The Black Van
Page 2
fact that she said it would be a better place for their new baby to grow up in!
3.
That was now over four years ago and in the meantime he had gotten employment at the Casper electric company, albeit for much less pay than even an engineer fresh out of college would deserve. But the economy was in the beginnings of a slump and the relation of qualified engineers to placements was astronomical. She had started to argue with him about ‘that’s the reason you studied, to make more money than a menial laborer!’ He had thought her bad attitude was due to the hormonal problems during the pregnancy and trying to consol her, had said; “A job is still better than no job!” Their baby was born and at first they were overjoyed with their daughter Janice, ignoring the signs of their marriage going flat. After Janice seemed to be somewhat different than other small babies, they made a visit at the children’s hospital and learned that she was slightly mentally impaired and had autism. The arguments between them and as to whose fault it was that Janice was (as Steven often said, „Stupid”), started. Soon it was an almost daily morning routine and he always pointed out the fact that her side of the family was the crazy ones, not his! Janice finally learned to walk at the age of two and speech was like a race horse still waiting in the starting gates. Sarah excused it due to the fact that Janice was still considered an infant, whereby Steven stated that infant comes from the Latin word ‘Infans’ which meant incapable of speech. That little snide comment resulted in another battle of the sexes. Janice had a little puppet doll made out of scrap cloth that Sarah had tediously sewn for her and it had become her constant comforter. If she didn’t have it in her hands at all times, (even when in the bathtub), then all hell would break loose. Nobody had mentioned to them at the children’s hospital what it would mean to have an autistic child, and what it would mean for them as it continued to wear and tear at their marriage. He was always at work doing overtime which was good for the household budget, but she started to constantly complain that she was always alone with Janice and (his!) dog Spook. Sarah had an aversion towards the dog but the mutt was exactly like the puppet comforter, it always had to be around Janice. Otherwise she would literally go Nuclear until Spook was again by her side. Regardless how many arguments they had about the dog, Janice, and her life as a recluse encroaching upon her, Steven still had no idea what it is like when the dog goes out to shit and Janice wasn’t sleeping at the moment! She had only one person that she could think of as a friend because she was living so far out in nowhere land, and that she had more friends while living in the mountains than she would ever find here.
And at the breakfast table this morning she had thrown it at him that she was better off before she met him, whereby he totally ignored her trying to start another fight. He told her to drive to downtown Casper and get the plastic ball as a birthday present for Janice and then had stormed out the door. She was furious as she jumped up from the chair and ran out onto the front porch to stand next to the lover’s swing which was swaying gently in the morning breeze. She had screamed at him to never ever come back, but before he drove off, he had rolled the window down from his Ford F-150 and in a voice as cold as ice, told her she should take the idiot kid and drive back to her crazy family in the hills. Then he cranked the country music up as loud as he could, rolled the window up so the Air conditioner could do its job in the oppressive morning heat, and spun out of the driveway in a cloud of gravel and dust.
4.
So now she was pulling into the humongous parking lot of the shopping mall in Casper and the heat wave which had started last week was at its apex, pushing the thermometer up to the 104° mark. She hated the heat, the loneliness and her husbands’ miserly way of only saving up their money and not doing anything for enjoyment. She also realized that he hasn’t even touched her in well over two months, not even for sex!
It was already pretty crowded although it was only eleven in the morning, but she found a spot and parked the van, only to look around the seat to Janice and discover that she was deep asleep. Wonderful, simply fantastic! She thought. To wake Janice up and take her out of her beloved car seat would trigger another nuclear attack, and although mentally disabled and autistic, Janice was much larger and stronger for her age than she should be, and she was very capable of busting a lip or slapping hard enough for Sarah to get another black and blue eye! That was another small but very important fact nobody mentioned at the children’s hospital that disabled children often don’t control their muscles. Ergo, when Janice slapped you, it was full force with all the adrenaline her small body could muster up! That and the fact she would also have to attach the leash on Spook while fighting off the attack from Janice, for the dog would have to go with Janice or they would probably be thrown out of the shopping mall for public misbehavior!
My life just sucks, she thought. So she decided to leave them in the car because it would only take a couple of minutes at the most before she would be back, and with the doors locked and Spook in the back, although he was locked in his cage and could only bark, nobody would dare try to steal her daughter. So into the mall she went, and it really did only take a few minutes to get the ball she wanted for Janice. On her way out she saw her one and only friend Katrina, who was getting a small portion of ice cream at the Baskin-Robbins Café. Katrina seen her and called her over, and after small talk, Katrina bought Sarah an ice. Katrina started to wander slowly through the shopping mall and for some reason unknown, Sarah strolled along. The two ate their ice and talked, and it was as if Sarah suddenly had virtual horse blinders on. She was welling in the world of Katrina, who had more than enough money to do splurge shopping, go to the sauna, a fantastic marriage although she had no children yet, and all the other things Sarah was wanting for in her life.
They had already finished their ice and were just rambling slowly through the mall, looking in the store windows and chatting, when Katrina had asked how Janice was getting along. That was when Sarah suddenly came out of the enthralling entrancement of talking to Katrina and cried out; “Oh my god! How long have we been talking because Janice is sitting in the car in the parking lot?” As Sarah started to run towards the exit, Katrina called out for her ‘not to worry because it was only about thirty minutes!’ With that Katrina slowly walked along, not realizing the life threatening situation because she automatically assumed that Steven was waiting in the car with the Air Conditioning on. Had she known different, she would have yelled at her friend that she was going opposite to the direction she was heading when they had met at the Café!
5.
Sarah bolted through the doors of the shopping mall and started running back and forth on the pavement, looking for the black Voyager because she couldn’t remember where she had parked it. Then she seen the automotive shop across from the parking lot and realized that she was on the opposite side of the mall! In her panic, and the shock of coming out of the super cooled shopping mall and running into a veritable wall of heat, she couldn’t think straight and instead of running back through the mall to the opposite side, she started to run around the building.
When she finally came around the last corner of the mall to the parking spaces where her black Voyager was parked, she was on the verge of collapsing from the heat and physical exertion. Then as she ran towards the Voyager, she became manic, for she seen that someone had broken the driver’s side window open and the door by Janice was hanging wide open. From the distance she saw that the baby seat was empty. (Later on she remembers clearly seeing the fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror.) She started to scream and ran even faster, and it was when the police officer walked around the Voyager to see what the screaming was about, that Sarah seen the ambulance through the windows of her car. Now she ran the last few yards in insane blindness and was screaming for Janice, till she made it to the open door where a Police officer then grabbed her by the arms and held her from going around to the other side.
Officer Bernie had already ran the plate number through registration and had all the in
formation he needed, but he wasn’t prepared for what came next from a small woman which had grown up with two older brothers to fight with, as the sudden blast of pain shot up from his genitals into his chest, which of course made him immediately release his grip on the woman. As he went to his knees he had the idea of putting a bullet smack in the middle of the back of her head because he also had a daughter about the same age, and after seeing the poor child, he was already in a state of emotional turmoil. When he managed to get to his wobbly feet, he tried to hurry around to where the emergency medics were already fighting with the mother. They had tried their best to resuscitate her, but she was too long gone, and now they wanted to cover the child’s face before transporting her to the city morgue. When Sarah suddenly swung out and almost cold-cocked one of the Medics for not saving her daughters life, Officer Bernie lost control and blew a circuit. Grabbing Sarah by the back of the neck with one hand and twisting her arm with the other, he body slammed her face down onto the tarmac. With his knee placed in