The Keys Are in It (Part Five)
Herein are several people whose lives at first do not seem connected. Their paths converge unexpectedly. This is Part Five.
Part Five
A man sitting in the front seat of the train car shrieked. “It burns!” he yelled. The passengers sitting near him recoiled as if something might indeed be on fire.
The man tucked his arms inside his tee shirt and buried his face in his chest. “The sun! Help me!” he shouted.
Lori grabbed the afghan she had been knitting and shuffled and nudged her way through the standing riders, most of them gawking. “Excuse me!” she said.
The man writhed and slid down from his seat. Those sitting raised their feet as he worked to roll under them.
Bouncing her way past a wall of muscle that looked suspiciously like a man, Lori crouched and reached under the seats. She lay the afghan over the man, now in the fetal position on the dirty floor. One of her tightly-knit, full-length efforts, it was long enough to cover him from head to toe.
“Are you okay now?”
“I think so,” said a muffled voice from behind the rows of rich burgundy, blue, and white yarn. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. What happened?”
“I’m sensitive to sunlight. It’s like I’m on fire.”
“You better not be. I’ve spent a lot of time knitting this.”
A soft chuckle came from under the cover. “Lucky for me.”
Despite the blanket’s barrier, Lori thought she smelled alcohol on the man’s breath. During her assistance in the recent investigation of the county employee pervert, she had spent enough time as honorary cop. She ignored the booze.
The standing riders leaned as the trained slowed. Muscle Man looked down at Lori and shook his head, expressionless.
She turned back to look between the pantyhose-clad shins of the ladies seated directly above her new acquaintance. “Why are you on the DART in broad daylight?”
“I don’t know. Last thing I remember I was drinking with co-workers on a night off. Bar-hopping in the West End. Then we were in a park.”
The train stopped.
“Where are we?” the man said.
“Coming up on my stop. The end of the line.”
The man gasped. “End of the line? We’re in Plano?”
“Yes. Where do you live?”
“In the West End.”
“And that’s where you got so drunk you passed out? Don’t you know you’re not supposed to crap where you sleep?”
“Thanks. I’ll remember that next time. Ouch.” The man shifted under the blanket.
Lori looked up at the women whose legs blocked her view. She shot a glance at their legs and put on her best inquisitive look. Each woman smiled and crossed one leg over the other, their high-heel pumps nearly poking Lori’s eyes. She wondered whether they were prostitutes from the suburbs making their way back from a busy Friday night in the city.
Shaking away that thought, she again addressed the suffering stranger. “Why did you get on the train?”
“I told you I don’t even remember doing it. Will you help me get home?”
Lori sighed. “I just flew in and I’m visiting family. Look, you can keep the afghan. It wasn’t coming out right, anyway.”
“Your voice sounds familiar. What’s your name?”
She hesitated. “Lori.”
“Lori Breden?”
Her eyes opened wider. “Who wants to know?”
“Doug McGruder from University of Houston Downtown.”
“From zoology?”
“Yep.”
“You didn’t have this problem in college,” Lori said. “What happened?”
“It came on later in life. It can do that.”
Lori considered this a moment. She didn’t know anything about such diseases, but she remembered Doug as a nice enough guy. Still, she had not seen him in 10 years, and this wasn’t a good time to get involved. “Do you have a phone? If not, then I can call somebody for you,” she said.
“What time is it?”
She checked her watch. “About seven o’clock.”
“There’s nobody I can call right now.”
Lori turned and sat down, her shoulders bumping the prostitutes’ kneecaps. She pulled her mobile phone from its holster and dialed a number, then pressed Send.
“Hey, are you still out there?” Doug said.
“Mom?” Lori said to the receiver. “Is there room for two people in your car? I’m going to have someone with me when I get off the DART.”
(to be continued)
July 14th, 2008 at 7:13 am
Hmm… wondering where this will go next..!