Dire Means (17 page)

“My name is Officer Reynolds, what’s yours?”

“I recognize you. You’re the one who ‘relocated’ me to improve the local scenery a while back.” Al air-quoted the word “relocated.”

“I don’t remember that,” Officer Reynolds said, holding up his hand as if swearing.

“Well, you did, and you won’t again. Tonight I’m evicting myself.”

“No sir, listen. Here’s what I need you to do, partner—”

Al turned back to the crowd, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted, “There is a police officer named Reynolds harassing me up here!” The crowd hushed to hear Al. “Officer Reynolds is not being patient with me.”

The crowd booed until Al hushed them with his hands. He pointed down to the television camera aimed at him. Floodlights on either side of it popped on, and Al and Mark whitened along with the entire face of the building. Mark squinted in its brightness and then turned his head from it.

“I want this news crew to report to the world that Officer Reynolds of the Santa Monica Police Department is pressuring me to jump and I was reconsidering before he showed up.” Al turned his back to the light and glared at Reynolds, who backed into an air conditioner.

“He will talk to me,” Al said, pointing at Mark. The officers stepped back again to appease Al. “Come closer,” Al said to Mark, pointing five feet from him. Mark approached.

“Come on, Al, let’s just walk down. Please don’t do this…”

Al lowered his voice and leaned toward Mark so neither the officers nor the crowd could hear him. “Have you ever been so humiliated and so repulsive that even death tried to evade you?”

Mark was silent for a moment. “Yes, but I can’t say I’ve felt the way you seem to.”

A hint of a smile crept across Al’s face. “Honesty—amazing,” he said. “I want you to do something in exchange for my life.”

Mark cocked his head and studied Al. “What? Some test? You’re putting your life in my hands?”

A surprised laugh escaped Al. “You sure you’re not a shrink?”

“I’m a computer technician. What do I have to do?” Mark began to shiver.

“Take off all your clothes.”

“What?”

“Strip—and let them laugh at you.” Al pointed to the crowd. “Let them televise it.” He pointed down to the camera crew. “And let
them
,” he gestured in the direction of the officers who were still whispering to each other between short bursts from their radios, “write you up for indecent exposure.”

Though the bizarre request surprised Mark, he kept his facial expression steady. He considered the cost of complying with Al—the humiliation Al seemed to want him to feel and more involvement than Mark wanted with the police. He then considered the cost of simply walking away. His recurring nightmare about Carlos would be compounded by this vivid, actual suicide and all the shame that came with having failed to prevent it. “If I do this, will you walk down the stairs instead of jumping from this roof?” he asked.

“Yes,” Al said, without hesitation.

Mark nodded, thinking. The sirens were much louder now. He heard the grumbling of a fire truck and the hiss of air brakes as it came to a stop. On the edge of the crowd below, he saw the TV camera aimed directly at them.

Mark took off his jacket and let it drop. Al watched with a slight smile of disbelief. The chilly wind quickly stole any warmth from Mark’s upper body. He pressed his arms against his sides, but the hard shivering began almost immediately.

Mark unbuttoned his shirt. When the cold air rushed in, he ripped the shirt off quickly—like jumping into a cold swimming pool. A few spectators whistled and hollered. Cameras flashed. Mark ignored them and focused on Al, who no longer smiled, but studied Mark’s face. Al turned to face him.

Mark kicked off his shoes and unbuckled his belt.

“That’s enough, sir!” an officer yelled.

Al spun toward the officers. “You SHUT UP, cop!” Then, still on the very edge of the building, he leaned at the hip and yelled to the officers on the ground. “If there’s a sergeant down there, you better get your boys off my hero’s ass before they cause a televised death.”

Mark’s teeth chattered as he watched the two officers speak into their handsets and retreat.

Al turned back to Mark and said, “Almost done.”

Mark, shivering uncontrollably now, pulled down his pants. He stepped out of them and kicked them toward his growing pile of clothes. A new burst of camera flashes made him squint. He yanked a sock from each foot and threw them onto his pile. He was down to his underwear and afraid to look at the spectators who had grown eerily quiet.

Mark’s pulse raced. With hands that were starting to go numb, he hooked his thumbs under the elastic of his underwear. He paused, shivering, to look into Al’s face for any hint of reprieve. Al’s face had lost its anger and his head tilted as he watched Mark. Tears were in his eyes.

“That’s enough,” Al said.

“D-don’t break our d-d-deal,” Mark replied, teeth chattering.

“You’ve shown me enough.”

“Really? D-d-don’t back out on me, Al.”

Al did not answer. He seemed unable to speak. Mark stepped closer and extended his hand toward Al’s. Tears streamed down Al’s face. Mark took another step closer. In his peripheral vision, Mark saw the officers squat, waiting like runners in a starting block.

Mark took another step closer to Al, who had bowed his head and squeezed his eyes shut. The crowd seemed to hold its collective breath. The lights and cameras remained aimed at the rooftop, illuminating half of Al and half of Mark’s near-naked body.

Al covered his face with both hands and that’s when Mark dove, grabbing Al’s torso and sending both of them crashing onto the roof. Al made no struggle, he only gasped a few times to catch his breath after landing square on his back with Mark on top of him.

A cheer went up from the crowd and they applauded and whistled.

Before Mark could get off, the two police officers were on top of them. One officer grabbed Mark around the waist and threw him aside, while the other severed Al’s rope with a pocket knife. They rolled Al onto his stomach and handcuffed him.

Mark, still shaking from the cold went straight for his clothes. He hopped on one numb foot as he struggled to slip the other into his pant legs. He could hear the buzz of the excited crowd.

His fingers were too cold to button his shirt so he skipped that task and slipped back into his jacket.

Officer Reynolds approached and said, “You law enforcement?”

“No. Look, I didn’t mean to interfere,” Mark explained. “I tried to help and was stuck by the time you guys showed up.”

“Not a problem, sir. He didn’t give you much choice. Pretty brave what you did. But risky too. I wouldn’t advise such a tactic in the future.”

“I understand, Officer,” Mark said.

A firefighter in a ladder bucket popped up over the side of the building and threw a stretcher onto the roof.

The other officer called to Reynolds for help with Al. “He refuses to walk,” he said.

Reynolds turned to Mark and said, “Sir, you’re going to need to answer some questions for us on the ground so stand by. The fire fighter will lower you to safety. We’ll take care of him.” He pointed to Al.

“Go ahead and take him first, I’ll be fine,” Mark said.

“No, your safety is paramount. We’ll help you down and then come back for him,” Reynolds said.

Al hollered from his prone position underneath the knee of the other officer. “Hey, Mark! Officer Reynolds prefers to show his affection for me in private as a reward for the television publicity I gave him tonight.”

Reynolds glared at Al.

Mark stood, walked over to Al, and turned to Officer Reynolds. “Look, he almost died tonight. He was desperate. Take it easy on him.”

Reynolds pointed a baton toward the fire bucket and said, “Sir, you need to exit the roof. We’ll take it from here.”

“I’d like to wait with my friend,” Mark said.

Reynolds shook his head. “Sir, I’m not going to ask you again. You need to—”

“C’mon, Paul, let’s just go,” the other officer interrupted.

Mark sat and put on his socks and shoes. He heard the buzz of a late helicopter approaching. All four men on the roof looked toward the sound. The officers grabbed Al, each hooking him under an arm pit.

“Be gentle. It’s my first time,” Al said, and then winked at Mark.

The helicopter’s spotlight swept back and forth, searching for the scene. The officers dragged Al between the air conditioners to the waiting firefighter. Al’s boot heels scraped as they slid across the gritty roof surface.

“Thank you, Mark,” he said as firefighters strapped him onto the stretcher. Mark saw his stretcher lift and then disappear over the edge. By the time the fire fighter came back up to get Mark, the helicopter bathed everything on the roof in white light. Mark sat on the stretcher and the firefighter exited the bucket to tie Mark in. The officers left the rooftop using the fire escape ladder Mark had used to get up.

Mark’s stretcher touched down between a fire truck and an ambulance. A small group of medics approached him and after congratulating him for his rescue of Al, they asked if he needed medical attention. Mark said he didn’t. Three nearby officers leaned on their car in conversation. Although Mark was supposed to answer some questions, his aversion to dealing with the police revisited him. He slipped away and headed back out the alley and toward the Promenade. The only thing he wanted at that moment was some privacy. He vowed to mind his own business for the rest of his life.

He managed to give a wide berth to the news crew and the crowd that was still dispersing from the front of the building. He hoped no one would recognize him with his clothes on and then laughed through a shiver at the thought. He blended into the crowd most of the way back to his parking spot.

He turned on his car with tingling fingers still recovering from numbness. As he waited to warm up, he stared at the colorful lights of the pier until his eyes lost focus. A homeless man passed in front of his car. He carried a backpack so large it almost doubled him over. Mark wondered if that man felt the humiliation Al claimed to know.

The car warmed and he pulled out of his spot. He felt pain creeping in on his right side. His full body tackle of Al had awakened some of the soreness from the previous week’s beating. He drove home hoping for a long, sound night’s sleep, but he knew that wasn’t likely. In addition to his missing identity, he had now been on television, all but naked. The rooftop incident left his body as exposed to the public as his identity was to the gas-money cons. He tried to focus on the positive ending to Al’s predicament, but couldn’t.

§

It was almost 9:00 p.m. and Mark’s own actions atop the building on the Promenade had surprised him. He wondered if Uncle Leon had seen his rescue escapade. If so, what sort of unpaid favor must the act have yielded? He pictured Uncle Leon jumping up and down, excited at the sight of it.

After a few blocks on Ocean Avenue, his phone rang. Caller ID displayed Margaret Thurmon, an elderly receptionist in the office of a law firm Mark serviced.

He sent the call straight to voicemail. Under his breath he said, “I’d love to talk, Margaret, but I’m off duty.” Thirty seconds later, his phone vibrated again. Caller ID showed Jaffey Melugin, the client Mark was supposed to have visited the day he was assaulted and robbed. He had been scheduled to set up some new computers at Jaffey’s home. Mark sent this call to voicemail too and shoved his phone back into his pocket. A few seconds later, the phone vibrated again.

“What’s going on?” Mark mumbled, checking the caller ID—another client. Mark ignored it again, but pulled over to listen to his voicemail messages.

Margaret, the first caller, was hysterical. “I saw you on the news,” she said. “Are you okay? Call me ASAP.”

While he listened to Margaret hyperventilate, call-waiting beeped. Mark pulled the phone from his ear and checked the caller ID. It showed Julie Maro, an assistant to one of his clients. He sent it to voicemail and two more calls beeped in before Margaret’s voicemail message ended.

He now understood the phone calls. The news feed of his act on the rooftop had obviously been broadcast live. Thousands, if not millions of people could potentially have seen him shivering, practically naked and tackling a homeless stranger atop a building.

“Great,” Mark sighed. He tossed his phone to the passenger seat and continued toward home.

As he turned onto his street and began searching for a parking spot, his stomach knotted when he thought about entering his apartment. Then he remembered that there was nothing else of value to take and the new locks would have to be picked in front of a host of nosey neighbors.

As he approached his door, he heard his home phone ring at the same time the phone in his pocket vibrated. He fumbled for his key and jiggled its rigid edges into the keyhole. Since family and friends were the only ones who called his home line, he picked up without checking the caller ID. It was Brian, an old buddy he had not seen in over a year.

“Hey dude,” Brian said. “I saw you on the news rescuing that guy. You were unbelievable. Did you get hurt?”