by Atieno Mzuri
I had learnt the power of 911.
“Leave me alone or I swear imma dial 911.” I said to him.
He stepped out and went and lay on the couch. In the morning he took me back to Rachel’s house.
“This isn’t going to work.” I heard him tell Joseph. “This girl is too tough headed.”
I explained to Rachel what had happened and she suggested that I try online dating. And this was how I came to find myself, riding in the night in a serial killer’s white van. I met the serial killer online.
He had arrived at Rachel’s apartment the exact time we had agreed on, if anything he was five minutes early and found i wasn't ready. Being new in America and still operating on Kenyan time, those ones of keeping a guy waiting for hours, he found i wasn't ready. I told him to wait outside and quickly jumped into the shower. I didn't have enough time to make the magic happen on my face, as in I hadn't put on my face and changed and discarded ten outfits. Anyway i finally went outside and there he was standing patiently. In the dim light he smiled at me as he helped me into his white van and i was instantly smitten. I am a sucker for smiles that start from inside the heart, not those fake ones that are instantly plastered.
We spent a few minutes talking about where we would go for the evening. I think he sensed my slight reluctance so he spoke to me gently, and asked me to decide where to go for dinner. As i was a newbie i told him anywhere he chose was fine. So he helped me into the white van and then we drove off. We conversed for some time, talking about the weather and all that nice stuff, niceties, you know. Civilized people do those. Then out of the blue he asked...
“You are not scared of me, are you?” he asked.
“Should I be?”
“Well, it's not every day that a young woman gets into a stranger's vehicle in the middle of the night.”
“What if I was?”
He didn't respond. We were racing through the night in the streets of Minneapolis, Minnesota, heading downtown towards the Old District where all the night clubs were located.
At least that's where he had said we were going. Since I didn't know the city too well, I could only sit back and try to relax and think about what emergency measures I had in place to save my life should it come to that. Which in truth were none. I had taken a chance and come out with this stranger and here I was in his white van riding away in the dark towards only God knew where. But he had seemed like a good man. We had been emailing back and forth for a while.
The thoughts racing through my mind sent chills down my spine as I imagined this old man stopping and parking his white van by the roadside after branching off into a dirt road and chasing me for miles as I tried to escape and finally managing to grab me by the throat and tying me down and throwing me on the bed at the back of the van and raping me and then strangling me and dumping my body by the same muddy roadside. I probably wouldn't be found for weeks since nobody would report me missing for weeks.
We drove in silence for a mile or so. This was awkward first date but perhaps after a few sips of tequila it wouldn't be so and we would relax enough to get through the first date interview questions, what do you do, where are you from, you got any kids, you come with any baggage, are you clean, any crimes in your past and all that.
“Do you know anything about rednecks?” he asked.
“No, I don't.”
I wondered why he was asking me about rednecks. The little i had heard of them from fellow blacks about them, was you best keep off them. They hate blacks and want America to be all white and have done some shitty stuff against blacks, talk of shooting, gorging out eyes, torture etc. I didn't say anything. I was suddenly chilled. Could this sweet guy be one of em reds?
“Well, I do. And I am going to tell you the story of one redneck that used to be my friend.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You didn't think you were going to get off easy? Now, did you? Little flower, you are now in the big league. You join the wolves, you gotta roll with the wolves.”
I shifted uncomfortably. I hoped he couldn't smell the fear. My armpits were soaked, dripping wet and I could feel the wet red shirt that I was wearing sticking to my skin. I had used my trusty Arm and Hammer deodorant but in the small stuffy white van, I was scared to death and could smell the sweat. What had I done? This was certainly going to be my last night. I had picked a random stranger from the internet and here we were racing through the dark night.
Never mind that the advertisement on Match.Com had said that it was free for the first month of sign-up and here I was taking advantage of the free month trying to meet as many strangers as I could. This was the first one I had dared to meet in person. I was furiously flirting with 30 others through email and text and couldn't even keep them straight but I was taking notes on my mini-laptop. Microsoft Excel was helping me get through the nightmare of keeping the men straight in my head. After every conversation I laboriously took notes so that the men would think they were the only ones I was interested in.
I reached for the Kleenex on the dashboard and wiped my wet palms. I hoped I did it surreptitiously enough so he couldn't see that he had gotten me all creeped out. What was wrong with me? The white van should have been the first clue that this was a psycho. Hadn't I read enough news items of people being murdered by the elderly man in the neighborhood who kept to himself and drove a creepy white van?
We drove along in silence. I was now desperate. My heart was racing. My tummy was turning over. I felt like i was going to diarrhea. But i struggled to put on a brave face as i began to plot my exit. My mind was furiously spinning on how i would extricate myself from this quagmire. I thought of my poor mum in Africa. Who would explain to her that i, a grown woman took myself and entered a car whose owner i didn't know?
The uncomfortable silence continued for a few more minutes.
“Amber Hagerman” he said loudly breaking into my thoughts.
“Who is that?”
“Oh, now you are going to pretend you don't know Amber Hagerman? Everybody knows Amber.”
I tried to search my memory, limited as it were of American history and dinner table anecdotes.
Then I remembered. One morning my phone had shrilled loud enough to wake the dead. Simultaneously the other four phones in the apartment had shrilled. A kind of siren. So i had asked my sister why all the phones had made that strange noise and she had explained that it was an Amber alert. Whenever a child is reported missing or kidnapped an Amber alert is sent out on all the phones in the State to pass on the news of the missing child so you can all be on the lookout. The Amber alert is named after a little girl who was later found raped and tortured and murdered. I believe her parents set up the service in her memory. Anyway...
“Amber!!” he repeated his eyes fixed on the winding road as he increased the speed.
Idly I wondered what my chances of survival were if I jumped out of the moving van. Probably end up as a broken corpse. Too messy. Perhaps it would be better to let this play out to its logical end. What the hell? The old guy would rape me and then if I was lucky he would leave me in the forest through which I would stumble for half a day somehow managing not to get eaten by any wild animals and like a movie star heroine, I would stumble into a police station and they would rush me to hospital, ambulances and fire-trucks in tow with sirens blaring. But the problem is I would have my face splashed all over the newspapers the next day. But no, they didn't do that, did they? There must be a law somewhere to protect victims of rape.
I crossed my legs instinctively. Perhaps it was too late to cross my legs.
“Amber” the old man continued. “She was the abducted and murder child whose tragic story prompted the establishment of the Amber Alert system. She was riding her bike in broad daylight when a man stopped and threw her screaming into his truck.”
“What's that got to do with us? This evening?”
“Well, the man that did that was my best friend Eddy Washington. He just got out after 23 yea
rs. Let out for good behavior. Doesn't have to do life after all. I went to see him yesterday.”
I didn't say anything. I shifted uncomfortably once more and reached out for another napkin. Wiped my face and my palms.
We continued driving. By now I wasn't talking. I had decided that whatever would happen, there was no way to stop it. I wasn't going to struggle. I would cooperate and go to my Lord gently. This was my fate.
“Ted Bundy!!” he shouted and laughed maniacally. Funny, I thought. I hadn't realized what a weird laugh he had.
“I don't know Ted Bundy either. But I suppose you are going to tell me?”
“Of course, my little flower.”
“Why are you calling me little flower?”
“That's what I called them all. I am Ted Bundy. Don't you recognize me? Oh wait, they only have old pictures of me now. I did change my name when I got out. Edward Johnson suits me, wouldn't you say?”
“It's a nice name.” I said. I wasn't about to goad this stranger any more than I had to.
“I will tell you about the time when I was Ted Bundy. My early life. How I miss it. I was in law school at Georgetown. Good old days. Over 39 women. That was my best time. I used a baseball bat.”
Okay this was it. I knew there had been something wrong with this man. Scratch that. I hadn't seen the clues. I had been so naive, now here i was in a van with a wild man cruising at dangerous speeds and he was confessing to me that he had killed 39 women, served many years in jail and had just gotten out. Once a killer always a killer, i thought. The taste for blood never goes away. I would be his 40th victim.
I remembered something i had read somewhere. If you're in a captive situation you should talk to your captor. Keep the conversation going. Develop a rapport. As he speaks you might discover something that will help you escape.
“Why?” I asked. I wanted to know more in case I was going to be done in. I might as well know why this man had chosen me. Out of all the millions of women in the world, why had it been my fate to cross Ted Bundy's path?
He turned and stared at me. At the speed we were racing I thought we would both surely die through road accident. Perhaps my ending might not be so macabre after all.
“You do resemble her. Same chin. The way you tilt your head. The same frown. Oh you are as pretty as she was, little flower.”
“Resemble her? Who?”
“Why, oh why! You truly are ignorant.” he shook his head like he was really mad at me. Banged on the steering wheel with both hands.
“My first. The first girl I murdered.”
I shivered and wrung my hands in despair. This was it. I was riding through the night with a murderer. This man had killed over 39 girls? Through the corner of my eye, I studied him. If I ever got out of this alive, the Police would need me to help draw from memory a picture of the man that was going to kill me tonight.
“I already did time for all of them. Don't you worry your pretty little head. But look where we are today? You resemble her.”
“Who?” I asked again.
“Rita Springsteen. The love of my life. When she tried to break up with me, after I had dedicated five years of my life, I just had to do it. My arm was in a sling that cold December night. I asked her to carry my textbooks. The rest was easy. I used the baseball bat. Well, as they say the first one is the hardest. The rest were easy. I kept getting better with each hit. But as I said, I have paid for my crimes. All I desired was to live a peaceful life. You know? But you came along. You resemble her. It's got to be done.”
We came to a stoplight. The light turned red. Here was my chance I thought. I quickly snapped open the car seat belt. Reached for the door handle.
“It's locked.” he said. “I am afraid you are stuck with me.”
The light turned green. We resumed the race. Then he pulled into a parking lot. He was going to kill me in the well-lit bright parking lot.
“Come on.” he said.
I followed him. Remember I had said I wasn't going to struggle? I would go in a calm dignified manner. She was a lady to the end. People would say. My feet were so heavy I was dragging them. He took my hand.
“Let's hurry. We are late.”
We entered through the backdoor. He was halfdragging me and then suddenly I found myself resisting. If i was going to die i should at least put up a struggle. Why make it easy for him? So i started trying to wrestle and get out of his grip. He held me tighter and dragged me forcefully and pushed me through a door in the back alley.
And suddenly there we were. In a beautiful restaurant. Surrounded by people. The hostess came up to us.
“Table for two, Mr. Johnson?”
She was smiling widely.
“He didn't scare you too much, did he?” she asked me.
I looked up at Edward. He was smiling. Then he burst out laughing.
“You got some spunk.” he said. “I like that. So, Tequila, is it?”
“No. No Tequila for me.” I smiled. “I am going to need some Jack Daniel's...
We had a beautiful dinner. But that was the end of my short dalliance with internet dating for that moment. It turned out, as Johnson explained, that we wouldn’t see each other again. His thrill came from meeting women once and giving them the ride of a lifetime.
I continued working for Rachel. And I continued going to Church. Rachel and her family went to a Church that was frequented by the African population of Minneapolis.
That is where I met Matt.
Chapter Five (I Meet Matt) Matt. Easily 6 feet 3 inches. Blue eyes. Ivory colored skin. A replica of what I had pictured in my mind as I voraciously devoured Harlequin Romances back in the day. When I was younger and innocent. Really innocent. He was the second white man I ever really dated.
I met him at church. At a black peoples' church where I had gone to take all my sins and cast my burdens to God in the hope of starting the next week on a clean slate. Believing that I wouldn't have to carry the sins and troubles back with me and that I would find a magical solution at the tall grey building, outside of which all sorts of cars were packed.
The women were wearing what is best simply described as Sunday best. Dresses and big flowery hats. The men had on black suits and mostly white shirts. A few of the men, the more daring ones, wore pink shirts. It was at the height of the awakening of the sexual revolution featuring the new sensitive man. The man that could wear pink and get away with it and have other men drooling over him and remarking how well he carried the pink and the ladies thinking what a sweet sensitive man they had stumbled upon. In short, pink for men was the new black.
Well, Matt wore a pink shirt. And I was wearing a dress and a large hat. We couldn't have looked better together. A perfect couple.
At the time, on the material day, on the warm Spring day that I met him, I didn't know that Matt constantly hounded these churches looking for prey.
And I was the ideal prey seeing as where I was with in desperation. It's hard not to be convinced that it's a sign from God when you finish praying for a man and then when you open your eyes, you look up into smiling green eyes.
Matt was easily the most intelligent man I have ever met. And the most deceitful. But I didn't know that. For when I met him, from where I stood, he was the epitome of gentility, and well-bred people, opening doors and considerate gentleman.
“Hi...” he said “You look familiar.” I rolled my eyes at the classic tired line. But then he added a twist to the line. A twist that drew me in immediately. And made me like him from the get-go.
“No, really I am serious. There is a girl I know, her name is Kwamboka. You have a certain resemblance to her. Are you related to anyone called Kwamboka? She is in her 30s and she comes to this church too.”
Matt was a master of psychology. By mentioning the name of a woman from my country, he led me into a state of disemboweled senility where I instantly believed and hang onto his every word.
See, meeting a white man in his 40s who could actually pinpoint what country I
was from in the vast continent of Africa was startling. Too many times I had been forced to deal with and explain to too many people that Africa was not a country but a continent with various countries of which Kenya was just one, among the many. To stumble upon someone that knew I came from Kenya was truly a sign from God.
I looked up and favored him with my sweetest smile.
“No, I don't know her. But that name definitely sounds familiar.”
Well, that wasn't a total lie. Every Kenyan girl's name sounds familiar to me. Atieno sounds familiar. Adhiambo sounds familiar. Heck, even Moraa sounds very familiar.
And then he smiled and weaved the web further by asking me if I was from Kenya and mentioning that the most beautiful girls he had met were from Kenya. I glowed under the compliments and fell beautifully into his trap. Intrigued by all the knowledge he possessed of my country. So much knowledge.
A few days later, Matt and I were on our first official date. He had called last night and we had agreed to meet at the corner Macdonald's nearest to my house.
“What kind of girls you like?” I asked him in the silence engulfing us.
“All girls. Black girls.” he responded. “You?”
“I don't like girls. I like boys.”
“What kind of boys you like? Black boys?”
“Yeah, black will do.”
“You married?”
“No.”
“You?”
“No.”
He smiled. That same magical smile that had me captivated from the first day I met him. We were on our first official date at the neighborhood McDonald's. He had driven down from where he lived to my neighborhood in Richfield and as I didn't want to go too far, I had chosen the neighborhood MacDs.
“Just thought we should get that out of the way. So that we can settle down and enjoy our friendship.” he explained as he threw the next rapid fire question.
“You ever dated a white boy?”
“Nope, you are my first. It was taboo in my country. We left the white men to the harlots and prostitutes. Very indecent to date a white boy, it was.”
