Blue Skies

I have had a wonderful week. Not counting when I was kidnapped and… well, since Wednesday I have had a wonderful week.

Right now, I’m curled up in the backseat of the Bronco during this storm. The eucalyptus trees are bending sixty feet above me, the winds are trying to break in through the window above my head. It’s too cold to step outside to go the bathroom so I’ve been holding it for two hours. Sooner or later I’ll have to face that discomfort.

So, when I posted last I had spent the day sleeping it off in that bum camp. My phone was about to die and I was preparing to walk across the city to get back to where I’d left the Bronco. Fortunately, before the phone died I realized I was only a couple miles from where an old friend of mine works. I texted her and she met me around sun up that morning.

Now, I trust Charlie. I do. But I admit I watched her arrive, called her and had her move the car a few blocks before I got in. More and more, I see it pays to be careful. She gave me a ride back to where I’d parked the Bronco and brought supplies to help me treat my shoulder. She works at the museum park and said set me up for an interview working behind the scenes, unboxing inventory, cleaning, stuff like that. Things where people don’t care about your name and don’t look you in the eye.

She got me an interview the next day and I start tomorrow!

That’s one of the other great things about this past week… I finished my community work service! I still have classes I need to take but that was Mondays and Thursdays fearing someone would recognize me. The DUI classes, no one really knows my name and no one ever looks at me. If I still had work service, I wouldn’t be able to start until two weeks from now.

So, I start tomorrow. It will be the first time in months since I’ve had my own income. I’m hoping my mom might be nice enough to loan the money for a security deposit so I can be out of the Bronco in a month or two. I’d ask Dad but… all of his money, all of Tim’s money, goes right into hospital bills. Knowing there would be an end to this, even a month or two away, would make this so much easier to bare.

Is it “bare” or “bear”? I can’t remember. I’d google it but I’m already blogging from my phone. If I misused it, maybe you can forgive my lack of research. I’m pretty sure no one is reading this, anyway.

(I think it’s “bear”, actually.)

Anyway, Charlie said I could stay at her place while her boyfriend was out of town. So I got to sleep on the couch. We made biscuits and gravy Saturday morning and watched old episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000. It was the best time I have had in as long as I can remember. It was the happiest I have been… maybe ever. It was all the basic niceties I think I used to forget about. I used to hate sleeping on the couch and now it was just so… satisfying. Eating dinner on a coffee table instead of over a steering wheel in a darkened lot.

Laying in the back seat of the Bronco in a storm (is it “laying” or “lying”? that one is a puzzler) with three pairs of socks on, two blankets on over my sweater, everything is really clear to me. I don’t know why I thought happiness was so out of reach for me.

No matter who is trying to eat me.

Run, Hide or Fight

My day started in the backseat of a car with a gun pressed against my hip.

By that I mean when the calendar day started. I woke up some time Monday, hungover on the beach. But as the crappy wrist watch chimed midnight, I was being driven through the city by three men I “met” in a bar.

I know I should stop going to bars.

There were two in the front, one in the back. The one in the back was the one holding the gun against me, telling me to keep my head down, telling me if he pulled the trigger it would shatter my pelvis, “you’ll never fuck again.” Actually, part of me thought Rob had hired them. After all, the last time I had seen Rob, he was pretty concerned with my sex life, too.

After driving for thirty minutes, we pulled into a parking lot. I could tell from the street lights passing above the rear window. For hours they sat there, taking turns napping while someone held a gun on me. I figured we must have been outside the pharmaceutical company that was offering the reward on me.

Around five the sky was turning from black to purple with hints of pink reflected in the low-hanging clouds, one of the men got a text. “He says the door’s open,” the man said. The handle of the gun smashed into my head. It didn’t knock me out, but while I was reeling from how amazingly uncool that was, someone managed to get a bag over my head.

They pulled me out of the car and I felt a cord tighten around my neck before they pulled my hood over my head and down in front of my eyes. “Okay, let’s go.”

I didn’t resist. I’d done that earlier. They weren’t as nice as to roofie me the way Trevor had. Instead, when they first grabbed me, they beat me until I knew they weren’t going to kill me. Then I gave up. My feet dragged across the parking lot, my sandals falling off as they did. By the time we were inside I could feel blood running down my toes from where the skin had worn away.

“Take him to the equipment room,” one of them said. “We’ll keep it clear.”

And so we went back to waiting. I could hear them texting, playing games on their phones. Occasionally the door would open and I would get a sense through the bag that we were sitting in total darkness. After a long while, after one of the men began to panic, two of them began to fight. I could hear someone being thrown about, trying to escape. It would have been a good chance for me try to escape myself but I was sure whomever was shouting for them to stop was still holding a gun on me.

“Let’s just turn him in,” I heard one of them whimper from the ground. “Let’s just take the money and go.”

I don’t really know how to explain what happened in my mind after that.

“Please let me go,” I said to no response. “You don’t have to do this.”

I could hear the two men still struggling maybe ten feet away.

“We can all walk away from this,” I plead.

“Shut the fuck up!” the third man shouted. For that second, I knew exactly where he was.

I jumped from my knees into him, body-slamming him into what I guess must have been a wall. 

Catching my balance, I ran towards where I had seen the light coming from earlier.

The gun fired and I kept running. A second shot. I reached to pull the bag from my head. A third shot hit my shoulder.

I screamed, even as I pulled the mask off with my left hand. Then came the tackle, then punching to the face. I tried hitting back with my left but the man grabbed my wrist and kept hitting me.

“We definitely have to leave now,” the scared man said.

“He’s almost here,” the gunman replied. “Get off him. Get off him, god damn it!”

The man punching me stopped, forced the bag back over my face. He placed his hand against my neck, leaning in on it. “You move again without my say, I’ll kill you. Do you understand?” I didn’t think a response was necessary. “Say ‘I understand, sir.’”

My throat began closing beneath his grip. “I understand, sir.”

The gunman spoke up. “What we’re getting paid is more than we’d get splitting that reward money three ways.”

“Someone heard those shots,” the scared man said.

“He’s going to be here any minute. You leave, you get nothing.”

The angry man stood and grabbed me by the ankle, dragging me away from the door. I could feel his grip slipping against my blood. After he let go, he placed his knee against my chest and kept it there until the door opened.

“Is this him?” I heard an older man say. They must have signaled their response. “Go on,” he said. I heard nothing. “Go on!”

“What do I do?” I heard a cracking voice ask.

“You know what to do.”

“I can’t,” it was a boy, he still had his voice.

“You’re the one who told me this would work.”

“But-“

“He’s bleeding,” the older man said. And then there was nothing the squeaking shuffling of rubber shoes on linoleum. It squeaked closer and closer, stopping about my waist. The knee lifted from my chest. “Go on,” the older man said.

I felt a small hand place itself upon my shin and a tickling sensation run from my ankle to my toes. It struck again and again until I could feel the boy’s tongue flush against the abrasions on my foot.

“Is it working?” the older man asked.

The boy stopped. “I… Let me see,” the boy was whimpering through his words. I could see a small light appear, like from a cell phone, through the black cloth on my face.

Heavy sounds of leather smacking gym-floor became closer. “Stand up and let me look at you.”

Why these guys never tied me up, I don’t know.

I kicked blindly, knocking down bony legs.

I guess something was just bound to go my way.

Fast to my feet, I used the cell phone light to guide me, ramming my good shoulder into the older man’s gut.

No one bothered to tie the bag around my neck this time and it flew right off.

My eyes tried to assess the three men as they stood between me and the door but my mind was focused on that narrow crack of light, seeing the handle, knowing how I would make it work.

Someone’s fingers sunk into my bullet wound but I ran free, ripped open the door and ran out into a gymnasium. I ran straight just to keep moving while I figured out which way the exit was. I could hear them behind me.

“Put that god damn gun away!” the older man shouted.

It was the perfect scenario. Everything was empty. People must have heard the gunshots and immediately evacuated. Sprinting like a man on fire wasn’t going to draw any attention to me.

But I could hear at least two pairs of footsteps right behind me.

Bursting out into the open, I saw two people hiding in the bushes. “Gunman! Gunman!” I shouted, pointing at the men behind me. After that, the footsteps stopped. There was a scuff and they began in the other direction.

I didn’t bother looking.

My eyes were struggling with the light, processing where I was. I could see the downtown skyline ahead, the park to my right. I was running out of the naval hospital.

Most importantly, I could see my sandals ahead.

I snatched them up and ran across the boulevard, into the park, towards one of the bum camps I had to clean up during work service.

My car is on the other side of town, so I spent the day trying to sleep here. It hasn’t really worked. I switched my phone on so I could write all this while it was still in memory. When I did, I saw I had made the news again.

Sister

I agreed to meet my sister on her birthday. Since what happened at the movies I have been… more antisocial than usual.

“You remember the last time we were here and there were severed dicks in all the paintings?” She met me for lunch before walking to the Museum of Contemporary Art. “And when you took me back home and Mom asked what we had seen you drew a total blank?” I didn’t bother to check what the exhibit was. The museum was between exhibits and so we sat out in the sculpture garden looking out onto the ocean. “When she asked again, you just said ‘Dicks, Mom. Lots of dicks.’”

I smiled because she was laughing but I didn’t remember the moment as fondly. The exhibition we had seen that day was a collection from a lesbian artist, pieces she had done over decades. There was a period where she had a lot of violent imagery, red pastels of men being tied to be burned, their severed genitals being smashed by crowds of women. These pieces covered a massive wall, so even though they were only a fraction of the exhibit, they stood out.

In context, it was frightening. To me, anyway. My sister just laughed and laughed. And I could have said anything when my mother asked me what we had seen but was burned into my head, the image of being helpless and mutilated. And this was before any of this #EatADick stuff happened. But my mother, for whatever reason, told my step-father verbatim what I had said.

The unpleasant life I had led in that household became even more so.

My sister, whose name I have no plan to share for the sake of her safety, leaned against my shoulder. “You don’t seem like yourself.” She’s seven years younger than I am, smarter than her parents, smarter than me. But there’s no way to explain to her what I’ve been through. “How’s your dad?” she asked me.

I don’t want her to understand me. “Do you worry about my dad?” It’s my biggest fear.

“I worry about you. And I like your dad. Everything that makes you so cool, I see in him. So it’s like protecting an older, older brother.”

If she ever understands me, it will be too late for her.

“I called him a couple weeks ago because I needed a ride. He couldn’t even pick up his phone.”

“You can call me now.”

“It was the middle of the night.”

“I’ll still come and get you,” she said. For a moment I remembered what that night was like, bleeding, my chest swelling, like trying to breathe through a straw. There isn’t a great deal I remember, but I do remember getting in the car and seeing Tim in the driver’s seat.

“I don’t ever want you to come and get me.” I like Tim well enough, as much as I can considering the circumstances. But in that moment I was glad it was him and not someone I love. It was better that it was Tim who drove me out of that nightmare. “Are you looking at colleges yet?”

“I don’t want to talk about that,” she cut me off. “I want to know what we’re going to do for your birthday.”

“My birthday’s not­-“

“I want to know if you’re going to be there. I want to know if you’re even going to be alive. I see your picture online. People at school talk about you-“

“Who does? Do they know-”

“They don’t say it too me. They don’t know you’re my brother. But I have to listen to people talk about what they will do when they catch you. I listen to people say you deserve to die.”

She was in tears at this point but it wasn’t in me to comfort her. I folded forward, elbows on my knees, face in my hands.

Below the sculpture gardens, the streets were filled with sight-seers, a bit strange considering it was early January, even on a Saturday. The sun had yet to make an appearance and the waves were hitting the rocks with building regularity. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to you right now. I can’t… I can’t even help myself.”

“How many other siblings do you have?” she asked me. “I just have you.”

“I know.”

“I’m not asking you to help me with any of this. I’m asking to let me help you.”

“I would just pull you down with me.”

“Then I’m asking you to give me that chance.”

I pulled my face up from my hands as a bird flew overhead. It crossed unseen above the throngs and over the violent surf. It flew into the cloudy sky, beyond the point where I was certain I could see it, farther than I could imagine ever going. “Thank you,” I stood. “I appreciate what you said about my father.”

I left my sister there and wandered on foot into the village. There was an inexpensive shop where I bought a bottle and drank alone in an alleyway until I fell asleep. The sun was setting by the time I woke and I wandered back out to the crashing waves where I sat on the rocks and gave life a lot of consideration.

There was so much I wanted to ask her.

Butch and Sundance

That’s What Sustained Me in My Time of Trouble

I went to go see Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid the other night. It was playing at my favorite theater and being in the movies is a good way to not be stuck in my car. Being in a movie theater is one of my best ways to unwind and reset. Plus, it’s a good way to sit in the dark so no one sees your face, no one recognizes you.

That’s what I thought, anyway.

I like to theater-hop. I had been in there most of the day. Sitting in the dark, texting my sister. This guy came walking up the stairs. It only really caught my attention as he passed in the row behind me, went to the other side and began back down the stairs on the other side hoping, not walking, on one foot.

Now there are certainly a lot of people in the world with their own… idiosyncrasies. Neurological problems existed well before Ratfanger’s became something people worried about. It was too dark to see if his skin had taken on that septic color and too many people in this country are overweight to really go on that, either.

So, I slouched into my seat, and the next time he came through, almost fifteen minutes later, I began to rub my face with my hands. He hopped through and continued a third time before the movie started. My sister asked if she could join me. She has just gotten her license but I told her it was a better idea that she not.

Right about that scene where Butch is defending his leadership in the Hole in the Wall Gang, the guy comes hopping back up again. I covered my face with my right hand, wanting to still be able to see the movie. But this time the guy stopped a few rows ahead and seemed to be staring in my direction.

If he had seen me, I knew that suddenly covering my face entirely was only going to escalate things. So I just sat there and pretended not to notice him. After a bit, I was a little relieved that he had not moved. One of the problems people with Ratfanger’s suffer from is impulse control. Just standing around is not something you see. It was increasingly obvious that whatever was going wrong with this person, I didn’t need to worry about him.

A minute passed and someone shouted for him to quit blocking the view. Someone else spoke up in his defense, saying he obviously couldn’t help it. A woman stood and walked down to the man, spoke closely to him and escorted him out of the theater.

You Just Keep Thinkin', Butch

After the movie I stayed halfway through the credits, texting my sister again. I was going to go into one more theater before they closed, kill another two or three hours before finding a place to park the car for the night. I wasn’t the last person in there but I wanted to be out before anyone came through to clean it. You don’t want the staff to have too much time to see your face and recognize you. Even if there isn’t a social media trend posting your picture so people can find you. You just don’t want to be in that awkward situation of some teenager deciding to call the cops because you’re watching movies for free.

I got up and went down the stairs, turned into the hallway towards the exit which turned hard right at the trash cans. The man was standing there, as he probably had been the whole time. I shouldn’t have screamed, or shouted out, or whatever I did. I should have just walked past him. But as I saw him I knew what he was, I knew he was sick, and I knew he was waiting for me.

Shouting only instigated what happened next.

Keep in mind, I’ve been in this situation before. I should be better at it. I have rehearsed what I would do the next time someone tried to grab me, to take me against my will.

But I didn’t. Maybe because… I’m still not the person I want to be. Maybe because I won’t ever be brave. Maybe because this person wasn’t trying to capture me.

His head flew back, his arms shot forward and his mouth opened.

I had never seen anything like that. Even when Rob attacked me, he was… it just sort of happened. His impulse control was so far gone he did what he did without even realizing it.

This guy very clearly meant to take a bite out of me.

The Fall Will Probably Kill You

At that point, it probably was more of a scream than a shout. I ran back into the theater; I knew other people were there. I don’t know what I expected them to do, maybe intervene, maybe call the cops. They just sat there for what was probably less than a second. To me it was a very long period of time of looking at them for help, help I didn’t bother asking for because I thought it was clear that I need it.

The man was running after me. I turned and ran out the fire escape.

The hallway there is more like a tunnel, unlit and unused. I slammed the door closed, hitting the man in the face with it, knocking him on his ass, before throwing myself against it to keep it closed. For a few moments there was nothing.

I thought I had maybe killed him.

As I was about to loosen my knees, take my weight off the door, he hit it so hard I almost flew off it. He began hitting it again and again, so loudly… I knew I only had to wait for the theater staff to show up to clean. They would see what was happening and call security.

He hit the door again and again. I wasn’t sure I could keep him out long enough for security to arrive. The man would get through the door after hitting it so hard I would lose my balance. As I struggled to get off the floor he’d attack me.

Next Time I Say Let's Go Someplace Like Bolivia...

As soon as he stopped hitting the door, I knew I had seconds to step into the darkened hallway and find anything I could to barricade the door.

In either direction, there was nothing. It was a fire escape. There couldn’t be anything in the hallway.

Nothing but doors.

Including the door on the other side of the theater. He burst through it, a little more than a hundred feet away, with something like a yelp and a guffaw. His force was so great he ran into the wall across, bounced off. I could hear him begin to run as I took off.

I tried to enter the other theaters through their fire exits, each time costing myself another ten feet between us.

Giving up, I ran into the darkness towards the glowing red “EXIT” sign.

I should have turned and hit him. I should have tackled him and beat him until he couldn’t get up.

I jumped into the exit to make sure there was no chance it would jam, that it would be too heavy to open as quickly as I needed, and in turn I flew through it and tumbled down the concrete steps into the parking lot beneath.

If I were a stronger person, a better man, I would have stop and defended myself.

But he was sick, like so many people are sick. And, ironically, if I were to give up and let him catch me, he would be cured. So even as he came racing down the stairs after me, bearing his teeth and giggling, I felt like the villain for running.

I bobbed and weaved between parked cars until I was sure I had lost him.

After I got out of my work service yesterday, I saw a headline. He found someone else in the parking lot and attacked them. He disfigured a woman just getting off her shift at the Yard House.

She’s going to need multiple surgeries she probably can’t afford to restore the damage he did to her. He’s being detained but his attorney is saying he’s not responsible because he’s sick. That he wouldn’t have been sick anymore if he had caught me, instead.

And meanwhile I escape to this… life of sleeping in my car, avoiding others. A life I barely consider to be worth living. Yet I still put myself ahead of everyone else. I know I shouldn’t feel so guilty, but I don’t know how to stop.