by Delia Rosen
“What about the phone? Does it work?”
“I tried to call out—nada. Hey, I’ve got someone here—a woman who isn’t my girlfriend.”
He shined the light to his right. The cold white beam fell on A.J. She was lying on her back, covered in raw vegetables, her eyes closed but her chest moving. “I heard her moaning a second ago,” the man said.
I made my way to him, stepping over the wreck of what used to be a pegboard full of utensils. They were now scattered on broken pieces of floor tile and concrete. As I rounded Sandy’s suspended delivery truck, I saw Luke ahead. He was sitting just beyond the point where the front half of the van disappeared up through the floor, like Ezekiel’s battle chariot headed for the middle of the air. Actually, it looked nothing like that; I was thinking biblical because, I guess, I was kind of hoping God was paying attention.
“Luke, can you scoot over to your right?” I asked.
“Sure—why?”
I asked Benjamin to shine the phone past me. The cone of light illuminated the van like an oncoming truck.
“Holy crap!” Luke said when he saw it.
“Oh my,” Sandy added. It was surprise tinged with guilt, even though this wasn’t her fault.
Luke started to crab-walk away from the van, toward A.J., on his dragging tuchas. It occurred to me that it was a necessary but somewhat futile move; if the damn thing fell in, it would take the rest of the ceiling with it, in which case it might not matter where we were. There were other appliances above us, like the oven and fryer with its still-hot oil and the walk-in refrigerator . . . not to mention knives, sacks of potatoes and other heavy food items, people, and the structural beams themselves. If the collapse were big enough—and I couldn’t tell from here—there were also the tables and chairs in the dining area, the counter, the cash register, and my office.
“Should we be moving everyone toward the walls?” Sandy asked. She was looking around in the light, the same as I was. “It seems to me the ceiling would hold up better along the sides, like standing in a doorway during an earthquake.”
“Unless the walls fall over,” I pointed out as I made my way toward A.J.
“Oh, Jesus,” Sandy said with sudden understanding.
“I hear people up there,” Luke said.
“I know. Probably getting them out of the deli.” This supposition was supported by the fact that while my hearing was getting clearer, the voices were getting dimmer.
“I assume you’re Ms. Murray?” Benjamin said.
“I’m Gwen Katz,” I told him as I knelt between Luke and A.J. “Murray was my uncle. You’re from Philly?”
“I was an undergrad there. How did you know?”
It may have seemed like an inane question given the circumstances, but I was trying to keep my mind off our circumstances.
“You pronounced ‘Murray’ as ‘Merry.’”
“I see. Haven’t lived there in a while, but accents die hard.”
“Welcome to Nashville,” I said.
I removed the napkin and cleaned the powder from A.J.’s face. I touched her neck. The pulse seemed strong enough. I took her cheeks gently between my fingers, moved her head from side to side. She didn’t moan. I slid my fingers under her head, felt a damp spot. I lifted her head from the concrete shard it had struck. Luke pulled it away and I lay her head back down, on the napkin.
Suddenly, another light flashed on, a big one coming from behind me, from the direction from which Candy Sommerton’s voice had come. It was different from the other light, less pure, more yellowy: a big, industrial flashlight. I looked over at a strangely inverted face.
Candy Sommerton was lying not far from her new camera operator, Washington Waverly, who was about three feet away to the right. They were both on their backs, their legs raised slightly higher and bent at the knees, resting on rubble. They looked like astronauts in one of the old Gemini space capsules, wide-eyed and alert. The camera was half buried by debris, the lens crushed. I took all that in before the cameraman turned the flashlight back toward me. I imagined it came from the utility belt he was wearing.
Benjamin shut his phone to conserve the battery while, under the glow of the flashlight, I picked through the icebergs of rubble on my way to the newshounds. The bottoms of their legs, from about the knee downward, were lost in a stack of Sheetrock and wood that was stacked at least five feet high. I could see nothing in the darkness beyond, but I knew what was there: a roughly six foot high room with an oil burner, the water heater, and the water mains that ran toward and then under the street.
“Well, pickle me pink,” I said as I started over.
“That’s a little flip under the circumstances, don’t you think?” the newscaster asked.
“Under tense circumstances, that’s what I do,” I replied. “I get flip. You should see my divorce transcripts.” I reached the duo and took the flashlight. I ran it up and down the wall of debris. “I think you’d better stay there—I’m afraid of what might happen if I tried to move anything.”
“Human Jenga,” Waverly said.
I smiled. “Welcome to the Borsht Belt South.”
He smiled up at me weakly. Candy was busy rotating her jaw, pushing an index finger around and about behind her ears, apparently trying to pop them.
“If you two are finished smart alecking, what the hell’re we going to do?” Candy asked.
I shined the flashlight up and down, then back and forth across the wall of debris. It looked like a stage set from here, complete with ominous props, a cast in jeopardy, dramatic lighting.
“The first thing we’re going to do is get everyone to the other side of this mound,” I decided.
“Why?” Candy asked.
“Because the floor above is the dining area and the street—probably a lot more sound than what’s directly on top of us. Benjamin? Luke?”
“Yes?” they answered in unison.
“There’s a spot to the right—see it?” I shined my light toward the right, where the wall that was piled on Candy and her cameraman dipped lower and lower, like some Roman ruin. It was only about three feet high at its lowest point. “Let’s get everyone over there. Once they’re on the other side, I’m going to try and get these two out.”
“Try?” Candy cried.
“If this stuff on top of you falls forward, you’ll be a lot worse off—”
“Than if that van drops and comes forward?” Candy asked.
She had a point. I had thought about it dropping but not continuing in the direction it was facing, running her over. The vehicle was not moving but it was creaking—along with the section of our ceiling that was supporting it. But those might be internal sounds, like the engine and steering wheel column, that sort of thing.
I looked back. In the faint light, I could see Luke and Benjamin gently raising A.J. as a prelude to carrying her over. To my right, Sandy was starting slowly, painfully, to get to her feet. She reminded me of a quarterback who had been sacked hard on knees that were already wobbly. Sandy could help me with Thom and then we could turn our attention to these two.
“All right,” I agreed. “Just sit tight while I see to Thom.”
“Like we have a choice?” she said.
“See? I knew you had some funny in you,” I said. “I’m going to move Thomasina and then I’ll get something to climb on so I can push the pile toward the oil burner on the other side, away from you.”
“Be careful where you push,” Waverly said.
“Sure, but why?”
He looked backward at me, over his forehead. “Because I think my camera landed there.”
“I’m sure it’s insured—”
“Not what I mean,” he said. “I was turning to shoot the diners when everything went nuts.”
“I still don’t—”
“He may have caught the explosion,” Candy said.
Chapter 4
Things had been so messy and disorienting I hadn’t given any real thought to the cause of the blas
t itself. That would come, of course, but not right now.
I knew this basement like I knew my own handwriting, which was to say very, very well. But in the near-dark, it was unfamiliar. All the color had been replaced by three shades of gray: moldy gray, cadaverous gray, and granite gray. Visually, there was no hint of health or life. Motion? Yes. Life? No. The outside sounds I was accustomed to hearing down here were gone or thickly muted, rendering them unfamiliar. The sounds down here were heightened. Every move was accompanied by a shifting of sharp-edged stone or debris—a cold, serrated sound. I could hear my breath and, when I was near other people, their breath too. And speaking of breath, the air was musty, dusty, and dry. It filled my nostrils with a cottony film. The temperature, usually open-oven hot in the summer, skating rink cool in the winter, was a strange mix: chilly with waves of body heat slowly taking over. Whether we knew it or not, we were all perspiring, all afraid. Debris from the kitchen jutted from the ground like a lunar landscape; a bent colander, a shattered carving board, the silvery slicer. I said before that it was like a stage set. I was accustomed to seeing those with a script. With a cast in fake jeopardy. With the ending known to someone. This was still only the first scene in the first act.
I had never been in a disaster, except on the outside of an event like that of the World Trade Center, and my brain and body just did what it had to from moment to moment. There was no past, no future, only “now” with multiple and pressing demands. I couldn’t afford to dwell on the things I did not know, like who did this and why, though a corner of my mind could not help working on the puzzle of the blast.
I had assumed the explosion was something in the kitchen, most likely gas—the combustible kind, not the greptsy from eating grivenes kind. But I wondered if that were the case. I hadn’t smelled anything, and then there was the timing. A mayoralty candidate was in the deli. Was she the target? If so, who would want to kill a mayoralty candidate for Nashville in a deli? Or anywhere else, for that matter?
I watched as the young men carried A.J. over. Her arms hung limp, swaying at her side, her fingertips scraping the debris field. They had found a plank to put her on, hoping to minimize as much as possible the impact on any broken bones or internal injuries she may have suffered. I worried about internal bleeding. Holding the flashlight, I placed her arms on her chest as we worked her up and over the breach in the wall. Then we went over to where Sandy was helping to free Thomasina. Sandy was mostly feeling her way in the dark shadows outside that pale cone of the flashlight. I could hear my manager’s strained breathing, hoped she was not keeping something serious from me like a heart attack. She was like that, worried about others first. It wasn’t a martyr complex but a true generosity of spirit. I left Benjamin sitting with A.J., cradling her, and took Luke to lend a hand with Thomasina. With some effort, the three of us got my zaftig manager on her bloodied legs. She winced as she draped her arms over my shoulder and Luke’s, her fingers clutching our backs with sharp, painful fingernails. I let her hang on; she needed it. Sandy held the flashlight and hobbled after us as we went.
“I’m sorry to be such trouble,” Thom said.
“Don’t make me hit you,” I replied.
She snorted a little laugh. “Lord Jesus, forgive one of us for our sins or both of us if You have the inclination. And bless Luke who suffers in silence.”
He rotated his chin. “That’s because your shoulder beef is in my mouth.”
“She doesn’t really have shoulder ‘beef,’” said the butcher’s daughter. “That would be a cow, steer, or bull.”
“Maybe, but ‘shoulder meat’ sounds kinda raunchy,” Luke said.
“I’ll settle for my angel wing,” Thom said.
We all laughed as we got Thom to the wall, helped her over—she winced but did not cry out—and then I left Sandy with my apron and told her to clean and bind her injuries as best as possible. Benjamin was using his cell phone to explore the little cavern with its rusted iron pipes and dragon of an oil burner. Then he turned to Washington’s camera. He fumfitted around there for a few moments.
“This baby looks fried,” he said.
Washington craned around. “You talkin’ about my camera?”
“Yes, and I mean that literally. There’s a coating of solid white grease, still warm. Looks like it got inside.”
“Damn. Damn.”
Benjamin stood at a crouch, continued to shine the light around. “Is there a way back there?” he asked.
“Not for us,” I told him, “though I imagine that’s how rescuers will try to get in. The far end, where that big rusty pipe runs transverse into the bigger, rustier pipe, is under a sheet of dirt that’s beneath the sidewalk. It’ll probably be a helluva lot more solid than the rest of the floor.”
“Maybe we should bang on the pipes, let them know we’re here,” Luke suggested.
“Okay, but let’s throw things at the oil burner.”
“Why?” Benjamin asked.
“They’ll get a floor plan, know exactly where that is.”
“Good point,” Benjamin said.
He looked around, grabbed stone-size pieces of debris, and hurled them. They hit with a series of dull bangs. A few more flakes descended, like something shaken off by a slumbering giant. If anyone heard, they made no sign.
“There’s probably a lot of commotion up there,” I said. “The sounds might be lost in that.”
“Yeah, and I’m not too crazy about this banging stuff,” Sandy said. “You ever seen those avalanche movies where someone shouts and brings down a cliff?”
“I have,” Luke said. “I’ve also seen movies where people are trapped with a killer.”
He was probably being glib, but I had to admit he had a point. I was pretty sure of Sandy, and I didn’t think Candy would go that far for a story. But we knew nothing about Benjamin. Or the target, if there was a target.
Benjamin was crouched, froglike, tenderly holding A.J.’s right hand in his. Maybe he was a naturally sensitive guy. Given my current suspicion about the goodness of all men, of any man, I stayed out of that mental debate. All that mattered was whether or not it helped A.J. feel better. That decided, I settled in with the others. We had gathered in a kind of Lord of the Flies circle around the glowing cell phone in Benjamin’s other hand.
Washington sighed a big, disgusted sigh. He was a linebacker-big hillbilly with a wispy beard and whipped prune accent to go with the look. He was on his knees like he was waiting to be baptized.
“So what do we do, just sit here and trim our fingernails?” the camera operator asked.
“Given the flakiness quality of the ceiling, I think that’s the best thing,” I said. “The sitting and waiting, I mean.”
“Why?” Washington asked.
“For one thing, Sandy is right,” I said. “Fumbling around or even loud noises may cause something to fall. We don’t know what’s propping up what. For another, and perhaps more importantly, if we make noise we may not be able to hear any instructions that are called from above.”
“Good point,” Luke said.
“Like we could hear anyone now?” Washington asked. “I like being proactive, man.”
“I agree,” Candy said. “You think sitting in one place, under a ceiling that could be ready to fall on our heads, is a good idea?”
“Maybe not good, but better,” I suggested.
“Uh-uh,” Washington said. “Gettin’ out is a better idea. In case you didn’t notice, there ain’t a lot of good air down here and it ain’t gettin’ any fresher.”
“So stop talking,” Benjamin said.
Washington’s small eyes seemed to double in size.
“Benjamin is right,” I said. “And moving around will only use it up.”
“I see. And who made you lead coon dog?” he asked.
“My place, I’m in charge.”
“What is this, martial law?” Candy asked.
“Nothing so sensible as that,” I said. “Who’re you gonna sue when
this is all over?”
“What?” she asked.
“According to my insurance policy, the safety of customers and suppliers on my premises is my legal responsibility. I want to be able to say we acted cautiously and rationally.”
“Waiting to be suffocated or crushed ain’t rational!” Washington said.
“I’m with him,” Candy said. “Jesus, Gwen. I can’t believe you’re worried about money at a time like this.”
My spine went cold. “Money?”
“That’s what insurance is,” Candy said.
“I hope you’re not saying what I think you’re saying,” I said. I hadn’t really faced a lot of Jewish stereotyping since coming to Nashville, but this was the South and my radar was clearly set to “sensitive.”
“I’m saying that your priorities are messed up,” Candy said.
“That, from a woman whose job it is to push her way into tragic situations and bust them up with a can opener.”
“Ladies, civility,” Sandy cautioned.
Candy had leaned forward. Now she settled back. That was her nod to civility. “My job is about reading people,” she said. “In case you haven’t noticed, it looks to me like my camera operator is having a panic attack.”
I looked over. Washington seemed embarrassed by the revelation. Candy gave him a sympathetic look. So did I. Candy might have been an empty talking head on TV, but she was right about Washington and she was also right that I hadn’t noticed. I saw a faint sheen forming on his leathery skin and it wasn’t from the stuffiness. His eyes were moving about, his head making restless little birdlike movements forward and back.
“It’s not panic—it’s the air,” he said. “I just need to breathe.”
“Washington, can I make a suggestion?” I asked.
“No, you can stop telling me what to do!”
“A suggestion isn’t ‘telling’—”
“I said shut up!” Washington stood defiantly and gave his head a mighty zetz on a pipe. We actually heard it clong like in a cartoon. He yelped and dropped back to his knees, his two big paws rubbing his crown. Candy just looked at him sadly, like a ghostly pale Esmeralda at Quasimodo.