“Wields the power of the muuuu-ssak!”
She produced her cellphone. A synth-pop track kicked in, booming through the cabin.
“Don’t suppose you have some mellow sixties rock loaded on that thing?”
“Afraid not, old man,” she shouted as she snapped her fingers and wiggled in the seat to the tune.
Blake shook his head in mock disgust. “This should be banned!”
“Oh, is this in your future-retro-imaginary society of guitar-based music and long hair?”
“Yes, absolutely. When I’m king, this will be banned, and we will revert forever back to the sixties.”
“What do you know about the sixties, you weren’t even born then!” Alyssa tilted her head as she contemplated this strange new world of Blake’s. “So, in this nostalgic utopia, do we get cell phones, computers, internet?”
“Absolutely not. We get rid of it all. Re-install the landlines and bring back the fax machine.”
“And telegrams?”
Blake laughed. “Do you even know what that is?”
“Of course! I’ve seen old movies,” she retorted.
“Yeah? Like what?”
“You know,Casablanca, that Kane one.”
“Citizen Kane? Yeah, Orson Welles. Classic. I love the old movies. Especially the black and white ones,” Blake said with a sigh.
“Oh my god, you look like forty-ish, but you have the mind of a seventy-something old geezer.”
Blake couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Hey, less of the ‘geezer’ talk, please. I’m thirty-nine, for your information. But I still love the old stuff. Guess because my mom and I lived with Mom’s parents.” He smiled, remembering long summer nights when Pap-pap, a Vietnam vet turned dairy farmer, would strum his guitar and Nana sang. “Whatever, those days, their days, seem just…easier.”
“Ah, yes, the good-ole olden-golden daysers,” Alyssa said, rolling her eyes in mock jest.
“What’s so good about nowadays? Just look at this place,” he asked, gesturing at the main street of Eastfork as they drove. Signs declaring bankruptcy or going out of business sales were posted on almost every door and window.
“Seems like more places have shut since we were last here, right?” Alyssa leaned against the passenger window. The ambulance passed the old police station, now also boarded up. The mood in the cabin instantly changed.
“So goddamn sad,” was all Blake could mutter in response to the bleak sight.
“And wrong. Where’s our so-called government when you need it?” Alyssa added.
Blake’s jaw stiffened. “Lining their own pockets and interests is what they’re doing. Propping up the big corporations while throwing mom and pop businesses straight at the wall, just like during Covid.”
He turned onto a residential street and pulled up outside a brick housing project, switching off the engine. “You got his key?”
“Yep,” Alyssa replied, opening the lock box below the dash. Many of their “regulars” left spare keys with the ambulance service so they wouldn’t need to call the fire guys to come knock down their doors if they were incapacitated. Saved time and money—the wait on the fire department was sometimes even longer than the wait for the cops, since the FD was all volunteer and guys had to drive in from home.
They went into the rear cabin of the truck, then grabbed their medical bags and the transfer chair. Thomas’s building had no elevator, but he wasn’t a big man, and carrying him down the three flights of stairs in the chair would be easier than wrestling the gurney.
“Ready?” Alyssa asked, bracing one hand on the ambulance’s rear door. Blake nodded and she shoved it open. They stepped down into the howling wind and swirling snow. Heads bowed, they trudged up the snow-covered steps into the apartment building’s lobby and headed up the steps to the third floor.
At Thomas’s door, Alyssa knocked. No answer. Blake unlocked the door.
A pungent smell greeted them as they entered the cluttered apartment that had become a memorial to Thomas’s late wife, Rose, whose photograph was centered on the pony wall that separated the tiny foyer from the kitchen and dining area. Other smaller photo frames displayed her through the decades, including one of their wedding many years before.
“Thomas?”
