THE INCIDENT IN THE LOFT

“I guess the whole town knows about that already,” says Shawnda the morning after Robert threw out his back and had to be hoisted out of my loft by the Fire Department.

“Well, I certainly didn’t tell anyone,” I object, “except you and you don’t even live here, and of course Arliss because her house is attached to mine and with the Fire Department showing up in her driveway, she could hardly miss it.”

“And Daphne too, didn’t you tell her.”

“Well, Daphne, of course; She knew Robert knew when we all lived in Berkeley. I couldn’t not tell her.”

“Well, I heard it from my friend Sylvia and she doesn’t live there either, but she heard it from her friend Mavis.”

“The poet?”

“Yes, and so you know that Joanne has heard it and every other poet and probably the ladies at the Post Office.”

“Oh, they know everything.”

“There you are.”

“Sylvia told you even before I did?” It is only 10 AM the next morning and how can word travel that fast?

“Yes, Mavis' husband is a volunteer firefighter.”

“Oh, those guys are not supposed to talk.”

I can hear Shawnda rolling her eyes over the phone.

Robert and I hadn’t lived together for almost a year. In fact, I had taken to calling him Ex-Robert, but not to his face. 

The night he got stuck in the loft was the first time we had been together since we split up. He was now living in his own second unit behind the house of the people who had the little orchestra he played in. 

Robert was a classical oboist. He taught music at the small school in town and had recently started playing with a small orchestra put together by Mr. Coyle, whose house he lived in back of. The Coyles had moved here from Mill Valley, so practices were often held at one of the other members’ homes “over the hill.” This was a big deal, especially if it was raining, or foggy on the mountain and sometimes you couldn’t see any more than one reflector in the middle of the road at a time. 

Robert had been at a practice on one of those foggy nights the night he stopped by my refurbished garage. Arliss had done the remodeling herself, after being trained by Art Carpenter in the Women’s Carpentry Class a couple of years back, just before Robert and I moved from Berkeley to Benson, a small coastal town, off the map. Literally.

Robert was the very definition of long-suffering. I was not the perfect girlfriend. I had the occasional fling, when we lived in Berkeley, and later when I went with Arliss or Anabelle to Kingfisher’s after Water Board meetings because that was what you did for entertainment in those days.

Arliss was contemplating her own run and we had to check things out with her. No one wanted their very good friend and in my case landlady to make a big mistake.

So I drank and flirted and once or twice took a detour on my way home to visit a good looking author  or painter who invited me in for a nightcap we both knew wasn’t exactly what either of us had in mind.

Mostly I was a bad girlfriend because I kissed and told.

Finally, I decided it wasn’t fair to either Robert or me to go on as we were, so I moved out and he moved on.

We remained cordial when meeting in the street, or at one of the events held by the town; his orchestra played a few times at the community center and I always attended and clapped very loudly for him.

One night he knocks on my door at about 11 PM, having just returned from driving the harrowing narrow mountain road in a dense fog from a rehearsal in Mill Valley. Usually he rode with Mr. Coyle, but the Coyles were staying overnight to do some Hanukah shopping which meant he had to drive his own car, the clunker he brought from Berkeley. That he and the car had both made it in one piece apparently left him feeling grateful and that led to nostalgia which led to me.

For a nightcap.

Robert didn’t drink, but that wasn’t the point.

So I have wine, and he has sparkling cider and we both climb up the narrow ladder into my loft, with its mattress on the floor. Robert was and still is a substantial man. He huffs and puffs a little on his way up the ladder, and when it is time to go home some few hours later, he never even makes it off the mattress.

“My back!” he half-moans, half-screams. “My back just went out.”

“Well, don’t panic. Maybe just lie there a little while. I’ll get you some water.”

“Water? What for? I’m not thirsty. I’m in pain.”

“I’ll get an aspirin with the water.”

I scurry down the ladder to get the water and the aspirin. When I get back up there, Robert has turned on the light and looks pale.  

“You look pale,” I sat, unhelpfully.

“I can’t move,” he says back, grimacing.

“Drink this,” I offer him the aspirin and water. “You have to hold up your head,” I explain as if to a simpleton.

“I am holding up my head,” he retorts.

“Well not very far. Let me help you.” So I hold my hand under his head and hand him the aspirin and the water. Most of it goes everywhere but in his mouth. “You have to open your mouth.”

“It’s open,” he says between clenched teeth. Then, “I think I might be sick.”

Down the ladder I scurry again for a pot, just in case. He is now flat on his back, moaning and kind of wiggling.

“Maybe you need to lie still for a few minutes.”

“I am lying still.”

“No, you are wiggling.”

“I’m spasming.”

At least he isn’t heaving. 

“Has this ever happened before?”

“Once, a couple of months ago. It took a couple of days to get better. Then I had acupuncture.”

“You should have told me this could happen.”

“I wasn’t planning on it. I wasn’t even planning to come here.”

Robert is now sweating and looking a little green under the pale.   “I think we better call someone to get you out of here.”

“Who?”

“I dunno, the fire department?”

He groans. Back down the ladder I go. The fire department’s number is in the Benson directory, under Services. It rings at the chief’s house.

“Hello,” a sleepy deep voice answers on only the second ring.

“Sorry to wake you up; I have someone stuck in a loft, who maybe needs to be lifted out. Can you do that?”

“Yeah,” he says not sounding surprised. “I’ll send some of my guys. Where are you?”

I tell him and go back to check on Robert who has stopped wiggling.

“Robert, are you still alive?”

“I think so.”

“They’re coming; Chief Sanchez is sending some of his guys.”

No moans anymore. I hope they come soon. Can you die from throwing out your back? And how did he throw it out? I don’t think we had been that energetic.

When the fire department comes with lights but no sirens thank goodness, Arliss is already out of bed and standing in her nightgown and flapping robe, squinting at the sight. Her young son Gus is there too, wide eyed. Arliss is squinting because she won’t wear her eyeglasses when anyone except immediate family is around. I must count as family, because I’ve seen her in the thick lensed blue plastic jobbies many times. Without them she is blind as the proverbial bat, and usually wears contact lenses. Tonight she clearly has not had time to put them in. Her vanity does not extend to her dress however, and the shapeless nightgown and robe are not flattering to her thin frame.

“What’s going on,” she asks, looking toward my garage unit, and sniffing, obviously trying not to panic.

“There’s no fire, nothing like that; sorry to get you out of bed. Robert got stuck in the loft.”

“Stuck?”

“His back went out, he can’t move.”

“Robert was in your loft?”

The firemen are carrying in a backboard now.

“How will they get him out? What was he doing here?”

I shrug; the vertical ladder from the concrete floor to the loft will not make it easy. Maybe they can hand him down, in an upright position.

Arliss and I go in to watch the progress. She pulls out her glasses from the pocket of her robe; this is too good to miss. Besides what if there’s a terrible mishap and she’s liable as the owner of the house, and the building of the lot, without benefit of permits?

Two of the men are rolling Robert onto the backboard now, I can tell by their heaving bodies visible from below and the grunts from Robert who is not.

Finally, they attach a sort of pulley mechanism to the board and secure it over one of the exposed beams. 

“Good thing you didn’t finish the ceiling,” I say to Arliss.

Now they are lowering the board with Robert secured to it down slowly to the waiting team below. Everyone is holding their breath, even Gus, who has gone slackjawed at the sight.

When they get him down without mishap, we breathe; Robert looks relieved; I pat his hand as they slide the backboard into the back of a waiting ambulance we hadn’t heard drive up behind the firetruck. 

“Are you taking him to the hospital?” I ask one of the paramedics.

“I think it’s a good idea; he probably should have xrays.”

“I just need some rest,” Robert protests from the back of the ambulance, still unable to raise his head.

“I think that’s a good idea,” I say still to the paramedics. “Robert, do you want me to come?

The hospital is “over the hill” a long bumpy ride back over the same foggy mountain road Robert had driven only a few hours earlier.

“No,” he says, ”maybe you can drive me back home tomorrow.” He has given in. He doesn’t have much choice. Arliss and I wave goodbye as the firefighters pack up their gear and drive the firetruck off to the station, lights dimmed.

It is very quiet in the wee hours of the morning. Frogs can be heard in the sewer ponds; a late night motorcycle whines home from Kingfisher’s, up Table Road and down Scenic toward a house where someone may be waiting with anxious questions, or just as likely an cold empty bachelor cabin that will not be heated until the motorcycle driver rolls out of bed at noon and lights a fire in the wood stove.

 “So all’s well that ends well,” says Shawnda two days later, the hospital opting to do a few more tests which showed nothing but a spasming back. They ever recommended acupuncture. I am meeting her for lunch at her sunny Mill Valley house driving Robert’s car, and will pick him up in a few hours, well before darkness and fog again reclaim the mountain.

 “I’m glad it all worked out and Robert’s not seriously hurt, but you will never live this one down in Kingfisher’s.”

I laugh, because in the day and a half since the “incident in the loft,” as the town wags have taken to calling it, I have learned that Shawnda is right that people will talk and news in small towns moves at the speed of light. But I have also learned that small town gossips can be very forgiving. After all hasn’t this same fire crew made quite a few late night calls around town where even the foggiest streets hold no secrets?       

“It won’t be a problem,” I say, helping myself to another helping of her homemade chili on this cold but bright day in early December.