PTSD, the hooker and the vet

The fireman to our right flagged over the landlord. The landlord actually lived in the apartment building next door. He'd taken the entire first floor of that place and his mother lived on the floor above him, his sister on the floor above her.

Another fireman walked over to them, and they huddled together in an almost football game move, heads leaned forward, talking in some kind of weird code. The landlord kept shaking his head yes or no, the fire guys were pointing this way and that, it was hard to make out if this discussion was positive or negative. Maybe it was neither, because as soon as it ended nothing seemed to happen. Nobody shouted out commands, nobody gave orders to stay or leave, and it was looking to be another hour before anything got done, so I walked up to the apartment in the hopes I could just casually walk in, grab on some pants and a shirt, grab my already packed duffle bag and get out of there.

"Miss, you can't go in the building right now, please go back over..." the fireman started to demand, but I quickly piped in. "Sir, I am standing out here in a towel and somebody just whispered they were going to pull the towel off. I think that would create a bit of chaos at the scene here, let's be reasonable, the fire is just in the cellar and is under control, it's not getting worse, and I just want to run up and grab on a pair of pants and a shirt, it will take under one minute."

"Miss, you can NOT go into the building," he said again, ignoring my trial sized bullshit entry.

"Sir, I promise I won't blame you if anything happens to me in that building. I'm obviously a bit crazy to go into a building with a firetruck sitting in front of it, there's no way you'd take the fall on this, just tell them I kicked you in the ankle and ran inside the building before you could stop me," I tried again.

"Miss, are you threatening to kick me in the ankles?" he asked, his stern face giving me that non-nonsense look my dad used to give us kids when we were acting up.

"Sir," I said, and let the towel accidently fall a little, revealing a bit more cleavage than I should, "I just want to grab my duffle bag. Please, I have to get out of here, I'm wanted in 3 states for sexual bribery and indecent exposure. I don't want to go to prison!"

He rolled his eyes at me.

"Sir, please! My dufflebag has the map to the treasure, I have to get there before my opponent, who is actually the MAYOR OF THIS CITY, or I will lose a fortune!"

He looked at me and got all serious again. "Miss, go over there with your friends or I will have no choice but to..." he stopped abruptly as I got on my hands and knees and held onto his ankles.

"Please, sir, please, the kittens were JUST BORN and I stuffed them in that DUFFLEBAG! I will just run up and save them all!"

"MISS. REMOVE YOURSELF FROM MY ANKLES, PLEASE."

"Ok. It's cool, I'll just go over there with my friends. Sorry for the obnoxiousness, sir. My poetry is in that dufflebag. I just don't want this building to burn down and my stuff with it. It's all I got. Now."

He seemed almost sypathetic in tone as he said, "Miss, the building is fine, it won't burn down, we've got the walls filled with foam and the area is more than secure. Your poetry is safe."

I think he saw my sly grin at his statement, because he kept a hawkeye on me as I walked back over to Maggie.

Posted by nft at June 18, 2004 07:43 PM