Thomas Prescott Superpack (33 page)

Evidently, I’d hit a nerve.
He whipped a phone from his pocket and said, “Security.”

I pointed to the couch, “Why even go to the condo when you have a couch right here?
Hell, you could screw her brains out between clients.”

He looked at me and said, “You aren’t an FBI agent, are you?”

I shook my head.

“Who are you?”

I was set to say, “I’m your worst nightmare,” but there was a knock at the door and a man yelled, “Security. Is everything okay in there?”

Adam started for the door.

I took two steps to my right and hit the elevator call button.
The doors opened silently and I slipped inside. The last thing I saw was the door crashing open and three men in black uniforms barging in. Then the elevator doors slid shut.

Twenty seconds later, I was back in the rain.

Chapter 13

The next day, I decided to surprise Harold.
I stopped by the supermarket and picked up a bunch of items I thought he might enjoy. I went through the same routine with the prune at the front desk, who appeared to have dehydrated even more, if possible. Her jowls now had jowls. Just saying.

Harold came to the door.
He said, “Where ya been?” He looked five years older.

I handed him his bag of goodies.
He smiled, or tried to. His lips no longer appeared to take orders from his brain. But he smiled with his eyes.

He perused his gift bag as I watched horse racing.
Harold seemed especially interested in the
Sports Illustrated Swimsuit
Issue
. I imagine if he was capable of popping a boner it would have killed him. Anyhow, it was right around lunch time and I sort of hinted that I would like to see what the cafeteria looked like.

The cafeteria was about the size of a small classroom.
There were pre-made items—fun size, of course—plus a woman dishing out the meal of the day. According to the calendar at the entrance, it was Salisbury steak and macaroni. Actually, it appeared to be Salisbury steak and macaroni month.

The line moved slowly.
This might have something to do with the fact that every other person was using a walker or a wheelchair, or that the lady who broke her hip was trying to filch an extra Jell-O portion, or that one of the CNN-iles demanded his Salisbury steak be blessed by a rabbi.

When we were almost finished eating, one of the waitresses dropped two pieces of white bread wrapped in cellophane on the table next to Harold.
He quickly grabbed the slices and tossed them in the basket of his walker.

After lunch, Harold and I retired to the common area and played a couple games of checkers.
Harold played a combination of checkers, backgammon, badminton, chess, and Shoots and Ladders. Needless to say, he won both games. At one point, when he thought I wasn’t looking he took three of my pieces and put them in his pocket. I guess when you get to be a hundred and thirty, you no longer worry about karma.

Afterwards, Harold told me to follow him.
So, I followed him out the back doors and onto a narrow paved path. About a hundred yards down the walkway was a small lake surrounded by large oaks. A fountain was spraying at the far edge of the lake, and two or three groups of ducks paddled in the current. There was a small break in the weather, the sun poking its head through the clouds, but I had the feeling we would be here regardless of the conditions.

We covered the hundred yards in a little under five minutes.
Nestled near the lake was a small bench and Harold flopped down onto it. He sat there with his eyes closed and took long deep inhales on his oxygen tank.

I sat next to him.

Harold opened his eyes, took the bread from his walker basket, and unwrapped it.
He handed a piece to me. I ripped off a piece of the bread and threw it in my mouth.

“The bread is for the ducks.”
Harold voiced sternly.

And here I’d been under the impression Harold and I were gonna eat Wonderbread and talk shop.

So the two of us sat there and ripped off little pieces of bread and tossed them to the ducks.
Every time a duck would choke down a piece of bread, the old man’s eyes would light up. If a couple ducks fought over the same piece of bread, the old man would laugh and shake his head, only to fall into a coughing fit.

After about twenty minutes, Harold broke the silence.
He said, “The lake wasn’t much bigger than this.”

I wasn’t sure exactly what he was talking about for a long second.
Then it hit me; we were back in 1942. I turned my attention from the ducks to my friend to my left.

I said, “Right.
The girl had just fallen through the ice.”

Harold watched as the little girl flapped around in the icy hole. Why was he watching? Shouldn’t he do something? He went to open the door on the Model-T Ford. His hand was shaking, but he got the door open.

He remembered seeing a long rope in the trunk of the small truck when he had tossed his bag in earlier that morning.
His dad used the rope for this and that. The last time it was used, another truck had to pull theirs from a rivet in the mud.

Harold leapt into the back of the truck and found the long rope.
It was still covered in mud from months earlier, but it would do. He wrapped the rope around his bulging forearm and shoulder, trading quick glances towards the frantic girl. He watched as her head disappeared under the water, only to reemerge a second later. Harold couldn’t think of a longer second in his life.

He jumped out of the back of the truck, ran across the street, hopped over the small fence, and made his way to the edge of the lake.
The girl was no more than forty feet from him. He guessed the rope was much longer than that, probably even double. The girl was facing away from him. He guessed she’d been in the water for thirty seconds, maybe longer.

Harold screamed at the girl.
After two or three more yells, she turned towards him. Her face was a whitish-blue. Harold could see the fight draining from her body. He had to act fast.

He yelled, “I’m gonna get you out of there.”
He couldn’t tell if she heard him or not. He yelled, “I’m gonna throw you the rope. Grab it and pull yourself out.” Harold found these words silly. How could this girl possibly pull herself out? She’d be lucky if she could get her freezing hands to grip the rope.

He thought about going out onto the ice himself, but if he fell in, then he was dead along with the girl.
He let out a long distance of rope and threw it out onto the ice. It made it about two thirds of the way. He cursed.

The girl clung to the side of the ice.
Her hands frantically moving along the ice’s edge. Then a piece of the ice chipped off and the girl disappeared. She met Harold’s gaze as she slipped under the water. Harold decided he would not be the last image this young girl saw. 

He tied one end of the rope around a fence post, tied the other snuggly around his waist and ran onto the ice.
The ice was thick for the first twenty feet, then became increasingly transparent as he neared the sloshing breach. He came abreast of the hole and stared down into the blackness, then the ice gave way around him.

The sensation was more like being thrown into a fire than anything else.
His body didn’t know what to do. His brain turned off. Then a second later it flickered back on. The girl.

He flipped over in the icy water and kicked his feet downward. He found even the slightest of motions were nearly impossible, like the messages from his brain were rerouted.
Missing their stops. He opened his eyes, but the blackness he saw was darker than if he had his eyes closed. He clamped his eyes shut and kicked down another couple feet. He moved his hands in every direction, but freezing water is all that touched back. Harold knew he only had a couple seconds left to get to the surface. That’s when he felt the touch on his left arm. Just the lightest touch. But a touch that warmed him, filled him with fire.

He found her hand, then her arm, then he had his arms clasped around her.
Then he kicked for the surface. Kicked harder than he’d ever kicked in his life. He didn’t know how far they traveled, it felt like a mile, maybe two, then his head broke the surface. His first thought wasn’t to breath, it was the girl. Her head was limp and she was bluer than the sky. He wasn’t sure if she was alive or dead.

Harold was strong as an ox from working fifteen-hour days in the fields, but all his strength had been stripped.
He wasn’t sure if he would be able to pull himself from the icy waters, let alone the girl. For the first time in a long time, Harold said a quick prayer.

That’s when she coughed.
Just the tiniest of coughs. But a cough nonetheless. Then her eyes opened.

Harold yelled, “I need you to wrap your arms around my back.”

The girl’s teeth chattered and she was able to nod just slightly. She made her way around Harold. Two thin arms wrapped around his neck and a head buried itself into his back. Even in such dire circumstances, Harold could never remember feeling so—what was the word—whole. Like a part of him that had gone missing had finally found its way back.

Harold slowly got his freezing hands to wrap around the rope, and centimeter by centimeter he began to reel himself in. He thought it might be easier to pull the truck from a pit of sand than get himself and the girl from the icy pit.

Then he felt the head nestled in his back lift.
He heard teeth chattering and in a shallow whisper the small girl on his back said, “You . . . saved . . . me.”

In that second, he was already out of the water.
He heaved and pulled and inched his way out of the water and crawled the forty feet to safety. Then he turned, collapsed on the rocks, the tiny angel falling into his arms.

I was on the edge of my seat. Literally, sitting on the last half inch of the small bench. I shook my head and said, “How long were you in the water?”

He shook his head.
“I don’t know. Less than a minute. But it felt like two forevers.”

I thought about the freezing Puget.
And that water had been 15 degrees warmer than what Harold was dealing with. “And the girl, she was okay?”

“She was blue and she kept saying, ‘Pickles.’
Pickles was the dog.”

I’m guessing that Pickles never barked again.
I said, “What then? She was probably hypothermic.”

He nodded.
“I had some blankets in the car.”

Harold returned with the blankets. The little girl was shivering. He gently lifted her up and wrapped the blankets around her. His mom had knitted the blankets, and they were both thick and warm. He massaged the thin body underneath. After a good five minutes of this, the small body stopped shivering. He noticed the girl’s eyes were now open. He couldn’t remember seeing anything quite like them. They were the color of the caramel his mother made at Christmas. Her teeth were still chattering, but he could have sworn he heard her say, “Thanks.”

Harold smiled.

He lifted the small package, surprised at how light she was, probably no more than eighty pounds, and started towards the King mansion. It was a quarter mile stretch to the enormous house. Harold could fit thirty of his small house within the large estate. Two cars were parked in the gravel courtyard. He had seen the cars driving on the road once or twice. He wasn’t sure what kind of cars they were, but they looked awfully expensive. Black and shiny. Nothing like the rusted old Ford of his father’s.

Harold looked down at the small form in his arms.
Her eyes were closed and she wasn’t moving, but he could feel the rhythmic rise and fall of her small chest under the thick blankets. She was sleeping. He moved a large section of damp hair and kissed her lightly on the forehead. 

There was a large brass knocker attached to the door, and Harold lifted it and thrust it against the door twice.
After a short time, the door was pulled open. A large black woman dressed in white stood staunchly in the foyer. She smiled warmly, was set to speak, then noticed the bundle in his arms. She said, “Miss Elizabeth!”

Harold looked down at the beautiful young girl.
Elizabeth.

The woman swiftly took the small girl from his arms and turned and ran.
Harold didn’t know what to do. This isn’t how he had envisioned it. He had saved the young girl. Shouldn’t he be praised for his courage? He was a hero. Wasn’t he?

The door was left open.
Harold could hear feet scampering around and faint yelling in the distance.

He nearly turned to leave when he heard growing footsteps.
A man appeared. He was a skinny man dressed in a suit with red suspenders. He had a large mustache and slicked-back hair. Harold found a knot had formed in his throat just at the sight of the man. He eyed Harold and yelled, “What did you do to my daughter?”

Harold tried to speak, but words wouldn’t come out.
The man said, “You stupid? I asked you what you did to my daughter.”

Harold closed his eyes.
He knew what he wanted to say. Tell the man that he risked his life to save his precious daughter. But nothing came out. The man said briskly, “What’s your name, boy?”

Again, nothing.
 

A woman appeared.
She was cradling Elizabeth in her arms. Harold’s old ravaged blankets had been swapped out for expensive linens. Just the idea of having their daughter wrapped in homemade blankets horrified these people.

The man reached his hand back and slapped Harold in the face.
“I asked you what your name was boy?”

Harold cringed.
He focused and somehow managed, “Harold. Harold Humphries.”

The man cocked his head.
“You the Humphries’ boy from up the road?”