Hoo do Dunn & Associates: Advisement
“Hoo do Dun and Associates. Advisement.” read the sign. It was located on a small street off of another small street, tucked in between the alleyway of a cottage, in an innocuous clapboard house on the edge of town. There was a charm to the cottages and the neat lawns, but ordinary in the most ordinary sense of the word. Last Spring when the discreet, professional sign with black letters and a white background of “Hoo do Dunn and Associates: Advisement” appeared no one much considered or noticed this new entry into the neighborhood. It was noted with the same interest that one would regard the arrival of the spring crocuses: A burst of colour, the relief that winter is over, and then forgotten. Almost.
I live down the street from that section of houses. Normally, it took me about five minutes to stroll down there; however, since the accident, it took me three times as long. The fact that I survived the train wreck, when all the other passengers died, leads me to believe that more than one of my nine lives had been extinguished. Superstitious? Never, until that day.
I was on my way to the
“Mary! Mary O’Brien!” That’s impossible! She didn’t hear me. I hurried across the street and narrowly missed a car that was driving way too fast for this small road. She walked up the street and then I lost her in the crowd. I raced to the train station and the conductor shouted out “All aboard! Last call!” and in two long strides I jumped inside the coach as the doors started to close. Made it! Lucky, indeed.
Forty minutes later it was the last call. A northbound train was inadvertently switched over to the southbound track. At
The engineer, Kevin Chester Jones, was two days from retiring and the day before the accident he was interviewed by the Union newsletter, “Thirty years and not a single accident. A few close calls but none to speak of. Knock on wood!” He laughed as he gave himself a soft tap on the forehead. “Two days to go and I am out of here. I got this terrific little fishing shack on
“To the heart’s content. Isn’t that the goal in life?” said the gentleman at Hoo Do Dunn.
The pain was chronic after the accident and the weeks that followed were a haze of Demerol, Percocet, and. Tylenol with codeine. The medication was reduced, but there was a lingering slow persistent gnawing pain despite the fact that the bones had healed well and the neurological damage was minimal, “My friend,” said the neurologist. “Given that everyone died on the train and you were the only one to survive, don’t you feel… lucky? There is nothing more I can do for you. We’ll have you do some physical therapy and see how you are in a few months.”
From one health care provider to the next and to the next and still the answer was either prescriptions or “learn to live with it.”
Returning home that evening, and leaning even more heavily on the cane, I noticed that there were a few people who were standing outside the door to Hoo Do Dunn and Associates. “Next, please!” Said a gentleman at the door.
One fellow was leaving and I stopped him, “Excuse me, can I ask you what they do there?
He looked a bit bewildered as if that was the strangest question anyone had asked him. “Don’t you know?”
“My friend, if I did, why would I be asking you?”
This gray haired gentleman about sixty-five years of age wearing dark wool Brooks Brother suit smiled and said, “It’s the real deal, baby!” He flashed me a peace sign and skipped down the street like an eight-year old boy on the last day of school.
I am a curious fellow and went around the side of the building where there were rows of perfectly arranged red and yellow tulips. Next to the rear office were three bins, several wheel chairs, and a few well-used canes. Was this a medical clinic? I lifted one of the garbage bins and leaped back as I heard a voice say, “No fair peeking.”
I looked around and no one was there. I was alone. Scared me to death. I always get delusional on percocets. I am off of them as of today. Though the spirit may be willing, the flesh is weak and by
When the storm died down and some of the large trees had been cleared from the road, the repairman came out. “Man, Mr. Smith. You is the luckiest one. That tree could have made you a shish-kebab.” Then he laughed uproariously at his own joke.
“Marvin, just fix the damn window, please.” I was in no mood for him or anyone else.
“Mr. Smith. Three months ago you are the only one to walk away from the train wreck and if you hadn’t rolled out of bed this morning, you would have been stabbed by that tree.” With that he took his finger and touched my heart. “Right there.”
I felt myself starting to cry, but didn’t. “Thanks Marvin. My allergies are bothering me. Can we get the tree out of the bedroom?”
Two hours later the window was replaced, the glass cleaned up, and the tree limb stacked along side the house. The white oak was at least a hundred and fifty years old, healthy and stout and yet the lightening split it cleanly down the middle. One moment, it was a magnificent oak and the next moment, gone.
I no longer took the train to work. I couldn’t even go near the station and the sound of the trains and the whistle, still sent a shiver down my spine. When I closed my eyes I heard that sound of metal crunching against metal and the screeching of brakes trying to hold back the train. That smell of rubber and burning brakes filled the air as the train rolled over and over again. I was awake from the time of the collision to hours later when the rescue workers opened the door of the bathroom. The bathroom was the only part of the train that survived intact, as if it was a steel womb.
As they carried me out of the train, I heard the rescuers say, “Man, is he lucky! Everyone else is dead so far. How did he survive?” Through that long afternoon, while waiting to be taken away, drifting in and out of consciousness, it was a chorus of screams, shouts, sirens, and crying in the background. I wanted to say, “Shut up. I’m still alive. I’m still alive! Don’t talk about me as if I’m not here!” But I couldn’t say a word and stayed awake for days afterwards, till exhaustion finally pulled me into sleep.
There was a café across the street from Hoo Do Dunn and Associates. Actually, it was a bakery with two tables and a new cappuccino maker. This was my command post as I watched the office. What was it that drew people here? There were people in wheelchairs, others wearing braces, and others, like you and me, just walking in. The line seemed to move quickly. Several weeks later I noticed the line had tripled. One morning, beneath the sign of Hoo Do and Dun was a new small discreet placard, “First come, first serve. No appointments.”
No harm in trying. So on a Tuesday morning, I stood on line for twenty minute and became somewhat impatient. Finally, I was ushered in the door by a very short man. He wasn’t a midget or a dwarf, merely short. I would guess about four feet nine inches tall. The cut of the suit looked like it was from Saville Row. He had a
“Welcome, sir. A cup of tea?”
A pantry door that blended into the dark wooden panel opened and a service tray with tea was there. “Delicious, fresh tea from the highlands of Sri Lanka.” a voice called out. “Excuse me; someone will be with you shortly.”
There were no magazines or clutter, a few leather sofas, black walnut tables, and a white cat sleeping in the corner. It lifted its head once and looked at me with its bright green eyes and meowed. A voice called out, “Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith. It’s time.”
How would I describe him? Mr. Hoo? Mr. Dunn? Or was it one of the associates? He smiled and said, “Hello. I am glad you came.” He gestured to the sofa and I sat in front of him. I felt like a lost child, asking for directions home. “Tell me, how can I help you?”
“Pain? Infirmity? Yes, the accident. The accident. The accident. The train. Yes.” There was a deck of oversized cards on the desk. “Please, choose a card.” I drew the card and turned it over, “It was a pair of dice.”
“Ah, chance!”
The next card was a white cat.
“Good. Possibility.”
“Please, lie back. Please, lie back. Lie back.”
As a child—falling out of the tree and hearing that sick thump as my head struck the ground. For weeks afterwards, I was dizzy. I was dizzy and swirling lying there and closed my eyes. Then in Baja where we would dive 20 meters off the cliff into the water… and then the train. I looked at the clock on the wall and it was
Then I saw the article that appeared in the paper. “Engineer killed and all passengers on the
“No, I’m not dead! I’m here. I’m here. I’m here” With my free hand I banged on the metal bathroom walls, but no one heard me.
I stopped on the street to pick up the newspaper. Did I know anyone? Surely the people I usually rode in with… the mayor of the town, a half dozen others and those not accounted for…those not accounted for... Martin J.Smith. That’s me. I was going to call the newspaper. “ I am not unaccounted for. I’m here. I’m here! I’m here!”
The ambulances were blaring. The blue lights flashing. “Don’t worry folks. Don’t worry folks. Damn fool, he was lucky. Damn lucky. Reading the newspaper and walked into the car.”
I looked up in a haze and the officer with a round smiling face said, ‘Boy, are you lucky. Walked into a damn car and just got a bump on the head.”
And then it was a fog. “What’s this town coming to? This morning it was the train wreck and now this guy walks into a car?”
The folded newspaper sprung open as the wind swept it on high, the picture of the train sprawled on its side, and the banner “No survivors!” was swept high in the cold spring morning as the sirens cried.
“Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith!”
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