Slow Dance in Purgatory

“Is it two people?”

For a moment the crowd was still, all eyes peering through the smoke that camouflaged the figures that appeared and then were lost again in the haze. Then the shouts went up again.

“Someone is being carried!” The waves of heat created a mirage that made the girl look as if she were floating above the earth or being carried in the arms of providence. And then she was down, tumbling across the ground as if she had been tossed from the bowels of hell.

“She’s fallen! Someone help her!”

Three firemen closest to the unfolding drama threw down their hose and raced toward the crumpled form. Just as they reached her, the whole right side of the school collapsed in on itself, shaking the entire structure and sending the huge beams that ringed the center rotunda domino-ing over like toy blocks. The firemen scooped up the unconscious girl and ran for their lives as heavy debris and fiery ash rained down around them.





20


“RETURN TO ME”

Dean Martin - 1958





The school was a blackened shell when the firemen eventually doused the last burning ember. The east wing was a pile of rubble and glass; the west wing was still standing but it looked gutted and skeletal. Only the rotunda that jutted out from the front of the school had escaped being consumed by fire, but it had been reduced to a heap of beams and balconies that had crumpled when the east wing collapsed. The firemen were beyond weary, their suits and faces slick with soot and sweat, their eyes kohl rimmed and bloodshot, their countenances grim. The popular old Mayor of Honeyville had arrived in the early morning hours and had held vigil along with an ambulance, several police officers, and the principal of the school – watching as the stately edifice completely succumbed to fire. It was all the more shocking to behold as the cheerful winter sun began to peek its rosy face over the eastern hills, lightening the sky, mocking the devastation before them.

The crowds had all gone, along with the two ambulances carrying Gus Jasper, his grandson, and Maggie O’Bannon, who was miraculously still alive, though no one knew how she had managed to walk out of the school in her condition. She had a few minor burns and scrapes from the falling debris and ash, but it was the smoke inhalation that should have killed her. All three of the casualties had been taken to a regional hospital, Maggie in critical condition.

There was a great deal more work to be done, but for the time being everyone needed to head home and get a few hours of sleep. Decisions would need to be made. The other half of the school year remained, and about 600 high school students were now without a school. Principal Jillian Bailey spoke quietly with Mayor Parley Pratt about several possibilities as firemen pulled off their blackened helmets, stored their gear, and wound the long hoses. A large back hoe had been put to work through the firefight, dumping loads of cool black earth onto the still smoldering debris. They watched it as it trundled around in front of the building, not far from where they huddled, commiserating and observing. It was then that the weary operator made his stunning discovery.

He had been working primarily on the east side, but the heat of the smoldering rubble made it almost impossible to do any more. For the last hour, he had begun clearing the loose debris from the front of the school where the fire had not spread. The beams had fallen like dominoes, coming to rest in a peculiar circular pattern, each beam supported by the one next to it. The high ceiling and glass walls had been flung outward, as if an inner explosion had forced everything back from the center of the rotunda. It was this debris that had prevented him from moving in close enough to see what he now observed. From his high perch in the cab of the backhoe, the operator noted that some of the large ceramic tiles that had graced the entrance were visible through the toppled beams and debris. He paused, peering down through the rubble at something that didn’t make any sense.

“Sweet Mary mother of….! “ The driver of the backhoe stopped the tractor and jumped down from his perch, scrambling over fallen beams and then disappearing from view. It was mere seconds before he was back, waving his arms frantically and calling for help.

“Help me! Hurry! There’s someone down here! I got a pulse, but I don’t know how long he’s been here or if we can even get him out.”

Officers and firemen came running, the two EMTs from the lone remaining ambulance grabbing a gurney and a medical kit and following close behind.