It wasn’t as humid this morning, and that I was thankful for because the stench of the sewer treatment plant was much stronger than usual. After a frantic search for Bridget’s keys she left, and I got in the shower. I was so tired and I stood under the water much longer than usual and realized in a jolt I was going to be late.
I scrambled around, got the dogs settled, and checked on the kid (fast asleep like 13 yr old boys often are) before blazing out the door. I lit up a Camel immediately and thought how glad I would be when we finally moved farther than two blocks from the “poop factory” as my friend Sascha called it.
Work was “same shit, different day” for the morning. There was a strong smell of air freshener on my floor, like that orange scented crap. It was making my nose itch and tingle worse than the ‘poo gas’. I cannot stand how sneezy I am at work!
About half the people who were supposed to show up for the morning meeting were gone. Poorly attended meetings are typical the later it gets in the week, and overlapping projects have caused a lot of fractured collaborations. It was all I could do to stay awake.
I sat in the first floor break room at lunch time waiting for Stella, who went to McDonald’s to pick up her lunch. I was heating my frozen burrito a big security guard was using the other microwave for something foul smelling. His walkie-talkie barked something about a “*skkktch* with a backpack *skkktch* on his way” and he walked quickly toward the lobby.
I saw him through the floor to ceiling windows that are ½ of the break room. He strode to the parking lot and intercepted a kid on a bicycle wearing a back pack. He was checking the kid’s id, talking to him, it all seemed pretty calm. The Homeland Security Explorer rolled up way too fast, and the officer hopped out. Security deferred to him and walked back toward the building, while the officer searched the boy’s bag.
As I am texting this item to everyone I know, I am thinking to myself “How typically over reactive of them. Some kid bikes through the lot and they freak?” Security guard returns.
“So what is up with that kid?” I ask lightly.
“He was taking pictures of the building. We just wanted to talk to him about why he was doing that. He has a college id; just some college kid.” He shrugged and got his food out of the microwave.
I pondered this as I ate, thinking how funny it is that taking pictures of a building can be construed as an act of hostility toward the Federal Government. Stella does not show up, so I assume she is running errands and go back to my desk.
I go out to smoke sometime later. I see Stella walking over the railroad tracks from the natural foods store. Wow, I think to myself, much better choice than drive-through fast food. She stumbles and I chuckle to myself, thinking up witty comments to rib her with.
I notice a guy walking toward her down the center of the tracks. He is having a hard time of it, but looks too clean to be a homeless drunk. Pretty stupid, too, walking down the middle of the tracks. Guess that expensive fence the city built to keep people off the track really paid off.
Stella stops to look at him and makes a very strange gesture, almost flopping her arm at him. I notice that her sleeve looks torn. I start to get concerned and walk toward them. Is this guy following her? Did he hurt her?
The drunk-acting dude lifts his head to look at her and then pivots his head to look at me. He is wearing some sort of weird glasses or something…..no, both his eyes are blackened, like perfect skull makeup. What the hell is happening here? She turns toward me too and she has a big gash on one side of her face, it is all I can see because of her hair flopped over the other side. I begin to run toward her, calling out.
“Get the fuck away from her you asshole! Stella, what the hell happened?”
As I get closer I see that her clothes are quite disheveled.
“Who did this? Were you raped? Let’s go inside, I am calling the cops.”
I dial 911 on my cell phone. I get nothing but a rapid beeping. I dial again, it begins to ring through. Stella is stumbling down the railroad burm to me. I walk forward to help her, and the phone just rings and rings. The drunk guy is coming down the bank, too, and his legs seem made of jelly.
“Are you deaf, douchebag? Get the fuck out of here!”
“911, what’s the nature of your emergency?” The male voice sounds tight and haggard.
“I think my friend was raped, send someone over here, the guy is still here and won’t quit following us!”
“Can I get your location, please?”
“We are on the railroad tracks behind the Hummingbird Plaza! Oh my god she is hurt really bad!”
At this moment Stella is very close to me, about two arms lengths away – I can see now that her injury is much worse than I thought, in fact I am retching and thinking “How can she be alive?” at the same time. Weird thoughts race through my head, about those mothers who lift cars off their children, and people who survived being lost in the desert, and about PCP making people immune to pain and how hard it is to kill a bear and…
She grabs my arm, pulling it toward her, to her face and I wrench away, squealing, “I know honey, I know you are hurt but I shouldn’t touch it, help is coming!” I realize I have lost my cell phone and I am struggling to get out of her strong grip, her finger skin feels as if it is sliding over her bones, and she smells so bad, reeks like the poo gas and the orange spray mixed together, and suddenly the drunk guy is there.
She whips her arm out at him, and her attention on me slacks enough for me to pull away. I scramble up the burm, not looking back, running when I hit the asphalt, running to the building, what the hell is up where are those Homeland Security guys NOW!?
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