Zachary thanked them profusely. They were lifesavers.
Though the hospital was not close to his apartment, he determined to walk back to it. It was something to occupy him while he waited for Kenzie to get off of work and wouldn’t cost him any of his meager cash supply.
While the coat was warm enough that he was sweating after a few blocks’ brisk walk, he didn’t have any gloves, and his fingers turned numb not long into his journey. He swung his hands and clapped them together and pulled them into his sleeves. Eventually, he settled on pulling one at a time in under his coat and clamping it under his armpit until it thawed out. Then he would put it back out his sleeve and pull the other one in, repeating the process on the other side.
It took several hours to walk back to his apartment, as he had expected. When he got there, he found yellow caution tape blocking off all except for the front door to the building, with a police guard there to talk to anyone who wanted access to the building. He stepped forward and looked Zachary up and down, blocking the way.
“Sorry sir, the building is closed.”
“I need to see how bad the damage is. If anything of mine can be recovered.”
The cop opened his mouth to argue and repeat the stricture that the building was closed.
“I don’t have my phone or my wallet. I can’t get a hotel without a credit card. I have nowhere to go. I need access to my apartment to see if anything is salvageable.”
“Which apartment?”
“Number 3C.”
The cop shook his head again. “That’s where the fire broke out. You can’t have any access to it.”
“Please. I need to at least see it. I need to know how bad it is. Should I start on getting my ID reissued, or will I be able to get it back? Can you tell me that?”
“No, I don’t know.”
“Could you go up there with me? That way you can make sure I don’t touch anything, but I can see if I’ll be able to save anything, or whether it’s all gone.”
“I don’t have clearance to do that.”
“Maybe you could get permission. Is there someone you could call? Explain the situation?”
The cop just looked at him. Zachary spread his arms wide.
“I don’t have anywhere to go. I don’t have any identification, phone, or money. I don’t have anywhere to sleep. I don’t have a car. Can you explain that to someone? Help me out, here.”
“I can’t let you have access to anything in the apartment.”
“I understand that. I won’t touch or take anything. Just look to see it there’s anything that didn’t burn.”
The man gave an exasperated sigh. “Fine. Let me see if I can get ahold of someone.”
Zachary withdrew to give him privacy. He sat on the bench outside the building where people sat to smoke when it was warm out. He cleared a spot of snow and sat with both of his hands under his armpits. A few times he looked back at the cop, who was still on his phone. Sometimes they made eye contact, as the cop looked to see if he were still there. It was a long time, and Zachary sensed that the cop had needed to make a long series of phone calls rather than just one to make any progress. He finally called out to Zachary, motioning him over.
“Mr. Goldman.”
He hadn’t given his name, so obviously, the cop had managed to get ahold of the officers on the case and to talk to someone who knew the details.
“I have permission to walk you into your apartment. You mustn’t touch anything. The arson investigator would like to talk to you when he gets here.”
“I’d be happy to talk to him. I’m going to need… somewhere warm to hang out. I’m freezing.”
The cop grunted. He motioned Zachary into the building and then locked the door that he had been guarding, barring anyone else from entering while he was showing Zachary to his apartment.
The electricity had been shut off, so they were forced to take the stairs. Zachary’s throat and lungs were sore from the fire. His ribs were still healing after the car accident. His ability to climb the stairs and know what to do with his feet following his spinal cord injury was impaired. All of which meant that he acted like a crippled old asthmatic going up the stairs, making the cop wait for him every few steps. Eventually, they made it up the stairs and to Zachary’s apartment.
The door hung open, the catch broken through the doorframe. At first glance, the interior was completely black, but as Zachary moved in and looked around, he saw that there were varying shades of black. Some things were completely burned, some were scorched, and some were only blackened by smoke. He walked around, the cop right with him, watching with eagle eyes to be sure he didn’t lay so much as a finger on anything.
It was such a foreign landscape. Nothing was familiar. Nothing looked like it was his.
Zachary pointed to the remnants of his phone and wallet on the side table by the couch.
“I guess that answers my question about the identification,” he said. The phone was mostly melted, and the wallet extra-crispy. He doubted any of the flimsy plastic credit cards had survived the heat. Nor any cash. He didn’t try to touch it and neither did the policeman.
Zachary wandered around the apartment. The computer sat under his desk. Like the phone, much of the plastic was melted and scorched. He was sure it wouldn’t start up. Perhaps the hard drive would be recoverable, but he doubted even that. It wasn’t the black box of an airplane, carefully shielded from the elements and any expected adverse events.
He
