Johnny kicked at the door. It rattled but didn’t open. Twice more he kicked, then a third time. He considered going back to the truck for a crowbar, but couldn’t afford the time. On the fourth kick, the door opened and Johnny’s foot slammed itself down just inside the room. A billow of smoke charged at him like a dragon come to protect its horde. A man, coughing, hacking, rushed past him, then another.
“Anyone in here?” Johnny yelled, but the men had disappeared around the corner of the building. He slipped his mask back over his nose and mouth and turned the screw that let the oxygen flow. He squatted down and moved into the room, bumping into a chair, a table leg, what seemed like a small cabinet.
He quickly dropped onto all fours, then lowered himself down on his stomach, keeping as close to the floor as possible, where the smoke wasn’t as thick. He swept his arms along his sides to make sure no one had fallen. His hand whacked a couch, then hit something soft.
Someone was there. It was a woman. He had felt her breast. The alarm on his face piece sounded. His oxygen was out. He slid the mask down and realized he’d lost his gloves somewhere. Maybe he had left them on the truck. He had no time to care. He shoved his arms under the woman’s back and pulled her toward him. There was a grunt as she tumbled down onto the floor.
Johnny could have stood up, lifted her, and carried her to the door, but that would be through the thickening smoke filling the room. He hooked his hands under her arms. Still on his stomach, he lowered his head and dragged her toward the door.
Again a rumble was heard over his head, louder, and Johnny thought he could hear the straining of wood against wood. The ceiling could go at any time. A spattering of plaster was already sifting down. He could feel his throat, his chest, being rasped more and more by the smoke, the heat digging into the raw flesh of his mouth, the taste of charred plaster on his tongue.
Someone lurched against him, hitting his shoulder, knocking his nose into the woman’s hair. From the side of his eye, Johnny saw a figure stumbling out the door, yet another man.
Johnny kept his head low. His breath was short gasps, his nose still buried in the woman’s hair. Now they were out the door of the Lunch Room. Johnny looked down at the woman. Of course, she was not Dempsey. She was not nearly as beautiful. He easily lifted her and carried her through the courtyard and through the iron door topped by the razor wire.
His arms were limp at his sides, his chest heaving slowly and deeply. Johnny watched the stretcher being slid into the ambulance and the doors slammed shut. The ambulance’s siren screech had begun to fade when a TV reporter and cameraman behind him came toward Johnny.
“Why? Why?” the reporter asked. “Why did you risk your life for a lousy dope addict?”
Johnny, gray smoke-filled mucus running from his nose, hesitated. Then he grabbed the man by his lapels and shook him mercilessly, furiously. As the man’s head snapped back and forth, Johnny spat out the words, as close to a shout as he could manage, “Because we rescue people! That’s what we do! We rescue. You got that?”
A cough choked off his words, but he kept shaking the man, struggling to say more. “What we do,” Johnny whispered. “We rescue.”
The man pulled himself free. Johnny saw that the lapels where he’d grabbed him were soaked with blood. He looked down at his hands. Blood covered them, some of it already caked. Slowly he turned his palms upward. Enough of the blood had been wiped off onto the reporter’s lapels for him to see the scored crosshatching of cuts, some deeper than others, some a straight gash, others jagged. Blood was still slowly pulsing from some; others were crusted over.
No buzz came back to unlock the downstairs door to the loft. He could, of course, use the key he’d kept except he’d have trouble negotiating with his mittens on. He pushed the buzzer again, this time harder. It seemed to hurt less, to do less damage to his mangled hand. Or, perhaps, all the cuts were already reopened from the first push and no more injury could be done.
Again there was no sound in return. He’d wait. He went to the curb and looked up at the windows. Whether they were dark or not, he couldn’t say. The thrown light from the streetlamp reached upward and cast a dull glare against the glass. There could be light inside, or it could be the streetlamp. He went back to the door. Three times he rang the bell. Three times there was no response. He’d use his key.
But when he reached down to put his hand in his pocket, he became newly aware of his bandages. Dempsey must never see those bandaged hands. She must never know that he had been cut and pierced by the syringes, needles, and vials on the Lunch Room floor. Never would he confront her with the truth of what was happening to him, that he would become ill, that there would be no cure for him and he would die. No matter what the doctor had said, his body had spoken and he had heard.
Johnny stiffened where he stood. He took in half a breath, held it, then breathed out. He lowered his head. Had he done this to himself to make certain Dempsey, cured, would never leave him? Had he dismissed his knowledge and his training, taken absurd risks that were more a certainty than a risk, to secure her devotion and her care for the rest of his life? Had his rescue been not a saving act but a cowardly demand?
He shook his head, not to deny the possible truth of what had come to him but to rid himself of thoughts that appalled and horrified him. This could not be. Again he was in the blinding dark and threatening smoke. Again he made his search, his hands sweeping the littered floor. Did he know he had taken off his gloves, that his hands were being bitten and chewed and bitten again by the broken vials, the dropped syringes? Did he know where he was and what he was doing?
Again Johnny shook his head, this time slowly, this time searching for a truth he had to find. Now he stood still, his head still bowed. He waited to hear what he might hear, to see what he might see back in the dark and the smoke, to know what he must know. Then in his review he heard the woman’s breath, the murmured sounds. She was there; she must be saved.
Johnny halted his thoughts to allow for a moment when he might have known he was doing some deed beyond rescue, that the rescue had been only a pretext for some other purpose he had taken no time to articulate. The knowledge, the truth must come—and it must come now. Johnny waited. The woman’s breaths were heard again. He had come to the couch. He was touching her breast. He had known nothing of his hands, had felt nothing, not even the absence of his gloves. Now she would be saved. And he himself was saved. No accusation could be made against him. No motive but rescue had been in his mind. Or in his body.
Johnny raised his head and looked up again at the dark windows. His cuts were throbbing, pulsing, as if his heart had slipped down into his hands. His neck ached. The pain was spreading to his shoulders and working its way down his spine. If he were to call Dempsey’s name a window would open and she would be there. He would go up and she would see his mittened hands. She would unwind the bandages. The sight of the pulsing, crusted blood would not frighten her. She would want to kiss the wounds, but he would draw his hands away.
And then she would tell him: for this she had been cured. For this the miracle had been granted. She would be at his side, and she would care for him as he had cared for her. His sufferings would be his joy because she would be with him, his fevered rages calmed by the sweetness of her hand, the tenderness of her touch. The pain could come, the madness even, and she would not abandon him. Together they would exult in the presence of God’s mercy, at this revelation of his mysterious ways—he had guided them through the labyrinth of his favor. He had bestowed on him, on Johnny, a gift beyond asking. This was the true and final answer to his prayer.