Hiding in Plain Sight

Cal and Sherrie were seated at a high top table at their favorite restaurant. They both liked eating there for different reasons. Cal liked the place because, in addition to having his favorite gooey cheese curds and chicken wings with just the right spice, it also was a sports bar. Everywhere he looked, there were large screen TVs, showing the games of all of his favorite teams. The atmosphere was loud and raucous. He could cheer or boo along with fellow rowdy fans. After a long and difficult work week, it was a relief to let off some steam, to let the weight of the world roll off his broad shoulders.

  Sherrie liked the restaurant for its killer margaritas – the best she had found anywhere in the area. The margaritas came in many flavors, her favorite being the strawberry, served in a frosty glass with salt around the rim. The margarita went well with the salsa, chips, and the restaurant’s signature guacamole that their server prepared in front of them, hand mashing the avocados with a blue stone mortar and pestle. Sherrie doubted whether there were sports bars in Mexico. When it came to the guacamole and margaritas, however, the restaurant could compete with any Mexican cantina anywhere.

Every other weekend, when Sherrie’s kids were staying with their father, as part of their normal visitation schedule, she and Cal had a standing date for happy hour at this, their favorite restaurant. It was an excellent way to kick off the weekend. Their dates invariably led to them going home together, usually to Cal’s apartment. As a divorced mother, she didn’t feel right about bringing a strange man home to her bedroom, even if the kids weren’t there. The kids had never met Cal after all. 

She couldn’t resist Cal. He was extremely good looking and had an air of mystery about him. He was a puzzle she wanted to solve. No, needed to solve. She couldn’t quite figure him out and it sometimes drove her crazy. The attraction definitely went both ways. Cal also loved spending time with Sherrie. He felt like he had won the lottery when she came home with him on a Friday night. 

Although he loved it when Sherrie came over to his place, he was also somewhat embarrassed that he lived in a tiny, dumpy apartment. Sherrie had a normal house, after all, with two stories, a basement, her own garage, and multiple bathrooms and bedrooms. Even if that house was paid for by her ex-husband, it was still her own. Unlike him, she was not a renter. In terms of how financially established she was in life, she was miles ahead of Cal. Of course, she had gotten there through her ill-fated marriage. She had earned her nice place in the world through years of heartache.

Unlike Sherrie, he had no one else to blame or credit for his life circumstances. His reduced circumstances were entirely on him. Living in a cramped, nondescript apartment was the price he had to pay for starting a new life. He needed to start over again at the bottom. As someone who was in the witness protection program with a forged name and identity, he had to stay under the radar in all aspects of his life. Home ownership and living in a more affluent neighborhood were simply not in the cards for him.

He felt extremely lucky that he was not in prison, after all, given the serious crimes he had committed when he was in his violent motorcycle gang. He had been given a new shot, a second chance at life with a minimal price tag. He needed to live his life like an ordinary, working man.

The saving grace in this ordinary life was his relationship with Sherrie. He was already well on his way to falling hard and fast for her. She was the light in his otherwise dull world. Of course, she knew none of his past. She didn’t even know him as Cal. He was Carl to her – the new name that went along with his new life. He took great pains to hide his past. As a hardworking, single mother of two teenagers, Cal doubted whether Sherrie would approve of a muscle bound thug, one who intimidated people to collect drug and hush money. 

Sometimes he feared Sherrie suspected something was amiss. She surely sensed that he was hiding secrets from her. She often looked at him searchingly or asked him leading questions, trying to trip him up. She didn’t appreciate the walls he put up between them. It was one of the few things they ever argued about. She called him a man of mystery and, while that intrigued her, it also frustrated her that he wasn’t more open and forthcoming about his past.

Well, it couldn’t be helped, Cal thought. He just hoped that Sherrie would not one day tire of him. He prayed she would not give up on him for not being totally open and transparent. He honestly didn’t know if he could blame her if she were to do so. She was, in effect, only getting half of him. She wasn’t getting the real Cal. 

For some reason, his thoughts kept straying down that dark path tonight, despite it being a regular Friday evening, a night he normally celebrated as TGIF or Thank God It’s Friday. He surveyed the crowded restaurant. Maybe if he saw the happy, relaxed Friday faces of others, it would lighten his spirits.

As he glanced around the dining room, he noticed a man sitting on the other side of the room who looked eerily familiar. Although the man was rough around the edges and was sitting alone in a corner booth, something about him rang a bell with Cal. He couldn’t quite put a finger on what it was that had sparked his sense of recognition. It wasn’t anything glaringly obvious, but something more obscure like the shape of his face or the way he held his head. He seemed oddly familiar, like someone Cal should recognize. Where had he seen that man before? Was he part of his former motorcycle gang, the Carrion eaters or Carrions for short?

 Cal was itching to know. At the same time, he was frightened. If this man was a Carrion and recognized Cal, he would surely report to his buddies that Cal was still alive. They would then track him down and exact their revenge for squealing about them and their numerous crimes. And their means of revenge would not be pretty, he thought, shuddering. 

He really needed to hide in plain sight. He couldn’t let the man see him, but he also couldn’t raise Sherrie’s suspicions. He needed to act as if everything was perfectly fine and dandy. Before he could decide on a strategy for how to accomplish those seemingly mutually exclusive goals, Sherrie spoke up.

“Is everything alright? You seem kind of quiet tonight.”

“Everything’s fine,” he assured her. His mind raced. What could he say to her to explain his uncharacteristically nervous behavior? Before he could formulate a plan, Sherrie spoke up again.

“You went kind of white there for a moment, as if you’d seen a ghost. What’s that all about?”

A ghost. That was a good way of putting it, Cal thought. The man might be a ghost from his past. He snuck a look over at him. The ghost man had spiked, punk style hair dyed a startling blond white– youthful hair that was in sharp contrast to his lined, weathered face. He looked like an aged Billy Idol groupie. Dressed in typical biker attire, a dark tattoo peeked out from under the sleeve of his dirty white T-shirt which he wore under a black leather vest adorned with colorful patches. Cal squinted his eyes. Was the tattoo the Carrion symbol? Was it the bird that dug its beak into the rotting flesh of its victims? From this distance, he couldn’t quite tell.

He tried to put a stop to those alarming thoughts, almost physically pulling himself back to the present moment with Sherrie.

 “I’m fine,” he assured her, although his thoughts were still racing. Should he make this a quick outing, or should he linger so as not to arouse Sherrie’s or the ghost man’s suspicions? And was the ghost man really sporting a Carrion tattoo?

“You sure? We don’t have to stay as long as we normally do, if you’re feeling like a quiet night.” Sherrie laughed self consciously. “I’ll only have one margarita, not my normal two.”

Cal couldn’t help but smile. He knew how Sherrie enjoyed her margaritas, and he relished in her enjoyment, finding her adorable when she was pleasantly tipsy. Of course, everything about Sherrie was adorable, he thought. Not only was she adorable, but she was very in tune with his moods apparently. She seemed to sense Cal’s worried discomfort. 

“Whatever you like,” he said in what he hoped was a light tone. He reached over to dip a chip in some guacamole. At the same time, he glanced once again at the man, surprised to find that he was now getting up from his seat.

The man now seemed to be making his way over towards where Cal and Sherrie sat. Their table was on the path to the door, and the stranger appeared to be leaving. Cal’s palms began to sweat, and his heart raced. He was now almost positive that the man really wasn’t a stranger at all. In fact, the closer the man got to him, the more he seemed hauntingly familiar. He was indeed a ghost from his past. A past he had needed to escape from. It was a matter of life and death. 

He leaned over towards Sherrie, bending his head slightly and hunching to make himself less noticeable. He felt slightly ashamed to use flirting as a cover, but the situation warranted it. By getting closer physically to Sherrie and leaning over across the narrow table, he exposed less of his face to the rough looking stranger. 

“Did I tell you how pretty you look tonight?” He said, gazing into her bright blue eyes.

“Thank you.” Sherrie said softly. She reached over and took his hand. “You’re acting kind of strange tonight, but I must admit I like your sweet talk.”

“That’s me. Sweet like your margarita,” he said.

“And just as dangerous,” she replied. “You go to my head with your flattery,” she paused and looked at him beseechingly. “And I still don’t know all your deep, dark secrets.”

Cal sighed. It was a long standing, albeit gentle, battle between them. Sherrie was always fishing for information. With her acute perceptiveness, she sensed something in his past.

 “Me? I don’t have any. Secrets, that is.”

If that were only true, he thought bitterly. If only he didn’t have secrets. It wasn’t easy to keep things light and flirtatious when he was sweating bullets. It wasn’t easy to hide in plain sight.

Just as he was thinking that, the stranger closed the remaining distance between them. He was now only a few steps away from their table. Cal let go of Sherrie’s hand and nervously reached for his glass of beer. He swallowed it rapidly, looking surreptitiously at the man out of the corner of his eye.

To his dismay, the man had now stopped in the middle of the aisle that ran between the tables. He was now directly in front of where they sat. He pulled a cell phone out of the pocket of his jeans and made stabbing motions at the keyboard. Sherrie looked up in surprise. 

“How rude!”, she said quietly. “Some people stop and text in the worst places, right in the way of everybody.”

She spoke softly. Cal was positive the man hadn’t heard her. Nevertheless, he looked up at them as she spoke. It seemed to Cal that he was making an effort to make deliberate eye contact. Cal felt his heart plummet to his stomach. It was almost as if the man were making a statement as he looked Cal directly in the eyes. I know who you are. I see you. 

Cal didn’t want to play any sort of game of chicken with the man, no matter who he was. He tried to break eye contact and clumsily reached again for his beer, his hand shaking. 

Now the man was holding his phone up in the air and appeared to be pressing one of its icons. What was he doing? Cal thought. 

Suddenly the ghost man spoke in a gravelly voice. “You can never get good cell service here.”

Cal nodded weakly. Sherrie just looked annoyed that the man was disturbing their date.

“Finally,” the man said triumphantly, pushing down with his thumb as he continued to hold his phone aloft. “You folks have a good night now,” he said at last and walked rapidly out the restaurant’s door.

When at last he was gone, Cal felt a tremendous rush of relief. At the same time, however, he was also still worried. What had that man been doing with his phone? Was the ghost taking his picture? He tried to quell his racing nerves. Hoping to settle himself, he took another giant swallow from his Miller Lite. 

“That was weird,” Sherrie said. “Glad that creepy guy is finally gone.”

“Yeah. He was an odd one.”

Sherrie continued to drink her margarita, seeming to get more animated and tipsy by the minute. Cal watched her in bemusement, trying unsuccessfully to quell his ever increasing fears about the rough looking stranger. His ghost.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and nervously tested it. He got immediate cell service. His heart sank.

In the meantime, outside the restaurant, seated inside a truck in the parking lot, the strange man spoke on his phone.

“I think I just saw your Carrion enforcer that went missing. The one who collected all the money. The one you said was either dead or ratted us out to the cops. I’m not exactly sure though, because I only met him a couple of times,” he said. 

“Really? Why do you think it's him?", the voice on the other end of the phone asked.

“He looked familiar to me. If it’s not that guy, it's his twin brother," the ghost said. “But if you want to see his face yourself, I took a picture with my cell phone. I pretended I couldn’t get cell service and held my phone up in the air and snapped a quick pic of him. Hold on a minute, and I’ll send it to you.” 

He quickly sent the picture off and went back to his phone call. 

“Did you get it?,” he asked excitedly. “What do you think? Is it him?”

“Yes, that’s definitely him,” the voice paused. “Where are you now? Are you still in the same place as the guy?”

“Yes, I’m sitting outside in my truck in the parking lot of the restaurant. He's still inside.”

“Good, good. I want you to follow him home. Find out for me where he lives. His name is Cal. I’ll send you his last name. It’s spelled kind of weird. I think he’s Italian or something. Report back to me all you can find out about him and what he’s doing now.”

“Got it. Will do. You know, he was with a good looking blonde. It seemed like he was really into her. Do you want me to find out about her too?”

“That’s a good idea,” the voice replied. “We need to come up with some kind of plan. Cal's gonna pay. The lady could give us some leverage. Nobody messes with the Carrions.”