TWENTY-NINE MAC
TWENTY-NINE
MAC
Today has dragged on. It’s a real microwave-minute situation. Every second that creeps on is the equivalent to five minutes. I woke up in the same weird mood as yesterday. I went to bed the happiest I’ve ever been. But this morning, my thoughts were just as loud again.
I didn’t want to punch the snoring Sage this morning, though. I wanted to fuck him into the mattress and call off of work. But I can’t afford to call off of work. Not if I want to do more work to the Mustang and help pay rent on the trailer.
Aken has been down in the garage all day, perched on top of a toolbox with a sketch pad. And weirdly enough, Henry is out here, too. All day, I’ve watched them dance around each other. One is always looking away when the other looks at them. It’s a weird nature documentary about mating habits.
Here, we see two antisocial birds. Watch as they pretend to ignore one another. Fascinating.
Henry has been fucking with that old truck for the past hour. Constantly cursing and muttering under his breath. And every single time Aken’s head jerks up, and he stares before returning to his sketch pad.
Jesus Christ, is this the shit I was doing with Sage? Subtle. Real subtle.
I should probably focus on working instead of watching these two idiots, but I only have an hour till I’m off. And watching them turns one second into three minutes instead of five.
“Fuck this!” Henry shouts, slamming down the hood of the truck. Aken flinches and casts a stunned glance at the man. “I’ll be in my office.” Tossing a dirty rag onto the workbench, Henry stomps to the back. Aken’s eyes bounce between me and the back about ten times before he looks away.
There goes my entertainment. Guess I’m now forced to actually work.
But Aken has other ideas. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him put down his sketch pad and tuck his pencil behind his ear. He doesn’t say anything for a while. But I feel his eyes on the side of my head.
“What’s up?” I ask when the drilling of his eyes becomes more annoying than amusing.
“I—” His words are interrupted by my phone vibrating and cutting off the music I had playing. It rattles against the metal workbench to Aken’s left.
“Hand me that, will ya?” When Aken places it in my waiting hand and I see June’s name on the screen, alarm bells start to play. June doesn’t call me.
“Hello?” No one says anything. But the sound of sirens blares out. I jerk my phone away from my head for a second before returning it to my ear.
“I’m calling him now!” June’s muffled voice shouts through the sirens. Like she’s speaking to someone else, not me.
“June?” I’m screaming into the phone. More sirens.
More muffled talking. What the hell is going on?
Why are there sirens? The familiar ice-cold feeling of fear is pumping through my body.
My mind filling in the blanks with every possibility.
“June!” I scream into the phone, and Aken startles, bumping into a toolbox.
I’m plugging my other ear with my finger, trying to hear the muffled voices.
Good God, June, learn how to use the phone!
“Mac? Are you there?” she finally says into the phone. Her voice is fearful and shrill in my ear.
“Yes! What’s happening?”
“Oh, honey. He—” The phone cuts off along with my sanity. He? He what? Why are there fucking sirens? I shout her name again and again, like that will bring her back.
“Everything ok?” Aken asks timidly. My mind is a storm of chaos. Panic is gripping me so tightly, all I can do is stare down at the black screen of my phone.
“Mac?” Aken’s voice pulls me back to the moment.
“Fuck. Uh. I gotta go. Tell Henry…just tell Henry.” I drop the wrench I didn’t know I was still holding and race out of the garage. I just need to get to Sage.
He has to be okay. He has to be okay. I chant the same sentence over and over in my hand. Trying to will them to be true.
I jump into the Mustang and crank the key.
The car sputters and chokes but doesn’t catch.
“Fuck no! You piece of shit! Start!” I try again, only hearing the sound of a car I’m going to break more.
My hand is gripping the steering wheel so tightly, the small indents of the leather are tattooing onto my hand.
When the car still won’t start after the third attempt, I jump out, slamming the door with all the anger and fear I have. Jogging back into the garage, I’m fucking frantic.
Aken and Henry stand in the back by Henry’s office. They both look up with matching looks.
“Mustang won’t start. Fuck!” My hands tug at my hair as I try to think. “Can I…can I borrow your truck?”
“Is everything alright?” Henry asks.
No. No, nothing is alright. There are sirens, and June, and her small, terrified voice.
“Something happened; I really need to go. Please, Henry!” I frantically ask him for even more shit. He nods, digging his hand into his front pocket and pulling out the keys. I yank them from his hand.
“Thanks.” I don’t wait to hear what he says next, just run from the garage. I think he says “be safe” or “call me,” but I can’t slow down.
Jumping into his truck, I crank the key, terrified it won’t start but it does. Of course it does. It’s Henry. I toss my phone into the passenger seat and peel out of the parking lot.
I’m freaking out. Whatever happened…possibilities begin to play out in my head.
Sage bleeding out. Sage unconscious. Every terrible image ends up the same.
Sage gone. There isn’t a world I’d want to live in without him.
I can’t survive this world without him in it.
Even when we weren’t talking, even when he hated me, there was comfort knowing he was out there.
That he was alive. There isn’t a life I could—
I shake my head. Barreling down the highway isn’t the time to lose it. I just need to get home. Just need to know. My phone vibrates on the passenger seat, but it tips over and lands in the footwell.
I stretch my arm, trying to reach it, but it’s too far away. Returning my hand to the steering wheel, I decide not to try again. Whatever happened, however Sage died, I can’t hear about it over the phone.
A ringing is building in my ears, snuffing out the sounds of the truck. I don’t hear if there’s music, or people honking. Only ringing and sirens.
I can’t lose him. I just got him back. I haven’t told him I love him. I haven’t…I haven’t had enough time with him. My eyes burn; my chest aches.
I pray. I pray to a God who has never listened. I pray to a God I don’t know exists.
I finally make it to Jessie James Park. Light, wispy smoke is tunneling through the sky. Fire. There was a fire.
I used to joke Sage would burn the trailer to the ground. Just yesterday, he tried to by making a casserole. Did the dick try to cook again?
Bright, flashing lights find me right after I turn in. Then I see it.
A fire truck parked in front of Sage’s trailer. What used to be, anyways. It’s a burnt shell now. Water from the hoses run down the gravel along with some white, foamy shit.
But the trailer is gone. Just a husk of burnt siding and ash. The fire is out, but the firemen are still tromping through the remains.
I park in front of June’s. I don’t remember if I put it in park, don’t even remember opening the door. My body moves without thought, propelling me forward towards the grotesque scene.
Neighbors are all standing behind the fire truck. Some of them give me sad expressions when they see me. Others just simply watch as everything I have melts.
My heart falls, and my knees feel like they are going to buckle underneath me. Jeremy is parked off to the side, leaning against his shit Nissan. The look on his face…he wouldn’t look at me like that unless...
“Mac! Honey!” I jerk away from Jeremy. June comes waddling over, waving her phone in her hands.
“I tried calling you. Oh, honey.” I can’t look at her. My eyes return to the trailer I grew up in. The siding burnt, the roof caved in. Black and ash and death. I can’t move. My mouth tastes like the ash I’m looking at.
“Mac? Oh, sweetheart.”
“Where…” I swallow. I’m too terrified to voice the one question I want answered. The only thing that matters. “Where…” I try again, but the words get lodged behind a rock in my throat.
“He’s at the hospital.” I finally look away and into the pale, blue eyes of June. Hope flares in my chest. A tear breaks through my lashes as the moment of truth arrives.
“He’s ok,” she tells me. I release the sob that’s been building since I got the call and shatter into a million pieces of relief.
My knees give out, and I crash down onto the gravel.
June follows me, her small hand resting on my shoulder.
Her pink bathrobe not getting wet from the river of water. My shoulders heave under her hand.
“He’s ok,” she repeats softly. “They just took him in an ambulance. When he got home and saw the fire…he ran in. Stupid, stupid boy.” He’s okay. He’s alive. Holy fucking shit, I can breathe again.
I cough and splutter like the Mustang, trying to get air in my lungs. But it all smells like fire.
“What…what hospital?” I finally grit out. June’s hand rubs my back, but I don’t feel it. Sage is ok, but he’s in the hospital. I should be asking more questions. I should have more questions, but all I can think about is getting to him.
“St. Albert’s. The ambulance left right when I called you.” I climb to my feet, leaning on June like I always have. I have to get to the hospital. “The fire marshal is here. He’ll want to speak with you.” But I’m already turning and running towards the truck. Ready to break more traffic laws.
Fuck the fire marshal. Whatever he has to talk to me about can fucking wait. The keys wait for me in the ignition, the truck still running.
I back up, the blinding lights of the firetruck making starbursts in the rear view.
The drive to the hospital is a blur. I don’t know if I ran any red lights, can’t remember any lights, let alone red ones.