserves to know, Frank. Ken, Frank was our man on the inside: our informant.”
“Oh.”
“I wish I could have stopped it, but I didn’t know soon enough,” sobbed Frank.
“At least we got them.”
“Thank God for that. It’s finally over.”
I doubted that it was over—that this was indeed the end of the ill feelings toward us, but I followed his lead regardless. “And there’s no going back, I’m afraid.” At a loss for words, everyone remained silent for a few moments. It seemed my cue to depart. “I shouldn’t have barged in on you like this. I better get going.” I turned to leave, but felt strongly compelled to thank Frank in some way. After all, his information saved Primera once and almost twice. I hesitated, awaiting inspiration, and then it came to me. I faced him once more.
“Frank, I really appreciate what you did. You saved Primera once and nearly did a second time. I know that this won’t change anything, but I’d like you to have something.” He gave me a puzzled look as I reached into my pocket for the switchblade and handed it to him. “The bastard who burned down Primera tried to kill a good friend with this. I need someone to watch over it and make sure that it’s never used to harm anyone again, and you seem like the perfect man for the job.”
Frank accepted the knife and examined it carefully. He pressed the release button and the blade snapped into position, revealing Bull Lemm’s name engraved upon it. His eyes widened, and he suddenly felt like a lost teenager alone and bleeding to death on the streets of Phoenix. His hand automatically went to the old wound on the left side of his ten-inch abdominal scar as realization sank in—it was the knife with Bull had stabbed him with right before he killed him with that fluke punch to the neck. As everything came full circle, he promptly burst into tears. Jessie grabbed me gently by the arm and led me out.
