Together We Will Go
Page 2
* * *
Dylan keeps circling the pickup location, worried that this is a setup, that the cops are waiting for us. I tell him it’ll be okay. Not sure I trust this myself. But there’s only one way to find out.
She was waiting on the corner when we pulled up. Five two, thin, pale, with light brown hair. She was pulling a pink suitcase and when she got in she said her name was Karen and I gave her the release form. She read it over several times, like she was buying a car, then signed and uploaded it. As we took off, I peeked at the server long enough to see a last name—Ortiz—then logged out until and unless she says it’s okay to look. Since then she’s been sitting in the front seat without saying a word. As far as I can tell, she hasn’t started writing her story or anything else—she’s just staring out the windshield, purse wrapped around one arm, the other resting on her suitcase. When I offered her a beer from the locker, she just shook her head, eyes locked onto the view outside.
So far, not exactly a party.
* * *
When we stopped to get something to eat, Karen went ahead of us, still silent, still pulling her suitcase.
“I think we ought to ditch her,” I told Dylan.
I figured he’d be all over the idea. Instead he shook his head and said, “No.”
Since meeting him for the first time back in Miami, I’ve come to the conclusion that Dylan’s one of those guys who always seems to know more than you think. He’s a big guy, about six four and stocky, with a sandy-colored buzz cut, the kind of guy you’d expect to be big and loud and trying to dominate every conversation, but most of the time he just lies back real quiet, until you’ve pretty much forgotten he’s there, then he drops in the most unexpected comments. That’s how I found out he did two tours of duty in Afghanistan, which explains his The Army Made Me Build Up All These Muscles So I Could Destroy Things But Now That I’m Home I Don’t Know What to Do With Them So I’ll Let Them Go a Little Soft Around the Edges But Keep the Rest Around Just in Case There’s Trouble body type. After his discharge, he came back to Florida to do odd jobs and spend two weekends a month playing poker in the casinos. He thinks he can make a living at it someday. He’s probably right.
So when he vetoed the idea of ditching Karen, I asked him why.
“Mark, look at us. We’re two guys picking up people who don’t want to live anymore and nobody would miss, driving a beat-up old bus that looks like a goddamn rape/murder van. She’s probably scared shitless. Yeah, she says she wants to die, and maybe that’s true, but you can bet your ass she doesn’t want to get tortured on the way.”
“So why’d she get on the bus?”
Dylan glanced ahead to the restaurant, where Karen was talking to the hostess. “I don’t know, Mark. Maybe she wants to believe this is really what you said it was, and maybe she doesn’t have anywhere else to go. All is know is what I saw in the mirror when she was staring out the window. She’s lost. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody that lost. I think we’re her last chance to get out clean. But she’s scared.”
“So what do you want me to do about it? Tell her I’m safe? Like that’ll work. It’s just what a serial killer would say.”
“Then let’s be honest about it and tell her we can see she’s uncomfortable, like maybe she’s having second thoughts or she’s not sure about us, which is understandable. Before she got on the bus this was just an idea, but now it’s real and that’s a big jump and we want her to feel safe, so after dinner we’ll leave on our own, drive around for a while, then circle back. That way we won’t be able to see where she goes if she decides to split, and she’ll know we’re not trying to control her or force her into anything. If she wants to come with us, she’ll be here when we come back. If not, not.”
“Okay,” I said, “but if this was a casino, I wouldn’t bet on her sticking around.”
Update: Two hours later.
Now I understand why Dylan bets smarter than I do at the casinos.
* * *
Username: Karen_Ortiz
My name is Karen Ortiz. I’m 26. Mark said I should feel free to write about my family, but there’s not really much to say. We were pretty ordinary. Craziest thing I ever did was get on this bus, so I guess it’s never too late to lose your mind lol. We lived in Jacksonville, Florida, before moving to Orlando a few years ago. I went to an okay high school, got asked to a couple of dances, tried out for cheer and debate. First kiss at sixteen. That’s also when the pain started.
At first I thought it was just a really rough period but the pain didn’t go away, it just got worse. I could feel it in my stomach, arms and legs, then all the way into my feet and fingers. I couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t find a position where I didn’t hurt. I cried all the time. When our doctor couldn’t find anything wrong, he said I was faking it to get attention.
Finally my dad took me to a specialist who did an MRI and a bunch of other tests and said I had pain amplification syndrome related to arachnoiditis. It means there’s a short circuit between my brain/spinal cord and the rest of my body that creates a feedback loop of constant agony. The pain signal bounces back and forth like two mirrors facing each other, getting stronger each time it’s reflected back. If I don’t move at all the pain is bearable, but if I shift position in a chair or touch something or someone touches me, it’s just awful. Screaming-level awful. If you ever got a charley horse, or pulled a muscle so bad you couldn’t move, that’s what it feels like but instead of staying in one place it spreads out into the rest of your body until you’re one huge ball of pain and it goes on and on for hours or days.
Rather than calling it arachnoiditis, I started calling it the Spider, because at night when I’m trying to sleep it’s like I can feel it laying eggs in my spine, chewing on the nerves in my body and eating me alive from the inside out. My periods became blackout painful and kept me in bed for days at a time, constantly crying. It got so bad that my parents agreed to let me get a partial hysterectomy, which helped with the pain and I could never survive having a kid anyway.
One of the hardest parts—other than everything—is that once we figured out what the problem was, nobody knew how to deal with it, or me. When somebody at school gets sick, people can say Oh, I’m so sorry or Hope you feel better soon because sooner or later you will. But when they know it’s never going to change, they can’t keep saying I’m sorry or Tomorrow you’ll be better because they know it’s not true, so after a while they say nothing at all. Nobody comes to sit with you at lunch, or invites you to parties (which I couldn’t go to anyway)… you can feel everyone looking at you, but they never come close.
After graduating high school, everyone I knew went on to college but I hardly ever left home. I spent most of my time in my room, half-asleep from antidepressants and painkillers, trying to take online classes, sleeping or watching television and trying not to move. The doctors kept saying, You have to hold on, there are some new treatments coming. But they never showed up.
When I turned twenty-one and a bunch of my former friends graduated college, I decided to do the same, but different. See, there’s a distinction between suicidal ideation and suicidal attempts, SI versus SA, as doctors like to say. Suicidal ideation was when I’d think about how much easier it would be for me and everyone else if I was dead, but I wasn’t ready to actually do it until the day I was in bed watching online as everyone I knew from high school walked onto the stage and picked up their diplomas, jumping around and yelling and throwing their caps in the air and I said that’s enough, you know, it’s just enough and I graduated from SI to SA by chowing down on sleeping pills, except I didn’t do it right and ended up getting my stomach pumped, then spent six months getting outpatient psychiatric treatment. They put me on more meds. I slept a lot. Watched more TV. After a while I couldn’t tell if I was sleeping, dreaming, watching TV, or dreaming about watching TV.
Nothing made the pain go away. So a year later I tried to kill myself again. I just flat-out attacked the Spider. I could
feel it crawling through my arms and legs and I snapped and grabbed a knife and started tearing into my skin but the amplified pain was more than I could handle and I passed out. Woke up in the hospital, my arms tied to the bed, leading to more observation, more treatment, more meds, and more depression.
After that, I kind of shut down. I don’t remember much of the last few years. I’ve never traveled. Never had a boyfriend because I creep out the boys; they don’t know how to talk to me and they’re worried they’ll hurt me if they kiss too hard, so whatever mental boner is required for more than that goes limp. I’ve never had sex, never even had an orgasm until I realized I can’t climax from outside stimulation alone. It took a dozen tries before I could get a vibrator deep enough inside to fix the problem. At first I was afraid of passing out from the pain and having my folks walk in to find me sprawled over the bed with a buzzer in my bush, but eventually we became good friends.
The rest of the time, it’s just me and the Spider, waiting for the right moment to walk off the earth together.
When I saw the notice on homepageads.com, I thought this might be a good way to see some of the world before I leave it. I like the idea of being with people who’ve made the same decision I have, who understand that when I say I want to kill myself I’m not acting out or being dramatic, that I’m not saying something bad, just something inevitable, and won’t try to talk me out of it. There’s something nice about being just one more rider on a bus that’s taking us all to the same place.
I was a little nervous when I got on because Dylan’s a big guy, and Mark looks like somebody’s twitchy, resentful ex-boyfriend, short and skinny with a pinched face under a big tangle of curly black hair. Whenever I glanced over at him, he looked like he was thinking about something very serious and I couldn’t tell if he was having some deep writer thoughts (at least he said he’s a writer) or working out where to hide my body once they were done with it, but so far they seem safe, so I think I made the right choice.
To be honest: I’m scared. But I’m also more alive than I’ve been in ages, which is kind of ironic considering why I’m here. So I guess we’ll see what happens.
I don’t mind dying. I want to get it over with so I can finally kill the fucking Spider. But like Dylan said at dinner, I just don’t want to be murdered.
Different things, you know?
* * *
AdminMark
When I first came up with the idea for this road trip, I knew the only way it could work was by keeping a low profile. Just stick to the map, pick up whoever’s waiting to be picked up, then get the hell out of town. Nobody makes a scene, no trouble, no police.
I don’t think Dylan got the memo.
By the time we crossed into Brunswick, Georgia, we’d been driving for almost nine hours. I hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, worrying if the bus would be ready in time, so I was tapped out and we decided to call it a day. Simplest thing would’ve been to sleep in the bus, but if everything goes the way it’s supposed to, pretty soon there’ll be too many of us to crash out at motels without drawing attention. Since there’s only three of us for now, I told Dylan to pull over at a Motel 6.
Karen went in first while Dylan and I locked down the bus. We’d just finished up and were heading for the motel when we passed this fat guy in an old denim jacket and a Metallica ball cap standing by his car in the parking lot, yelling at his girlfriend. He was right up in her face, drunk out of his mind, saying she was stupid and a whore and he ought to punch her face in. She was crying, tears and snot running down her face, saying she was sorry for whatever the hell she’d done to piss him off, but that only made him madder. Then he slapped her, hard. Backhanded the shit out of her, whap!
And Dylan stopped. Stared at the guy. Eye-fucking him.
The guy felt it. Shit, he’d have felt a look like that on the other side of the planet.
“What’re you staring at, asshole?”
“A coward,” Dylan said. “Only a coward hits a woman.”
Shit, I thought, we don’t need this. “C’mon, man, let it go.”
The guy pushed his woman back against the car and started toward Dylan. “You mouthing off at me, you prick? You saying I’m a coward?”
“Hey, if the yellow fits, right?”
“I’ll kick your ass, faggot!”
He swung at Dylan, but D leaned out of it, smacked his arm from behind as it went past, then shoved the guy back against the car like he wasn’t even trying, like he didn’t have to try.
But now the guy’s even more batshit angry and he came back at Dylan all out of control, fists swinging like a big fat pinwheel, but Dylan got under the swing and hit him in the stomach so hard so fast the only way I knew he hit him twice was by the sound the fat guy’s gut made when he got hit, all floppy and slappy as the air got knocked out of him.
He backed up for another swing, but D punched him in the face and he went down like the house that pancaked the witch in The Wizard of Oz.
And of course now the girlfriend gets all up in D’s face, yelling at him and telling him to mind his own business and now it’s just going to be worse and who the hell does he think he is, anyway?
Then she helped Shamu into the passenger seat, climbed in behind the wheel, and drove off, tires spitting gravel.
Once the taillights had blinked out around the corner I looked over at Dylan. “You know we’re gonna have to get another motel now, right? Because he’s either gonna call the cops or come back with some friends.”
He nodded. Shrugged. It’s what he does when he doesn’t know what else to say.
“Why the fuck did you do that?” I asked.
“Had to,” he said, and that was that.
We turned as Karen came up behind us. “Good thing I checked to see where you were before I put down my credit card.” It was the most she’d said at one time since getting on the bus. “You’re right, we should go.”
Twenty minutes later we checked into an Embassy Suites up by Dock Junction. As he headed off to his room, Dylan promised it wouldn’t happen again.
But I’d seen his eyes when it all went down. Whatever’s in there, wrapped around his brain like a snake, it’s not going away tomorrow or the next day, and it doesn’t give a shit about promises.
* * *
Karen_Ortiz
From: Mom TracyOrtiz@mountainview.com
To: Me KOrtiz2019@simrose.com
Subject: You okay?
Karen, I just got a call from Sheryl who said she went by your apartment but you weren’t there and nobody’s seen or heard from you in a couple of days. She said there was mail and a package on your porch that looked like it had been there for a while. I tried calling but it kept going to voicemail so I wanted to leave word here in case you were out of cell reach or you’d lost your phone (again). I don’t need to know what you’re up to or where you are, I just want to make sure you’re all right, so if you get this or any of my messages, give me a call so I know you’re okay. You know how I worry.
Love you.
Mom
* * *
AdminMark
When I was in junior high, too old for a babysitter but bound to get into trouble if I was left alone, my folks took me with them on a trip to New York. As my dad and I checked in at the front desk, my mom waited outside by the car, watching the porters to make sure nobody stole anything, because apparently she thought that was a thing. As my father signed us in, the desk clerk said, “Do you have any baggage?”
“Yeah,” he said, and nodded toward the entrance. “She’s outside with the luggage.”
Yeah, my dad turned into kind of a jerk, but he could be funny when he wanted to.
Also, persistent. Viz:
PHONE 8:27 AM
MY NUMBERS DAD
Missed Call and Voicemail
PHONE 10:13 AM
MY NUMBERS DAD
Missed Call and Voicemail
PHONE 1:23 PM
MY NUMBE
RS DAD
Missed Call
* * *
Karen_Ortiz
To: Dr. Tom TPowell@RidgeMedical.org
From: Me KOrtiz2019@simrose.com
Subject: Checking In
Hey, Dr. Tom! Long time no email!
I wanted to touch base because I thought of you earlier today and realized that I never thanked you, or at least never thanked you enough, for what you did for me. You were the first doctor who ever treated me like I was an adult who could understand what you were saying, and that I didn’t need you to make the truth soft. You didn’t lie to me. I hated it but I needed it.
You worked so hard to try and help me. I hope you won’t think this is silly, but sometimes I thought of you as Samwise Gamgee climbing up the side of a mountain with your bare hands to kill the giant spider and save me. (Obviously I was playing the role of Frodo for purposes of this story, and yes, I’ve seen the movies a lot.) Of course I knew you wouldn’t be able to kill it no matter how hard you tried, but I never blamed you because this isn’t a movie, and not everything works out in the end.
But that’s not why I’m writing.
I wanted to tell you that I appreciate everything you did for me, every battle you fought, every truth you told, every time you let me cry in your office and never tried to stop me or look at your watch like you had somewhere else to be. You loaned me your courage when I didn’t have any, like training wheels that kept me going until I could find some of my own. That meant so much to me. You have no idea. I’m proud to say that a little piece of your courage is still with me. Guiding me.
No matter where I go, or what happens in the future, I want you to know that I know you did everything you could. Thank you.
Be well.
K.