The Broken Places

by Susan Perabo

  “I look okay?” he asked Paul, reappearing from the bathroom for the third time in twenty minutes. “My tie straight?”

  “You look fine,” Paul said.

  “You sure? Hair okay?” He thrust aside the offending bangs. “I shoulda got it cut yesterday, huh?”

  “It’s fine, Dad. Jeez.”

  “Sixty seconds!” one of the cameramen shouted, and Paul moved to the spot behind the camera, where his mother stood, a faint smile of bemusement on her lips.

  “He’s kinda hyper,” Paul said.

  She shook her head. “You’d think he was getting married.”

  The cameraman overheard and turned to them with a knowing grin. “With TV virgins, you got your pukers and you got your dancers. Take my word . . . you got the better of the two.”

  “I’ll try to keep that in mind,” Laura said.

  “We’re on in five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . .” The cameraman pointed at the reporter. The reporter was a young man, no older than Sonny, with the narrow sculpted face and the smooth intonation of obvious network material.

  “How many real live heroes do we have?” he asked the camera, pausing a beat after the question just long enough for viewers to arrive at the correct answer. “How many of us would risk our lives to save another? Three nights ago, in the small town of Casey, Pennsylvania, veteran firefighter Sonny Tucker did just that. Many of you watched as Lieutenant Tucker crawled down a tiny hole and into the basement of a collapsed farmhouse to rescue Ian Finch, the high school student trapped inside. More than five hours later both men came out alive, thanks to quick thinking and unimaginable courage on the part of one hometown fireman. I’m here today with Sonny Tucker. Sonny, first, tell us how you’re holding up.”

  “I’m great!” Sonny shouted. His hands were jumping all over his lap. “Fantastic! Never better!” For a second Paul thought he was going to try to give the guy a high five or something, and he felt briefly and intensely mortified. What had become of his father, the man who accepted compliments with a sheepish smile, the man who shied from adoration?

  “What was it like down there under the house?” the reporter asked.

  “Dark,” Sonny said, and everyone in the room snickered. Paul had already heard his father use this line three times just this morning; each time the laugh was briefer. Sonny seemed to sense his joke was getting old, and he quickly went on. “Ian Finch was a trooper,” he said. “He spent a lot more time in there than I did.”

  “You thought at first, once you reached him, that the rescue effort was going to move quickly.”

  “We did,” Sonny said soberly. “But you learn to expect the unexpected. I’m just glad I was in there with him when the whole thing came down.”

  The reporter put on his most earnest expression. “This was a large rescue for such a small department. Had you ever faced anything of this magnitude before?”

  “I’ve been a fireman my whole life,” Sonny said. “We’re trained to face any kind of situation that may arise.”

  The reporter nodded thoughtfully. “But had you ever faced something like this?”

  “Not exactly like this, no,” Sonny said. He shifted on the couch. “But I’ve been trained in extrication techniques. We knew what we were doing.”

  “You had to make a difficult decision down there, didn’t you, the decision to amputate Ian Finch’s left foot, which was pinned to the floor, making any escape attempt virtually impossible. It was a call that probably saved his life, but it still must have been —”

  “Necessary,” Sonny interrupted. “Sometimes you have to . . .” He searched for more words, came up empty. “Well, it was necessary.”

  “Why don’t we bring your family over?” the reporter said, not wanting to burden morning TV viewers with any unnecessarily grisly detail. This had been planned, and Laura and Paul marched into the picture in their Sunday best, sat down on the couch on either side of Sonny. Paul kept staring at the red dot of light above the lens, thinking about all the people on the other side of that little light. It wasn’t even the strangers who bothered him; all he could think about was all the kids in his class sitting out there eating cereal in front of their TVs, hoping he would say something stupid that they could give him crap about when he got to school. It was becoming increasingly apparent to him, judging from the hot lump in his stomach, that he was a puker and not a dancer.

  “We’re very proud of him,” Laura said in answer to the reporter. “We knew he would be fine, but of course we’re very proud of what he did.”

  The reporter turned to Paul with a chummy wink. “And I guess young Paul Tucker knows the question on everyone’s mind this morning, don’t you, Paul?”

  A question? How cruel was this? He’d been told he’d only have to smile and look proud, nod in agreement with whatever his parents said. And now: the question on everyone’s mind. His brain went numb and he shook his head in slow motion, suddenly certain he had snot sliding out his left nostril.

  The reporter smiled winningly. “Gonna be a firefighter like your dad?”

  “Oh,” Paul said, relieved. “That.” He looked at his father for help, and Sonny smiled.

  “We already got one fireman in the family,” he said, patting Paul’s knee. “This kid’s gonna go off and cover another corner.”

  The following day Ian Finch was released from Hershey Medical Center. Before he even got the chance to go home, he was driven to the Tucker house in the back of the Channel 8 news van, rolled jerkily down the metal ramp in his wheelchair and right up to Sonny on the front stoop, while dozens of cameras rolled and clicked away for the first on-air reunion of hero and victim.

  Laura and Paul were standing on the front steps with Sonny. This was the first time Paul had seen Ian in person. His left leg was propped up in the wheelchair, a roll of gauze jutting off the end of his shin where his ankle and foot should have been. Paul let his eyes fall on it for a moment and then politely looked away. Sonny made introductions all around and Paul shook Ian’s bruised right hand. It was cool, like his mother’s hands. Ian’s face was narrow and light skinned, darkened by a smattering of coarse hair down his jawline and under his chin. He looked more eighteen than sixteen, his lips set in a lazy but permanent sneer. He was tall and gangly but his arms were tightly muscled; you could imagine that, if things had been different for him, he might be on the Casey High basketball team. He had a mess of black hair that appeared longer than it actually was, simply because it was so unkempt. It fell over his eyes and he was constantly tossing his head to the right so he could see.

  “This way!” a reporter shouted. “Big smiles!” Sonny put his hand on Ian’s shoulder and they all grinned on cue.

  “Jesus,” Ian muttered under his breath. He yawned.

  “Why don’t we go inside?” Laura said. “We’ll have a glass of iced tea and then you can get home, Ian. I’m sure your family’s anxious to see you.”

  “Yeah,” Ian said. “I’m sure they got a big party planned.”

  “Grab the chair, Paul,” Sonny said cheerfully. “Let’s get him up this step.”

  Paul leaned forward to take the right side of the wheelchair and collided with the pungent smell of stale cigarettes and body odor that emanated from Ian’s midsection. Instinctively he jerked his head away. What, he thought, there were no showers at Hershey Medical Center? No little soaps like they had even at the cheapest hotels? No deodorant deliveries from the gift shop? Ian glanced down at him.

  “What?” Ian asked.

  “What what?”

  “I don’t bite,” Ian whispered. “Not boys, at least.”

  Paul took hold of the arm of the chair and he and Sonny lifted Ian into the house, then closed the door on the reporters. Ian wheeled himself into the middle of the living room and looked around with vague interest. Then he took a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, tapped one out and lit it with a silver Zippo lighter. Paul waited for one of his parents to protest; usually they didn’t let people smoke
in the house — his mother was always making Ben stand in the backyard if he wanted a cigarette, even in the depths of winter. But now his father was silent. And his mother — though she shot a brief glare at the wafting smoke — didn’t say anything either. Instead she went off for the tea.

  “How you feeling?” Sonny asked. “You look better.”

  “You too,” Ian said. He took a long drag off his cigarette. His hands, like Sonny’s, were swollen purple and butchered with deep scratches.

  Sonny poured the peppermints from the candy dish onto the coffee table and handed the dish to Ian. “Glad to be out of the hospital?”

  Ian scoffed. “Tell you what — I’m never shittin’ in a bedpan again.”

  Paul sat down on the edge of the couch with his hands between his knees, trying to think of something to say. Ian glanced at him perfunctorily, smoke drooling lazily from his lips.

  “You know my sister? She goes to your school.”

  “She’s a grade ahead of me,” Paul said.

  He smirked. “That mean you can’t know her? ’Fraid of those eighth-grade pussies, huh?”

  “Ian . . .” Sonny said uneasily, setting his hand on the arm of the wheelchair.

  “Aw, I’m just messin’ with the kid,” Ian said. “Kid knows that.” He winked at Paul. “You know that. Right?”

  “Sure,” Paul said. Asshole, he wanted to add. Shit-for-brains. Stink bomb. Footless freak.

  Laura came back in the room with a tray full of sweaty glasses of tea. She handed one carefully to Ian, one to Sonny and Paul, and then stood there smiling expectantly.

  “Here we are,” she said.

  “And here’s to Sonny,” Ian said abruptly and much louder than necessary, raising his glass, the cigarette dangling precariously from his lips. “Only guy crazy enough to save my sorry ass.”

  They laughed, the two of them, just a little at first. Then they looked at each other laughing and they laughed even harder, broadly, recklessly. Ian had a cackly kind of laugh that reminded Paul of the ancient checkout lady at the Eagle grocery who was always cracking up at her own stale jokes. He glanced at his mother; she looked like she was watching a small animal being dissected.

  “So, Ian,” Laura said tightly, when their hysterics had somewhat subsided. “Will you be going back to school soon?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Why? You miss me?” Again he laughed, just a single sharp cackle this time. An ash dropped off his cigarette and fell to the carpet, and Laura scowled at it intently, as if she could remove it by sheer will alone.

  Ian turned to Sonny. “Hey, guess who called me this morning? Forget it, you won’t guess. Some big-shot producer at Fox TV. They’re all hot to make a movie about us. A movie, man, about you and me. They already got some guy working on the script. You believe that shit?”

  Sonny frowned. “How come I haven’t heard anything about it?”

  Ian squashed out his cigarette in the candy dish. “This guy, Gordon something, said he’s gonna call you later on today. I’m telling you they’re hot to go, man. He says to me, ‘Ian, you guys are hot right now.’”

  “A movie?” Laura asked skeptically. “You’re sure? An actual movie?”

  “Wow . . .” Paul said. He couldn’t help it. “Hey, Dad, maybe somebody cool’ll play you. Like Harrison Ford or somebody.”

  “You dimmo,” Ian said. “Harrison Ford’s like sixty or something. You want some fat old geezer playing your dad?”

  “Am I gonna be in it?” Paul asked, undeterred. “Did they say?”

  Ian shrugged. “Me and Sonny are the stars, that’s all I know. Most of it’s about him and me, down in the dungeon. They said —”

  “But they don’t know anything,” Sonny interrupted. “How are they supposed to write about stuff they don’t even know?”

  “That’s why they need us, genius,” Ian said. “We tell ’em.” He shook another cigarette from his pack. “Just like we’ve told everybody else.”

  That night Ben Griffin arrived at the house with a six-pack of beer and the news that the mayor had decided to hold a parade on Main Street the following Saturday for everyone involved in the rescue. All the firefighters, all the police officers, the whole county was invited.

  “Like for astronauts,” he said, plucking a beer from the pack before handing it off to Sonny. “Except no astronauts. And probably no ticker tape.”

  “Makes sense,” Sonny called on his way to the kitchen to put the beer away. “Since there’s no building taller than two stories downtown.”

  Ben grinned at Paul, flopped down beside him on the couch. “That’d kinda defeat the purpose of it, huh? Everybody could just stand along the street and hand us ticker tape, I guess.”

  Laura rolled her eyes. “A parade,” she said. She was sitting at the dining room table, marking student exams with a thick green pen. “Well now they’ve really thought of everything, haven’t they?”

  “Don’t you think we deserve a parade?” Ben asked, taking a swallow from his bottle.

  She smirked, nodded at the stack of papers before her. “Nobody’s ever thrown me a parade for doing my job.”

  “Well you never rescued anybody, now did you?” Ben asked, winking at Paul, not understanding the trap he was setting for himself, not understanding that the conversation was about to take an ugly turn. Paul knew — didn’t Ben too? — that his mother believed teaching was the most crucial responsibility anyone could undertake, that what she did was fifty times harder and a hundred times more important than pointing a hose at a flame.

  “I rescue more kids in a week than you will in your whole life,” she said flatly, setting down her pen, preparing for battle.

  “Hey, no offense . . .” Ben held up his beer in a gesture of surrender. “Didn’t mean —”

  “I’d quit while you’re ahead,” Sonny said, returning to the room. He set his hands gently on Laura’s shoulders, whether to comfort or restrain her Paul wasn’t certain. She looked up at him, her grimace easing into a smile at his touch. It was practically magic, Paul thought, how sometimes they could drain the bad out of each other in the space of a breath.

  “We’re gonna be in a movie,” Paul told Ben.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah, me and Dad and Mom and you and everybody. They’re making a TV movie about all of us.”

  “Now hold on,” Laura said. “It’s not a sure thing yet. It’s still in the planning stages.”

  “It’s pretty sure, though,” Sonny said. “I’m meeting some people tomorrow to talk it over. They’re taking Ian and me out to lunch.”

  Ben snorted, propped his feet on the coffee table. “Where at? The truck stop?”

  “They’re flying in to talk to us,” Sonny said. “Two of ’em. Remember that movie we watched with the guys a few months back, the one about the avalanche in Colorado? These are the guys who made that.”

  Ben took a gulp from his beer. “That the one where they all ate each other?”

  “That was Alive,” Paul said. “That wasn’t even Americans. It was soccer players.”

  “Point is,” Sonny said, “they know what they’re doing.”

  “Well,” Ben said. “I guess that’s pretty cool. I’d just watch out for those Hollywood people if I was you. Bunch of scammers, you know. Don’t go signin’ your name to anything before —”

  “What do you know about Hollywood people?” Sonny asked.

  “Well shit,” Ben said. “We’ve all heard stories, right? Some smooth-talkin’ big shot fills everybody’s heads with fame and fortune, then takes whatever they want and leaves the little guy in the dirt.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not the little guy here,” Sonny said, tightening his grip on Laura’s shoulders.

  “He’s right, though, honey,” Laura said, wiggling loose from him. “You should probably talk to a lawyer, someone who knows about these kinds of things. You could give Vic Lucas a call. He wrote up a contract when —”

  “What do you two take me for?” Sonny as
ked. He had a mild smile on his face when he said it, but Paul heard the bite behind the words. “You think I’m gonna sign away my soul to some smooth talker without checking it out first? You think I’m some kind of idiot ’cause I didn’t grow up in the big city like the two of you?”

  “Where did that come from?” Laura asked, craning her neck to look him full in the face.

  Ben shook his head. “I didn’t say you were an idiot, idiot. I just said be careful.”

  Paul thought this was pretty hilarious. Ben Griffin — of all people — telling Sonny Tucker — of all people — to be careful. His father wouldn’t even pour a glass of milk until he’d taken a whiff to make sure it wasn’t spoiled.

  “Talk to somebody,” Laura said, patting his hand before returning her attention to the stack of papers. “Will you?”

  Sonny grinned wryly. “Aye, aye, Cap’n,” he said.

  Chapter Four The parade was forming on Post Road, snaking erratically down three blocks from the intersection of Main and Post on the western edge of downtown. Sonny parked the car at the post office, near the head of the snake, so that they could all walk the length of the parade on the way to their place of honor at the end of it, see who had turned out for what was quickly beginning to feel to Paul like a full-fledged holiday. This was no Memorial Day Downtown Sidewalk Sale, no Labor Day Firehouse Pancake Breakfast. This was Christmas, Fourth of July, and a Casey Mustangs Conference Championship rolled into one delirious celebration of self-congratulation.

  Leading the parade were the Casey High pom-pom squad and the Mustang marching band, third-place finishers in the Millennial Central PA high school spirit competition. Behind the band, a troop of earnest equestrian Girl Scouts were cautiously saddling their horses. Immediately following the horses, squealing every time one of the animals let loose a powerful stream of urine onto the pavement, was a mob of nursery school children dressed as firefighters in yellow raincoats and plastic red helmets. Next was the entire crew from Trusty Construction, then a half-dozen teenagers made up with varying success as clowns, then the Kittatinny County cycle club, a dozen or so middle-aged men who lovingly stroked their Harleys. Finally, near the end of the line, were the fire and rescue personnel. In addition to the two Casey stations — the handful of career firefighters, twenty-seven volunteers, two pumpers, one aerial, and one multipurpose EMS vehicle — the five neighboring towns that made up the whole of Kittatinny County were represented, and they too had brought what appeared to be all volunteer personnel and apparatus. (Paul considered, briefly, the possibility of a great catastrophe, a chorus of alarms blaring in vacated stations across the valley.) Sonny waved cheerfully at his friends as they milled about their engines, securing hoses and ladders, steaming the chrome with breath and rubbing at phantom spots. The morning was cool, but the sun had burned through the clouds and bore hot as August on the back of Paul’s neck.