Nine Minutes

by Jacqueline Druga

  The restaurant was my place of employment and had been for a few years. Of course, I’d have a sense of entitlement. It was wrong, I know, but even after one day I started feeling like the host who just wanted her guests to leave.

  They didn’t mean to be intrusive or needy, but every time they took something to eat, every time they pissed in the wrong place, I got irritated.

  It was wrong, no one in the basement deserved my feeling like that and I was careful not to act on it. Half the new people were sick.

  Essie and the baby weighed heavily on my mind as well.

  They were the main reason I did other things rather than being hands on with those who needed help.

  Like water girl.

  I emptied three more gallons into the bin and added the bleach to it like Adina suggested, then brought them to her.

  “Thank you,” Adina said. She looked exhausted, her eyes were half open, and I wasn’t sure she even rested.

  “Why don’t you take a break?” I suggested.

  “I will. As soon as I finish this round of wound control. I mean, if I don’t do it, who will, right?”

  “Someone might,” I said.

  “Maybe. It’s not a pretty task.” She sighed out a heavy breath. “I’ll stop in a little bit. I do have a favor to ask you.”

  “What’s that?’

  “I know, and it’s not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but is it possible, when you get the meal together it’s something light or easy to eat. At least for half these people.”

  “Sure. We have cans of broth if —”

  “Perfect,” she cut me off.

  “To be honest,” I said. “We’re limited to what’s on the shelves and in the cooler right now. The stuff in the freezer is pretty frozen still and defrosting them with Sterno would take forever.”

  “Broth is great,”

  “No one is really hungry,” I said. “Maybe it’s best for something light for everyone right now.”

  “Anything easy. Especially for the boy,” she dropped her voice to a whisper, nodding her head to Duncan who sat next to his father. “He says his mouth hurts. Which means tomorrow it will be worse. I’m gonna go check on him.”

  My eyes stayed on Duncan, his head rested on his father’s shoulder. His father seemed distant and in his own world, he didn’t attempt to hold his son.

  A large clank sound of something dropping caused both of us to jolt.

  “Sorry!” Mark shouted out. “That was me. My bad.”

  “I’ll go see what that was about.” I said, then slipped away to where the sound came from.

  It seemed like I moved from one section of a small space to another. Never really stopping. Not like Adina who constantly helped. I was more like trying to keep busy, to keep moving, looking for any excuse to not stop.

  Stopping made me think, and I really wasn’t ready to start thinking about everything we still had to face.

  SEVENTEEN – WHO WE ARE

  When the clunk of the dropping object occurred, it had an echo. It wasn’t close, and that told me Mark was on the other side of the stairs.

  The basement was set up like many basements in the city.

  The stairs cut through the center creating two rooms. There was a third room, smaller, that was the one that had the lift that led to the street level of the alley behind the restaurant.

  Everyone convened in the main room. It was bigger. The smaller walk in freezer and the large cooler. They stayed center, some chose to lean against the wall.

  There was a shelf there with a few items, new linens, bowls, plates and more of those little lanterns.

  Mark had dropped something on the other side of the staircase. It sounded like one of the large cans, probably soup or gravy.

  When I went to the other side, he was standing by the open, cold cellar door. Like the Pittsburgh Toilet, those cold cellars were standard.

  I was told, back in the day when the area was empty and the buildings were being constructed, they built the basements first, the workers or even families in some cases, lived in the basement until the upper levels were done.

  We had come full circle back to living in the basement with nothing above us.

  “Hey,” I called out to Mark. “You okay?”

  “Oh, yeah, hey. Found a ...” He held a can. “Gravy in with the non-edibles. Gonna move this on the other shelf.

  “And try not to drop it?”

  “Yeah,” he nodded.

  “Joan will be happy. It’s another meal to mark down.”

  “Another meal,” he repeated. “I just have the handy clipboard and logging what we have in the non-edible. Never know what we’ll need.”

  “That’s a good idea.”

  “That is Joan’s idea,” Mark said. “She was really organizing that cooler. You know, the must eat now food and what can wait. I asked if she needed help and she said yes.”

  “So, she had you do this?”

  “Better than sitting around.”

  “Or cleaning wounds.”

  Mark cringed. “Yeah, I’ll pass. I’ll do it if I have to. I prefer not to.”

  “I hear you.”

  “You know, if we were gonna have to wait it out anywhere, we couldn’t have found a better place. We have everything we need here.”

  “I know.”

  “Might have to ration the sterno, though,” Mark said.

  “We didn’t do a lot of private parties or catering.”

  “Doing this is actually a good thing. I can look for something in here maybe to mask the smell. I was thinking the laundry soap might help.”

  “It might. I doubt it. A lot of the smell is coming from the baby.”

  He produced a look of humored confusion. “I’m sorry, what? You mean his diaper?”

  “No ... I ...” I paused. “You don’t know.”

  “Know what?”

  “How did you not know?” I asked.

  “Know what?”

  “The baby is dead.”

  CLUNK

  The can dropped from his grip again.

  “Sorry!” Mark called out. “My bad.”

  I bent down and lifted the can.

  “Since when?” He asked.

  “Since they got here,” I replied. “It happened before. It was an accident.”

  “Oh, man.” He closed his eyes. “Now I feel really bad saying something about the smell.”

  “It’s okay. Adina wants to eventually get the baby, wrap him and place him in the other room. But whose gonna get that baby from her arms?"

  “Joan.” Mark answered without hesitation. “She’s a crisis counselor, those people are good. Even if she hates being in a crisis. Look how she is down here. I’d get her on it.”

  “That had crossed my mind. I’ll talk to her now.” I started to step back. “Good luck with your task.”

  “Are there any other cleaning supplies down here?” Mark asked. “Besides the laundry stuff, drain cleaner and ...” he grabbed a can. “Bug spray. Which we don’t need.”

  “You aren’t gonna give that speech how cockroaches are the only guaranteed survivor of a nuclear war, are you?"

  “No. why? Are they? Why would I say that?”

  “Just heard that a lot on the news.”

  “No,” Mark said. “I was just saying that because who cares about bugs.”

  “My daughter may disagree about the bugs. Speaking of which, I’m going to check on her and talk to Joan.” Before he could stop me again, I headed to the cooler.

  For some reason the first thought that entered my mind when I returned to the cooler was, so much for worrying about CO2 killing us in there. The door was slightly ajar, which I believed was less for air and more so for the smell.

  I stepped in and was surprised to see Van seated on a crate by Ted. Kevin was a foot or so away, back against the shelf, knees bent as he stared to his hands. His face had been cleaned up, and the wound on his forehead had butterfly sutures. Adina found time for him.

&nb
sp; “Hope you don’t mind,” Van said. “Adina wanted me away from the sick.”

  “Everyone is not sick out there,” I said. “At least I didn’t think they were.”

  “She says they will be by tomorrow,” Van said. “She doesn’t think I will.”

  Ted asked. “How does she know without blood testing and such?”

  Van showed him his arm. “My wound is healing. She said that’s a sure fire way to know I wasn’t exposed to much radiation. She explained that the body can’t heal, and that’s the first sign she looks for.”

  “Lucky you,” Ted said.

  “Really, are any of us lucky?” Van asked.

  Kevin lifted his head. “I hope my mom was. You were driving a cab, how many nurses were left, do you know?”

  “Not many,” Van replied. “I only had one in my cab. And I know they were moving health care workers out first. Adina stayed behind to help. “

  “Maybe she tried to reach you,” I said. “You were in the police car.”

  “They had my phone, too,” Kevin replied.

  “See. Don’t lose hope.” I ran my hand over his head. “As a mom, trust me, she is worried about you. She tried to contact you. I believe it. She is thinking about you. More than likely, she’ll be looking for you.”

  Kevin shrugged. “How will she even find me?”

  “Eventually, people will have to emerge,” Ted said. “And they had those evacuation centers set up. She’ll probably look there for you.”

  Kevin seemed to halfheartedly accept that. I walked to the back of the cooler to check on my daughter.

  She sat on the floor, Joan was behind her and oddly, was brushing her hair.

  “Sorry,” Joan said, pausing in the brushing. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “No, not at all. Macy?” I crouched down. “Is that okay?”

  “It feels nice.”

  With a humming ‘hmm’, Joan continued to brush, long slow strokes against my daughter’s brown hair. “I used to love brushing my daughter’s hair. We’d brush it every night. I had to. I hated when my mom brushed my hair. Of course, she’s all grown up now, married and living in Wyoming.” She looked down to Macy and smiled. “Wyoming of all places.”

  “Bet she is safe,” Macy said.

  “I think she is.” Joan winked. “I feel it.”

  “You have a daughter,” I said. “I didn’t know that.”

  Before Joan could say anything, Ted spoke up. “How much do we really know about each other? We’ve been down here a day and I don’t know much about any of you. Two years ago, I was stuck on an elevator for three hours and there wasn’t much I didn’t know about the people in there with me by the time the doors opened.”

  “Stressful situations bring out different behaviors,” Joan said. “You weren’t faced with death. We’re lucky none of us are angry … yet.” She paused then brushed again. “Maybe it is a good idea to know one another. I mean, it will help us understand reactions we may all have.”

  In the after moments of her saying that, there was silence.

  A long silence.

  Until Macy said, “This is awkward.”

  I smiled, nearly to the point of a laugh, “Why do you say that?”

  “She invited everyone to talk and no one wants to,” said Macy.

  “I’m sure we all have time to learn about each other,” I replied. “We’ll get there.”

  I wanted to sit down, close my eyes for a moment. My post was in the far back corner. I had made a comfy pile of tablecloths for me and Macy and took my seat there. I could watch my daughter, and that was something I always enjoyed.

  No sooner had I closed my eyes, I heard Kevin’s voice.

  “I don’t like her,” Kevin said,

  “That’s out of the blue,” Van commented. “Who? Joan, Henny or the little girl.”

  “What?” Kevin blasted with a slight chuckle. “Not the little girl, that’s so wrong. That girl out there. The one that’s always whining and moaning. I don’t like her and wish she wasn’t here.”

  “Wendy Whiner,” Van said. “Real name is Beth. Yeah, she’s a doozy. She got in my cab and needed a way out. I was one of the last evacuation vehicles. But like I said that was out of the blue.”

  “Not really,” Kevin said. “I just heard her whining again.”

  “Well, she is getting that sickness. Her cut on her face is spreading so it’s probably painful. She at least has something to whine about.”

  “Serves her right,” Kevin said.

  “Whoa, wait.” Ted spoke up. “Is this our mild manner criminal speaking?”

  “Sorry, that’s not what I meant. Maybe it is. I’m not a mean person. Honestly, I’m not, but Beth is heartless.”

  I had to ask. “Do you know her?"

  Kevin shook his head. “I recognize the face. When I was in the back of the police car. It was way before you helped me out, she came to the car. She looked in the window. I screamed for help, begged her to help me, she started to, then ran away. I’ll never forget that face.”

  Joan spoke up. “I’m sorry she did that to you. Stress does things to people.”

  “I disagree,” Kevin said. “I say, like alcohol, stress shows you the real person. I mean, we’re under this horrible situation, right? The world burned around us. Adina hasn’t stopped. She is a good person. Joan is kind and worried. Everyone is showing a good human side. That to me tells me more about them than any story they can tell.”

  In his youthful wisdom Kevin made a lot of sense. Unfortunately, I didn’t agree.

  All of us were being good, kind and patient, but we were still so early on, we were technically on our best behavior. We had lots of space, food and water, but as the days rolled on, and the walls closed in, I wonder how kind and patient most of us would be then.

  EIGHTEEN - CHOICES

  I had never seen anyone so desperate for a cup of coffee that they’d go through inventive leaps and bounds to make some.

  Mark was that person.

  Upon finding the box of coffee packets he was on a mission.

  He managed it though. Using sterno, water, and a coffee filter, he brewed individual cups. I could smell the coffee, and it was a nice change of pace from the gag inducing odors.

  Each cup took about three minutes.

  It was worth it.

  It was a bright spot to a new day that increasingly grew bleaker by the minute.

  We weren’t a hospital, but we were closed in a space filled with sick people.

  Adina was still going, even though she told Joan she was starting to feel tired and a little ill.

  I couldn’t even walk into the main portion of the basement without wanting to scream. All I wanted to do was stay in that cooler and only leave when I had to.

  Sadly, I had to.

  Joan wanted me to come with her when she spoke to Ezzie.

  Wendy Whiner increasingly complained that the smell of the baby was making her worse.

  It got to the point where Kevin shouted out from the cooler. “Leave her alone. Shut up. Just shut up or go.”

  Forty-eight hours. The calm was leaving quickly and was replaced with tension.

  It was to be expected.

  Even though Wendy, AKA, Beth was loud, she was right.

  The deceased baby was only adding to the unsanitary conditions of the basement.

  “Will you, please, come with me?” Joan had asked.

  I was sipping on my coffee, Macy sleeping across my lap.

  “It’s time that I talk to her, but she doesn’t know me,” Joan said. “You give her food.”

  “She doesn’t take it.”

  “Still.”

  I nodded, set my cup on the shelf, then gently lifted Macy from my lap.

  After being seated for a while, I had to stretch a little to work out the kinks. As I approached the door of the cooler, I could hear their voices, coughing, moans and a whimpering cry of a little boy.

  “Daddy, it hurts,” he said. “My mouth hurts
.”

  “Try to have some water.”

  “I can’t.”

  I had paused by the door, gaining the courage to step outside.

  I knew it was going to be bad.

  A mugginess had set into the basement making the smell seem thick, it stuck in my throat ready to choke me at any second.

  “You ready?” Joan whispered.

  I nodded.

  “Take a breath,” she instructed,

  I did, but it didn’t help.

  So much had changed in the hours that I had stayed in the cooler.

  There were less lanterns burning, and only a glow of a face here and there was seen.

  How easily it was for me to forget the people that had joined us. I blocked them out, like a nightmare, but it all came crashing back when I stepped into the main room.

  Adina was asleep in a chair, finally she rested.

  Beth the whiner, paced in small circles, rubbing her arms and whimpering. Boris was finally resting. He had been so bad, in such pain that he’d randomly cry out, reaching for something that wasn’t there, in almost a delusional state.

  Tim had taken to holding his son, Duncan. I worried about that. He hadn’t been cradling him and comforting him as he should have.

  Jeff, the window guy curled into a ball holding onto a bucket as if it were a security blanket.

  I followed Joan as she made her way over to Ezzie.

  Joan gave me a nod, no words, I suppose I was to introduce them, and I did.

  “Ezzie, this is Joan. She wants to talk to you,” I said.

  Joan crouched down by Ezzie, I waited to hear her talk her counselor speech. Something deep, something that would get through.

  “Ezzie, Honey,” Joan said. “You have to let us take the baby.”

  What?

  All that and she was blunt and just blurted it out.

  Ezzie just looked at her, shook her head once and whimpered out a, “no.”

  “Yes,” Joan said. “I know this is painful. I know this is hard. But it isn’t good for you or anyone down here to keep him in this room. He’s gone, you know that, right?”

  Ezzie nodded.

  “We’ll be gentle with him.”

  Ezzie nodded. “Can I … can I just hold him just a little bit more. Just a little. Then he can leave this room. Just a little.”