by Alan Spencer
THE PLACE THEY ARE SAFE
Alan Spencer
CHAPTER ONE
Mark Tripdick was the kind of person who understood if you get knocked down, you don't always get back up. After being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he immediately quit his job at Quality Insurance Inc. He worked under the loss prevention department. While on the clock, Mark couldn't help but think: I'm dying soon. So what the hell am I doing here?
The question was too powerful to ignore. Mark should be enjoying what he felt like could be his last days alive, so he quit his job. His co-workers, nor his boss, knew about his cancer diagnosis. Mark soon after sold his house for a nice profit. He donated the bulk of his possessions to the Salvation Army. All he had left was his mini-van, six thousand dollars in cash (and much more in the bank), and a spiral bound notebook for a journal.
For two months, Mark lived in that mini-van. He traveled anywhere and everywhere in the United States. It didn't matter where he was going. Mark stayed at over fifty hotels during his journey. He gained a new appreciation for grocery store salad bars, foam coolers, and loose meat sandwiches. He loved rest stops. Mark met new and interesting people at rest stops. One man asked Mark in Des Moines at a rest stop, "So where you going to, man?" to which Mark responded "Anywhere, as long as I don't fall off the edge of the earth."
Mark couldn't take complete credit for the idea of a road trip, or his great leap into freedom post-cancer diagnosis. His father did the same thing before he died of the same cancer. The man took the journey on foot instead of by van. His father died in a hospital in West Virginia. Mark was there to see the man's last week of life before pancreatic cancer took him forever. Even if Mark wasn't dying, he couldn't go back to the life he lived before. The open road was too much fun.
This journeyman existence lasted for two months before one day Mark was driving on a busy highway, and it suddenly felt like something was squeezing his abdomen. The pain was so jarring and intense, he swerved into the median and crashed the mini-van. Everything else after that, he couldn't recall. Mark woke up in a hospital. The personal journey was over.
Another one was about to begin.
CHAPTER TWO
A familiar face peered down at Mark while he rested on the hospital bed. It was his childhood physician, Dr. Roy Albert. The doctor was in his late sixties. He was a goofball with the kids, a flirt with the ladies, and a joker with the guys. An "any man" for what the situation called for. Mark thought he was back at his childhood hometown in Meadow Woods. Dr. Albert spoke before Mark could accomplish anymore thoughts.
"I wish I could be seeing you under different circumstances, Mr. Tripdick. It looks like you've had yourself a little accident."
"How did I get back to Meadow Woods?"
"I'm afraid you're not back home yet. I hop scotched a few states just to see you. But what's really important is you, Mark. I read the reports from your other doctor, a Dr. Ruez. They were faxed in to me about an hour ago. It turns out there isn't a damn thing wrong with you. Not a cell of cancer is in your body. Doesn't that make your day, buddy? You're cancer free. I've filled out your release papers. You're free to go once you wake up a little bit more. It's been really good seeing you, old friend. Sorry we can't catch up, but I've got a lot of patients to see today."
"Wait a minute," Mark said. "You're saying I have no cancer. I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. That's the tough cancer. It just doesn't go away. This is crazy. It's good news, but I don't believe it. I don't mean to be skeptical. But, doctor..."
Dr. Albert sat on the edge of the bed and leveled with him. "Trust me, Mark, I knew you when you were just knee-high to a grasshopper. And I know you're sensitive about cancer. You lost both your parents, and your wife to cancer. I take this diagnosis very seriously. I wouldn't tell you don't have cancer unless I was certifiably sure. I even went to the trouble of buying you a new set of clothes. They're sitting on that chair by the window. You should put them on. I know they'll fit."
Mark wasn't sure what to say to the doctor's kindness and the odd situation altogether, so he asked a simple question. "Where's my van?"
"Totaled. It's probably a pancake by now. Junked."
"Don't they have to get my permission first before they smash it? I have to make some calls and figure this out. Oh my God. What did I wake up to?"
"You shouldn't be stressed. You don't have cancer. Remember that, Mark. I can arrange for you to get where you're going. I can arrange for anything you might need. You don't have any other paperwork to fill out. You're business here is done, and that's a good thing. A very, very good thing."
"This can't be that easy, man. First, you say I don't have cancer. Then you buy me some new clothes out of the kindness of your heart. When did you get a chance to buy me some clothes? This is so weird. I'm not ungrateful. Like I said, it's just weird. There's going to be the police to deal with, because of the wreck, right? And the insurance, the hospital paperwork and billing records, and whatever else I don't know about. It can't be this easy. It never is."
"I've taken care of everything, including the police reports. You can just leave, Mr. Tripdick. It is that easy. I've made sure it's that easy. I work hard for my special patients. Your ride is waiting outside. He's waiting for you right now. He's going where you're going, actually. He's an old friend of yours."
How could a doctor deal with police reports and medical paperwork without the patient's involvement? And who was waiting for him downstairs? How did they know he was here? He sold his house and took off driving without a destination. Nobody knew where he was going, including himself.
The doctor exited the room. "Sorry, buddy, I have to go. You enjoy your life. It's been fun catching up."
Before Mark could say anything else, the doctor was gone.
Mark gathered the new clothes and put them on in haste. A set of beige khaki pants and a button up shirt, alongside new underwear and socks. The doctor went out and bought a pair of running shoes too, though how did the man know Mark's shoe size?
Dressed, Mark rushed into the hall trying to locate Dr. Albert. He was nowhere to be found. Giving up on the search party, he asked the nurse at the main desk where Dr. Albert was.
"A who?"
The nurse glared up at him from her paperwork. She was surrounded by various paperwork and patient files. She didn't want to be bothered.
Mark was going to bother her anyway.
"A Dr. Albert. He just checked me out. He really bent over backwards to help me. He was my childhood physician. I wanted to have another word with him if I could."
"There's no Dr. Albert in this building. If there is, he's never worked on this floor."
"That can't be right. Dr. Albert talked to me in room 314. I was in a wreck. I was admitted here, and he discharged me minutes ago."
The nurse gave him a stern look. The "this guy might be trouble" look.
"Mr. Weatherby is in room 314. He' s eighty years old and suffering from a broken hip. You can't be coming from room 314 unless you're family. Now what is your business here, sir? You're not a patient."
His tongue became rubber. He said he was Mark Tripdick. The nurses insisted there was no Mark Tripdick checked in today, or any other day this week. Before she could threaten to call security on him, Mark launched down the hall and stuck his head into room 314. An elderly man was asleep in bed, his hip strapped into a strange cast rigged to a set of pulleys and cables.
Security was right behind him. The officer happened to be three rooms down from Mark's position when he created the stir. The burly cop gave the impression he was an ex-wrester who preferred wrestling over law enforcement.
"I'm going to ask you to leave, sir. This is a hospital, not a stomping ground. Will
you come with me calmly? Or..."
Mark saved his words. No use.
The officer urged him down the fire escape stairs and out the back of the building. The security officer said this for a goodbye: "Come back here, and I'll have you arrested." He pointed to a playground in the distance. "I don't care about your story or your problems. Go to a therapist. If you want your ass kicked, then come back here again. I'm watching you. You walk past that playground and don't stop to play on the monkey bars, you understand? You keep on going, pal."
Embarrassed and reeling with questions, Mark had no choice but to obey the man's orders. The security officer wasn't going to listen to anything he had to say.
Mark walked out to the playground.
And he didn't stop to play on the monkey bars.
CHAPTER THREE
"Mark? Mark Tripdick? Trip-over-my-dick! Is that you? Hey, wait up, man! It's me! You have to remember me. Slow down, dude." Mark was well on his way off the property when a man in a blue windbreaker and black jeans came jogging after him saying those things. It'd been twenty plus years since the last time Mark had seen Peyton Rose. Peyton had gained weight since high school. Peyton used to run track and field and maintained a runner's physique, the physique that was currently inflated to a two-hundred and fifty pounds. His hair was completely gray and balding in the back. The exact opposite of the long-haired hippie dew he sported decades ago. Peyton also picked up the habit of smoking. His skin and fingernails were yellowed. Or was there something else wrong with Peyton that was more serious? Mark couldn't help but wonder.
Peyton Rose was his childhood best friend until life separated them after high school. The only reason Peyton talked to him in the first place was because he had the funny last name "Tripdick". The inevitable marrying and moving out of state for careers separated them. They lost touch. Mark was relieved to see his old friend. He needed someone to talk to and make sense of today and this strange turn of events.
Mark said what was on his mind. "Man, what timing! Just imagine if I hadn't been in a car wreck and kicked out of a hospital by a security guard, we wouldn't be meeting like this."
Saying it was a swift reminder that something had happened that didn't settle right with him. Maybe Mark was the one confused and not the hospital staff.
Peyton was concerned. "Hey man, you alright? You look like you don't feel so good."
"I don't know if I'm okay. It's been a weird day."
"A lot's happened to me too, pal. It'd make a helluva lunch date. How about it? You pick the place. I'll buy."
Mark imagined his beige van smashed to pieces. He should be finding out what salvage yard it had been dumped in. Mark still couldn't believe they could just destroy the vehicle without his permission. Was there a police report? Was anybody else hurt in the wreck? He knew nothing.
Peyton seemed to read his mind, saying, "You were on your way somewhere, right? Well, I'm going to the same place. Don't worry about your vehicle, or your health, or even money, or anything. Your smashed up van is in Eddie's Salvage, if you want it. But where we're going, you won't need it. I can't wait to get to where we're going. We're going to have so much fun there. You and me, man. Re-u-nited!"
What the hell was Peyton talking about?
"Don't think, Mark, just come with me. Food does a body good. You can ask whatever you want when we eat. I'll do my best to help you out. It's hard at first. Eventually, you'll come to understand what's happened to you."
Mark was empty-stomached to the point he thought he was going to throw up. "Yeah, maybe something to eat would do me some good. Then you're telling me why you know what you know."
Peyton agreed.
They talked over plates of chicken parmesan and spaghetti and meatballs at Gambucci's restaurant half a block from where they first met up. Peyton was chewing on an entire meatball, and Mark picked at his chicken parmesan. The nausea was slowing his appetite. Mark didn't feel good at all. Had they given him pain meds at the hospital that weren't settling right?
"You look like crap, buddy." Peyton ate half a breadstick in one bite. "Sorry you're feeling like hell. But I've got the cure, man. We're in the same boat, me and you. A lot of people like us were very sick at one point."
Mark rubbed at his aching head. Was he hurt from the car accident, or did the questions forming in his mind press against the walls of his brain that hard?
"How do you figure we're in the same boat? Who else is going through what I'm going through? Just what brought us together, anyway? I have a feeling you found me, Peyton. It's great to see you, but you're acting very strange."
"Okay, I get it. This is weird. I've give you that. Listen, a month ago, I was diagnosed with lung cancer. Sucks, but there it is. Nothing you can do. Undergoing radiation treatments. You watch your hair fall out. Your piss turns to that scary amber red color. You gain weight. You end up feeling like a plow ran over you every morning. Then you know what else happens? My wife, a pretty lady named Linda, ups and leaves my ass. Says she's had it with me, that she's been fucking her boss at the pharmacy, and she doesn't give a good Goddamn if I've got cancer. It's not her fault; that's life; tough titty. The best part, the dude's a pharmacist, and she's a cashier at that same drugstore. Let me say this, the dude wasn't eating sandwiches on his lunch break. Fucking asshole.
"So anyway, before the treatments, I'd gained like a hundred pounds over the past ten years. I'm out of shape, because of my bum knee. I was playing fix-it on my house, trying to re-shingle the stupid roof, and I slip and land right on it, and the knee shattered. Had to get it replaced, and that titanium's not the same as real God given bone. But like I said, where we're going, Mark, our previous issues aren't a problem. So I let Linda have her new life boning that pharmacist. Have it your way, bitch. I don't care. I packed up out of the house and started driving. I traveled the open road. Nowhere in mind. I sold everything I had to sell to fund this trip. I don't need money anymore. You won't either. Where we're going, none of that shit will matter."
Mark's stomach rumbled. The food was wanting to come back up. A wall of burning acid was holding it back, and that wall of acid was rising. "Is this a joke? You see an old friend who's taken a tumble, and you decide to fuck with him. That is what you're doing to me."
Peyton stayed calm. "Man, I'm telling you the truth. I can show you the paperwork on my cancer shit. I even got a copy of my divorce papers to back up my story. But none of that shit matters anymore. That's the beauty of this new situation. I'm taking you for a drive, and we're not worrying about any of that shit ever again. We're going to be happy. Me and you meeting right here and right now was meant to be. It is written in the sky. You'll see what I mean. But you're going to have to trust me. Let it all go. Fuck your totaled van, fuck your diagnosis, fuck all of it in the ass. I did it, I fucked it all and never stopped fucking it. No looking back. What do you say?"
"I'm not sure what I'm supposed to think." Mark rolled the edge of his cold glass of water against his forehead. The nausea was subsiding. The pounding migraine wasn't. "I was crazy for doing this "soul-searching" mission. My father did the same thing after my mom died and when he too was diagnosed with lung cancer. He packed it up and traveled on foot like Forest Gump to see the world. Fuck it all, he said to me, just like you said to me, Peyton. Fuck it all, fuck it all in the ass. He said that too. He was terrified of the cancer, because he had seen how it ravaged my mom. I guess when everything falls apart, it's easier to run from the bad things in life than face it down."
Peyton reached across the table and clutched Mark by his forearms. "What you did wasn't a true soul searching mission. What we're about to do is a real soul searching mission. What you did was a small part of it. Only a small part. We're being called to a better place. We're lucky, me and you. Don't take it for granted. Things happen for a reason, Mark. Sometimes for the bettering of us, sometimes not. This is for the bettering of us. Trust me on that."
He released his grip over Mark's arms. "This is for the good of
us. I'm going whether you're with me or not, but it'd be a shame if you stayed behind. I'm going to pick up somebody else on the way there. You used to be sweet on her, before Elizabeth showed up and stole your affections. This woman could've been your wife."
"Would you stop talking to me like that? I mean like a lunatic. Seriously."
Peyton agreed. "Yeah, I sound like I'm nuts. I can't avoid it. Look, if you can't trust me, then maybe you can trust her. We're all headed up the same road. So do you want to go on a road trip with me? Would you rather go back home? I hate to put it this way, but there's nowhere else for us to go. No turning back. It's either onwards or to the grave."
That sent Mark back to the day he had been diagnosed with cancer. The day he carried that diagnosis back home, alone, without Elizabeth, or a father, or his mother. Mark, without anybody in his life, curled up in bed alone. Death was in the cards for everyone, but to have the deadline spelled out to you was mortifying. That's when he planned the road trip. Like his father, he would do everything he could to escape that promise of death. He escaped for this long. But for how much longer would he escape?
It was strange how Peyton's story was so much like his own. They both had cancer. They both got rid of their property and belongings. They were both single. They hit the road, though Peyton had a clear destination in mind. So why not find out where his old friend was going? Mark couldn't forget the other enticing item he mentioned. He mentioned a lady friend. That had to be Cassie Stewart. Was she dying too? Seeing her would prove a level of truth to Peyton's story. Mark would see it through that far. But only that far.
CHAPTER FOUR
The truck was called "The Blue Beast" when they were teenagers. Its paintjob was now a murky midnight blue. They had been driving for an hour, and Mark was beginning to feel less nauseous. Mark was actually starting to feel pretty good.