A Vagrant Story (6 page)

He ploughed through and landed flat on the floor, from where he glanced around. Flames tapered the room in an ominous glow, blocking paths and shrouding whatever persons waited inside. The interior seemed due to collapse into a scaffold topped pile of rubble.

Standing to a hunch, he coughed for choking smoke. “Hello! I can’t see very well - say something, please!”

It felt useless. The blaze alone grew far too raucous for anyone to hear. He could hardly hear himself.

“Please,” he coughed, “answer.”

Fallen to his knees, the concrete floor singed his palms. His heart grew weaker, regret and doubt choked that adrenaline dry. He found himself wondering what he was doing here. A distant cough broke the thought. It came from the opposite corner of the room.

Through a watery haze Henry could make out a man wearing a brown suit. He lay unmoving on the ground at the far end.

On sighting the target, Henry began to crawl, and crawl, then stand. Finding himself with a second wind, he ran then fell by the man’s side. Henry pulled and tugged the man to no avail. His skinny arms were no match for his robust figure. So he shook him, and shook, and shook him.

Henry could feel light breathing in the man’s chest. “Can you hear me? Please answer me! I’m not able to lift you. Please … answer me.”

The air was nearly gone from him. Henry felt his neck wobble. His eyes burned with smoke. They began to close. His body was weak. His back was on the ground.

***

Outside, the others spread about the perimeter in search of another way in. The laneway had already been consumed.

They regrouped at the front.

“That idiot!” Rum yelled. “What the hell does he think he’s doing? That stupid dud is gonna get himself killed.”

Alex began wrapping a jumper over his upper body. “That does seem quite the issue. Someone’s gonna have to bail Henry out and I don’t see you jumping for the task.”

“You’re mad. You can’t go in there. Wake up.”

“Wake me when I’m sane then.”

Alex ran with no more words to spare. He ran to the side lane without care for the flame. Fire drenching his pale skin, he aimlessly navigated to the end. He jumped through the very naked flames themselves to the kicked in door.

Bursting from the shield of heat he fell to the floor. The pain of his actions at once caught up with him, his arms stung with heat burn. Breaking into a coughing fit he crawled forward though he did not know the way. He inched over to the foot of a bare shelving unit, using it for leverage to stand.

Only had he carried himself to a safe distance a support beam came crashing down behind. It brought down a portion of the upper floor, blocking off the entrance point, and any possible retreat.

Glancing back at this crushed piece of hope, Alex called out in desperation. “Henry! Can you hear me?”

He stared hard against the grey curtain of smoke, eyes squinting – draining. His focus cleared enough to spot two people through the smoke. They lay flat on the ground, stiff like mannequins.

Alex reached them within an inch of his limits. He used what strength remained to weigh his circumstance. The rear entrance had been blocked by fallen debris. What segments didn’t fall creaked eerily on edge. His only hope lay on the main door up front being unlocked on this side. The slim chance alone he could manage, lugging both men the whole ten yards was the problem.

Sounds of give from the upper floor stirred his body to a second wind. He slung the larger stranger over shoulder and hung Henry under arm. He took a step in the right direction - a heavy, straining step. 

Too late. The upper floor collapsed into an avalanche of household objects. A torrent of domestic memorabilia poured through the hole like sand in an hour glass. They piled then burned as to make the objects unrecognisable. It blocked a straight path to the exit and cast up fire like a defending blockade. The route to safety had been cut off.

Alex would have cursed, but couldn’t muster the strength for it. He slid to the floor, allowing the blistering emotion of total failure to take control of his being. He coughed once, and that would have been the end of it.

A blasting crash pummelled the room, rattling it like a snow globe. Further collapses began as if hastened and unified by the explosion. It might have been a gas canister for all he knew. For all he knew this might have been a fuel shop. What he saw was a new opening. That explosion cleared the flame and broke down a wall. He could see a way outside.

Alex heaved the others on, all the while watching the flame - how quickly it moved to regain lost territory. Collapsing wood belted over his back, small to large pieces pushing him down. He moved still, despite it all. Yet he moved slow, too slow.

The fire closed in and he’d not made half the distance. In his mind he forced himself to push on, until his legs buckled and he crumbled to his knees. To catch a moments rest he stayed there longer than he should have. The man he intended to save, instead lay limp on the ground as the fire crept ever closer.

Hands grabbed Alex around the waist and lifted him to his feet. In a haze, he found himself being carried through the opening then planted outside on a chilly sidewalk. Fallen back on the ground he chanced a glance up. He saw Rum running back inside to grab the unconscious man. Sierra dragged Henry out in kind.

Alex found his eyes opening and closing. Eyes open: he saw Rum place the other man by his side. Eyes closed: he heard voices calling and sirens ringing. Eyes open: he saw Rum helping Sierra carry Henry.  

His head fell back against the stone. Eyes open: he lay there a moment, staring at the highest tips of the fire then down to a sign above the door. It burned like everything else but the words were clear. It read: Jack Matters’ basic supplies. When his vision lowered to ground level he saw the snow dotted with smashed bottles all of the same kind, some still lay unbroken and full, a tissue in the cap holding the liquid in.

Eyes closed.

Chapter 4

The darkness of morning brightened to mid-day. It came as no surprise, the doctor’s brief handling of Rum and Sierra. The two were rinsed through procedure then tossed to the waiting room. Communication broke off from there.

There seemed an unruliness to this hospital. In places, utensils lay on the floor near unattended gurneys, with unattended patients still in them. It looked as though the staff would drop their current task and dash off for another, leaving the previous patient in a forgotten state of purgatory. Rum labelled it a staff shortage issue during an observation based conversation. They’d been having a lot of those. He and Sierra had been waiting hours now and topics of discussion began wearing thin.

On average, clinic time for the average bum tended to be ten to twenty minutes tops. This lengthy delay didn‘t seem to bode well for Alex and Henry.   

***

Henry was starting to dislike hospitals, this one in particular. Upon being rushed here by ambulance they tossed him straight to a bed gurney. Following the procedural rubdown they gave an all clear and rolled him into this room. Other patients were dumped here too, dumped being the operative word. As Henry could tell the room appeared long enough to hold at least thirty patients, which failed to explain the odd forty or fifty sandwiched together.

One doctor monitored the room. From the way he kept entering and leaving he might have been tending another room besides this. Occasionally he would speak to someone outside the door, perhaps another member of staff.

Since Henry’s arrival, the doctor took a special kind of interest in him. Despite the other patients he would talk to Henry whenever passing. Each time he brought a new question to ask, varying from a personal level to medical history. It made him feel all the more flustered, as though under interrogation. But the doctor’s reassuring smile hinted of a genuine sincerity. He looked like a kind man.

After continuous on and off conversations, Henry had to ask, “Do they need me for anything else? Nobody’s said anything.”

The doctor scanned his clipboard. “I don’t see anything else here. Looks like all you need is a good rest.”

“So everything checks out?”

“You suffered some smoke inhalation and passed out. We got it under control so it shouldn’t be too serious.”

“But … it was a fire.”

“And you got lucky. Take a look around you, half the people in this room aren’t as lucky as you.”

“So … I’m going to be okay?”

“You should be fine. Although there was just … one problem … turns out I had to delay the end of my shift to help you. It’s no big deal really, except that my brother happens to be my replacement today so that means he gets extra time off. He has this annoying habit of rubbing in the slightest of victories. I wouldn’t be surprised to get home and find him laying back with a can of beer, just to get on my nerves. Oh, now I’m just babbling, sorry.”

Henry smiled. “Yeah, I know the type. My brother used to … do stuff like that.”

“So … you have a brother. Won’t he be coming to visit you?”

“No. Leon … Leon isn’t around anymore. He went away for a while.”

“You don’t see much of him then. Mine’s the same, even though we live together, you know, to cover rent. Since we usually work on different shifts we’re always home at different times - it’s kind of strange really. At least you still have your parents to force the two of you together from time to time.”

“Not exactly … my parents are dead.

“I’m sorry. You still have your brothers, right?”

“Leon took off shortly after that - haven’t seen him since. He was under a lot of pressure back then, I couldn’t really blame him. Back then it seemed like accidents followed him around – bad accidents.”

Henry watched the trace amounts of pity rising in the doctor’s eyes. It had become like second nature to watch for those signs of pity. They showed up nearly every time he spoke to someone new. Building a wall of pity around himself came to be the only way he could get through to people, the only way he could get anyone to stay with him. Unintentional as it might be he too often failed to discourage it.

An image of the future flashed into Henry’s mind. He could picture the doctor joking about this to his co-workers. At the back of his mind he heard the doctor repeating their conversation to a crowd of laughing people. This image vanished in wake of the doctor’s tolerant smile. Henry figured it might do some good to lose some extra baggage. Chances were he wouldn’t see this man again anyway.

“Maybe you should call him sometime,” the doctor said.

“I’m not even sure where he is,” Henry said. “Even if I did, I doubt it’d do much good. He wouldn’t stay with me back then, why would he want to stay now I’m homeless?”

“They say absence makes the heart grow stronger.“

“Not with him. If he cared he wouldn’t have vanished like a total stranger.”

“You poor fellow. You lost your parents. Your brother left. You don’t have a home to go to … You’re all alone.” The doctor perked with curiosity. “Have you any friends?”

“Well … there are some people, but … No. Well … sometimes I’m not so sure they really are my friends.”

“I understand. Fitting into groups can be tough, whatever class they are. So … you are all alone then.” He leaned forward while emphasising the last part.

Henry couldn’t tell if it was a statement or a question. It caught him off guard though, so much so he flustered red in embarrassment.  

The doctor shifted another glance out into the hallway, and stood as if intending to return to his duties. “Henry, you’re very lucky I was assigned to this shift. Someone else might not be so forgiving in their dealings with you. Even if you don’t realise it yet, this is fate.”

Henry cringed for a number of reasons. He suddenly felt as though he’d been dropped in the middle of a play with no sense of the scene. He’d have choked right then if not for mention of fate, the word of the day.

The doctor took a set of glasses from his pocket. “These are your glasses. The paramedics took them before taking you in here. I’ve been minding them since.”

“But why?” He didn’t care about the glasses, it was a general question.

“Why would I help you? Because you’re one of the good guys. I saw it the moment you got here. You’ve got it tough as it is yet you ran into that burning building to save a man you didn‘t even know. Thanks to you he made it out without serious injury. Most people who get trapped like that aren’t well enough for weeks, the guy you helped was bossing the staff around after a few hours or so. They shipped him to a better hospital but last I heard he wanted to be released.”

“He made it out okay … that’s nice to know. I was afraid it’d all be for nothing. Anyway … it’s not like I did it alone. I collapsed from the heat. Someone else had to come in and get me out of there.”

“Few would even try in the first place. You’re different than most.”