My Lost and Found Life (20 page)

A few days after my skirmish with Jerry, I overheard a conversation that gave me some insight into Patrick. Malcolm and Patrick were talking about their writing class. William was
there as well, but Jerry wasn't in the coffeehouse and that allowed me to move close enough to eavesdrop.

“That piece you read on Tuesday was your best ever, Mal. I could practically taste the malt whiskey sliding down my throat,” Patrick said.

“Thank you, dear boy,” retorted Mal with a pleased smile. “As you are a master of sensory description I consider that a real tribute.”

“So this guy really writes?” interjected William, leaning over to gesture with his thumb toward Malcolm. “I thought he was slinging the bull.”

“That's the sign of a good storyteller, William. As my dear departed mother used to say,” quipped Mal, “if a liar repeats a story often enough, he begins to believe it himself.”

“You know, Mal, we hear a great deal about your dear departed mother,” William said. “What about your father? Like all the rest of us, you must have had one.”

Malcolm raised one eyebrow. “Not to hear my mother tell it. She liked to pretend that she did it all by herself. When I was growing up, both sex and my father were verboten subjects. He vanished before I was born, never to be heard from again. Maybe he was gay. Or maybe she drove him crazy. She often had that effect on me. At least I never had to endure the cliché of the outraged father who rejects his gay son.”

“Fathers have expectations,” Patrick said. “At least you didn't have to worry about letting yours down.”

“What's the matter, Patrick? The old man doesn't like having a skirt-chasing, poetry-quoting n'er-do-well for a son?” William jeered.

“My father's a doctor, and he wanted me to study medicine or science, not history.”

“You studied history?” said Mal in surprise. “I didn't know that. I would have thought, with your gifts and love of poetry, you would have pursued writing and literature.”

“Ah, well, what is history except true stories? Some are exciting, some are dull, and most defy logic. But they're all human and complicated. And they don't have the tidy, predictable endings that fiction gives you. I figured studying literature would teach me to write just like the other fellows, while studying history would give me insight into people and events.”

Patrick leaned forward, absently running the fingers of his right hand through his hair. “My dad claims history just shows people making the same mistakes without learning a damn thing from the past. He believes that only scientists truly change the world for the better.”

“What about writers? What about Shakespeare and Dickens and all the great poets?” I interjected myself into the conversation without being invited.

“Ah, but did they change the world or merely record what happened? I'm not saying that I agree, I'm just repeating my father's view of it all. I love words, not empirical data. I don't have the knack for scientific research.”

“Still, I envy you your relationship with your father,” mused Mal. “I always thought it would have been nice to have a normal family.”

“
Normal
isn't the word I'd use to describe my tribe,” said Patrick.

“I have a friend who says that the only normal people are the ones you don't know very well,” I said.

Both Mal and Patrick chuckled

“I think your friend may have something there,” Patrick said. ‘I never know how to define normal.”

“I do,” Mal said with an emphatic air. “Normal is what I approve of or what I do. Everything else is abnormal or, at the very least, in very poor taste.”

At that moment, the phone rang, and I moved behind the counter to answer it. A woman's voice asked if she could speak to Patrick Rigney.

“Just a minute,” I said.

Malcolm raised an eyebrow quizzically. I said, “It's for Patrick. A woman.”

Patrick and Mal exchanged a look, then Mal said, “Tell her he's not here.”

I repeated his words into the receiver and hung up.

“It was Jeanne and she wants you to call her.”

“Oh, God, will that woman never leave off?” groaned Patrick.

“You've no one to blame but yourself,” Mal scolded him with a mocking air. “My dear boy, you are your own worst enemy. You let these situations drift along and suddenly find yourself ensnared in romantic catastrophe.”

“Hold on. I'm an innocent man. I never made a pass, much less a commitment of any sort, to Jeanne. I never proposed or discussed marriage with Caitlin. As for Lynda, well, I'm only human. But I start out having a little frolic with a girl, and before
you know it, she's saying she loves me and is making plans. I've never pretended I was a marrying man. What more can I do—wear a sign?”

“Maybe you should.” Mal stood up and walked over to refill his coffee cup. “You smile at them, flatter them, quote poetry, and otherwise get their love-starved hearts fluttering wildly. You're every woman's dream—just like the hero of a romance novel. No wonder they start weaving romantic fantasies about you. You need to belch, scratch your privates, get sloppy drunk, and stay glued to the sports channel. In other words, be the typical unattached American male.”

William snorted. “Yeah. Start wearing a baseball cap and calling every girl ‘Babe.' They'll run away screaming.”

“What you're
supposed
to do is tell them the truth
before
they begin weaving fantasies!” The words burst out of me.

The three of them stared up at me in amazement.

“Whoa,” Mal started to protest, but I kept right on talking.

“I hate people who lie and then claim they're trying to protect you,” I sputtered. “They're the worst kind of cowards because you end up being more hurt than if they'd just been honest in the first place.”

“You sound as if you've had personal experience with this problem, Ashley. Care to elaborate?” Mal added in obvious amusement.

“No!” I said tartly, then took a deep breath and added in a calmer tone, “I'm not talking just about boy-girl stuff. It applies to any relationship. It could be your mother … or … or anyone who's important to you. Lying to keep people from being mad at you is really only protecting yourself. Even if
you want to tell them the truth, in the end it could be too late.”

“Listen to her,” William interjected, “she's pretty smart for a sweet young thing.”

“I'm not all that sweet,” I said.

“No, you're not, are you?” Patrick flashed his crooked grin, making my pulse gallop. “But you're probably right. Maybe I have caused harm by drifting along and not making myself plain. I'll take your advice. I wouldn't want you thinking I'm a pathetic dog who needs a kind word and a pat from every passerby. I can take a kick now and then.”

“Careful,” Mal warned him. “Ashley here sounds as if she'd be happy to administer a few swift kicks.”

They had no idea. I'd be happy to give him a few good kicks, and a few kisses, too.

Fog often creeps over the Golden Gate Bridge and oozes across the water until the bay and Alcatraz Island are swathed in a fluffy white blanket. Sometimes, though not often, the fog will move inland, twisting and creeping up the hills and through the streets until everything is swallowed up in it.

It was late on a Friday night when I drove toward Burlingame through a heavy, inland-floating fog. Everything had a dreamlike quality, and all the other cars on the road seemed to appear and then disappear into the mist. The gas station was an oasis of light in the dense vapor. As I pulled my car in, I waved to Earl and went straight into the camper.

For once, sleep came easily. I don't know how long I had been asleep when my dream morphed into a delusion that I was back home in my white wicker bed. Stella was scratching at my door.
Scratch, scratch. Rattle, rattle.
“Go away, you crazy cat,” I started to say, and then suddenly I was wide-awake.

It wasn't a dream. Someone was rattling the door latch to
the camper, and it definitely wasn't Stella. Someone was trying to get inside.

I didn't move—I couldn't. I just stared at the handle as it twisted back and forth in the darkness, too frightened to even take a breath. My heart pounded so loudly I thought it was audible.
Who was out there?
I knew it couldn't be Earl because he would have knocked. Earl would have called my name.

In blind panic I thrust my hand under my pillow for my knife. As I groped wildly for the familiar cold metal handle and flipped it open, I sliced my forefinger on the sharp edge. A scream welled up in my throat and I bit my lip hard to smother it. My finger throbbed in pain and I could feel blood oozing out of the cut.

Bam!
The unknown invader jerked the door
hard,
trying to force it open. The door shuddered, but it didn't open.

The darkness seemed heavy and oppressive, almost a physical entity threatening me. I tried to control my panic, putting one hand against my mouth while I clutched the knife in the other. I thought my heart would explode out of my chest.

Bam!
The door shuddered again.

Bam, bam, bam, bam, BAM!
The invader frantically tried to open the door. It took all my willpower to keep from screaming in terror.

Then the noise stopped.

I listened, willing the invader to go away, still constricting my breath for fear of being heard. I thought I heard shoes scraping on the cement. I stayed frozen on my bed, waiting and listening. Three minutes passed or maybe five. It seemed like
an eternity. A car engine started and I heard a car pull away. It was so quiet I could hear the faint buzz of the station's fluorescent lights.

Still, I waited, like a rabbit in its hole, too terrified to come out and make sure the hound had left for good. All the time I kept wondering, Where is Earl?

Finally, I got my courage up and crawled out of the sleeping compartment. I peeked out the camper window. All I could see were halos of light circling the station's floodlights amid the dense fog.

I quietly slipped on a raincoat and thrust some shoes on my feet.

Gently I unlocked the door. The
click
as the lock opened sent an electric shock up my spine.

My heart thumping, I stepped outside. The damp air made everything look hazy.

“Earl?” I called out in a low voice. There wasn't any answer.

As I crept toward the front of the station, I saw that something was holding the door to the men's room open. A shoe?

I walked over and gingerly pushed on the door. Earl was sprawled on the tile floor, not moving, a bloody gash visible on the side of his head.

“Earl,” I called, struggling to keep my terror under control. “Oh, God, Earl! Can you hear me?”

I knelt and touched his neck. He was still warm. But he didn't answer or move. I darted around the building and into the office to call 911.

“I need an ambulance right away.” I was close to hysteria.
“At the Shell Station on El Camino and Burlingame Avenue. Hurry! Someone's hurt.”

“Is this a police emergency or a medical emergency, ma'am?” The operator answered me in a calm voice.

“I—I d-don't know.” I was stuttering. “Both. Earl is bleeding and I don't know what happened to him. Please, you have to hurry.”

“I'm dispatching an emergency vehicle now to your location. They'll be on the scene in five minutes,” she said. “Try to remain calm. Is the patient breathing?”

“I don't know. He felt warm, but his head is bleeding.”

“Is he conscious?”

“N-no,” I stammered. “Please hurry. I'm scared.”

“It's going to be okay. Try to stay calm, miss. What's your name?”

“Ashley,” I said.

“It's going to be all right, Ashley. Who is injured? Your boyfriend? Your brother?”

“A friend,” I said.

“How old is your friend?”

“Old,” I said. “I don't know—about seventy.”

“Do you know what happened? Did he fall or could he have had a heart attack?”

“I don't know, I don't know.” I was gripping the phone receiver as if it somehow were holding me upright. “I think someone may have hit him.”

“Take it easy, Ashley. Try to stay calm. Can you check his breathing and see if his airway needs clearing?”

“How do I do that?” I said doubtfully, but before I could move, I heard the sound of a siren. I dropped the phone to dash outside. A fire-department rescue truck pulled up in front.

“He's around here,” I motioned as two men in heavy black-and-yellow jackets jumped down from the truck. Laden with equipment, they rushed around the corner toward the men's restroom. One of them went inside and crouched beside Earl.

“He's breathing, but it's shallow,” I heard him call to his partner, and I almost collapsed on the pavement from relief.

In the distance I heard a second siren, and within seconds a police car pulled up. Out of it jumped my old tormentor, Officer Strobel.

He looked at me, then walked over to talk in a low voice to the paramedics.

“Will he be all right?” I interrupted them. “Is he going to be okay?”

“They're going to transport him to a hospital as soon as an ambulance gets here,” Strobel said. “Why don't we get out of their way?”

His hand closed on my arm like a vise as he led me into the office. The cash drawer was hanging open. It was empty.

“What happened here, Ashley? Was there a robbery?”

“I don't know,” I gasped. “I was looking for Earl and I found him in the men's room, just lying there with his head bleeding. I don't know if he fell or if someone hit him. I was afraid he was dead. He's not going to die, is he?”

“They're taking good care of him. But I need you to tell me who did this. What were you doing here at this hour? How do you know Earl?”