The Yellowstone Conundrum (40 page)

 
Meanwhile, Marmaduke knew from his relationship with Ray that the people they were attacking were bad because The Man was good. The enemies of The Man were bad. ‘Duke went after Hard-On body and soul, not just scaring the crap out of the big bad dude, but making him fearful for his life.   Fighting an angry dog is a whole lot different from fighting an angry man, because the dog doesn’t give a shit.  The dog will fight until you die or he dies.  The two combatants were roughly the same weight, except Marmaduke was all legs and body, a humongous head, and a jaw that was at least twice that of a human being. The battle between Marmaduke and Hard-On was short lived; perhaps five seconds into the battle Hard-On backed off, tumbled and fell backwards across the glass-strewn street, his stately manhood long since headed for cover. After a lunge and several angry barks, Marmaduke returned his attention back to his owner.

 
Second Dude was clearly out of the picture, unable to move, arm broken, eye socket gouged; he slinked off toward the downside of Fourth Avenue. First Dude was getting pummeled, soon to have a life and death choice of running or staying; fortunately for him, he was able to gain footage on the glass-strewn street, scramble and run to the south along Fourth headed past Madison, seriously injured.  Their attack on the young girl hadn’t been their best choice of the night.

 
Marmaduke barked in victory and Ray wasn’t inclined to stop him; the dog danced around the pair, now Ray and the unknown young woman with the orange thong panties and shaved pubis. Ray reached down and pulled the woman up to her feet, shifted his head toward the quickly exiting thugs, enough to allow the woman some dignity to pull her pants up and straighten her jacket.

 
Ray simply pointed toward the library entrance and the woman followed, but not before she picked up her purse and camera. Marmaduke followed in a
yeah, yeah we’re bad
kind of prance, easy for a 145-pound dog to pull off. 

 
Inside the relative warmth of the Seattle Public Library Ray began in anger.  “What the fuck were you doing out here on a day like this!” he shouted.

 
The young woman, not more than 22, beaten and scarred, and scared, and from what had happened was clearly not prepared for her savior’s response. She was a long brunet with a cutesy touch of fake blond up top, pretty, slender, a sharp New Jersey nose and not enough body and bones to occupy a breadbasket. 

  His reaction was unexpected.
She paused for a pregnant moment and clearly measured her words.

 
“Thank you very much for helping me,” and extended her right hand. “I’m Molly Abrams. I’m in a great deal of pain.  I’m so sorry,” then she started to cry. Men are pussies when women start to cry, especially when it’s in earnest.  Ray’s face scrunched up into a
don’t-you-dare-do-this-to-me
look. Ray looked at Marmaduke, who pretended he didn’t have a clue while prancing back and forth across the front of the security gate.

 
“Sweet Jesus,” Ray muttered as he hugged the young woman he and The Beast had saved. “Do you think anything is broken?” 

 
“No, I don’t think so,” Molly replied, although she was bleeding in multiple places on her head, neck and shoulders where Dude One had been beating her. A closer examination would find several places on her legs that were bleeding; her pants, torn in multiple places were absorbing the blood.

 
“Why the hell were you out here? Didn’t anybody tell you that you could be in danger?”

 
“I’m a freelance photographer for the P-I,” she replied.  “I’m the Metro Desk. I spent the night developing pics from a high school dance at Ballard High School.”

 
After an 88-year run, the Seattle
Post-Intelligencer
stopped publication in 2009, switching to a web-based business only; leaving Seattle with the
Times
, the only hard-copy newspaper. 

 
“My friends are dead,” she said simply. “You know where the P-I building is, right?” she asked.

  Ray shifted gears.
“Yeah, yes, I do.”

 
“Sorry, I meant where the building
was
.
It’s gone now.”  Molly took a deep, sad breath. “I was composing shots on my computer from 1 to 4, pictures of a dance at Ballard High School, some late-night tourists locks, Space Needle at night; whatever I could that might be of interest,” Molly started a stream of consciousness. “Then my boss came in and said that he was going to reboot the server and my stuff wouldn’t make the morning edition (internet) except for two pics of sluts dippin’ and doin’ at the High School, and that I should go home—try again tomorrow. You know, it’s February and nothing is going on. If the fucking Sonics were here at least we’d have big black guys we could follow around to see what dirty stuff they’re getting into.”

 
Ray’s eyebrows perked, not expecting what he was hearing.  She was 22 going on 35. His thoughts flashed to the orange thongs.

 
“So it’s 5:30 in the morning and I’m not ready to go home. I’m pissed that nothing I shot was going to work, so I go up Pike Place to see if there’s anything interesting. You never know with those guys; flying fish, who knows.   Even though it’s only five blocks, I take my car.”

 
In 1986 the P-I moved into its new building on Elliott Avenue, a five-story beauty with a curtain wall of windows that offered a spectacular view of Elliott Bay and the Olympic mountains in the distance. In 2009 after the printing presses stopped, the 20 remaining staff, including freelancer Molly Abrams, moved to a broom closet a half-mile south on Elliott Avenue.

For rent or lease or purchase

101 Elliott Avenue, Seattle   In 2012 the globe was donated to the Washington State Museum of History and Industry

 
“I take my car and park it on Western, then hike up to the market; which, is busy as shit, like it is every morning. I take some shots; some decent, some stock; you know, Pike Place is like nothing else. Some of the fish they have were in the water an hour ago; can’t get any fresher. Whack! Off with the heads. It’s not just a show; it’s a way of life. If it was a show, it would be on TV—maybe cable; like the Pike Place Market Whacka Fish show,” Molly allowed herself a laugh, although bleeding from several places on her face and neck.

 
“It was six-twenty, I know because I looked at my watch.  Jesus fucking Christ! The market started to rock and roll; nothing like I’d ever felt before. Then I saw it. I swear to Christ I saw it. Like it was a movie or something; the fucking Space Needle snapped and the restaurant fell, like a dead dodo; then wobbled itself back and forth, wappa-wappa, rolled this way and that, but never completely fell because of the cables or something. 

 
“That had to have been a minute, at least a minute before it stopped. I fell to the ground, fish fucking market was everywhere, food, fish, everything had been neat one minute than was fucked the next with everything flying everywhere,” Ray’s estimation of the young girl was rising by the second. She’d been there like he had.

 
“Then the ground stopped shaking and I could get my feet.  The market was trashed, I mean completely trashed—food bins turned over, I mean knee-deep in fucking fish. I remember that it was dark, I mean completely fucking dark. The Space Needle falling was the last thing I remember from the city; but then, sweet Jesus, it was the fucking noise; a rumble, a deep, dark—fucking scary noise. I don’t know what made me run but I ran like a son of a bitch; of course I’m a woman, so I make sure I’m carrying my purse and my camera. Oh, where’s my camera; glasses, yeah, got glasses,
RUN RUN RUN
my brain said. So, I’ll be honest, I don’t know what the fuck happened in the next two minutes, but I ran. The sound coming from Elliott Bay was like a monster going to eat me alive. Run or die it shouted,” the words spilled out of the young girl’s mouth.

 
“I took off straight up hill up Stewart Street. A minute went by. I stopped and turned around. Elliott Bay was different. There was a line of whitewater from one end to the other, several lines further north on the other side of Bainbridge Island. Whitewater just didn’t make any sense.  Then I saw a ferry; I don’t know, maybe a Bainbridge ferry get hit by the first wave; and the fucking ferry lifted into the air, turned and came down on its side. Sweet Jesus I’d never seen anything like it!” Molly’s face was ashen.  “Something told me to turn and run as hard as I could,” she paused. “You know, running through downtown Seattle at 6:30 would normally cause a police car to at least cruise by; but this was different. Everything was different.  hit started to pour down from buildings and the streets started to, I don’t know—bubble—if that’s the right description.  Glass started to explode everywhere. I didn’t realize until that moment, when glass started to pour down from the tall buildings that Seattle had been hit by an earthquake.  That’s why everything was shaking. I’m so fucking stupid,” Molly buried her hands on her bleeding face and started to cry anew.

 
“And then what, Molly?” asked Ray, now sorry he’d ragged her so hard.

  “I just kept running.
A minute later I heard a rumble, like a wave hitting a beach, except
heavy
, you know what I mean? When I say heavy, it was like two octaves lower, like someone singing base in the choir, heavy, even evil, like it was Mr. Death coming after me.  “I’m a smoker, I hate to admit it, but you know a lot of us are, it’s not my fault; it’s the God-damned cigarettes.”

 
“I ran as hard as I could up Stewart, past Second and up to Third. I couldn’t run any more.  I was gassed, gone.  If the fucking monster was going to eat me up, I couldn’t do anything else about it. I turned around, hands on knees and listened. I heard a giant smash, a boom, a grinding noise as the water struck the shoreline; and a long slurping sound as the water rushed uphill. If it was going to reach me, then I was dead as a doornail. I couldn’t fucking move another inch. I was a goner.”

 
Molly looked at Ray, her face empty. “I looked at the water coming uphill and swear I could see a monster’s mouth ready to eat me alive. I was standing at Third and Stewart, across from the Third Ave. Café and the monster’s head snapped shut, instantly changing to the tsunami wave it was; then slowly retreated back downhill toward the Bay, carrying
EVERYFUCKTHING
back with it, like the god-damned monster wanted to eat fucking Seattle!”

 
Ray reached out to put his arm around the young girl.

 
“My friends, they’re all dead! The P-I building, it’s gone, so is the new office with the computers and my shots of the fucking dance at Ballard High School, and my pathetic shots of the Space Needle and downtown Seattle on a fucking normal night!” Molly shouted, spittle drooling out the right corner of her mouth. 

 
Molly and Ray and the bemused Marmaduke were still out on Fourth Avenue in front of the library after a fight-to-the-death that they had managed to win.

 
“And so I started to take pictures,” she showed him her camera. “I probably have a thousand pictures here. Dead buildings, dead people; lights out, buildings down, bad people wandering, homeless still homeless; right here in the camera,” she began to cry.

 
“You did a good job,” Ray put his arm around the girl’s shoulder. She was a little thing. She’d performed under pressure, taken hits. There was no sense in telling her he’d been on that ferry.

 
“
WOOF”
came from Marmaduke. It was a “
dude, let’s pay attention
” bark.

 
Ray looked around and didn’t see anything other than the dimness of the afternoon seemed to be dimmer.

 
Inside the comfort of the Library, Ray’s attention was drawn to His Constant Companion, who danced back and forth at the entrance.

 
He’s trying to tell me something
, Ray thought, now firmly believing Marmaduke was sent to save him. 

 
“They’ll be back, won’t they?” he asked the Great Dane.

 
RUFF
was ‘Duke’s reply, the equivalent of
duh
.