Connie Willis - Fire Watch

Natalie put both hands over her mouth and hiccuped a sob.

“No,” Reverend Hoyt said.

The doctor’s look was unmistakable. You know what’s coming. I am counting on you to be sensible and get these people out of here so they don’t have to see it.

“No,” he said again, more softly. “We would like to do something first. Natalie, go and get the baptismal bowl and my prayer book.”

She stood up, wiping a bloody hand across her tears. She did not say anything as she went.

“Esau,” Reverend Hoyt said. Please God, let me remember what few signs I know. “Esau God’s child.” He signed the foolish little salute for God. He held his hand out waist-high for child. He had no idea how to show a possessive.

Esau’s breathing was shallower. He raised his right hand a little and made a fist. “S-A-M—”

“No!” Reverend Hoyt jammed his two fingers against his thumb viciously He shook his head vigorously “No! Esau God’s child!” The signs would not say what he wanted them to. He crossed his fists on his chest, the sign for love, Esau tried to make the same sign. He could not move his left arm at all. He looked at Reverend Hoyt and raised his right hand. He waved.

Natalie was standing over them, holding the bowl. She was shivering. He motioned her to kneel beside him and sign. He handed the bowl to Moira. “I baptize thee, Esau,” he said steadily, and dipped his hand in the water, “in the name of the Father”—he put his damp hand gently on the scraggly red head—“and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

He stood up and looked at the bishop. He put his arm around Natalie and led her into the nave. After a few minutes the doctor called them back.

Esau was on his back, his arms flung out on either side, his little brown eyes open and unseeing. “He was just too shocky,” the doctor said. “There was nothing but blood left in his lungs.” He handed his card to Reverend Hoyt. “My number’s on there. If there’s anything I can do.”

“Thank you,” Reverend Hoyt said. “You’ve been very kind.”

The young man from Cheyenne Mountain said, “The Center will arrange for disposal of the body.”

Natalie was looking at the card. “No,” she said. Her robe was covered with blood, and damp. “No, thank you.”

There was something in her tone the young man was afraid to question. He went out with the doctor.

Natalie sat down on the floor next to Esau’s body. “He called a vet,” she said. “He told me he’d help me get Esau baptized, and then he called a vet, like he was an animal!” She started to cry, reaching out and patting the limp palm of Esau’s hand. “Oh, my dear friend,” she said. “My dear friend.”

Moira spent the night with Natalie. In the morning she brought her to Reverend Hoyt’s office. “I’ll talk to the reporters for you today,” she said. She hugged them both goodbye.

Natalie sat down in the chair opposite Reverend Hoyt’s desk. She was wearing a simple blue skirt and blouse. She held a wadded Kleenex in her hands. “There isn’t anything you can say to me, is there?” she asked quite steadily. “I ought to know, after a whole year of counseling everybody else.” She sounded sad. “He was in pain, he did suffer a long time, it was my fault.”

“I wasn’t going to say any of those things to you, Natalie,” he said gently.

She was twisting the Kleenex, trying to get to the point where she could speak without crying. “Esau told me that you tucked him in when he stayed with you. He told me all about your cat, too.” She was not going to make it. “I want to thank you… for being so kind to him. And for baptizing him, even though you didn’t think he was a person.” The tears came, little choking sobs. “I know that you did it for me.” She stopped, her lips trembling.

He didn’t know how to help her. “God chooses to believe that we have souls because He loves us,” he said. “I think He loves Esau, too. I know we did.”

“I’m glad it was me that killed him,” Natalie said tearfully. “And not somebody that hated him, like the Charles or something. At least nobody hurt him on purpose.”

“No,” Reverend Hoyt said. “Not on purpose.”

“He was a person, you know, not just an animal.”

“I know,” he said. He felt very sorry for her.

She stood up and wiped at her eyes with the sodden Kleenex. “I’d better go see what can be done about the sanctuary.” She looked totally and finally humiliated, standing there in the blue dress. Natalie the unquenchable quenched at last. He could not bear it.

“Natalie,” he said, “I know you’ll be busy but if you have the time would you mind finding a white robe for Sunday for me to wear. I have been meaning to ask you. So many of the congregation have told me how much they thought your robes added to the service. And a stole perhaps. What is the color for Trinity Sunday?”

“White,” she said promptly, and then looked ashamed. “White and gold.”

Fred Astaire is my hero. He used to report to his movies six weeks before filming started and practice his dance routines, wearing out a couple of pairs of tap shoes (and Hermes Pan, who claimed he could only dance backwards the rest of his life), all so he could stand there and look like he had just made it up. In the words of almost everyone who ever saw him dance, “He makes it look easy.”

That’s what I want to do, even though it looks like I’m going to wear out dozens of pairs of shoes before I even come close: make it look easy.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Mowen Chemical today announced implementation of an innovative waste emissions installation at its experimental facility in Chugwater, Wyoming. According to project directors Bradley McMee and Lynn Saunders, nonutilizable hydrocarbonaceous substances will be propulsively transferred to stratospheric altitudinal locations, where photochemical decomposition will result in triatomic allotropism and formation of benign bicarbonaceous precipitates. Preliminary predictive databasing indicates positive ozonation yields without statistically significant shifts in lateral ecosystem equilibria.

“Do you suppose Walter Hunt would have invented the safety pin if he had known that punk rockers would stick them through their cheeks?” Mr. Mowen said. He was looking gloomily out the window at the distant six hundred-foot-high smokestacks.

“I don’t know, Mr. Mowen,” Janice said. She sighed. “Do you want me to tell them to wait again?”

The sigh was supposed to mean, It’s after four o'clock and it’s getting dark, and you’ve already asked Research to wait three times, and when are you going to make up your mind? but Mr. Mowen ignored it.

“On the other hand,” he said, “what about diapers? And all those babies that would have been stuck with straight pins if it hadn’t been for the safety pin?”

“It is supposed to help restore the ozone layer, Mr. Mowen,” Janice said. “And according to Research, there won’t be any harmful side effects.”

“You shoot a bunch of hydrocarbons into the stratosphere, and there won’t be any harmful side effects. According to Research.” Mr. Mowen swiveled his chair around to look at Janice, nearly knocking over the picture of his daughter Sally that sat on his desk. “I stuck Sally once. With a safety pin. She screamed for an hour. How’s that for a harmful side effect? And what about the stuff that’s left over after all this ozone is formed? Bicarbonate of soda, Research says. Perfectly harmless, How do they know that? Have they ever dumped bicarbonate of soda on people before? Call Research—” he started to say, but Janice had already picked up the phone and tapped the number. She didn’t even sigh. “Call Research and ask them to figure out what effect a bicarbonate of soda rain would have.”