Odalisque
Twenty-five
SATURDAY MORNING, I brought Kate coffee in bed and we cuddled. I had to get up to pack for our trip. Tomorrow. At last we’d be headed out of town, taking the boys to Boston to be with Gramma Lexi, then on to Omaha on Christmas to be with Grandpa Saul and Grandma Deb. The boys had never had a Christmas with grandparents. They were so excited Jack could scarcely keep them contained.
Kate dropped me off for my shift then went to the dorm to finish packing. She’d pick me up in the morning and we’d pick up the boys at nine. I felt bad for Jack. It was the first time that he wouldn’t be with his boys on Christmas, but he was enthused about them being with the extended family. The boys were excited but Kate and I were ecstatic. Our family would be back together. Kate hadn’t wanted to move in with us yet, but she was considering it after our two weeks together.
Bree was waiting for me in the tent. I sat in the chair and she got on my lap facing my right. She usually faced the other direction. She said she like to be able to see out of the tent if she woke up.
“Are you sure you want to sit this direction?” I asked.
“Mmmhmm. I talked to Amanda after her little session with you. Naughty boy.”
“I didn’t do anything,” I said quickly.
“Would you listen to yourself? You’re so afraid that someone will be offended if you touched Amanda’s bare skin,” she laughed quietly. “So, you just put your arm around her like this?”
She pulled my hand toward her and laid it on her bare tummy.
“Oops. I guess my sweatshirt just rode up a little.”
“You are a clever critter.”
“See, no one objects to you touching bare skin.” Bree kissed me. It was just a little more than a nighttime kiss. She didn’t hold it too long. “We just can’t make out,” Bree sighed. “But under the blanket, no one will know if your hand moves around a little. And unlike Amanda, I’m not going to tell you to stay away from my bare… naked… available breasts.” She punctuated her words with little kisses as she leaned back into my arms. “Just stay above my waist. I promised,” she said.
We made out without kissing. Maybe that was stretching the rules a little, but when Bree’s hand found its way inside my shirt and jacket, I had no difficulty letting my own get reacquainted with her breasts.
“I have to use the can,” she whispered about four. She left the tent.
“Hey, Tony,” Zack said as he came through the entrance of the encampment toward me. “Did Paulie stop out here on his circuit?”
“No, Zack,” I answered. I haven’t seen him.
“I thought maybe he was using your toilet. He went on a circuit about fifteen minutes ago. It only takes five.”
“You want me to go take a look? My friend Bree is in the john. She can watch the tent while I make a circuit.” I looked up saw Bree coming back around the tent flap.
“It’s not really your job, Tony, but I’m not supposed to leave my desk without someone to cover it.”
“Not a problem,” I said. “Bree, could you stand by for a minute? I’m going to walk the circumference once to see if I can spot Pauley. You know the drill. Be ready to dial 911 in an emergency. I’ll only be a minute.” She pulled the blanket off the chair and draped it around her shoulders for warmth as she nodded to me.
“I bet he got a bottle,” Zack said. “He’s been warned about that, but some guys never learn. Dumbass.”
I grabbed my yellow vest and flashlight and headed out into the dark. The rain had stopped falling but a light fog surrounded us.
It was a courtesy to the residents not to have the sports field lights on all night, but it left everything outside the pool of light cast by the required lights over the doors of the pavilion in deep shadow. There were street lights next to the field, but in the fog, they didn’t really help illuminate anything beyond the reach of my flashlight. At least they equipped us with a decent night watchman flashlight that sent out a strong blue LED light. I swung the beam back and forth ahead of me, being careful not to shine it directly on the tarp wall of the camp.
I turned the corner to the back of the camp and stumbled across Paulie before I saw him. My phone was in my hand before I’d reached out for him and I’d hit 911. It connected. Shit! This was bad.
“911, state your emergency please,” said the operator.
“Operator, this is Tony Ames, student security at Tent City at SCU. We have a man down and need an ambulance. His head is bleeding. I think he’s been hit by something. Shit! He’s not breathing.”
“Stay with him, I have an ambulance on the way. An EMT will be on the line in a moment to talk you through assistance.”
I glanced up, waving my light around in case someone was coming for me, too. I could tell by now that there was no help for Paulie. The side of his head had been bashed in. The beam caught a dark shape a few feet farther away. I focused on it and moved toward it as the EMT came on the line. I didn’t hear what he said. I was staring down at four LP gas tanks with hoses fed under the tarp into the boardwalks we’d created out of wooden pallets.
“Bree!” I screamed. “Get 911 fire! Zack! Evacuate the city. Everybody out now! Gas!”
I was frantically trying to turn off the valves on the tanks one after another as the EMT tried to get my attention on the line.
“It’s too late for him,” I shouted back. “Get the fire department out here. We’ve got LP gas being pumped in under the tents.” I heard a scream and looked up to see a fireball arcing up into the air over the city. “Oh shit!” When it hit the ground inside the encampment exploded.
I left the flashlight lying on the ground and ran for the front of the city. I still had my phone against my ear shouting out what I was seeing to the operator who had come back on the line. When I got back to the front, the first people were headed out, some swatting flames off their arms or hitting the ground to roll.
That’s when I saw her. Wendy was running down through the middle of the encampment toward the exit with her hair and right arm in flames. I grabbed the blanket off Bree’s shoulders and ran toward Wendy. I had the blanket over her and scooped her up in my arms heedless of the flames that I’d smothered with my face when I pressed it against her head. I stumbled out of the camp and rolled on the ground with her wrapped in my arms I pulled the blanket away from her face so she could breathe and could already see the reddened flesh.
Around me, people were continuing to pour out of the city, knocking over what remained of the outside canvas wall to escape. Those who had flames on them rolled on the ground as fast as they emerged. Coats, blankets, shirts. I stripped off my hoodie and threw it to Bree who wrapped it around the next person out of the camp.
There was no sense staying on the line with 911. As I carried Wendy to the monitor’s tent, I thumbed Kate’s number.
“Tony?”
“Kate! Get over here fast. She’s hurt. We need you, Kate!”
We missed our flight. That was the least of our worries.
Kate held my hand as we sat beside Wendy’s bed. They’d sedated her so she wouldn’t be in pain, but she looked terrible. They couldn’t bandage the burns. They coated them with a sticky salve, having shaved the rest of the hair from her head. You could still smell it, though. Her right arm and hand were badly burned as well. I knew that salve. It was smeared all over the right side of my face where I’d pressed it against Wendy to smother the last of the flames. She’d been on her way out to cuddle with me when the explosion hit. As soon as ambulances started arriving, Bree disconnected from 911 and called Melody. Bree was the only one coherent enough to speak. Kate was latched onto me on one side and held Wendy’s left hand on the other. She hadn’t stopped crying yet. My voice was hoarse from all the screaming I’d done. Reports of casualties were still coming in. A silent news cast was showing pictures on the TV across the room. A terrorist act carried out against the poorest of the poor. There were three dead, including Paulie.
Police had interviewed me on the way to the ambulance. I didn’t think I needed to take up space in an ambulance because I wasn’t hurt, but they insisted. They took my fingerprints because I’d touched the canisters of LP gas. I wasn’t aware of the pain in my face until the ambulance left. The police had a lot of people to interview. They talked to Bree. They talked to Zack. They said it could have been much worse if I hadn’t shut the tanks off. Apparently, I forced the guy to throw his Molotov cocktail before the space beneath the pallets was fully flooded with gas. Wendy got splashed with flaming gasoline. The tents were all treated with fire retardant, but the pallets we’d so carefully laid out to keep them off the wet ground turned the encampment into a tinderbox. A woman who couldn’t get out of her tent died. An old man had a heart attack. Everyone lost something—or everything.
The story continued to unfold over the next few days. We convinced Melody and Lissa not to come back, but to fly directly to Omaha and meet us there on Thursday.
“Lovers,” I croaked out on Sunday night. “We can’t leave Wendy like this. The doctors say she’ll be released soon. As bad as they look, the burns are mostly first degree with a few second degree. They’ll heal, but she’ll be in a lot of pain. And now she has nowhere to go.”
“The only reason they’re not worse is because of what you did, Tony,” Kate said. Tears were still rolling down her cheeks.
“The thing is,” I continued, “we all need to be together. I mean everybody. As soon as we can talk to her tomorrow, I’m going to ask Wendy to come to Omaha with us. You should bring Lexi. I’m going to ask Jack to come, too.” I looked up at Bree. “And Bree,” I said. “We need to be together for Christmas.”
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