The Last Call

CHAPTER NINE

What is it in our nature that makes us think just because we can't see danger immediately in front of us that we're going to be pretty much alright? I just don't know.

Julie lived in northwest Austin west of Loop 1 and south of Highway 183 in a duplex that resembled a medieval castle. The duplex stood near the crest of a high hill and looked like none of its neighbors.

We drove by slowly. Hank and I were still in the roadster and the rest of the crew was in the Suburban. More and more the situation was coming to remind me of a high school band trip.

Hank and I checked out all the parked cars along the road. No light blue Ford F-150 pickups. No North Texas Bubbas lying in wait.

Hank and I drove past the duplex and took a good look.

Nothing.

Two blocks down we turned around in a cul-de-sac, came back and parked across the street from Julie’s place. We waited.

It was full dark. To the east there was the purplish twilight above the glow of the city against the sky. From where we sat, between the trees I could see the UT Bell Tower bathed in bright orange light, about the same magnitude of brightness as the three-quarters moon just above it. The orange glow there meant that UT had won their baseball game.

Along came Dock’s Suburban and the twin spears of bright light from his headlights. He pulled up onto the long, narrow driveway. His lights went off. The interior lights came on as Julie opened the passenger door and closed it behind her. She sprinted across the street to us.

“Okay,” she panted a little, “This is it.”

“Lemme see your keys, Julie,” Hank told her.

She fished in her jeans pocket and I heard the rattle of keys.

“I haven’t been here in awhile, Hank,” she said. “I don’t know what the place is going to look like. Those idiots could be inside there laying for you, for all I know. It’s the door on the left side. That’s mine. I don’t think the other side’s been leased yet.”

“It’s okay. I’ll check it out first.” Hank reached into the burlap sack beneath his feet and pulled out his silvery.45. He opened the door and climbed out.

“You get in with Bill for a few minutes,” he told Julie. “I’ll be right back.”

Julie slid in beside me.

The night was quiet but for the rrrrr-rrrr-rrrrr melody of crickets.

Julie and I watched as Hank climbed up the front walkway. She interlaced her fingers with mine and squeezed.

Hank peered in through the front windows. He moved around to the west side of the place and disappeared for a few minutes. We waited.

He reappeared, traversed the front and disappeared around the east side of the duplex. I noticed a small “For Lease” sign perched halfway up the yard beneath the drooping branches of a Wisteria. Hank reappeared again and was about halfway to Julie’s front door when we both noticed Dock climbing out of his Suburban.

I heard Julie’s whisper: “Don’t do that, Dock.”

By the time Hank got to the front door and was inserting the key, Dock had made it within twenty feet of the front of the house.

Explosions have a life of their own. They are like universes unto themselves with their own internal laws of time and space, cause and effect. To a person caught inside one I imagine it must be like knowing what is going on-time being stretched, and instances lasting eternities-and being able to do nothing to control it. As a spectator, just on the periphery, it’s instantaneous.

My first thought, lasting about a hundredth of a second, was the lights had come on inside the duplex, but then the glow swelled in brightness becoming too bright for my eyes. The windows, the whole front of the stone duplex became convex and the roof lifted up several feet in the air. For an instant it was daylight.

Beside me Julie’s ponytailed head, neck and shoulders looked black, silhouetted against a brilliant orange-white halo, then wisps of her hair blew back toward me horizontal as the blast wave rolled over us and pushed her hard against me. My left hip and shoulder slammed against my door.

The roar was of lightning striking close by, but with a horrible rending sound that continued after it. And then came the rain: pebbles, stones, boards, splinters of terra cotta and whole individual u-shaped tiles that burst into fragments on the sidewalk and street.

Against the dying orange glow I could see the outline of a door, still in its frame lying in the grass not far from the street. An arm poked out from under it, as if gesturing, pointing out something that I may have missed.

“Sweet Jesus!” Julie shouted, but my ears felt like they were full of liquid wax, or like I’d been swimming under water for far too long.

We moved in tandem, untangling ourselves from each other, got our doors open and moved across the street as the rain of debris began to slacken. By the time my feet hit the pavement the roof of the duplex was falling inward.

Julie ran towards the Suburban.

I was going for what must be Hank beneath the shattered door. No thought, really, just motion and the dim awareness of something shifting inside my head. Not pain, really, just a knowingness. People were hurt, probably dead. There would be funerals and questioning eyes that couldn’t be answered and policemen with loud ties and tightly-trimmed mustaches holding clipboards and asking questions.

I got to Hank before Julie reached the Suburban. I was thinking that maybe it was a good thing the explosion had taken out my hearing. I wouldn’t want to hear the screams that might be coming from that direction any second.

I guess the door and frame covering most of Hank weighed about a good seventy pounds, but somehow it felt about as heavy as a good sack of bread as I shoved it to the side, sending it further down the hill.

I reached for Hank.

In the flicker of flame from the house I could see that his eyes were open and moving around in confusion.

I ran my hands over his body, beginning with his legs.

He made funny gurgling sounds. Trying to form words. The sounds were muffled, though, as my ears were still all cotton candy.

His legs felt good and solid. I pressed lightly against his hips. No give. I didn’t see any blood, no protruding bones. There were a few buttons missing from his shirt. The arms seemed okay. He still had his gun in his right hand. I took it from him and laid it in the grass. The fingers of his left hand seemed a little odd. One of Julie’s keys from her key ring was imbedded in his palm. I turned his hand over and felt the indentation from the key poking up against the inside of his skin on the top of his hand.

No screams from the driveway. Yet.

Unless Hank was bad off either on the underside of his body or internally, he wasn’t going to die in the next few seconds. I hoped.

Dock, I thought.

The last time I’d seen him he wasn’t far from the house. I looked up. No Dock.

Julie was inside the Suburban. The dome light was on and she was holding Keesha. Dingo was barking. Within seconds the dog was over beside us, licking Hank’s face.

Over in the Suburban I could see Keesha’s face, looking out at me above Julie’s shoulder. She was obviously okay, probably stunned though. The hood and top of Dock’s land barge was littered with large splinters of wood, stone masonry, terra cotta, a telephone handset, a table leg; other things unrecognized and unrecognizable in the near dark. There were several huge dents in it.

Between where Hank lay and the car there were a number of naked timbers.

I could only think of one thing. We had to find Dock and get the hell out of there.

“Stay here, Hank.” It was a stupid thing to say. Where was he going to go?

I moved across the wreckage, noting a stitch in my side. What could have happened to it? I ignored it.

There was no evidence of Dock amid the wreckage. I looked through the cracked windshield of the car. Keesha was still looking at me, Julie still holding her tight.

From where I stood I couldn’t tell, but I’d say she was probably crying.

Keesha pointed with her free hand back towards the road behind them.

I nodded.

I moved across the roadway. I could see Dock. He was in the neighbor’s yard a full sixty feet from where he’d last been. As I got to him I noticed that his right arm was gone just below the elbow. I looked around but couldn’t see it anywhere. Blood spurted spasmodically from the stump.

He was still alive! I reached over him, clenched my fingers around the stump just above his elbow and squeezed hard where I thought the biggest artery might be. I never had any formal medical training, but some things you just do.

I heard sounds. A voice. Maybe my hearing was improving.

I looked at his face.

I became aware that there were people coming out of the neighboring homes, moving slow, stunned. I just looked at Dock’s face, tried to see his lips move. A street lamp behind and above me was on full bright and Dock’s features were tinged with blue in the pale light. He was covered with splinters and gouge marks the entire length of his body. His neck seemed to be not right.

“Whoa there,” a voice said. It was Dock.

His eyes focused on me for a moment. There was sort of a quizzical look on his face.

“I… uh…” he said.

“Take it easy, Dock. Go slow. Anything you want to say, now might be the time.”

“It’s all… right. You… don’ need… ta worreee… about me.Uh. Kid… okaaay?”

“Yes, Dock. She’s fine. Hank too.”

“Gooooood.” He whispered something, but I didn’t quite catch it.

“What was that, Dock?”

He appeared to marshal himself for the effort to communicate it, whatever it was.

“Uh…Just- God… damned real estate agent,” Dock said, and died.

His eyes stared, but the power behind them was gone. The pungent odor of human waste wafted through the air.

“God bless you, Dock,” I said. “Goodbye.” What else was there to say?

I reached into his shirt pocket and took out the business card that I’d given him back at Hill’s Cafe.

The stunned people moved slowly across the street, coming on like zombies from some Grade B horror flick. I picked out bits and pieces from their abbreviated conversations with each other:

“What do you think happened?”

“I dunno. Sure was loud.”

“Gotta have been the gas jets. My cousin once-”

“Has somebody called the fire department?”

“I think that man’s dead.”

I ignored all of it, including the occasional attempt to hail me: “Hey, Mister.”

After disentangling Julie from the girl, the two of us went and got Hank slowly up to first his knees, then his feet. His eyes cast about. I could understand it, completely. If it had been me under that door, my luck being what it had proven out to be thus far, I would have been knocking on St. Peter’s Gate. But I guess that’s just my Southern Baptist side talking.

Between the two of us, each supporting him with a shoulder under an armpit, we moved across the wreckage to the Suburban. Dingo moved in front. She barked at the neighbors as they came into the edge of the yard.

About halfway to the driveway I stumbled a little over a piece of iron pipe that had once been part of a workout bike or something, and I almost brought both Hank and Julie down on top of me. I kept my footing and resolved to be more careful. I looked at Hank’s face and was relieved to see that he was coming around. His eyebrows were knitted into a disapproving frown.

“Sorry, Hank” I said.

Julie leaned her side of him up against the side of the Suburban and got the rear door open. I noticed it was Keesha that pulled up the lock-stem. God Bless her.

Suddenly there was a skinny fellow wearing a tie-dyed t-shirt and Bermuda shorts, talking up a storm.

“I think Jerry is calling the Fire Department on his cell phone. Hey, hold on, folks.”

Julie and I ignored him and got Hank into the back seat where he sprawled out across the long seat.

Julie snapped her head up at the fellow. “Look,” she yelled. “He’s got fractures and contusions. Possibly internal bleeding. We’re taking him to the hospital or he’ll die if we wait.”

At that, as if cued to do so, Hank let out a loud groan.

“See,” I said, showing exasperation.

“Oh. You guys better hurry. I’ll get Jerry to call the Hospital and tell the E.R. you’re on the way.”

Who the hell is Jerry? I thought. “Good. Thanks, neighbor. You’re in charge. Keep everything under control until the Fire Department gets here.” It was all I could think of to say.

I climbed into the driver’s seat. Dock had left the keys in the ignition.

“Thanks, Dock,” I said.

Julie got in and Keesha climbed over the seat between us and into the back. I looked back and saw her lift Hank’s head up and dip her hips in underneath him to support his head on her lap.

Julie and I closed our doors and the dome light faded to black.

I hit the door lock button.

There was a knock at my window. An old woman, kind of goggle-eyed. She reminded me of Gladys Kravitz on the old Bewitched serials.

I smiled at her, nodding. Maybe she wasn’t able to see my face in the night.

She cupped her hands to the glass and attempted to peer inside.

“Go, Bill,” Julie said.

I turned the key hard and pressed on the gas. Something sharp had worked its way up through the soles of my Doc Martens and wedged up between the toes of my right foot. Just another item to ignore.

The engine roared.

Oh yeah, I thought. I’d forgotten to put it in gear.

Gladys Kravitz was still there, hands cupped against the glass and unseeing eyes probing.

I grabbed the gear lever and pull it down hard one click. Reverse.

The whole vehicle shuddered once and we were in sudden motion. I flicked my eyes toward the rearview mirror and shadowy shapes tinged in blue from the street lamp and red from the backup lights leapt out of the way.

I jerked the wheel hard over to the left, dimly aware of having rolled over a good deal of wreckage. There was a crunch as we bottomed out on the street and I hoped the gas tank hadn’t ruptured. On the hood the table-leg, telephone cord, and shards of red and gray stone sloughed off into the street.

I stood on the brakes and threw it into drive.

And we were gone into the night.

In the back seat Keesha was talking.

“If you ask me, this is a bunch of bullshit,” she said.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

The houses rolled past us: flick-flick-flick-flick in a staccato of alternating light and dark. I glanced down at the speedometer. We were doing sixty in a residential neighborhood. Somewhere a long way ahead I heard sirens.

“We left the guns,” Julie said. “All but Hank’s forty-five.”

It came to me then just why my side hurt. The thirty-eight Hank had given me was digging hard into my leg.

“Still got this,” I said, and fished it out. I laid it back on my lap.

“How’s Hank?” I asked.

I hung a right, hoping to take us both further into the neighborhood and farther away from anyone who might want to stop us.

“He’s alright,” Keesha said. Julie and I took it as authority.

“Thank you, darlin’,” I said.

“Hank,” I heard her coo to him softly. “You gonna be just fine.”

The night had taken on the surreal quality of a good nightmare.

“We can’t go to Hank’s place,” Julie said. “It’s too long of a drive. Besides, there’s nothing we need there except your car. Shoot!”

“What?”

“We left my car!”

“Oh. Yeah,” I said.

“But wait. That’s okay.”

“Why?” I asked.

“It’s not my car.”

“Oh.” I let it go, for the moment. Maybe I’d remember to ask later. “Ordinarily,” I said, “this would be a good time to talk to a very nice policeman. You know, I do know one or two.”

She punched me in the arm.

“Ow!” I yelled.

“She does that a lot, doesn’t she?” Hank said from the back seat. He was still lying down. “I think that means she likes you. Must be why she was punching me earlier.”

“We haven’t done anything wrong,” I said to Julie, ignoring Hank’s comment.

I began to see what she was talking about: the explosion, Dock dead, a sack of guns on the floorboard of her car-or not her car, as the case may be-parked across the street from a duplex that looked like what was left of Saddam Hussein’s summer home. Also, it appeared that we weren’t checking into any hospitals, as we’d told Julie’s neighbor. Then, on top of all that, there would be questions, assuredly, about Keesha. Where she’d come from and why we had not taken her directly to the police upon finding her abandoned. Then there were the imponderables: such things as stalkers, sniper-fire, and more than likely a whole host of other interesting things that Julie hadn’t told us yet.

It wasn’t the first time, I realized as we sped through the night toward destinations and futures uncertain, that I had been wholly and completely guilty of taking a wrong turn in life.

I had a few things to latch onto, though. Important things. Beside me sat a cute reddish blond girl who was depending on me no matter how reliable she might or might not prove herself to be. And there was a kid in the back seat that we all seemed to care more than a damn about.

All in all, since none of us were capable of altering the immediate past as we ate up the night, things still weren’t too far from perfect.

*****

The highway moved along and the Suburban seemed to stand still. Four of us and a dog, slip-streaming into the night.

I visited ghosts of souls I had known. It could have been me instead of the old man, eyes fixed and lifeless staring into dark skies.

But it hadn’t been.

The old guy had had a way of smiling. The loose skin around his eyes and mouth had crinkled up when he was enthralled-as he had been with Keesha. I wished I had had the chance to get to know him better. That chance was gone.

I don’t have many regrets about my life. Maybe I had come to be just a little too careful with it, holding onto life like a firefly in a jar, shirking danger and responsibility.

There in the night I was having an epiphany. There would surely be blood and pain to come, but at least I’d be living it. I wouldn’t be dead from the age of forty until eighty or so, or whenever that appointed date and hour was scheduled to come to pass. I’d be living it.

As I turned Dock’s dented and baptized-by-fire Suburban out onto the expressway, I watched the traffic lessen with the approaching midnight hour. I watched as Julie appeared to calm down a bit. I listened to Hank moan and breathe, and to Keesha’s subdued, yet cooing words that didn’t seem to make any sense but were somehow both powerful and perfect as she stroked Hank’s cheek. And somehow, the moment, like all moments that had come and gone before, passed right on by.

In its wake an inexpressible agonized feeling departed from my chest to be replaced by a sense of place and peace that I had never felt before.