The Devil Laughs (2010)

The Devil Laughs

S. G. Scott

I stand and move to the window. My knees crack and I cringe. In this silent place, the sound hits hard and ends abruptly. Opening the window, I fill the room with noise. Seagulls caw unceasingly at distant waves while an ambulance slowly approaches with sirens blaring. It may be a raucously discordant tune but it is the sound of living, and that is what I need. I turn my head back to Mom and smile. She clears her throat and whispers.

“Can’t ‘member” she says it like a five year old.

“What?”

“Something used…used to say,” she huffs. Sweat builds on her brow. I already know what she’s talking about. The particular saying she was looking for I could guess, but I need to keep pushing her like the doctor asked me to.

“Come on Mom. Give me a memory.”

“Danny milkshake. Ranch milkshake,” she says, pointing a crooked finger at me. I laugh and wait for Mom to say it.

*

            Mother always had these wise old sayings she liked to throw out. She said it kept her in touch with the farm back in Ohio where she grew up. We went to visit the old place when I was ten. Far from my beachside community, I could see why Mom knew the Devil in that particular State. She once said the Devil had a hand in making Ohio, especially the flat parts.

            “Why the flat parts?” I asked her.

            “Well, the Devil just thought his flat ass was the prettiest thing to look at. And I’ll be damned if Ohio ain’t a spitting image of that greedy bastard’s ass.”

            One saying, though, she used more than all the rest.

“Richie, you may think that’s funny, but the Devil sure ain’t laughing.”

I heard it when I was six and I filled Dad’s swim trunks with sand while he napped on the beach. When I was nine and I filled my brother Danny’s milkshake with Ranch dressing making him throw up. When I was eleven and I’d written curse words in the margins of my school notebook. That time, I’d had the balls to ask her.

“What the hell does make the Devil laugh Mom?”

A quick back hand across my cheek was her answer. It wasn’t until I was fourteen that I came to understand what she meant. I arrived home on a cold, rainy October day to find my mother pacing back and forth down the hallway between the front door and our kitchen. In one hand, she held the phone against her ear so hard her skin was turning red. Her other hand rubbed her neck and when I approached her to ask what was going on, she put it out and shook her head no. I went to the living room where I could nervously perch myself on the edge of the couch and still listen to her conversation. My first thought turned to dad. Mom shot me a look that was serious, but her eyes were dry and if dad had died at the mill, she’d a been plucking Danny and I out of school and rushing us down to the hospital where she’d have every tissue at the place used up.

            “Richie. There was a big accident out at the mill and I need to run out there to help dad. Get upstairs and grab the bucket out of the pantry. Bring it down and fill it. Also, grab all the towels and blankets you can,” she instructed.

            I did as she asked. I brought everything down, filled the bucket in the kitchen sink, and sat on the bottom step facing the front door while mom continued to run through the house, making sure everything was turned off.

            “Mom? What’s going on?”

            “The Devil’s laughing his ass off today, sweetie. He thinks this whole thing is just hilarious.”

            “What thing?”

            She didn’t answer me. She opened her mouth, but had no response.

            “Can I come?”

            “I don’t think so Ritchie. Danny’s at your Aunt Mary’s, but if she decides to drop by, I think you should be here.”

            “Mom, I want to come. I think I could help.”

            “Fine. But it ain’t gonna be pretty,” she resigned, grabbing the bucket and the few linens I couldn’t carry.

            We piled into my mother’s old brown Toyota. I hated the ratty death trap, but my parents were far from wealthy enough to afford a new car. Mom revved the tired old engine, making it whine like a mule. She pulled out of our driveway onto B Street. Before we’d gone two blocks, we were in the middle of downtown. Mom made a right onto the highway and stopped at one of two streetlights. She swerved to the curb to let a speeding ambulance and two state troopers go blazing past. My knees itched and I tried to scratch them. Mom grabbed my hand and wouldn’t let go till we got to the mill.

*

Dad was a manager down at the lumber mill on the north end of town. He’d been working there since he was sixteen, when he met mom. My old man was great with people, and as a result did not spend much time working down on the floor. They moved him into a public relations role and then as one of the middle managers for the floor. He loved the guys that worked under him and they respected him, especially during the strike the year before the accident. Even though he wasn’t supposed to, Dad went to see those guys picketing every day before he went to his office. He’d listen and listen, and tell them he’d see what he could do. I mean, there wasn’t a whole lot he could do, but they liked him all the same just for listening.

            They’d gone back to work after what Dad called some tough negotiations on work safety and payable hours. From what Dad complained about, though, nothing had really changed much and they were on the verge of another strike.

            “Goddamn bastards…” Mom kept muttering.

            “How bad is it mom?” I asked as we drove down the dark road.

            “Bad.”

            I stared out the windshield at the large column of black smoke pouring into the sky above huge stands of Spruce and Douglas fir.

            “Is Danny gonna be okay at Aunt Mary’s?”

            Mom nodded. She didn’t say anything else the rest of the drive.

            “Goddamn,” I said as we pulled into the parking lot. Mom didn’t even flinch. She pulled up next to Dad’s truck and I could see him running quickly toward us from the blazing structure. The whipping cool breeze caught my breath as I stepped out. It made me shiver something fierce.

            “Dianna. I think Sharon needed some help from somebody with counseling experience,” Dad immediately barked orders. Mom nodded, handing him the bucket. He shook his head no and looked at me.

            “Where is she?” Mom looked around.

            “Over by trucks I think,” Dad grabbed a flashlight and shut the door before turning to me, “Ritchie, why don’t you grab the towels and help the paramedics lay them out over there?”

            “Okay,” I muttered. Dad pointed to the far side of the parking lot where two ambulances and three fire trucks all had their rotating beacons splashing red on the evergreen wall surrounding the lot. Mom was already headed in that direction, so I grabbed the towels and shut the door.

            The mill was on fire. Damn near all of it. Flames crept over every wall, through every crack, and reached into the sky through a choking white haze. Men and women were still coming out when a loud crack echoed through the lot. Someone screamed to look out, and a large loading bay collapsed into rubble. In front of me, emergency vehicles and nearly everyone in town was rushing here and there. They grabbed equipment, helped people to a row of blankets where paramedics were trying to treat the wounded, and rushed into the flames to find more.

            A huge crash made me duck behind a truck. Looking over at the mill, I could see a large section of the structure sinking in as a fireball crawled into the sky. Finally, I reached the line of ambulances and the bodies lined up on the pavement behind them. Through the open back of the nearest ambulance, I watched as one paramedic frantically pushed with both hands on a bare-chested man strapped to a stretcher. The other paramedic held a syringe and checked a bank of monitors.

            One…two…three…four…five.

            Breath. Listen. Breath. Listen.

            “Hit him with the defib.”

            Choonk!

            “Stick him.”

            The other paramedic stabbed a syringe into the man’s chest and quickly pushed its contents down, but he still would not move.

            “Hit him again.”

            I tried to close my eyes and my ears against the sound, but I heard everything. I heard the loud Choonk! and though I couldn’t see his body, I imagined the man’s lifeless form briefly stiffening awkwardly above the stretcher. I heard the screams coming behind me, the screech of tearing metal, and the constant crackle of living flames.

             Finally, I faced the bodies. Thirty or forty men and a couple of women laid out on blankets in a neat row. The towels draped over my left arm slowly slid to the asphalt. I hardly noticed as I looked out on those still figures and the flashing orange light playing over their quiet faces. A hand came around my shoulders and I jumped.

            “It’s alright Ritchie,” Mom said as she gently hugged me and tried to turn me away. I resisted, bending down to grab the towels.

            “I can do this Mom,” I said as I turned back to hear, burying my fear deep beneath an icy stare.

            “The Devil’s sure…” she began.

            “Laughing his ass off. Yeah, mom, but nobody here is laughing with him,” I finished.

            I joined a cadre of others slowly moving between the bodies and covering each one. By the time we had finished, their were so many colors covering so many people that they looked like a terrible rainbow burning in the flickering light of the mill. When I finished I found Mom, and I cried against her breast like I had so many times before. She held me like she always would.

*

I stand before my mother. Her face is calm like those bodies stretched out on that cold, wet night, but her body is in constant turmoil. Her stroke has nearly killed her, and I stand here like I did so many years ago watching. She rustles in pain, scrunching her face aged far beyond her actual years.

            Her pale sweaty skin is cold when I gently touch her hand. Her heart monitor quietly beeps, sometimes erratic. She flutters her eyes and moans. I rub her forehead and look to the hall to see dad nervously walking back and forth as he stares at a spot just beyond his footsteps.

            “Ritchie…” Mom mutters.

            “Yeah mom,”

            “The devil…” she starts and has to swallow. I hadn’t heard those words since that night.

            “I remember mom. The Devil’s laughing cause he thinks this whole thing’s a big joke.”

            She shakes her head at me and I shut up.

            “He…is…crying. I’m coming. Gonna give him…ass whooping.  An ass…whooping,” she weakly emphasizes. I try to keep in a sniffle and sneeze instead. Mom reaches over to her bed stand and grabs a tissue and hands it to me with her shaking withering hand. I take it and laugh. She smiles and closes her eyes. Going back to the window, I hear dad cough behind me, the traffic below the window, and another seagull cackles as it passes. I hear mom snicker and I smile. We all laugh together.