She sighed, dropping her gaze to the table on which her hands now rested. Tears, poised to spill over momentarily, flooded her dark blue eyes. Locks of golden hair fell across her face, un-noticed as her head sank toward the sparkling white tablecloth.
Doctor Kelly Brackett, his dark eyes somber and threatening to fill with tears of his own, reached across the table to take hold of her hand. “I’m . . . . . . . . sorry it’s gonna end this way . . . . . . . .” he began softly. “I know we’ve put a lot of years into building this relationship, into making it all work . . . . . . . .” He dropped his gaze, falling silent as she snatched her hand away.
They were sitting at a quiet corner table in the Azalea Restaurant on the lobby level of the New Otani Hotel, inarguably one of the ritziest places in downtown Los Angeles. He’d carefully planned this brunch, right down to the deliberate choice of this almost-embarrassingly extravagant restaurant, hoping to, in some small measure, distract her from the pain he knew his decision would cause. Of course, deep inside, within himself, he did recognize one fact he steadfastly refused to admit --- once he’d delivered his message, the setting wouldn’t mean a damned thing to her.
“That’s it?” she whispered. “You’re walking away, just like that?”
Not trusting his voice, he nodded. He’d agonized over this, brooding for weeks, hoping against hope that some other solution would ultimately present itself. Of course, it hadn’t, and, after as much soul-searching as one man could manage in a lifetime, he’d reluctantly made this decision.
A strangled sob escaped her lips as she jumped up from the table and blindly rushed across the dining room toward the exit.
He sat and watched her go.
* * * * * * * *
Dixie leaned against the wall in the restaurant foyer, numb. Despite her training and experience, in spite of her ability to function effectively in the face of crisis, it was beyond her power to deal with this. Although Kell had been moody and irritable the past few weeks, she’d had no clue that this was destined to be the ultimate outcome. She understood . . . . . . . . even shared . . . . . . . . his frustration, but accepting this . . . . . . . .
Drawing a deep breath, she shuddered as she fought for control. She’d thought she was prepared for almost anything, but ultimately the reality had proven her wrong. She shook her head, working to absorb the disbelief, to gain some small measure of perspective.
Impatient with herself, Dixie brushed roughly at the tears on her cheeks . . . . . . . . tears that certainly would do her no good now. And she needed to think, to reason this through, to explore the implications of his decision.
Dazed, she crossed the width of the foyer to sink into the plushness of the small sofa. She fought desperately to grasp at some inner strength, but it eluded her and all she managed to find was the reverberating echo of his words: “I’ve decided to leave . . . . . . . .” decided to leave . . . . . . . . to leave . . . . . . . . leave . . . . . . . . leave . . . . . . . . leave . . . . . . . . leave . . . . . . . .
* * * * * * * *
Swift and silent is the messenger of carnage and conflagration; unannounced and unexpected . . . . . . . . absolute is the terror.
And out of its aftermath, heroes arise.
It had begun, a day just like any other . . . . . . . . much the same as the one preceding it, but in its passing no day would ever be the same again. It was a day destined to etch itself forever in the collective consciousness of the world.
* * * * * * * *
The chandeliers swung wildly, the windows rattled, the floor buckled. Dishes and glassware crashed from their places, creating discordant cacophonies with the tableware while the lights blinked out and he suddenly found himself sprawled across the floor with terror sounding all around him.
The air was heavy with dust; the dull darkness punctuated with sobs. His mind reeling, he carefully felt his way around, stopping to help a waiter pinned beneath a fallen sideboard. Grabbing a menu and a handful of crisp cloth napkins, he fashioned a splint to encase the broken ankle. The telephone, naturally, was dead; nevertheless, he was certain help would arrive shortly. Whatever catastrophe had hit the restaurant, it was quite probably evident from the street.
A light shone in his eyes, momentarily blinding him. A flashlight. Righting a chair and settling the waiter there, he then joined the maitre d’ to check for other victims in the expansive dining room where the wall of windows had shattered and collapsed into rubble. “Kelly Brackett,” he said, offering his hand, straining eyes still sweeping through grey shadows. “Doctor Kelly Brackett.”
“Charles Cooper,” replied the man with the flashlight in his hand. “Everyone calls me ‘Charley’.”
“Kell,” he responded in return. “What happened?”
Charley slowly traced the dining room with the flashlight beam. “Dunno,” he answered absently as the flashlight beam reflected terror-filled eyes back to the two men. “I think it was outside,” he offered as they gathered up diners, dug victims from beneath the piles of debris, and supported the hobbling waiter as the small group gingerly moved through the destruction.
Kell’s eyes continued their sweep as diners clutched each other and clambered through the remnants of the room. But they never found the face framed with soft golden hair, never gazed into the sparkling eyes of dark blue that they so desperately sought.
* * * * * * * *
Piles of rubble greeted them as they made their way onto the sidewalk. Sirens wailed in the distance as dust and debris darkened the midday skies and rained down upon them.
He looked around in stunned disbelief. It was as if somehow they had been transported into the middle of a war zone. Fire licked at buildings and claimed vehicles for its very own, threatening to engulf whole city blocks as tongues of flame danced and leaped from torn and broken edifices, rent asunder by the force of some unknown behemoth. Before them, for unfathomable reasons they simply could not grasp, everything lay in ruin.
* * * * * * * *
The main force of the Parker Center blast had been focused in a small waiting area just off the lobby. No doubt some bomb surreptitiously left under a chair to wreak havoc on the police headquarters. Across the street, City Hall, along with its adjacent parking structure, had been turned into jumbled concrete and steel Tinker Toys. Underneath the parking garage, four stories below ground --- and now under several tons of debris as well --- lay the city’s Emergency Operations Center, the City Fire Department Dispatch Center, and the Communications Division of the Los Angeles Police Department. Hundreds could very well be trapped within . . . . . . . . these vital centers, operating around the clock, were continuously manned . . . . . . . There was, however, some small measure of consolation in that possibility since they were most likely to be counted among the survivors, all kept safe by the bomb-shelter-thick reinforced walls that should not have collapsed. They’d even have water and power . . . . . . . . twenty thousand gallons worth and a diesel generator with sufficient fuel to run for two weeks . . . . . . . . and if it took significantly longer than that to dig them out, most of them would no longer be alive to know the difference . . . . . . . .
The Cal Trans Café, adjacent to City Hall, had, along with its noonday customers, been blasted into oblivion by the force of the explosion. They’d never even known what had hit them.
* * * * * * * *
Kell looked around him, taking stock as he fell back on his training and slipped into medical emergency mode. It would be some time before help could get into the downtown area; no one had yet figured out exactly what had happened and the streets were blocked with rubble. With no hospital near the site of the explosions, there were woefully few resources from which he could draw. Pushing aside his consternation over his inability to locate Dixie, he moved almost mechanically through the destruction. His survey of the area was interrupted time and again as he stopped to assist victims of the carnage; far too often there was simply nothing he could do. He realized he’d need to establish a triage area, a safe haven for victims, and he commandeered a fairly empty parking area and drafted several shell-shocked wanderers to assist the victims in reaching the relative safety of this site.
Desperate for supplies, he scrabbled through the chaotic residue of the badly damaged Sav-On Drugs, scooping up bandages and pharmaceuticals along with anything else medical he could lay his hands on. Time enough later to straighten it all out with the management, assuming, of course, that there would be any management to be found. He was momentarily relieved [and just as quickly appalled that he could actually feel anything even remotely akin to relief over such wanton destruction] that the decimated Carl’s Junior fast food restaurant, with its ingenuously smiling, happy-faced star logo, had taken the brunt of the blast, thus saving the pharmacy from total destruction. God alone knew what they’d have done if he could not have put his hands on any medical supplies. Rescue workers and paramedics would reach them eventually; but, for some, even the merest of delays in addressing their conditions would prove to be too long a wait. Pushing aside his personal concern, he assumed his professional mantle, filled some plastic baskets with supplies, and headed back toward the makeshift triage area he’d established outside the Los Angeles Fire Marshall’s office.
* * * * * * * *
Dixie groaned as she opened her eyes. Brought up short by pain as she rolled onto her side, she bit back tears and struggled to sit up. Around her, people were either moaning or lying much too still. Everything she could see was twisted and broken, resembling the aftermath of some giant child’s temper tantrum.
Claiming a broken bit of framing from the restaurant window, she resolutely tore away the bottom of her slip, using the length of nylon and lace to secure the makeshift splint for her broken wrist. That done, she lurched to her feet to take stock of the situation around her. The scream of a child, long hair afire, vaulted her into action. She hurriedly beat out the flickering flames, burning her hand in the process. Cuddling the terrified child, she looked around. This patio area of the hotel was filled with people in agony; plaintively wishing for Kell to appear, she slipped into nurse mode. Wasting no time, she set about doing whatever she could in response to the dire need all around her.
Time passed in a haze of pain and exhaustion which she resolutely ignored as she moved among the injured. Around her, people worked valiantly to pull others from the debris and get them to her for care. Dixie had managed to secure some linens from tables scattered throughout the immediate patio area of the hotel; using them in concert with fragments of debris, she was able to fashion splints to immobilize broken bones. Others became bandages to keep the ever-raining dust out of wounds or to help staunch the flow of blood. One even graced her burned hand. She realized these people needed much more, but she seemed to be the only medical help available at the moment, and, the lack of medical supplies notwithstanding, she did what little she could to alleviate their suffering.
Occasionally she paused for a brief a moment to look around, hoping against hope to spot Kell somewhere within the sea of humanity currently occupying this nightmare, but success eluded her. She worked at keeping her personal feelings at bay, intent on doing whatever she could to help, for there was an endless stream of victims everywhere she turned.
* * * * * * * *
The supplies with which he worked were woefully inadequate for the task, but they would have to do for now. As he moved among the injured, providing rudimentary care, Kell realized he was in much the same sort of position as the paramedics he regularly advised as they worked in the field. They could only provide rudimentary care, but that often meant the difference between life and death . . . . . . . . he knew the care these people needed, but without the basic medical supplies and hospital support, his knowledge didn’t seem to be making very much difference in the outcome. Somehow the two extremes seemed rather balanced in the face of this crisis.
As he worked to stabilize a critically injured woman, he idly wished the Rampart board of directors could have been caught up in this living nightmare with him. Then, perhaps, they would understand the need for immediate intervention in the field and they would abandon their plan to withdraw Rampart from the paramedic program. True, he had been against the program in the beginning, but he was not so blindly stubborn as to refuse to recognize when he was wrong. He’d done all he could to right that wrong, even testifying before the Senate in hopes of getting a bill passed in order to establish the desperately-needed program. It was an intrinsic sort of irony that the program he’d once fought against, and now held near and dear to his heart, was in jeopardy from the hospital board. All in the name of saving a few paltry dollars, no less. Dollars versus lives . . . . . . . . to his way of thinking, there was no question as to which way the scales should tip in regard to that issue.
Kell bent over a child just about the same age as his twins. He knew the heartache a parent felt over the suffering of a child. And he knew the parents of this child, if they’d survived the carnage, would also know the heartache of the loss of a child. Not for the first time, he fervently wished for just one of the paramedic squads . . . . . . . . just some little bit of life support equipment . . . . . . . . just one fully equipped trauma box . . . . . . . .
* * * * * * * *
“Which ones need to go first, Doc?” asked the young paramedic coming up to stand in the midst of Kell’s makeshift triage area.
Kelly Brackett looked up in surprise. He’d been so busy, so engrossed in the tasks vital to the survival of these victims that he hadn’t even realized the rescue trucks and people had arrived. Kell allowed as how he would gladly take a few more surprises just like that as he directed the removal of victims to hospitals. He’d worked throughout the afternoon, through the long, dark of night and now, in the glint of dawn, the fires seemed to be under control and the victims were being rushed to waiting emergency rooms throughout the county.
Many owed their lives to the fact that he had been there.
A huge cheer went up from the rescue workers as the first of the workers trapped underground reached daylight. As expected, they’d simply waited to be freed from their underground prison and were now walking out under the direction of their rescuers. After all the devastation they’d encountered, the sight of so many trapped people, alive and safe, and now emerging from the debris into the breaking day, was almost more than anyone could bear. Tears all around were the order of the moment.
* * * * * * * *
“Can you start an IV with D5W?” she queried. The paramedic shook his head in acknowledgement and Dixie sagged against a section of fence grating that still stood around the edge of the hotel patio area. She’d worked throughout the long night, trying to keep the victims alive; the arrival of the rescue squad and the paramedics was an answer to the prayers with which she had assaulted the gates of Heaven.
As the rescue workers took charge of her little triage area, Dixie sighed heavily and sank to the ground. She allowed that, after just a moment’s rest, she might actually be able to wander through this hell to search for Kell.
* * * * * * * *
His heart leapt. Somehow, tiredness vanished as he resolutely traversed the space between them.
She leaned against the fence grating, eyes closed, her golden tresses now tangled and grayed with dust, her dress not in much better shape. But she was the most beautiful thing his eyes had ever beheld.
He stooped down beside her. “Coffee?” he offered softly, tears streaking unnoticed down his cheeks.
Her eyes popped open as she startled. Tears muted the beautiful blue of her eyes but could in no way dim the joy shining from them. She smiled and his heart remembered the taste of euphoria.
“Looks like you’ve been pretty busy,” he observed, still holding the half-filled Styrofoam cup out to her.
She shrugged apologetically, holding out her bandaged hand. Kell reached his arm around her shoulders, gently pulling her to lean against his shoulder and held the cup so that she could sip the hot liquid.
Relaxing against his side, she allowed herself to acknowledge just how much she’d needed to have him with her. She sighed, a mixture of comfortableness in this moment and pain for the tragedy hanging heavily in the air around them.
Lowering himself to sit on the ground at her side, still keeping his arm around her, holding her close, he offered a prayer of thanks.
After a time, he helped her to her feet. They stood, side by side, surveying the devastating wreckage surrounding them. Already people had come together, discarding differences and petty concerns, working side by side to rescue, to help, to reclaim both their city and their lives.
“I don’t know how I could have forgotten,” he mused aloud, soft deprecation in his tone, as a gentle breeze whipped through her hair.
“Forgotten what?” she asked, ignoring her windswept locks and instead holding a steady gaze into his eyes.
“That there are some things you just don’t abandon . . . . . . . . some things you never give up, never walk away from . . . . . . . . some things that are worth the fighting for, now matter how long or how hard it may be . . . . . . . .”
“Like keeping the board from withdrawing Rampart from the paramedic program?” she queried softly although her heart already knew his answer.
Unable to vanquish the lump in his throat, he nodded. No, he wouldn’t just walk away, after all. He wouldn’t leave, for that would be too easy, too much like simply handing them the victory. He would stay and fight, no matter what it took, no matter what the cost, for he knew, deep in his soul, that the program was worth his fighting for, that the men and women who gave all they had for others deserved nothing less than this from him.
She leaned against him, silently reminding him that, for now and for always, just as she had always been, she stood at his side, one with him in his resolve. And, standing in the dawning of a golden sunrise, their hearts knew with unshakable certainty that, ultimately, they would claim the victory.
* * * * * * * *
9/14/01...The past few days have been surreal . . . . . . . . a living nightmare, leaving you hoping you will wake up and discover it’s all some sort of a horrible dream, but the horror seems to have a continuing life of its own . . . . . . . .
Sometimes there simply
are no words . . . . . . . . . the tears are unstoppable . . . . . . . . . the
nightmare consumes us all . . . . . . . . right now, nothing else matters
except for our prayers for those who lost their lives either in the attack or
in heroic efforts to rescue the victims.
We will not forget . . . . . . . . may God bless us all . . . . . . . .
Back to Main Page.
