Salt Lake City has to be one of the most beautiful cities in the country, if not the world.  Unlike Boulder, it has mountains both east and west, so every sunrise and sunset just sends colors echoing all over the place.  The ice tipped mountains turn red at sunset.  The view from the window of the show hall was marvelous.

    We got to the show hall early on Sunday.  Things went pretty well for Diane, who seemed to be doing a better business than any of the other giftware dealers.  Freddy had a problem: a big moth flew through the showhall, bothering the cats.  He tried to swat it a couple of times, but it always managed to escape.
    Downstairs, in the camper, after making sure Diane had tea, I did some sightseeing.  The famous Temple of the Church of the Latter Day Saints was just around the corner from the Cat Show, so I walked a few blocks to see it.  Greeted at the gate by two friendly Mormon Sisters,  I was directed to the flagpole at the center of Temple Square where the next tour was to begin shortly.  I sat on a cement wall to wait, next to a man who seemed to be a few years older than I.  He had grey hair and a blue plaid shirt.  We exchanged some pleasant small talk, then he said,
    "You sound like you're from the Northeast."
    "I'm from Florida," I said, bitten a bit by the devil.
    "You're not originally from Florida," he said.
    "No, I'm a New Yorker.  My son, Freddy is the only native born Floridian in our family."
    "I thought so."
    "So where are you from," I asked, pleasantly.
    "Virgin, Utah."
    He smiled, expecting the reaction he usually gets from tourists unfamiliar with a town so oddly named, probably the same expression one gets from Pennsylvania people who live in Intercourse or Blue Ball.
    But my reaction was different.  Of course I remembered the town.  I had a picture of Diane posing by the Virgin signpost in the camper over the door, right next to my framed eight by ten of the original Cousin Eddie.

    I awoke about four, after dreaming about the Mormons and the Angel Moroni, and raced upstairs, where a number of venders had already packed it in.  Diane was still going strong and wanted to wait until the last minute to give up, as we often had good sales at a show's waning hours.  I looked out the window at that beautiful mountain skyline, annoyed that I had forgotten to bring the camera again, and saw that big moth crawling along the window, right next to Diane's honey drenched Navaho Frybread.
    Navahos manned the show's only concession, specializing in "Navaho Tacos," a mixture of beans, onions, tomatoes, cheese, lettuce, and sour cream, which may have been another attack on the white man by that Indian-Japanese-Chinese cabal I spoke of in the last chapter.  I kept imagining some little old cat loving lady saying, "Where's the beef?"  Or worse yet, maybe they didn't dare serve their usual protein of choice at a cat show.
    As people were closing up, the room started to fill with the smell of burning electric wires.  Something, probably the Navaho hotplates, must have overloaded the circuits.  Smoke started to fill the room.
    A wall of circuit breakers was in the center of the room, where the concession stand stood, right next to the bathrooms.  Four large panels sat on the wall behind two pairs of doors.  When I got to that side of the room, smoke was pouring from around the doors.
    Children and cats were immediately sent from the room, while Diane and the other vendors packed their wares as quickly as possible, everybody helping each other.  After too long a wait, two fire extinguishers were produced.  Someone called 911, but we couldn't wait for the fire department.  I tried to open the doors to the electric panels; they were locked.
    "Break them open," somebody said, as the smoke started billowing from them.
    "Be careful," said another.  Get the fire extinguishers ready the minute they open."
    That's right, I thought.  I saw "Backdraft," too, and remembered what happened to Kurt Russell when they opened doors during a fire.  I and another man grabbed the handles and broke open the doors as the extinguishers went into action.  We saw no sign of flames--just smoke coming through the panels.
    "Are the circuit breakers hot?"
    I reached out and flipped them off.  Smoke still came out.  We put an extinguisher right into the panel and sprayed.  The Salt Lake City Fire Department arrived by that time and took over.  While they tried to find the source of the fire, I went back to Diane and the other vendors and continued packing.  We had to get everything out of there before the firemen closed off the elevators.
    As we packed, a frightening thought crossed my mind.  I remembered the camper and the microwave and the air conditioner.  Maybe it wasn't the Navaho hotplates--maybe Rocinante had put too much strain on the Expomart's electric lines.  She had blown a circuit breaker yesterday.  Maybe our camper had caused the fire?
    "Merry Christmas, Clark.  Shitter's full.  Fried Pussycat.  If that thing had nine lives, he just spent them all."  Did Cousin Eddie strike again?
    The Salt City Cat Club had had a memorable debut show--something they would talk about for years.
    After we got everything downstairs, the elevators were turned off as a safety precaution.  Remembering some of his clerking materials had been left behind, Freddy went back upstairs to find them.  Once up there, the lights had gone out and he dropped some stuff into the water cooler he had been carrying.  He came to me, carrying the inflatable Garfield we had left behind, worried about his clerking materials.
    "Daddy, all my addresses and references from the judges are in that box.  I don't know if somebody took it or if it's still up there."
    "All right, I said.  Let's take a flashlight and go up the back staircase."
    Skylights illuminated the show hall.  After climbing up the dark stairway, being able to see around the room meant a lot.  After helping ourselves to some chocolate cake with delicious vanilla icing that tasted only slightly smoky, using the bathroom, and washing our hands to save the water in Rocinante's holding tanks, we searched the judging ring where Freddy had worked, and found no sign of his materials.
    "Let's check to be sure Mommy didn't forget anything."
    We checked the vending area.  Everything was gone.  Freddy looked at the window.  "Daddy, look.  There's that moth.  He's the sole survivor."

    We slept at the WalMart in Provo that night looking forward to the beautiful ride across Utah to Colorado the next morning.

    One more thing--Sun Nee seems to have slowed down on the eating again.  Diane had to force feed him some medicine in Colorado.  I hope he starts eating again.
 
 
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN