Ominous

I got in the red, 4wd Jeep Cherokee Laredo that they rented to me at the Hertz #1 Club Gold counter and put the key into the ignition. It was a rather peculiar key. In fact, save for the sure embarrassment that I would’ve felt, I would’ve asked exactly what it was and how it is that I’m supposed to use it to start this vehicle. Was it a keyless remote type key like the one I have for my Murano, or do I actually have to put it into the ignition. It turned out to be the latter. It was almost 830pm now and I know I should’ve gone to find some dinner much earlier but here I was acting like I was smack dab in the middle of Metropolis or something. I looked around the car, first over my shoulder, then in the rearview mirror . Finally, I turned all the way around to give the backseat and rear hatchback area a good once-over. It’s too quiet here; so much so that it almost makes you nervous. I don’t get nervous, but curiously I was at this moment. I almost expected to see someone’s menacing countenance eyeing me when I looked into the rearview mirror as I turned the ignition. It’s much too quiet here.

I backed out of the space and proceeded to drive out of the parking lot listening to Real Jazz on Sirius 72. My hotel is just off the highway but tucked in at the end of a dead-end road that backs up to a field. It’s not a very productive looking field. Not many of the fields around here look terribly productive. Most are desolate and devoid of life. It’s as if this land was thrown away and reclaimed in foreclosure. To my right I could see an imposing dark figure in the periphery. As I got deeper into my left turn out of the parking lot, the dim street light, accentuated even more by the subtle trace of fog that had lowered at this hour, allowed me to see that the dark figure was a very ominous looking 18 wheeler. A Mack truck to be exact, not to be confused with the nose-less Peterbilt variety. I don’t know why this behemoth of the byways captured my attention for more than that split second, but it did.

Suddenly, I was in a Stephen King movie. The lights on this sleeping giant flipped on and the engine roared to life and it lurched toward me. My Eddie Bauer leather boot slammed the accelerator to the floor as I struggled to overcorrect the while and straighten out of this left turn gone wrong. The quick glance that I gave to the intersection ahead proved to be nearly fatal as I mistakenly took the left turning Dodge Durango turning toward me to mean that I could safely make my right turn under its cover but was nearly broadsided by the late model Saturn SUV. As I swerved yet again, the Mack truck took out all of the other cars at the intersection now giving strong chase. I sped down Overland Avenue across the bridge over the Snake River, weaving in and out of the cars still out at that hour. I turn right and then right again, but I can’t shake him. My appetite is gone. I can’t remember why I had even come out of the hotel. I wish I hadn’t. My motor skills are imitating Nathan Bourne’s romp through Prague in the Mini Cooper. My mind is reflective, recalling abstract thoughts to a soundtrack of a female opera singing tragedy. The road runs out and all at once I’m in one of those fields again. Is this where they grow potatoes? It looks more like the location of a mass grave, perhaps soon to be my final resting place. Who knew that renting a 4x4 would come in so handy and so soon. How is this truck keeping up with me? Who is driving that thing? Where is everyone? Why doesn’t anybody help me? Is this how it all ends for me?

Stella by Starlight plays gently on the satellite radio. I’m still warming up the car and the daydream/nightmare is gone. That truck has been parked there all day and no one is in it. I’m heading to Morey’s Steakhouse and will enjoy the “best Steak on the Snake” according to them. I snicker at that ol’ truck as I turn onto W. 7th Street North and drive out to make the right on Overland. If it weren’t so dark, I’d probably walk over to this place and walk back. I’ve walked much further in much larger cities. It’s awfully dark outside though and the Weather Channel is telling me that it’s 32 degrees with the wind chill. Morey’s is close but it still gives me the creeps. Sure, it sits just a few feet from the Snake River but the street it is on is so dark and desolate. Without the 70 foot tall sign to lure you in, I daresay that only those in the know would ever find this place. It has that abandoned warehouse near the docks feel to it. Couple that with the not so generous use of streetlights and throw in the large professional sports team stadium parking lot and it’s easy to see why the hair on the back of my neck stands up each time I’ve been there. At least there were 3 cars in the lot this time and I found a spot fairly close to the front door.

I’m getting out of the car, but I still feel the urge to glance at the rearview mirror and then behind me in the backseat again. I don’t know what I’m expecting to find, nor do I want to know. If there were some eyes peering back at me, what would I do but jump anyway. The banquet hall one hundred yards in front of me looks even more eerie as I turn off my headlights, transforming its doorways into cavernous shadows that don’t look inviting or festive at all. As I’m putting on my gloves, the feeling of uneasiness comes over me once again. If I turn my head to discover someone standing there I will surely have a hard time keeping my composure. My forehead is getting moist and my hands are starting to sweat as I pull on the left glove first, and then the right. My peripheral vision detects something out of that window again and now the cold sweat has washed over my whole body and I don’t even feel like I’m breathing anymore or that my heart is beating. Finally, I snap my head to the left to find that no one is there and that my paranoia is having its way with me again. The window had begun to fog up as I sat there and as my breathing had quickened. Calming down now, I reasoned that the flickering of the lone light pole some fifty yards away signaling that some electrician clearly needed to come have a look-see, had began to dance playfully with the shadows and through a condensation obscured window had made for one chilling visual effect. “Get out of the car, and walk into the restaurant!” I chastised myself.

Nevermind the monster truck that was parked two spots over from me with its 22” tractor tires and Born to be Wild mud guards. I couldn’t help but think that this looked like precisely the vehicle that Kurt Russell did battle with in Breakdown as he tried to retrieve his kidnapped wife from some small town desperadoes. I got out and with my head on a swivel, as the football coaches always reminded us, I walked swiftly into the restaurant to enjoy my dinner. The whole time I was in eating that Steak Diane and sipping on that Grand Estates Merlot (or 2) I found my thoughts returning to that dark parking lot. From my window seat, I stared out at the Snake River and the overpass not far up the way and would occasionally turn my sights back to the front door whenever I heard anything in that direction. Of course I was seated sideways as I would never dream of having my back to the door. Brother Malcolm clearly had a profound effect on me at age 15 because since I read his autobiography, no doorway ever gets a good read on the back of my head after I initially pass through it.

I noticed that I was now the last person in the restaurant. Things close early around here and I didn’t show up until almost 9pm. I got into a long conversation with my waiter, Orlando about Bogota where he is from and the next thing I knew it was time to go. I wasn’t scared, but one’s imagination can run wild when left idly to wonder and wander. Mix in some red wine and red rum might come out. That’s the last thing I need is to come up missing in a place like this. No one would come look for me for quite awhile. Who knows what unspeakable things might be done to me in the meantime? Contrary to what I’ve said in previous writings about dining alone, perhaps having someone with which to converse can be a good thing.

Alas, it was indeed about that time. After paying the check and gathering myself to walk out, I hesitated at the door and looked back again to find that the bus boy and Orlando had looked up to see me off. We had said our official goodbyes when I signed the check and he walked off, but you know how that awkward silence and the strained facial expressions have a way of creeping up on you when you make eye contact after a goodbye. “Goodbye, have a nice night,” they said. I waved and smiled. The smile disappeared from my face when I turned my sights back through the thin plates of tempered glass on the front door. I braced myself for not only the cold, but the loneliness of the darkness.

I tried to be optimistic. At least the cold would heighten my senses and I’d be very aware of any intended ambush. But it sure was dark out there and my car was the only one that remained. Where does the staff park? Do they live in the building? It was all so peculiar. Perhaps there was an employee lot around the other side that I had neglected to notice. Not on the Snake River side, but the other side around the dark corner beyond the parking lot.

As I walked in and out of the shadows cast by the distant light posts my eyes played various tricks on me as if they had received a memo that it was not the middle of November but instead the very first day in April. I tried to dismiss all of this but as I approached from the passenger side , the high clearance of this 4wd vehicle allowing me to peer underneath to the other side I would swear that I saw a pair of feet waiting. My gait slowed as I struggled to focus in on what appeared to be some work boots. I took one more step and then…

SILENCE.
DARKNESS.
Regaining my bearings I figured that I was face down in the backseat of my own vehicle as it rumbled down a dark country road. My satellite radio was no longer on the straight ahead jazz station but on some sort of eclectic alternative selection that seemed straight out of a movie that might involve UFOs or hills with eyes. I could see a couple other pairs of boots on the floor near my face, but heard no conversation.

I don’t have the stomach for all of this, I thought to myself. No, really, I don’t, in the present tense, so enough of this charade. In my solitude, I got the crazy idea to inject some fiction into my daily ruminations. We’ll have to see how this is received first. My own “first draft” sort of critique would call for an increase in the vivid detail. What do you think?