What I thought of now was how the bakery would be locked and deserted.
It would be silent, dark, and dusty.
Emptiness can be the most terrifying thing in the world.
I made an impulsive right turn and sped along desolate streets toward the Loop. The sun was rising over the lake, its pink glow reflecting on canyons of glass and steel, while lines of streetlights popped off behind me, one following another. There was a time not so long ago when I would beg my father to take me along on early morning deliveries of doughnuts and croissants. Even in the summertime, it was cool outside at six a.m. as we drove through the city with the delivery truck windows rolled down. The Loop (named for the elevated trains that loop around it) is the busiest area of Chicago during the week, with literally millions of people coming and going to work. Sidewalks are filled with fast-moving pedestrians while impatient cars creep behind jumpy taxis that dart around crawling buses. Commuter trains rumble past in a long, elevated oval, drawbridges clang up and down, airplanes roar overhead leaving white smoky lines, and car horns and construction noise and people shouting and sirens blipping are the orchestra of the city that does not slacken until late at night.
Early in the morning, it’s such a different place that it’s almost a different planet.
Cabbies, bleary-eyed from working all night or beginning at dawn, drive lazily along deserted boulevards. Maintenance men hose cigarette butts off high-rise sidewalks, Chicago Transit Authority workers in crisp uniforms amble toward subway and El stations, and the random go-getter, yoga-stretched and dressed for success hours before his coworkers, power-walks down empty sidewalks. This was the Loop I crept through in the Lincoln, unwilling or unable to face the tomblike atmosphere of the bakery, needing something safe and familiar to fortify my soul before I took the leap.
Blocks later, I hung a hard left onto Jackson Boulevard.
There was the old diner and its retro lampposts, Route 66 sign, and curved counter just inside the picture window.
The sign for Lou Mitchell’s glows in pinkish-orange neon, and announces humbly that it serves the world’s finest coffee.
I parked on Jackson, made sure Harry was comfortable, and entered the place that was already half full before most Chicagoans had even opened an eye. The old water purifier burbled by the entrance like always, the smell of crisp bacon and Greek toast filled the air like always, the background thrummed with morning conversation like always-these small, reassuring things connected me to my family. I sat at the counter and ordered coffee. The waitress paused when she set down the steaming mug, looking at her watch and then back at me. The coffee reached my nostrils hot and acidic, and I sipped its strength. As I did, I noticed the waitress’s gaze drift and her eyebrows raise. Without moving my head, I glanced sideways at a Chicago police officer in blue, also in mid-sip, taking the waitress’s cue to inspect me. His face remained blank as his eyes moved over me-the thick, gray walrus mustache twitching thoughtfully under his nose was the only giveaway that he was concerned. I realized what he was seeing was not pretty-a sixteen-year-old girl alone at six in the morning after more than twenty-four hours in the Crow’s Nest with no shower following a world-class ass-kicking, wearing ancient sweats, a face full of bruises, and a nose that, just by its disproportionate size, hinted at trouble. Trying to look casual in that situation was impossible-every fidget made me feel guilty of something, which made me behave guiltily, which made me fidget even more. I was scared to look at him, but realized that he was punching a cell phone.
He murmured into it while staring at me.
Suddenly, I felt as if the entire diner were staring at me.
Turning on my stool, the entire place looked like it was stuffed with cops.
Nerves tingled sickly in my stomach as I glanced around the room. Every table and booth held one or two burly guys with close-cropped hair, or a pair of tough-looking women with no-nonsense expressions. All of them wore casual clothing meant to disguise their copness, which only broadcast it instead. I was sure they were looking at me, or just looking away from me, or trying to act as if they weren’t looking at me at all. Maybe Detective Smelt had been tailing me all along and these were her people. Maybe they were just waiting for the right time to pounce.
I sipped coffee, trying to calm down, but then listened to my gut.
It said to forget calming down and wise up.
It told me that unless I did something quick, I’d be leaving the diner in handcuffs.
The officer leaned toward me and smoothed his mustache, about to say something, but I jumped to my feet and hurried to the restroom. I entered the last stall, locked the door, and began biting my thumbnail-there were no windows to climb out of, and I doubted that sprinting for the exit would result in anything other than being tackled by cops. I felt like all four walls were pushing in at me, and that my fate rested just outside the door. I held my head in my hands and stared at linoleum, searching for a solution.
There it was, on the floor between my feet.
I picked up a book of matches, despite my parents’ warning never to play with fire.
Except that I wasn’t playing-I was deadly serious.
I counted to three, then left the stall and began working quickly, yanking paper towels from one dispenser and the other until both sinks were full. I wet half of them and stuffed them into the bottom of a garbage can. Then I packed the dry paper towels tightly on top, praying that the wet ones would extinguish the others if need be.
I struck a match and smelled sulfur.
It flamed and I realized what a stupid and dangerous thing I was doing.
I didn’t care, and dropped it.
Bits of fire attacked the dry paper towels, leaping nimbly from one to another. Just like in Girl Scouts, I blew on the baby flames until they spread and grew, and the trickle of smoke became a black plume filling the restroom. When it was hard to breathe, I counted to three and kicked open the door, shouting, “Fire! Fire!” The room froze until a thick, scary gust of smoke rolled out behind me, and then everything was in motion. People screamed, an alarm was pulled and began to wail, some customers leaped to their feet and ran for the exit while others came toward me. A jittery busboy with a fire extinguisher tripped and dropped it, its contents sliming the floor, a waitress slid and fell, and I jumped over her, headed for the door, when a steely grip attached itself to my arm.
The cop said, “Hang on there! Stop!”
“Let me go!” I said, trying to yank free.
“What’s this about?” he said. “Did you. .?”
And then someone bellowed for help, and the restaurant manager was tugging desperately on the cop’s sleeve. He was torn between me and a real emergency. I saw the choice on his face, and he gritted his teeth, released me, and ran toward the restroom. I turned and shoved through the crowd, elbowing my way onto the sidewalk, desperate to get to the Lincoln, and darted into the street.
That’s when I was hit by the fire truck.
I was in such a hurry that I hadn’t seen it flying up Jackson Boulevard.
A blast of its horn and squealing brakes were the last thing I heard before everything faded to black.
When I came to, I was lying on a gurney in the back of an ambulance with my head bandaged. I sat up and the world tilted, and I puked on the floor. The pain on the left side of my skull was so intense that I gasped, and I touched at it gingerly, feeling it pound against my fingertips. My ear was still there, which was good, and my face felt like it was in one piece, but barely. Bits of memory came to me then-glancing up at the last minute, seeing the bright steel mirror of the fire truck and feeling it clang against my face as the rest of the enormous red vehicle roared past. I looked at the scene outside through the windows of the ambulance-firemen hustled around Lou Mitchell’s, leaky hoses snaked through the street, flashing lights rolled on top of the fire truck and police cars-and I was overcome by a wave of guilt. Like waking from a dream, I realized that I’d caused all of this because I’d been gripped by paranoia.