Fear Has a Name: A Novel (25 page)

It would be an uncomfortably long bus ride if his clothes were sopping wet.

He contemplated running but only sighed.

Why bother?

He began to walk.

And he wished for the lightning to come closer, much closer.

33

Now that it was completely dark, Granger and Pamela were blazing a trail. Late on a Monday night was proving to be a darn good time to take a trip south.

Granger was sticking mostly to highway roads now, I-77 to be specific. They were in the hill country of West Virginia. First Parkersburg, then Ripley, then winding past the romantically lit gold dome of the capitol in Charleston. Every time he had ever driven past, Granger always thought he could live there. It looked like an old mining town. Friendly. Peaceful. Blue collar—like him.

He was doing about seventy as the green signs for Princeton and Bluefield and Wytheville shot by one at a time over the miles.

“I remember one time when I was a kid,” Granger said, “we went on a vacation right around here somewhere. Galax was the name of the town; I’ll never forget that name. My old man rented this little junk camper. It was gonna be a real family love-in type thing.” He chuckled. “Man, did it go sour.”

Pamela was hunched low in the passenger seat, but looking right at him, with her pretty mouth closed. Her body looked rigid. He wished she would relax.

“We went to my cousin’s house,” he said. “The first night we got there, they had a big tent revival in Galax; you wouldn’t believe what happened.”

Pamela just kept staring.

“Some huge dude wearing a big old silver belt buckle and a leather cowboy hat got up in front of everybody and handled what they said was a poisonous rattlesnake. It was huge. My father was out of there so fast. He was furious at my aunt for taking us. We packed it in and took off, drove all night, all the way back home. The whole way he harped about that snake handler, how he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

Pamela’s expression didn’t change. She’d eaten a few cashews earlier and sipped her water, but that was it.

Missing that husband.

“We’re only gonna have a little time together.” Granger eyed her. “Can you just talk to me? That’s all I want.”

“I told you I need to let Jack know I’m safe.” Pamela didn’t move in her seat. “I’m worried because I know he’s worried. Can’t you understand that?”

“Okay, look, I told you we’re gonna stop again. It’s only been a half a day—”

“Have a little sympathy, okay?” She sat up, crossed her arms, and glared out the passenger window into the blackness. “I have a family. Little girls. Parents. They’re worried sick.”

She turned to him for a reaction. He drained the last of his Red Bull, tossed the can into the back, punched the lighter, and reached for the pack of cigarettes in the visor above his head.

“Your problems are small, Pamela.” He put a fist to his mouth and belched silently. “Your world is small. You don’t know what it’s like to suffer—to be tormented in your mind. To be raised by tyrants.”

It was dark and silent in the car for perhaps a mile. He opened his window, lit the smoke, inhaled deeply. He was about to mention his plan to stop at one of the upcoming exits so she could call, when she spoke.

“I know you had it rough.” Pamela turned and looked straight ahead. “I heard different things. I don’t think anyone really knew what you went through.”

“You’re darn right they didn’t.” He could almost feel the cold, damp mattress beneath him and smell the wet, frigid nights in the shack behind the house.

“Bottom line,” he said, “they never wanted me.”

The highway hummed beneath them.

“But because they
did
have me, out of spite they decided to make my life miserable. Most of it was mental. ‘Thou shalt not lie. Thou shalt not steal.’” Granger imitated his mother. “They were so good at it, they made it seem like they didn’t even know they were doing it. I’m still not sure how much of it was done to purposefully hurt me and how much of it they really believed was true religion. I learned to let it roll off.”

“What about once you left home?” Pamela looked at him. “Were you able to lead any sort of a normal life?”

Her hands were trembling. At least she was trying.

“I had a good job,” he said. “Had my own car, and place.”

“What happened?”

“Pffft.” He paused. “Relationships. People skills.” He spewed the words as if spitting in his parents’ faces. “Nobody taught me any of that stuff.”

“But you
know
you have issues.” Her whole body turned to face him, and she curled a knee up on the seat. “That’s the important thing. You realize your parents mentally abused you, and you know you need help. That’s everything.”

He looked at her. Even in the dark, her lovely face was radiant.

She would have been so good for him. She would have made the difference—the difference between a good life, and this.

“I went to see a doctor,” he said. “Not too long ago. Paid an arm and a leg. Was ready for help.”

“And?”

“Oh, we talked and did tests and looked at pictures, the whole nine yards; took a whole day. The entire time I was trying to figure out if what she was doing was truly scientific, if it would help, or whether it was all just a sham. Still haven’t figured it out.”

“What’d she tell you?” Pamela twisted open her water and sipped.

“Ah … that I was emotionally abused,” he said sarcastically.

“What else?”

“That my parents ignored me when I needed to express myself. They isolated me from healthy relationships.”

Pamela shook her head.

“She said that’s why I’m withdrawn … why I’m not good at relationships.”

“In high school sometimes you seemed okay. Even funny.”

She looked away when he tried to make eye contact.

“I knew you weren’t popular,” she said.

The faces of the jocks, the incidents with the bullies seemed to come at him like obstacles in the road. “That stuff left scars, you know?”

She looked over at him in silence.

“It was bad enough I got it at home, but then at school—from everyone? And it was like a disease. Once the others saw or heard you getting harassed, they assumed that gave them the freaking license to do the same.”

His voice broke.

Stop it, you baby.

“Granger, do you believe in God?”

“Don’t even go there,” he snapped. “My parents lived and breathed that garbage.”

“But you’ve got a skewed view of it. They weren’t true Christians,” she said. “I’m a Christian. Any compassion or interest I ever took in you was because God used me, that was God reaching out to you. Your parents might have ruined your concept of Christianity, but I can tell you for a fact, nothing will change you more than this book on the floor right here.”

“I’ll tell you something.” He took a painfully deep hit off the Newport. “You are the
only
person on earth I would still be sitting next to after hearing that pitch. Now let’s cut it.”

“If you read this book” —she picked it up and set it in her lap—“I guarantee it will pierce your heart and change you—if you’re open to it. Come close to God, and he’ll come close to you.”

“I’ve read more of that thing than most people. I’ve
tried
to change.”

Pamela shook her head. “It’s not about trying. It’s about
not
trying. It’s about letting go of life as you know it. Falling into his arms. Trusting him to carry you—and to supernaturally change you.”

“That all sounds real good,” Granger said.

“It can be.”

“The truth is, Pam, the way I really feel is totally worthless—undeserving of anyone’s love or care—yours or God’s or anyone else’s.”

“That’s because your parents rejected you!”

“Yeah, they did.” He slammed the steering wheel. “I was never good enough.”

“Everyone needs to be loved and feel they’re important and wanted and listened to. You never got that. It’s no wonder you’re—”

“A freak?” he said, looking straight out at the road.

“That you have big challenges you need to work to overcome,” she said.

Granger stared ahead as far as the headlights reached.

“That’s what the shrink said. ‘Every individual needs to be nourished with human contact.’” He turned to Pam. “I can’t remember touching my parents. I’m not talking about hugging or kissing them; I’m talking about
never touching them
.”

His own statement pierced him. Sorrow or relief or regret, something foreign, rolled up in his throat and behind his nose.

He drove, wishing so badly that his life had been different. Wondering why, if there was a God, he had allowed Granger to grow up in that wicked, rotten home and with such torment at school.

“One time I dared to raise my voice to my mother. I told her she and my father were abusing me with all their mental voodoo. She got so ticked she turned purple.” He laughed out of sheer frustration.

Pamela even chuckled, and her eyes glistened.

“She said, ‘We’ve never once hit you. You have no idea what it’s like to be abused. You keep it up and you’ll find out.’”

Pamela opened the Bible. “It’s not too late to start over,” she said quietly.

“Oh yes, it is.” Granger nodded. “My mother’s dead back there. My prints are on a gun. And here I am on the run with you—add kidnapping to the murder rap.”

“The evidence will prove your father did it,” Pamela said. “You’ll get an attorney. A jury will hear the case—”

“And who do you think they’re gonna believe? An upstanding, long-time member of the Cleveland Heights community and a deacon in his church—or a wacked-out thug like me who’s tormented an innocent housewife and mother?”

“We could drop all the charges,” she said, realizing that was probably a lie. “Then it would just be a matter of getting you off the murder rap.”

“No how, no way would your husband ever go for that.”

“Look, I’m not making any promises,” Pamela said, “but if you stop running, let me go—I’ll talk to him. I’ll plead with Jack to drop all charges in order to give you a clean slate. I promise you that.”

That was the Pamela Wagner he once knew.

He wanted to reach over and softly touch her hand, take it in his.

He wanted to nestle her close to him and ride through the night with her head resting against his arm.

But he knew.

Yes, he knew none of that was to be.

This would be the last time he would ever travel that road. Everything behind him was gone and forgotten.

Blank.

He would remember or revisit none of it ever again.

All that was left was a little more time with Pamela, his only love, on the gray highway whose white lines stretched out before him like a ribbon unfurling in the night.

And then what?

He felt like opening that Impala up to a hundred miles per hour and driving it off a cliff into the ocean wherever the map ended.

They would go out together.

The sky far off to the right burst open with lightning, revealing thick, mean clouds.

Appropriate,
he thought.
Bring it on.

“What do you say?” Pamela’s soft voice brought him back. “Will you stop this? Will you let me go home to my little girls? They need me, just like what we talked about. I promise I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”

He didn’t look at her. “You can’t help me.”

“But you can help me,” she whispered. “You can give me my life back.”

He pushed down on the accelerator, not wanting that, not wanting to give her up.

The car roared, pinning his shoulders to the seat, jarring Pamela.

And he wanted it to roar, louder, more deafening—to drown out the knowledge of right and wrong; the confusion and chaos firing like sparks, chugging like pistons in his messed-up head.

Evan sat shivering alone on a bench in the dimly lit station, waiting to board the bus that sat just beyond the window in the rain, its orange and white lights glistening and passengers stretching beyond its dark windows. Halfway to the station he remembered he’d packed an umbrella. It sat on the floor still soaked and open next to him. His clothes and body were wet and cold to the touch; inside he was numb and nauseated.

“Sir, did you want me to check that bag for you?”

Evan slowly looked up at the short female attendant in the navy pants and white short-sleeved shirt. Her nametag read
Ann
.

“I’ll keep it with me,” Evan said.

“That’s fine,” she said. “You can go ahead and board now.” She hesitated, then removed her blue cap and scratched her head of frizzy brown hair. “I wasn’t sure if you heard the announcement.”

“No.” He stared at her and gave a dazed chuckle. “I must’ve been daydreaming.” He stood with ticket in hand and bent down to get his duffel bag and umbrella.

“Just give the driver your ticket when you board,” she said.

He nodded, made sure he’d left nothing behind, and headed for the door.

“Safe travels.” She waved as she went through a swinging door leading behind the counter. “Might be a little slow going. There are weather issues.”

Evan stopped at the door. “Really?”

“Yeah.” She straightened a stack of bus schedules along the front of the counter. “Radar’s showing a big line of storms in Alabama and Georgia, moving our way. This is just the beginning of it.”

He nodded toward the bus. “So we’ll be heading right into it?”