Alix Ohlin - Babylon and Other Stories

“Come on, man, really? It's ten-thirty.”

“News never sleeps,” I tell him, and he rolls his eyes and lights a cigarette, to get back at me, because he knows I hate smoke.

When we get there the fire's climbing up into the night, several stories of flame rising above the building itself. For a state surrounded by water, Rhode Island's terrible with fires. This one's in a dilapidated strip mall in Woonsocket, and it started late at night, which probably means no one was around. Although if no one was around, how did it start in the first place? I step out of the van and prepare to be investigative. The scene that greets me is painted in neon: the orange sizzle of the rising flames, the pulsating lights of the fire trucks, the bright jets of water arcing from the hoses. People from nearby neighborhoods are standing around, watching. A car pulls up, screeching to a stop, and a fat middle-aged man climbs out and runs up to the closest cop.

“What the hell happened?” I can hear him saying.

To my surprise I spot Jeff talking to another officer, their cars parked nose to nose. I go over and stand in front of him, where he can't act like he doesn't see me. “What are you doing here?” I say.

“Happened to be in the neighborhood. Aurora likes the soup at a place around the corner.”

“So what's the deal?”

“Portuguese kale, for two-ninety-five,” he says. And then he adds, because he's never sure I notice when he makes a joke, “That's the soup.”

“Yeah, I got it,” I say. “So what happened, exactly?”

“We're still trying to find out.” He looks at me critically. “Your nose is really red, you know. Watch out you don't get frostbite.”

“I'll work on it,” I say. His nose is red, too, but I don't point this out. I feel it isn't my place anymore. Two weeks ago he said that if we didn't start talking about marriage, he'd walk away; this week he's barely said anything to me at all. “You're wasting my time,” was the last thing he said to me on the subject. I didn't know how to tell him that time is exactly what I don't want to waste. I have plans that go beyond the local news, beyond the here and now. I never pictured myself as a policeman's wife, waiting up for him at three in the morning; in fact I never expected, when we first spent the night together, that it would go any further than that. When I think about my future, it takes place on a stage that's shiny and huge, in New York or L.A., with me on TV at six o'clock bantering with the middle-aged male anchor in the blue power suit. My future isn't in cruising around the Ocean State in the News Ten van all hours of the night. I have to admit, though, that I'll have a hard time forgetting Jeff's warm chest and the little scar above his right eye and the fact that he genuinely seems to like bringing me coffee in bed in the morning. When your real life collides with the one you've been dreaming of, it's hard to know which should win out.

The smell of the fire is dense and vicious — bitter, like the cold — and it singes my nostrils. The air is layered with toxic, plastic-scented fumes. Mario's filming and yawning at the same time. I scan the crowd, scouting for interviews. The fat guy who got out of the car earlier is trying to get into the store, apparently trying to get into the fire, and he's being held back, practically bear-hugged, by a cop I don't know. The fat guy squirms and wriggles like a child in his embrace. I wave at Mario and we go over.

“Sir, is this your store?”

The light of the camera calms him down, and the cop nods at me and lets go. Nobody goes anywhere while they're on film. He mutters in the guy's ear, “Everybody here needs to go stand on the other side of the parking lot, behind the fire trucks, understand?”

Another hose goes on, and the noise of the water and the fire together drowns out our voices. I motion to the guy to follow me back to the other side of the lot, then glance over my shoulder to make sure Mario's not spacing out, which he sometimes does when he feels I've kept him out too long.

“Is this your store?” I say again, pointing the microphone in his face. “What's your name?”

In the glare of the lights his eyes are tiny and black, set back in his face like raisins in a cinnamon roll. He looks bewildered and angry. I'm not sure he speaks English.

“What's your name?” I say again.

“Everything … everything's burning,” he finally says.

“In your store? Do you own the store, sir?”

“I never thought it could burn. All the inventory — how could a store like that burn?”

“What kind of store is it, sir?”

He looks at the fire, then back at me. Some unidentifiable specks of ash float over us, sparks showering around them. “Water beds,” he says. “How could they burn?”

I didn't know people still slept on waterbeds. The fire's burning ferociously, and distant shouts among the firemen sound frantic. Popping and exploding noises are flying along with bits of debris, and I realize these are from waterbeds bursting in the air like pricked balloons. The water from the hoses steams in the frigid air and all the snow around the lot is melting. I tell Mario to film some more of the fire and get back to me in five minutes, then I focus on the water-bed guy, putting a hand on his arm. When I offer my condolences, he opens up.

His name is Luther Hodges. He's been in the water-bed business since the sixties, and has seen his fortunes rise and fall, but he's convinced they're about to rise again. The water bed is making a comeback, he tells me, his little black eyes flashing. His store is called Sleeping With the Fishes, or was.

“Who would do this?” he asks after I've elicited this much information.

“I was about to ask you the same question,” I say. “Do you have any enemies? Any really dissatisfied customers?”

This offends him. “People love their beds,” he says. “I sell a quality product under warranty.”

The cop who was embracing him earlier comes over and says he's ready to ask Luther some questions now.

“Officer, do you have any theories as to how the fire started?” I ask.

“No comment at this time, Joanne.”

“Police authorities,” I say into the microphone, “have no comment at this time on the cause of the fire.”

I crawl into bed after midnight, my clothes reeking of smoke in the hamper, and barely wake up in time to answer the phone at four in the morning. I'm still in the mindset of assuming it's going to be Jeff. But it's Luther Hodges.

“You've got to help me,” he says.

“I'm in bed,” I say, wondering, not for the first time, about the wisdom of a person who works in television having a listed number.

“They think I did it,” he says. “They're gathering evidence, they said. I need someone on my side.”

“Did you do it?”

“Are you crazy? It's my own friggin' store.”

I yawn and sit up. “What kind of insurance policy do you have, Mr. Hodges?”

There's a pause after this in which I almost fall asleep again. “That's what the cops wanted to know, too,” he says. “You know, just because a person has an insurance policy that covers fire doesn't mean he wants his entire life to go up in smoke.”

“I'm hanging up, Mr. Hodges,” I tell him. “I'm a television reporter, and I need my beauty sleep.”

“Just hold on a minute,” he says, but I don't.

I sleep late, wake up, read three papers, watch CNN. My free time's mostly in the morning, and until recently I'd spend it with Jeff. He liked to cook, preferably old-school breakfasts with eggs and sausage and hash browns. After eating we'd go right back to bed. Half an hour later I'd get restless and want to leave the house, but he'd hold me down, his big hands on my shoulders, telling me not to be in such a rush all the time. It was a friendly argument, but an argument nonetheless. With him gone, I find there's all this space in my life, phantom and new, like when you put on your clothes after successfully dieting off five pounds. Except with the pounds you know you're more than likely to fill up the space again.