Choke (12 page)

Immy grabbed her phone from her purse and dialed 9-1-1.

“Nine one one. Please state your emergency,” a cool female voice said.

“Fire!” screamed Immy. “Fire!”

“Can you tell me your location?”

The smell of burnt chili filled the room.

“A motel!” The name of the motel vanished from her frozen mind, then came back in a neon flash. “Cowlick’s Finest. We’re at Cowlick’s Finest, and our room is on fire.”

The first part of the reply was obscured by a beep.
Oh, great, my battery’s dying.
“…immediately.”

“What?” The crackling flames were spreading quickly. The wallpaper started to peel off in curls, and Immy choked on the smoke beginning to drop down from the ceiling.

“I said,” the woman shouted, “if you’re still in the room, you need to exit immediately. Did you hear me that time?”

The flimsy headboard, then the bedspread caught fire, and Immy jumped away. Hortense wasn’t on the bed any longer. Where was she? The curtains started flaming. The fire’s roar intensified.

“You don’t need to yell.” The phone beeped again. Immy couldn’t see Hortense anywhere. The fire seemed to gain new life, and Immy realized Hortense had opened the door. The new air from outside fed the fire, and it renewed its assault even stronger than before.

The operator assured her that firefighters were on their way. She also suggested again, strongly, that they exit the building.

Immy didn’t need any more urging. Hortense was already outside, gripping her purse. Immy grappled in the smoky darkness for their suitcases, grabbed them and lugged them out to join her mother.

“The chili,” said Hortense, shaking her head. “The lovely chili.” A tear coursed over the bump of her cheek, ran across her chins, and disappeared into her blouse. It left a track in the soot on her face. Immy looked down and saw that their clothes were covered with a fine layer of ash. Smoke billowed out the open door, and flames licked out after it. Even outside, the voracious fire was loud.

“But we’re OK, Mother. Try to look on the bright side.”
That’s what Mother always says.

The local fire engine careened around the corner, straight to their unit in the back of the motel. Sturdy, heavily clothed firefighters jumped down and ran through the door Immy had left standing wide open. The smoke spilling out into the sunshine carried the scents of burning wood, wallpaper and furniture with a hint of chili.

The two woman scurried to get well out of the way of the busy firemen.

A confusing, complicated orchestration took place, with a huge hose snaking into the room, and firefighters rushing in and out. More vehicles drove up, one of them the Fire Chief’s car. Two of the men started knocking on the doors of other units and telling the occupants to vacate. In about half the units, dazed looking people stumbled out.

Immy’s body started to tremble belatedly in the aftermath of the emergency. She noticed tremors beginning to come from her mother, too.

When one of the firefighters got to Baxter’s door, there was no answer. His truck was gone. The fireman banged harder, shouting, “Fire! Fire!”

The manager had appeared, an older, infirm-looking man wearing a brown sweater laced with holes. The fireman at Baxter’s door addressed him. “Is anyone in this unit?”

“I don’t keep track of who’s here, but I know one of their trucks is gone. The other one’s right over there.” He pointed to another truck beside the space where Baxter’s had been.

From where Immy and Hortense stood, well away from the action, they could make out the manager and the firefighter talking to him, but the smoke smudged their view of the doors to the other units.

After some more vigorous pounding at Baxter’s unit, the first one signaled for help from another firefighter. Together, they chopped a hole in the door with their axes and ran inside. Immy heard an outraged yell.

“What the fuck y’all think you’re doing?

“Clearing the premises. Get out. There’s a fire in the building.”

One of the firemen exited, pulling a struggling man, string-bean thin, by his elbow.

“Let go of me you…” the skinny man started coughing when he breathed the smoky air outside his unit.

The fireman remaining in the room stuck his head out and told his partner to call the police. “Looks like someone might be fixin’ to make meth in here,” he added.

“Let me go. I have rights. Y’all can’t do this!” The guy squirmed and twisted, trying to get out of the fireman’s strong grip.

“You’re staying right here until the cops come,” he said.

“Cops,” Immy whispered to Hortense, urgency in her hiss. “We’ll get hauled in if we stay here. I’m not sure Ralph could get us out of this. Or would.”

“Imogene, do you really think we should persist in evading the authorities? I’m not certain that’s judicious.”

“Well, it sure isn’t judicious to hang around here. Ralph told me that we’re on the hook for damages at the police station from the fire I set there. I’ll be in the papers as a serial arsonist. I’ll bet the penalty for multiple fires includes time inside.” She dragged the suitcases and tugged Hortense toward the salt cedar and scrub oak woods bordering the back parking lot on the edge of the cow pasture.

“Where are you going, Imogene?” Hortense questioned her daughter but followed meekly, her energy spent.

“I don’t think we can take the van. We’ll be seen by the authorities if we try a getaway in it. We’ll have to leg it.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Hortense cast a glance back at the van, then continued to trudge after Immy away from the commotion. “It seems we are effecting our getaway, as you call it, without detection.”

When they reached the dense growth, Hortense slumped against a tree trunk that was thick enough to hide her, while Immy crouched behind a bush so she could observe the chaotic scene through its leaves. If her mother’s knees felt as weak as hers, Immy knew why they were both sitting. She gulped the clean air. In spite of the stink that clung to their clothing, it was easier to breathe away from the smoke that continued to roll from their destroyed room.

The crew played a hose on the flame for a while longer and soon announced that the fire was under control.

“This unit has to be closed,” one of the firefighters shouted to the manager, who seemed to be a little deaf. “You’ll need to rip out the carpeting and change the furniture. Smoke damage. And if that dude was making meth in there, that’s going to be whole other story.”

“We wasn’t makin’ no meth,” the skinny guy hollered, still being guarded by a firefighter.

The manager shrugged his thin shoulders and took a few steps toward his office.

“Making meth? In Baxter’s unit?” said Immy. “You know, Baxter did have a sack full of that stuff you have to sign for.”

Hortense gave Immy a knowing look. “That would be pseudoephedrine. It seems your friend was contemplating manufacturing methamphetamines.”

Immy remembered an empty shed in Saltlick that used to smell bad occasionally, until it exploded one night. All four walls blew straight out. Talk was, that shed had been a meth lab. She didn’t detect the odor here, but with the smoke, maybe she wouldn’t be able to. Or maybe they weren’t making it. She didn’t want to believe Baxter was dealing.

Chief Emersen’s shiny Saltlick cop car screeched around the corner, lights flashing and siren blaring. It braked two feet from the terrified firefighter who jumped back, still holding the still struggling, suspected meth maker and yanking him back with him.

“Meth lab,” said the fireman, motioning the chief to look inside the thin man’s room. Baxter’s room.

The chief came out quickly and tacked yellow tape across the splintered door.

“We’ll call Wymee Falls to come process the scene,” the chief told the motel manager. “It’ll be up to them whether they bring HazMat in or not. Until then, you’re closed.”

“But when will that be?” The old man sounded on the verge of tears.

“They’ll be here in the morning when they can see what they’re doing.”

The manager shook his head and slunk away toward the office.

Chief Emersen made a phone call, then snapped a plastic band around the skinny man’s wrists and shoved him to the cruiser. Cowtail didn’t have a police department, but Saltlick extended coverage to them, so Immy knew he would go to her hometown jail.

It took another hour for the commotion to abate and the people and vehicles to clear away from the parking lot. The residents of the other units retrieved their belongings and departed. Immy and Hortense squatted on their suitcases in the woods and slapped mosquitoes, equilibrium slowly returning to both of them. Hortense’s suitcase cracked when she sat on it but didn’t disintegrate further. It seemed too early in the year for mosquitoes, to Immy, but there they were. Maybe they lived in the woods in the winter and early spring, she thought.

By the time the coast was clear, darkness had fallen. Incredibly, the van was still parked outside the ruined motel unit. The chief had to have seen it. Maybe he figured they left it there and hoofed it somewhere when they heard the sirens, which is what they’d done. They just hadn’t hoofed it very far. The chief should have known Hortense wasn’t that much of a hoofer.

“Where will we spend the night?” Hortense asked.

That was such a complete role switch, it left Immy reeling and speechless. Her mother was asking her what they were going to do? Her mother had always told her what they were doing, even when Immy didn’t actually do it. Immy’s mind whirled, feeling clouded, as full of smoke as the motel room.

“Well, we could…” Immy started, then stopped. What could they do? “Let’s consider our options, Mother. Can you think of any?”

“Sleeping in these insect-ridden woods is not an option. I need walls and a roof.”

“Right, walls and a roof.”

Hortense waited, looking almost patient. Immy looked around wildly. She needed to think for both of them and wished she didn’t have to. OK, the immediate options were the woods and the motel room. Those were both out, so they had no options. Then she thought of the van.

“Hey…”

“Hay is for horses, Imogene.”

Immy smiled. Her mother was showing some of her old spirit. “The van has walls and a roof.”

“That it does, dear.” A faint smile played on Hortense’s lips. “Let us relocate it, however, before we domicile therein.”

Immy agreed it needed to be moved, but her mother could domicile all she wanted. Immy was going to sleep.

Immy drove deep into the countryside, down a dirt road between a couple of fenced cattle grazing pastures, not far from a place called Bryson’s Corner. She pulled the van off the road, into the mesquite trees, until the hood bumped the barbed wire that kept the cattle in.

“Do you think you can sleep in here, Mother?” she asked, but before Immy even finished her question, Hortense had already reclined her seat and slunk down. In fact, she was beginning to snore. The night was warm, so Immy thought it would be all right to leave the engine off while they slept, not needing the heater.

It was dark and quiet. The mesquite barely rustled in the light breeze, and even the insects seemed distant, but Immy couldn’t settle down. She needed to check on Drew before she could sleep. She shook her mother gently. “Do you have Clem’s number?”

Hortense startled awake, reeled off the number, and plummeted into slumber again. Immy decided to get out of the van to make her call so she wouldn’t disturb her mother any more than she already had.
Mother must be exhausted,
Immy thought. She herself felt like a zombie.

Being a desperado sounded much more romantic that it really was, she decided. They’d been on the run for, what, two days now? No, three. They’d spent two nights at Cowtail’s Finest, and this would have been their third. How much longer could they do this? Not much longer, especially if they couldn’t find a place to stay. No more nights in the van, Immy decided, even though they had technically only spent a few minutes of the night in it so far.

Immy sighed and closed her eyes, picturing her own bedroom, wishing she were home with her daughter and her mother. It was only a single-wide, but it was home.

Well, she would at least call Drew and make sure she was doing all right. That would give her some measure of peace of mind. She opened her phone, bracing for its light in the darkness.

Nothing.

She shook it, closed and opened it two more times. The battery was dead. She had the charger with her, thanks to her foray back to the house, but now she lacked an outlet to plug it into.

Hortense awoke when Immy clambered back into the driver’s seat.

“Is all this commotion necessary?”

“It is necessary, Mother, to check on Drew. My phone is dead, so I’m driving to Clem’s.”

“Do you think that’s wise?”

“I’m not wise, Mother. You know that. You’ve always said so.”

“I have not, not in those words. You are sometimes injudicious, and not always efficacious, but I haven’t actually stated that you are not wise.”

Immy turned the key and slammed the gear into reverse. “You just did.”

Her mother’s wistful look took her off guard.

“What?” asked Immy, idling the van.

“You are, in fact, very much like your dead, sainted father, bless his soul.”

Those words made Immy’s heart swell with pride. Hortense could not have paid her a bigger compliment. A smile sketched itself on her face as she turned the van around and headed to Saltlick.

Warm light from the windows welcomed them as they approached Clem’s little two-bedroom house. He lived on the opposite side of Saltlick from their trailer. Immy hadn’t driven by their own place, feeling it would be too painful to see her home and not be able to go in. Besides, there was more risk of being seen and nabbed if they drove all over town.

“Should we ask Clem for some refreshments?” asked Hortense.

“We’d better not,” said Immy. “You know how Clem hates cooking when he’s not at work. I assume Drew is getting cereal and sandwiches. I think that’s what he usually eats at home.”

Immy stopped the engine and went around to the passenger side to help her mother climb down. The streets were empty tonight. That was a break, at least.