The first explosion caused us all to jump in our seats, and Lindsey, who was passing a bowl of potato salad to Don, dropped it onto the table with a jarring crash. “What the hell?” Chuck said. Don, who was on his feet before the potato salad hit the table, ran across the room and positioned himself to the side of the living room window, his back to the wall, his right hand resting on his shoulder holster. His pose looked extremely professional. “Everyone stay where you are,” he ordered. No one argued. A second blast rattled the window and then Don took a quick peek out of the corner. I saw his right hand first relax and then leave his shoulder holster altogether, which I took to be a good sign.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“They’re shooting off fireworks,” he said, puzzled.
“Who is?”
“You got me. Someone in the crowd.”
We all got up from the table and joined him at the window, just in time to see a bottle rocket go up and burst into green and red sparks. “Whoa,” Jeremy said, impressed. There was a series of rapid, machine-gun type bursts as someone set off a handful of firecrackers, and then a small explosion of red and yellow sparks that spun around on the ground like a twister. The crowd had moved to one side of the clearing, in order to watch the fireworks while maintaining some distance. Sullivan got out of his car, megaphone in hand, and began shouting a warning to the kids in the crowd, but his voice was drowned out by more explosions as two more bottle rockets were launched. The crowd applauded appreciatively as Sullivan put down his megaphone and began a purposeful walk from his car over to the crowd. We couldn’t see who was setting off the pyrotechnics because of the crowd surrounding them, but that meant they couldn’t see the sheriff approaching either. Suddenly there was a loud, hissing noise, followed by a short, muffled blast and a flash of green light and then the dull thud of an unseen impact. “That was too low,” Don said, concerned.
“What?” I asked.
“That explosion. It was in the crowd.” Before he even finished speaking, we heard some anguished shouts. “Oh, shit,” Chuck said, heading for the front door. “Call 911.”
They’d been using three lead pipes, each no more than two feet long, which they’d planted into the ground at various angles to launch the fireworks. Each pipe had an opening, cut into it right before the shaft disappeared into the earth, so that they could slide the fireworks into the pipe and still have access to the fuse. It was a crude launch pad, but it did the trick. The kids lighting the fuses were too caught up in their task to realize that each blast was rocking the pipes in the ground, loosening them, until finally one of the pipes had taken off with the bottle rocket it was launching. The charge had apparently exploded within the rusty pipe, sending lead fragments shooting like shrapnel into the huddle of journalists who were covering the vigil, the largest piece ricocheting off one of the news vans and into the shoulder of the Fox News cameraman, where it embedded itself painfully. The bottle rocket itself, freed of the pipe, had pierced the throat of a young girl, whose heart Chuck was desperately trying to restart.
The crowd was deathly silent as Chuck worked on the girl, pumping and counting as he tried to breathe life back into her. As he breathed into her, he gently moved the stem of the rocket, still stuck in her throat, out of his way, taking great pains not to dislodge it. He worked with rhythm and determination, oblivious to the crowd around him. Sheriff Sullivan leaned over the wounded cameraman, calming him down and wrapping him in a blanket, while Sally Hughes sat on her knees, her hand on his chest. She was bleeding from a nasty gash on her left temple, although she didn’t seem to have noticed it yet.
A number of other kids had been hit by flaming debris from the rogue missile, and Don, Alison, Lindsey, and I moved between them, assessing their injuries as best we could. They all had suffered some mild burns, but nothing that looked very alarming, so we just calmed them down and Don procured some ice from one of the media vans to apply to the burns until they could be treated.
Carmelina had only one ambulance and when it arrived the two paramedics took in the scene and for a moment they seemed overwhelmed by the crowd. “Over here,” Chuck called to them. “I’ve got no respirations.” As Chuck spoke, the medics pulled open the girl’s shirt and began placing electrode stickers on her chest. “She’s got a puncture and burn at the base of her neck,” Chuck said through grunts as he continued to press down on her chest. “Just above the sternal notch.” The monitor the medics set up came alive with two loud beeps and Chuck automatically turned to look at it. “She’s in V tach, let’s hit her with three-sixty.”
I turned away as the paramedics placed the paddles on her and yelled “Clear!” There was a small, popping sound and the faintest smell of smoke, and then Chuck said, “We’ve got a pulse!” There were scattered cheers from the surrounding crowd as Chuck and - the paramedics worked to stabilize the girl and move her onto the stretcher. I found myself filled with admiration for Chuck, for his expertise and confidence. I wondered what it felt like to be so adept at something, to be able to walk fearlessly into such a horrifying situation and know how to make it better.
A few minutes later they loaded the girl into the ambulance, followed by the wounded cameraman, and the ambulance took off. Chuck looked over the three kids who’d been burned and, determining that they were in no serious danger, sent them off to the hospital with Deputy Dan. Sullivan patted Chuck on the back and gave him an appreciative nod before wading into the crowd to determine who was responsible for the fireworks. It was then that Chuck saw Sally Hughes leaning against her news van, pressing some blood-soaked paper towels to her wounded temple. “Who says there’s no god?” he whispered to me with a smile, before heading over to examine her. “You’re going to need a few stitches,” he told her with a frown. “Why don’t you come into the house and I’ll take care of you.”
“Will you tell me about Jack Shaw?” she asked weakly.
He smiled incredulously. “You’re losing blood and all you can think about is how you can use it to get a story?”
“You’re going to use it to get a date, aren’t you?”
“Touché,” Chuck said, and, offering her his arm, led her across the street.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Alison said.
“Come on, cut him a break,” Lindsey said. “He was great out there.”
“He was,” Don agreed.
“And she is of legal age,” I pointed out.
“Okay, okay,” Alison smiled. “Let’s just get inside. It’s freezing out here.”
Chuck worked on Sally Hughes from Fox News in the kitchen, while the rest of us sipped hot apple cider in the living room. Don got a fire going in the fireplace and we all sat back to warm up. In all the confusion of the last half hour, none of us had realized how cold it was outside, and only once we entered the relative warmth of the house did it occur to us that we were freezing. Jeremy, who had been ordered to stay in the house when we all ran out, had been watching anxiously from the window, and he insisted on full details, which we gave in bits and pieces as we all relived what we’d seen. A little while later Chuck joined us with Sally, who now sported a gauze bandage on her temple, and introductions were made all around.
Alison remembered that we hadn’t eaten dessert and she brought out a batch of marshmallows and brownies, as well as some long hot-dog tongs we could use as spits to roast the marsh-mallows. In all the activity, no one but me heard the three short knocks on the back door. Given the insane nature of the evening so far, I was only mildly surprised when I opened the door to find Darth Vader standing on the Schollings’s deck. “Can I help you?” I asked the Dark Lord of the Sith.
“Let me in, Ben,” Jack said, his voice muffled by the mask. “I’m freezing my ass off out here.”
I stood aside mutely as he walked into the house and followed him into the living room, where he effectively silenced the conversation as everyone stared at him with varying degrees of concern. Alison stood up slowly, gaping at Jack, who finally
reached up and pulled off the Darth Vader helmet. There was a crackling of static electricity as the mask came off and it caused Jack’s hair to float comically around his head. He used his fingers to brush some greasy strands out of his face, smiled uncertainly and said, “Miss me?” Alison walked slowly across the room, her face twitching with emotion and Jack fell into her arms.
“That,” Jeremy announced, “is my mask.” We all laughed and the laughter seemed to break the spell on Chuck, Lindsey, and me. The three of us jumped up and ran to hug Jack and Alison and each other, patting and holding each other with tears in our eyes, acknowledging the enormous stress of the last few days now that we could finally relieve ourselves of it.
“Where were you man?” Chuck kept asking him. “Where the hell were you?” But Jack just held onto Alison with his eyes closed, not responding to any of our exhortations, until, as he began to slip down and out of her grip, it finally dawned on us that he had passed out.
Don and I carried Jack over to the couch and laid him down as Chuck ran into the kitchen to get his medical bag. We all watched as Chuck examined Jack, who by now had regained consciousness and was muttering to himself. “He’s dehydrated and he’s got a high fever,” Chuck said, frowning as he pulled out a stethoscope and slid it under Jack’s black T-shirt. I wondered where he’d gotten the shirt. “He may also have low-level hypothermia. Someone get some blankets.”
As Chuck continued to examine him, I noticed that Jack had a fair amount of cuts and scrapes on his neck and arms, as well as his chest. “Jesus,” I said. “Where the hell was he?”
“I don’t know,” Chuck said. “He’s suffering from exposure. It looks like he was outdoors for some time.”
“Is he in any danger?” Alison asked as Lindsey came downstairs with a load of blankets.
“Nah,” Chuck said. “I don’t think so. He just got himself sick.”
“High?” I asked, quietly.
“Can’t tell,” Chuck said. “Although the fever could be part of withdrawal, which would be a good sign.”
“Not high,” Jack mumbled, opening his eyes. “Just fucking cold.”
“You sure?” Chuck asked.
Jack grabbed Chuck’s wrist. “No drugs!” he whispered, his voice scratchy and hoarse. “I’m clean, man. Sick and sober.”
“Okay then,” Chuck said. “I believe you.”
“Better believe it, man,” Jack said, closing his eyes. “Better fucking believe it.”
Chuck wrote out some prescriptions, and Don drove into town to fill them. Lindsey made some vegetable soup, which Jack began to devour as if he hadn’t eaten in days. “Easy,” Chuck said, pulling the bowl away. “You want to keep it down, you have to go slow.” Jack nodded in understanding, but as soon as Chuck moved the bowl back, Jack began wolfing it down again. He just couldn’t help himself. Within a minute he began retching and Chuck took the bowl away. “Forget it,” Chuck said. “You’ll eat through your arm for the time being.” He produced an IV drip and inserted the needle into Jack’s arm. He had no stand for the bag, though, so he called a wide-eyed Jeremy over and had him perch on the sofa back holding the bag. “Just hold that until it’s empty,” Chuck told him. “It should take about forty-five minutes.”
“Okay,” Jeremy said gravely.
Chuck left to put away his bag and get a drink. Jack opened his eyes weakly to find Jeremy staring down at him in wide-eyed fascination. “Who’re you?” Jack asked him.
“Jeremy Miller.”
“Oh,” Jack said and closed his eyes again.
“He’s still pretty out of it,” I told Jeremy.
“I can’t believe that this is really him, you know?” Jeremy said. “Blue Angel. Right here on the couch.”
“When I see him in the movies, I think the opposite,” I said. “I think, I can’t believe that’s my friend Jack up there on the screen.”
“Do you think he’ll be okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, although I was wondering about the long-term prognosis.
“I was in the forest,” Jack told us the next morning, as if that made sense. We were all eating breakfast in the living room. His fever was down and some of his color had returned, although his face still appeared somewhat haggard. There were still dark pouches under his eyes, but he seemed bright and focused and significantly improved from last night. “I got this crazy notion that I had to get back to nature, you know? Like get born again or something, so I just took off into the woods.”
“Why the woods?” Alison asked. She was sitting by his feet at the edge of the couch, where she’d no doubt spent the night. Lindsey and I were on the love seat, and Chuck was on the armrest of the easy chair across from us. I’d walked a reluctant Jeremy home the night before, when the IV bag had been depleted. He was in school now, probably finding it almost impossible to keep the secret I’d asked him to for at least another day. As Don had been leaving last night he’d promised to stop by on his way out of town, but he had yet to show up, so for now it was just the five of us, which was really the way it needed to be anyway.
“I don’t know,” Jack answered Alison. “I wasn’t thinking too rationally. When I left the house, I was planning on getting to town, calling Paul, and getting the hell out of Dodge, you know? I was going to have him wire me a ticket, and get my ass back to LA. I was already a little feverish, I think.” He stopped for a moment, a perplexed look crossing his face. “I didn’t even think to put on a shirt,” he said in disbelief. “Jesus, can you imagine that?”
“Get to the part where you become Tarzan,” Chuck advised him.
“Can I have a cigarette?” Jack asked.
“No, but you can have some oatmeal,” Chuck said.
“Christ,” Jack complained, but he didn’t turn down the oatmeal when Chuck put it in front of him.
“Slowly,” Chuck cautioned him.
We all watched Jack eat three or four spoonfuls as if it was the most fascinating spectacle we’d ever seen. It occurred to me that this must be what it’s like to be Jack Shaw the movie star. Everywhere he went, people surrounded him, trying to get a glimpse of even the most mundane aspects of his life.
“Anyway,” Jack continued, wiping his chin with his forearm. “I’m walking down the road, trying to hitchhike, but there’s like no one out there, and the few cars that go by don’t stop. It didn’t occur to me what I must have looked like. I thought for sure someone would recognize me and stop. Every time I go out I hope no one will spot me, and the one time I want to be spotted, no one does. Go figure. Anyway, I thought, no sweat, I’ll just walk. So I’m walking down the road and I’m looking at the mountains on both sides of the road, with all those trees and everything, and they just looked so quiet, you know? And I thought about what would happen when I made it into town, and when I made it back to LA, between work and the media and all, and I just figured I’d be high again before too long. I’d either score something here, or Paul would have something for me when I got back—”
“Paul gives you drugs?” I asked incredulously.
“Yeah,” Jack said simply.
“That bastard,” Lindsey said
“He doesn’t shove them up my nose,” Jack said pointedly. “I’m the one who takes them.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Chuck said. “Your agent is a fucking drug dealer. You have to get rid of him.”
“It’s not that simple,” Jack said.
“It ought to be,” Chuck retorted angrily.
“Let it go,” Alison said softly. “We’ll deal with it later.”
Jack looked at her appreciatively. “Listen,” he said to Chuck. “I’m not denying that he’s part of the problem, okay. But I just don’t want to fall into the trap of pushing the blame onto anyone else. The problem is me and me alone, okay?”
“Okay,” Chuck said, although he clearly remained unconvinced.
“Anyway,” Jack said, after a few more spoonfuls of oatmeal. “I’m walking down the road, looking at these mountains, and it starts to
rain, just this light drizzle, you know? And I feel the rain on my skin, and it feels good and clean, like the first clean thing I’ve felt in months. And I don’t know what happened then. I was just standing in the middle of nowhere, and it was dark as hell and there were these quiet mountains all around and I felt alone, but not in a bad way. I just felt like I was alone with myself for the first time in so long, you know?”
I’d lost count, but it seemed like the fifth or sixth “you know?” in Jack’s narrative. He desperately wanted us to understand, to affirm his experience. Alison was nodding and I saw that her eyes were moist. “And I just thought,” Jack continued, “if I could just be alone like that for a while, I could somehow get a handle on myself, kind of get back in control. And the mountains and the forest just looked so peaceful, and one thing I was sure of was that I’d have one hell of a time trying to find any cocaine up there.”
“So you just walked into the forest and set up residence, like Thoreau?” I asked.
“Yeah, I guess,” Jack said. “I wanted to sort of beat myself down. No food, no distractions, kind of like the Indians used to do, you know, to become a man.”
“You had a Native American bar mitzvah,” Chuck remarked, eyebrows raised.
Jack smiled. “Something like that.”
“And we were worried that an intervention would be too dramatic,” I said wryly.
Lindsey laughed. “We should have known we’d be outdone by a true professional.”
“What the hell did you do in the woods for three days?” Chuck asked him.
“I meditated mostly,” Jack said. “I thought about all of you and me and my life and the drugs and my career and everything, you know? I played these games where I would organize and reorganize my priorities. And I walked a lot, all over the woods, up one mountain and down the other. It’s really an amazing thing. Your natural instinct when you’re in the woods at night is to be afraid and get the hell out you know? And your natural instinct when it’s raining is to find shelter. And when I forced myself to ignore those instincts and just relax and embrace the rain, the cold, and my fears it was very liberating. And once I found myself liberated from those needs, stopping the cocaine didn’t seem like such a big deal anymore.”
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