great wall 9

 When the pandemic began my sister sewed me a couple masks, and I remember looking at them and wondering what use I could make of them in a couple weeks when this had all blown over.  And maybe a month ago I was looking over the masks I had accumulated over the last sixteen months and wondering if it was time to toss them out, but then things were getting a little iffy and I took to stuffing one in my pocket before I left, and maybe slipping on if I were going to be in a store for awhile, and yesterday afternoon there was an email to all residents and now I will have to mask up when I walk into the hallway and keep it on until I get outdoors and then be prepared to put it back on whenever I go inside a building.

Fuck the anti faxxers, fuck them for fucking with me, fuck their bogus claims to personal choice, fuck them all up the butt with a long and fat needle full of vax.

Know what I mean?

Annette had left the keys with the hostess, who wanting to get out right away, left them with me to close up, and as the place emptied I remembered, how could I have forgotten, Dawn.

I hadn’t seen her come down so I went up.  It was dark and empty, and I noticed that some of the tables still had dishes on them and when I looked over to where the little bar was there was Dawn slumped in a chair.  The empty bottle, lying on its side, was a fifth of Glenlivet.

I nudged her a little and she mumbled something and slumped further into the chair.  I looked downstairs and realized that everybody else was gone.  I gave her another little nudge and now she kind of sighed and slipped right off the chair onto the floor.

Well this was just some kind of thing.  It must have been all that talk about her father and his death, and then those little bottles of Glenlivet like toy soldiers.  It must’ve just happened.  She had said she never drank. 

Anyway I had to lock up and I couldn’t leave her there on the floor. I knelt down and put one arm behind her shoulders and one arm under her knees and stood up.  She felt good in my arms, warm and soft and breathing contentedly.  I could see a reflection of myself holding her in one of the mirrors along the wall and I looked quite heroic, like an Aztec hero carrying the princess from the Temple of Evil. 

I got her to the stairs and down them, but once I got her to the first floor I realized that that was as far as I was going to be able to carry her.  I set her down in a chair.  She was a little more responsive now, her eyes opened and she looked confused.

And then I heard someone coming up the stairs from the kitchen.  It was Vincent walking around in the dark empty restaurant and looking around for anybody who spoke English that still might be around, so that he was glad to see me.  I guess Leon had called Vincent from the cop shop and taught him his first English words, “Jail,” and “Bail,” which Vincent repeated to me handing me the keys to Leon’s Buick, to drive down to the station, and the roll of bills that would be the bail bond. 

When he saw Dawn who I’d deposited awkwardly in the chair at the base of the stairs, his smile evaporated and we were no longer the Aztec hero and the princess fleeing the evil temple.  We were the lion and the lamb, and we weren’t in the peaceable kingdom anymore.

It wasn’t like that of course, but how to explain?  I didn’t have to, but I didn’t like the way he was looking at me.  I did an elaborate pantomime of putting her in the car, driving her to her house, taking her to her door, putting her inside and then closing the door and walking away, closing the door and walking away, closing the door and walking away.  And he just looked at me in exactly the same way.

So then I did another pantomime, this time I included him in it.  In this one he helped me put her in the car and I made a point of sitting him between the two of us for the drive to her house.  Now he smiled, now he nodded.

As it turned out the cold air revived her, and she didn’t need much help at all.  And with her recovery and my sincere assurances, Vincent must have felt better about the whole thing, so that when I motioned for him to get into the car, he looked about at the dark wilderness outside, shook my hand, and went back into the restaurant.