Hashimoto Blues

by Sarah Dupeyron

  I shrugged. “I should land soon or we’ll run out of fuel.”

  He gave me a cynical look. “Let’s not do that again.”

  I could see a fairly large town below and decided that was as good a place as any to land. There was a field just outside of the busy downtown area with enough people around we could get a ride or steal a car. With my broken leg, I was in no shape to hike through the woods again.

  “What are you going to do with the plane once we land?”

  “Um, that’s a good question.” I hadn’t thought that far ahead. “Shit, what am I going to do with it?”

  “Get us on the ground first. We’ll worry about that after.”

  The plane glided down to the field below where several cows were out grazing in the late afternoon sunlight. They curiously looked up as we touched down, not spooked by the buzz of the engine. I steered to the edge of the pasture and cut the motor.

  “Here we are!”

  “Where ever that is. Do you want me to walk around, see if I can find us some transport?”

  “Hold on. We have company.”

  A tractor driven by a suntanned farmer was approaching over the bumpy ground. I eased myself out of the cockpit, propped my crutches into the crooks of my armpits, and limped in the farmer’s direction. He stopped the tractor and jumped down from the seat.

  “Hi!” I said, giving him a friendly wave. “I’m sorry I landed in your field.”

  “What is that?” he asked, lifting off his green John Deere cap and scratching his thinning blond hair. “Some kind of airplane?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s an ultralight. We’re a little low on fuel and I had to land.”

  “Well, I’ll be!” He didn’t seem phased by our appearance, only intrigued by Pappy Volant. He stood on his tiptoes and examined the workings.

  “We’re sorry to intrude on you like this,” Max said.

  The farmer looked startled, as if he just realized Max was there. He looked us both up and down, noticing our battered state. “What happened to you? Crash this thing or something?”

  “Ah, well, um, yes,” Max answered then grinned. “Ellie is usually pretty cautious but we had a little mishap last week. That’s why she got nervous and landed here instead of someplace we know.”

  The farmer nodded. “You need fuel or something?”

  “Actually,” I said, realizing this could be the solution to our issue of where to keep the plane, “you wouldn’t happen to have space in your barn we could store it for a few days? I’ll pay you.”

  He nodded again. “Yeah, I can do that.”

  After successfully storing my plane, the farmer offered to drive us into town. We accepted his kindness and had him drop us off at a Chinese restaurant with a beautiful view overlooking the river. As we ate dumplings and rice, we talked about what to do next.

  “I think we should steal a car and get as far from Vermont as possible,” I said.

  “Where do you want to go? Any place in mind?”

  “We could drive out to California where Raphael is staying. He could help us set up.”

  “No way. I don’t want to go anywhere someone could potentially guess. At this point, I’m a little paranoid and I don’t know who knows what.”

  “So, do you have any suggestions?”

  “No.” He shrugged. “Let’s just find a car and drive. We’ll play it by ear.”

  Out in the parking lot, I let my backpack fall to the ground next to an older Honda Civic. I picked the lock and hotwired the engine. I threw my stuff in the backseat and we pulled out of the parking space in time to see a very angry woman running towards us, arms flapping about, screaming, “Stop! That’s my car!”

  “Shit,” I mumbled and gunned the engine, pulling out onto the street a little too close to an oncoming truck. He blared his horn and I flipped him the bird.

  We motored down the hill and into town. Passing a police cruiser headed in the opposite direction with its lights on, I knew they would be looking for us in a matter of minutes and resisted the urge to drive faster.

  An old-fashioned sign on the right declared, “Welcome to Bellows Falls” and just after it, almost hidden by the larger sign, a small sign read Amtrak station. As if the timing were planned out, I heard a train whistle. Knowing the car was compromised, I decided a new mode of transport was in order.

  “Change of plans. We’re taking the train.” Following another Amtrak sign, I took a sharp left that dipped down behind the main street and ran along the river. We crossed a bridge onto an island where the train station was located.

  I parked the car and grabbed my stuff, then headed to the station to buy tickets. Before I could reach the door, Max grabbed my arm and shook his head.

  “What? I was going to buy tickets,” I said.

  “No tickets. We’ll just sneak on the train,” Max said.

  “What happens when the conductor goes by and asks for tickets?”

  “Have you ever taken a train before?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “If we were in Penn Station in New York, we’d probably have to show our tickets just to get on the platform, but in a rinky-dink station like this, there’s no one to check your tickets until you’re already sitting down, sometimes a long time after the train’s left the station. When they do take your tickets, they leave a stub over your seat so the conductor knows he’s checked yours. He punches a hole over your destination. All we have to do is swipe someone else’s stubs and put them over our seats. Simple. We just have to make sure it’s a southbound train, not north. The last thing we need is to end up back in Montreal.”

  I looked at his face, taking in the bandaged eye and cuts and bruises, then, looked at my own broken leg and crutches. “Don’t you think we stand out a little too much? The conductor will remember he hasn’t seen us.”

  “If we do get caught, we say the stub was already there and we buy tickets on board. They do that, you know, sell them on board after departure. I’d rather keep what money we have, so it’s worth a shot, but we can cover our tracks if we have to.”

  I nodded in agreement just as the train pulled into the station. Several doors opened and we boarded on the far end, away from the other three passengers.

  We settled into a pair of seats and Max disappeared for a moment, coming back with two ticket stubs he tucked into the railing above our seats. When he sat down, he hunched low and curled in on himself as if he were sleeping, turning away from the aisle and leaning on me. I understood his form of camouflage and I did the same, folding myself over his body and closing my eyes, making us look like a couple who had been riding for several hours, cuddled with each other for comfort.

  The conductor scratched his sizable belly as he ambled up the aisle. He was on the far side of middle-aged with curly red hair that poked out from under his navy blue cap and his round face sported a scruffy goatee. With barely a glance at our ticket stubs, he passed by, yawning and looking absolutely bored with his job. Max was right – it was simple.

  33.

  Two days of rolling south, chugging down the rails in a cramped train seat, had taken its toll on both of us. We were cranky and stiff, starving for real food instead of the pre-packaged crap they sold in the dining car, and dying for a shower.

  I opened a package of crackers and passed them to Max. He took one, shoved it in his mouth, and looked out the window.

  “You’re welcome,” I said pointedly.

  He turned and glared at me. I was about to add that he didn’t need to be rude, but I could feel my own foul mood displayed in the set of my mouth and the look on his face mirrored mine, making me think twice. The last thing we needed was to have an argument over crackers.

  Obviously, he had the same thought and mumbled, “Thanks.”

  The train made another stop for passengers to board and exit. A happy couple moved into the seats next to ours. They were young, I guessed only a year or two older than we were, and obviously in love. They kept making eyes at each other and
kissing. As I watched them, I realized they were newly weds, heading off for a honeymoon.

  As the train pulled out of the station, I observed the two lovebirds, making them my on-board entertainment. The woman flipped her curly dark hair over her shoulder, hair that closely resembled my own, and leaned into her groom, whispering something in his ear. She playfully boinked the bill of his baseball cap, then pulled his glasses right off his nose and kissed him. He embraced her and said. “I love you, Lisa.”

  She yanked her body away from his and glared at him.

  “What did you just call me?” she shouted.

  “Lisa . . . “ The dawning horror on his face told me the whole story. Apparently, her name wasn’t Lisa.

  “You’re still thinking of that bitch! We got married yesterday and you can’t even get my name right!”

  He kept his voice low and tried to explain himself, but it didn’t cut it. The next thing I knew, she was crying.

  “You cheated on me! You fucking bastard!”

  A screaming match ensued, both of them getting red-faced as the argument heated up. Few of the other passengers seemed to notice.

  At the next stop, the woman got up and dashed down the aisle and out the door. The man hurried after her. He caught up to her on the platform and grabbed her by the arm to stop her. She turned and slapped him hard across the face, then bolted to the road, hailing a cab. He glanced back at the train, as if remembering their belongings and trying to decide what was more important, then ran in the same direction.

  The whistle blew and the train started to roll down the tracks, leaving without two of its passengers but stealing away with their luggage on board. I glanced at their tickets: Miami. Our tickets would take us only two more stops, leaving us somewhere in central Florida, a place neither of us had visited before and knew very little about. We didn’t have any plans once we got there. Miami would give us a lot more options.

  “Let’s switch seats,” I whispered to Max with a grin and pointed to the now-vacant spots. We slid ourselves across the aisle and took over our new seats. Max grabbed the smallest of the three bags from the overhead storage and handed it to me. I riffled through it to see if there was anything useful. The couple both matched us close enough in size that we could snag their clean clothes and finally change. I could smell myself and it wasn’t pleasant.

  As I was pawing through the contents, I heard a strange buzzing coming from underneath a silk scarf. I hesitated to look, not sure I wanted to find the woman’s vibrator. Using the scarf so I wouldn’t have to touch it, I dug it out and was relieved to find it wasn’t what I thought. It was a pink razor with a battery-operated trimmer on the end of the handle. I had accidentally switched it on as I was searching.

  “What the hell is that?” Max asked.

  “It’s for trimming,” I answered.

  “Trimming? Trimming what?”

  “What do you think?”

  His expression opened to surprised enlightenment. “Oh! A pussy trimmer!”

  I laughed, threw it back in the bag, and continued my search. There was a make-up bag that I had no intentions of using. Not only did I not wear make-up except on really special occasions, I found it a little gross to use someone else’s. There was a light sweater, a box of granola bars, and a paperback novel. In the side pocket, I found the real treasures: a white envelope with $700 in cash, two tickets for a cruise leaving from Miami that evening, and two passports.

  I opened one of the passports to find a photo of the woman who had left the train in tears. Alison Beckworth, the passport already reflecting her new married name, was two years older than I was. Her face was rounder and her eyes were smaller but she bore enough resemblance to myself that it could work.

  “We could use these,” I said, indicating the passports and the tickets. “I’m not sure how long we have before the authorities are alerted, but that argument is going to last a few hours at least. Neither one of them is going to be thinking of lost luggage for a while. I think it will give us time to get on that boat.”

  “That could get us out of the country,” he agreed.

  I handed the other passport to Max and continued to read the personal information on the one I was holding.

  “Oh, shit,” he said, and held his hand out. “Give me the pussy trimmer.”

  “Why?” I asked as I took the pink razor out and handed it to him.

  He stood up and, after checking to see which of the larger bags belonged to the man, he yanked it out of the overhead compartment. “I’m going to go to change into Paul Beckworth.”

  34.

  Miami was hot. The temperatures reached into the 80’s long after the sun had gone down, but the heat of Miami wasn’t just about the weather. The city was vibrant, alive and sexy. It was filled with loud music, attractive people, and a rippling energy thrumming through the streets.

  I couldn’t stop starting at Max. He looked like a stranger to me. He had gone into the bathroom on the train as himself and come out as Paul Beckworth. Before his “change,” his own somber colored clothes had seen better days and his stubble covered cheeks still showed traces of soot and ash from when he tried to clear the burned out mess of our house. He emerged from the bathroom wearing a brightly colored Hawaiian shirt and tan linen pants that hung about an inch too short over his out-of-place hiking boots. He was shaved and clean, as if he had taken a shower, and he no longer smelled like someone who was living on the streets.

  “Holy shit!“ I said when I first got a glimpse of what he had done to himself. “You’re bald!”

  After giving himself a very short haircut, Max had turned the trimmer around to the smooth razor and shaved a circle on top, clearing away any traces of hair, leaving a shiny, bald pate reminiscent of Mr. Clean.

  “I’m Paul,” he said and tossed me his passport. I opened it to see that the man in the photo was bald as a billiard ball.

  “Don’t you like it?” he asked with a wink.

  “No.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “I mean. . . um. . . it just doesn’t look like you.”

  He chuckled and rubbed the top of his head. “It’ll grow back.”

  “How did you get so clean? You managed all of that in the train bathroom?”

  “It’s not the first time I’ve bathed in a public restroom before,” he said as he slid his new suitcase back into the overhead rack. He pulled the other suitcase down for me. “Do you need some help getting cleaned up?”

  Tottering around on crutches made it difficult to carry things, but I was too independent to want his help. “No, I can do it.”

  I found a blue flowered dress sitting on top of the neatly folded clothing packed inside the suitcase. Thankful Alison had packed something that would fit over my cast, I limped down to the bathroom. Since I had broken my leg, I had been wearing a pair of Jillian’s scrub pants with the cuffs rolled up. My jeans had been cut off me the night we were attacked and the scrubs were the only pants I had.

  In the bathroom, I gave myself a sponge bath with some paper towels and pulled the new dress over my head. I used the brand new deodorant I found in the bag and brushed my teeth with toothpaste on my finger. It felt nice to be clean again.

  The remaining few hours traveling the rails went by without complications. When we got to Miami, we had only an hour to wait before boarding the cruise ship.

  After we disembarked from the train, we hailed a cab. I asked the driver to take us to a drug store near the docks where we needed to pick up the boat. He dropped us off at a CVS within sight of the huge cruise ship.

  We went in the drug store to buy some supplies, like toothbrushes, as well as a pair of glasses, which Max needed to match his new passport photo. He picked a pair of wire rim glasses with no magnifying qualities and slid them on his face. The result was a working resemblance to the man whose passport we had stolen.

  We stood on the pier and looked out over the waves, smelling the salty sea air. The sun had set, leaving an orange gl
ow behind the cityscape.

  “Do you think we should find a pawn shop and buy some cheap wedding rings? It might look strange to be newly weds with no rings,” Max said.

  “Wait!” I remembered I still had my parents’ rings in my coat pocket. Having been my pillow for the last two days, the coat was balled up and draped over my new carry-on bag. I tugged it out and fished around in the inside pocket until my fingers touched the velvet box. I took it out, opened the box and hesitantly took my mother’s ring from its resting spot between the cushions. The tiny sapphires appeared to escort the large diamond in the center as the light caught its angles and reflected prisms back across the shiny white gold surface of the setting.

  Max gently took the ring from me and held my left hand in his. “Here, let me,” he said quietly. He slid the ring onto my finger.

  I smiled at him and took my father’s ring from its holder, sliding it on to Max’s finger.

  He leaned in and kissed me, his lips warm and soft, his fingers buried in my hair. He pulled back, rested his hand on my cheek, and whispered, “I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” I said then held up my hand to examine the ring. “That’s probably the closest we’ll ever get to actually getting married.”

  “Marriage is just a bullshit piece of paper,” he said and shrugged. “I’ve been married to you since I moved into your place.”

  My smile grew. We had been through a lot together, but nothing could tear us apart. He was my perfect partner in every way.

  The cruise ship blasted its horn, announcing the boarding time. I took Max’s hand in mine and said, “Ready to set sail?”

  The line seemed to stretch a mile ahead of us. A dribble of sweat ran down the back of my neck, tickling as it trickled along my spine. I fanned myself with our tickets and took a deep breath of humid air.

  It was more than nerve wracking to wait in line for what felt like an eternity to use someone else’s passport and ticket. I was on the edge, my confidence dripping away with each minute we waited, when three guards ran past us. We both tensed and watched as they encircled the boarding gate, talking furiously to the attendant. I could feel my pulse hammering in my ears.