The weather is mostly calm, with only the occasional breeze sweeping through and rustling the small shrubs. The wind itself is warm, like a volcano coughed in this general direction, and the crickets play their song. The air smells like the baked dust I’ve come to associate with Wometzia’s hospitality, and I wonder what this scent will bring to mind in the future. Between the unquestioning love of Wometzia and Romero painting the road with his brains, the memories and relevant emotions are powerful and diverse, but as evolution would have it, I’ll probably remember the more traumatic of the two, to warn me of its danger in the future or some shit.
At last, a pair of bright, white headlights turns onto this street. I situate myself to be able to look into the car from behind without the driver getting a good look at me. While it’s relatively unlikely, I remain wary that this is a trap. Unfortunately, the windows are tinted to a degree that prevents me from assessing the car’s interior without pressing my face up against the windows, which is a vulnerability I can’t afford. The next best thing will be to approach the vehicle with the ostensible intention of getting in, but stalling for just a moment until I can make sure that the back of the car is clear.
So I do just that. The driver looks to be in his late twenties to mid-thirties, with dark hair down to his shoulders. He’s wearing a Hawaiian shirt and cut-off jean shorts. I can’t see his feet, but I’d imagine he’s wearing some kind of sandal reminiscent of Jesus. I perform my check as planned and find no one waiting to ambush me from the cargo storage area.
As we pull out of the neighborhood, sirens engage and swarm in like ants to a fallen potato chip. I worry about being able to make it across state lines, but if we can make it to Arizona, I think we’ll make it all the way. And I feel morbid and selfish for thinking it, but Romero’s suicide will eat up the attention of many cops in the area. The poor local police are having one hell of a night.
The driver is friendly enough, it seems, but luckily for me, not so much as to insist on conversation. Normally I’d be happy to oblige, but right now, I just need time with my thoughts. Whatever the fuck that means.
I set my backpack in the seat next to me and rest my head on the window. Soon, I’m asleep.
I dream that I’m eating dinner with Todd at our house in Wometzia. I notice that Todd is unspeakably skinny, however. Malnourished, even.
“Todd, haven’t you been eating?” I say.
“I’m fine, babe. Just eat your dinner.”
I go to do as I’m told, but now Todd’s hand is on my plate.
“Go on, eat up,” he says. I have my knife and fork in hand. I look at him again and find much of him gone—both feet and his right arm are gone and bloody. And as I realize it, I also notice the blood on my silverware, so much that it’s dripping.
But I’m so hungry, and Todd doesn’t seem to mind, so I ready myself for another bite. A split second before my fork hits flesh, I wake up. It’s still dark out, but not entirely. As I surface into consciousness, I see the flashing blue and red lights indicating the presence of law enforcement.
“What’s happening?” I ask. I put on my best sleepy voice and set to work immediately on calming the rising panic in my mind and chest.
“I just got pulled over. I was speeding a bit.”
Well fuck. Guess I’m going to make friends with Keroth and the gang after all. I pull my bag up onto my lap and bury my face in it; my only real hope to make it through this stop is to hide my face and pray that things go smoothly enough that the cop doesn’t get pissed and want to make things difficult. With luck, my sleepy façade will deter interest from me, and we can continue our journey. God forbid the cop ask where we’re heading. Unless somehow he missed the probable alert on my name and home state.
I really wish I could touch base with Todd and find out the nature of the hunt. And, if possible, the hunter. Perhaps I can use this traffic stop as a test; if the officer finds out where we’re going and doesn’t think of it, maybe this manhunt is not government-sponsored. That would free up a few alleys for me in terms of allowing myself to be seen without sunglasses and a hat, but on the other hand, the potential consequences of being caught are drastically more frightening.
Death itself has never scared or intimidated me. That assertion may change upon looking over a four-hundred-foot drop or staring down the barrel of a shotgun, but as of now, my aversion to death is not the one programmed in me by thousands of millennia of evolution, which lies in a burning need to continue the species. Instead, its roots are lain in pride. I do not fear death, but I do fear having my life taken from me. I’m a survivor. Such is the life, not necessarily of continuing to live no matter the circumstances, but of stubborn retention of the ability to determine the terms of one’s own death. To die when one is ready, rather than to be a victim clinging in desperation to life and to have it ripped from one’s grasp.
And now, that very fate may be on my tail again.
Two days ago, I was working a case, back in my element. The school, the trip to Phoenix, the interviews—they all seem so distant, like a different Remy has since taken the wheel to navigate these dark, punishing waters, but now this Remy is tired of standing at the helm and wants to revert to the other Remy, the one who lives in the world of white picket fences and family camping trips. This Remy has discarded those in favor of survivability.
My eyelids burn with red as the officer sweeps his flashlight’s beam over my face.
“Who’s this?” he says.
“Client. Richard Cunningham. Right?” says my driver.
In as sleepy a manner as I can manage, I nod my head, groan, and exhale a big breath as I clutch my bag closer. The flashlight beam remains on my face for several more seconds. Precious, heavy seconds which contain the entire spectrum of human emotion.
“I’m gonna send you off with a warning this time,” says the cop. “Try to keep the speed a little more reasonable, will ya? Save yourself and my buddies some trouble.”
“Yes sir, thank you, will do,” says the driver. Then he turns to me. “Ha! Close one, huh?”
If only you knew, my friend.
As the car accelerates again, I find that so too is the rate at which my mind slips back to the quiet embrace of sleep. This time, I’m undisturbed by the nightmarish prospect of eating Todd. As far as I can recall, in fact, my dreams are black and silent. Just the way I like them.
When I wake up again, the sun is out and we’re pulling in to a pit stop in Beaver, Utah (‘I Heart Beaver’ bumper stickers and keychains and vanity plates and postcards and tee shirts avalanche into my sight as the automatic doors slide open). Despite the already sweltering heat, I don my jacket along with my sunglasses and hat before going inside to relieve myself; it’s too early for camera exposure. And though the cop’s reaction from last night gave me some confidence, I’m still only maybe eighty percent certain that my trouble, for now, at least, is not of the legal nature.
The trouble of not knowing from whom you’re running is that you’re prone to the mistake of running right toward your predator, into their waiting mouth, claws, web, whatever.
On the other hand, if I do find myself in such a predicament, I will, at least, know that this mess will come to a halt son. That Todd and Beth will be safe once more whether I win or lose. And Todd will be free, at last, from the burdens of me. Of my reckless, obsessive vigilantism. He always insists that I’m worth every ounce of the hell I put him through, and I do believe that that’s how he feels, but what about now? Now that he no longer has me, what could make the colossal stress worth it?
Will he turn bitter now about the whole ordeal, curse my name, and run off to have a nice, quiet life with someone else? Or will he continue to be Todd, sweet, caring, empathetic, compassionate Todd? Not that they’re mutually exclusive—I wouldn’t blame even the most caring and compassionate person on earth for turning distant and angry.
My money is on the latter outcome, but that there’s a chance of the former makes my heart ache. A tide
of melancholy swells in my chest, rising and crashing against the docks of my insecurities past and present and finally leaving tide pools of little, stinging memories like emotional anemone.
I suppose that that’s the upside to the concept of a pursuer outside of the law, isn’t it? The possibility of reuniting with Todd without some serious legal gymnastics. Assuming, of course, that he doesn’t hate me by then. The bits of my mind in charge of generating self-hatred have been dormant for almost a year, but threaten to ignite with the fuel of the potential of moving to Todd’s bad side. That threat fizzles out almost as quickly as it threatened to rise; Todd doesn’t have much of a bad side, and he certainly doesn’t have room on it for me.
The remainder of the car ride is, for the most part, uneventful, and where event does occur, it’s in the fashion of a semi forgetting to look before changing lanes and nearly sending us on a premature date with the undertaker. As far as this trip goes, though, uneventful is ideal.
Rain begins to fall in Boise, and intensifies as we cross the border into Oregon. The sun, now beginning its descent over the western horizon, manages only now and then to punch its rays between the clouds.
As I’m chauffeured through mountains and valleys, over plains and down canyons, I do my best to appreciate the whole of my surroundings; driving along a verdant, mountainous landscape in the middle of a substantial rainfall is one of my most treasured experiences. But the part of me most able to find the peace and beauty of it all, the part imbued with tender love and humanity, hasn’t made the trip here yet. Todd always asserted that one’s emotional being is most often acting on a delay, like it’s waiting for our brains to sort out exactly what we’re supposed to be feeling first, and that that’s why we feel such a distinct numbness when catastrophe strikes. I suppose I’m seeing an example of that now. I hope my emotional being can forgive me for what I’ve done to us.
When we arrive at a gas station in Bakersfield, I begin my preparations for my other ride. The gas station attendant looks to be in his late twenties, with brown hair and an absent, vacant look. I make sure he gets a nice long look at me as I get out of the car and stretch, but his emptiness makes me wonder whether it will even matter. There are cameras on each corner of the station’s store, and I make sure that they, too, get a good look at me. These will be much more reliable than the attendant, Cody.
I go inside to pee and to grab a couple of snacks. On the way out, I make a show of dropping a pack of Skittles. Maybe Cody will remember my clumsiness. I ask him whether he knows how much longer to Riverdell (he just shrugs) so that he’ll have something to tell police (or anyone else who might come asking) if they come by.
I get back in the car and ask my driver to drop me off at the next exit north.
“Uhh, you sure? There’s not really much around there.”
“Yeah, no worries. I’ll be meeting up with a buddy.”
“If you say so,” he says.
It’s a lie, of course, but I feel it sounds better than, “I’m having another ride service pick me up there and drive me directly south.”
In an effort to sell it, I stage a conversation with my fake friend minutes before we get to the exit: “Hey! I’ll be there soon. Yeah. Maybe ten or fifteen? Okay. Yeah. Bye.”
This driver may end up being questioned, too. My charade must reach far and wide, and to that end, it’s in my best interest to go about the entirety of my business as though I truly am doing what I’m telling him I’m doing. The driver drops me off at the trough of the small basin that plays host to the on- and off-ramps.
“Want me to wait here until your friend gets here? It’s dark out, and I don’t want anything to happen to ya.”
“Ah, I think I’ll be fine. I want to walk around for a few minutes, anyway. Stretch my legs. Thanks anyway.” My dear man, the darkness is the only friend I’ll be meeting here, and it wouldn’t let me get hurt under its encompassing watch. Indeed, I can already feel myself feeling calmer and less anxious even as the driver’s tail lights zoom down into the basin and turn around to hop onto the Interstate in the opposite direction. I intentionally gave myself an extra half hour of time to wait, as being alone and immersed in darkness is the closest I can feel to okay at the moment.
The air here is what I’ve been missing: humid and with just the slightest chill nipping at the otherwise comfortable warmth, drawing life from small, intermittent breezes. It smells like the morning dew of the mountains, wet and lively, like the air itself is among the whimsical ranks of the birds and chipmunks that flit about in the forest. The long grass by the road is indeed wet, and I find a big, dry rock on which to sit while I await my next ride.
The nights in Oregon are a spectacle largely different from those of the New Mexican desert, and equally worthy of an audience. The only thing missing from the sky is Orion, who won’t be making his debut for a couple more months. Certainly it’s driven by familiarity, but there’s an overwhelming rightness to being here in Oregon.
But no amount of rainy, overcast weather will amount to Todd, and therein lies a longing wrongness which, by default, outweighs any amount of rightness.
Sparing me from any further detrimental introspection, my ride pulls in from the north and parks a few hundred feet away. In contrast with my preferred habits, I approach him in as much light as possible to avoid startling him. I get into the car and fasten my seatbelt. The driver hands me an Aux cord and invites me to play whatever music I like. I take the cord, at first without any intention of putting it to use, then decide on one of Todd’s and my favorites: Mumford and Sons’ “After the Storm.”
I leave the system playing through my rainy day playlist and am grateful when the driver doesn’t insist on talking through my music. Where I’ll end up I’m not sure, but I’d like for my journey there to be quiet and contemplative rather than verbally robust and cognitively taxing, and this playlist is comprised of artists who facilitate deep thought rather than hindering it.
The ride I ordered is to Los Angeles. I’m not sure whether I’ll end up staying there, but it’s big enough that I can be anonymous, and has a comfortable combination of the living conditions of both Riverdell and Wometzia. Nobody will give a shit about who I am there, and if I find I would prefer something else, a little public transportation is never too far away.
Or, at least, I assume these things. I’ve never actually been there. Here’s hoping MTV can be trusted.
The drive is scenic and welcoming, once the sun comes up. By then, it’s only a few more hours until Los Angeles receives me.
And then, I’m there. There becomes here and I pay my driver and get a hotel room as soon as I see one. I can’t check in just yet, so I use the time to buy myself a new wardrobe, careful all the while not to allow my small fortune of cash to be spotted.
As soon as I’m able to get into my room, I take a shower so hot that my skin emanates warmth for hours afterward. I had forgotten how fantastic a borderline scalding hot shower feels.
Now to find a place to live.
It takes some time, but eventually, I find a small studio apartment to live in. It helps that I can pay cash and that I can cover an entire lease in a single payment.
My move-in process a few days later is as extravagant as one might expect of moving a single backpack and a few shopping bags into a bedroom. I must go furniture shopping soon. I plug in my phone and lie down on the carpet next to it, and I’m asleep within minutes, even without the comfort of a mattress.
When I wake up, the color of the sky outside indicates the warm glow of either early morning or late evening. These days, my level of energy and my sporadic sleep schedule are so inconsistent that it’s hard to tell which.
I look at my phone and it’s eight in the evening. And I have a text message. The source number is blocked.
The message is simple: “Your boyfriend is O.K.”
At once, my mind spins out of control trying to imagine who might have gotten my new number and how. Is it even a person I kno
w? Given the identities of my adversaries of the past few days, narrowing down candidates may indeed be a job tougher than I would probably give it credit for.
And most importantly, is this person friend or foe? What are their intentions in contacting me, and do they know my location now? Should I be buying a bus ticket to Texas right now?
Do I dare respond? Surely it can’t put me in any further trouble. Right?
“Who is this?” I type.
“A friend. And by the way, your endeavor to disappear has been successful. Nice touch with that gas station in Bakersfield.”
I get chills. I still can’t rely on this being an actual ally, and it’s neither Todd nor Beth—they both use the spelled-out “Okay” rather than the shortened “O.K.” And Todd would have included some kind of message between the lines to let me know it was him, like with The Rundown question.
So is this a stranger? Semi-stranger?
“A friend, you say. I don’t have many of those.”
“I know.”
“Who’s after me?”
“Basically the entire organization you just pissed off.”
“Organization?” I’m glad my new ‘friend’ is a fast texter, and willing to talk so much—not only am I getting answers, but the more I get, the more text I’ll have to use for further linguistic comparisons and analysis.
“You know. The kiddie porn ring you broke up by killing your father, putting Keroth in jail for it, and putting a bullet into Perkins. They’re pretty pissed about that.”
“Just how big is this group?”
“Think HBO of perverts. Huge.”
“And how do you know this?”
“I’ve been doing my research. On them. On you. I almost jumped in last autumn, but you tossed a big enough wrench into things that I was satisfied just to sit and watch.”
Roadrunner Page 24
