The roof answered the question before he could finish articulating it, giving way beneath his feet. Hopper crashed through.
Fortunately enough, since he was still pretty drunk, he was also very loose-limbed and didn’t tense up. As a result, he didn’t hurt himself too much when he slammed to the floor. Mostly it just knocked the wind out of him. Pieces of acoustical tile and insulation fell all around him and he threw his arms over his head to shield himself from it. Once the rain of debris had stopped, Hopper staggered to his feet and moved toward the stack of chicken burritos sitting in a refrigerated compartment. They were individually wrapped in red and white paper. Hopper selected one at random, tossed it in the microwave, and pushed “Start.” As the burrito cooked, he moved over toward the register and dropped a few bucks next to it. He briefly considered leaving the fifty he’d originally offered but then decided against it. She’d passed on it. In fact, she’d threatened to pepper spray him. Fine. Be that way, lady. You get the money for the burrito. Let your insurance company deal with the crappy ceiling. In fact, the whole roof was so shoddily made, I probably did you a favor. Take the insurance money and get a decent roof.
The microwave dinged and he snatched the burrito out of it. He let out a yelp and tossed it from one hand to the other as he waited for it to become cool enough to handle. As he did so, he glanced around, looking for a means of exit. There was a stepladder propped against the far wall that she probably used for mundane things like changing lightbulbs. He set it under the hole in the roof and quickly clambered up and out. He felt heady with excitement and triumph. I’m gonna make it, he thought deliriously, right before another section of the roof gave way. Seconds later he was back inside the store, lying atop a rack of condiments that had exploded all over him from the impact.
As he lay there, trying to shake off the pain, he noticed a back door with a hand-scrawled sign that read “Emergency Exit” on it.
“Yeah… that would have been easier,” he said with a low moan.
He got slowly to his feet, looking in disgust at the condiments that were all over him, and that was when he heard the police sirens in the distance.
“Oh, that’s not good.”
He banged through the door and hoped he would be well clear of the convenience store before the cops were close enough to get a bead on him. This hope was quickly dashed when he saw two police cars pulling up, their lights flashing, illuminating the darkened street like a Christmas tree. There were two cops in one and a single cop in the other. The doors were flung open and they spilled out, shouting over one another such useless orders as “Stop!” “Halt!” “Don’t move!”
Hopper had never been much when it came to following orders.
The remaining haze of near drunkenness burned away as he sprinted toward the hotel. He figured they weren’t going to shoot if he didn’t draw a weapon or in some way threaten them. That was his theory, at any rate. If nothing else, he knew that there was a whole lot of extra paperwork cops had to go through if they discharged their weapons and took down a fleeing felon, and he hoped they’d figure he wasn’t worth the time.
Felon? Is that what I am? Screw that. I’m not a felon. I’m just a guy who’s fighting for his future.
That’s what she was. His future. He sprinted toward where he’d left her, picking up speed with every second.
If he were of a fanciful mind, he would have felt love was lending wings to his feet.
He dashed around the back of the hotel, where the bar was situated out on the broad patio. Stone had gotten up from the table and was heading right toward him, probably in response to the police sirens and the shouting. He had a quick glimpse of Stone’s face, and his thought process was right there, writ large upon his expression: Please don’t let it be Alex, please don’t let it be Alex, please don’t… oh, crap, it’s Alex, I knew it, I knew it.
But Stone was only a momentary diversion. Hopper’s real interest was the girl. No, not just the girl. The Girl. She was The Girl, capitalized, and over time she would become The Girl and then THE GIRL and then THE WIFE and eventually The Wife and then the wife…
Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea after all…
Instantly he dismissed the doubts. There was no room for doubts. All that mattered was they were meant to be. Except none of it was going to mean a damned thing if she had already left. He’d taken longer than two minutes, and if she had gone…
No! There she was! She had been sitting on a bar stool but now she was half off it, her purse in her hand, and she was gaping at him. She looked as if she had no idea how to react. That was hardly surprising. He must have looked insane, his face and clothes covered with mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise, and whatever the hell else had splattered all over him. Not to mention plaster and random bits of debris from the roof he’d fallen through.
He ran right up to her and extended the burrito. She wasn’t even looking at it. Instead she was staring straight at him, a dozen different emotions warring on her face.
He tried to catch his breath so he could form words. He was giving no more thought to the cops; as far as he was concerned, the chase was over.
Unfortunately no one had bothered to tell the police. Hopper had just enough time to feel something jammed into his back before his body was jolted by electricity. He tried to say, I give up but the only thing to come out of his mouth was “Urkh.” As he fell, he flipped the burrito to The Girl. It wasn’t so much a toss as it was a spasm, but it was enough to send the burrito angling toward her in an arc. She caught it on the fly, but did so more out of reflex than anything else. If she was still hungry, the feeling was very likely forgotten in the wake of the insanity she was witnessing.
Hopper fell to his knees. The cops had his hands pinned behind his back and were busily applying cuffs to them. All right. Old school. Not those stupid twist ties, like I’m a plastic garbage bag. Real-life handcuffs. Makes me proud to be an American.
He managed sufficient breath to get out two words, directed to The Girclass="underline" “Bon appétit.”
One of the cops was busy rattling out Hopper’s “right to an attorney,” and Stone was shouting that this wasn’t necessary, certainly it was just some big misunderstanding, and one of the cops was telling him to step back, this wasn’t his business, and Stone was saying, like hell, this was his kid brother, so it sure as hell was his business…
And none of it mattered to Hopper. None of it. Only one thing mattered, and that was the reaction of The Girl as she stared down at him being hog-tied like a bull at a rodeo.
A long moment hung there, stretching out into eternity, and one of the cops was saying with increasing irritation, “Do you understand these rights as I have just read them to you?”
Then The Girl said two words. Two magic words.
“Thank you.”
And she smiled.
It wasn’t just with her mouth. When she smiled, her whole face lit up. And not merely her face either. She lit up the night, like a beam from a lighthouse showing the way to safety and salvation.
Totally worth it.
“Oh yeah,” he said, which was all the cops needed to hear before they dragged him away. The last thing he saw was her waving to him, still smiling, as she bit into the burrito.
I can’t wait to tell our kids this story…
It helped that Stone knew everyone.