Chapter 4

(Note: I was planning to do this as a “crossover event,” where Troy & Julie, Maria, and Susan would get their own stories about receiving the news and what they do next. I decided instead to combine those stories into this one, so this chapter and the next will focus on that.)

“Life’ll kill ya. That’s what I said.
Life’ll kill ya. Then you’ll be dead.
Life’ll find ya. Wherever you go.
Requiescat In Pace, that’s-a all she wrote.”
-Warren Zevon, “Life’ll Kill Ya”

She ran.

He had turned around and was chasing her in the car that she’d jumped from moments before. She spotted one of the trails her friends took through the woods and ran into them. She couldn’t see the road anymore, but heard him getting out of the car and yelling for her bitch ass to get back in it.

She knew where she was running. He did too, and if he hadn’t been so drunk, it might’ve occurred to him to drive around the small wooded area and wait on the other side, but whiskey and rage were in charge, so he tried to stumble through the trees after her. It was only a few acres bordering the highway and her neighborhood. She hoped they were home. Or that one of them was home. Or that she’d be able to put enough distance between them so that he wouldn’t see where they’d hidden the key for her if she needed to escape from him and they weren’t home.

The leather jacket she wore protected her body and arms from the smaller branches whipping her as she ran, and she ignored the tiny lashings to her face and legs from others, knowing that the pain would be far worse if he caught her. Broken glass and crushed up cans on the ground were also a worry. The “bad crowd” of teens in the neighborhood liked to hide and get drunk and fuck in these woods, so she was getting to know them well. There was a squelch as she stepped on a discarded condom. She dragged her foot to get it off and kept running.

At some point, the crushing, stumbling, violently swearing footsteps behind her seemed to recall that they belonged to a grown adult who’d just left his vehicle running with the door open by the side of the highway and retreated. At last, she saw sunlight at the end of the trail. She ran out of the woods to the T intersection of two dirt roads at the top of a hill. At the bottom of the hill, the shorter road turned to asphalt, and in the driveway of the first house on the right, on the other side of the paving break, was something better than she’d hoped for; a yellow pick-up truck backed in and a boy and girl her age helping an old man carry in groceries. Everyone was home!

“PROPAPPOU,” Helen shouted as she broke into a sprint down the hill, and then realized that the old man probably couldn’t hear her from this distance. “TROY! JULIE!”

The boy and girl turned their heads. Julie set her bags back down on the tailgate of the truck and ran next door to get her father. Propappou dropped a large package of toilet paper and hobbled forward on his cane, reaching his other hand into his coat pocket. Troy Medina got his bags into the open garage door, then jumped up and grabbed the bottom of the door, pulling it down halfway and motioning for her to get inside.

Julie came running back out; her father a few seconds behind, a phone in one hand and his service weapon in the other, shouting for Julie to get back in the damn house. She didn’t listen and darted across the shared front lawn, crouching to get into Propappou’s garage with Troy.

The sounds of internal combustion and wheels spitting up dirt came from behind Helen, and the knowledge of who that could only be gave her another burst of speed as she ran into the garage and Troy pulled the door down behind her.

Helen leaned against the inside of the garage door and caught her breath, half-expecting him to punch through the two inches of reinforced wood and grab her like the villain of a slasher flick. Screeching tires and men’s shouting voices could be heard on the other side of the heavy door.

The two best friends gave her a moment to recover and as soon as she did, she ran into Troy’s arms and grabbed hold of him as tight as she could. Troy returned the embrace. He knew she’d tell him what was going on when she was ready. Finally, she looked up at him and began to speak through her tears.

“He ... his crew ... job planned tonight ... warehouse ... Benny got picked up ... no lookout. Dragged me along ... wanted me to be lookout.”

Julie turned the light on. Troy’s family’s garage had been converted to a rec room. She grabbed sodas from the minifridge and brought everyone one as Troy led Helen over to the poker/backgammon table. Helen sat down and took a drink, then began to speak in full sentences as the shouting outside became louder; the Greek curses drowning out the English voices.

“I told him I didn’t want to. Like every fucking cop in town isn’t gonna say “hey, ain’t that Wade Parker’s daughter lurking around the loading dock at midnight?” The other guys agreed and called it off until Benny gets out, but he still says it’s my fault for not going along. He hit me every time we stopped all the way from the bar to the store. Said I was useless and he’d be better off if I was dead. When he got back to the car, he’d bought trash bags and duct tape with his whiskey and put them in the trunk. I know he’s got a shovel back there. When he turned right go out of town instead of left to go home, I thought ‘He’s really going to do it this time. He’s driving me out to the marsh to kill me and bury me.’ I ... I jumped out ... and I ran here...” The tears returned.

Troy put his arm around Helen while Julie held the hand on her other side. The three of them sat like that for a few minutes, Julie and Troy looking at each other and seeming to have a very intense conversation entirely via facial expressions throughout.

Flashing lights could be seen outside the garage window as the “BOOP BOOP” of a police siren being turned on and off again blared from the street.

“I’d better go talk to them,” Troy said as he got up. The two girls nodded. Helen knew that the two of them had a way of talking to adults that caused them to be taken more seriously than she ever could. He went out the front door of the house rather than open the garage door and let Helen’s dad see her inside. As the door opened, the shouting outside became briefly intelligible.

“I’m not ON that wrinkly old goat-fucker’s lawn, I’m on the FUCKING STREET and he’s hiding that little bitch! Why aren’t you kicking his door down?”

“Mr. Parker? Wade, you’re drunk. Why don’t you come back over by our car and we’ll talk about this?”

“FUCKING talk about? That’s MY daughter in there! I pay for her fucking whore clothes, I pay for...”

The door mercifully closed. Helen looked questioningly down at her outfit and up again at Julie, her eyes full of tears once more. Julie got up and put her arms around her, kissing Helen on the forehead. Helen looked up and pulled Julie’s face down to hers and they kissed on the lips for a moment before Julie sat back down, taking hold of her hand again.