Dilemma

It was just one of those days. Oh, it started out badly and got worse from there. Somehow he let his friends talk him into staying in a huge hotel on a busy street in downtown New York City. The heavy traffic and loud people kept him awake all night long. He couldn't get a wink of sleep. When he finally closed his eyes, he slept fitfully. When he awoke, tired, cranky, and miserable, he realized he overslept. He would only have time for a cup of coffee and a danish or bagel on the run. He had to get to the theater.

He got to the theater an hour and a half late. He was extremely agitated now. He got to the stage and as they were doing lighting and sound checks, everything seemed to be fine at first. They checked the spots and only one of them worked. The ambers were dull too. The manager assured him the problems would be corrected but somehow Teller doubted that. He was now in a state of super high piss-off. Still, he miraculously remained his genteel and cordial self. He worked out a few plans for stage blocking: 1. assuming that the sound and lighting would be in working order, 2. assuming that the sound and lighting were in workable order, 3. assuming that the sound and lighting would be in the shape it was in now and 4. assuming that the sound and lighting didn't work at all.

As he went through and made notes of everything and made sure all the props were in working order and set up properly, he noticed a young woman wandering around backstage. She was about his height, African American, caramel colored and average weight. Nothing very notable about her appearance at all. She looked as though she was trying to remain inconspicuous. He grew suspicious and walked over to her.

"Can I help you?" he asked politely.

"I don't think so. I'm supposed to be fixing the lights, the sound and the wiring, but there are no plans for any of this electric work. I don't even know what's wrong with the lights. The manager was extremely vague about the problem." She began making notes on a note pad. He noticed that the top was labelled "Today's Glitch List".

"Do you know what's wrong with the electric wiring?" Teller asked, anxiety creeping into his voice.

"From what I've seen, the wiring in here all needs to be replaced. The wiring in so many places is worn through. If a fire starts here, I wouldn't be surprised. I've been working on this wiring for about five weeks now." She picked up a tool belt and put it on, putting her pencil behind her right ear.

"How long would a job like that take?" he asked, dreading the answer.

"Well, totally redoing the wiring would take months, but finishing this minor fix, just to keep this building from burning down today, should take only a few hours. I'm basically just trying to get through this week without becoming Colonel Sander's extra crispy. But I'm writing my will today anyway."

Teller sighed. It didn't look good. They might be able to do the show, but what he just heard seemed to be a definite "you must be kidding". How on Earth would he pull this off? It all seemed hopeless. He wracked his brain and tried to come up with a solution.

Suddenly, he got an idea. He would go home and go back to bed. However, he coudln't leave his partner high and dry, so he decided to stay. He walked over to the woman as she was putting a ladder up under the lights. "Is there anything at all that I can do here?"

"Well, if you're determined to help, I suppose you could hold this ladder steady." She climbed up the ladder and began pulling out the wires. The power had been shut off before she began. She brought up a roll of wires and began replacing the old wires with new ones. Once the wires had been replaced on the lights and speakers, she turned the power back on to see which lights were working and which bulbs needed to be replaced. When the lights came up, she found that the ambers were still dull, but the other lights were just fine. She then checked the speaker system. The sound was not bad, not good, but not bad either.

She looked at Teller, gave him the thumbs up, grabbed her ladder and vacated the stage. Teller checked his watch. "Penn won't be here for another two hours. I might as well make myself useful." Teller followed the electrician. "Excuse me. I was wondering if you needed any more help. I don't have anything better to do."

The electrician thought it over a bit. "All right. I'll be in need of a bit of assistance. I'll turn the electricity off for this part of the theater. I'm going to need to some light to work in so do you think you could turn on those battery powered lamps?"

Teller looked at the Coleman lanterns. "Why would she need Coleman Lanterns? Unless she's..." Teller hoped that the electrician knew what she was doing.

When the lights went out in the theater, Teller turned on two Coleman lamps and waited for the electrician. She came up to where he was and grabbed a small flashlight sitting by his foot. "I hope you don't mind my asking this, but what's with the lamps? Why not just use a flashlight?"

"Well, the Coleman's shed more light. I'm using four of them because there are stage hands back here and they need some light to see what they're doing." She turned on the other two Coleman's and hung them from hooks on the wall at different ends of the stage. Teller followed close behind her. He didn't make any noise. She didn't know he was behind her until...

She turned around to go get her tool box. When she saw Teller, she gasped in surprise. The eerie light from the Coleman lamp on his strained features gave her a bit of a scare. "Jesus! Don't do that!" She took a deep breath and calmed down. "You know, you look really creepy with that pale white light on your face. Please try not to sneak up on me like that anymore, okay?" Her face was earnest and there was a note of seriousness in her voice. Her tone said "I'm not kidding".

Seeing that gave Teller a little smile. To get that kind of reaction from somebody who, until that point had been stoic and focused, gave him a sort of satisfaction deep down in his gut. "I'll try not to. I can't make any promises," he said, smiling mischievously.

"You know, you're an evil little bastard," she accused in a light tone. Her expression was one of cool amusement and slight annoyance. "Come on," she said laughing. "We've got work to do." She grabbed her tool box, Teller grabbed a Coleman, and they went over to an gaping hole in the wall.

"What's all this about?" Teller asked, kicking a lot of loose plaster and rotted wires out of the way. "Looks like a bad parody of Bob Vila's Home Again or something." Teller and his companion knelt on opposite sides of the hole.

"This," she began, pulling wires out into the light, revealing the horrible state they were in, "is every electrician's nightmare. Well, since you're my new assistant, I guess you should know my name. The name's Codey Gaines. And, if my sources are correct, you are Teller." Teller nodded. "I'm glad you're wearing jeans, because this is going to get a bit messy."

Codey went to work on the bare wires, replacing or capping them as needed. In about twenty minutes time, she had the exposed wires in pretty good shape more or less. She took out her pocket flashlight, turned it on, put it between her teeth and put her head and arms into the hole. Teller watched her as she focused the beam on some pretty bad wires in the back.

Teller was no expert on electrical work but he knew that those wires should have sparked and started a major fire by now. He suddenly remembered what Codey said earlier. All of the wiring needed to be replaced. If it was all in this condition, they were looking at a major fire hazard. Cancelling the show and going home was starting to look like a very good idea. As Codey worked, Teller decided that he was going to stick it out.

Finally, Codey's work was done. She pushed the wires back into the wall. "I'm going to keep working on small areas of the wiring. It's okay to use, but it can only take so much before a major power surge becomes not only possible but eminent." She went to turn the power back on. Teller stayed behind and used the light of the Colemans to finish his prop check. Confident that everything was as it should be, Teller went to get dressed for the show and set up Penn's bass on stage. As he dressed, the lights in the dressing room came on. He was able to fix his hair and check everything over before he went to finish the grunt work.

As he opened the door, Codey walked by. She seemed to be upset. In her distraction, she hadn't seen Teller. She was muttering something under her breath. Among the obscenities, Teller heard these words: "I keep telling him not to plug anything else in. He never listens to me. One of these days, he's going to blow something up and I am not gonna be here to fix it."

Teller didn't like the sound of that. He crossed his fingers and hoped that when that something blew, he wouldn't be there to see it. Little did he know that something much worse would happen that night.

Penn finally showed up half an hour later. As he dressed, he talked to Teller. "So, what's it look like?"

"Looks like this place is a disaster waiting to happen. I just hope I'm not here to see it."

"Oh? What makes you say that?" Penn asked absently, tying his shoes.

"Oh, just the fact that the electrician is standing by the door, with a fire extinguisher, praying. Other than that, nothing," Teller said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"What! Are you serious?" Penn looked both amused and worried.

"See for yourself." Sure enough, Codey had a type C fire extinguisher next to her right leg and was muttering something that looked like prayers. She was standing just twelve feet from the door.

"Want to do the show anyway?" Penn asked indifferently.

Teller shrugged. "I will if you will."

"Then I guess we have work to do." The guys did final preparations. Penn played bass as a preshow. When the last number by Mike Jones started, Teller and Penn stood, offstage, waiting for their cue to enter.

The show went on without any trouble until, in the middle of the first act, during "Looks Simple", the lights went out. Teller stood tapping his foot in the pitch black, waiting. He heard Codey grumbling offstage. "I told him not to plug anything else in or turn anything else on. I swear I can't stand this job. I should've listened to my mom and become a podiatrist." That gave Teller a bit of a chuckle. Suddenly, the lights came back on.

Just before intermission, the sound went. Penn, who was further from the offstage area that Codey was working in, also heard her swear. "Goddamn it. I've had it up to here with that slime. One more thing goes off because of him and I'm going to hang him up by his toenails." Penn and Teller both laughed softly.

The second act went smoothly and without incident. Penn and Teller cleaned up their props and packed them away, ready to get going. Just before he hopped into his car, Teller realized he forgot his wallet. He went back in to get his wallet. As he moved towards the door, he smelled smoke. Being the nice person he is, he ran through the backstage area, making sure that everyone got out. The fire was rapidly spreading. Teller ran to get out of the building. Just as he was close enough to see the door, he tripped on some cables. His leg got caught in the coils. Codey, who was right behind him, stopped to help. She got his ankle loose and helped him to his feet.

Overhead, they heard something large crack. Codey looked up and saw a beam coming toward them. She shoved Teller from under the beam and the flaming piece of wood pinned her legs. Teller stood where he was, in a dim panic, trying to decide whether he should save her or if he should bolt for the door. After a few seconds, he decided to try to save her. He ran back to her, trying to push the beam off of her legs.

"Get outta here. No point in us both dying," she said, half-heartedly trying to pull her legs free.

"Ah, shut up and help me push." She pressed her weight against the beam, trying to budge it. "Fuck! I can't move it," Teller said, straining against the enormous piece of wood.

Codey shoved with all the strength she could muster as Teller tried to lift it high enough to free her legs. "I'm going to hate myself in the morning." Teller turned, placed his back against the beam, braced his legs and lifted. Codey helped him as best as she could. Her left hand was burned badly through the glove, but she ignored the pain. With a last effort, they were able to move the beam. Codey got to her feet and half limped, half ran out of the theater. The duo watched the building burn from a safe distance, Codey cringing at the sound of falling lights and debris.

Penn ran over to them. "God, I was afraid you didn't get out," he said, sighing in relief as he bear-hugged Teller and Codey. "Are you guys okay? What the hell happened to your hand?!" He caught sight of Codey's hand.

"Huh? Oh. That. Burned it I guess." She shrugged and looked back at the theater. "I warned him, but no one ever listens to me." The fire engines came racing towards the theater and the firefighters tried to put out the fire or at least control it.

"What the hell happened?" Penn asked Codey, his voice filled with concern and anxious interest.

"I was about to ask the same thing," Teller said, crossing his arms. He looked shaken at the very least. Codey put her good hand on his shoulder.

"You should sit down. This is a bit disturbing," she said, motioning to a stoop on the back of a store. The three sat down, Penn and Teller on the steps and Codey crosslegged on the ground. She looked more shaken than Teller, but her voice was steady as she told all that she had seen. "Teller will remember that the electric work was bad and there were fire hazards everywhere. That theater was a death trap. I did a few minor repairs on the power, but everything has its limitations. I warned the manager that he would only be able to run the lights and sound system off of the theater's power. He didn't listen and began rehooking things that I removed for safety reasons. The first time, when the light went out, I was able to turn the power back on and I allowed him to leave the concession stand up and running. He then began running office equipment, personal electronics and so on. The circuit breaker couldn't take it. There was a tremendous surge of power that blew the breaker right out of the wall. The flames caught on some old periodicals backstage and the fire quickly spread." Penn and Teller were frozen in shock. "I got the office workers out and I guess you got the same idea that I got. I knew I had to get the others out before it was too late. I met up with you backstage and...."

Teller had regained some of his composure. "I can tell the rest. I tripped over some wires and got caught. Even though she had a clear shot at the door, she stopped to help me. When Codey and I got my foot loose, a beam came down. In the act of pushing me out of the way, she got her legs pinned under the beam. Instead of leaving, I had to help her..."

Teller finished the story. The ambulance arrived. Being the only injured people, Teller and Codey were taken to the hospital. Teller had only a sprained ankle and a sore back so he was immediately released. Codey had second and third degree burns on her hand and forearm, two broken ribs, a broken fibula and bruises from Easter to Christmas. When Codey was released, she immediately cracked the theater manager in the knees with her crutch. The theater burned to the ground. Penn, Teller and Codey still keep in touch. Codey is now a teacher at a vocational school and always keeps an extinguisher handy.