Chapter 4
They were standing in the tree. On what was left of the branch, a ten foot section of it, approximately three feet in diameter, the rest missing, cracked off cleanly by the weight of the Pinto, which had dropped the remaining fifty feet to the base of the tree before bouncing yet another couple of hundred feet to the bottom of the canyon, setting ablaze everything its flaming wreckage touched.
Correction. They weren't both standing in the tree. Rather, he was standing on the branch. She was hanging by her ankles, gripped in his powerful hands. Below her, everything was on fire, the blackened smoke and heat rushing upwards toward them intense and alive. Something to be feared in its own right, for its elemental power to destroy without passion, without judgment, without reconsideration whatever it found in its path. People talked about Mother Nature. Fugeddaboutit! Mothers didn't torch their progeny.
There was nothing in her save the sensation of being strongly held. An odd calm throughout her body. She began to move upward as if by magic. Ah. He was lifting her. Her setting aright was simple. The giant simply raised her up by the ankles until she could throw her arms around the shattered end of the branch. She clung to it like a possum. There was no need for words or human thought. Right now the need was animal. The urge to pant laboriously against the stinging smoke, to squint to see, to cling securely to the fat part of the branch, to perch, to ponder, to await the instinctual next move. An eternal stance, high up in the tree, away from flames, safe from the people. Come nightfall, a suitable nest could be located. There would be caves in the hillside. Thus had it always been. And would be even after all the people were finally extinguished in the Great Blaze everybody knew was coming soon.
Then she saw it. A movement of something inside the crushed Jag. Blinked her eyes. Saw it again. What? Nothing could be inside it. But was. A tiny furry head protruded just above the doorsill. Fletcher! Making no sense at all to be there. Had somehow, this morning, having ruined her dress, showed further his desire to not live in a North Hollywood apartment by somehow stowing away in the back of the Jag unnoticed, where he then endured what for his highly schizoid sensibilities must have been unbearable, the crashing down upon the top of the Jag of a revved up Ford Pinto. Whereupon he undoubtedly had flattened his collarbone-less physique until it fit securely under one of the front seats, and remained there until the worst finally came to pass. An approaching siren, its wop-wop-wopple dopplering the absolute heck out of his already strung out nerves. It finally being more than one little kitty cat could take and he emerged, scared nearly to death, and poked his head above the window to see what he could see.
And saw her, the one whom he loved, to whom he was bonded, who provided his security in this fragile world. Saw her stuck in a tree!
Donica screamed. "Fletcher! Fletcher! Somebody help! My cat is in my car! Somebody help him!"
It was too much. Wild eyes became wilder, and the animal leaped through the window, assessed all possibilities faster than human thought could have done, and disappeared with an incredible leap into the uphill brush.
Donica yawped loudly. Fletcher was gone. Into the hills, where wild things still lived, things Fletcher's domesticity could have no suitable response for. Such as coyotes, and owls, and very large rattlesnakes, and even, she'd once heard, packs of stray, vicious dogs, the kind who'd once been bred to defend crack houses in Watts and were now turned loose in these same hills upon the death or incarceration of their no-good, gang banging former owners. She had an image of Fletcher, while attempting to stalk a toothsome mole or mouse, stumbling upon an impromptu pot farm, where large female hemp plants grew under cover of heavy sage, and were attended by illegals from down south, men with bandy legs and steel-backed incisors who were armed with shotguns, evil people, who practiced corrupt heretic occult religions right in the middle of Los Angeles, hardened individuals without souls who had the effrontery to grow weed and plant land mines around it, and daily attend and protect the plants and, when the opportunity presented itself for a little sport, blow away kitty cats who strayed into their illegal agribusiness.
Donica wept. The weeping hoo-haws blending ever increasingly with the wop-wop-wopple of the approaching rescue equipment.
The first fire truck arrived, a short stubby one. And a second, much longer one, a different color than the first. Beige, not red. From some other county. And last but not least an ambulance. Serious men with water hoses from the stubby truck began sending bright streams of foam into the canyon. And were soon accompanied by men from the larger one sending even more powerful jets into the blaze. Causing powerful eruptions of smoke and steam sufficient to blot out the landscape and force over the area a strange, ghostly pallor filled with scents of chemicals, and burning sage, petroleum stink and sharpness of plastic pungency.
And cops, in a black-and-white, followed by a wrecker with flashing yellow lights.
Overhead, the Action News chopper from KTLA. Waved away by the fire crew to prevent rotor wash from fanning the canyon flames. The rescue attempt began. A cherry picker, with long telescoping boom and rescue basket from the top of the fire truck slowly extended toward them. Complete with fireman in the bucket. In the end, it took both the giant and the fireman to pry her loose from the safety of the branch and force her into the bucket. And as it slowly ferried her back to solid ground, a wave finally crashed, forcing her into a place of safety, a dark place in her mind. A place where her body no longer fought them. Allowing her to be easily removed from the bucket. From which they transferred her to the gurney and from there to the back of the ambulance.
She thought of her mother. How was your day, dear? Fine. I met a very strong man, rode in a Jag, watched a Ford Pinto explode while I was in it, set a canyon on fire, saw Jesus in His golden doorway, went through the doorway, perched in a Laurel tree, hung upside down by my ankles, floated through the air in a bucket, rolled down the street in a bed on wheels and took a ride in an ambulance. And oh, yes. Fletcher escaped into the hills above Laurel Canyon. How was yours?
"What is your name?" they kept asking. "Do you know where you are?"
"My mother will be worried," she kept answering. Her eyes were closed; they'd given her some drops to help with the stinging. The eyes felt better closed. She thought that perhaps she'd keep them closed from now own.
"It's a miracle about her face," somebody said to somebody else as the ambulance began to move. There was no siren. She'd expected one.
"Yeh."
"We could send this in to that miracle show. The one that guy with the mole on his face, whatsisname ..."
"... You mean John Boy? I think he's dead."
"Yeh, maybe, but whoever. We could send the pictures to that miracle show he hosts on PAX."
"Yeh. Get some pictures, willya? 'Cause it's a miracle about her face."
"What about my face?"
"That you still have one. What I mean is, your hair is gone, but you're face isn't burnt."
What did they mean? She touched her face. It felt warm and smooth. But her hair was completely gone. In its place a fine layer of fuzz perhaps a couple of inches thick. And one longer, matted hank on the left, above the ear.
Gone. What did that mean? Where did it go when it went? Her eyes opened. Two men in blue jumpsuits, one beefy, one skinny. The older one with a big mustache and a hard look. Who'd perhaps seen one too many lives lost.
"I've got to get out of here," she said. "I'm due in a meeting at eleven. And I've got to find my cat before some two-bit pot grower does."
"Negative. You're due in the ER in ten minutes,” The big Tech said.
"No, you don't understand. I'm not hurt. I'm okay. And I'm due in the most important meeting of my career at eleven. What time is it?"
"About nine-thirty."
Donica pushed herself upright, the world spun and she immediately lay down.
"Dizzy?" A hand went to her wrist,
feeling expertly for the pulse.
"Mmm Hmm."
"The adrenaline. It does that. You were probably running on full adrenaline for a good half hour. That's maybe why you were able to leap out of the car before it exploded. Do you hurt anywhere? Any sharp pains?"
"I ache all over. Like I was beat up. What the heck have you guys done to my neck?"
"We braced it. Just a precaution. You did roll over two cars and jump your car into a tree you know."
"That wasn't my car."
"Anyway, it's a miracle you were able to jump out of the thing right before it exploded."
"No. I was pulled out."
"By who?"
"By that guy. That big ape who got me into this mess in the first place. It was his car. His Pinto. A real death trap. Where is he, by the way?"
"We left him back there. He said he was going to look for your cat. There was nothing wrong with him."
"But you took me? There's nothing wrong with me, either. You don't even have the siren on."
"You don't qualify for the siren."
"I have to qualify? What does that mean?"
"You know. You have to have a serious condition."
"Then I'm right. You didn't have to take me."
"Had to take you. It's the rules. You appeared dazed."
"And the big guy didn't?"
"That's right."
"He'll never find my cat. He doesn't even know the cat's name."
"Sure he does. It's Fletcher. You screamed it out to everybody."
"I need you to call my mother. Now."
"Can't do it."
"You can't let me go, you can't turn on the siren and you can't call my mother. Is there anything else on the long list of things you can't do?"
"Listen to me, lady. You're in shock. You're starting to feel anger. But while you're at it, you might work up a little gratitude."
"Gratitude. For what?"
"That you still have a face. From what we heard about the explosion, and from the condition of your hair, you shouldn't have one. You should be on your way right now to the Sherman Oaks Burn Center, or perhaps the L.A. County morgue. Instead, you're on you're way to UCLA Medical Center, where the attending probably won't find anything wrong with you other than your ridiculous looking hair, after which you'll probably be released, and set free to call your mother as many times as you want every day for the rest of your long and extremely lucky life."
She shut up. The Tech was angry with her. Putting her in her place. And expertly, at that. This vehicle, full of equipment designed to forestall the cutting of the silver cord, to delay one's entry to Heaven or Hell, this space was the Tech's throne room, from which he ruled with absolute confidence. So she shut up.
The ambulance turned on Sunset and made its way to the hillside southern campus of the mighty UCLA Medical Center, entering the ER bays just off the alley on Tiverton. Donica had been to the facility a number of times, on routine visits to her own personal physician, Dr. Lerner, or the occasional visit to a sick friend or acquaintance from her church. And noticed it felt quite different to be on the receiving end of the place after an accident, coming in, not under her own power, but by the efforts and powers combined of others whose daily meat it was to ferry the hapless to this particular fountainhead of healing. The place seemed somehow bigger, colder, and more frightening.
Somebody helped her into a wheelchair, transporting her to a small examination room, where she was instructed to change into the requisite, totally too-large gown.
This is it, she thought. This moment, here in this tiny room, sitting on this paper-covered table staring at a colorful cutaway of a human stomach clearly demonstrating the hell of acid reflux. This moment marks the end of life as I know it.
Again, she gently ran her fingers over her scalp. It was still there, the hank of fire-plasticized hair which was all that remained of her former gorgeous blonde waterfall of the stuff.
God hates me. It's so simple. Why haven't I seen it before? All the signs have been there right from the beginning. Gangly all through Junior High. Except for my chest, which had developed embarrassingly early, in the fourth grade. Forcing me to endure nightmare years of taunts from horrible boys. As an adult, too tall to attract most men. Always too religious to have any real fun anyway. A present tendency towards overweight. In temperament, too much like my father, with no personality to speak of.
Her self-deprecation led up to only one conclusion, fitly described by a single word. Loser. Donica Kelly. You are a total loser. You were then, you are now, and you will be in the future. No matter how much money you might have made, or how high your education. Nothing could have covered up the single basic attribute of your loser-ness.
But I did have one thing. One thing God gave me that nobody could deny. Until today. I had beautiful hair. The operative word being had. It's gone now, disappeared into thin air along with my cat and my job prospects. Thanks to an idiot in a gray Pinto, whose brilliant idea to unstick the morning traffic on Laurel Canyon almost got me fireballed into eternity. Almost. Price paid to remain on Earth--one head of hair. Blonde. Long. And one missing and frightened little kitty.
She lay back on the exam table, her long legs hanging off the front. Closed her eyes. She was tired. So very tired. The days of working with Liz and the plans to take the design world by storm seemed far away, as though part of a fading dream which had begun to lose its shape in the thickening mists of awakening consciousness. In about an hour, she knew, Liz would be standing there in the conference room alone, facing the fat old men with their pointed questions. Making apology for the fact her errant daughter had been delayed. Liz, flustered. Losing the contract. Losing respect. Forced to retreat into the sterile backwoods of retirement, where forced gaiety at dull luncheons would never be able to dull the pain of the day that went so very wrong.
The room seemed to be closing in. She felt for the first time a heated rawness in her throat. Remembered she'd gulped in some of the noxious fumes from the explosion. Probably had in all likelihood inhaled enough carcinogens to sicken an entire ethnic region in some unpronounceable part of the world. A thought which inspired nausea. Fought it back down. Attempted to attain an equilibrant consciousness, the physical body holding very still, inventorying itself carefully, striving for a balance of inner and outer selves which was proving difficult.
There should be pain. A lot more pain. But there isn't. Just a little sore throat and a little nausea from the adrenalin.
Perhaps there was something wrong. Perhaps she wasn't feeling pain from her bruising and banging around because something serious had happened at brain level. Something organic and irreversible. Something which would require tubes and pressure relief emergency measures, which would leave her left eye unfocused and lazy for the remainder of her life, or her tongue thick and dangling. Or her entire left side unfeeling as a slab of beef on a hook. There would be a van with a lift, and a motorized wheelchair. Perhaps certain phobias requiring the repeated stroking of a service animal, perhaps a parrot, or rabbit or snake which she simply could not face the world without. Trips to anywhere important requiring she be strapped aboard her wheelchair in a Greyhound bus, unable to get out and grab a burger with the rest of the losers. Forced to beg the driver to bring her a soda.
The fears began to mount. Maybe they'd been right to throw her into the back of an ambulance. What had they seen in her that she should be aware of? And where was the doctor? What was taking him or her so long to rush to her aid? They'd obtained her social security number and insurance company. Were they waiting to see if she was covered? Was her brain hemorrhage even now progressing past the fail safe point while some bored clerk waited on hold to verify benefits with her overlarge and inefficient insurance carrier?
Where was the doctor? A nurse, even? There was a shortage. Perhaps they'd all transferred to Cedars-Sinai across town for a better compe
nsation package.
Where were her helpers? And who were these people who kept sick people lying or uncomfortably seated on sheets of butcher paper, dressed humiliatingly in flimsy gowns. Who were these people who tacked up posters of acid reflux on the walls? Had they never heard of Ansel Adams prints? And why the butcher paper? To foreshadow or imprint upon the patient the possibility that they would, upon some coming together of certain medical facts, soon be under the knife, their delicate parts butchered like a sacrificial animal? And that with not even the same grace society afforded a cow, sheep or fish. But cut open while still alive? Was it all about control? The butcher paper the first inkling, the first touch to the senses which reinforced to the patient that they were somehow in the power of something greater, something which held that power by virtue of the fact it had no soul of its own to wrestle with?
Donica fought the continued stirrings of claustrophobic nausea the room was fostering deep within her. She forced herself back to the experiment in equipoise, a counterbalance of the soul which, if she was successful, might keep her from screaming her guts out, from pulling a Linda Blair right here in this most claustrophobic of rooms.
The equipoise wasn't working. Odd, that while hanging by her ankles fifty feet above the ground, held back from a certain death or crippling disfigurement only by the grip of a stranger, she had felt no fear. But now, in the examining room, in one small cell inside the mighty temple of healing that the Medical Center was, Donica began to suffer greatly as she remembered an incident from her childhood. Probably the one from which her present anxiety was stemming. Being forced to stand inside a coat closet as punishment by her teacher. And forgotten as the class went to attend a school play. Found huddled and shivering, an hour later, reduced to something less than human. An unfortunate incident, an oversight (or was it?) from a pedigreed member of the modern government teaching aristobureaucracy who wanted something in Donica's behavior changed and had broken a few rules to try and achieve it. There'd been no report filed in triplicate, no investigation. Just a lonely little girl forever afraid of it ever happening again. Mental note. Affix blame. Get personal. Find the teacher, wherever it was she'd gone to retire. Come upon her in the night and place suffocating plastic bag over retiree's head. Watch her die. No. Scratch that. Thought not Christian. Thought revengeful. One must fight such impulses, do violence to one's own flesh, if necessary. For the Kingdom of God is won via such violence to corrupt flesh. Forgive the teacher, no matter if the episode was quite possibly the psychotic machinations of a severely disturbed member of the flunky government employee system. Who had similarly incarcerated God only knew how many other little girls in closets and filed likewise no forms in triplicate for them either.
She slid off the butcher paper and began to self-inspect. Left arm rotation. Right arm. Left ankle. Head from side to side. It all seemed to be working. Inhale deeply. No knifing pains. Cautiously press in and around abdominal cavity. Nothing screaming, no swollen organ about to burst.
I'm going to live.
She remembered a golden door and the hand of Jesus. And something else. Something she'd forgotten but which now, like a videotape, began to play out. As though at some time in the holocaust of the morning, she'd been implanted with a vision from God. She remembered clearly now what had transpired. So clearly it was unthinkable she'd forgotten it. She'd gone behind the golden door, taken Jesus' hand and found herself watching a movie playing on a number of separate screens. Movies of her life. Donica happy. Donica sad. Donica with love. Donica without. Hold it. The movie of Donica with love. It was with--him. John Knock. The giant who'd hung her by the ankles in the Laurel tree. Him. It was crazy, fantastic even. From deep inside her, a little bubbly thing started happening, a welling up of excitement, mirthful energies. Yes! It was the hand of God, directing her, pointing out to her that she'd just come to the turning point in her life. The choice, she understood, was to be hers. She could choose the with love or without. The fantastic thing of it was, it was all up to her. Choose ye this day.
But where was he? The cops would know. She began to dress. Hurriedly. And without a backward glance, propelled herself from the room. To her destiny. To find John Knock. Who was somewhere in the hills above Laurel Canyon looking for her cat.