Behind The Pines

by Lauren Brown

  I am not afraid.

  I stand and make my way to Hue’s room. I’m going to tell my story to the world.

  Chapter 22

  He dials a number on the phone in his room. I can see his veins pulsing on the side of his head. He’s in serious mode. I sit patiently on the end of his bed, waiting.

  “Chip, my man!” Hue finally yells into the phone. “How you been, ole timer?”

  I hear a mumbling sound on the other end of the line.

  “That’s good to hear. Tell Martha I said hello.”

  He chuckles.

  “Well, I got a favor to ask you. You got a minute to discuss some business?”

  He leans back in his wheelchair and presses the phone harder to his ear.

  “Are you still workin’ for ABC news?”

  There’s another pause.

  “Oh that’s good. Really good. Remember how you said you owed me a favor and I always told you that you didn’t. Well, things may have changed. I have a good friend here”—he winks at me—“who has what I think you news people would call, a high rating story. Do you remember editing the footage of the fire that happened last year in Hamilton Heights neighborhood?”

  Immediately the fire burns into my vision, and I wince at the memory. I turn my head and close my eyes. Hue continues.

  “The man who lost his wife and unborn child has become a friend of mine here at Park Pines.”

  This confession changes the tone of the conversation. I look back to Hue who is now shaking his head, waiting for his friend to finish his sentence.

  “Mmhmm, yes he was a doctor… Yes he did go ‘on a hike’ and shut down his practice… How do I know him? Well, that’s the story I think he needs to tell. I’ll let him tell it to you, but really, what we need is for you to film him telling his story and then broadcast it on the news.”

  I can feel my throat tighten waiting for the answer.

  “I know you’re busy, but we go way back. It’s time we call it in, if you know what I mean?”

  Another pause followed by a gradual smile.

  “Hey, John, when can you be ready?”

  “Uh, I don’t know. Maybe a week? We wouldn’t be able to air it until Beau and Janie’s anniversary. They go out of town every year. It’s in three weeks.”

  “He says he can be ready in a week, but to air it in three weeks…Well I don’t know where to film it, considering Beatrice has been working overtime lately.”

  “How about his home?” I suggest.

  “What about your house?”

  I hear some mumbling on the other end.

  “Well, send Martha to the nail salon or something. This is important.”

  Hue and I look at each other and hold our breaths. Hue begins to smile again.

  “Alrighty then! On Sunday, just call this number here at Park Pines and request to take Theodore Smith out to lunch, code is…” he looks at me.

  “Two-two-five-six, I think.”

  “Two-two-five-six. Give them that code when they ask for it.”

  “Wait! It can’t be Sunday. That’s the day Rick picks me up.”

  “He’s not picking you up on Sunday, just requesting.”

  “I know but they may be curious since Rick has been the only one picking me up since I’ve been here.”

  Hue puts his hand over the phone and removes it from his face. “John. You need someone other than Rick to pick you up for once. You could use a little freedom.”

  I slump forward a fraction and nod my head for him to continue.

  “Okay, sorry about that, Chip. As I was saying, just call the office and request to take him out to lunch. I think you get up to three hours.”

  Hue listens for a minute then responds, “You’re exactly right. He just wants you to record him telling his story and then if it wouldn’t be too much to ask, play it on the news station. Maybe after or even in the middle of Good Morning America.”

  Hue chuckles. Chip must really be stepping out on a limb for us.

  “You two can figure out the details. I just wanted to know if you could do it or not… That’s what I like to hear. Sounds good.”

  He looks at me and gives me the thumbs up. I let out the breath I was holding.

  “Well, you know, I’m hangin’ on, Chip. Wish I had me a Martha to keep me company. But I’m glad I got John here. He’s been keepin’ me entertained. He’s more dramatic than any woman I’ve ever been with. But it was good talkin’ to you. Tell the family I said hello again. I’ll be in physical therapy Monday when you come to get him.”

  Hue’s tone was completely different than when I first met him. He had softened drastically with me since my arrival at Park Pines.

  “Well, there you go. Easy as eating cake,” he said as he hung up the phone.

  “Except for the part where I have one week to retrieve the documents from the storage shed.”

  “Hmm.” Hue scratches his head and then wheels toward me, reaching around me into his desk. He pulls out a piece of paper with what looks like scribbles and hands it to me, rolling back around to face me.

  “What is this?”

  “It’s a solution to your problem.”

  “Um, okay. Just looks like a bunch of written times. I’m not understanding.”

  He lets out a huff and snatches the paper.

  “It is.” He points to the first one. “That’s the time the nurses enter the building”—his finger changes to another time—“then leave. It lists the times when the security cameras are shut off too…” He raises an eyebrow at me to see if I’m getting it.

  “Wait, why do they turn the cameras off?”

  “Oh come on! Beatrice and Roger. They turn them off at this time of the week so they can screw in the office. Don’t act like you haven’t seen it.”

  “Actually I have and it scares me to picture it.”

  “You and me both. How do you think I got these times?” We laugh then wrinkle our noses in disgust.

  “Okay, you’re saying I use these times to plan an escape. According to your chart, the best day is… tomorrow!”

  He blows his nose and shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.”

  I hope he knows what he’s talking about and his dementia isn’t running amok.

  I take a deep breath. “I don’t even know how I’m going to get to Chattanooga. It’s over three hours away!”

  “Pssh, I used to have to make it to Memphis and back in one day when I worked on the freights. You can do it.”

  “Ugh, I suppose. I guess I’ll leave tonight… but wait. How do I get there?”

  “I’ve got a car.”

  “What? First you show me a list of times the nurses enter and leave, the times the security cameras are off, and then you tell me you have a car here. Were you trying to escape at one point?”

  “Never tell a man of war he’s going to be a prisoner. Especially ole Hue here.” He winks and wheels to his bedside table, retrieving a single key and tossing it my way.

  “It’s a silver Honda Accord. In the woods behind the building.”

  I tuck the key into my pocket. “Behind the wall, behind the pine trees?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How long has it been there?”

  “Since I got here almost two years ago. I called an old of friend of mine to drop it off. I didn’t want to believe people like you, the doctors, that I was an old and dying man. I had survived bullets and bombs. I wasn’t going to be brought down by something I couldn’t even see. My brain and body have always been strong.”

  I smile at him and stand from the desk chair. I walk to the window and look out at the walking trail.

  “You know, you could go with me, Hue.”

  I turn around and see his brow furrow. He’s thinking hard, then he shakes his head.

  “No, this isn’t my problem to fix, John.” He wheels to the door and opens it. “Plus, I may need to distract Vernie in the morning for you. Go on, you got a long night ahead of you. I’ll see you when you get back.”
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  I pause in the doorway. The thought of escaping just for a night, setting myself free from this prison, darts through my mind. I could take his car and go west. I could run away, and no one would ever know. To my surprise, this thought is short-lived.

  I turn the knob and look back at him in his wheelchair, “See you tomorrow.”

  I sit down in my room and try to imagine how the night will go. But I can’t. I take out a scrap piece of paper and try to write a step-by-step plan just as I would in my practice. I decide to leave by 8:30 tonight so that I can have plenty of time to find the documents I need. According to Hue’s time sheet, I need to be back in the building by 4:00 p.m. tomorrow. We’re not allowed to be outside at night, but thankfully my bedroom window faces the back of the building. I make my way to the window and unlock the latch to see if it will open. I say a quick prayer that they haven’t baby-proofed the windows. The first one doesn’t open. Oh no. I try the second one, sticking my hands flat on the glass and throwing all my weight to the ceiling. Slowly it creaks open.

  Yes!

  I close it lightly, then begin packing my bag. I make sure to pack my makeup, my sweats and tennis shoes. I place pillows under the sheets. The doors here don’t lock but it’s rare that anyone opens my door without my permission. I can only hope today will be no different.

  I sit on the end of the bed and eye my dresser, which houses eighty painkillers. I really want to flush them. I think on it a moment then shake my head. I have to save them for a few more days. I have to save them until Sunday. I start to smile to myself as I zip my bag because, now that I think about it, Sunday will be the last day I ever see Rick.

  Chapter 23

  The door is cold against my ear. I am quietly waiting to hear the last door close in the hallway, the door that tells me it’s time to go.

  Five minutes goes by and then I’m in the clear. I feel in my pocket for the key, look in the mirror at a face with no makeup and no glasses, take in a deep breath, and then grab my bag. I slide through the window as quietly as I can, looking back into my dark room. I take a deep breath of fresh night air then close the window. I can hear the drumming noise of cicadas in the far off trees. Lamplight from other rooms shines just enough so that I can see to the walking trail. Finding the car will be the hard part. I stay close against the vinyl siding until I decide to run. I look to Hue’s window but his curtains are closed. I look at my watch. It’s exactly 8:30 p.m. I pick up my bag and sprint to the pine trees.

  I feel like a fugitive, like a crazy person, like a… free man. I get to the first tree and hide behind it, breathing hard. I peek around the tree and see old Miss Rae’s round body pressed against the window, her hands cupped around her eyes as if she might have seen something.

  “Sorry, Miss Rae,” I whisper, “but tonight, you’re just delusional.” I duck back around the tree and jog to the fence. I need to find this car, and I don’t have much time to do it.

  I throw my bag and my body over the fence, squinting my eyes in search of the silver Honda Accord. I think I see something in the distance, a glimmer, so I make my way to it, keeping my hands outstretched.

  “Dammit!” I grab my knee which has made contact with what I assume is the front of the car. My knee is throbbing as I feel around the side to the door handle, pushing tree limbs and vines out of the way. I unlock it and sit down. The pain in my knee dissipates as I take hold of the steering wheel. For the first time in almost a year, I am sitting in the driver’s seat of a car. I haven’t driven in months, yet I still remember everything. I put my foot on the gas and beam into the darkness with excitement. I put the key in and twist it, but the car doesn’t start.

  The battery is dead.

  My heart rate begins to rise. I open the glove compartment and find a flashlight. I get out of the car and pop the hood. To my relief, the battery connectors were disconnected to preserve the battery. I reconnect them, let out a deep breath to steady my heart rate, then return to the driver’s seat. I rev it up and turn on the headlights. I have no idea how to get to the main road from the back of Park Pines, and the interior is musty and smells like cigars, but I don’t care. I’m circumspect but ambitious.

  I cautiously inch away from Park Pines, praying that no one is outside to hear the crunching of leaves and snapping of tree limbs under the car tires. I can feel the worry begin to creep its way through me. I need something to distract me, to keep my mind off what could happen. The 1999 Honda Accord has a radio system similar to the one in my old truck. I hit the FM button, crack the windows, and inch towards the main road that’s become apparent in the distance. It’s as if a path, now slightly overgrown, has been cleared just for this very moment.

  I’m not sure where I am exactly, but my gut instinct tells me to take a left down a dark single lane road lined by trees. I follow it for about five miles until I see a red light underneath a familiar street sign, Young Street. The name of the street is only familiar because it’s the red light Rick has stopped at for the past eight months as we make our way to the grocery store parking lot. I come to a stop and wait patiently at the light. I know how to get to Chattanooga now. I turn up the volume a little more, pressing my foot a little harder to the gas. This is actually happening, I think to myself. It’s actually happening.

  I can see the Tennessee River glistening in the evening light. There’s not a cloud in the sky, and the air is crisp, balmy and refreshing. Familiar city lights illuminate the place I once called home. The twenty-four hour storage shed, on Broad Street, is about fifteen minutes away from the foot of the mountain. I was a little worried about the boxes though. Sarah had supposedly packed up my office, but some part of me couldn’t help but think the Bear had gone through my office first.

  I can imagine him now, commanding Rick to pry open my safe, grabbing and sorting through my papers wide-eyed and livid as he relived the past on my prescription pads, in my medical records. I can see him, under lamp light, shredding each document with hopes of erasing the past, erasing the proof until only tiny pieces of paper now dancing through a landfill remained.

  “Think you’ll find what you need?” Hue had asked me before I left.

  “I think so. I know he didn’t get the copies. A doctor doesn’t just have one set of something, he has two. It’s a cover-your-ass technique,” I said with a small degree of uncertainty in my voice.

  “It’s covering your ass all right,” he had said although I wasn’t entirely sure it was.

  I wasn’t one hundred percent sure the extra copies would be in the storage unit, but I was pretty confident. The copies had been in a box labeled INSURANCE. Why I had put them in that box, I have no earthly idea. Maybe it was a predestination thing where God knew I would need them and, rushing to get out of the office to get home to Hope, had provided me the box. I had put my documents in there consistently after that, but towards the end of what I guess you could call my career, Marty had put insurance papers on top. If the Bear was in a hurry, or just lazy, he might have seen insurance papers and gone no further, not looking at the bottom of the box. It’s a far-fetched idea, knowing what the man is capable of, but it’s one that I put my faith in.

  I pull off the exit and begin down Broad Street. I see Jack’s BBQ that often fed my family and the gas station where I bought my first cigar in. Who would have thought I would be driving down Broad Street right now? I certainly hadn’t.

  Lookout Storage beams brightly over the street. It’s been years since I’ve been here. The last time I was in the unit was after my father’s death. Luckily, his unit is one of the nicer ones, with air conditioning, and conveniently, it’s in the back of the complex. I had paid his bill after his passing and had been frustrated he’d paid more for air conditioning to preserve documents he would never use again, but now, ironically, I’m thankful.

  I retrieve the key in the storage unit’s main office and make my way to the labeled shed. I lift open the shed’s door and am greeted by the aroma of musty paper boxes. I flip on the li
ghts and see boxes stacked to the ceiling. If I weren’t in Park Pines, I’d come to Chattanooga to empty this whole shed. I scan the room and sigh. I know the first box doesn’t say “Insurance,” but it’s a start just to see where I’m at in the pile. I open it and see law papers. CASE FILE 346A. I toss the envelope back in the box, close it, and scoot it out of the way.

  I take another deep breath and open the next box. News clippings. I move that box. I go through about five stacks before I see it.

  I open the box. The familiar insurance papers stare back at me. I take a handful and set them aside. Then I see them. The prescription pad copies and the medical records revealing the darkest secrets of my office. It’s painful, but necessary, to look at them. I look over a script for Belinda McElroy, one of my buyers.

  I can remember what Mrs. McElroy looked like. Her stringy, bleached hair and saggy face. I look through others and see similar scripts. I take them and set them atop a box. I flip through old medical records. I read through the first dozen then stumble across the golden ticket—his two letters. Of course, they aren’t signed, but they go with my story and, as my father would have said, “in the court of law, a story that makes sense, be it true or not, is all that matters.”

  I take his letters, the prescription pad copies, the medical records, and decide it’s time to go back. I move the box back to its original position but pause when I see a box labeled JOHNSON CITY. I’ve never noticed this box before or maybe I have but didn’t think much of it at the time.

  I set my papers down again as I creep to the mysterious box.

  Why would my father have a box labeled Johnson City? I tear the plastic box tape. On top is a yellowed news clipping dated 1976 with bold lettering: Jury Finds Lyons Not Guilty

  Lyons? Intrigued, I read on: