“You don’t happen to have a phone I could borrow, do you?”
The lanky driver handed him a phone without saying anything.
“Good morning. Robert’s and Son’s. How can I help you?”“Meredith, this is Quinn. I need to speak to Logan.”
“Mr. Black, I gave Logan your message, but he stepped out of the office. I’m not sure when he’ll be back, but I can leave another message if you’d like.”
Quinn hung up and called Logan directly. It went straight to voicemail.
The taxi stopped. Quinn looked out the window. Traffic was at a standstill. Sirens blared from around the corner. Quinn judged the distance from his office building, paid the driver and gave him back his phone.
Quinn flung open the cab door, ran to the sidewalk, and then headed towards the direction of his office building until he arrived at the intersection of the accident.
Bodies lay strewn across the ground. A few stragglers stumbled away, but most lay motionless on the asphalt.
Smoke billowed from broken pipes. Water spewed into the air from the main break.
Quinn pushed his sweaty hair off his forehead. His mouth opened as he gawked at the scene.
“You need to wait right here,” Officer Channing said, looking at Quinn.
Moments later, a dozen cops assisted Officer Channing. Quinn failed to find Logan among the bodies. Quinn rubbed his face. His eyes watered. His heart pounded. Sweat poured down the sides of his face and drenched his shirt.
“Screw this,” Quinn said.
He pushed his way through the newly erected barricades and scoured the pavement for Logan.
Officer Channing glared at Quinn, then strode towards him. Quinn slipped away.
“Stop right there!”
Quinn ignored him. Officer Channing reached for his taser. The pins from the taser struck Quinn on his back-left shoulder. Quinn convulsed and fell to his knees in agony before he collapsed onto the street.
When Quinn came to, he was in the familiar cell, sprawled out on the bench. Quinn’s insides grumbled. He stared at the feces-stained public commode.
“Sounds like you could use it,” the inmate said.
Quinn didn’t wait this time. He relieved himself, and then he sat back down.
Quinn thought about what had happened, the call to Meredith, the cell phone charger, and the taxi. He focused hard on it, imagined it. Quinn’s eyelids grew heavy. This time, he didn’t fight.
Saturday morning: August 7th, 2021
Day 3.
7:32 AM.
The soft patter of Quinn’s alarm jarred him from his dream.
Quinn slid off his mattress and scanned the room. It looked the same. He opened the curtain and stared at his neighbor’s expensive new import with the candy-apple finish.
Quinn threw on his clothes, grabbed his wallet, and walked outside.
He flagged down the first taxi that stopped. He gave the driver directions to his office.
“You have a phone I can borrow?” Quinn asked. The driver nodded, then handed it over.
Quinn called Logan directly. It went straight to voicemail.
“You mind speeding it up a little?” Quinn asked.
“You got it, boss.” He stepped on the gas.
“Thanks. You won’t believe the morning I’m having,” Quinn said.
A black and white Ford Interceptor turned the corner. Police sirens blared.
“You gotta be kiddin’ me,” Quinn said.
Quinn took a deep breath. The driver looked in the rearview mirror and then pulled over to the side as the cop directed him to stop.
The driver rolled down the window.
“You know how fast you were going?” Officer Channing asked the driver.
Officer Channing took his time turning the carbon from his ticket book, and from their pointless banter, it was clear they knew each other.
Quinn folded his arms, cracked his neck, and read the time on the car radio clock. He took a deep breath, and then pulled out his wallet.
“This should cover it,” Quinn said as he flung the cash onto the front seat.
Quinn pushed open the door and bolted.
“Slow down. You might hurt somebody,” Officer Channing yelled as Quinn sped off towards the intersection.
Quinn ran faster and ignored traffic signals. He scampered across a side street and dodged the cars that were moving along on the road. Several cars honked, but he made it to the other side, only to have a sidewalk groove trip him up seconds later.
Quinn’s face struck the ground. A couple of his front teeth tore through his gums. A sharp pain shot up from his jaw to his skull. Blood pooled out of his mouth. The daylight vanished. The noise stopped. Quinn closed his eyes.
Quinn woke up in a nearby hospital a couple of hours later. An IV dangled from his arm, and wires clamped his jaw shut. Quinn faced an outdated television that was airing reruns of Bob Barker’s The Price is Right, an episode he had watched as a kid the summer he met Cameron in her white angelic summer dress.
The memory of the dream grew sharper with each trip.
Cameron smiled. They dangled their feet in the serene lake over the pier’s wood-stained panels. The day was humid, but the shade took the edge off the sticky air.
Nature’s chorus echoed across the lake. The greenwood surrounding the pier’s solitary Southern brick structure shut out the rest of suburbia.
The glassy water’s surface mirrored the sky like a flawless reflection punctuated by the ripples set off by dragonfly feet.
It was Quinn’s favorite spot. He spent much of his youth fishing there with his dad. They rarely caught anything, and when they did, they always threw it back. As Quinn grew up, his father always wore red-flannel, button-up shirts, and jeans when he did work around the house or when he took Quinn fishing. He looked like an older version of Quinn with beady, hazel-eyes, and well-groomed facial hair, speckled with distinguished, grey-whiskers.
Quinn, however, borrowed his mother’s eyes. Sometimes, she would bring out a large blanket during the late morning so they could picnic together for an early lunch. She loved the water, and Quinn was always uncomfortable when she wore her bathing suit to the lake. At that age, Quinn much preferred his mother in her customary mom-jeans and the overt chemistry between his parents non-existent.
“How long have you lived here?” Cameron asked.
“A while. My dad moved us here when I was five, so like nine or ten years ago, I think,” Quinn replied.
“You like it here?”
Her large eyes were perfect, like those of a comic book character. Quinn didn’t think those kinds of eyes existed, but there they were, staring straight back at him as if beckoning him to say something pithy. That’s what he planned to do.
Quinn smiled back.
The morphine-addled haze blurred Quinn’s vision as he writhed in pain in the hospital bed’s stiff sheets, unable to squirm out of a wrinkle that rode up his back.
Quinn reflected on the day, the dream, the accident, the hospital room, and everything else from that morning. He focused, imagined it, and then closed his eyes.
Chapter 3
Saturday morning, August 7th, 2021
Day 4.
7:32 AM.
The soft patter of Quinn’s alarm jarred him from his dream and forced him to look at the numbers on the screen.
Quinn jumped to attention, threw on his clothes, and ran out of the house. He wore khaki shorts and sneakers instead of his usual suit and dress shoes.