Forward: First, let me thank blackrandI1958 for inviting me to take part in the “Wine and Old Lace,” story theme. Second, let me thank her again for her editing skills.

I hope you enjoy my story and as always, I look forward to your comments.

I was on my way to photograph three members of the Cal-Town Women’s Club making decorations for an upcoming charity bazaar. What can I say, not all newspaper photography is exciting. I got the job right after graduating high school in 1960 and had now been a Morning Star, staff photographer for four years. Even though taking photos of three elderly ladies making streamers wasn’t my idea of thrilling, overall I loved the job and it did have its exciting moments.

I had only been working there a little over a year when I was sent on a raid with the Indiana State Police. A gun battle broke out and a bullet passed so close to my ear it sounded like an angry giant hornet. I felt so helpless while bullets were flying all around that as soon as I was old enough I applied for a concealed carry permit, and from then on, wore my Beretta three-eighty under my sport coat. Since then I’d been on countless police raids but never had to draw my gun ... thank goodness.

I was only a couple miles from the women’s club assignment when my pager went off. Those things were a two edged sword. The paper bought a slew of them and gave one to all the reporters and photographers. We had to wear them during working hours and off hours if we were on-call. Sometimes it was nice. An assignment would get cancelled or changed for some reason and the news room could let us know so we didn’t show up to a locked door. Other times I’d be out with my wife and get called out to a fire or accident. That wasn’t so nice. Sheri, my wife, didn’t mind that as much as she did when the damn thing would start buzzing at two or three o’clock in the morning.

I looked at the display. All it read was, “call off.” I pulled into the first gas station and up to the outdoor phone booth. The paper had a general phone number that went through a switchboard. Marge was the operator who would then connect the caller to the proper department.

“Hi, Marge, Clint just paged me.” Clint Wilkenson was our city editor.

“Okay, Dylan, here you go.”

“City desk,” he answered, as usual.

“Clint, it’s me. You paged?”

“Yeah, forget the three bag ladies.” Clint was a sarcastic cuss. “We’ll reschedule it. Get over to South Chicago, around a hundred and sixty-fifth and Kennedy. Some woman was beaten up and raped in her own back yard. The guy took off on foot so half the police force is pounding the pavement, looking for the jackass. Get a couple shots of the cops peeking around a corner or beating the bushes or something. I’m just looking for some general art.”

“All right, on my way,” I told him. I wasted no time getting to the intersection but saw no cops anywhere. I figured they were probably searching the alleys and back yards so I parked the car, grabbed my Nikon and took off in pursuit of a couple of blue uniforms. I wandered along streets and through the alleyways until I finally spotted a couple of boys in blue. I knew one of them and we talked after I got my shots. I was curious about what happened.

“Dylan, I feel so sorry for the poor girl. She lives with her mother and has a three year old daughter. I think the father deserted her. Anyway, she was hanging laundry up in the back yard when this creep rushed her from the sidewalk, knocked her down with a punch to the face, and then jumped on top and raped her.”

“Jesus, Tom,” I replied. “It’s broad daylight. The guy’s got to be out of his mind.”

“Yeah, the victim said she thought he was high on something. A couple of the neighbors heard her scream and called us but we didn’t have any squads in the area. By the time we got here he took off. We’ll find him though. We have a good description and all the neighboring forces have been notified to keep an eye out.”

“What’s the description, just in case I see him?”

“Long, dark brown hair, scruffy beard, dirty white T-shirt, and baggy levis,” Tom answered. “If you do see him, be careful, he’s got a knife. He threatened the girl with it when she wouldn’t stop screaming.”

I told him I’d be careful and thanked them both for the photos. Of course they were thrilled knowing their pictures would be in the paper. As I started back to my car, I realized, while wandering around looking for cops, I had strayed a mile or more from where I was parked, so I started taking shortcuts.

I was walking through a blacktop alley with homes on both sides and was within a couple blocks of my car when I heard something. At first I figured it was a dog but wasn’t too worried since there was a five foot tall, cyclone fence between me and the noise. I looked at a bunch of wild bushes growing between the fence and the back of a garage on the other side of it. He was all crouched down and pretty well hidden but I could see parts of the white T-shirt.

Son of a bitch, I thought, I got him. I drew my gun and attempted to get to the other side of the fence through the gate but it was locked with a padlock. Shit. I was pretty sure he knew he’d been discovered, so if I went to the end of the block and all the way around to the front of the yard, he’d be gone by the time I got there.

I figured he knew I couldn’t get to him and was afraid he’d bolt on me, so I made sure he saw my gun and told him to lie flat on the ground and throw the knife into the yard. To my relief, he obeyed but I thought; what now? I had him covered but I still had a five foot fence between us.

I did the only thing I could think of and started hollering HELP at the top of my lungs. I was hoping for one of the cops to be close enough to hear me. “HELP—POLICE, HELP! HELP! HELP!” Nothing! I kept it up and kept it up, thinking sooner or later somebody would hear me, but my voice was starting to get weaker and weaker. I was starting to lose it completely but what else could I do? “SOMEONE PLEASE CALL THE COPS AND TELL THEM I HAVE THE RAPIST!” Still nothing and I was now straining to raise my voice above a couple decibels.

Just as I was about to give up, I heard someone. “What’s going on?”

“Please get the police,” I croaked. “I’ve caught a rapist they’re looking for.”

“We are the police,” one said as two cops came around the corner of another house. When they both got next to me, their eyes followed down my gun barrel until they saw what it was aimed at.

“Jesus Christ, that’s him,” one of them exclaimed.

Suddenly they both became animated, trying to figure out how they were going to get to him. Neither one looked like they could climb the fence. “Can you keep him covered while we go around to the front?” one asked.

“Yes, but please hurry. I’ve been standing here for about twenty minutes and I’m getting tired,” I managed to say with my horse throat.

The two cops walked to the end of the alley then disappeared behind some houses as they made a right turn. I didn’t see them again for a couple of minutes until I saw them searching for the right yard. I started waving my arm until they spotted me. By that time, they had called for back-up and I got photos of several cops cuffing the jackass and throwing him into the back of a squad car. I also got shots of the knife.

I was excited as hell by the time I got back to my car. Not only did I get some great shots of the cops taking the rapist into custody, but I was the one who captured him. In the years I’d been with the paper, my name had appeared on hundreds of my photos but I’d never been the subject of the story before. In spite of my sore throat, I couldn’t stop grinning. I looked at my watch and saw I still had time to make my last assignment before going into the office. I was taking pictures of a woman on her one-hundredth birthday. To my way of thinking, if someone can last a hundred years, they deserve to have their picture in the paper.

I stopped at a drug store on the way and got a couple boxes or cough drops for my sore throat.

When I got to the location, I asked if I could use their phone. I called in and told Clint what happened so they knew to hold more space open for the photos.

The end of the day was the only part of the job that I considered to be work. We had to develop all our own film and make our own prints. They were clipped to the day’s assignment sheets and numbered to coincide with our notes and identifications for each shot. We were normally given a couple hours for all this, but if we had a busy day that wasn’t always enough time.

When I was done, I ran my work up to the newsroom and handed it in to Lyle, the photo editor. Clint saw me and walked up.

“Lyle, where’s the art from the rape?”

Lyle thumbed through everything and pulled them out. “Here you go.”

Rarely did anyone see Clint smile but a big grin stretched across his face. “These are great, Dylan. What a story. Busey’s writing it. Go sit down with him and give him your version.” He threw the photos back down on Lyle’s desks and walked away. “I love it,” he chuckled to himself.

I sat down with Rich Busey, and told him everything that had happened. When I was done, I had a question.

“Any word on the girl?”

“Yeah, I just got off the phone with her mother,” he replied. “She’s got a broken nose and cheek bone. She also tore some cartilage in her shoulder while she was struggling. Her mom sounded like she was more worried about the psychological trauma than the physical injuries, though. I guess her daughter’s been through quite a lot over the last couple years. She’s at Mercy Hospital.

“You should stop on your way home. I’ll bet they’d like to meet the man who captured that asshole.”

“Nah, I’ve got to get home,” I responded. I was actually anxious to tell Sheri about my day.

I felt sorry for the girl, but even so, I couldn’t stop grinning from ear to ear on the drive home. At twenty-two years old, I felt like I had the world by the tail.

Two years prior, I married Sheri, the love of my life, my high school sweetheart and former captain of the varsity cheerleaders, no less. Every guy in school was after her, but she picked me.

We wanted to get married right out of high school but our folks were dead set against it, saying we were too young. Two years later they gave up. They still thought we were too young but they could see we were truly in love, so they gave us their blessing.

Since then, not a day had gone by that I hadn’t felt like the luckiest guy on earth. On top of being married to my dream girl, I had a job I loved and paid well to boot. We had a nice apartment, two decent cars, and could even afford to go out on the town now and then as long as we didn’t go overboard.

I could hear my lovely bride slaving over a hot stove in the kitchen as I walked in. “Guess what?” was my lead in just before getting my welcome home kiss.

“They doubled your salary,” she sarcastically replied as soon as our lips parted.

“No, you just kissed a hero,” I responded. “You can read all about it in tomorrow’s paper.”

“Like I’m going to wait until tomorrow, you’ll tell me now or there’ll be no nookie for you tonight.”

“Well, since you put it that way,” I said with a grin. She knew damn well I couldn’t wait to tell her. I poured myself a cup a coffee then sat down at the table as I launched into my adventure.

She listened while putting the finishing touches on dinner. She was setting the table as I concluded my tale. I could see a worried look on her face.

“I wish you wouldn’t take chances like that. What if he’d had a gun? He could have shot you.”

“Honey, if he had a gun he wouldn’t have been brandishing a knife,” I replied.

“Still, you didn’t know for sure. You almost got your head shot off that one time. I just wish you’d be more careful.”

I should have never told her about that. She cried at the time and I knew it was always in the back of her mind.

“Honey, please don’t worry about me. There was no way that guy had a gun. There were half a dozen witnesses that saw him run away from the girl. They all saw the knife but not one mentioned a gun.”

“Just be careful, okay,” she commented while putting a couple pork chops on my plate.

“I promise, babe. Can I help with something?”

“No thanks, everything’s all ready. Besides, heroes don’t do kitchen duty,” she said with a smile.

Later that night, you might say I got a hero’s welcome as I slipped into bed. I felt Sheri’s hands on my chest before my head hit the pillow. I turned to face her and was met with those delectable lips of hers ... and they didn’t stop there. Slowly, lovingly, they moved downward. When she saw how hard my cock was already, she looked up at me with a big smile before placing a kiss on the tip.

I guess she decided oral stimulation wasn’t really necessary because she climbed on top of me and slipped her wet pussy over shaft, braced herself with her hands on my stomach and began to ride. I worked hard to keep myself from coming immediately as Sheri closed her eyes and did her best imitation of riding a brahma bull. I felt her pussy muscles contract as she screamed out her first climax.

I took a short reprieve while Sheri struggled to take control of her body again. It allowed me to move beyond the point of no return without coming which would greatly increase my stamina.

I could see she was about ready for round two so I put my hands around her waist and guided her up and down in rhythm with my hips. Soon she was thrashing wildly around with another explosion of euphoric bliss.

When she realized I had yet to come, she hopped off the bed and stood at the edge, bracing herself on the mattress with her hands. I walked around and took her from behind. This time we both exploded in unison. It was after two-thirty by the time we cuddled in each other’s arms and drifted off in a post coital state of unconsciousness.

There must have still been a trace of adrenalin in my blood because I woke up an hour before the alarm went off. I was curious to know if the paper had been delivered yet. We don’t get it, why pay when I can take one off the press, but several people in the apartment building had it delivered.

I threw on my robe and quietly snuck out of the bedroom so I wouldn’t wake Sheri. I opened our front door and peeked out. Sure enough, there were several papers left in front of the other doors. I looked around to see if anyone was around. When I was satisfied the coast was clear, I darted out to grab the one three doors down then successfully scampered back inside our apartment without getting caught.

With a grin on my face, I went into the kitchen and threw the paper on the table while I made coffee. While it was brewing I sat down and slipped the rubber band off to unfold the proclamation to my heroism. I was disappointed to see it wasn’t on page one. I found it just inside though, on page three.

They used five of my shots, two were several columns wide. I started to read the story. I wasn’t mentioned until the end. “Morning Star photographer, Dylan McHenry was dispatched to the scene and captured several photos of the police manhunt. While walking through an alley on the way back to his car, he noticed a figure crouched behind some bushes. Recognizing the subject from witnesses’ descriptions, Dylan was able to hold the suspect at bay until officers took him into custody.”

“That’s it?” I said out loud.

“That’s what?”

I looked over the top of the newspaper and saw my wife in her robe. “Where’d you get that?” She queried on the way to the coffee pot.

“I stole it.”

“You what? From who?”

“The Wilsons. I wanted to read about my heroism but it doesn’t sound like much in print,” I chuckled. I read her the last few lines while she poured two cups of magic elixir.

“You go put that back,” she said, making no comment on the story.

“I will. What are you doing up so early?”

“Telling you to put that paper back before they see it’s missing and blame the paperboy.”

I rolled it back up and slipped the rubber band around it. On my way passed, I stopped to kiss Sheri on the lips.

Later that morning, I hiked up the stairs to the newsroom and got my assignments for the day from Lyle. I was glancing through them when Rich came up to talk to me.

“Busy day?”

“Good morning, Rich. Nah, not too bad; anymore on the girl that was raped yesterday?”

“As a matter of fact, I just got off the phone with her mom. She’s going to be released this afternoon. They asked if there was any way you could stop in before then.”

“Me? Oh, I don’t know, Rich. I don’t even know them. Why would they want to see me?”

“Why do you think? They read the story. When I called to get an update on the girl’s condition, she asked me about the brave photographer, so I told her the whole story.”

“Rich, come on, I joked with my wife about being a hero but it really wasn’t anything.”

“Dylan, if you hadn’t done what you did, that guy would have gotten away. We both know that. He would have most likely done it again, and who knows, he might have killed someone the next time.”

I looked at my assignments again. The hospital was only five minutes away and I had plenty of time to get to my first job. “Okay,” I acknowledged. “I’ll head on over there in a few minutes. What’s her name?”

“Maria Cooper, her mother’s name is Angela. They’re in room two-twenty-eight.”

“All right, I have to drive right past there anyway.”

I went down stairs to check in and see if there was anything for me in the photography office but I didn’t see anything so I headed over to the hospital. The mother instinctively knew who I was and greeted me as soon as I walked into the room.

“Oh,” she said while putting both hands up to her face, “you must be Dylan. I was hoping you’d come.”

Before I could say anything, she turned to her daughter lying in the hospital bed. “Maria, look, it’s the man who caught the guy who beat you up.”

I noticed she didn’t say raped. I looked, but it was hard to see her under all the bandages. They also had her right arm in a shoulder cast. I smiled and walked up to the side of her bed. “I understand you’re going to be just fine,” I said. “That’s good to hear.”

She smiled back the best she could. “Thank you,” she said in a quiet voice.

“Thank you for coming,” her mother gushed. “We both wanted to thank you in person for what you did. Maria has been through so much. If you hadn’t caught that creep she would be terrified knowing he was still out there and could come after her again.”

“Well, I didn’t really do that much. I’m sure the cops would have caught him anyway. Your neighbors gave them a pretty good description and they had every cop for miles around looking for that guy.”

“Maybe,” Angela commented, “maybe not. We don’t have to worry because of you, though.”

I smiled with a little embarrassment from their gratitude. I really did believe the cops would have probably caught the guy anyway. “Well, I’m glad I could help,” I told Angela. I looked down at Maria who was smiling up at me. That made me smile in return. “And you get better real soon, okay?”

Her smile got about as big as she could muster as she nodded her head.

I told them I had to get going so we said our goodbyes and I took off for my first assignment, but that meeting put me in a good mood for the rest of the day. I told Sheri about it over dinner that night. Now that she was over being angry with me for taking a risk, she seemed much more interested and showed concern for Maria.

“So she’s going to be okay then?”

“Yeah, as far as I know.”

“How old is she? The paper didn’t give any details about her. Is she real young?”

“The paper?”

“Yeah, I went out and BOUGHT one,” she said, emphasizing ‘bought.’ “I wanted the article for my scrapbook.”

“Scrapbook?” That was news to me. “What scrapbook?”

“I started it as soon as you got the job with the paper,” she said. “Up till now it’s just been pictures you’ve taken, but I had to include the article this time.” She looked at my shocked face. “Well, someday we’ll have grandchildren and I think they should know what their grandpa did for a living.”

“Where is it?”

“Never mind. I don’t need you looking at it and getting a big head. You never answered my question. How old is she?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It was hard to tell with all the bandages, but she has a three year old kid. I’d guess she’s probably our age.”

“Oh, okay. I had the impression she was younger. Of course, something like that should never happen to anyone at any age, but I was afraid she was in her teens.”

“No, no, I’m sure she’s not that young.”

“Well, if I didn’t tell you yesterday, I am proud of you.”

“Thanks, babe; proud enough for a repeat of last night?” I asked with big grin.

She stepped up to me and gave me a light peck on the lips. “Of course,” she answered with her own big grin.

By the following day my fifteen minutes of fame was a thing of the past and it was business as usual. I was looking forward to a three day weekend. That was actually one of the neatest things about working for the paper. We had four rotating shifts and six photographers. They were all supposed to be eight hour shifts, although if you got done early you could go home early. By the same token, if it was a busy day and it stretched to nine or ten hours, well that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

The first photographer started at seven am. At nine, two more guys started. At two-thirty in the afternoon, two more guys started and at three-thirty one more. That gave us full coverage throughout the day and night. It was really neat because some weeks you had time off during the day and other weeks you had your nights free. If an emergency came up during the night, it was usually one of the night guys who was called out. In addition, our days off we were also on a rotating schedule. The really, really neat thing was that the guy who had the last day shift got the following Saturday, Sunday, and Monday off.

I had booked a little cabin near Starved Rock. It had no phone and no TV. What it did have solitude, a place outside to build a campfire, and a giant bed. It was three days of heaven on earth.

Going on nights was always a little harder. For one thing, I didn’t like leaving Sheri home alone, although we had some nice neighbors in the building that she would visit if she got too lonely. The other reason was scheduling. Most of the assignments during the day were booked well in advance and usually things went pretty smooth. The night shifts were much more unpredictable. There was always something popping up here and there to screw things up.

I was already running late by the time I returned to the office. It was ten-thirty. My shift was supposed to end at eleven-thirty but I still had at least two more hours of film processing and printing to do, thanks to Gene Anderson, one of the reporters. My last assignment for the night was a town hall meeting in Arlington Hills where they were trying to use eminent domain to seize a couple of private businesses.

I was supposed to stop in, take a couple shots and leave, but tempers were running so high, Gene was sure a riot was going to break out and begged me to stay. Of course the meeting ran late, and me being the conscientious type, stayed till the bitter end; in spite of no riots. The first thing I did when I got back to the office was call Sheri to tell her I wouldn’t make it home until one o’clock.

I was beat by the time I got home. I thought, thank God I didn’t have to be at work again until three-thirty in the afternoon. Sheri was sound asleep by the time I slipped between the sheets and faded into dreamland.

It seemed as if I had just closed my eyes before something was nudging me in the ribs. I opened one eye and could see it was still dark out. I heard Sheri mumble something but I couldn’t understand her because of some damn buzzing noise ... oh no! As the fog in my head started to clear I identified the noise—please, not tonight.

“Dylan, will you please turn that damn thing off.”

I reached over to the nightstand and hit the button on the pager before looking at the display. “Call off.” Shit.

The graveyard shift at the paper consisted of two people, Mike, in the newsroom, and the night watchman. They would sit and BS with each other all night unless the phone rang. Then it was Mike’s job to look on the list and see who was on call.

I went out to the kitchen so I wouldn’t bother Sheri any more than I had to. “Mike, I’ve had all of an hour’s sleep.”

“Sorry, Dylan, but there’s a three alarm at a warehouse only a couple miles from you.”

“Fuck,” I grumbled. “Okay, give me the address.”

Before leaving I went back into the bedroom to let Sheri know I had to go but she had gone back to sleep already, so I wrote her a quick note and left it on my pillow. I took off at a trot across the parking lot and was a few feet from my car when I saw it, a flat tire. “Damn, what next?” I mumbled. Well, I wasn’t about to take the time to fix it so I ran back inside and grabbed the keys to Sheri’s car.

I knew exactly where the fire was from the address so I put my foot to the floor and was doing about seventy-five when I saw flashing lights in my rear view mirror. By now I was getting down-right aggravated. We all had signs saying, “Press,” in the rear window of our cars. Rarely did the cops bother us when they knew there was a fire or bad accident—especially at three in the morning. Then I remembered I was in my wife’s car ... shit.

Just about the time I was wondering what else could possibly go wrong, the officer walked up to my window ... a rookie! I knew almost every veteran cop in a fifty mile radius, but I’d never seen this guy before. What was worse is that he hadn’t been on the job long enough to know about extending courtesy to the press.

“License and registration, please.” He barely looked twenty-one.

I pulled my license from my wallet then reached over to grab the registration from the glove compartment. As soon as the door dropped open, a couple dozen envelopes and some tri-folded papers fell to the floor. I was surprised because Sheri was usually a very neat person. The rest of the car was spotless.

I poked around and found the registration and handed it to the officer along with my press pass.

“What’s this?”

“I’m a press photographer, officer. I’m sorry for speeding but I’m on my way to the factory fire on Euclid.”

He stared at the ID like he had no idea what to do. “Please wait in the car, sir,” he said as he walked back to his squad. I assumed he was radioing his sergeant. It took him only a couple of minutes before he was back at my window. “Okay, Mr. McHenry, you can go,” he said, handing me back everything I’d given him.

I didn’t take time to put it back in my wallet. “Thanks officer,” I said, tossing everything on the passenger seat.

The fire was raging when I got there and had progressed to a five alarm. There were several cops holding people a good distance back. “Be careful, that stuffs poisonous,” I heard one say as I ran passed him.

I had grabbed three rolls of film before leaving the apartment and was glad I did. I had a fresh roll in the camera already and shot every frame of the four rolls. I was starting to feel a burning in my eyes and throat and figured it was about time to back up some. I spotted Randy Crowl, one of the fire chiefs. He was taking a break well away from the flames.

“I hope no one’s inside.”

“We have one person missing,” he told me, “the night watchman. Between the smoke and gas, if he’s in there, he’s a goner.”

“Jesus, you got a name?”

“No, not yet. It’ll be morning before we can get in there for a search, but if he’d gotten out, I’m pretty sure we’d know by now.”

“Damn, I’m sorry to hear that. I’ve got to take off. You and your men be careful, Randy.”

I could see a glimmer of light on the horizon as I parked the car in front of the Star building. I developed the four rolls of film then went upstairs for a cup of machine coffee while they were drying. Mike saw me walk past the newsroom.

“Was it bad?”

“Yeah, they don’t think the night watchman got out,” I told him while taking a sip of battery acid. “I got to get back down there. I’ve got a ton of work and I’d really like to get home sometime today.”

I ran each and every shot through the printer and selected fifteen great shots by the time I was done. I was just laying them on Clint’s desk when he walked in.

“Are those from that warehouse fire?”

“Yeah, there’s fifteen shots with idents. I think there was one fatality, the night watchman.”

“Yeah, I heard,” he replied.

“I’m going home, Clint. I’ll see you at three-thirty.”

He picked up the pictures and started going through them. “Get some sleep, and thanks, Dylan, this is good work.”

When I was on the job like that, it didn’t make any difference how much sleep I had or didn’t have. My adrenaline was pumping and I was focused on what had to be done, but once it was over, it was like a runner hitting the wall; I was drained by the time I pulled into our parking lot. I almost forgot about all the papers lying on the floor.