Chapter 1

I woke up ... wow it is dark, I must have really slept today. For as long as I can remember my sleep schedule naturally gravitates to getting sleepy in the mornings and not being able to sleep all night. If I try really hard and keep a strict schedule and plenty of melatonin, then I can sleep at night and get up for a work day ... But that was years ago. I glanced at my phone ... is that smoke I smell? Wait, my phone says 5, its dark, and I smell smoke ... oh shit!

I get up skipping my wake up pee and pills, hurriedly getting dressed and running to the door, step in my Crocs and open the sliding door. It is really smoky out here, but I don’t see any glow up the mountain, and it is really too smoky to see what direction the wind is blowing. I run down and around the garage, across the driveway. It is smoky everywhere looking down the mountain too, but Ted’s car is still here, maybe it isn’t a problem. I can hear Teds family dogs barking in the house and I am outside, I would be beating those dogs so much if they were mine and barked that much.

Walking to the front door and opening it, yep the door is still broken, inside is hysterics ... Kim is crying ... the dogs are barking ... Susan is leaned down next to Ted on the floor ... Ted is on the floor! Kevin walks in with a rag in his hand putting it on Teds forehead. Susan looks at me and says ‘John! Ted collapsed, he is breathing, I called 911, I don’t know whats wrong!’ I push Kim out of the way going to Teds junk drawer and open it and grab a flashlight, lean down and check his eyes, they aren’t responding ... I check his pulse, its there but weak. ‘ Susan go get your purse and phone and anything else you cant live without ... hurry go! ... Kevin go open both back doors of the car!’ I turn and look at Kim and grab her shoulder and shake her a bit to get her to focus on me. ‘Kim, Kim! ... I need you to grab Pie and put Biscuit in the back of the car and get in with them and keep them calm! Do it now! Go!’ Kevin ran past me out the door, Susan made eye contact with me for a few seconds, then got up to go to the bedroom, on the way she yelled at Kim to hurry. I pulled Ted into a sitting position, got my shoulder under his pit... ‘man this is gonna hurt’ I thought as I shifted his weight towards me and picked him up immediately scooting towards the door. Pain shot at different parts of my body as I stood, but I didn’t drop him! Kevin ran back towards me like he wanted to help and I immediately told him to get in the back seat to help pull Ted through. He understood what I was saying thank god, I am not sure how long I can carry this fucker, he is heavy! I scooted as quickly as I could towards the open back seat of the car, of course he/she parked back far enough I would have to go over a rock to get there, but I didn’t drop him!

At the back seat I turned and dropped his upper body on the seat keeping my knee wedged against his ass so he wouldn’t slide out. Kevin looked confused on where to grab his dad to pull him in so I told him to grab his arm pits and pull as hard as he could. He got the idea and pulled, on the first tug we got him halfway in, a couple more and he was in. I told him to close the door and come around, when he did, I pointed at the floor board and told him to scoot in. That done I showed him where to check for a pulse until he nodded, then I showed him where to press on his chest if it stopped. ‘It is okay to crack a rib or two doing CPR, he should have a huge bruise in the center of his chest tomorrow to complain about. If his heart stops press here as hard as you can 5 times, then tilt his head back, hold his nose, open his mouth and breath into his lung hard like you are blowing up a balloon, turn your head to the side so your cheek is by his mouth and feel the air coming back out, then do it again. Five pumps on the chest and 2 breaths until you get to the hospital and someone takes over for you.

Kim was climbing in the back now and I seen her pulling Biscuit, the bigger dog, up in with her. By the time I got to the back I closed the door and went back to the back seat. Kim was still crying... ‘Kim shush, I need your help!’ I lifted Teds arm up to her and had her hold his hand with her left hand and pulled 2 finger of her right where his pulse could be found. ‘You feel that pulse?’ I found it and slightly adjusted her fingers.’Right there, you feel that pulse?’ she nodded to me and stop crying, ‘I need you to count out loud each time you feel a beat, your mom or Kevin will tell you when to start over at one do you understand? I need you to do this all the way to the hospital no matter if he wakes up or not. Do you understand?’ she nodded and sniveled ‘Count for me Kim.’ I looked at Kevin and told him to have her start over every minute.

I turned around looking for Susan and she was coming out of the house. She looked like a nervous wreck. I stopped her with a quick hug, I don’t think I have ever hugged her before. ‘Slow and steady wins the race, go up the mountains and take the interstate, just remember slow and steady wins the race.’ She gave me a stiff nod and thanked me as I directed her to the drivers door. ‘You aren’t coming?!’ she asked. ‘I will be right behind you, I promise, I have to put air in my tire or I wont make it to the road.’ I directed her into the car. ‘Remember, slow and steady wins the race, you got this, don’t stop no matter what until you get there.’ I grabbed her shoulder trying to give her a reassuring squeeze, and shut the door. She started the car and took off ... not very slowly...

Well that’s one crisis put in the right direction, I cant believe she called 911 ... it would take them 40 minutes to get up the mountain, assuming they aren’t trying to fight this fire wherever it is. Man I need to pee! Looking around seeing all the smoke but no glowing borders I decided to risk it peeing in my bathroom and started heading that way.

You see, Ted bought this house with 20 acres in the mountains of southern Oregon bordering California. His big idea was to grow weed for money so I offered to come do that and he accepted since that’s what I was doing for 3-4 years before joining Ted. The weed thing didn’t work out, that’s a long story in itself, but I ended up moving into the apartment above his detached garage. It is a nice enough property if you like the remote mountain setting and having most of your property unusable because it is uncomfortably steep. The nearest town is Ashland, a nice town with a population of about 20k, it is about 20 minutes north-northwest along I-5. The next major town up I-5 by another 15 minutes or so is Medford, and has pretty much all the conveniences of a decent sized city, but only has a population of about 80k, so its missing a lot of the bad stuff too.

I got my wake up activities out of the way, I peed, took my pills, got a big drink of water, and stuck a pinch of dip in my cheek. I checked my phone and still have internet, so after a decent search on the fire I came up with nothing so I assume it isn’t a big deal. It being august everything is pretty much dead around here, it doesn’t rain much in the summer here. So the smoke is probably from the California side of the mountain and just got sucked down into the trees for some reason.

Since I have time, I guess I can spare a moment and describe myself. I am old, I turned 40 this year. Well I am definitely starting to feel old at least. I look younger, I have a face that looks late 20s low 30s, I still get carded when I buy tobacco ... I am fat, not huge, but definitely fat, I weigh in the 270 area ... When you get fat enough, you stop keeping track of your weight. I wasn’t always fat, when I was in the army my coming out of the field weight was 195, meaning I was thin and gaunt looking at 195. I am only 5’10”, but have a farm boy big boned build ... Average height but thick and wider then normal. My first team leader called me ham hocks because of my thick legs. But now I am fat, old, and an average penis on the small side ... Five inches on a good day. Oh and I am poor, very poor ... HUD pays Ted for me to live in this apartment, and I get food stamps ... I wasn’t always poor, but now I am stuck in the welfare rut and cant get out. I get about $260 a month from the VA for 20% disability, my phone/internet cost $100, car insurance costs about $40, HUD makes me pay about $80, and anything left over pays for tobacco gas and household goods the food stamps wont cover. I cant get a job without a phone and internet, and I cant afford gas to get to work with it. There are no buses that come up the mountain either ... So that’s me in a nutshell ... Fat, old, stuck in a welfare rut.

I picked up my air compressor and headed out side to put air in my tires, takes about10 minutes. I cant afford new rims and they slowly leak air at night (thank you Michigan roads), but if I fill them up before I leave, they don’t leak while I am driving thank god. I love my little Smart car, great on gas, great sound system I had installed back when I had money to burn, but a terrible ride on long trips. The smoke is still pretty bad out here but I still don’t see any glow so that’s good, weird I couldn’t find anything on the internet about it. I wonder how Ted is doing, they should be at the hospital by now, I wonder what happened to him. With the tires topped off, they should be fine as long as I leave in the next few hours. I went back inside and plugged the air compressor back up to the extension cord to charge. I am pretty sore, I might have pulled something in my back when I moved Ted into the car. I am so out of shape ... In my living room it is full of exercise equipment, but I haven’t really had a steady workout in over 10 years. I worked out for about 6 months in 2013, but when I moved away from Oakland all my crap went into storage and that ended that brief period of positive routine.

Looking outside at the smoke I decided to have a walk around the property, maybe I can get to a clear spot so I can see where its coming from. Every year there has been smoke, just never this bad ... One year there was a fine layer of ash over everything that kept falling for a week, but the smoke was never this bad. I walked around and down to the garage, then started down the hill to the barn. About halfway to the barn is the power lines, typically you can see pretty far up and down due to being no trees near the lines, but with the smoke you cant really see more then 100 feet clearly. I hope this smoke doesn’t make me sick, I cant afford to get sick. I hope Teds Okay.