RUNNING SCARED CHAPTER V


“We missed you at poker last night, Hon,” Rose said opening the screen door and sitting down at the picnic table. She was wasting no time digging for information. “What’s the deal with what’s-his-name, Aaron?“ She waved her arms at me. Rose was Italian and had been a good friend ever since I’d landed in Murietta nearly four months ago. She called everybody “Hon.”

The tent I’d been camping out in was hers. I’d gotten acquainted with her when the car I’d hitched a ride in was being repaired next door. By the time the car was fixed I had decided to stop running for a while and camp out in the redwood grove outside of town. I’d needed to rest up and give my jaw and facial injuries more time to heal.

I still felt I needed to be careful not to tell her, or anyone, too much. I’d already lied and said I was a widow and that I’d been in a recent automobile accident and didn’t want to talk about it. But Murietta was a small town – not quite a thousand people and, according to Rose, the gossip mill was the biggest entertainment since the movie theater had closed a dozen years ago. It was difficult always feeling caught between paranoia and complacency, but it bothered me that it took a stranger warn me of potential trouble.

“That Aaron,” she said, digging harder, “I’ve seen him around town the last couple of years, but he’s pretty much of a loner -- builds furniture in his wood shop. Not too friendly. His business has a strange name. But I understand that rich people from the Bay Area come all the way up here to get custom-made desks and tables.”

I shrugged. “I just met him. You know more about him than I do.” I mentioned that Aaron had warned me about some teenagers being too interested in my camp.

“Oh, it’s probably just the Farris boys, Hon,” she said, “but I can see why you packed it in. It’s about time you found a warm place for the winter anyway.”

“It may be time for me to be moving along,” I began.

“You’ve got a friend or two here now,” Rose began, “and I know we can find you a private room somewhere. Let me make a few calls. You can stay in the back room of the cafe for a night or two. Then decide.”

“I don’t want to be any trouble,” I said.

“You’re no trouble, Hon,” she assured me. She stood, fluffing up her hair that was an unnatural shade of red this week. “Time to get back to work. Those after-church brunch groups will be crowding in soon.”

All afternoon while I washed dishes I chastised myself for not getting more things done in the four months I’d been in Murietta. I still had to work off the books because I didn’t want to use my actual social security number. I had no I D at all. I’d just been drifting, eating at Rose’s, exchanging an hour or two of work at the paperback exchange for reading material, playing poker on Saturday nights, hoping things with Vern would be quickly resolved. But increasingly it looked as if it would be months, maybe years before anything changed in Seattle and I could feel free again.

I kept in touch with Katherine once a month by getting a ride to Garberville and
e-mailing her from the cyber café there. She was the only person who knew for sure that I was even alive. Katherine kept me abreast of what was happening with the promised Grand Jury about Vern’s dirty dealings. She kept in touch with Gwen at Northwestern and David at MIT. I hated having had to disappear, to have them worry about what might have happened to their mother, but couldn’t risk putting them in jeopardy.

Hours later I was finishing up my dinner out back as the sun began to settle into the fog bank on the western horizon. I was debating the pros and cons of sticking around Murietta versus the idea of trying to hide out, maybe in San Francisco, when a voice behind me said, “Do you want to see my shop?”

Startled, I whirled around. I knew it was Aaron, but was equally startled by how irritated I was at him. “Do you always have to sneak up on people?” I asked with a great deal of asperity.

He considered the question for a moment and seemed taken aback by my attitude. “No,” he said, “I don’t.” He paused, and solemnly said, “I could try a roadrunner ‘beep-beep’ if that would help.”

I smiled in spite of myself. “That might work,” I said. “Where did you disappear to this morning?”

“I have trouble sitting still,” he said. “I’d used up my quota for the day.” I noticed he seldom answered a question directly. I was having trouble figuring out how old he was. He might be fortyish – a good ten years younger than me, or maybe closer to my age. But there was something boyish about him. I figured him for a military background; his straight posture; his quiet competency; the haunted look in his eyes from time to time. His discomfort with questions.

So, what did my discomfort with questions say about me, I wondered. And wondered further if my eyes had a haunted look.

“Earth to Morgan,” Aaron said. “So, how about it?” he asked.

“How about what?”

“Do you want to see my shop?”

“Sure, why not.” I said. I locked the back door of the café and followed him up the alley in the gathering dusk. I’d only met him twenty-four hours ago, had exchanged a few words with him a few times, and perhaps too readily followed where he led and believed what he said. “I do need to be back by nine,” I said trying to set some boundaries however belatedly.

He looked back, the trace of a smile on his face. “Not a problem.”

Murietta’s main street was six blocks long and featured Rose’s Café, the gas station next door, a community church, a tavern, a small general store, a six-unit motel, a paperback book exchange and knitting shop combined, the shuttered movie theater, and several other empty store fronts. Doc Warren’s office was only open two days a week.

Aaron’s shop was four blocks away on a back street. A tiny carved wooden sign beside the door said, “The Weeping Chair.” The only windows ran high up along the front and sides of the large building.

“It used to be a small lumber mill,” Aaron said unlocking the door and flipping on the lights. Inside it resembled a large barn. On the right there was a set of doors both tall and wide. In the middle was the half-constructed hull of a good-sized wooden boat. Around the perimeter were table saws and workbenches with tools neatly arranged on pegboards. The pleasant scent of sawdust and turpentine hung in the air.

There was a rolling chest that looked like a gigantic jewelry box with many long narrow drawers. Aaron slid out the top drawer which could have held blueprints, but turned out to hold dozens of chisels resting on green felt. Eyes shining he introduced me to several of them by name, giving me the history of each one. Where he had found it, who had made it, how rare it was and what it did. It was the first time I’d seen him animated and open.

I mentioned that the workmanship in the treehouse had obviously benefited from his skill and good tools. He seemed pleased by my comment.

“There are no nails or screws in the tree, you know,” he said. “All the joints were carefully fitted together.” I asked how long it had taken to build. “Eighteen months,” he said. “Part-time.” He gestured towards a half dozen desks and coffee tables in different stages of construction in one corner. “Gotta earn a living.”

Opposite of the big doors was a loft. Aaron gestured towards it. “Sleeping quarters.” And underneath he pointed out the galley, the head, and a corner office with a tidy desk, a computer, and several filing cabinets. “The helm. I steer my business from there.”

I noticed he couched most everything in nautical terms. “Sounds like you spent some time in the navy?” I began.

He stopped still and gave me a searching look. “I’ve spent a lot of time around boats.” My casual question seemed to shut him down. I was sorry I’d asked it.

Just to the left of the door through which we had entered was a wooden rocking chair. “The weeping chair, I presume,” I said. “What’s the story on that?”

He visibly relaxed. “Every wooden boat shop traditionally has a weeping chair for when, despite having measured twice and cut once, the pieces refuse to fit together properly.” His face wore a rueful look. “I suppose it could be called ‘the swearing chair’, or ‘the problem-solving chair’.” Aaron glanced at his watch. “Time to go. I wouldn’t want to keep you out past curfew.” As he locked up he asked, “Do you by chance play backgammon?”

“Not really,” I said. “Just Saturday night poker. And, I’m always looking for a worthy opponent to play Scrabble with.”

“I understand the worthy opponent idea. How about I teach you backgammon, and you can teach me Scrabble?”

“I may not be around here much longer,” I said. “I’m trying to decide if it’s time to be moving along.”

“Where to?” he asked. I told him I wasn’t sure yet.

Later as I slipped into my sleeping bag I wondered what was going on. Aaron was an interesting distraction that I didn’t need. And I had no clue what he was really after, knowing that ultimately it was only important that I be clear about what I was really after. Half the reason I was where I was had to do with answering that question. The other half was the question of how I got into this situation

. One thing I knew for sure – I no longer trusted myself on some fundamental level. That lack of trust seemed to have created a paralysis of will. Making decisions past taking care of daily needs often was an impossibility.

Aaron was skittish and enigmatic. I was able to read him clearly in some respects, but not in others. One of the reasons I did so well in the weekly poker games was my ability to read the other players as well as understand the group dynamics. As long as I was careful not to win too much money I’d be readily accepted. I did wonder if I’d do as well in a high-stakes game where everyone needed to be good at reading tells – those involuntary ways in which we betray our true intentions. Here in Murietta everybody knew everybody else and the intent of the game was primarily social.

I wasn’t all that social, but Rose had vouched for me and that was good enough to start. I’d eventually passed muster with the rest of them over the last few months. Gwen, from the paperback exchange, and Rose were the only other women, and I usually got along with men. So, it wasn’t as if I didn’t get along with Aaron. But he worried me.