No Where To Hide

Brady gripped the steering wheel a little harder as he hit the apex of the two-hundred-and-seventy-degree transition from the 101 to the 405 freeway. Unsure why he was speeding to the last place he wanted to go. No, the second to last. Home would claim the top spot. It was the stress driving every part of him, including the car.

As he released the pressure on the gas pedal, the car slowed to a manageable speed. He looked up and thought, ‘One mile. Make a decision. Face it or flee it.’

Looking over his left shoulder, pulling the left indicator, more than a lane change was decided. Flee, at least for the moment.

Brady looked in the rearview mirror, scanning as if to find the consequences of his decisions were anthropomorphic wolves chasing from behind. Fear alone propelled him to leave behind the mess made with poor choices, unanswered questions, and the possibilities of what would become of all of it.

At seventy miles an hour, passing the Budweiser brewery on his left, with the windows rolled up, he could still smell the mashing grains and boiling wort. Standing as it had since childhood, an icon of his youth, he remembered better days. Back when playing hide-and-seek with the neighborhood kids brought only simple questions. Should he kiss the girl hiding next to him? Maybe cop a feel? ‘What was her name?’

Unsure of where he was going, he recalled the joy of family vacations to Mammoth Mountain and Big Bear. In a moment, as if being pulled, drawn to the enclave of respite, he took the asphalt passage to the 118 freeway that would take him back to Big Bear Lake.

As the road straightened out, he reached for his phone. His eyes jumping back and forth from the screen to the windshield, he opened the search engine and typed, “Airbnb.” His eyes quickly moved, adding the rearview mirror to the medley of views, the only rapid-eye-movement experienced in the last twenty-four hours.

His fingers typed out Big Bear on the landing page, almost without looking at the miniature keyboard. Years of doing the same, much like the yesteryear secretaries, each letter’s location struck by muscle memory. The aid of technology suggested what he sought, even when the digits of his hand failed in their precision.

With a touch, he selected today’s date for check-in and one adult as the inhabitant. Finally, accepting the first cabin pictured, he completed the reservation. Then, disregarding his wife and kids, his employees, and the clients who wanted answers, he powered down his phone. After a moment, unsure how much he would need it later, he plugged it into the charger.

Brady tried to push down the fear and humility he fled. He questioned if something worse might be in the offing as well. ‘Could he go to jail?’ Turning up the radio volume, Wild Cherry told some white boy to Play That Funky Music.

‘Amber Hill!’ That was the name of the girl he hid with all those years ago. And she punched him in the stomach when he tried to kiss her.

The song changed, and he took another punch to the gut. Gloria Gaynor was telling everyone she would survive. As his stomach turned, he was unsure that he would do the same. He turned off the music.

Unable to find any peace, he exited the freeway and turned into the first gas station on the corner. Setting the pump to its task, he made his way into the mini-mart. Pulling a cup from the dispenser, he placed it under the spigot and drew it back. The hot dark liquid let off steam and a memory-inducing aroma. He recalled another poor decision from the depths of his mind. Looking at the bank of cigarettes behind the cashier, he capped the cup and went to them.

“Just the coffee?”

“Um,” he looked to the wall behind the young girl at the counter, “Can I get two packs of Marlboro Red?”

Unaware of her complicity in the end of his fourteen year abstinence, she reached up and pulled the two packs free from their temporary sheath. Scanning the coffee and cigarettes, “Is that all?”

“Yes.”

Brady reached for the phone in his back pocket to pay, remembered it sat in the car powered down, reached to the other, and pulled out his wallet. Looking at the money, for the first time conflicted, ‘whose was it really?’, he withdrew a hundred dollar bill and gave it to the girl.

Before she placed it in the drawer, he saw the lighters and grabbed one, “Sorry, this too. And will you give me two more packs?”

Without a word, she reached again to the bank of cigarettes and pulled two more. She scanned them and the lighter, “Fifty-two-eighty-five,” and gave him the change from the hundred dollar bill.

All bagged, he palmed the coffee, looped the bag of smoking paraphernalia through his fingers, and exited. He opened the driver’s side door and set the load on the seat and the cup in a holder. Then attended to the pump and got back in the car. Taking a sip from the cup and opening the bag, he grabbed one of the red and white packs, peeled the cellophane wrapper, and removed a single cigarette. As he put it in his mouth, he felt a release of tension unknown for some time. The sense of not being alone anymore. The feel of his old friend upon his lips, a caress of sympathy, acceptance.

Before he could draw the lighter to the end of the stick, he thought of the smell lingering. It would be not only evidence of his failure but also his deceit. Cupping it in his hand, he started the car and pulled away from the pumps to a vacant spot next to the small store.

Once out of the car, he rolled his thumb across the ribbed cog of the lighter and brought it to the cigarette. Ignition, inhalation, wonderment, and then he was coughing. It had been a long time since these two friends had shared a moment.

Despite his predicament, Brady laughed. He remembered the first cigarette he had tried at fourteen years old. The coughing. The choking.

Returning to the present, he took another hit and held it in just fine. He could not explain the sense of peace it gave, if only for a moment.

He thought by now, everyone at the office must be wondering where he was. There had not been a day in ten years that he wasn’t the first in the office. Would Cynthia, his wife, have called? Had anyone contacted her? He finished the cigarette and got back in the car. He noticed the smell of the cigarette had followed him. Not much different than the stench of betrayal to his clients that also enveloped the small space.

Back on the road, he thought of how he had gotten to such a point in his life. He had started well. He was helping companies that were in trouble. He, the white knight, showed up to save the day. He was brought into turnaround companies in financial difficulty for myriad reasons. He would turn over every stone and look in every corner. The answers were always there, waiting for his discovery.

How many companies had he helped? Somewhere north of a hundred now. Even the ones he stole from, he helped them and never took enough to jeopardize the success of his mission. It started without a plan to do so. At first, bringing in other consultants to handle specific technical tasks. Over time, billing for those same consultants for work not done. Justifying each to himself with the success of the turnaround.

Until Bayside Cosmetics. He knew that one was a risk. The company had over a hundred million in annual sales and was hemorrhaging losses.

He reached for the pack and pulled out another cigarette. Before it touched his mouth, he remembered the smell. He set it in the cubby by the gear shift in the center console. Thought about getting off the freeway again, but decided against it.

That frickin CFO. On his second day at Bayside, he met her. He sensed her apprehension when they met. He knew she, like most CFO’s he met, worried she would be blamed for the company’s troubles. Or worse, worried that Brady and his team would find something that could have been done different, better, that might have prevented the crisis in the first place. Brady knew it was never that easy, and rarely did the cause not lay somehow at the CEO’s feet. Through neglect, loss of direction, unseen outside influences, or even distraction by things that the CEO had let creep into his life. For some it was affairs, others addiction, and a few, the vagueries of life itself.

Lost in his recollection, he picked up the cigarette and the lighter, flicked to get a flame, and inhaled as the burn began when the two met.

While he went to work making the CFO feel safe, she went to work investigating each of his moves and especially his costs. Unbeknownst to him, even with the CEO approving every charge, she went about questioning the veracity of each submission. By the time she started calling his prior clients, she had already proved her case. His latest bills had gone unpaid for over sixty days while she worked with the CEO to prove her conjectures.

Brady thought about how incrementally he had gone from a white knight to the thief in the castle. One minor infringement at a time, he crossed over. Always believing himself too smart to be detected. Justifying each action, by the proof of his work, in the health of the companies he served. As he flicked the burning cigarette out the window, he noted in just forty-five miles, he crossed another boundary, that of not smoking in the car set less than an hour ago. This was the man he had become.

Before long, he was in the town of Big Bear. Opening his Waze app, he set the address and followed its lead the final three miles. On the cabin door was an envelope with the key and some instructions. He opened the door and walked in.

Inside, the heat was already flowing, bringing only warmth, not comfort, to the air of the shabby, dated interior of the cabin.

He looked around and contemplated how it mirrored the disgraceful, characterless shell of a man he now was. He sat at the kitchen counter and pulled out the papers served on him less than twenty-four hours before. Locked in his office, he had read each allegation of the suit. He wondered why they had not involved any law enforcement yet? Was it embarrassment? Not wanting employees, clients, or others to know of the losses?

He didn’t know. He didn’t know anything. Most of all, he didn’t know what to do. Walking out onto the porch, he lit another cigarette. Should he call his attorney? His wife? Run and never look back? He had never set up an escape plan. He never dreamed of being caught. He had to face it at some point and knew with each hour he waited, the worse it would become.

Back in the shabby cabin, he recognized he did not have the answers needed to figure out a plan, life and its consequences were still going on for his family and company. Unable to reach him, they would begin trying to figure out where he was and why was he gone. Then what happened? The longer he waited, the net would get bigger with more people involved. 

Less than thirty minutes after his arrival, he tucked the key to the cabin back into the envelope and set it on the counter as instructed upon departure. He walked to the door, opened it, set the lock, and pulled it close behind him.

Grabbing all four packs of cigarettes and the lighter, he walked around the cabin to find the trash cans. He disposed of them with as little thought as when he acquired them, pulled his phone from his back pocket, and turned it back on.

Once unlocked, he hit the favorites button and punched the first entry on the top of the list.

“Hello? Brady? Where are you? What’s wrong?”

“Honey, I am in trouble.”

The End.