Excluded and Uninvited novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Mouth of the Alley
Men in orange drag Caleb into an alley while Brandy and Greg freeze at the mouth; at the ER an officer says nobody escaped anywhere, and Caleb decides to leave.
On Friday night, behind a bar in downtown Reno, three men in orange jumpsuits told me they had just escaped from death row.
We were only in that alley because Brandy had said, "Let's cut through here."
The street was wide open and full of people.
Greg had his phone up at chest height before the men even stepped out, the screen lit.
I figured he was checking a text.
The tallest man took a fistful of my jacket and slammed me into the brick.
"Nobody screams," he said. "We have nothing to lose."
"Caleb!" Brandy yelled.
"Call 911," I told her.
The other two grabbed my arms.
I work as a paramedic and I have talked grown men out of burning cars, so I did not go quiet.
I drove my elbow into the tall man's face and felt his nose go.
He swore and swung something hard into my ribs.
Pain went white across my chest and I dropped to one knee.
"Brandy!" I shouted. "Greg! Do something!"
They were ten feet away, at the mouth of the alley.
Brandy raised both hands to her chest and whispered, "Freeze."
Greg raised his and whispered it back.
Then neither of them moved.
It is a game they play, one says freeze and the other has to stop mid-step.
I had watched them do it at a hundred barbecues and thought it was cute.
I was watching it now, with a man's knee in my back.
I got one hand free and put it through the second man's jaw.
The third one hit me over the left eye with a pipe.
Blood ran into my eye and I couldn't see the mouth of the alley anymore.
I heard shoes slapping the other way.
When I wiped my face the men were gone.
Brandy and Greg were still standing exactly where they had been.
"Oh my God, babe," Brandy said, and ran to me.
She knelt in the grit and held my face.
"I couldn't move," she said. "I swear I tried, my legs just wouldn't go."
Greg crouched next to her.
"It's a real thing, man," he said. "Your brain locks up. Nobody is blaming you for anything."
"You said freeze," I said.
"I said please," Brandy said. "Please, please, please."
Her voice was steady.
Her eyes were dry.
Greg's phone was still in his hand.
He put it in his pocket very smoothly.
At the ER they glued the cut over my eye and taped two cracked ribs.
Brandy held my hand the whole time and said she would never forgive herself.
Greg brought me coffee and told the nurse I was the bravest guy he knew.
Around two in the morning a Reno police officer pulled the curtain back and sat down on the little stool.
He had my statement on a clipboard.
"I want to run something past you," he said.
"Go ahead."
"Patrol picked up three men at a gas station six blocks from the bar, in orange jumpsuits from a costume shop."
"They're the ones," I said.
"They are.
"But nobody escaped from anywhere tonight, Mr. McPartland. Not death row, not county, not a halfway house."
I stared at him.
"One of them has a broken nose and another has a broken jaw, and they've both been very polite about it," the officer said. "They keep asking us the same thing."
"What?"
"Whether the boyfriend ran."
"I didn't run."
"That's what I'm writing down."
He left.
Through the gap in the curtain I could see the waiting area.
Brandy had her head on Greg's shoulder.
His hand was on her back and she was not shaking.
They were both looking at his phone, and Greg was smiling.
Nobody had told me I'd done anything wrong, and nobody had asked what the men said to me.
They had only told me I couldn't be blamed.
So I left.
I took my jacket off the chair, walked out through the ambulance bay and sat down on the curb.
I opened the Thursday Crew group chat, fourteen people and eleven years, and tapped Leave Group.
Then I texted Brandy: Don't wait up. Don't come looking.
I booked a cabin at Lake Tahoe on my phone, the first one with a bed free tonight.
When I stood up, the glass doors slid open behind me.
Greg was standing inside with his phone held out in front of him, filming me walk away.
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