Burning Man

A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS

When I went to bed I said, “Not tonight.” I am sure Father Pat wouldn’t have thought that much of a prayer, but it was about as good as I could muster. It wasn’t good enough, though. Once again the flames came, and I burned.

Like all my other burning nightmares, the fire was real to me. You would think after reliving the horror so many times that I would have some clue I’m just dreaming, but that’s not the way it works. As always I was thrust back into the fiery pit.

Even in hell some smells are worse than others. The reek of burning rubber assaulted my nostrils.

It was probably a burning tire, which had been dumped in the canyon. Or maybe, just maybe, the fire had spread to the street and one of the cars was going up in flames. My pulse quickened. Hope made me breathe faster. By following the stench we might find our way out. It was a straw to grasp before it burned into a husk.

The smoke was thick. It pushed and pummeled. For the sake of my partner, I stopped running from it. Sirius had been too still for too long. The Strangler was gasping as loudly as I was. He looked at me, hoping I would give him permission to drop his burden. While I lived-and he lived-that wouldn’t happen.

I leaned closer to Sirius. “We’re almost there, boy,” I lied. “We’re almost there. Just hold on.”

Through the smoke, Sirius’s eyes opened. They were glazed. He was almost no longer there.

I swiveled my head, trying to get a bead on the burning rubber. It was coming from somewhere nearby. I had to find its source. And then it became all too apparent what was burning: the bottoms of my shoes were smoldering. I was fire walking.

“Shit!” I yelled. “Shit!”

I jumped up and down, stamping my feet. Tears came with my dance moves, the pain traveling up and down my body. There was a reason I’d been dragging my feet around: when you’ve been shot in the leg, you tend to do that. My hot foot gyrations were the equivalent of driving a hot poker into my wound. Adding insult to injury was the fact that my dance wasn’t helping to put the fire out on my soles. The ground was too damn hot. The fire in my shoes wasn’t going out.

I awoke to all the sheets kicked off the bed. It felt as if the soles of my feet had been pressed by a hot iron. My heart was racing, my flight instinct in overdrive. Sirius kept nudging me, making sure I was all right. I took a few heaving breaths, and he licked my sweaty brow, vanquishing the demons for another night.

When you escape hell, you are not supposed to look back. Orpheus made that mistake. Whenever I escape the fire I try to not dwell on the pain, preferring to float away on a cloud of relief, but before that happens I experience my moment after.

Dinah Hakimi was looking at me. In the background of my vision I could hear a familiar tune, the Beatles singing “With a Little Help from My Friends.” Dinah was exaggeratedly mouthing the words that she got by with a little help from her friends. As she lip-synched she was smiling and not trying to hide her protruding front teeth. Behind her teeth, though, something else was hidden, and reluctantly she reached behind them to reveal a razor blade.

And then Dinah reached for a piece of paper, and I could see it was the card she had left at the tower of hope. She took the razor blade and cut into where she had written “You made my life HELL,” and blood started flowing from the page.

The image was surreal and disturbing, and I doubt whether I would have been able to fall back to sleep save for another image that came to mind. Lisbet Keane was smiling at me and imparted a peace that had long escaped me. I inhaled the aroma of something nice, something that reminded me of Thanksgiving, and then I slept.

When I awakened a few hours later, I stayed in bed thinking about the moment after I had experienced. I was fairly certain the razor blade symbolized Dinah’s contemplation of suicide. The young woman had sought out help, I remembered. Too many desperate young people never do that, thinking they can get by on their own. Dinah had gotten by with a little help from one of the suicide hotline counselors. She had said he was a good man.

I decided it was worth seeing if she was right about that.

I called Dinah’s cell phone, but when she didn’t pick up I left a voice message. A few minutes later I received a text from her. The message said, “I’ll call u in half an hour.” It was likely that she didn’t want to talk to me with her family around and wouldn’t call until she reached school.

When she phoned back I could hear the background noise of youthful chatter. Dinah talked as she walked and said, “I only have a few minutes before class begins.”

“This shouldn’t take long. I need the name and number of the man at the Community Crisis Line that counseled you.”

“Why do you want to bother him?”

“It’s necessary background.”

“Our talks were confidential.”

“I am not going to ask him about what you talked about.”

“It still feels like an invasion of privacy.”

“What do you think a police investigation is? Is there a reason you don’t want me to talk to him?”

“I don’t want him to get into any trouble.”

“Why would he get in trouble?”

“He went out of his way to help me.”

“And how did he do that?”

“We talked on the phone a few times when he wasn’t working at the help line. And he met with me once or twice.”

“And I’m assuming personal calls and meetings aren’t allowed?”

“He only did those things because he was afraid I might do something drastic and wanted to make sure I was all right.”

“Where did the meetings take place?”

“We talked in his car.”

“You met with him in his car?”

“That’s where I asked to meet. I didn’t want anyone seeing us.”

“Was there any physical contact between the two of you?”

Dinah’s answer was shrill: “Of course not! All he did was try and help me. See, I was right. I knew you’d make it look like he did something wrong.”

“It seems to me he would have helped you a lot more by reporting the bullying to the school administration.”

“He wanted to, but I convinced him not to.”

“I need his name, Dinah.”

“He never gave it to me. The help lines are anonymous.”

Her voice tailed off. Even she knew her lie sounded lame. “You know, with one phone call I can get his name, but do you want me to do that? It would mean involving other people, including your family.”

“Can’t you understand that I don’t want to betray a confidence?”

“If you call him now and explain the situation, he’ll understand you don’t have a choice. And after you do that I want you to have him call me back at this number.”

Dinah sighed and then clicked off.

Two minutes later my phone rang. A male voice asked me if he was speaking with Detective Gideon, and when I told him he was, the man said, “This is Dave Miller. Dinah Hakimi said you wanted to talk with me.”

“You’re her counselor?”

“I am not a licensed counselor. I am a volunteer at the Community Crisis Line.”

“How long have you been advising Dinah?”