RUNNING SCARED CHAPTER 6


Long before the train arrived in Redding I started feeling weird, like someone was watching me. Maybe it was all the stress of the trip to Seattle. Or, all the old memories both good and bad that I’d been trying to push away. I headed towards the restrooms and casually looked around as I wandered through several nearby cars. I could see no one taking a special interest in me, but I still felt creeped out.

Paranoia has its uses. I decided to play it safe. Plan B entailed calling Aaron to ask him to wait for me behind the old Victorian hotel in Garberville the next morning instead of picking me up in Redding. When he agreed I rang off before I could answer any questions. Later at the train station I went to the ladies room and locked myself into a stall to search carefully through my possessions for anything that looked like a tracking device. I wouldn’t have put it past Vern to have something like that done as I was leaving the Grand Jury room.

I felt a little stupid going through the motions not being sure what I was searching for, but tried to be thorough anyway. Despite my paranoia I almost missed it. It looked like an ordinary ballpoint pen, but one I didn’t recognize as mine, so I took it apart. It was too different. I fumbled and almost dropped one end trying to get it back together. I felt shocked; my breathing accelerated and I almost passed out. I removed my jacket and sat down for a while to get myself under control. I began deep breathing. Panic wouldn’t help.

Twenty minutes later I was wearing my reversible jacket purple plaid side out, had turned my pouch bag into a backpack, and was almost ready to leave the bathroom. First task was to get the tracking device moving away from me. Just then a young woman came in. Her sweatshirt said Oregon Ducks. “What’s that?” I asked, and she mentioned returning to college in Eugene. As she passed me I slipped the ballpoint pen into the open top of her purse. I waited, washing my hands obsessively until she had gone, before leaving the bathroom.

I wondered if they, whoever “they” were, had actually identified me by sight, or were just planning on locating me whenever I stopped. I wondered what was supposed to happen to me. I wondered what the hell I thought I was doing. All I knew was that I was afraid and couldn’t stop running.

At the information counter I got directions to the bus station where I bought a ticket west to Arcata -- due to arrive at 8 pm that night. While I waited for the bus I put my cell phone into a manila envelope and addressed it to Aaron; if by chance, despite my precautions, I got stopped I wanted nothing to connect me to him or to Murietta. I dropped it into the mailbox outside and walked across the street to a Radio Shack for a disposable cell phone

Fortunately my bus seatmate mentioned she was driving south from Arcata and would be glad to have someone ride along to talk to on the long drive. It was almost midnight when we got to Garberville and she let me off at the hotel. I checked in, paid for one night only, and staggered to my room. I dropped onto the bed completely exhausted. I was scared and didn’t know what to do besides return to Murietta and keep hiding out there. I wasn’t sure what lengths Vern would go to to shut me up. Ever since he had beat me up I feared his violence.

Over the last fourteen months Aaron had nominated himself as my protector and I felt I should be grateful for that and for his friendship, but he had taken it badly when I had turned down his offer to drive me to Seattle. He’d said there was a hardware store he needed to visit -- anyway. I had said no -- anyway.

I had felt it was important to be able and willing to take care of myself -- to stand on my own two feet. I had allowed Aaron to teach me some simple martial arts moves to increase my self-reliance. However, it hadn’t saved me from being scared much of the time especially in Seattle. And now I was properly terrified.

Having been raised without a father I seem to have been vulnerable to men who promised to take care of me. I’d been lucky in the twenty years I’d had with Paul. Although we’d had our problems I’d been devastated when he was killed in an auto accident. When I met Vern a year later he said he had just lost his wife to cancer so we had seemed to have the loss of a spouse in common. Later I heard rumors that there had been some questions concerning her death. But at the time he seemed strong and reliable and I’d allowed myself to be rushed into marriage. I’d not been prepared for the ongoing verbal abuse that had escalated into the violence I was running from.

I drifted into sleep and troubled dreams of being hunted through a shapeless menacing cityscape. The next morning I glimpsed myself in the mirror. Unfortunately I looked almost as bad as I felt, my eyes dark pools in my damaged face. Stress always intensified the scars. I should have had some plastic surgery done when I had the chance. I snuck down the back stairs without formally checking out and found Aaron waiting in his pickup truck. He got out and gave me a quick awkward hug. “I’m glad you’re back safely,” he said.

“Me too,” I said. “Right now I need two favors, I’d like to ride in the camper shell until we get out of town.” He unlocked the door in the back and I jumped inside. “And, most important,” I added, “please get me an espresso americano with cream at the coffee shack on our way.” He shut me inside the shell where I huddled in the cold as we bumped along for the next twenty minutes. The shell was noisy as well as cold and the residual sawdust stirred up by the ride made me sneeze, so I was glad when he stopped and I could move into the cab where it was warm.

I grabbed my coffee out of the cup holder and took a sip. “Thanks,” I said waving the coffee at him, “and for picking me up here in Garberville too.”

Aaron shot me a worried glance before he resumed driving. “Well, you saved me a lot of driving, but what’s up with the cloak and dagger moves?” he asked. “What happened yesterday?” I glossed over the Seattle events and told him what happened the previous day on the train.

He began to look alarmed. I saw him fight for control and a low-key response. “Well, I do have to admire your problem-solving skills,” he finally observed. “You didn’t panic…”

“I panicked at first when I found that damn pen,” I admitted, “but just for a little while.”

“Okay, you didn’t stay panicked. You evaluated the problem, and then took appropriate action.”

“I’d rather you told me what you really think,” I said.

“I think you’re a damn fool!” His whole body was suddenly animated and furious. “A lucky damn fool!”

“That’s more like it,” I said.

“But,” he added calmly, “a fool who is a good problem-solver.” We traded smiles of mutual appreciation.

“So, what’s been happening in Murietta while I was gone?”

“Every day Rose asks me when you’ll be back. And, I finally finished that table I’ve been working on.” He glanced over at me. “Also, without you around to make trouble I worked out a few troublesome kinks with the boat.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“Oh, and I’ll be gone for a few days next week.”

“Delivering the table to San Jose?”

“Yes.” He paused. “I’d invite you to come along, but my half-sister, Gwen, is coming for a visit. She’ll be driving back with me, and will be staying in the cabin next to you at the motel. I’m hoping you’ll get a chance to talk some sense into her. She still refuses to leave that worthless husband of hers.”

“But, you said you thought I was a damn fool.”

“That’s why you’ll have more credibility with her than I do.”

“I’m going to ignore that last remark,” I said. We sat in a comfortable silence for a few miles while I finished my coffee. “By the way,” I began, “I had a moment of lucidity last night in the middle of the nightmares. I’ve been guilty of hubris several times over – thinking I could avoid getting found out. Thinking I could outsmart Vern or his fixers.”

“That sounds like progress,” Aaron said. “Maybe you’ll accept my help with a little more grace from now on.”

“Don’t count on it,” I said, my tone of voice sharper than I’d intended, obviously feeling defensive.

“Okay, no grace expected. To quote a current cliché from a different context: ‘Nothing will happen that you don’t want to happen. But I will continue to give you my unvarnished opinion.”

“I expect nothing less, Aaron,” I said. “And, before you can remind me, I know you have some expertise I probably don’t.”

“No “probably” about it,” he said.

It was almost noon by the time we arrived in Murietta. “Leave me off at Rose’s. I’ll let her know I’m back.”

Aaron pulled up behind the café. I thought he’d just let me off, but he turned the engine off and got out. I grabbed my backpack. “Wait a minute,” he said pulling something out of his shirt pocket. “Here, it’s a duplicate.” He thrust the treehouse key towards me. It was on a slim chain I could wear around my neck. “If anything happens while I’m away, you know where you can go to be safe. If I don’t see you around, I’ll know where to come to look. Okay?”

I was touched. “Okay,” I said. “Thanks.” It was funny. Neither of us had mentioned his treehouse since the day we met, and now I had a key. Something to hang on to in the midst of my worries.