Chapter Twenty-Seven

“Hold that thought,” I said to Horatio before turning to Officer Coates. “I don’t suppose that counts as an arrestable offense?”

Officer Coates shrugged.

“I would have to check with my supervisor,” he said.

He stood there for a minute, looking at me like I was a television tuned into a football game.

“Well,” I said. “Can you check?”

“No can do,” said Officer Coates. “I have to stand guard and make sure things don’t get out of hand here.”

“Naturally,” I said, turning back to Horatio. “Why should I expect a police officer to enforce the law?”

In fact, why should I have ever expected anyone in that city to do their job ever?

“Okay, Horatio,” I said, steeling myself for more stupidity. “Who is heading up this strike?”

“From what I understand,” said Horatio. “Cassie Bobeck is the head of this effort.”

My mouth dropped open and would have stretched across the entire universe if the ground had not been there to stop it.

“Cassie Bobeck?” I asked. “As in Cassie Bobeck the general manager of the entire branch of Fresh Face Co-Op?”

“Yup,” said Horatio. “One in the same.”

“But she hasn’t even been here this entire time!” I argued. “She’s been on an extended sabbatical for nearly a year! I have been doing her job for her this entire time! Did she just suddenly return and decide she didn’t like someone taking over her responsibilities? Is that what this is really about?”

Horatio shrugged in such an obtuse way. God, I loved him, but he could be so nonchalant and chilled out, it drove me crazy. If he had not been one of the desperately few allies I had in that moment, I would have exploded at him right then and there.

“She’s not back, if that’s what you’re asking,” said Horatio. “From what I was told, she’s been organizing this effort remotely from the Caribbean.”

So, she couldn’t get the internet access needed to contact me for a meeting via a video call, but she could somehow organize an en masse protest from almost the entire staff? Something about this was way more than fishy.

I’m going to have to make a phone call back to Green and Associates, I admitted to myself. I’ll have to say goodbye to my promotion and possibly my position there, but it’s the only thing left to do. This is too much of a disaster to handle on my own. There’s no communication at all. They won’t even talk to me and yet they’re pulling a stunt like this.

It was a hard thing to admit to myself. I had just spent the past year on this fool’s errand trying to prove myself. I thought that the least I could do was overcome the obstacle despite the enormity of it, but my year in the Midwest was so rife with tragedy, disappointment and conflicted feelings, it was clear that I did not have things together as much as I thought I did when I had first come to this place.

I sighed and pulled out my phone to dial Nicholas Green’s number.

I just hope his administrative assistant is the one to answer the phone, I thought, knowing that this would more than likely be the case. I would much rather talk to her right now.

Just as I was about to do so, the employees on strike began to file out of the building. My heart skipped a beat.

Maybe they’re willing to negotiate, after all, I thought. Maybe there’s some hope, yet!

As I put away my phone, I realized that they weren’t coming out of the building all that orderly. In fact, they were rather panicky in the way they were gushing out of the building like a swarm of ants whose hill had just been filled with water. Soon, they began to push and shove, until people were falling over and getting stepped on. It was pandemonium!

Something was clearly wrong. I glanced over to Officer Coates, who stood still in shock.

“Call for back up!” I shouted at him.

He nodded and got on his police radio. I glanced over at where Horatio had been standing to see that he had run to the building to help the people who had been trampled. I followed suit.

Upon seeing the building closer up, I saw smoke escaping the building. It was not an insignificant amount of smoke either. Flames licked the inside of the store. How had they risen so fast? I had made sure that the interior of the building was up to fire code.

I called back to Officer Coates.

“Tell them to send the fire department this way, too!” I shouted.

For the most part, everybody who had been injured was only hurt superficially. So, that was a relief.

I turned to the nearest person, who just happened to be Benny Duncan.

“Did everybody make it out?” I asked.

“I don’t know, man,” said Benny.

“Well, look around!” I shouted. “Have each of the managers do a headcount of their departments.”

“Hey you guys!” Benny hollered unhelpfully in the directions of four of the six managers who had been involved with the protest. “Make sure everyone’s accounted for!”

“What about Dora?” I asked. “She wasn’t there with the other managers. Tell her to get a count of everyone, too.”

At that moment, Benny got kind of a weird look on his face and I got a sinking feeling in my stomach. I didn’t see her anywhere and I came to an appalling conclusion.

“I think she’s still inside,” Benny confirmed my worst fears.

Dora was something of a ding-a-ling, but she definitely didn’t deserve to die. The fire was getting more and more dramatic by the minute. We didn’t have time to wait for the fire department to get there.

“Aw sugar!” I exclaimed.

I turned to a random employee from dry goods.

“Hand me your water bottle,” I demanded.

My tone must have been so commanding, that he didn’t even hesitate to hand it over. I pulled out my tie, doused it in water and wrapped it around my face.

I closed my eyes, steeled myself for what I was about to do, and ran straight into the burning building.

“Ron!” Horatio screamed at me. “What the fuck are you doing, man?”

But it was too late. I was in there.

The smoke burned my eyes in an instant and I realized what a foolish mistake this had all been. I dropped to the floor where the air was cleaner.

“Dora!” I screamed as I crawled along the floor. “Dora!”

She couldn’t have been far. I saw that the protesters had been gathered at the front of the store, watching from the windows and waiting for me to make the first move.

Never had thirty seconds felt so long in my entire life. The smoke got denser and more alarming as I crawled along the floor.

This was so stupid, Ron, I told myself. Now, you’re gonna get killed along with that dumb little cinnamon roll from produce!

Then again, maybe the events of that morning had pushed me over the edge just enough so that I had a sort of a death wish. Not that I really had time to work that out in that moment.

If by some miracle you make it out alive, you need to talk this over with your therapist, I told myself. But for now: focus!

“Dora!” I screamed as loud as I could with smoke all around me and a wet piece of silk shoved in my mouth.

All around me, the air was getting hotter and hotter. I didn’t want to die of smoke inhalation, but the prospect of being burned alive was even worse. The situation had gotten far too drastic for me to handle.

I was just about to turn around when I saw something move through all the smoke. It was Dora, trapped underneath her own cart she used for pushing around produce. Her long skirt was all tangled up in the wheels.

Now having a definite purpose, I got up and made a run for her, trying to go so fast that smoke didn’t have a chance to settle in my eyes. I have since been told that this was a stupid move and, in fact, everything I did on that day showed a very poor handle on how to deal with a fire, but what am I? A fireman?

Dora was almost passed out and barely moving except for the way she was violently heaving and coughing from all the smoke she had inhaled.

I tore off her skirt (that is the only instance you can say, God willing, I ever have or ever will do that to a woman) in order to free her from the wheels and pushed the massive cart off of her. I then gathered all the strength I had in me and lifted her up in my arms.

Now, Dora was not, by any means, a small girl. However, I’ve been told that in times of great stress, the body can perform amazing feats. That must have been what took place because lifting her in my arms was much easier than I would have thought.

The outdoor air in Milwaukee was never so sweet as when I stepped out of a burning building with Dora from produce in my arms. I wasn’t able to take two steps before my presumed emergency-derived strength wore off and I collapsed to the ground. I began to heave and hack from all the smoke that I had just breathed in.

As I ripped the wet tie out of my mouth, I could feel all manner of hands pawing all over me, though, I could not determine who they all belonged to because everything was a blur. The tears from my smoke damaged eyes made it like looking at everyone through distorted glass: disorienting and surreal. I couldn’t focus on a single person or even pick out large enough features in anyone to know who was standing in my vicinity.

“Get Dora medical attention,” was all I could manage to choke out. “Please…”

I could feel my arms being alleviated of the massive weight in them as Dora was lifted out of my arms. I prayed that some kind of ambulance showed up or at least a police officer other than Officer Coates, somebody that I could depend upon to practice CPR on a person.

“All right,” a voice rung out from beyond the crowd. “Stop crowding him. Give him some air!”

All around me, the crowd dispersed. Suddenly, I felt a tall presence next to me. He crouched down so that he’d be close enough for me to hear him.

“You okay there, buddy?” the fireman asked.

“I’m all right,” I panted. “I just need a few more minutes.”

Tears were running down my face and my lungs were filled with a burning sensation.

“I’d like to give you a few more minutes, but we need to get you out of here,” the fireman responded. “It’s too dangerous to stay here.”

Before I could respond, the fireman had moved behind me and stuck his hands into my armpits. From there, he lifted me up and held me steady.

“Let me walk you to the ambulance where the EMTs can see to you,” he said.

I swallowed my pride and let him do just that where they affixed an oxygen mask to my face.

“But I don’t need…” I tried to object.

“It’s just a precaution, sir,” said the EMT. “Besides, you’ve breathed in a lot of smoke whether it feels that way or not. You need to be treated for it.”

Contrary to my reservations, the EMT was right. After only minutes of breathing in a high concentration of oxygen, my vision became clearer and my thoughts came to me quicker.

Wow, I thought to myself. I really did a number on myself in there. I must have been crazy.

It was after my thoughts cleared out that I realized how royally hosed I was. Nobody was killed and all the injured were receiving treatment, but that didn’t change the fact that the business I had been sent to improve would most certainly burn to the ground. Massive plumes of black smoke billowed skyward, polluting the vast, blue, horizon.

“Man,” said the EMT, trying to make conversation. “That was a risky move on your part.”

Yes, it was, I thought. Yes, it was.

“But I guess it paid off in the end,” the EMT said.

No, it didn’t, I thought.

All was lost.