Hell's Hotel (11 page)

It sounded very gruesome. There was even a quote from a local businesswoman. “This may be the best thing that could happen,” she said. “We've been wanting the city to tear it down for a long time. Now the mess will have to be cleaned up and we won't have the problem of kids sleeping in there any more.”

Tara felt her eyes tear up with rage. She crumpled up the newspaper and held it there tightly with two clenched fists. The man sitting beside her watched and, when Tara turned towards him, he gave her a dirty look.

“Sorry,” Tara said sarcastically and handed the balled up paper to the indignant man beside her.

Tragedy

The plane didn't arrive at the Halifax airport until six in the evening. She knew she should have called her father to pick her up, but that felt wrong somehow. She was afraid that maybe he would try to stop her from going downtown. Now that everyone had read the news about the fire, they also probably knew all about the kids on the street and what life was like there. Tara knew her father had never really thought about that. Now he might react one of two ways: he'd think that something should be done to help, or he'd say it all sounded too dangerous. He might even try to stop Tara from going down there.

So Tara realized she was now in an in-between world. She was not living with her mother and she was not living with her father. She was on her own, at least temporarily, and so, in one way, she was like the other kids on the street. There was one big difference, though: she had money. She decided to leave her bag with the airline. She wanted to be light on her feet. She could pick it up later. Right now she had to find some answers. She wanted to get downtown fast.

Tara hailed a cab and got in.

“King Street,” she said.

The driver appeared to be well past retirement age. He turned slowly around.

“You're in a hurry, ain't ya?”

“Yeah. Could you step on it?”

The old guy smiled. “You said that just like they do in the movies. I wondered when someone would get in my cab and say that to me. Now someone finally did.”

The guy was just trying to be friendly, but Tara was annoyed. She had a good reason to be in a hurry. “Please, I'm serious.”

He nodded, put the car in gear and screeched the tires as he pulled away, just for effect.

Tara saw him looking back at her in the mirror. “You're not one of them runaways you read about, are you?” There was genuine concern in his voice.

“Not exactly. I did run away, well, sort of. Now I'm running back.”

“So you're going back home,” he repeated, as if to assure himself that everything was okay. He kept checking on her in the mirror. She knew that she looked very fidgety and very nervous.

“You sure you're all right?”

“I'm okay. I just haven't had much sleep.” She leaned forward. “Have you heard anything new about the fire?”

“Whew. That was some blaze. They say you could feel the heat of it from three blocks away.”

“Was anybody hurt?”

“Couple of firefighters sucked in too much smoke. They still don't know if anyone was inside but when I drove by there about an hour ago, it looked like they were starting to go through what was left of the place.” He looked at her again in the mirror, saw the worry in her face.

“What is it, little lady?” he asked.

“I think a friend of mine was in there.”

“Oh, my Lord,” he said. “That's terrible. Maybe you're wrong. Like I said, they haven't said that anyone has been killed for sure.”

“I know,” Tara said, but something inside her told her Jenn was dead. It was the unrelenting logic of Jenn's life. Rob couldn't have lasted. Even if she had gone home, that too wouldn't have lasted more than a couple of days. Then it would be back on the street, checked in at night at Hell's Hotel.

The cab driver drove down the Dartmouth side and took the McKay Bridge across the harbour. He went south on King and in a few minutes they were downtown. Tara wanted to be there and at the same time wished she was far away. She didn't want to confront the truth. She didn't think she was capable of facing it. The driver had been quiet for a while. When he stopped, the meter on the cab said $47.85. But he pushed the reset button on the meter so it went back to zero. “Your money's no good here,” he said. “I hope your friend is all right. You be careful about things.”

“Thanks.” Tara looked directly at the old guy and smiled. She wasn't alone after all.

Now that she had finally arrived on King Street, Tara could see what was left of Hell's Hotel — charred black brick, a skeleton of a building where part of the roof had collapsed and the floors inside had fallen through. One outside wall was caved in. Wet, black, burnt wood and furniture were strewn around. Yellow plastic police tape surrounded the site. There were a few firefighters cautiously digging in the rubble.

She lifted the yellow ribbon and walked across to where one firefighter was digging. “Have you found anything?” she asked. “Was there anyone inside?”

He looked up but kept on sifting through the rubble. “You're not supposed to be here, ma'am. Please get back behind the tape.”

“I need to know!” she shouted at them.

The firefighter stopped what he was doing and took off his helmet. “Look, we just don't know. One kid said there were still two people inside. That's all we have to go on. No names, no real evidence. We just don't know.”

“What can I do to help?” Tara felt so helpless again. She wanted to do more.

“I'm afraid the best thing you can do is leave. You can go talk to the police if you want, but I'm afraid they'll tell you the same thing. Nobody's reported anyone missing. All they have to go on is what one kid on the street had to say.”

Tara crossed back under the police line and walked up towards Grafton Street. There were plenty of people hanging around, still gawking at what was left of Hell's Hotel. People had come down here just to get a look at the disaster. It was like a tourist attraction. Tara felt like screaming at all of them. Up ahead she spotted Courtenay, a pretty schizoid member of the crowd that hung out on Grafton Street. She was a nervous type, jumpy, someone who snapped at you when you said anything to her. She had problems like the rest of them. But she'd been around with Jenn plenty of times. She'd been sleeping at Hell's Hotel the night Tara had stayed there.

“Courtenay, were you in the building when it burned?”

At first Courtenay's face went cold and she started to back away. Then she recognized Tara. “Oh, it's you. Haven't seen you for a while. Thought you went away.”

“I'm back. Were you in there?”

“I'm not saying. The cops want to question anyone who they think was inside. I don't want to be questioned by the cops. I'm not saying.”

“I'm not a cop. You were in there, weren't you?”

Courtenay started to walk away, but Tara followed. “I'm looking for Jenn.”

“Jenn?” There was a glazed look in Courtenay's eyes. Hurt and fear.

“Was she in the building when it caught on fire?”

Courtenay tried to pull away, but Tara wouldn't let go.

“
Was she in there?
” Tara screamed.

Courtenay looked straight down at the sidewalk. Other people were watching them. “She was in there. I got out. Craig got out. Almost everybody got out. Maybe she did too. I don't know. But I never saw her get out last night. I haven't seen her since. I don't think she made it. Now let me go.”

When Tara let go, Courtenay walked quickly away.

The Kitchen-on-the-Street bus was parked by the church on Grafton. The door was open and kids were going in and out. It was one of the so-called luxuries of being homeless in Halifax. The occasional free donuts, free soup. All you had to do was walk in and get something to eat. She went in but she wasn't hungry. She saw a number of familiar faces now. Everyone looked a little worse off than usual. The fire had really shaken them up. A few of them nodded hello. And then she saw someone who could help her. Craig.

She sat down beside him. Craig — who usually acted cool and unaffected, a little bit tough but always together — now looked totally distraught. He didn't say anything as she sat down.

“You were there, right?” Tara blurted out.

Craig stared down into his coffee. “You know I was there. I don't know how it got started. I think it was somebody down below who did it on purpose. It was the worst thing imaginable. Now they're gonna try and blame us. Wait and see.”

“Who didn't get out?”

“What do you mean?”

“Courtenay says that some kids who were inside didn't make it out.”

Craig pounded his fist on the table and looked straight at her. “I got everyone out. I was the last one.” He looked fierce now. “I waited. I waited until they were all out. The smoke was awful. Stuff was caving in. I expected to die.”

“What about Jenn? Did you see her get out?”

Craig hung his head. “I didn't see her, but I'm sure everyone got out. They had to.”

“Courtenay says that no one saw her afterwards.”

Craig looked like he was about to cry. He wiped his face on his sleeve. “It was chaos. She could have gone anywhere. I don't know. She had just started coming back to the place. That girl always had bad timing, bad luck.”

“But you're sure she got out?”

Now Craig rubbed his hand across the table in front of him. He spoke in a whisper. “No. I didn't see her. There was too much smoke. I stayed until I had to leave. I kept yelling for everyone to get down the ladder until nobody else was coming. So I left. I was out of time, you know. I stayed until the end.” He showed her a big red and swollen burn on his arm.

“You're a good guy,” Tara said. “You saved a lot of lives. Better have that looked after.”

Craig took another sip of his coffee as Tara got up to leave.

In her head it was final. Despite Craig's heroic efforts, Jenn had died in the fire. Maybe someone else as well. This is what she had come back to Halifax to discover.

She walked down the street to a pay phone. The haunting image of the destroyed building was still right there in front of her. The remains of her friend was probably buried beneath all that junk, or burnt up into something that was unrecognizable. She started to call for a cab. She didn't want her father to come down here and find her like this. She was just starting to dial the number when she saw a figure come around the corner at Argyle Street and begin to walk the other way, away from her. It could have been any number of girls. The army boots, the weird, cocky way of walking. Tara dropped the phone and ran towards her. Her heart was pounding. She couldn't make her voice work. She couldn't make herself yell out. Instead, Tara caught up to the girl, grabbed her from behind, and started to swing her around. Whoever it was had been caught unaware and had spun around hard, with her first at the ready.

Tara clasped the fist and held it. It was like a bolt of lightning had just struck her. And then she screamed.

Healing

“Jenn, you're alive!”

“Oh my God! Tara, you're back! Why aren't you in Vancouver?”

But Tara couldn't answer. She was speechless. There on the sidewalk they hugged beneath the street light. Tara was hysterical. She found herself shaking all over and she began to cry. Jenn couldn't help but cry as well.

“I thought you were dead,” Tara finally said, trying to get her breath, trying to push back the sobs. “I thought you died in the fire.”

“I was in there,” Jenn said. “I thought I wasn't going to make it.” She showed Tara the burns on her neck and on both arms. “It was awful. I was the last one down the ladder. I was so out of it, I almost didn't wake up in time.”

“Courtenay thought you didn't make it. I talked to Craig. He hung on until he had to leave. He kept telling me everybody was out, but he didn't see you afterwards. Nobody did.”

“I had to get away from there. I was so scared. I went up and sat on Citadel Hill and felt so sick, so frightened. Then finally, I just gave up and went home. My parents totally freaked, but I didn't talk to them. I just went to my old bedroom and slept. I thought when I woke up that somehow we'd start over again from scratch. I don't know. I figured that I'd nearly died, so now maybe things would be different. But they just started right in on me. Criticizing. Yelling. Screaming. Nothing ever changes there. Pretty depressing, huh?”

“We'll figure something out,” Tara said. She was back in the picture and she wasn't going to run away again, not from her friend's problems and not from her own problems. “Do you know if there was anyone who didn't make it out? The firefighters are still looking for bodies.”

Jenn shook her head. “No. I'm pretty sure that if anybody was left in the loft, I would have stumbled on them on the way out. I just faded from the place, didn't talk to anyone. So they probably think it's me in there.”

Tara had already imagined the horror of the scene over and over on the long flight back. Now she needed to hear the truth. “Tell me what it was like. I need to know. Tell me everything that happened. From the beginning.”

“Well, it will come as no surprise that Rob and I weren't the perfect honeymoon couple. I should have dumped him, but he dumped me first, moved back to Toronto. I hope the big slimeball falls into a sewer there. Anyway, I was back to square one. Didn't want to move home for World War III, didn't want to go live in a group home with impossible rules I could never live by, and so there I was back on the street and checking in with the doorman every night at the best hotel in town.

“Somebody had given me some pills and I took them. Jeez, all that did was put me to sleep. I barely made it up to the attic. Then I found a space to crash — far end of the room, a long way from the ladder. I thought the whole thing was a bad dream. I woke up coughing. Nothing but smoke. I could see flames through holes in the floor, but upstairs it was mostly the thick smoke. Everybody else was gone, I'm pretty sure. I totally freaked, screamed for somebody to help, but there was no one there. Not even Craig.”

“He thought you were already gone. It must have been crazy in there.”

“I don't blame him. I probably deserved to have gone up in smoke. I've screwed up everything in my life so bad.”

“Don't say that. It's not true.”

Jenn sat down on the sidewalk and held her hands to her head. Tara knelt down beside her.

“I've made a mess of everything. I even ruined our friendship. Man, I was really stupid.”

“It's okay. You made a mistake. I made a mistake. I don't understand how I could have been so stupid to just run off to Vancouver.”

A few people walking by were staring at them now. Tara didn't care. Let them stare. She knew this wasn't like Jenn. Jenn usually rationalized all the dumb moves she made in her life, blaming everything that went wrong on bad luck or on somebody else. Maybe she was beginning to learn from her mistakes, too. But Tara feared it wasn't exactly like that. Hadn't Jenn said something about deserving to die in the fire? She didn't like the sound of that.

“You think you're the only one who makes mistakes?” Tara proceeded to tell her about how her social life in Vancouver started out at zero and immediately went downhill from there.

Jenn looked a little more together. “You really got dumped on, didn't you?”

“Totally.”

Jenn was almost laughing now.

“Hey, what's so funny?”

“I'm sorry. I just can't picture you with the weirdos, and then, like, the whole school treating you like you were dirt.”

“I was an outsider. Nobody knew who I was, or cared. They believed what they wanted to.”

“That's too much.”

“What do you mean?”

“You just described the way I felt my entire life.”

Tara felt a chill run down her spine. She hadn't seen the connection. She thought she had understood Jenn's problems, but she had never really experienced what Jenn had been feeling. Now she knew.

Jenn looked at her friend. The smile faded. “I didn't finish the story about the fire.”

“Go ahead. I want every detail.”

“Well, I was crawling along the floor in the loft. I could hardly breathe. I couldn't tell for sure where I was going. I yelled, but there was no one there. I'm sure everyone was gone. I tried to stand up, but the smoke was worse, so I got back down. I didn't even know which way to go. And then I nearly fell right through the hole in the floor where the stairway once was. I screamed but there was no one there to help me. Lucky for me, the ladder was still there. Craig was gone but the ladder was there. I climbed down, but when I reached the bottom I nearly passed out. There was this intense heat. I could see now, though, because of the flames. I was having a hard time breathing, because of the fire and the smoke. I was getting dizzier and dizzier. I was about to black out and there was this voice in my head saying: Do it. Just let go. Just give in.

“I was ready to do it, too. It seemed like an easy way out of everything. But then something fell on me from above. It was a piece of one of the mattresses that was on fire. It burned me here.” She pointed to an awful red patch of skin on her neck. “I felt the pain. And it brought me back. I ran down to the second floor. The walls themselves were on fire. Even the staircase down to the first floor was burning. I kept going anyway. I ran out onto the street. There was a crowd there. Somebody pointed at me. But I saw cops around. I just didn't want to be there. I was so scared. My neck hurt really badly, but I just wanted to get away from there. So I ran.”

“I don't understand about the part of just giving up. How could you even think that?”

“I just considered it. Like you would say, it was one of the options at the time. One of the options I didn't go for.”

***

Tara's father said he had been calling all over the place. Tara hadn't told him she was coming home, but her mother had. He had come to the airport to pick up Tara but she wasn't there. He had checked with WestJet. She had been on the flight but she hadn't picked up her luggage. He didn't know where she had gone. He was considering calling the police, but as soon as he saw his daughter arrive with Jenn, it looked like he began to understand.

“Tara, I was so worried about you. Are you okay?”

“I'm okay,” she said, giving her dad a hug. “Jenn's going to be staying for a bit. Is that okay?”

“I think that's just fine. Jenn, you're welcome here for as long as you like.” Now he was noticing the burns. “You should have a doctor look at those.”

“No thanks,” she said.

“Well, I'm no doctor but I'm around them enough. How about letting me take a look, make sure there's no infection.”

Jenn nodded okay. Tara's father examined the burns and said, “It could be a lot worse. I'd like to put some antiseptic on them though, make sure they don't get worse. Tomorrow we'll get you to a doctor. You're probably going have some scars, though.”

“Hey, one more set of scars won't bother me,” she said.

“Healing is the important thing,” he said.

“Really important,” Tara added. She was looking at her father and knew that he understood what she meant.