Chaotic Be Jack

by Robert Tarrant

  I shook my head. “No. To be perfectly honest, as usual you’re way ahead of me. I hadn’t even thought about what we would need with the insurance company.”

  Marge shot back, “For crying out loud, Jack, forty-eight hours ago you were fighting for your very life right here. I think you can be excused for not focusing on the business issues.” Her tone was typical Marge, but the words conveyed a sensitivity I didn’t often receive from her.

  I stepped through the door with Moe right behind me. We stopped just inside and allowed our eyes to adjust to the dim light. Harry had been accurate, while light streamed in through the front half of the building the back half was dim at best. From this distance, looking through the window in the kitchen door, it looked like it was nearly black in there. I turned on the flashlight Harry had given me and we made our way toward the kitchen and the storeroom. It seemed as if a path had been cleared leading toward the kitchen, then it dawned on me that this must have been the route the emergency responders used to evacuate us after we were found in the cooler.

  The only light in the kitchen was from the hole poked in the wall by the utility pole. We opened the storeroom door and were surprised to find that, with the exception of the evidence that water had run down the walls from upstairs, the inside of the storeroom was virtually untouched by the storm. Water was still pooled on the floor in several areas, but I was hopeful that the plastic tubs had protected the records. Moe stacked a couple of the large plastic tubs and started to raise them to carry outside. As quickly as he lifted the stack, he returned it to the floor. He rubbed his head and said, “Ah, maybe I’ll just take one at a time.”

  I asked, “You sure you’re okay, Moe? No reason to overdo it. I can get these out there.”

  “I’m okay, Boss. Just a little lightheaded. I can help, just got to take it a little easy.” With that, he picked the top tub off his stack and started for the back door. I grabbed the second tub and followed, balancing the flashlight on top of the tub.

  On our second trip inside, we found one of the battery-powered lanterns we had been using during the storm. It was sitting on the sink in the kitchen, so I surmised it had been moved there by one of the responders. I turned it on and found it still emitted a moderate light. We set it near the door to the storeroom and its light, coupled with what was coming in through the hole in the back wall, provided enough illumination for us to go back and forth through the kitchen without need for the flashlight.

  We moved six tubs containing business records, and one with Marge’s computer, to the area of the parking lot just outside the door. PJ and Harry had cleared a path through the debris in the parking lot, so that he could back his SUV nearly to the door. Harry folded the rear seats flat to afford more cargo space. After the tubs were loaded into the Tahoe, we all entered the building and stood just inside the door. The area behind the bar didn’t look too bad, obviously some water damage, but how much was impossible to determine in the dim light. The main bar floor looked like the wind had pushed all of the furnishings into the front corner. Shining the flashlight across the floor it was obvious that the wood plank floor had already started to warp.

  Marge tapped me on the shoulder and said, “I hate to bring this up, Jack, but we really should see if we can get to the safe in the office. The receipts for the last few days, as well as our operating cash, are in the safe. Would be good to get those and the checkbook. That’s in there, too.”

  I thought back to when Mickey died and I inherited the bar. Sissy had explained to me that Mickey always kept the business checkbook in the safe even though it was inconvenient. He’d told her a story about a case he had where an employee, short of money at Christmas time, had taken a couple of checks from the checkbook of his employer and cashed them. Not being an adept criminal, he had easily been caught. He avoided prison with a guilty plea, but, as a result of the felony conviction, was unemployable. He turned to additional crime to support his family. One year later he was shot to death by an undercover police officer he had attempted to rob. Mickey said he had no intention of facilitating a tragic chain of events like that, so the checkbook lived in the safe. Marge and I had continued the practice, as much as a tribute to Mickey as anything else.

  I said, “No problem, Marge. I’d like to see how the office fared anyway.”

  Moe had gone back outside to sit down on the back step. In spite of his statements to the contrary, he was obviously not feeling that well yet. PJ said, “I’ll go with you, Jack. Just to keep you out of trouble.” I didn’t argue.

  We took the lantern we’d found in the kitchen and made our way along the bar to the front hallway. With the upstairs floor collapsed in this area of the building, we needed to bend low to make it around the end of the bar and into the hallway. The hallway was intact and relatively free of debris. The office looked exactly like it did when we closed the bar before the storm. The building seemed to have fared the same as the city, some areas destroyed and others untouched. I opened the safe, took out the checkbook, the bank envelope, and the cash box. There was an empty box that had contained printer paper sitting on the couch, no doubt as a reminder for Marge to reorder. I put the contents from the safe in the box and we backed out of the office.

  As we started back toward the main bar area, I stopped in front of the door that led up the inside stairs to my apartment. I handed PJ the box and asked her to hold it while I tried the door. I could tell from the cracks in the drywall sheeting in the hallway that the wall had been stressed at some point. I pulled on the door, but, sure enough, it was stuck. No doubt the door frame had been cocked enough to bind the door. Bracing my foot against the wall, I pulled a couple more times and it finally popped open. A table lamp that had been in my living room came tumbling out. Evidently, the door at the top of the stairs had blown open, or was gone.

  Light streamed down the staircase from the sky above. When I last opened this door, there had been a roof up there. I took a couple of steps up the stairs and PJ said, “Let’s be careful Jack. We don’t know how sturdy these stairs are now.” I moved slowly to the third and fourth step and swayed back and forth in an effort to put additional pressure on the staircase. I didn’t feel any structural movement, so I proceeded. PJ had set down the box from the office and was coming up behind me. It was a strange sensation to be walking up an inside staircase to an open sky above.

  When I reached the top of the stairs, I found the doorway leading into the apartment splintered. The door itself was nowhere in sight. A few feet inside the room the floor tilted at a severe angle as it formed one side of the chute that had funneled most of the living room furniture into the parking lot below. The other side of the chute was formed at the far wall of the living room. The result was that the only way into the back areas of the apartment was to walk on the small portion of floor remaining level along the wall closest to the doorway. By keeping my back tight against the wall I was able to gingerly slide my feet along the narrow ledge until I reached the area where the dining table had been sitting the last time I was up here. I saw no signs of it in the apartment, nor in the rubble below.

  PJ waited at the doorway until I had safely made it into the dining area and then she followed my route. The roof remained over this back half of the apartment although the drywall ceiling had collapsed in most of it. Some of the drywall laid in soggy chunks on the floor and some was just plain gone. As we stood side-by-side in the dining area and looked around, PJ slipped her hand into mine and said, “I’m so sorry, Jack.” It was strange, I wasn’t feeling sorrow; I didn’t know what I was feeling. Probably, I was just stunned. In my mind I had envisioned what I expected to see, but when face-to-face with reality, it was almost mind numbing.

  The kitchen area was relatively intact. That corner of the building had fared as well as any. We cautiously worked our way across the dining area, avoiding the sodden piles of drywall, and into the short hallway that passed between the bedrooms and ended in the guest bath. The door to the guest bedroom on the
front of the building was standing open at a cockeyed angle. The roof was gone above the room and everything inside was soaked. The door to my bedroom on the back side of the hall was closed. I opened it and found that the room had obviously experienced a whirlwind at some point during the storm. Much of the drywall ceiling had collapsed and was mixed with nearly unrecognizable contents of the room into several drying piles.

  I entered the bedroom and picked my way across the room, around the piles of debris, to the closed closet door. The closet had fared somewhat better. The ceiling was sagging, and it was obvious that water had leaked through it in several locations. Some of the hanging clothes had gotten soaked, but some appeared untouched. A couple of small suitcases on the top shelf in the closet had repelled the water and appeared to be fine. I said to PJ, “Let’s see what we can find that’s salvageable, so I won’t be wearing these same clothes again tomorrow.”

  PJ was helping me pack a few things when my cell phone buzzed. At first, after pulling it from my pocket, I just held it in my hand and stared. Somehow my brain no longer expected cell service at Cap’s Place. It was Marge. She said they were getting worried about us. I told her what we were doing and that we would be out soon. As we were heading out of the bedroom with the two suitcases, PJ asked, “Now take a second, Jack. Is there anything else you want to get while we’re here? I’m sure the city inspectors will be around soon to tag the building, prohibiting entry. It may be awhile before you can get back in.” Then she gave me a knowing look and added, “At least not legally.”

  I tried to think, but much like the last time I was up here during the storm, my mind was spinning and I couldn’t really focus. I replied, “Naw, not that I can think of right now.”

  “Your personal insurance papers and stuff like that?”

  “No. That stuff is all in the business files we already took outside.” I tried to think but nothing came to mind. It did occur to me that maybe it was a sad commentary on my life that there was nothing so important that I couldn’t leave it behind. I left everything behind when I walked away from Katharine years ago and guess I never became attached to anything since. No pictures, no mementoes, nothing.

  The weight and bulk of the suitcases made it more challenging working our way back out across the narrow bridge to the stair door. I had just set my suitcase down and turned to see how PJ was doing when I heard her say “Oh, shit.” The weight of the suitcase she was carrying was causing her to lean out over the opening in the floor, on the verge of toppling in.

  I called, “Give me your hand.” I reached out and PJ grasped my hand with her free one just as she did a little spin on one foot, with her second leg and the arm holding the suitcase dangled over open space. The weight of her leaning body and the suitcase started to pull me away from the wall. I yelled, “Drop the suitcase.” PJ released her grip on the suitcase and it started a bouncing journey down the collapsed floor and out the front of the building. The change in weight distribution was enough to allow me to keep my balance and pull her back enough that she could again find her footing, although she was now facing the wall. We steadied ourselves and slowly edged our way back to the doorway.

  PJ said, “I’m sorry, Jack. I guess I should have put the suitcase on the floor and pushed it along the wall.”

  “No sweat. I’m just glad you didn’t end up landing on the rubble pile outside.”

  We went down the stairs and PJ grabbed the box from the office. When we got outside, I carried the suitcase out to the street to PJ’s car and Marge loaded the box in Harry’s SUV. PJ went to the front of the building and began to retrieve the contents of the suitcase that had been disgorged onto the debris pile when it popped open on its bouncing journey. As I walked up, she again said, “I’m so sorry, Jack. I do think everything will be okay, though. Just a little washing and everything should be fine. I’ll launder it when we get back home.”

  I held my hands out from my sides as if embracing the building and said, “Standing in the midst of all of this, you think I’m concerned about a smudge of dirt on my tee shirts?” I don’t know if it was what I said or the dopey expression on my face, but PJ grinned and nodded.

  Marge told me that as soon as she and Harry got back to her place, she’d make a call to the insurance company and get the claim process started. She’d call me and tell me what she learned. Moe looked a little better than he did earlier and he immediately started talking about how to approach the clean-up. I told him that all I wanted him to do was go home and get some rest. Once we had a line on clean-up contractors, he could supervise, but there was no way he was going to take this mess on himself. Sometimes I don’t think the guy knows that even he has limits.

  We were all a little flat as we parted. Seeing Cap’s Place drove home the realization of how bad the damage was. It’s one thing to create an image in your mind, it’s another to actually see it. After Harry and Marge drove away, the three of us stood in the street and stared at the building, each lost in our own thoughts. A Hollywood police car pulled up and a fresh-faced young officer got out and approached us. He looked at us, at the building, then back at us. “Your building?” His tone was firm but rang with compassion.

  I nodded. “Yup. What’s left of it.”

  Trying to sound upbeat, he said, “It’s bad, but it fared better than lots of others along here.” Then shifting to the authoritative voice he was attempting to master, but had not yet perfected, he said, “Can’t let you go in there, though. See that circle with the line across it spray painted on the front of the building near that collapsed wall? That means no entry. The code enforcement guys will be around shortly to post signs.”

  In all honesty, I hadn’t noticed the painted symbol. I said, “Thanks, officer. We were just leaving. Just wanted to see what things looked like. Thanks for stopping.”

  “No problem. We’ll be around a lot. The chief is adamant, there will be no looters.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate that.”

  As he turned to get back in his car, he nodded respectfully and added, “Have a good day gentlemen, ma'am.”

  I heard PJ mutter something under her breath. I remembered how she feels about being called ma’am. I couldn’t help but smirk and elbow her in the ribs as I leaned down close and said, “We should probably get going, ma’am.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  I answered a call from an unknown number Monday morning and was surprised to hear Justin’s voice. He explained that after opting to forgo going to the hospital Friday night, he had found a ride north to Fort Lauderdale and stayed on his boat. He didn’t offer additional details, and I knew better than to ask questions. He told me that he was moving the boat back to what was left of the marina that morning.

  PJ told me that she was going to the office for a few hours, and I convinced her to drop me at Cap’s Place. She didn’t want me alone there, but I told her Justin would be around. She rolled her eyes and said, “Great, that makes me feel better.”

  After a long physically and emotionally draining day spent sorting through the debris pile that had been my home, evening was approaching and Justin and I were at the back of the parking lot of Cap’s Place sitting on a makeshift bench we had constructed out of a couple of empty wooden crates and a plank. Justin had brought a small cooler of Landshark from his boat and we were proceeding to drain as many as possible. Our goal had been to retrieve any salvageable personal property we could find. There really hadn’t been much, but what we found we put into the storeroom. Justin had worked shoulder to shoulder with me under the hot sun. Marge had told me that Servpro, the restoration company hired by the insurance company, would be here tomorrow. We deemed ourselves lucky, because the news stories were replete with accounts of people who couldn’t find a reputable contractor due to the scope of the need. Hurricane Ella had bounced along the coast all the way to the Carolina’s before turning back eastward and dissipating over the Atlantic. Recovery needs were stretched nearly one-thousand miles along the shore. I wanted to pick
through things for any personal items I wanted to tuck away before a crew of people I didn’t know started. Every time a vehicle slowed in front of the building we had expected it to be some government official there to tell us we were trespassing by being in a building that had been clearly posted by the city as unsafe to enter. Luck had smiled on us and no one noticed us, or did but didn’t care. It wasn’t like they didn’t have anything else to do these days.

  I’d told Justin about telling the detective the story of our encounters with Mooch and Ty, including the parts about him. I explained that they had originally thought he was one of the robbery homicide suspects, so I felt it important to explain how he really fit into the situation. I pointed out that the detective seemed a little skeptical when I said that I didn’t know his full name. After I finished, Justin shrugged his shoulders and said, “Sounds like you did the right thing. Thanks.” He didn’t offer any additional insight regarding his name.

  After twisting the caps off of two more beers and handing me one, Justin asked, “So, you going to Michigan to see your former father-in-law?” Somewhere during the odyssey of the past few days I’d told him of Katharine’s visit.

  “Yeah, I think I am. Don’t really want to. Don’t even know what he wants to see me about, but somehow I just think it’s one of those things I’ve got to do. Evidently, he’s not going to live much longer, so figure I better go up there before it’s too late and I end up regretting it. Moe and Marge are dealing with the insurance adjusters. They don’t need me to do that. By the time I get back, we should have enough information to sit down and decide how to proceed.”

  Justin gave me a quizzical look and asked, “You are going to rebuild, aren’t you?”

  I took some of the icy water from the cooler and rubbed it across my forehead. “I don’t know. Probably . . . but I don’t really know. I’ll need to see how the insurance numbers come out.”