Monthly Archives: October 2013

On Wednesday, my wife left town for a business trip. OWIF is what she left in her wake.

Link to Part 1.

***

The Oldsmobile Aurora squealed out in front of a pair of minivans as the POP POP of handguns erupted and faded behind us.  I stole a glance at the rearview mirror in time to see chaos, mass confusion, and people scattering in all directions.  A mass of police lights converged on the spot where the tall man and the cops had been standing, a fast convergence of red and blue and sirens, like the big bang played backwards through a movie reel.

I took my eyes off the mirror and put them back on the road.  My hands tightened over the steering wheel when I saw the mass of police lights in front of me; in my haze I wasn’t sure if it was the scene we had just left behind.  Had I circled around already?

It wasn’t; these police cars were parked and empty.  The cops that drove them there were gathered around a car on the shoulder, broken glass strewn all over the road and barricades.   The drivers side window was missing, but the driver wasn’t.  He was sitting in the front seat, slumped over the steering wheel.  I don’t know exactly what happened to him but the spray of blood all over the interior of the vehicle and the spider-shaped bullet holes on the windshield gave me a good guess.  The car was a dark green Oldsmobile Aurora, the identical twin of the car I was driving except that our car still had all its windows and I wasn’t carrying a pair of slugs in my head.

We cruised by, trying not to attract attention from the cops.  I don’t know why I ducked the cops; the proper thing to do would have been to pull over.  I didn’t know this kid, and I sure as hell didn’t want to be accused of kidnapping or being a part of whatever happened back there.

The girl was staring at my face, intent.  She watched my grimace as I stared at the police and emergency vehicles and must have picked up on my vibe. “Don’t stop here, I can’t stop here.”  Her voice was unsteady, but her stare wasn’t.

“We should stop, kid; these guys can help you.  They can take you back to your parents and keep you safe from that man with the gun.”

“No, they can’t.  No one can, anymore.”

I didn’t stop.  I drove for a couple of miles, brow as furrowed as could me.  I can’t stand silences, so I broke it.

“What do you want me to do, then?  Leave you at the CTA stop? I don’t have a gun and I don’t have a badge, kid.  You’re not safe with me.”

She had been looking out the window at the cold Chicago fall, and kept right on looking as she spoke. “I’m not safe anywhere.”

I felt drunk, which is odd because normally I’d feel scared or nervous, what with the gun fight and all.  “How old are you?  Nine?  Where should I take you?”

She sniffed, wiped her nose, and said, “I’m ten.  And my dad said that you’d take me to the meeting place.”

I turned the radio down, asked her to repeat what she said.  After she had, I said, “Dude, I don’t know your dad, and I don’t know what the meeting place is.”

She looked at me, startled. “But.  But.  Why did you pick me up?”

“I didn’t, you jumped in and then the bullets told me I should probably hit the gas.”

Tears started to well up under her eyes, but never quite formed fully. “I don’t understand, I don’t understand, I was supposed to go to the green Oldsmobile…”

“Yeah, probably,” I said, my hands fumbling for a cigarette I didn’t own for a smoke I’ve never had.  “And I’m guessing that the dude doing his best swiss cheese impression in the Oldsmobile we passed on the way out here was your ride.”

Now the tears started for real, great heaving sobs as we coasted down I-90 past the tire factories and industrial bakeries. She shuddered under her great oversized coat, and I I could do was offer her some napkins from a fast food joint I keep in the glove box.  She took them and blew her nose.  Damnation.  If my wife was here she’s know what to say; comforting the afflicted was always her thing.  I tried to dial her, but it went straight to voicemail.  She was still on the plane.

“Listen, kid,” I was going to say, “I’ll take you to the police station.  They’ll figure out what’s going on, and they’ll help you find you dad.”  I was going to say that, but I didn’t.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw, in the side mirror, a flash of light.  Not the insistent authority of a police car, but the light of a semi with its brights on, going way too fast.

“Oh crap,” was what actually came out of my mouth, as the red-and-rust Mack truck barreled down the right lane of the highway, past the surprised SUVs and sedans, and right into my car.

[end of part 2]

On Wednesday, my wife left town for a business trip. OWIF is what she left in her wake.

***

I dropped my wife off at the airport; the acid smell of jet fuel and coffee and travel drifted into the car as I watched her walk into the terminal.  She was wearing a coral-colored coat and towing a grey suitcase behind her.  As the electric door closed I realized I only know what the hell color “Coral” is because of her; without her it’s all just a faded orange.

I shifted the car, a dark green Oldsmobile Aurora, into gear, slid backward to avoid a Korean family saying their tearful goodbyes – talk soon, call when you arrive, let’s Skype, blah blah.  In this day and age there is no permanent goodbyes, no dock-of-Belfast, last-call-to-Ellis-Island, only a “we’ll video call when you get back home.”   They’ll talk soon, but when is the next time we’ll touch?  When I’ll smell your cologne, your perfume?

I turned on the radio, took a sip of coffee and started to list the day, the soft imperfect planning of everything I’m supposed to do for the day, a list that will be the standard by which I jusdge the worth of my day that night.  Did I pick up the dry cleaning?  Did I get that work done?  Did I finish the grading? The car moved forward past a rental company bus, dark green and covered in soot, when a bright blue flash caused me to slam the breaks and spill my coffee.

She was a kid, about eight or nine years old, and she dashed in front of the bus just as it was pulling out and avoiding getting hit just in time to slam into the right side of my car.  She was wearing a winter hat, grey and hand-knitted, and an coat that was so big on her I thought she didn’t have arms at first.  It was a mens coat, a blue coat from one of those companies that sells camping gear to city folk that plan to go camping but never do.  I was so startled I squeezed my coffee cup, leaving hot coffee all over my steering wheel.

It turns out she had arms, and she used them to cushion her as she ran into my passenger side door.  Her face was pale, like the blood had run out of it, and she stood there, frozen, staring into my car as the rental truck pulled away, the driving cursing at us.  It’s not my fault, I wanted to signal to the driver, I don’t know her.  I didn’t know enough sign language to convey such a complex thought, so I just flicked him off.

The girl, still stuck in time, stared into the car as the bus pulled away.  Behind the bus was a man in a large black trenchcoat, short cropped hair and arms so long they extended past the sleeves of his coat by three or four inches.  He was tall, about six foot three or so, and as he looked in our direction he furrowed his brow, confused, for just a split second.

In his left hand he pulled up a walkie-talkie, and barked angrily into it.  I couldn’t make out what he said, as the windows were up and the radio was on, but by the expression on his face I could tell that he heard something back that he didn’t want to hear. He pulled his right hand out of his pocket; in it was a small pistol, like the kind that are often lighters and picked up as novelties by people in Las Vegas.

He pointed the pistol at me, no, no, not at me, at the kid, and yelled something in a language I don’t know, but the internal rosetta stone told me that he was yelling “Stop.”

The little girl turned around towards him, huge coat dangling off her like an poorly planned halloween costume.  They faced each other for what felt like, what, five seconds?  A minute?  Then the airport police started yelling.

There were four or five of them, running out of the terminal.  Shouting by airport cops is not unusual; it is in fact more weird to see an airport cop calming smiling.  These guys were not calmly doing anything – they were in full sprint towards the tall man.  As he turned he head to look at them the girl whirled around, pulled enough of the sleeves of her coat up to expose a little hand, then opened the car door and jumped in.

I confess I didn’t know what to say or do.  When unusual things happen we freeze, not necessarily out of cowardice but often out of confusion.  There is a buffering time when you put a new DVD into a player, or when you load a new video from the internet.  That was me; I was buffering.

“Drive,” she said, “please drive.”  Control-Alt-Delete.

I drove.  The sound of gunshots trailed off behind us.

[end of part 1]

[link to part 2]