On the Road [again] Read online

  She continued, “Have you ever seen a man cry? I mean really cry. Not the movie stuff, but when they really lose it? I’ve only seen it twice. Once when Barry did this and once when my dad lost his best friend. They had been friends since they were kids. Inseparable. When my dad married my mom, they had a double wedding, these guys were so close. You seem to see that more up in the northeast where I’m from. Guys that are real friends for life and not buds or whatever, but real friends, you know what I mean?”

  When the only reaction she got was Anna nodding her head, she continued. “So Bobby, that’s my dad’s friend, was on his way to our house. He was on a motorcycle. I don’t know exactly what happened. We were in the back of the house playing, and my mom was in the kitchen. I remember she was singing a song and dancing around, my dad kissed her, everybody was happy, and then this really loud noise came from the front of the house, and my dad told my mom to stay with us, and he went running out there. A minute later there were worse noises. It sounded like an animal or something. I didn’t know it was my dad making that sound. He came running back in the house and screamed at my mom to get help. He came running into the kitchen, screamed at my mom to hurry. She hadn’t even had time to move. He grabbed all the kitchen towels. My mom had this big drawer of them. I thought it was weird because if he wanted a towel, why did he come into the kitchen, and I remember just sitting there staring at my brother. Then things got all crazy, and when my dad came in the house, he was just covered in Uncle Bobby’s blood, and he fell to the floor just inside the front door, and he cried and cried and cried. Uncle Bobby was dead. Some lady ran a stop sign, the one that was almost right across from our house, and I guess she almost cut him in two. Later they said it was obvious that Uncle Bobby died instantly, but my dad still tried to save him. It was horrible. That was the kind of cry I heard from Barry. Like his whole world had just been taken away, and there was nothing he could do about it, ya know?”

  The girls nodded. Carolyn, tears in her eyes, found herself feeling sorry for Pickles and at the same time, angry with herself for being such a soft touch. She allowed herself to wonder, if only for a second, if this was all some sort of con job. After all, she was once involved with Barry and currently on the run. Why were they just taking her word for everything? And were they going to remember it all? She surreptitiously started to record the conversation on her phone. Why had she not thought of that sooner? There were days she wondered if she was actually starting to lose her mind. Forgetfulness. Confusion. This getting older thing was beginning to get on her nerves.

  Pickles was talking again; she needed to pay attention. “This is the part that I’m really ashamed of. I mean, really. I knew what Barry was. I saw that stuff on his computer. He’d just knocked the crap out of me, and my nose hadn’t even stopped bleeding all the way, and even though I hadn’t looked in a mirror, I could feel my eyes swelling, and I knew that he’d probably really hurt me, but in that moment, when he was crying like that, I just put all that stuff aside, and I comforted him. One thing led to another, and he spent the night.”

  Carolyn was stunned. She tried hard not to show it. Adeline simply nodded her head in the affirmative, like she actually understood such madness. Anna reached out and rubbed the young woman’s arm. Tried to comfort her. Amazing.

  Pickles seemed to gain strength from the lack of judgment. “So anyway, it was a long night. I cleaned up my face, and the floor, and the freakin’ wall, which should have told me everything I needed to know, because why didn’t Barry even offer to help, or to get ice, or something? But anyway, I put ice on my face, and he took a shower, and he slept like a little kid, and I sat up all night trying to figure out everything, and no matter what I did, I just kept coming back to the fact that he had all that stuff on his computer and he hit me. My mom always said that if a guy will hit you once, he will hit you again, and that the first time was all about the guy, but the second time was all about the girl. That you have to take responsibility for your part in it. So in the morning I told him that I had to think about it and that I didn’t want him to call me. That his hitting me was over the top and I couldn’t deal with it.”

  Anna asked, “How did he take that?”

  “He seemed totally fine with it. That should have told me something too, but I’d never been involved with anything like that, and I was just stupid, I guess.”

  Carolyn found herself defending the actions of this young woman. “No one knows how they will react in a situation like that. You were not stupid. You were in shock.”

  “Okay, I might even be able to accept that, but what I did next, that was really stupid, and it got me from a nasty ex-boyfriend and a broken nose to where I am today.”

  Finally, Carolyn thought, we find out what the hell this is all about.

  After a few moments of silence, Anna all but panicked. She thought that maybe Pickles had run out of steam. She argued with herself for a moment longer; then, very gently, she asked, “What happened, hun?”

  “I was mad. Madder than I’d ever been. Mad at Barry, but even madder at myself. I wasn’t about to let him get away with hurting me. Nobody had ever hit me before, and to be honest, nobody has ever hit me since. I should have just left it alone, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I was stupid. An idiot. I know that. But I logged back on to Barry’s computer.”

  Carolyn couldn’t help herself; she blurted out, “Why on earth would you do that?”

  “I figured the same thing would happen as last time. The two scary guys would come to my door, I’d play the damsel in distress card, ’cause all really macho guys fall for that, and I’d have them beat up Barry, and I’d promise never to log on or talk about them. It was stupid. I was really young, not in years, but in anything remotely social. My parents didn’t even let us watch television, which is probably why I’m obsessed with movies to this day. I thought they would teach Barry a lesson that he would never forget. Turns out I was the one that was schooled. Didn’t work out quite the way I thought it would.”

  “What happened?”

  “I logged on and prayed the bad guys would show up before Barry did. They did. They didn’t knock on the door that time. They knocked the door down. I tried to explain. They didn’t want to hear it. The one guy picked me up by my neck and slammed me against the wall. I thought he was going to hang me, right then and there, with his own hand. The other guy was laughing. I was beyond scared. Remember in school they told you if a guy was ever attacking you that you should throw up on yourself to make yourself seem less desirable? Well, I couldn’t throw up because I couldn’t barely breathe, but I did pee all over myself, and instead of stopping him, it just made him more aggressive.”

  Anna closed her eyes and shook her head, the violence obviously hurting her.

  “I don’t know why, but he just stopped. Let go. I crashed down to the floor and tried to breathe. I was shaking so hard, as much from my body working against me as from being scared, that I couldn’t even think, never mind talk. They closed the front door. When I said they knocked the door down, that’s a movie thing again. They really just kicked it or hit it really hard, and the whole frame splintered on the inside, and in they walked. Every door I have now has a metal frame or jamb or whatever they’re called, and believe me, they aren’t cheap. Anyway, they destroyed my computer and my network and all that. They walked around like caged animals. It was almost worse than when they were actually attacking me, because I wasn’t sure what was going to happen next, but I kinda knew that they were going to put me in some of those pictures or movies. They warned me. I didn’t listen, so I kind of deserved it, right?”

  Adeline appeared serene, above the drama of the moment. “Wrong. Nothing you could possibly do would warrant that treatment.”

  “Thanks. Anyway, the one guy leaves — he was the guy in charge. While he was gone, the other guy, the one that had picked me up by my neck, he pretty much verbally tortured me. Told me all these really sick things that he was going to do to me and how all t
hese other people, not just guys, were going to enjoy doing all this other stuff to me. If I hadn’t been shaking so hard, I probably would have made a run for it, but honestly, I had no control over my body at all. When I’d thought up the plan, I figured if the guys showed up and scared me, I’d get all confident and stand up to them like I did with Barry. Wrong. I couldn’t even stand, never mind stand up for myself. Anyway, it seemed like forever later, the guy in charge walks back in, gives the other guy a look, and they walk out.”

  “What did they say?”

  “Nothing. They never said another word to me. I’ve never seen them or anyone from their side again. I was more scared of the unknown than I was of them doing something. It is a lot harder to live your life when you don’t know what’s going to happen, when they’re going to come back, what to do.”

  Carolyn couldn’t take it anymore. “I’m lost. What does this have to do with Barry?”

  “After the bad guys left, so did I. I was not taking a chance that they were going to change their minds and come back at me. I packed as much as I could in my car, and I drove away. Problem was, I had nowhere to go. I couldn’t go home. What was I gonna tell my parents? I wasn’t going to report back my long list of stupid decisions. I didn’t have any friends locally that I was willing to put in danger. Barry knew where they lived, and he’d already proven that he was ready, willing, and able to beat the crap out of me. My face was killing me. The guy hanging me on the wall made my nose and messed up eyes even worse. Now my eyes were all bloodshot, and I had bruises starting to bloom all over my neck. I was a mess.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I drove over to the other side of town where I never ever went. I drove around in circles. Nobody was following me. I didn’t really have a plan or anything. I stopped at a little diner. There was nobody there. I figured I could use the phone in the back and call around to see if I could at least find a cheap motel to stay in until I could figure out what to do. I wanted to go to the bank and take out all my money, because it is easier than you think to follow someone. Actually, you ladies obviously have that figured out — you’re here.”

  Anna blushed.

  “So, this really nice waitress talked to me. Saw how messed up I was. She helped me. I’m not saying a lot about all them, because I don’t want all this to blow back on them, but I found a job with a nice guy, ex-Marine. He was pissed that any guy would hit me. I didn’t give him all the details right away, but eventually, I told him everything. He was so good to me. Really good. I pretty much lived in a little one-room place, spent my days working on the phone, and hid. I only left my place to buy groceries, and I didn’t even do that for the first few months. The waitress or the guy would bring me everything I needed. I was just too paranoid to even leave the room. But one day I woke up, and I was a little stronger. Then stronger than that, and eventually, I got back on my feet.”

  Carolyn couldn’t help herself. “And what about Barry?”

  “That came a little later. Everything was going good, you know? I’d built myself almost a family. I was at the diner, ’cause the waitress and I were best friends, and it was really busy that day, so she called and asked me if I could come cover a shift for one of the normal wait staff that couldn’t make it in. Sure, no problem. Who walks in the damn door? Barry. What are the chances? It was a little hole in the wall. Catered to the lunch crowd that worked in the immediate area. The chances of him walking into that diner were astronomical. In he walks. I tried to play it cool. I looked completely different than the last time he’d seen me. I wasn’t on any kind of social media anymore. I kept to myself. I figured if I just walked in the back, he wouldn’t see me, and he’d eat and go away. No such luck. It was like I had some kind of magnetic pull. He looked straight at me, and before I could even respond, he was on me. He was choking the shit out of me. He had me on the floor. I was gonna die. No question. Just then, my friend, the Marine guy, he shows up and picks Barry up and throws him across the room. My waitress friend grabs me, and she pulls me out the back door, shoves me in her car, and drives me away. It was all high drama. Later I found out that my friend — please never tell anybody about this; I don’t want to get him in any kind of trouble — but anyway, my friend somehow got all kinds of information out of Barry and put the fear of God in him. I couldn’t take the chance. I moved here. I haven’t heard anything from Barry since. I hope I never do.”

  “That’s it? That can’t be right. There has to be more.”

  “I swear on my life, that’s all I know.”

  “This doesn’t make any sense at all. Gwendolyn, Barry is in prison for multiple domestic dispute cases that culminated in charges of both assault and attempted murder. He waived a trial and pled guilty. We were told that the reason that he did so was that, on the advice of a lovely man named Molly, we mention Pickles and his mother to him. He folded. Why did he do that?”

  “Pickles? So you even know my nickname from high school? You know Molly?”

  Anna nodded.

  “You ladies are too much. Really, I don’t know any more. Maybe Molly does.” Pickles couldn’t hide her amazement that the girls knew so much.

  “Can you set up a meeting with him?”

  Pickles snapped. “You found him once. I’m sure you can talk to him again if you want to.”

  “He has no desire to speak with us.”

  “Neither did I, yet here we are.”

  “Good point. Gwendolyn, please, if you can help us, we will be forever grateful. Barry married my granddaughter.”

  “You’re Suzi Cooper’s grandma?”

  “You knew they married?”

  “Saw it online.”

  Adeline spoke softly. “I thought you were not on any social media.”

  “I’m not. It was in a newspaper announcement. I read the local newspaper all the time to make sure that nobody was doing anything I could recognize as having anything to do with me. I was kind of hoping that one day on the front page there would be a big story about an international porn ring being broken up, which happens a lot more often than you would think, but so far no names that I know. So, yeah, I knew that Barry got married to some girl named Suzi Cooper. I thought it was kind of a weird first name, like it should have been short for something. Suzi.”

  Carolyn blurted, “Why wouldn’t you warn her?”

  “How would I do that and not give myself away? I’m real sorry your granddaughter made the same stupid choices I did, but I have to tell you, I don’t feel guilty about it. I don’t feel bad that I didn’t come out of hiding. Those people could still be looking to kill me. I’m not getting back in the middle of this. No way. You ladies seem to be smart and resourceful. You’ll find a way to help your granddaughter without me in the middle of it. I’m not doing that. No!”

  “Suzi is about to have a baby. I don’t want them in danger, Gwendolyn.”

  “Barry’s baby? At least I’m not stuck raising his kid. That’s one thing I got on my side.” Immediately recognizing her mistake, she said, “Sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

  “That’s okay. I fully understand. Please, if you can help me help her, I’ll be forever grateful.”

  “I got nothing that will help you. I just don’t.”

  Anna kept her voice quiet. “May I ask you some questions?”

  “You can ask me anything you want, and I swear to God I’ll try to give you an honest answer, but I’m not going to put myself back in the middle of problems with Barry. I won’t do that.”

  “Do you prefer Gwendolyn or Pickles?”

  “Most people call me Rachael now. It’s my middle name.”

  “So, Rachael, what can we do to help you?”

  “You don’t have to play that game. I get it. You want to protect her granddaughter and her baby. That’s good. I would hope someone would do the same for me, but you know, you don’t have to play nice with me. I get it.”

  Adeline’s voice was gentle but firm. “I will admit, our offer
is not wholly philanthropic. It is in our best interest to keep you well and happy, but I have been where you are, and if I can help, I would like to do so.”

  “You? Look at you. You’re, like, perfect. You have been like me? I don’t think so.”

  Carolyn was a teacher by training, and personality really, and she just couldn’t understand why a woman that had graduated with honors spoke as if she’d never attended a college class.

  Adeline wasn’t shaken or deterred. “I choose not to share details with anyone but my most intimate confidantes, but I assure you, your choices are not foreign to me, nor is your reaction. Rachael, please tell me what you think our next move should be. If you have no further information, and I see no reason why you would lie to us about that, please tell us who we should speak to next.”

  Anna could only assume that Adeline was playing good cop, which left bad cop to her. Before she could take on that role, Rachael told them.

  “Look. I’m not saying I told you every detail. Every detail isn’t your business. What I’m telling you is that I don’t know anything else that is gonna help your Suzi or her kid. I did what I did. Barry is what he is. That’s all I know.”

  Carolyn asked, “Do you know anything that happened to or with his mother that might be a motivator? I walked into that jail, and at first Barry was beyond arrogant. I told him I wanted him to stay away from my granddaughter and her child. I told him that I knew about his mother, and I knew about you. His jaw hit the floor, but he pled guilty to everything they threw at him, and they threw everything they could think of. He is in prison for a very long time. But now that I have some time to think, I realize that he has just as much time to think, and I must know what it is that he is so afraid of, just in case he decides to call my bluff. I never told him what I know. I just said I knew.”

  “Well, thanks for putting me back in the middle of it.”

  “Molly told me to tell him that I knew about you and his mother. I didn’t know of any of the details.”