My heart was pounding, but I only felt stronger. I reached over him, turned the door handle, and pushed open the door. I shoved his body, and he rolled out of the SUV. I closed the door, shifted around so I could get into the driver’s seat, put the vehicle into drive, and shot ahead.
I decided not to follow the road, which looked like a road to nowhere anyway. I turned around instead and started back. I saw him struggling to get to his feet and then, obviously still quite dizzy, fall over again onto his side. I didn’t pause. I drove past him and made my way back to the highway. It was nearly twenty minutes later before I saw a sign that indicated the road that would take me to San Francisco. He really had taken us out of the way. I sped up and grad
ually felt my body soften, my pulse calm, and my breathing return to normal.
Hours later, I pulled into a gas station and fast-food shop. For a few moments, I sat there taking deep breaths, reliving what I had just experienced. Then, curious about him, I opened the glove compartment and found the SUV registration. It was registered to a Paul Bogan. He lived in Sonoma, California, and was only twenty-six years old. Those lawyer business cards were obviously either a forgery or cards he had taken from a real lawyer with that name.
Looking around the vehicle, I saw no lawyer’s briefcase. I should have noticed that immediately, I thought. That was very careless of me, or maybe just a sign of my inexperience and innocence. More curious now, I opened the carton. It was filled with female clothing, hair clips, lipsticks, and makeup pads such as would be found in a young girl’s purse. There was even a pair of high-heel shoes. Sick trophies of girls he had raped and maybe murdered, I thought. This was one man I would have gladly brought to Daddy.
I had started to get out to get something to drink when I saw Paul Bogan’s wallet on the floor. One side had a few of those business cards. The other had his driver’s license. There was more than five hundred dollars in fifties and twenties.
“There’s always a silver lining,” I muttered, taking the money. I got out, got my drink, and then headed for the San Francisco airport. When I got there, I left the vehicle where it was prohibited to leave one, hoping that he would get into some trouble for it. I went in to buy a ticket on the next flight out. I still had no idea where I would go. When I looked up at the schedule for one airline, I saw that I could make the next flight to Boston, Massachusetts. One place was as good as another, I decided, and bought my ticket. Less than a half hour later, I boarded the plane and took my seat by the window. I was feeling very tired and hoped that I could get some sleep.
An elderly man in a brown suit and a light brown tie took the seat beside me and smiled. “You like the red-eye?” he asked.
“Pardon?”
“You know, flights like this that fly at night. I don’t sleep much anyway.”
“Oh. I don’t know. I haven’t flown that much,” I said. I wasn’t really looking at him until then. He looked at least in his late seventies, if not eighties. His thinning white hair picked up the ambient light and seemed to glow like a halo. He was pale but had red blotches around his nose and over his forehead.
“Heading home?” he asked.
“No, visiting,” I said.
“I bet you’re going to visit your grandparents,” he said.
I just smiled as if he had guessed right. Daddy taught me it was always best to let people believe what they thought if what they thought was good for you. There was no sense in wasting the truth on anyone. “Save the truth for yourself,” he’d advised. His words of wisdom remained my personal Book of Proverbs.
“They’re lucky. I have to go visit my grandchildren. They’re all just too busy with their businesses and jobs to take the time to come see me in Boston. My name’s Thaddeus, by the way. My mother named me after one of the twelve Apostles. I’m Armenian, and the Armenian church has Thaddeus and Saint Bartholomew as its patron saints. Thaddeus is the patron saint of desperate causes and lost causes. The name is interchangeable with Jude. You’ve probably heard of Saint Jude.
“Okay,” he said after a short pause during which I just smiled. I was feeling quite tired and didn’t want to get into hours of conversation. “That’s all the boring stuff I’m going to say on the whole trip.”
“It’s not boring,” I told him, and he smiled.
“Well, aren’t you a sweet young lady? Maybe you’re telling the truth, and maybe you’re not. At my age, it doesn’t matter. It’s too late for me to impress anyone.” He sat back and closed his eyes.
He didn’t open his eyes and speak again until after we had taken off and leveled out. The flight attendant was asking if anyone wanted anything to drink. I took a soda, and he ordered a cup of tea.
“Well,” he said. “As you see, I fall asleep on and off nowadays. Seems to work. But I won’t keep you up,” he quickly added.
The whole time, I had been thumbing through a magazine about Massachusetts and found an interesting travel article about a town called Quincy. It was close to the Atlantic, and I had always enjoyed being near a beach. From the description I read about the small city, it seemed a perfect place in which to get lost. I had come to believe in fate and coincidence and thought that whatever powers were looking over me had put this destination in front of me. It was more than just a suggestion. It was a road map to my salvation.
Thaddeus looked at the magazine and nodded. I had left it open.
“I’ve been to Quincy often,” he told me. “It’s a very nice place.”
I could cling to the belief that maybe there was something out there, some great force that would want to protect me, but I had not left my paranoia behind. It sat with me in the seat. I didn’t like the idea that some stranger would have an idea about where I was headed.
“ ’Course,” he continued, “it’s been quite a while since I’ve been there. Now that I think about it, it’s more like twenty years, so you can’t take my word for it. Places change just like people, or maybe people change because the places change. I can’t tell you which comes first. So much for the wisdom of old age.”
“That’s all right. I’m just going to Boston,” I said. “I doubt I can get to anywhere else this trip.”
“Sure, sure, don’t rush your life along. I can tell you this,” he said, sitting back and closing his eyes again, “it seems like just yesterday when I fell in love with my wife. She’s been gone now close to twenty-five years, but I don’t wake up any morning without hearing her tell me not to dilly-dally. If it wasn’t for her, I’d have been half the man I was.” A smile seemed to land softly on his dark red lips. In moments, he was asleep again.
Would I live to be his age, and if I did, would I have any loving memories to bring me comfort?
We left the plane together. He offered to give me a ride to wherever I was going, but I assured him that someone was there to pick me up.