by Alynn, K. H.
“I can fucking see! And hear!”
It doesn’t take us long to reach Santa Monica, and I make a sharp left onto it, just as another cop comes from the opposite direction—a cop who blocks the road with the body of his vehicle.
“Now what?” Aimee demands, with her hands in front of her face.
I don’t reply. Instead I head onto the wrong side of the road—and now I really have to swerve around traffic.
This causes Aimee to really freak out, and me, too. Fortunately, we quickly reach another intersection, and I hang a left onto the correct side of the road. I also let up on the gas just a bit when I notice no one is chasing us.
Finally, I take a big deep breath—one that’s not nearly big or deep enough.
I DON’T KNOW how long I’ve been driving or even where I am, especially as most of the streets in Los Angeles look exactly the same to me. Though, to be honest, my mind is on everything but the road.
Could I have really killed someone? I ask myself—and without knowing it?
I shake my head, not because I don’t believe it’s possible, but because I don’t want to believe it. I also know that it’s just way too much of a coincidence that I’m finding out about these charges on the same day I discover I’m supposedly a prince.
Prince.
The word is so ridiculous to me that I want to laugh. I’m the last person who could ever be a prince. I’m nothing but a poor shit from South Boston—a shit who’s never even graduated high school. What’s more, I know who my parents are—and neither one is fucking Prince Charles. My mother, her name is Angela—and my father was named Donald, and he was in the Marines.
I repeat these facts over and over in my head, trying to cement them there—trying to make them so solid that nothing can shake them out.
There’s no such person as Donald Stuart.
It’s not true! I yell at myself. I’ve seen pictures of him. I’ve seen the medals he got—and my Uncle Billy has told me shitloads of stories about him. It can’t all be a lie. It just can’t!
“Where we going?” Aimee asks, and I just now remember she’s in the car with me.
“I don’t know,” I tell her.
“You must have some idea.”
“Do I look like I have some idea?”
“Maybe—”
“—Listen, maybe this is a good time for us to part ways. I’ll drop you off wherever you want.”
“I’ve got no place to go!”
“That’s not my fault!”
“Fine! Just drop me off at the corner.”
“Here?”
“I’ll even give you back your fucking shirt!”
“I don’t want . . .”
I can’t finish my thought. I can’t because it’s interrupted by the sound of a helicopter—and I glance up and see that it’s following us.
Angrily, I slam my fist against the steering wheel. Actually, I slam both of them.
“Now what?” Aimee cries out, and I point upward. She then looks out the window and says, “How do we get away from that?”
“We don’t,” I reply.
Still I pound my foot on the gas, and we speed forward, and I again start swerving through traffic, just as I begin hearing the sounds of sirens in the near distance.
I try to ignore them—and I also run a red light, which leads to a car fishtailing into my door as it tries to not crash into us. But I keep moving, though now without a side-view mirror.
However, I don’t have long to think about this, because something smashes through the rear window—a bullet—one that takes a small piece of my shoulder with it before shattering the windshield.
Uncontrollably, Aimee screams over and over, and I want to scream with her just as uncontrollably, especially as I really didn’t need any more pain. But instead—after checking the police car behind us—I make a hard right, which is difficult because I’m not exactly in the right lane. I have to cutoff the car next to me, which in turn rips apart one of my taillights.
“They’re shooting at us!” Aimee hysterically hollers.
“I can see that!” I hysterically holler back.
“Why?”
“I told you—they think I’m some fucking prince!”
“They shoot princes?”
“They, they think I’ve committed some crimes, too.”
“Have you?”
“Not lately.”
“Mark.”
“And not the ones they’re thinking. It was all penny-ante shit. I’m a penny-ante shit!”
“Mark.”
“I’m telling you it’s bullshit! I’m not wanted for anything. At least I wasn’t until this morning.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure! I’m fucking sure!”
“You’re shot,” she says, as she gently touches my wound.
“It’s nothing,” I tell her, and I push her arm away.
Just then another bullet flies into the car, this time through both my side window and hers.
“Get down!” I scream at her, and she falls to the floor. At the same time, I turn to my left and see a cop aiming a rifle right at my head.
Instantly, I hit the brakes—and a bullet flies into a store window across the street, smashing it apart. I’m now behind the police car, and I move into its lane and speed forward—rear-ending it and sending it into another car as I make a quick left into an alley.
Of course, the helicopter is still following us—and I know it won’t be long before there are more cops—lots more.
“I’ve seen many police chases on TV,” Aimee says, with fear drenching her voice as she cowers on the floor. “They never shoot at the people they are chasing. Never. They just follow them.”
“Well, they’re shooting! They’re fucking shooting!”
“Can I, can I get up?”
I don’t answer. But she sits up anyway. And I glance at her.
She’s beautiful. I mean, she’s really fucking beautiful. Her face, her body. She’s more beautiful than this morning or even yesterday when I was shitfaced. I know—I know this should be the last thing I should be thinking about, but it’s all I’m thinking about.
“What?” she mutters, looking at me with eyes that drive me crazy. They drive me so crazy that I have to turn from her—causing me to scrape the side of the car against a dumpster.
But still I think about her.
I want her, too. I want her so badly. I want to be inside her. I want her arms and legs around me. I want her nails digging into my back. I wanna be slamming myself into her!
“What’s wrong?” she demands, after gripping my thigh—which makes me jump a bit. It also makes me hard—so hard that I’m certain my pants are gonna split open at any moment.
To make things somehow worse, she starts caressing my leg, and I can’t help look at her—and I see her nipples piercing through that shirt of mine. I even reach my mouth toward them.
“Look out!” she screams, and I spin my head forward and see two police cars blocking the way—and I come to a halt. Barely.
Then, I speed backward, and notice another police car across the road, a short distance from us. So, I turn left onto a driveway, which leads to another street—and I speed down this one.
“We can’t keep doing this,” she calmly tells me, with her hand still on my thigh.
“Can you let go of me?” I beg. Actually, I plead.
She does, but this makes me feel worse. It makes me feel so worse. I don’t want her to stop touching me—and I don’t want her to go anywhere. And this scares me. It strangely scares me even more than the cops.
As for them, they’re nowhere in sight. But I can hear them all around me, along with the helicopter above. They sound like they’re everywhere. Fucking everywhere at once.
Quickly, I make a right, and I see something—a large and busy shopping mall up the block. Which gives me just a little hope, and an idea. It’s probably a terrible one, but it’s the only one I got—so I turn onto the parking lot.
Almost immediately, cars are behind me and in front of me—and parked ones are to both sides of me. So, for the moment I’m safe from the police, apart from those in the air, who, of course, are still hovering.
“What are you doing?” Aimee screeches.
“I’m not sure,” I tell her.
“You’re not sure?”
As she says this, I find what I’m looking for: an underground garage a short distance away—and I head toward it as fast as I can.
“Mark—” she utters.
“—Just shut up!” I yell, and we reach the entrance and slowly start down a winding lane.
While we do, I look back through the broken window, and I see there are lots of cars behind me—but none of them belong to the police. And this makes me take another of those big deep breaths.
WE REACH THE end of the lane and come up to one of those automated ticket booths, and I punch a lit button that says “Press.”
Instantly, a ticket plops out and the gate in front of us opens—and we pass through it. Then I make a quick stop and a partial K-turn, and park across the gate.
“Now what are you doing?” Aimee shrieks.
“Just get out of the car,” I tell her.
“How?” she screams, while pointing at her busted door.
So we both get out of mine—right before I lock the car and notice that the front of my pants are wet—something I hope Aimee doesn’t see.
Fortunately, she’s only looking at my wound, and, after yanking off her jacket, she hands it to me.
“What’s this for?” I holler.
“Put it over your shoulder!” she hollers back.
I do, just as the guy in the car behind us shouts, “Hey, buddy!”
“Fuck off!” I shout back.
“Isn’t he,” comes another male voice a little farther back, “isn’t he that prince guy?”
Hurriedly, I take Aimee by the arm, and, with even greater hurry, I lead her away—trying as best I can to hide my face behind her head.
“You can’t just leave your car there!” someone screams.
“I just did, asshole!” I scream back—and Aimee and I rush toward the mall entrance.
“Now what?” Aimee asks.
“We go inside the mall and act like any other couple doing their shopping,” I reply.
“And then what?”
“Then, once we’re outside, we go our own separate ways. For good.”
“Yeah, sure,” she utters with a chuckle.
“What do you mean?” I blurt out.
“You don’t want me to go nowhere.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Your pants.”
With great embarrassment, I turn away from her—and she chuckles again.
“Besides, you need me for a lot more than that,” she adds.
“I need you for what?” I growl, despite knowing it was the truth.
“You saw how that guy recognized you.”
“So?”
“I can help you.”
“How?”
“For starters, I can check us into a motel.”
“Have you forgotten you’re wanted, too?”
“But no one’s recognized me. I, I can buy all sorts of things for us, like food and clothes. I can also take care of that wound of yours, and others you may get. There are lots of things I can do for you, especially as you need someone with brains.”
“Are you trying to say I don’t have any?”
“You could use some more.”
“Fuck you.”
“You need me even more than I need you.”
“The answer’s no!”
She doesn’t answer my answer, but I know it’s not because she accepts it. She’s even grinning.
WE’RE INSIDE THE mall, heading toward an exit leading to a street. I can see lots of daylight through the plate glass, and can also see freedom, even if it’s just a little of it.
Suddenly, alarms ring out throughout the mall—and a metal gate starts closing in front of the exit.
“Come on!” I howl—and I grab Aimee’s hand and we run. We run hard, but we’re still a dozen steps away, with the gate now more than halfway closed.
“Faster!” I scream, and I burst forward, dragging her with me.
Finally, we get to the door, and dive under the gate—and I can feel the metal scraping my back, shooting pain all over me. But we get through it. We get through it and jump to our feet—and I see police cars everywhere in the road just ahead. Though they don’t seem to notice us.
“We need to hide somewhere,” I tell Aimee.
She looks around and points to a Walgreens down the road—and she calls out, “There!”
chapter seven
Aimee
MARK AND I trudge through the large but mostly empty drugstore together. Like in the mall, he has his arm tightly around me and he’s leaning in toward me.
I know he’s only doing this to cover his face, but I don’t care why he’s doing it. It feels good, and I don’t want him to stop.
Though he has to when two small yelling kids run right through us. At the same time, we reach a set of aisles—and I see that one has first-aid stuff, while the other has dental items. And I tell Mark: “I’ll get some bandages. Why don’t you get us a couple of toothbrushes and toothpaste. I like Colgate Total Enamel.”
“We shouldn’t split apart,” he insists.
“You were so eager to get rid of me a couple of minutes ago,” I retort.
He has no answer for this. He just sighs.
“Besides,” I add, “it’s just a few feet, and there’s nobody around.”
Still he’s hesitant.
“Come on,” I plead—and he sighs again. But he also plods down the aisle, and I quickly head for the bandages.
Once in front of them, I pause awhile as I carefully scan the boxes, before grabbing one, which I toss into my shopping basket. Then, even more carefully, I scan some nearby bottles, prior to selecting a big one of hydrogen peroxide, which I know will be useful for more than just cleaning Mark’s wound.
Afterward, I rush over to Mark, who’s looking at the toothpaste, and I put my arm around him—and again feel good.
“You get it?” I ask.
“What?” he replies.
“The toothpaste.”
“I’m looking.”
I look, too, and see that he’s nowhere near the Colgate section.
“What are you doing?” I demand.
“I’m looking for your fucking toothpaste!” he quietly howls.
I respond by dragging him to the Colgate products and saying, “It’s here.”
“Oh,” he mutters.
“Is there something wrong with your eyes?”
“No.”
Though I’m not so certain, so I wave my hand across his face, and I can see he’s telling the truth. But I still don’t understand what’s wrong—and I anxiously express this.
“Nothing’s wrong,” he barks.
“All right, then pick out my toothpaste.”
“You pick it out!”
“Mark.”
“What?”
“What-is-wrong?”
He doesn’t answer. He just turns from me—and I caress his arm and murmur, “Mark, if you’re having some kind of problem, you have to tell me. If something affects you, it affects me, too.”
“You were right before,” he finally mumbles, with yet another sigh—this one much longer and bigger than his previous ones.
“Right about what?” I say to him.
“When you said I was dumb.”
“I was just kidding.”
“It’s the truth, though.”
“It’s not. You outwitted all those cops back there. How many people could’ve done that? I certainly couldn’t’ve done it—and I supposedly have a high IQ.”
“I can’t . . .”
“You can’t what?”
“I can’t read too good.”
“Wh
at?” I mutter, while recalling having a conversation like this before, many years earlier.
“You heard me,” he growls.
“Mark—”
“—I can read a little. Numbers and some street signs, and simple words like my name. But “Colgate” and “enamel” . . .
Understanding exactly what he’s feeling, I try putting my arms around him—but he just pushes me away.
“It’s okay,” I whisper.
“It’s not okay,” he softly cries. “It’s not fucking okay. 22 years old and I can barely read.”
“What if, what if I were to tell you I couldn’t read at all until I was ten?”
I THOUGHT MY mom would eventually give up trying to read Tom Jones with me, but she persisted. Every night after she tucked me into bed she took out the book, and I soon ran out of excuses.
“What’s wrong?” she sweetly asked when I turned from her with my arms crossed.
But I wouldn’t tell her. I wouldn’t tell her anything. Not even when she put her hands on my shoulders and asked again and again.
“Leave me alone!” I yelled, after pulling away from her.
“It’s too late for that,” she told me. “Way too late.”
“It’s not. You can take me back.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“Because I’m a dummy!” I screamed, with tears forming in my eyes.
“You’re not.”
“I am! And I don’t want to live here anymore!”
“What are you talking about?”
“Everybody here is smart but me.”
“You’re as smart as anyone here, including me.”
“I’m not!” I yelled, with tears now streaming down my face.
Without hesitation, my mother took me into her arms, and she kissed me, and she wouldn’t let go no matter how hard I struggled. And finally I told her the truth—the truth I had told no one before. I told her how I couldn’t even read letters right, and how most of the things I learned came from old movies, like Tom Jones.
“Whatever your problem is,” she whispered, “we’ll fix it. We’ll fix it together. I promise you.”
She kept her promise. The very next morning she took off from work and took me to a slew of doctors—and they discovered I had dyslexia. Then, she not only arranged for special classes at school but also hired tutors—and, most importantly, she spent hours every night patiently reading with me. Even when she was out-of-town she found the time to read with me over the phone.