Burn Marks

25

The Lady’s Not for Burning

My headache had returned full force. I tried desperately to be sick. My empty stomach could produce only a little bile, which left me more nauseated than ever. I was so sick I didn’t want to move, but I knew I would feel better if I went to the kitchen and put some compresses on my aching head and drank some Coke. My mother had always spoon-fed me Coke for a stomachache. It was a miracle cure.

I sat up and got so fierce a stab of pain that I cried out. And realized beneath the pain that I wasn’t home in bed- I had been lying on a couch, one that smelled so bad I couldn’t lie back down even with my aching head.

I sat with my head on my knees. I was on a couch with no cushions. When I stuck out a gingerly hand I could feel the tufts of padding spring out. My groping hand came on a leg. I recoiled so fast that the lights danced in front of my eyes again and I retched. When the spasm subsided I reached out tentatively and felt it again. A thin bony knob of a kneecap, the hem of a thin cotton housedress.

Elena. She’d called me, gotten me to the burned-out shell of the Indiana Arms. And then? How had I come to be unconscious? It hurt my head to think. I stuck up a hand and touched the locus of the pain. A nice lump, the consistency of raw liver and about as appealing. I’d been hit.? Or had I fallen? I couldn’t remember and it was too much work trying.

But Elena was hurt too. Or maybe passed out. I fumbled in the dark to find her chest. I could feel her heart beneath the thin fabric. It kept up a shallow, irregular beat. And she had a head injury. She’d been hit, someone had called my name so I’d think it was she calling, and all the while she was lying in here unconscious. And then he (she? that hoarse whisper had sounded like Elena) had knocked me out.

I was so pleased with remembering the evening’s events that I sat for a bit without moving. My memory wasn’t quite right, though. I hadn’t come to the Indiana Arms but an abandoned hotel across the street from it. It was only the acrid smell of smoke that made me think I was in Elena’s old building.

I leaned against the foul remains of upholstery to rest my eyes. The acrid smell didn’t diminish. I hadn’t thought the wind was so strong tonight as to blow ash across the street, and anyway, how intense would the fire smell be a week later? Something else was burning, some other part of the Near South Side going up in smoke. Not my problem. My problem was to feel well enough to get out of here.

I’d brought a flashlight with me. Pushing back my nausea, I got down on my hands and knees to hunt for it. Crawling on the malodorous floor, I stumbled against a piece of hard metal. My gun, I realized after a moment or two of blind groping. I picked up the Smith & Wesson. In the dark my fingers automatically checked the safety before fumbling it into my shoulder holster.

I couldn’t find the flashlight, only pieces of chewed-up cushion. When I touched a warm little body I couldn’t keep back a scream. I stumbled upright, my head spinning. I couldn’t force myself to get back down on the floor to hunt further. We’d have to make our way out in the dark.

I blundered around the room, tripping on nameless forms, running into some bedsprings with enough force to jolt my ribs and make tears stream down my face. Good. That’s good, V.I. The pain in your side will keep you from harping on your stupid head. It’s doing you no good so just disregard it. Better still, unscrew it and leave it on the couch.

When I finally found the door I couldn’t open it. I pulled with all my might but couldn’t get it to budge. Maybe I had it wrong, maybe it opened outwards. But all my shoving didn’t move it. I was locked inside.

I wanted to sit on the floor and cry in frustration, but the thought of the warm little fur balls kept me on my feet. It’s okay, Vic, it’s a fixable problem. You’re just feeling sorry for yourself because your head hurts.

I pulled the Smith & Wesson from my holster, turned off the safety, held it against the keyhole, and fired. The recoil went up my arm, jarring my shoulder. The sound in the small room echoed frenziedly in my sore head, making spirals cartwheel in front of my closed eyes.

When I tried the door again it shook but didn’t open. “Come on, dodo brain, think,” I urged aloud. If blowing the keyhole didn’t open the door, it was because it was nailed shut, not locked. I was too tired to figure out how to find where the nails were and shoot around them. I plowed four shots into the hinges where they attached to the wall, bracing myself each time for the recoil, for the sound. By the last shot the air was so smoky and my head ringing so badly that I had to go down on my knees. I vomited more bile and rested, gasping for air, trying to force my vibrating head to stillness.

When I finally got back to my feet I pushed against the door. I was so feeble at this point that I couldn’t put much into my thrust, but I felt the paneling give a little. I tucked the gun back into my holster, sucked in a deep breath, and flung my right shoulder against the edge of the door. Something splintered on the other side. I pushed again and felt the whole thing give. I put out an arm to explore and found that the rotted wood had fractured, leaving a large jagged opening.

Leaning against the jamb to catch my breath and steady my head, I thought the smoke seemed more intense in the hall than in the room. It wasn’t gun smoke, but fire.

The reason I’d been smelling smoke since I came to was because the damned building was on fire. Not left over from the Indiana Arms. Fresh, new fire created just for me. The building I was in was on fire. Someone had knocked me out, locked me in a room, and set fire to the place. The Prairie Shores Hotel, that was its name. In my mind’s eye I saw the dead neon sign swaying a little in the night air.

That’s so helpful, your last thought can be congratulations on dragging the name from your slug brain. Instead of that, maybe try to do a little work. Otherwise, Robin Bessinger is going to be picking through debris for your charred bones in the morning.

I went back to my aunt, trying to figure out a way to move her. My whole head hurt from the effort of thinking. I had to fight an overpowering impulse to lie back down and rest, to take my chances on waking up again in time.

Elena didn’t weigh much, but even if I’d been totally myself, I couldn’t have carried her far. I was afraid dragging her might jar her too much in her injured state and finish her off, but what other choice did I have? If I left her on the mattress, though… It might be more awkward, but the mattress would make a good barrier if we had to go through fire.

It had handles on the sides but not along the narrow end. I took my keys from my pants pocket and made some gashes in the cover. If they didn’t rip off completely, they’d be good enough. I stumbled over to Elena’s duffel bag and ripped the strap free. Even that much effort made me pant and brought another wave of pain crashing across my brain to the front of my head. I had to lean against the wall until it receded enough that I could walk.

I ran the strap through the gashes I’d made in the mattress cover. Before starting to haul it, I knelt again to feel Elena’s heart. It maintained its erratic beat.

I slipped the duffel strap over my head and shoulders and pulled the ends around my waist. Stooping slightly against the weight behind me, I began dragging it toward the door. When I got that far I put the strap down and gently maneuvered the mattress by hand out to the hall-I didn’t want to bang Elena’s head into the splintered door.

Once in the corridor I began a nightmare journey. Around us in the dark the rats were twittering, unnerved by the fire and trying to delve deep into the bowels of the building. They kept running over my feet. I knew they had to be crawling around the mattress, crawling on my aunt’s body. That thought made me shudder and start to black out.

I leaned a hand against the wall and forced my mind to clear, forced the thought of what was happening behind me out of my head, forced the swells of pain to the back of my brain. Smoke was starting to drift toward me down the hall, further fogging me. I wanted to sit but was too scared of the rodents clamoring for air on the floor to be able to.

I was almost at the basement stairs. If the smoke was getting thicker, it meant the fire was at the top of the stairs and I wouldn’t be able to make it through the maze to an exit.

My eyes were streaming. My throat was raw and I could feel a searing tightness in my chest when I tried to inhale. I might have been able to run up on my own with my sweatshirt around my head, but if I tried it with Elena, we’d both die.

So move, Vic. Don’t stand there, go back, put your harness back on, that’s a good cow, turn around and pull. A door stood open at the bottom of the stairs. I had just enough sense to heave it shut before taking up my burden again and heading back down the hall.

My arms were beginning to tremble from overexertion. I couldn’t remember any real poems so I started chanting jumping-rope rhymes to give some rhythm to my movements and take my mind from my fatigued body.

“Dance, girl, dance, girl, hop on one foot.” But hop to where? I didn’t remember any other doors in the section of basement we were trapped in. Then, at the intersection of the two corridors, I thought of the dumbwaiter I’d inadvertently found.

I stuck a hand in and explored it. It was a large space, originally used for hauling furnishings from the basement. When the hotel had been built it stood in Chicago’s most exclusive neighborhood. They’d needed lots of linens and things, and before a widespread use of electricity this made an ideal passageway.

If the fire was inside the building, the shaft would also be an ideal conduit for flames. But if it had been started on the outside and was working inward, we might have a grace period. It was possible, of course, that rats had long since chewed through the cables. Anything is possible, Warshawski, my old Latin teacher used to say. I want to know what is.

I slipped Elena from the mat and hoisted her, straining, over one aching shoulder. “Up we go, Auntie. Just relax and breathe normally.”

I slid her into the box. It was high enough that she could have sat up, but I laid her on her side. I looked at where the mattress lay. Travel light or keep my only tool? I hoisted it up and folded it into an awkward bundle next to my aunt, checking to make sure she had breathing room. Finally I stuck a foot into the box and hiked up to the top.

It was covered with greasy dust and little things that were probably rat droppings. “But there are no rats here, Auntie, because they’ve all been clever enough to burrow underneath the building. We will rise above it all.”

I fumbled in the dark for the cables, found one, and tugged. It creaked ominously but the box didn’t move. There was tension on the line, though-it was still connected somewhere. I pulled again and felt the box sway a little. Maybe I had the wrong cord. I held on to it with my left hand and waved my right around in the dark air. Finally I found another rope on the other side of the shaft.

I shifted my weight across the box and tugged with both hands. The dumbwaiter jerked underneath me and started to move. It was slow, tedious work. The rope burned my bare palms. My biceps had pretty much turned to water by now and strongly resisted the idea of more exercise. “You’re at the wall now, Vic-go for the burn,” I mocked myself, then returned to rope chants.

I’d been through my repertoire twice when we finally came to the opening onto the ground floor. The door was shut. When I put a hand on it, it was scalding to the touch. A poor exit choice. I tried looking up but it was a futile exercise. Even adjusted to the dark, my eyes could make out nothing.

I started hauling again, sticking a hand up every few pulls to see if I was going to run into ceiling. The pain in my head had passed beyond agony to some light, remote feeling, as though the top of my head were floating some miles from my body. Every time I stopped working to feel about, though, it came crashing down with a pounding thud. Was this what it was like to use heroin. Was this what Cerise had crawled off to the Rapelec site to feel- her head buoyant above her body?

“Last night and the night before, twenty-four robbers came knocking at my door. Asked them what they wanted, this is what they said”-the words kept spilling out, against my volition, long after I couldn’t stand the sound of them. In the dark I was seeing pinwheels spinning through the elevator shaft, flashing strobes of light from my burned-out retinas. Future and past disappeared into an endless present, presence of rope, of muscles beyond fatigue, of hand over raw hand, and the unbearable sound of my own voice spewing out childhood chants.

The rope abruptly stopped moving. For a few seconds I kept tugging at it, frustrated at breaking my liquid crystal movements. Then I realized we were at the end of the line. If we couldn’t get out here, we were-well, at the end of our rope.

I sat down on the box. My knees were stiff from the long haul upward and gave me little protesting stabs at my abrupt bending, I leaned down and felt for the dumbwaiter door. It was cool to the touch. I turned around, climbed down the front of the box, and twisted around to sit against the bulk of the mattress.

The door was stiff but not locked, as I’d first feared. I leaned against the mattress and pushed as hard as I could with my wobbly legs. The door creaked. I drew my knees to my chest, ignoring their throbbing, and kicked hard. The door popped out of its frame.

I slid out and turned around for my aunt. Years of abusing her body had given it great resilience-she remained unconscious, but her shallow uncertain breaths still came snorting out.

I propped her against the wall and forced my tired legs down the hall. Now that we were above ground, faint light from the full moon and streetlamps gave a pale glow to the walls, enough that I could walk without feeling my way. In the distance I could hear the deep excited honking of fire engines. All I had to do was find a window where they could see me.

“Love will find a way,” I sang softly to myself. “Night or day, love will find a way.” I was skating, moving so smoothly I was almost floating. My cousin Boom-Boom and I were on the forbidden frozen lagoon, circling round and round until we slid dizzily onto the ice. We weren’t supposed to be there, no one knew how thick the ice was, if it gave way, we’d drown for sure because no one would rescue us. The first one to give up was a chicken and I wasn’t going to be a chicken to my cousin. He was a better skater than me but he wasn’t tougher.

He was near roe someplace, I knew that, but I couldn’t quite find him. On and on I skated, calling his name, opening every door but not seeing him. I got to a window and stared through it at a metal platform. I thought Boom-Boom was behind me, but when I turned he was gone. When I looked back at the window all I found was my own reflection. Beyond the glass lay a fire escape.

I struggled with the window but it was painted shut, I looked around the room for a tool, but it was completely bare. I lifted my trembling right leg and kicked as hard as I could. The ancient glass shivered and cracked, I kicked again and the whole bottom pane gave way.

I looked down. Below me the building was burning steadily and fire was licking upward. We’d come up three stories and we’d better get back down them fast. The fire escape was at the back. Whatever firepower belonged to the distant engines was around the other side of the building.

I lurched back down the miles of corridors I’d traveled until I came to Elena, still snorting away under the dumbwaiter. I pulled her pallet from the box and got her settled on it again. At some point my body must surely give out, no longer respond to the senseless commands of an imperial brain. I flogged myself onward, a good warhorse, old and near collapse but responding to one last call to arms.

Back at the fire escape I wrapped my sweatshirt around my right arm and knocked out the remaining shards. Then I slid Elena to the floor, moved her pallet to the fire escape, and lifted her again, my hamstrings and back shrieking in dismay, and laid her out on the mattress.

“You’ll have to wait here for me, Auntie. I’ll be back, just breathe deeply and don’t be afraid. I’ve got to get help, I can’t carry you on my own.”

Slowly, each leg weighing a thousand pounds, I dragged myself down the stairs, down through the cloud of smoke, past the point of feeling, to the place where breath and sight were collapsed into one solid pinpoint of agony, finding the end of the escape, swinging down, feeling the bottom flight fall loose and my feet dragging on the ground.

I rolled through the smoke and staggered around the side of the building. A multitude was there. Firemen, onlookers, cops, and a man in uniform who came to me and told me sternly the building was dangerous, no one was allowed beyond the police barricades.

“My aunt,” I gasped. “She’s up on the fire escape around the side. We were in the basement when the fire started. You’ve got to get her.”

He didn’t understand me and I turned to a fireman helping guide a heavy hose. I tugged on his sleeve until he turned in annoyance. I pointed and gasped until someone understood and a little troop jogged off into the smoke.