Infamous (25 page)

Alison went to the window and pulled back the curtains and … He was right. Dirt was chokingly thick in the air and flashes of lightning gave the sky an eerie red-orange glow.

“I hope it starts to rain,” Alison said, “or we won’t be able to leave here. Can you imagine going out in that? It’d be like getting sandblasted.”

Lightning flashed again, and she jerked away from the window, startled, as thunder cracked, almost right overhead. And
the sky opened up—not with rain, but with what sounded like hail. Large, noisy pieces of hail, bouncing off the metal roof of her trailer.

Alison started to laugh at the din, which was when the lights flickered one last time, and went out.

Hail, even hail this size, went right through me without any problem.

So I went outside, because I had some experience with a certain type of a trailer, similar to this, known as an RV or recreation vehicle.

Now, it was true it had been some decades since my daughter, Rebecca, and her best friend, Irma, convinced me to set out with them on a road trip through the lower forty-eight. That was back in 1958, in fact. Their children were grown—they’d both had the challenging task of raising them on their own, since neither of their husbands had returned from World War Two.

They’d joined households in 1945 in order to put those kids through college, and had been housemates ever since.

They traveled a lot—even going to the South Pacific, to the Philippines, to places called Guadalcanal and Leyte Gulf, where their young husbands had died.

But that one summer of ’58, they dragged me from Portland to Chicago to Key West and over to the Grand Canyon—who knew such a thing of beauty was lurking a few hundred miles from Jubilation’s dusty hills?

But my point here isn’t to provide a travelogue of our journey, but instead to state that every time we stopped for the night in that little trailer we pulled along behind our Buick station wagon, if we thought we were going to get any kind of weather at all, we’d anchor that damn thing down so it didn’t bounce around or blow over.

Now, I’m sure technology has changed, but as I walked around outside of Alison’s trailer, I did not see any anchors whatsoever, tying that puppy in place.

Next trailer over? Guy wires and hooks. True, it was a different make, different model. But the one after that? Little
support feet that came out from the side of the thing. The one after that? More wires and hooks.

The wind was howling now, and Alison’s trailer was quite definitely listing to one side.

I went back inside, where Alison was shouting over that racket on the roof, “Well, I
thought
I put some candles in this drawer.
Crap
. Where
are
they?”

I could see quite well in the dark—part of that being-dead thing—so I found A.J. and spoke in his ear. “This thing’s gonna blow onto its side. You need to get yourself and the girl out of here.”

“Alison, you have a jacket?” A.J. called.

“I don’t,” she called back. “Oh, maybe I put the candles in the bottom drawer.”

“Now
, Age,” I told the kid as the trailer was buffeted again, and one of those food trays went off the desk and onto the floor with a crash.

“Oh, shit,” Alison said.

“She doesn’t have a jacket,” he said through his teeth.

“What?” Alison called.

“How about a blanket?” A.J. asked. “Something to wrap around yourself?”

Even in the darkness, I could see her surprise. “No. There’s nothing.… Paper. I have lots of paper and books. Are we going someplace?”

“We need to get out of here,” A.J. told her, moving toward her. I could hear him rustling something, and then he said, “Here, put this on,” and I realized he’d given her the shirt off his back.

“What?” she said. “Why?”

“Wind’s pretty intense in a storm like this,” he said. “There’s stuff flying around that could cut you. You need to cover yourself up—put it over your head, kind of like Cornholio.”

She laughed. “Oh, my God, when was the last time I had dinner with someone who brought up Cornholio? I think maybe I love you.”

A blast of wind hit the trailer and I thought it was done. I thought we were going over, and it wasn’t going to be pretty
with those massive file cabinets and bookshelves shifting around. But the damn thing rocked back down, thank God.

Alison, meanwhile, got the hurry memo. She pulled on A.J.’s shirt. “Where are we going?” she asked. “Shouldn’t we have a destination in mind?”

“My truck,” A.J. said. “It’s in the motel parking lot—halfway between us and the motel. Give me your hand. You ready?”

“Hail stopped,” I reported, “but still no rain.”

I was more than ready, but Alison hit the brakes. “Wait! Oh, my God. You’re … You gave me your
shirt
 …?”

Lightning flashed and lit up the inside of the trailer, where Alison had her hand on A.J.’s bare arm. He was tying one of the linen napkins around the bottom half of his face, jamming his hat down on his head.

“I can’t take your shirt, Gallagher,” she said, but A.J.—good man—wasn’t going to stand there and argue.

“Let’s go,” he said, and pulled her out into the maelstrom.

This was crazy.

As soon as Alison stepped outside, at the very first blast of sand and dirt, she was glad she had A.J.’s shirt. She held it tightly around her, over her head, leaving only a very small hole to peer out of.

Exactly like Cornholio. God, she was old.

And God, the flying dirt and dust stung, even through her clothes. What it felt like to A.J., she could only imagine.

“Lead the way,” he shouted, but he must’ve been saying
I’ll lead the way
, and the
I’ll
had been lost in the buffeting wind, because he moved purposely away from the trailer.

The sand was so thick, it was like being in whiteout conditions, and Alison immediately lost her sense of direction, even of up and down. It was suffocating, blinding, almost like being buried alive. She stumbled, and A.J.’s arm went around her, holding her tightly, keeping her from falling.

He brought his mouth close to her ear. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” She was okay—if
okay
meant being barely able to breathe, and scared half to death. And ick, that would teach
her to open her mouth in a dust storm. She was going to be spitting out sand for weeks.

“Halfway there,” he told her.

How did he know that? And clearly he either liked the idea of sandblasting his teeth and gums, or he cared more about being able to talk to her, to reassure her.

Lightning flashed, and for the briefest of instants, Alison found herself looking up, directly into A.J.’s eyes. Her body was molded against his, and they were nose to nose—or rather linen napkin to shirt. She heard him half growl, half laugh in frustration, and she knew without a doubt that if their mouths hadn’t been covered, he would have kissed her.

And the really stupid thing was that she? Would have kissed him back. Right there, in the middle of this craziness.

Her grandmother’s expression—
Too stupid to come in out of the rain
—flashed through her mind, but it wasn’t raining. Not even close.

A.J. pulled her forward, half carrying her. Visibility was nearly zero, yet he seemed to have some kind of sixth sense or radar that told him exactly where to go.

“Oh, shit,” he said, his voice a rumble with her head against his chest. “Is anyone hurt?” Then, “Are you sure? Be
sure.”

Who are you talking to?
Was he actually on the phone? Alison was just about to ask, when a tumbleweed slammed against her legs—at least she thought it was a tumbleweed. Whatever it was, it hit her with enough force to knock her over. But A.J. was there, holding on to her, somehow keeping their balance.

And then, thank God, his truck appeared, parked on the edge of the motel lot, just as he’d said. It was an older model, he couldn’t beep the door open—he had to use a key. But he had it out and ready, and he pulled the door open, and pushed Alison inside.

He climbed in right behind her and slammed the door shut.

Inside the truck, the sound of the storm was muted. They both sat in silence, just catching their breath.

If he’d been on the phone, he was off it now.

Alison pulled A.J.’s shirt off her head, and dirt hissed as it fell from her hair and clothes and hit the vinyl seats and floor mat. She felt abraded and battered—and could only imagine how he was feeling. His entire upper body had been exposed.

But he didn’t do more than glance at her before he put the key in the ignition and turned over the engine. He switched on the lights, and they did little to cut through the dust. But he put the truck in gear, moving slowly, maneuvering around so that …

“Oh, my God,” Alison said.

He’d pointed his truck’s headlights at her row of trailers, where her office was no longer standing. It had blown over, exactly as he’d predicted, and it lay on its side, partly crushed.

Alison reached for the door handle. “Someone might be under that!”

“No,” A.J. said, reaching out to stop her. “There’s not.”

“You don’t know that,” she said. “You can’t know that.”

“But I do,” he said. “There’s not. Although, shit, there’s at least one other trailer that isn’t properly anchored. Two, maybe … Three. Fuck! Four? Excuse me. Sorry. I was, um, looking at them, earlier, yeah, and I noticed … 
Damn it.”
He rummaged back behind the bench seat and pulled out what looked like a rain slicker, yellow with a hood, and started jamming his arms into it. “Can you drive?”

“Of course I can drive,” Alison said as he zipped it up. He tossed his hat behind the seat and pulled the jacket’s hood up, tightening it around his face. “That’s kind of a weird thing to ask—”

“I’ve never seen you drive.” He spoke over her, reached over her, too—to open his glove compartment and pull out a bandanna. “Give me a break. Some people don’t drive. But okay, you drive. That’s great. I need you to drive. We’re going to evacuate the trailers that aren’t anchored—along with the ones downwind of ’em. We’ll get the people into the truck, and get them over to the motel.” He handed the bandanna to her. “If you get out, put this on. But don’t get out—I need you to drive. Slowly, because it’s hard to see. Second row of trailers, fifth one down. We’re going to work our way
west. When we clear out this one, I’ll tell you where the next one is. Do you understand?”

Alison nodded.

“Good,” he said, and he kissed her—hard—on the mouth before he yanked that linen napkin back up over his face, and vanished into the night.

It was starting to rain.

Everyone had been warned of the danger, and, where necessary, moved over to the motel. But A.J.’s evening activity wasn’t over yet.

Alison was by the motel lobby, talking—with many large gestures—to her production assistant friend, Hugh, whose red hair was getting plastered to his head from the rain. Now that all of the people were safe, she was turning her attention to her next priority.

“Yeah, but I’ve still gotta figure out where all these people are going to sleep,” Hugh was telling her.

“But some of those books are irreplaceable,” Alison said. “Yes, I have digital copies of everything, but that’s not the point. The historical value of the
books themselves—
”

“Is this what you’re looking for?” A.J. interrupted her, holding out the tarp that Jamie had found and A.J.’d borrowed from whatever department was responsible for setting up extra tents.

“Bless you,” Alison said.

“I’ve already checked it out,” A.J. told her as they hurried over to her toppled trailer. “The seams are all holding and I was able to secure the door. That’s the biggest potential leak point—it’s not designed to keep water out from that angle.”

Now that the trailer’s center of gravity was lower to the ground, it wasn’t going anywhere. Although it was also true that the wind seemed to be less strong. Or maybe it just felt less powerful now that it was sending water, instead of dust and dirt, into his face.

There were plenty of places to tie down the tarp, and with Jamie’s help, they made swift work of it.

Not swift enough, though, to keep from getting soaked.

And not that it really mattered, since he was already drenched with perspiration. Nothing like wearing a hooded and rubber-lined raincoat in eighty-degree heat, although A.J. had pulled back the hood and unzipped the front as soon as the rain washed the dust from the air.

The water was cool, and he tried to pull the jacket away from his back as they walked to his truck—to let the rain soothe his roughed-up skin.

It was coming down in buckets. It was kind of funny actually—like walking through a car wash.

He unlocked the door to his truck, but Alison shook her head. “I’m a mess. I’m not getting in there.”

“It’s easy enough to clean,” he said, trying to convince her, but she just kept shaking her head, no. So he locked the truck. Pocketed the keys. Gestured toward River Street. “I’ll walk you home.”

Jamie sighed as the rain passed right through him. He clearly foresaw disaster, but he knew there was no point in arguing. There was no way A.J.
wasn’t
going to see Alison safely home.

“You’re doing more than dropping me at the door,” Alison informed him. “You’re coming in so I can make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine,” A.J. said.

“Give it up, kid,” Jamie told him. “She knows there’s a reason you haven’t taken that jacket off. In fact, maybe you should do it now, so her first look at your back isn’t in brighter light.”

“It’s not that big a deal.” A.J. aimed his words at Alison, who was wearing her
I don’t believe you
face. “It feels like I’ve got a sunburn. A mild one.”

“I have some lotion,” she told him, “that works well on sunburn. It’s got aloe in it. You can take it with you, for after you shower.”

“That’s very thoughtful,” A.J. said, “but not necessary.”

“I still don’t know how you knew that the trailer was going over,” Alison mused.

“It’s really simple, actually,” Jamie said, as if answering
for A.J. “I was warned by the wise and generous spirit of my—”