One Dead Drag Queen Read online

  All I remember of the next half an hour is chaos unimaginable. Heat and flames. Water and smoke. Shouts and cries. Fire hoses and darkness. Jury-rigged lights swaying from wobbly poles. A man and woman sobbing loudly hurrying past, followed closely by a camera crew. I remember thinking the damn reporters could cease their inanity for a minute and do something really important, like help. The mostly silent workers around me only occasionally stopped to stare at the slowly abating conflagration. Periodically a gentle breeze floated in from the lake carrying heavy white smoke drifting in our direction.

  Once a guy next to me said, “Aren’t you Scott Carpenter, the baseball player?”

  I didn’t deny it. He shrugged and we both kept working.

  Fifteen minutes later the fire was two buildings away from the alley, but it was obvious that its progress was almost completely checked.

  They hadn’t found anyone under the debris in quite a while.

  Dellios found me again. “We’re setting up an area for the families and friends.”

  “I’m going to stay here and help,” I said.

  Brandon Kearn and his camera crew rushed up. They crowded toward me. Kearn spoke into the camera, “We have learned that the controversial baseball player Scott Carpenter is present at the scene.” Because I’d come out as an active, openly gay baseball player, I was often referred to as controversial. I seldom felt controversial. More like I was the normal one and the rest of them needed to catch up. I was not in the mood to be harassed.

  Kearn was around thirty, tall, with wavy, black hair, and golden brown skin. I’d met him. He was generally more sensitive and more sensible than most reporters. Then again this was probably the story of a lifetime for him.

  Kearn shoved the microphone toward me. “What can you tell us about the explosion?”

  I exercised my right to remain silent, my right to be more concerned with my lover, and my right to turn my back and keep working. They gave up on me and rushed to another instance of disaster and death for more exploitation of those in pain. That all those around me and everyone in the television audience now knew I was there only added to my dislike of sensationalistic journalism.

  Several moments later, a man standing near the edge of the clinic debris shouted. He waved frantically, and along with other rescue workers I rushed to him. People concentrated on hurling debris away from a central spot. I joined the others in picking up items and passing them to the person behind me in line. In front of me I saw a rescue worker holding a hand. It had a wedding ring on it. Not Tom. Five minutes later, they eased a woman out of the mess—I couldn’t tell if she was breathing—and rushed her over to the paramedics. Seconds later she was lost to my sight.

  At no point did anyone say go away. No cops tried to keep only official people present. Mostly we sifted through debris and listened.

  After uncounted minutes of mindless effort, I glanced at the fire. I could no longer see any flickers of blue, red, orange, or yellow. Billowing clouds of smoke did continue, often causing us to stoop as close to the ground as possible. It looked as if this part of the destruction would be spared the flames. If Tom was alive—the most horrible “if” I ever wanted to face—if he was alive, we’d be able to get to him.

  A glance at the perimeter of the scene showed that some degree of order was being brought to the search. Personnel with bullhorns at their sides were being given orders from a central point. I saw five top-level police officers conferring about fifty feet to the right. The firefighters seemed to be working with well-coordinated efficiency.

  Then there was a large yellow flash followed by a deafening boom.

  3

  I found myself on the ground. Only a few seconds seemed to have passed. My ears rang and I could vaguely hear shouts around me. I shook my head to clear it—I wasn’t in pain and nothing seemed broken. I rose unsteadily to my feet. My left hand was cut from where I’d thrust it out to cushion my fall. The new explosion had occurred on the west side of Racine Street almost to the intersection with Carroll. I saw a fire truck burning, two police cars were in flames, and the fire among the buildings had been enhanced tenfold. Half a block farther north past Carroll Street on Racine, the lights of an all-night gas station burned brightly. I hated to think about the size of the explosion if the fire reached those storage tanks.

  No one else stayed to dig in the debris and it was hopeless for me to keep digging on my own. People ran toward the victims who’d been nearest the new detonation. I was torn between hunting for Tom by myself or helping the newly injured. Frenzied chaos had returned. After several agonizing seconds, I joined the others.

  Twenty feet from the burning fire truck, I saw a young cop on his knees. With an agonized moan, he put out a hand to keep himself from crumpling the rest of the way to the ground. I rushed forward. When I got to him, I saw that the skin on the left side of his face had been completely burned off. From his eye to his ear to below his chin, his cheek was a mealy mass of black bits and flecks of blood.

  “Help me!” he gasped.

  I didn’t see a paramedic nearby who wasn’t already overwhelmed with work. I helped the man walk to an ambulance. I sat him on the floor. He raised a hand toward his face.

  I said, “I think maybe you shouldn’t touch that.”

  He lowered his hand and took several deep breaths. “Thanks,” he muttered. “There are some people worse off than me, you better go to them.” Then he passed out. I made sure he was breathing, then pillowed his head as best I could with a blanket from the back of the ambulance.

  For fifteen minutes, I carried stretchers filled with the wounded. I saw Kearn and his television crew giving assistance to those who were hurt. Their faces were scratched and bleeding. Good. Once I tripped over a smashed Minicam.

  While I was helping tote a baby-faced fireman, someone ran by screaming, “There’s more bombs! Everybody get out! Run for your lives!”

  A few of the workers gave in to mad, blind panic and ran. Most of us moved on to the next point where we could help.

  I hope never again to see the kind of agony and pain I saw that night. With each wounded victim, I saw another vision of what either explosion might have done to Tom. Only the immediacy of their pain kept me from obsessing about my lover. I don’t know how many people I helped. I don’t know why I didn’t get sick at the torn and dismembered bodies. Probably because I didn’t have time to think. Mostly I did as fire-department and paramedic people told me to.

  I had long since begun to sweat. I realized moments later it wasn’t just from the exertion. The second explosion had halted the fire-fighting efforts. The flames had burst into a conflagration devouring debris between where it had almost died and where I thought my lover might be. The only thing keeping it from the clinic was the firebreak made by the bulldozer, which was now on its side in the middle of the street. Much of the fire equipment was concentrated between the fire and the gas station. Only one stream of water was being poured on the fire between the clinic and the blaze. I saw another hose being set up.

  In fairly short order, the newly injured were under the care of trained medical people or waiting transport to a hospital. A fire captain wearing a black fireman’s coat with a horizontal yellow stripe was reorganizing about fifty of us to go back to hunting through the debris. He spoke through a bullhorn. “The order to evacuate hasn’t come yet. There is a good chance there are more bombs at the site. You may lift a board and blow yourself and a lot of people into oblivion. You may lift a board and save some lives. Until the fire gets here, or we’re told to move back, I’m going to keep trying. I won’t order anyone to stay. If you’re with us”—he almost grinned—“be as careful as possible.”

  After we’d been working a minute or two, I saw canine units arrive. In moments, handlers had their dogs stumbling through the busted fragments of the part of the city block that wasn’t burning.

  “Lot of dogs,” somebody murmured near me.

  A guy in a blue Chicago cop uniform looked i
n their direction. “I think a couple are bomb-sniffing dogs. The others are probably for finding survivors.”

  The man next to me said, “They’re never going to be able to stop the fire. This whole block is going to go. If there is anybody alive under all this, they’re going to die.”

  I worked harder and faster. Sweat stung my eyes. I didn’t take the time to wipe it away.

  It might have been minutes later when the order passed. A cop in a starched white shirt with lieutenant insignia on it tapped me on the shoulder: “We’re going to have to move back in a few minutes.” They’d checked the fire in the direction of the gas station. The fire near us was still advancing.

  Shouts rang out from two sections of the masses of destruction about ten feet apart. I rushed toward the one nearest me. One of the dogs was wagging its tail and letting out small yips. I hoped it was a “people” dog, not a “bomb” dog, and others were hastening toward it, and no one yelled to get back. When I was within several feet, I heard what sounded like the sobs of a small child. I remember trying to move debris while straining to catch another sound. Care could hardly be taken with the fire moving so close. While we could easily dislodge something and half a ton of debris could come crashing down on the trapped child, we had little choice.

  Two minutes later a halt was called to the frantic digging. I could no longer hear the child. A slender man stripped off his outer gear, and with a rope tied at his waist, a miner’s helmet on his head, he crawled headfirst into a narrow, dark opening. I joined the men clutching the rope linking us to the descending rescue worker. His head and shoulders disappeared. The rope went slack for a moment. As his waist and hips sank out of view, the rope became taut. The men beside me breathed heavily. Just as the descending man’s knees were lost to view, the sounds of the child’s crying began again.

  A paramedic lying next to the man’s legs yelled through a bullhorn, “Pull slowly.” The ten of us grabbed the rope and slowly heaved backward.

  Seconds later, man and child emerged. The kid was maybe three or four. He wore a bright yellow and red outfit. People cheered and clapped the rescuer on the back. A fireman hurried away with the child. Someone began untying the rope from around the rescuer’s waist. He stopped the movement and shook his head. I was close enough to hear him mumble, “There’s a body next to where I found the kid. Could be the mother, or maybe a day-care provider or a random victim. She’s dead.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yep.”

  Any elation I felt dissipated. I saw shoulders slump among the others nearby who had also heard.

  The fire had leaped the alley in several places. The people around me began debating whether to stay and try to get the mother’s body or leave and chance that it would burn. I looked to where the other group had been working.

  Silhouetted against the encroaching flames were four men carrying a stretcher to a waiting ambulance. I caught a glimpse of the face. I thought it might be Tom. While rushing over, I tripped on the corner of an outthrust gray, metal filing cabinet. I twisted an ankle. The other leg sank into the fragments up to my knee. Several hands quickly jerked me back up.

  “You okay?” a fireman asked.

  “Yeah.” I hobbled to the ambulance. I got there as the stretcher settled into the interior.

  It was Tom.

  At first I couldn’t tell if he was breathing. His clothes were torn and shredded. He was covered in blood, dust, and soot. Paramedics began hooking him up to things. He can’t be dead if they’re working on him, I thought. I hoped.

  “Is he alive?” I asked.

  Someone grunted, “Yeah.”

  “Is he going to be okay?” I asked.

  A paramedic stopped his swift, sure movements for several seconds and put his hand on my arm. “You must let us work. We’re doing everything possible.”

  Each second of waiting was agony. For maybe a minute and a half they performed emergency functions. I couldn’t tell if they were giving him minor medical attention and taking simple precautions or trying to stop him from dying. Gloria Dellios hurried up. “Is he all right?”

  “He’s unconscious. They’re working on him.”

  There was a much smaller explosion. I looked. It was a van from one of the television stations. No one had moved it from the path of the approaching fire. Its gas tank had exploded. A crowd of rescue workers and several camera crews from other television stations rushed past us toward the new calamity. Those of us gathered around this ambulance were jostled for several moments.

  Then a low voice close to my ear said, “You’re next, faggot.”

  I whirled around. A throng of passersby were frantically rushing through the confusion, and any one of them could have said that. Even if I caught up to the group of people the voice had come from, I could never pick out which person had said it.

  I heard one of the paramedics say into a phone, “We’ll be arriving at your location in four minutes.” The ambulance engine started. They began to close the rear doors. I forgot thoughts of chasing whoever it was. I knew I wanted to stay with Tom.

  “I’m his lover,” I said. “I’m going with you.”

  No one objected or stood in my way. I hopped in. I scrunched down next to the stretcher. I held Tom’s hand and watched him breathe. The paramedic monitored devices. No one spoke for the short trip to St. Michael’s Hospital, just north of Division Street on Racine. I knew they’d be rushing him away as soon as we pulled up.

  As we slowed to a stop, I said, “I love you, Tom.” I knew he couldn’t hear me, but I needed to say it.

  Ambulances jammed the entrance to the trauma center. We parked in the middle of the street. They hurried Tom into the hospital. Inside the emergency room, paramedics, doctors, nurses, and hospital staff were in a frenzy of activity.

  Before I settled down to a bout of worrying that would make Tom proud, I called his mom and dad. His mom’s a brick, but I knew the news shook her. It would anybody. They would drive in from the far suburbs as quickly as possible.

  Half an hour later Gloria Dellios joined me on the blue plastic chairs in the waiting room.

  “No word,” I said.

  She shook her head. “It’s ghastly. The count is up to twenty confirmed dead. Two of them were in the clinic. They weren’t able to find everyone before the fire got to the building. I’m afraid the toll will go much higher.”

  I tried to think of something comforting to say. I like to think of myself as innately courteous. I may not always say the right thing, but at least I don’t usually say something stupid. I couldn’t think of a thing.

  Over an hour later Brandon Kearn walked up without a camera crew in tow. The entire back of his blazer was in shreds. A bandage covered his right hand. He had stitches on his right ear and in the middle of a newly shaved spot on the back of his head. The rest of his hair, which often looked cemented in place, was wildly askew and covered in dust and dotted with blood. He sat down next to me.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “I’ve got a few superficial cuts that some kind of tech person stitched up. My ears stopped ringing only a little while ago. Between emergencies a doctor glanced at me. He said I’m fine. I feel okay.”

  “You waiting here for someone?”

  “Is this an interview?”

  “I’m a little too tired and a little too personally involved to get into a professional mode right now. My boss told me to get medical attention and go home. He sounded pissed. I guess I was supposed to keep the cameras rolling instead of trying to help. I gave one live interview while I was bleeding. I think I hate reporters. Not a good attitude, I’m afraid, for somebody who’s in the profession. I’m done for the night and might get fired.”

  “For helping people? No boss is that nuts. You’ll be on all the talk shows as the reporter hero.”

  “Being a hero isn’t quite what I expected it to be. Messier, dirtier, uglier, and meaner. Setting off another bomb to explode when the rescue workers are present is insane
ly cruel.”

  “The whole thing is total madness,” Dellios said. “Too much hate. That’s what’s wrong with society.”

  Kearn nodded at her. “Who are you?”

  “Gloria Dellios, the head administrator at the Human Services Clinic.”

  “I should probably try and interview you for background,” Kearn said.

  “Not now.”

  “No, later. Hell of a thing to happen.”

  Dellios said, “Unfortunately, anyone who works in a women’s clinic has to be ready for this kind of thing, although nobody’s been through something this massive. No matter how many tragedies anybody has been through, I don’t think they’d be prepared for this. I’m sure I’ll be here all night until I know how all my people are.”

  “I appreciate that,” I said.

  “I’m one of the lucky ones. It isn’t a burden.” Dellios touched my arm. “The few times I met Tom, he was always humorous and friendly. He made jokes about working in the basement, hidden away from the clients.”

  I said, “Maybe that’s what saved his life.”

  Kearn said, “I know about your lover from the news coverage of you coming out. Why was he working at the clinic?”

  “Is that really important for you to know right this instant?”

  Kearn seemed to revive a little. “I’ve always been curious about why you decided to—”

  I cut him off. “No interview.”

  “Sorry,” Kearn said.

  “How come you were on WBBM?” I asked. “I thought you worked for MCT.”

  “I do. I was the first reporter on the scene. The feed went to any local station that wanted to pick it up. For a while CNN was using it.”

  “How’d you know I was there?” I asked.

  “One of the camera guys noticed you. Why?”

  “I was wondering how you picked me out of so many in the chaos.”

  “You’re one of the most recognizable faces in Chicago. If you turned out to be a hero or a great camera shot, you’d be a big story. Picture Michael Jordan rescuing a baby from a burning building. It’d make the front page of every paper on the planet. It wasn’t odd that you were singled out.”