Dire Means Read online

  Mark cocked his head and studied Al. “What? Some test? You’re putting your life in my hands?”

  A surprised laugh escaped Al. “You sure you’re not a shrink?”

  “I’m a computer technician. What do I have to do?” Mark began to shiver.

  “Take off all your clothes.”

  “What?”

  “Strip—and let them laugh at you.” Al pointed to the crowd. “Let them televise it.” He pointed down to the camera crew. “And let them,” he gestured in the direction of the officers who were still whispering to each other between short bursts from their radios, “write you up for indecent exposure.”

  Though the bizarre request surprised Mark, he kept his facial expression steady. He considered the cost of complying with Al—the humiliation Al seemed to want him to feel and more involvement than Mark wanted with the police. He then considered the cost of simply walking away. His recurring nightmare about Carlos would be compounded by this vivid, actual suicide and all the shame that came with having failed to prevent it. “If I do this, will you walk down the stairs instead of jumping from this roof?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Al said, without hesitation.

  Mark nodded, thinking. The sirens were much louder now. He heard the grumbling of a fire truck and the hiss of air brakes as it came to a stop. On the edge of the crowd below, he saw the TV camera aimed directly at them.

  Mark took off his jacket and let it drop. Al watched with a slight smile of disbelief. The chilly wind quickly stole any warmth from Mark’s upper body. He pressed his arms against his sides, but the hard shivering began almost immediately.

  Mark unbuttoned his shirt. When the cold air rushed in, he ripped the shirt off quickly—like jumping into a cold swimming pool. A few spectators whistled and hollered. Cameras flashed. Mark ignored them and focused on Al, who no longer smiled, but studied Mark’s face. Al turned to face him.

  Mark kicked off his shoes and unbuckled his belt.

  “That’s enough, sir!” an officer yelled.

  Al spun toward the officers. “You SHUT UP, cop!” Then, still on the very edge of the building, he leaned at the hip and yelled to the officers on the ground. “If there’s a sergeant down there, you better get your boys off my hero’s ass before they cause a televised death.”

  Mark’s teeth chattered as he watched the two officers speak into their handsets and retreat.

  Al turned back to Mark and said, “Almost done.”

  Mark, shivering uncontrollably now, pulled down his pants. He stepped out of them and kicked them toward his growing pile of clothes. A new burst of camera flashes made him squint. He yanked a sock from each foot and threw them onto his pile. He was down to his underwear and afraid to look at the spectators who had grown eerily quiet.

  Mark’s pulse raced. With hands that were starting to go numb, he hooked his thumbs under the elastic of his underwear. He paused, shivering, to look into Al’s face for any hint of reprieve. Al’s face had lost its anger and his head tilted as he watched Mark. Tears were in his eyes.

  “That’s enough,” Al said.

  “D-don’t break our d-d-deal,” Mark replied, teeth chattering.

  “You’ve shown me enough.”

  “Really? D-d-don’t back out on me, Al.”

  Al did not answer. He seemed unable to speak. Mark stepped closer and extended his hand toward Al’s. Tears streamed down Al’s face. Mark took another step closer. In his peripheral vision, Mark saw the officers squat, waiting like runners in a starting block.

  Mark took another step closer to Al, who had bowed his head and squeezed his eyes shut. The crowd seemed to hold its collective breath. The lights and cameras remained aimed at the rooftop, illuminating half of Al and half of Mark’s near-naked body.

  Al covered his face with both hands and that’s when Mark dove, grabbing Al’s torso and sending both of them crashing onto the roof. Al made no struggle, he only gasped a few times to catch his breath after landing square on his back with Mark on top of him.

  A cheer went up from the crowd and they applauded and whistled.

  Before Mark could get off, the two police officers were on top of them. One officer grabbed Mark around the waist and threw him aside, while the other severed Al’s rope with a pocket knife. They rolled Al onto his stomach and handcuffed him.

  Mark, still shaking from the cold went straight for his clothes. He hopped on one numb foot as he struggled to slip the other into his pant legs. He could hear the buzz of the excited crowd.

  His fingers were too cold to button his shirt so he skipped that task and slipped back into his jacket.

  Officer Reynolds approached and said, “You law enforcement?”

  “No. Look, I didn’t mean to interfere,” Mark explained. “I tried to help and was stuck by the time you guys showed up.”

  “Not a problem, sir. He didn’t give you much choice. Pretty brave what you did. But risky too. I wouldn’t advise such a tactic in the future.”

  “I understand, Officer,” Mark said.

  A firefighter in a ladder bucket popped up over the side of the building and threw a stretcher onto the roof.

  The other officer called to Reynolds for help with Al. “He refuses to walk,” he said.

  Reynolds turned to Mark and said, “Sir, you’re going to need to answer some questions for us on the ground so stand by. The fire fighter will lower you to safety. We’ll take care of him.” He pointed to Al.

  “Go ahead and take him first, I’ll be fine,” Mark said.

  “No, your safety is paramount. We’ll help you down and then come back for him,” Reynolds said.

  Al hollered from his prone position underneath the knee of the other officer. “Hey, Mark! Officer Reynolds prefers to show his affection for me in private as a reward for the television publicity I gave him tonight.”

  Reynolds glared at Al.

  Mark stood, walked over to Al, and turned to Officer Reynolds. “Look, he almost died tonight. He was desperate. Take it easy on him.”

  Reynolds pointed a baton toward the fire bucket and said, “Sir, you need to exit the roof. We’ll take it from here.”

  “I’d like to wait with my friend,” Mark said.

  Reynolds shook his head. “Sir, I’m not going to ask you again. You need to—”

  “C’mon, Paul, let’s just go,” the other officer interrupted.

  Mark sat and put on his socks and shoes. He heard the buzz of a late helicopter approaching. All four men on the roof looked toward the sound. The officers grabbed Al, each hooking him under an arm pit.

  “Be gentle. It’s my first time,” Al said, and then winked at Mark.

  The helicopter’s spotlight swept back and forth, searching for the scene. The officers dragged Al between the air conditioners to the waiting firefighter. Al’s boot heels scraped as they slid across the gritty roof surface.

  “Thank you, Mark,” he said as firefighters strapped him onto the stretcher. Mark saw his stretcher lift and then disappear over the edge. By the time the fire fighter came back up to get Mark, the helicopter bathed everything on the roof in white light. Mark sat on the stretcher and the firefighter exited the bucket to tie Mark in. The officers left the rooftop using the fire escape ladder Mark had used to get up.

  Mark’s stretcher touched down between a fire truck and an ambulance. A small group of medics approached him and after congratulating him for his rescue of Al, they asked if he needed medical attention. Mark said he didn’t. Three nearby officers leaned on their car in conversation. Although Mark was supposed to answer some questions, his aversion to dealing with the police revisited him. He slipped away and headed back out the alley and toward the Promenade. The only thing he wanted at that moment was some privacy. He vowed to mind his own business for the rest of his life.

  He managed to give a wide berth to the news crew and the crowd that was still dispersing from the front of the building. He hoped no one would recognize him with his clothes on and then laughed throu
gh a shiver at the thought. He blended into the crowd most of the way back to his parking spot.

  He turned on his car with tingling fingers still recovering from numbness. As he waited to warm up, he stared at the colorful lights of the pier until his eyes lost focus. A homeless man passed in front of his car. He carried a backpack so large it almost doubled him over. Mark wondered if that man felt the humiliation Al claimed to know.

  The car warmed and he pulled out of his spot. He felt pain creeping in on his right side. His full body tackle of Al had awakened some of the soreness from the previous week’s beating. He drove home hoping for a long, sound night’s sleep, but he knew that wasn’t likely. In addition to his missing identity, he had now been on television, all but naked. The rooftop incident left his body as exposed to the public as his identity was to the gas-money cons. He tried to focus on the positive ending to Al’s predicament, but couldn’t.

  §

  It was almost 9:00 p.m. and Mark’s own actions atop the building on the Promenade had surprised him. He wondered if Uncle Leon had seen his rescue escapade. If so, what sort of unpaid favor must the act have yielded? He pictured Uncle Leon jumping up and down, excited at the sight of it.

  After a few blocks on Ocean Avenue, his phone rang. Caller ID displayed Margaret Thurmon, an elderly receptionist in the office of a law firm Mark serviced.

  He sent the call straight to voicemail. Under his breath he said, “I’d love to talk, Margaret, but I’m off duty.” Thirty seconds later, his phone vibrated again. Caller ID showed Jaffey Melugin, the client Mark was supposed to have visited the day he was assaulted and robbed. He had been scheduled to set up some new computers at Jaffey’s home. Mark sent this call to voicemail too and shoved his phone back into his pocket. A few seconds later, the phone vibrated again.

  “What’s going on?” Mark mumbled, checking the caller ID—another client. Mark ignored it again, but pulled over to listen to his voicemail messages.

  Margaret, the first caller, was hysterical. “I saw you on the news,” she said. “Are you okay? Call me ASAP.”

  While he listened to Margaret hyperventilate, call-waiting beeped. Mark pulled the phone from his ear and checked the caller ID. It showed Julie Maro, an assistant to one of his clients. He sent it to voicemail and two more calls beeped in before Margaret’s voicemail message ended.

  He now understood the phone calls. The news feed of his act on the rooftop had obviously been broadcast live. Thousands, if not millions of people could potentially have seen him shivering, practically naked and tackling a homeless stranger atop a building.

  “Great,” Mark sighed. He tossed his phone to the passenger seat and continued toward home.

  As he turned onto his street and began searching for a parking spot, his stomach knotted when he thought about entering his apartment. Then he remembered that there was nothing else of value to take and the new locks would have to be picked in front of a host of nosey neighbors.

  As he approached his door, he heard his home phone ring at the same time the phone in his pocket vibrated. He fumbled for his key and jiggled its rigid edges into the keyhole. Since family and friends were the only ones who called his home line, he picked up without checking the caller ID. It was Brian, an old buddy he had not seen in over a year.

  “Hey dude,” Brian said. “I saw you on the news rescuing that guy. You were unbelievable. Did you get hurt?”

  “No, but I think my ego will be sore tomorrow,” Mark said. “I just realized that they broadcast that already. My phone’s been blowing up ever since.”

  “Of course they broadcast it. It was live and a hot story, man! I was flipping through the local news channels and you’re on almost all of them, Superman. Hey, did you know that guy?”

  “No.”

  “What did he say to you? Give me the play by play.”

  “Listen, Brian, I’m not really up for it right now. Let me catch up with you later.”

  “Aww, c’mon, man!”

  “Seriously. I’ve got to go. Sorry.”

  Mark pressed the End button. He cupped his face and exhaled. His answering machine beeped every five seconds and showed twelve new messages. He pressed Play and got a pen and paper from his coffee table.

  The first message was from his mom in Florida who had heard the news from a family friend and urged Mark to call her back. The remaining messages were from friends who had seen the news and were calling to make sure their eyes had not deceived them.

  The phone rang again and the caller ID showed private. Mark let it go to the answering machine and used his cell phone to call his mom in Florida.

  She answered on the first ring, saying, “Thank God you’re alright. Now, why were you in your underwear?”

  Mark gave her a brief summary of his predicament with Al and put her fears to rest. After a stern reprimand for the danger he had put himself in, she admitted that she was proud of him.

  Since the news had been shown on prime time local television, Mark’s act was saved on the DVR’s of thousands of people in greater Los Angeles and already broadcast over the Internet. He took out his laptop and found streaming footage of the incident. The cameras zoomed in on his waist when he slipped his pants off. Watching this, he winced and then relaxed, resigned to the reality that there was no taking back his choice that night. No big deal—probably. In fact, people might even call his act heroic. The problem was that Mark hadn’t sought to be a hero. He had simply wanted to avoid a new nightmare of failing to prevent a suicide.

  He turned off his phone’s ringer, disabled the message-alert beep on his answering machine, and slapped off the kitchen light. He wanted to dive into bed, but instead he crept between his sheets with a tenderness that respected his aches. He tucked his hand under his pillow and reveled in a moment of quiet darkness. He realized that his act atop the building in Santa Monica had likely launched his fifteen minutes of fame. While he slept, his answering machine worked overtime. The number of saved messages ticked up and up as friends, family and former coworkers left messages of inquiry and congratulations. Most asked for a call back.

  Todd woke Mark by pounding on the door at 6:00 a.m. yelling, “Buddy, you’re famous! C’mon, open up.”

  Mark mumbled as he struggled into some jeans. When he unlocked the door, Todd came in and yelled, “Oh my God! You’re a superhero!”

  “Shhhh!” Mark said, closing the door to spare his neighbors. “Don’t you ever whisper?”

  Todd was giddy and paced in Mark’s small living room. “Buddy, what got into you? I know you are into giving to beggars, but I never thought I’d see you on TV, standing on a skyscraper rescuing one—and naked! What was that about?”

  “Look, it wasn’t a skyscraper and I got drawn into the situation. I wasn’t trying to be a hero,” Mark said. “I was the first person to see the guy so I tried to help him. The TV cameras happened to be nearby and found us.”

  “Well, you better get ready to sign autographs, buddy.”

  “Naaaah.”

  “You don’t believe me? There’s a news van out there getting ready for you right now.”

  “What?” Mark parted the blinds to peer into the courtyard.

  “I went jogging this morning. When I came back, a Channel 5 van was parked out front. So I turn on my morning news, and what do I see? My next door neighbor saving a bum on a building. Man, I’m so proud of you.”

  “Thanks.” Mark jiggled his doorknob to make sure it was locked and turned on the TV. He saw himself high above Rona Vintage Clothing, shouting down at the crowd. Al stood beside him, looking down, his face shadowed by his baseball cap and his noose tucked out of site.

  The anchorwoman said, “Mark Denny, a computer support technician, performed a heroic act, stripping down to his underwear to approach a despondent man and foil a suicide attempt. Denny, twenty-nine years old from Venice, appeared to be in conversation with the desperate man. After disrobing to his underwear, he suddenly dove, risking his own life to save the sui
cidal vagrant. It is not yet known if Denny’s stripping act was a distraction tactic, or if it was the result of conversation with the suicidal man. We’ll have more on this extraordinary footage later…”

  Mark stood and shook his head at the TV. Todd jumped up after him and demanded a high-five that Mark ignored.

  “Hey, did that guy make you strip?”

  “Look, Todd, I’ll tell you about it later, but right now I need your help.”

  “Whatever you want, buddy.”

  “I don’t want to talk to the media. I’m hungry. I have to get to a client appointment that I’ve already postponed once. If they come to the door could you run some interference and help me get out of here?”

  “Say no more.” Todd went to the blinds and peered through. “Here they come,” he said.

  A female reporter in a business suit approached. She had a clipboard tucked under her arm and talked on her phone as she examined the unit numbers—looking for Mark’s. A man behind her shouldered a large TV camera.

  Mark joined Todd at the window and said, “Get rid of them and don’t tell them anything! I’m going to grab a quick shower.”

  Mark went to the bathroom while Todd dealt with the reporter, telling her that Mark was not home and would not grant an interview even if he were. The reporter was persistent and pressed Todd for Mark’s whereabouts. This set off a brief argument that ended with Todd slamming the door. Mark heard this from the shower and, for once, was grateful for Todd’s loud mouth.

  After he dressed, Mark found Todd flipping channels on the TV. He poured some coffee.

  “Let’s go to Bonfiglio for breakfast,” Todd said.

  “You think I’m going to get hounded?”

  “Look, buddy, you got no choice here. You did something wild and people want to know about you. Today, the whole city will be talking about what you did. You’re gonna have to deal with it.”

  “I suppose. I just wish it hadn’t been caught on tape.”

  Todd went to peer through the peep hole when Mark noticed that the display on his answering machine was blinking Full.