Ken pulled the cash from his pocket when we reached the ticket counter and carefully counted out single bills. He turned and grinned at me, the grin of a fan’s victory. He was heading home, so we said our good-byes. After I wandered around the mall for another twenty minutes, it was time to go back for choir practice.
I walked through the ladies department in J. C. Penney with stacks of sweaters and neat piles of pants, caught the escalator. I remember the smell of leather and perfume. The automatic doors opened, and I was hit with a warm blast from a grate underneath the door, then wind and sleet. I could see the church—all I had to do was make it up that hill.
In Which I Meet a Dark Night
Omaha, 1978—After Mr. K was done with me, he gave me my shirt and gauchos back, tied my hands, covered my head with the burlap bag again, and pushed me into the space behind the driver’s seat. Lying there on the metal floor, I began to tremble, my teeth began to chatter, though it wasn’t from the cold. The keys clinked against each other as he placed them into the ignition, turned the alternator, revved the engine. Backed out over crunching gravel. The van turned. I could see lights again. We were in traffic.
I reached into that place where prayer would take me, but felt none of the comfort I would feel when clasping my cross; the personal nature of my relationship with God—any feeling of spiritual connection—was gone. Several moments later I felt myself falling into a trancelike sleep. I felt soothed by a warm comforting light and then came a flood of images—of the many people who loved me throughout my life, of a community going as far back in my childhood as I could remember, a web of connection that held me. My body lost all feeling of weight, and I felt light enough to float. I had no idea how long I spent in this state, but after some time the spell was broken by a horrid smell. The air was suddenly thick with the unmistakable stench of stockyards, the Omaha stockyards. We weren’t nearing the Center Shopping Center where we were meant to meet my father; we were in the wrong part of town. The van slowed, turned, stopped. I could just make out the glow of a streetlamp in the distance through the burlap. Mr. K rolled the van door open.
“Please, don’t leave me here.” I said it calmly, with warmth, with confidence that I would reach that part of him that would save us both. It conveyed nothing of my growing panic. I picked up a lull in his thoughts.
“Sit up.” He said it in a softer tone, as if he were relieved, glad even, to hear me speak.
“I can’t—because of the way you’ve tied my hands.” I struggled to demonstrate. “Please.” I couldn’t help it then. I began to cry, to sob, “Please, please don’t kill me.”
Another silence. And then again, another shift in mood. “It’s okay,” he said, growing awkward with his expression of care as he moved toward me. I’ll come back for you.” He touched my shoulder, told me to reach up with my bound hands, then helped me up—the perfect gentleman.
But I was certain that the minute I stepped out of the van, it would be the end of my life. I’d learn later the temperature had dropped to twenty degrees, and the wind chill was even colder. If he didn’t intend to murder me by force, the cold would do it. He put my coat over my shoulders and helped me step out of the van onto the ice. The stink from the cattle yards was so fierce I fought to control my gagging reflex. I was shaking so badly from the combined shock and cold, I didn’t know how long my legs would hold out, and I still couldn’t see. I felt gravel under my feet as he pulled me down a long narrow corridor, a distance of what felt to be about one hundred yards. We stopped. He positioned me up against something solid.
“Don’t move. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.” I nodded. I could make out his silhouette through the burlap bag, looking, thinking. I anticipated the final finishing move. But it didn’t come. Instead, he turned, and I listened as his footsteps faded away.
A few minutes passed. My trance broke. A new kind of terror filled the silence. I tried not to panic, but the pressure of the freezing temperature felt as if it were driving into my chest. The moisture in my eyes and nose stung. The smell of manure was so pungent I could taste it. If I moved, the jacket hanging off my shoulders was going to fall. My body began to shake. I stood tall, slowly, the first movement I had dared since he left, listened for footsteps, for any kind of clue of him. I saw what looked like a wall, screened through the fibers of the burlap bag. I guessed it was a couple of feet in front of me. I could make out some kind of corridor. I heard the gears of a truck shift faintly. How close was I to a road?
As I stood there, I began to calculate my odds—the choice to live wasn’t entirely mine, the choice to die not so straightforward either, though it became increasingly apparent inertia had its own outcome. If I moved, how far could I get?
I prayed. “Lord, please help me.” Nothing came back, the worsening silence growing more horrific. “Please God,” I began again, reaching a little deeper, “Is anyone out there?!!” At last, I heard the rattling sound of a semi-truck, but not even close. “SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME!” It rumbled away.
I revisited the reason I was waiting, then the task of leaving. This raised the painful truth as reality sank in. My standing there, praying, screaming, waiting for a grand rescue wasn’t going to help. It wasn’t as if Dad could suddenly appear miraculously, trudging his legs through snow as he worked his way up the hill like he did that day in Lee Valley. I was utterly alone. So hopeless that even the increasing odds that Mr. K had, in fact, left didn’t make things easier. God wasn’t going to intervene—not to save me, not to comfort me, or with intuitive guidance.
I grew wildly confused as my own stupidity began to sink in. I thought back on how earnest I had been in my efforts to save this man, how convinced I was that cash would solve his problem. I even told him God was certain to forgive him for abducting me. The irony that I had been taken from my church parking lot, because of my dogged determinedness to make choir practice, made it worse. My rage erupted. I screamed into the night air—WHY? And was greeted by nothing but the starkness of my broken voice. I began to kick behind me in fury and helplessness until pain surged up my leg, shocking me into reality. And then I let out a huge, heart-wrenching, body-wracked wail, screaming out the Lord’s name one last time so deep from within my soul that something in me cracked. It was over, as if a metaphysical emptiness swallowed the whole of my spirit.
At this moment of complete physical depletion, Dad’s image surfaced, flooding me with that love only he could make me feel. I pictured Mr. K’s anger in the phone booth and remembered his threat to kill my father if he called the police, grew angry again at the audacity of the man to call my father an asshole—I had no idea what Dad would do, but if Mr. K wasn’t here, there was a good chance he had gone to meet him. I became overwhelmed by fear for Dad—I had to do something to protect him. Again I felt Dad’s love for me, undeniable, solid, a rope hold out of this nightmare.
I began to move, pushing against desperation and fear that I had wasted too much time. That Mr. K might already be at the Center Shopping Center. It occurred to me to rub the burlap bag off my head by scraping my forehead against the wall. Soon I had the bottom of the bag above my eyes, and I could see. I was next to a railcar, not a wall, between a train and a loading dock. A streetlamp shone at the end of the corridor, about three railcars away. I inched forward, leaning my shoulder against the train for balance; the ice beneath my feet was patchy, not solid. Eventually I could see a trailer office about fifty yards away, and a woman. She was locking the front door.
I checked both ways to see if the van was anywhere in sight, took a deep breath, and swallowed what felt to be the whole of my childhood before I stepped into exposed space.
In Which I Enter Stage Left
Omaha, 1978—The woman walked to a car in the parking lot, and I started making my way toward her. She looked up, graciously put pieces together before I had the words out of my mouth, and helped me into her trailer office. I remember her calling the police, then loosening my hands enough that I could take the
phone.
I told the officer on the other end of the line that I was fourteen and I had been kidnapped. A man had forced me to call my father and ask for a ransom and was now on his way to meet him. He said he was going to kill Dad if he didn’t have the money and that he would be coming back for me, and told me if I moved he’d kill me, too.
The police operator asked how long it had been since he’d left. I said I didn’t know—maybe twenty minutes. He asked for my location, and all I could say was I was close to the stockyards. The woman who rescued me picked up the phone in another room, said she could take it from there. After putting the receiver down, I remained staked out in the chair, looking for the swish of lights that might signal Mr. K’s arrival.
I could tell then, I was different. I didn’t feel a thing.
The night air soon filled with the glow of flashing red bulbs. The officers quickly came through the door, and I again explained the situation with my father. The officer in charge was kind, in his mid-thirties, gentle, not awkward, confident, but clearly concerned for my pain as he had to ask further questions. I assured him I felt strong, okay, the only thing I cared about was my father’s safety. He told me Dad was safe, that he contacted the police right after my phone call. The whole department had been working overtime in their search for me.
I found out later that the kidnapping had been broadcast on the television news, that 85 percent of children who are abducted by strangers in violent sex crimes are killed within five hours, and that I had crested the curve.
The officer in charge shared encouragingly that I’d see Dad soon, but first we had to wait for another patrol car to arrive. In case the man driving the van came back. Did I think I could do that? Yes. Could I tell them what happened? I didn’t hesitate; I started at the point I headed to choir practice, told them I was walking through my church parking lot, the pain of God’s abandonment the only thing that slowed me as I provided details of my captivity, skipping over the physical attack, which resulted in a pain I could not comprehend at the age of fourteen. One need only look at me to understand the nature of the assault. The officer sensitively told me I could stop if I needed to, affirmed how brave I was being, but the state of trauma I was in allowed me to continue as if I were talking about a normal day at school. When we finished, he expressed a deep respect at how well I had done. Asked if I was okay to ride with him and the other officer in the squad car to the hospital, where my parents would meet me. Did I think I could do that, and I nodded and said yes, thankful for his kind voice. It felt as if something big and exciting was about to happen. They assisted me to the police car, and as we drove away, I looked out the window at all the lights and the humans and the cars in the darkness. It had been three hours since I was at school.
When we reached the hospital, several staff members were waiting for me at the sliding glass doors and took me directly into a private room, protecting me from the view of strangers. A kind nurse stayed with me, told me my parents were on the way. I begged her to tell me where the bathroom was. She looked at me as if her heart were going to break and asked me if I could hold on a little while longer. I asked for a glass of water, but again, she explained it would be better if I could wait. I still remember the pain on her face. And then a minute later there was a knock on the door. It was Mom. Her face was white. She looked scared, young even. Clearly hesitant to approach me.
My heart sank. “Where’s Dad?”
“He isn’t here yet. And I wanted to check to make sure you wanted to see him.”
I struggled to understand what she was saying. Looked over at the nurse to see if she might help.
“Because, honey, I thought you might be scared of men.” She paused.
There was a knock on the door, and the nurse stuck her head out. “Your father’s here,” she said, smiling. “Shall I show him in?”
A few seconds later Dad stepped in the room. The joy I expected to see wasn’t there. I grew self-conscious, wondering how I must look sitting there on the medical table. I hoped not like the half-slaughtered calf saved from the stockyard I felt. Dad’s face was serious. Almost businesslike. After a delayed response, he came over and wrapped his arms around me. I found myself not only wilting in spirit but swallowing his silence, adopting his same numbed state, mirroring his emotional cues: the alternative, recognition that he was not able to parent me at the greatest moment of need in my life, was too painful to contemplate.
Mom did us a favor by interrupting our sad sack of a reunion. She told Dad the doctor was waiting, and she needed a minute with me. I watched as what was left of my heart walked out the door. Dad. That was Dad. And that was the worst hug of my life.
Mom asked if I was certain I wanted to see the doctor, assured me I could just go home, that I didn’t owe an explanation to anyone. Again, I didn’t understand. The nurse knocked on the door. I told Mom I would be okay. She left, the doctor came in. The invasiveness and blinding pain of the procedures were made worse by how badly I needed to use the bathroom, but the tenderness of a nurse who held my hand throughout gave me strength.
When I returned to the lobby after we were done, I noticed several police officers talking with my parents. The one who seemed most senior in rank approached me, smiled gravely. Did I feel able to be strong a little while longer, he asked. They needed to find this man, and I was in the best position to help. I answered yes with such confidence that he looked surprised. He then asked if I’d be comfortable going with two of the officers, if I could help them retrace the route in their car. The questions they needed to ask could be difficult to answer. We could stop at any point if I found it too much. And Dad could follow behind us in a squad car. I agreed, so numb it required no effort.
When we went to leave, I glanced back at Dad staring into the distance and watched as a police officer gently touched him on the arm to indicate it was time to go.
I climbed in the back of the four-door sedan, behind the steel cage. They asked if I was hungry, and a bag of french fries appeared. A chocolate milk-shake followed. We were at the McDonald’s where Mr. K had called my father. The salt of the fries tasted delicious. The heaviness of the chocolate milkshake soothed my stomach. I was in a police car, and I was warm and safe with the taste of salt on my tongue, and I liked the police officers I was with, and I thought of nothing but sharing as much information as I had. As I began to talk, I was amazed at the amount of detail I could recall, not just the spot where he had picked me up and the direction we drove, but traffic intersections, street signs, trees we had passed. I was able to direct them this way and that, with a confidence of something practiced one thousand times.
The officers asked, as we were pulling out of the site, if I had ever ridden in a police car before. I told them no. They asked if I would like them to turn the lights on, the siren on. I said yes. We pulled into the road like we were on a chase. The whir of the siren overtook my senses, the winter darkness filled with a pulsing red glow, on-off, on-off, on-off. When the siren stopped, it was work time again. We were at my junior high school, Lewis and Clark. A couple of light poles illuminated the parking lot, swirls of snow dusted the ice, and sporadic wind gusts shook the car. My church was right in front of me, but when I looked at it, it was void of any feeling of familiarity.
Soon after, we were back in my neighborhood, driving down the street toward our house. The police officers turned and told me again how brave I was being, what an amazing job I was doing. It felt good to help. We were all sad to say good-bye, as a real sense of comradery had been formed in that short time.
Looking back, I feel sorry for that kid coming home. And for the dad at the police station giving his own statement. We’d have our moment. I knew it, but I didn’t know when. I’d tell him then. His love for me saved my life.
In Which Charles Goes for a Burger
Omaha, 1978—After Charles left the girl, he drove the two miles to the Center Shopping multilevel parking garage to meet her father. As he pulled into the complex he saw
no sign of anyone standing by the doors holding a suitcase, but as he cruised by the second level he spotted a couple of middle-aged guys positioned aimlessly inside the entryway. Would the father have had time to go to the police? He continued up the ramp to the third level. After he parked the van and headed toward the stairs, a security guard approached him.
“Hey, do you own that green van?” the guard asked. Seeing Charles wasn’t quick to respond, he offered, “The lights are on.”
Charles recovered quickly, said no, he was just waiting for a lift from a friend for a ride home. Then he asked the security guard if he could give him a dime so he could call his friend who was supposed to be picking him up. He was proud of that move. And while the guard stood there acting like he was doing his job, scanning the garage, Charles dialed a random number. A woman answered. He faked a conversation with her, telling her he couldn’t wait that long, he’d walk. And that’s when he spied a convergence of police cars pulling in on the ground floor. When he turned around, he saw that the security guard had walked off. Charles took a flight of stairs down. He wasn’t getting a good feeling. Given what went down with the girl, he was in a lot more trouble now.
When he reached the second floor, he could see that the two men were still hovering around the inside of the doors of the shopping center. He needed a new plan. It was too risky to go back to the van. He could walk over to the bus stop. Damn, it was cold, though. Too cold to be standing around outside, so instead he made his way up the hill to the Veteran’s Medical Center, entered the glass doors, and took shelter in the front lobby while he warmed up. Ten minutes later, three guys entered. They looked like plainclothes police to him. He watched them as they passed and went upstairs, so he went downstairs to the canteen. As he stood there thinking about how he might get some food without any money, he noticed the officers had come into the cafeteria. Something wasn’t right. They were definitely searching for someone. They looked right at him though and then kept scanning the room. He was relieved when they left. He was so hungry he couldn’t think, so he walked up to McDonald’s on Fortieth and Dodge where his friend Valerie worked. He knew she’d give him a burger. After finishing his meal, he walked home. The van, the girl: history.
Dancing with the Octopus Page 14
