From a Buick 8

  "Shirley--" Herb started.

  "Not now, honeychile, not now," I said. "Just get out of here. Right out of my sight."

  Trooper Islington, meanwhile, had grabbed a handful of napkins off the counter and started mopping the front of my skirt.

  "Stop that!" I said, grabbing his wrist. "What do you think this is, Free Feel Friday?"

  "I just thought . . . if it hasn't set in yet . . ."

  I asked him if his mother had any kids that lived and he started in with Well Jesus, (if that's the way you feel, all huffy and offended.

  "Do yourself a favor," I said, "and go right now. Before you end up wearing this goddam coffee pot for a necklace."

  Out they went, more slinking than walking, and for quite awhile afterward they steered wide around me, Herb shamefaced and Justin Islington still wearing that puzzled, offended look--I said I was sorry, what do you want, egg in your beer?

  Then, a week later--on the day the shit hit the fan, in other words--they showed up in dispatch at two in the afternoon, Justin first, with the bouquet, and Herb behind him. Almost hiding behind him, it looked like, in case I should decide to start hucking paperweights at them.

  Thing is, I'm not much good at holding a grudge. Anyone who knows me will tell you that. I do all right with them for a day or two, and then they just kind of melt through my fingers. And the pair of them looked cute, like little boys who want to apologize to Teacher for cutting up dickens in the back of the room during social studies. That's another thing about men that gets you, how in almost the blink of a damned eye they can go from being loudmouth galoots who cut each other in the bars over the least little thing--baseball scores, for the love of God--to sweeties right out of a Norman Rockwell picture. And the next thing you know, they're in your pants or trying to get there.

  Justin held out the bouquet. It was just stuff they'd picked in the field behind the barracks. Daisies, black-eyed susans, things of that nature. Even a few dandelions, as I recall. But that was part of what made it so cute and disarming. If it had been hothouse roses they'd bought downtown instead of that kid's bouquet, I might have been able to stay mad a little longer. That was a good skirt, and I hate hemming the damned things, anyway.

  Justin Islington out in front because he had those blue-eyed football-player good looks, complete with the one curl of dark hair tumbled over his forehead. Supposed to make me melt, and sort of did. Holding the flowers out. Shucks, oh gorsh, Teacher. There was even a little white envelope stuck in with the flowers.

  "Shirley," Justin said--solemn enough, but with that cute little twinkle in his eyes--"We want to make up with you."

  "That's right," Herb said. "I hate having you mad at us."

  "I do, too," Justin said. I wasn't so sure that one meant it, but I thought Herb really did, and that was good enough for me.

  "Okay," I said, and took the flowers. "But if you do it again--"

  "We won't!" Herb said. "No way! Never!" Which is what they all say, of course. And don't accuse me of being a hardass, either. I'm just being realistic.

  "If you do, I'll thump you crosseyed." I cocked an eyebrow at Islington. "Here's something your mother probably never told you, you being a pointer instead of a setter: sorry won't take a coffee stain out of a linen skirt."

  "Be sure to look in the envelope," Justin said, still trying to slay me with those bright blue eyes of his.

  I put the vase down on my desk and plucked the envelope out of the daisies. "This isn't going to puff sneezing powder in my face or anything like that, is it?" I asked Herb. I was joking, but he shook his head earnestly. Looking at him that way, you had to wonder how he could ever stop anyone and give them a ticket for speeding or reckless driving without getting a ration of grief. But Troopers are different on the highway, of course. They have to be.

  I opened the envelope, expecting a little Hallmark card with another version of I'm sorry on it, this one written in flowery rhymes, but instead there was a folded piece of paper. I took it out, unfolded it, and saw it was a J.C. Penney gift certificate, made out to me in the amount of fifty dollars.

  "Hey, no," I said. All at once I felt like crying. And while I'm at it, that's the other thing about men --just when you're at your most disgusted with them, they can lay you out with some gratuitous act of generosity and all at once, stupid but true, instead of being mad you feel ashamed of yourself for ever having had a mean and cynical thought about them. "Fellas, you didn't need to--"

  "We did need to," Justin said. "That was double dumb, horsing around in the kitchen like that."

  "Triple dumb," Herb said. He was bobbing his head up and down, never taking his eyes off me.

  "But this is too much!"

  Islington said, "Not according to our calculations. We had to figure in the annoyance factor, you see, as well as the pain and suffering--"

  "I didn't get burned, that coffee was only luke--"

  "You're taking it, Shirley," Herb said, very firmly. He hadn't gotten all the way back to being Mr. State Cop Marlboro Man, but he was well on his way. "It's a done deal."

  I'm really glad they did that, and I'll never forget it. What happened later was so horrible, you see. It's nice to have something that can balance out a little bit of that horror, some act of ordinary kindness like two goofs paying not just for the skirt they spoiled but for the inconvenience and exasperation. And giving me flowers on top of that. When I remember the other part, I try to remember those guys, too. Especially the flowers they picked out back.

  I thanked them and they headed upstairs, probably to play chess. There used to be a tournament here toward the end of every summer, with the winner getting this little bronze toilet seat called The Scranton Cup. All that kind of got left behind when Lieutenant Schoondist retired. The two of them left me with the look of men who've done their duty. I suppose that in a way they had. I felt that they had, anyway, and I could do my part by getting them a big box of chocolates or some winter hand-warmers with what was left over from the gift certificate after I'd bought a new skirt. Hand-warmers would be more practical, but maybe a little too domestic. I was their dispatcher, not their den mother, after all. They had wives to buy them hand-warmers.

  Their silly little peace bouquet had been nicely arranged, there were even a few springs of green to give it that all-important town florist's feel, but they hadn't thought to add water. Arrange the flowers, then forget the water: it's a guy thing. I picked up the vase and started toward the kitchen and that was when George Stankowski came on the radio, coughing and sounding scared to death. Let me tell you something you can file away with whatever else you consider to be the great truths of life: only one thing scares a police communications officer more than hearing a Trooper in the field actually sounding scared on the radio, and that's one calling in a 29-99. Code 99 is General response required. Code 29 . . . you look in the book and you see only one word under 29. The word is catastrophe.

  "Base, this is 14. Code 29-99, do you copy? Two-niner-niner-niner."

  I put the vase with the wildflowers in it back down on my desk, very carefully. As I did, I had a very vivid memory: hearing on the radio that John Lennon had died. I was making breakfast for my dad that day. I was going to serve him and then just dash, because I was late for school. I had a glass bowl with eggs in it curled against my stomach. I was beating them with a whisk. When the man on the radio said that Lennon had been shot in New York City, I set the glass bowl down in the same careful way I now set down the vase.

  "Tony!" I called across the barracks, and at the sound of my voice (or the sound of what was in my voice), everyone stopped what they were doing. The talk stopped upstairs, as well. "Tony, George Stankowski is 29-99!" And without waiting, I scooped up the microphone and told George that I copied, five-by, and come on back.

  "My 20 is County Road 46, Poteenville," he said. I could hear an uneven crackling sound behind his transmission. It sounded like fire. Tony was standing in my doorway by then, and Sandy Dearborn in his civvies, w
ith his cop-shoes hung from the fingers of one hand. "A tanker-truck has collided with a schoolbus and is on fire. That's the tanker that's on fire, but the front half of the schoolbus is involved, copy that?"

  "Copy," I said. I sounded okay, but my lips had gone numb.

  "This is a chemical tanker, Norco West, copy?"

  "I copy Norco West, 14." Writing it on the pad beside the red telephone in large capital letters. "Placks?" Short for placards, the little diamonds with icons for fire, gas, radiation, and a few other fun things.

  "Ah, can't make out the placks, too much smoke, but there's white stuff coming out and it's catching fire as it runs down the ditch and across the highway, copy that?" George had started coughing into his mike again.

  "Copy," I said. "Are you breathing fumes, 14? You don't sound so good, over?"

  "Ah, roger that, roger fumes, but I'm okay. The problem . . ." But before he could finish, he started coughing again.

  Tony took the mike from me. He patted my shoulder to say I'd been doing all right, he just couldn't bear to stand there listening anymore. Sandy was putting on his shoes. Everyone else was drifting toward dispatch. There were quite a few guys there, with the shift change coming up. Even Mister Dillon had come out of the kitchen to see what all the excitement was about.

  "The problem's the school," George went on when he could. "Poteenville Grammar is only two hundred yards away."

  "School's not in for almost another month, 14. You--"

  "Break, break. Maybe not, but I see kids."

  Behind me someone murmured, "August is Crafts Month out there. My sister's teaching pottery to nine-and ten-year-olds." I remember the terrible sinking feeling I got in my chest when I heard that.

  "Whatever the spill is, I'm upwind of it," George went on when he could. "The school isn't, I repeat the school is not. Copy?"

  "Copy, 14," Tony said. "Do you have FD support?"

  "Negative, but I hear sirens." More coughing. "I was practically on top of this when it happened, close enough to hear the crash, so I got here first. Grass is on fire, fire's headed toward the school. I see kids on the playground, standing around and watching. I can hear the alarm inside, so I have to guess they've been evacked. Can't tell if the fumes have gotten that far, but if they haven't, they will. Send the works, boss. Send the farm. This is a legitimate 29."

  Tony: "Are there casualities on the bus, 14? Do you see casualties, over?"

  I looked at the clock. It was quarter past two. If we were lucky, the bus would've been coming, not going--arriving to take the kids home from making their pots and jars.

  "Bus appears empty except for the driver. I can see him--or maybe it's her--slumped over the wheel. That's the half in the fire and I'd have to say the driver is DRT, copy?"

  DRT is a slang abbreviation the PSP picked up in the ER's back in the seventies. It stands for "dead right there".

  "Copy, 14," Tony said. "Can you get to where the kids are?"

  Cough-cough-cough. He sounded bad. "Roger, base, there's an access road runs alongside the soccer field. Goes right to the building, over."

  "Then get in gear," Tony said. He was the best I ever saw him that day, as decisive as a general on the field of battle. The fumes turned out not to be all that toxic after all, and most of the burning was leaking gasoline, but of course none of us knew that then. For all George Stankowski knew, Tony had just signed his death warrant. And sometimes that's the job, yes.

  "Roger, base, rolling."

  "If they're getting gassed, stuff them in your cruiser, sit them on the hood and the trunk, put them on the roof hanging on to the lightbars. Get as many as you can, copy that?"

  "Copy, base, 14 out."

  Click. That last click seemed very loud.

  Tony looked around. "29-99, you all heard it. Assigned units, all rolling. Those of you waiting for switch-over rides at three, get Kojak lights out of the supply room and run your personals. Shirley, bend every duty-officer you can raise."

  "Yes, sir. Should I start calling OD's?"

  "Not yet. Huddie Royer, where are you?"

  "Here, Sarge."

  "You're anchoring."

  There were no movie-show protests about this from Huddie, nothing about how he wanted to be out there with the rest of the crew, fighting fire and poison gas, rescuing children. He just said yessir.

  "Check Pogus County FD, find out what they're rolling, find out what Lassburg and Statler's rolling, call Pittsburgh OER, anyone else you can think of

  "How about Norco West?"

  Tony didn't quite slap his forehead, but almost. "Oh you bet." Then he headed for the door, Curt beside him, the others right behind them, Mister Dillon bringing up the rear.

  Huddie grabbed his collar. "Not today, boy. You're here with me and Shirley." Mister D sat down at once; he was well-trained. He watched the departing men with longing eyes, just the same.

  All at once the place seemed very empty with just the two of us there--the three of us, if you counted D. Not that we had time to dwell on it; there was plenty to do. I might have noticed Mister Dillon getting up and going to the back door, sniffing at the screen and whining way back low in his throat. I think I did, actually, but maybe that's only hindsight at work. If I did notice, I probably put it down to disappointment at being left behind. What I think now is that he sensed something starting to happen out in Shed B. I think he might even have been trying to let us know.

  I had no time to mess with the dog, though--not even time enough to get up and shut him in the kitchen, where he might have had a drink from his water bowl and then settled down. I wish I'd made time; poor old Mister D might have lived another few years. But of course I didn't know. All I knew right then was that I had to find out who was on the road and where. I had to bend them west, if I could and they could. And while I worked on that, Huddie was in the SC's office, hunched over the desk and talking into the phone with the intensity of a man who's making the biggest deal of his life.

  I got all my active officers except for Unit 6, which was almost here ("20-base in a tick" had been my last word from them). George Morgan and Eddie Jacubois had a delivery to make before heading over to Poteenville. Except, of course, 6 never did get to Poteenville that day. No, Eddie and George never got to Poteenville at all.

  Eddie

  It's funny how a person's memory works. I didn't recognize the guy who got out of that custom Ford pickup, not to begin with. To me he was just a red-eyed punk with an inverted crucifix for an earring and a silver swastika hung around his neck on a chain. I remember the stickers. You learn to read the stickers people put on their rides; they can tell you a lot. Ask any motor patrol cop. I DO WHATEVER THE LITTLE VOICES TELL ME TO on the left side of this guy's back bumper, I EAT AMISH on the right. He was unsteady on his feet, and probably not just because he was wearing a pair of fancy-stitched cowboy boots with those stacked heels. The red eyes peeking out from under his scraggle of black hair suggested to me that he was high on something. The blood on his right hand and spattered on the right sleeve of his T-shirt suggested it might be something mean. Angel-dust would have been my guess. It was big in our part of the world back then. Crank came next. Now it's ex, and I'd give that shit away myself, if they'd let me. At least it's mellow. I suppose it's also possible that he was gazzing--what the current crop of kids calls huffing. But I didn't think I knew him until he said, "Hey, I be goddam, it's Fat Eddie."

  Bingo, just like that I knew. Brian Lippy. He and I went back to Statler High, where he'd been a year ahead of me. Already majoring in Dope Sales & Service. Now here he was again, standing on the edge of the highway and swaying on the high heels of his fancy cowboy boots, head-down Christ hanging from his ear, Nazi twisted cross around his neck, numbfuck stickers on the bumper of his ride.

  "Hi there, Brian, want to step away from the truck?" I said.

  When I say the truck was a custom, I mean it was one of those bigfoot jobs. It was parked on the soft shoulder of the Humboldt Road, not a mile a
nd a half from the intersection where the Jenny station stood . . . only by that summer, the Jenny'd been closed two or three years. In truth, the truck was almost in the ditch. My old pal Brian Lippy had swerved way over when George hit the lights, another sign that he wasn't exactly straight.

  I was glad to have George Morgan with me that day. Mostly riding single is all right, but when you happen on a guy who's all over the road because he's whaling on the person sitting next to him in the cab of the truck he's driving, it's nice to have a partner. As for the punching, we could see it. First as Lippy drove past our 20 and then as we pulled out behind him, this silhouette driver pistoning out his right arm, his right fist connecting again and again with the side of the passenger's silhouette head, too busy-busy-busy to realize the fuzz was crawling right up his tailpipe until George hit the reds. Fuck me til I cry, I think, ain't that prime. Next thing my old pal Brian's over on the shoulder and half in the ditch like he's been expecting it all his life, which on some level he probably has been.

  If it's pot or tranks, I don't worry as much. It's like ex. They go, "Hey, man, what's up? Did I do something wrong? I love you." But stuff like angel dust and PCP makes people crazy. Even glueheads can go bonkers. I've seen it. For another thing, there was the passenger. It was a woman, and that could make things a lot worse. He might have been punching the crap out of her, but that didn't mean she might not be dangerous if she saw us slapping the cuffs on her favorite Martian.

  Meantime, my old pal Brian wasn't stepping away from the truck as he'd been asked. He was just standing there, grinning at me, and how in God's name I hadn't recognized him right off the bat was a mystery, because at Statler High he'd been one of those kids *who makes your life hell if he notices you. Especially if you're a little pudgy or pimply, and I was both. The Army took the weight off-- it's the only diet program I know where they pay you to participate--and the pimples took care of themselves in time like they almost always do, but in SHS I'd been this guy's afternoon snack any day he wanted. That "was another reason to be happy George was with me. If I'd been alone, my old pal Bri might have gotten the idea that if he put the evil eye on me, I'd still shrivel. The more stoned he was, the more apt he was to think that.