The Road Through Wonderland: Surviving John Holmes

by Dawn Schiller

  “Aww, you know. Hanging out with old friends. The Taylors from our old block…that kind of thing.”

  “Well, you have to come see me! I’m not far…in North Miami. Wow! This is great! But, uh, how did you get here?”

  “I got a rental car. Me and my friend, we drove.” His tone stays even.

  “Drove!” Something strikes me as odd, and I worry he’s involved with something illegal. “Really?”

  “Yeah. Don’t worry. It’s cool.”

  “All right.” I dismiss any concern and focus on seeing him.

  “So, uh, what’s your address? So I can come by…maybe, uh, tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow! Wow! Sure. I’m off tomorrow. We can hang out! I’m so glad to hear from you, Wayne. You can’t believe how good this makes me feel.”

  “I know,” he says in a whisper. “Me too.”

  The next day my excitement has me jumping to the window every time a car passes. I have visions of leaving for Oregon with my brother. When the plain, white rental car pulls up around noon, I run out to greet Wayne with open arms.

  “Hey! Oh, I’m so glad to see you. Come in. Come in.”

  Sitting in the driver’s seat, he says, “No, uh. I only got a little bit of time…uh, before I have to turn the car back in.” He seems a little disjointed, yanking on the visor, adjusting the rearview mirror.

  Looking up into his warm hazel-brown eyes, I notice them glaze over with compassion for me. It’s good to see him again. I marvel at how much he has grown. Six months ago, in Oregon, he was sixteen and almost six feet tall. Now he has filled out even more. God, he just turned seventeen, I think, amazed at how much time has passed, and he’s becoming a young man…a mature one at that.

  “All right. So what do you want to do?”

  “I thought we could go someplace. You know, someplace like a park or something…to catch up. I got a six-pack in the backseat and, uh, I haven’t seen you in a while and thought it would be cool if we just kicked back and talked.”

  “Yeah. Sure. A park? That’s cool. I don’t know where any park is around here.”

  “I do. Remember, Mom and I moved to North Miami…after you went to California. There’s a park a couple blocks away. Get in.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. You did. All right. I guess that’d be okay. Just a minute; I need to get my bag.”

  I run to the house and grab Thor and my purse. Then the strangest sense of unease envelops me. I’d better bring the gun, I think, reacting to my fear, just in case. I stuff it in the bag and worry for a second about being out in the open, a target with a contract on my life.

  The ride is short, just as Wayne promised. I find myself gushing with a very brief, edited version of what happened with John and me since I’ve last seen Wayne in Oregon. I tell him about being arrested for the murders, protective custody, our run and, finally, John’s fall back into abuse. Many of the details are left to silence, experiences without words, as Wayne turns a corner onto a lush, tree-lined road.

  “Here it is.”

  “What? Already? That was fast.”

  He remains silent. Driving overly slowly, he looks from side to side, searching.

  The hair rises on the back of my neck. What’s going on? I think, feeling my throat constrict. I can hardly breathe.

  Wayne pulls in next to a small lake at a parking clearance. He places his hand on my knee, then turns to look me in the eyes. “Dawn, I have something I gotta tell you.”

  “What?” I feel the world become slow motion, surreal.

  “Well, uh…I’m not here to just catch up with you, and I didn’t rent this car with a friend.”

  “What?” My chest seizes with dread and pain as I wait for his bomb to drop.

  “Well, the police sent me.”

  “The police!” I scream. “What do you mean, ‘the police'? I don’t see the police! Where are they?”

  “I know; I know. Just wait. Listen.” His tone is pleading. “They just want to talk to you, Dawn. They don’t want you…they want John!”

  “No!” I panic and open the car door to run.

  “Wait! Dawn. No!” He grabs my arm and shoots his hand up to signal the men hidden in inconspicuous cars surrounding us to stay back. Wayne puts the car in park and jumps out to stop several approaching dark-suited men. “Wait a minute. I need to talk to her. Just give us a few minutes alone. Please!” The men signal an okay, and Wayne circles the car to escort me out onto the parking lot. “Come on, Dawn. Come with me. Let’s just talk…here…by the water.”

  I feel trapped, betrayed. Seconds are frozen in place. I let him guide me to the edge of the lake and hold me in his arms. “I can’t do this, Wayne. Not the police. I can’t.” I am sobbing now. “I’ve always promised him I’d be loyal…that way…I’m not a rat. I didn’t tell the police anything when we were arrested in LA.” It sounds strange to explain my reasons out loud, but it means my integrity to me. “He’ll be mad…and, well…I just can’t! There are contracts out!”

  “I love you, Dawn. And…and…I can’t tell you how bad John is for you. He’s one of the most selfish assholes there is. People are looking to kill you for him. That’s not love!” He is fuming with anger now. “Promised him! Ha! He don’t care about no one but himself, Dawn. He’s drug you all this way, ‘cause he knows you love him…and he don’t deserve your love! You’ve been too good to him.” He hugs me again. “I don’t want anything to happen to you, Dawn. The cops don’t want anything to happen to you. And if John stays free, there will still be contracts out—not only for him, but for you too!”

  My tears are too much. I wipe a flood from my cheeks and nod. “Yeah. I’m scared of that too, Wayne. I’m scared someone’s gonna come after me just to find him. I, I even took his gun…to protect myself.” I pat the side of the handbag glued to my side. “But I don’t want to be the one to turn him in.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’d do the same thing. Just talk to them, Dawn. See what they have to say.”

  I’m torn up inside; the conflict is excruciating. Instinct tells me to protect John, but I know I have no choice really. The thought that maybe this is the best thing for both of us keeps me sane. “Yeah. Okay.”

  Wayne hugs me tightly. “I love you, Dawn. You’re doing the right thing.” He walks me over to the waiting police, who have been huddled in small groups and hovering around my brother’s rental car.

  “Ms. Schiller.” Tom Lange reaches his hand out to shake mine. “Remember me? From Los Angeles…and my partner, Frank Tomlinson? And this is a local Dade County detective. We’re here to help you.”

  Sniffling and wiping my wet cheeks, I acknowledge the three of them.

  “You already know, well, uh, we’ve been looking for you and John. John really, of course. We’ve been trying to find you both…to get you off the street…to protect you.”

  “I’m not with John anymore!” I snap.

  “Yeah. We know. We’re glad for you but, you see, there are a lot of those, well, contracts out for the both of you and, well, if we have John…those contracts will go away…disappear. You can go on with your life, stop looking over your shoulder. You, your family—anybody you come in contact with—will be safe again. Right now, things are very dangerous.”

  “So you want me to tell you where he is? Rat on him?”

  “Uh, yeah. That’s about it. If you want to call it that. You’re the only one who knows.”

  “I left him because he…well…he started hurting me again…and making me, uh…But I never wanted to rat on him! I just want you to know that I never wanted to do this. I just have to get away from him…get my life back!” My sobbing is wild, punctuated by hysterical gasps for air.

  The group of detectives bob their heads in acknowledgement and shift their weight, uncomfortably helpless with my pain. “Certainly, we understand, Dawn. John’s made some bad choices, and he’s taken you with him. This has got to be hard…but…well, he’s probably going to be safer with us than he is on the streets…and the soo
ner that happens, the safer you’ll be.”

  They are right, and I know it. This is the best I can hope for, for both of us. My body folds, my tension expels like a gasp of air released from an overstressed tire, and I surrender to their reasoning. What choice do I have? Overcome with shaking, I reach a jittery hand to the purse dangling at my hip and flop down hard on the asphalt pavement of the parking lot. I dig deep into the bottom of the bag, my hand searching for one of the business cards from the Fountainhead Hotel. “He’s not armed either, you know?”

  “We understand. He’s going to be safer with—”

  “'Cause I got his gun.” I pull out the .38 and lay it on the warm blacktop to get a better view of the bottom contents of my bag and the number to the hotel.

  Instantly the three officers react, grab the concealed weapons in their shoulder holsters, and brace themselves for the unexpected. The air freezes with thick tension. I realize what I’ve done and halt. Are they going to shoot me? But then I continue searching anyway. I don’t really care.

  Shuffling uncomfortably, Tomlinson grimaces. He doesn’t like this one bit. Lange signals him to stay cool. “All right…” His tone rings with a cautious key. They keep a sharp eye on the exposed pistol and my nervous, jerky hands, impatient for me to retrieve the address.

  “Here it is.” I stand up, leaving my things on the ground. Hesitantly, I hold the Fountainhead’s logo card out to Lange. “Can you do me a favor?” I ask, feeling a rush of sadness and tears wash over me again.

  “Sure. If it’s within our scope of power, we’d be happy to.”

  “When you get him, call me and let me know that he’s okay…that, you know, everything went all right.”

  “Yeah. We can do that. I’ll make sure someone calls you right after we apprehend, uh…take him into custody.”

  I cringe at his words.

  “Again, we know this is very hard for you, Dawn, but really it is the safest place he can be right now…and the safest thing for you.”

  “Sure.” I turn away, hollow and empty, and find my brother’s eyes, blinking in the bright sun. As I gather my things, the officers thank me. My gun no longer concerns them. On a parting note, each detective offers me his business card. Lange has written a note on the back: “If you ever need anything, just call.”

  I place the cards carefully in my wallet, just in case I will need them one day, and let my brother take me back to Louise’s. He has to get the car back and catch his return flight to Oregon. “You did the right thing, Dawn,” he says as he hugs me good-bye.

  The police’s stakeout of my family is over.

  The call rings through to Louise’s the next afternoon. It is Detective Lange. “Just wanted to let you know we got him. I promised you someone would call, and I thought I’d be the one.”

  “Yeah.”

  “He was there, unarmed, just like you told us.” He lets out a bit of a chuckle. “He acted like he was expecting us…even invited us in to sit and have coffee. He asked if you were okay, but we didn’t tell him we talked to you. Thought it would be better. You know…”

  Silent tears stain my blouse, and I sniff. “So, so, he’s okay?” I don’t want to know any more than this. He is safe, and what happens after this is up to him. My relationship with John needs to be done with this one last question.

  “Yeah. If you ask me, he was relieved. He left on the plane with Detectives Tomlinson and Blake this morning. Everything went smooth as silk.” There’s a long, awkward pause. “Again, Dawn, if you ever need anything, you got my number.”

  “Yeah. I do. Thanks.”

  I can’t think about much in the next days. I’m still digesting the events of my brother’s visit. It hurts that he left so quickly too, a result of police timing. It was a cold and heartless maneuver to get what they wanted. They had to do it, I know, but still I wish it didn’t have to happen with my family…and I miss my brother. I have to accept the way things turned out, as hard as it is. It’s the best that could have happened all around. I am glad for that. Mom keeps the calls coming to make sure I’m okay, but I’m not in the mood to talk much anymore. And when the newspapers expose the details of John’s arrest, I want to disappear from the world’s radar completely.

  At the end of the first week of December and days after John’s arrest, another fated call rings for me at the suburban house. Louise is home and hands me the phone. “It’s a man,” she whispers with an anguished look.

  It might be the police again. “Hello?”

  “Dawn. That you?”

  “Yeah. Who’s this? Dad?”

  “Of course it’s Dad. Who’d you think? Oh. Yeah, never mind. I guess you got a few reasons to be worried.”

  “Yeah. You heard? How’d you get my number?”

  “How else? Ha. Your mother.”

  I’m not sure what to say. The last time I saw Dad was when he stopped by to visit me in Glendale a couple years after he took off with Pen Ci. They were no longer together. She had taken the green stone and its secrets and left him. Dad spent time doing what he loved to do afterward—backpacking across Southeast Asia. He tried to visit me once, almost two years ago now, between Kathmandu and Bombay, but John kicked him out and accused him of stealing from tenants in the court, as I stood by…helpless. He left furious and cursing John’s name.

  “Naw. Now listen. It’s the funniest thing, really. I go to, uh, ahem, sit on the pot first thing in the morning like I always do. I sit down…open the paper, and what do I see but John Holmes arrested on Miami Beach!” He lets a cynical laugh escape. “First thing I think about is—where is Dawn? So I call your mother.”

  “No way.” I snicker at the way he is telling the story. “Yeah, things have been pretty crazy, Dad.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I thought. So, uh, where are ya, Dawn? Close by or what? I’m in Pompano. You know where that is?”

  “Pompano! You’re here? That’s only a couple of towns away! I’m in North Miami. But, uh, I don’t drive, Dad.”

  “Yeah, well. I can pick you up. Besides, I wanna hear the whole story. That asshole. I’m glad he finally got…Glad you’re finally away from him, Dawn. Motherfucker.”

  “Me too, Dad. Me too.”

  “So I gotta let you in on what’s going on with me first, Dawn. I’m married again, and we have a baby girl. Alicia. She’s nine months old and, well, we’re quiet, you know, married folk.”

  “Really? Sounds cool, Dad. I can’t wait to meet them…”

  I hang up feeling like God has dropped a miracle from the sky. I’m amazed at how welcoming Dad seems. Sounds like the same ol’ Dad!

  Dad picks Thor and me up a few hours later, driving straight back to his house in Pompano. He is not too thrilled about my little dog but puts up with him. I’m happy to see he is still cancer-free. The only visible reconstructive surgery on his face is how he wants it—minimal. He has no tolerance for doctors and is satisfied that the flap of skin from his forehead that twists to cover the place where the gaping hole once was gives him a handsome, rugged edge.

  Kathleen, Dad’s new wife, is a tall and slender young woman with brown hair and eyes. Stunningly, she is only two years older than me. One look at each other and we know we will be instant friends, nothing like a stepfamily. Alicia, a blonde little cutie, tumbles and bounces on the living room floor till Kathleen calls us in for dinner.

  The four of us settle down to our meal, quietly comprehending the queer newness of our relationship to each other. Dad opens a couple of beers, passes one down in front of me, and hands me half a quaalude. “Now. I want to know everything, Dawn. Don’t leave nothing out. We got all night.”

  I take a long, hard swig of my beer and find myself stuck, unwilling to spew the garbage that has tainted me since I last saw Dad. I reach down deep inside me and gather the reserve of my strength. “Okay, well, here it goes…”

  By the end of the hair-raising tale, my heart is banging against my chest from the adrenaline of the memories that feel like yesterd
ay’s. I am sick to my stomach. Dad stares off into the distance as I recount the details of my history with John. He gets up only to replenish the beer when we run dry and to offer me another “halfie” of the quaalude.

  I decline. “I think I’m gonna puke, Dad.” My head spins violently in sparks and blurs.

  “'Kay. Bathroom’s over there. Come on. I’ll help ya.” He walks me to the toilet.

  I kneel before the stark whiteness of the porcelain pit to heave and retch my guts up…purging the darkness, the pain, the horror and filth…John.

  “Well, get it out, Dawn. It’s all over now.” He holds my hair back lovingly. “I’m glad you’re out of all that shit, Dawn. Really. Get yourself cleaned up, and come back in. I got some stuff to talk to you about.”

  Back at the table, I sit drained and pale. Kathleen has put Alicia to bed and brings me a cold, wet towel for my head. Dad is sipping another beer and opens one for me.

  I think I’m going to puke again. “I can’t, Dad. No more.”

  “All right, babe.” He takes a moment to gather his thoughts, tapping his fingernails on the shiny, polished wood. “Listen. I wanna ask you something. Kathleen and I are leaving the end of the week to go to Belize, then Thailand. We’re looking to buy a beach resort. You know, income property.”

  “Oh, that’s nice,” I lie, my hopes of finding refuge sinking.

  “So, well? You wanna come with us or what?”

  This doesn’t seem right. Did Dad just ask me to leave the country with him? It sounds like a dream…a dream I don’t dare think too hard about…that might come true. “Yes! Are you kidding? Of course I do!”

  Kathleen, who has been sitting quietly with us at the table throughout the retelling of my ordeal, gives me a friendly smile. “You can help with the baby!”

  “All right. That’s it then. You gotta get all your things together real quick like.” I can see Dad mentally making the plans, as he did back in Carol City while playing solitaire. “What about your dog?”