Edgar's Escape

Edgar’s Escape

Bob Vaddiparty

binarystars1993@yahoo.com

24 July 2024

"Edgar, stop lollygagging and move your lazy ass. Everybody's finished and they're headed back to …" were the last words I heard out of my tormentor's mouth before the sound of a thousand bricks hitting the floor reverberated throughout the bathroom. I was cleaning the last of my assigned toilets during the 2022 Superbowl at CenturyLink Stadium in Seattle. Tom Brady, age forty-four, the same as mine, just won his eighth 'big game' in eleven attempts. I imagined him surrounded by his ebullient kids, kissing his gorgeous wife, and beaming before a worldwide TV audience with his record-setting sixth M.V.P. trophy raised high above his head while simultaneously calculating how many more millions he could extract from the Buccaneer's owner next season. I wasn't sure if the two-month-long janitors' strike or a back-door handshake between the N.F.L. and our corrupt warden offered us this opportunity to participate in Superbowl LVI, albeit from the bathrooms. Nevertheless, nineteen of my fellow 'low-risk' convicts and I have almost completed our duties and will soon be taken back to our nearby purgatory, to be fed the same 'plant-based' slop and watered-down lemonade while Brady dines on caviar, champagne, and filet mignon. Ever since the warden recovered from his stroke, his wife put him on a 'healthy' diet, and the bastard decided that he would not suffer alone.

I snuck my head out, and after wiping the sweat off my brows, I saw Sergeant Adam Johnson's five-foot-eight-inch, two-hundred-pound, finely sculpted body lying motionless near the row of sinks. A little bit of blood was sputtering from the gash in his forehead, probably caused by his head hitting the sink during its free-fall. I placed my fingers over his carotid artery and felt nothing. The poor bastard must have had a massive heart attack. His intense daily workout regimen, which he constantly boasted about, was no match for his outsized temper and brutality. His vital organs shut down after serving him for just a little over three decades. I assumed the other four guards had accompanied my colleagues to the prison bus.

Rather than run out and scream for help, hoping I wouldn't be accused of a heinous crime, I dragged his dead body into a stall, mopped up the blood on the floor, exchanged my blue-striped prison attire for his uniform, and grabbed his toolbelt, wallet, and revolver. I thought of how wonderful it would be to spend the next eighteen years of my life, not as a custodian of the state of Washington, saving its taxpayers over seven hundred thousand dollars, but as an ex-patriot living with Alma in a small tropical village. My not-so-finely sculpted one-hundred-and-fifty-pound body didn't fill out his uniform, but this was the least of my concerns.

Recalling that when we left the prison, I saw Johnson get into his car, probably to head home after the game, I reached into the shirt pocket for the parking stub. I tugged on the brim of Johnson's cap to cover as much of my face as possible and ambled amongst the crowd to the area indicated on the stub, not far from where the bus was parked. Fortunately, all four guards were inside, heads buried in their cellphones. One of the guards had his hand over his mouth with his eyes bulging like a frog's, aghast at what was on display. Clicking Johnson's remote incessantly, I soon heard the distinctive sound of a car door unlocking, got in, and quickly merged into the exit lane, blending into a sea of cars. I pulled off an almost comical jailbreak, one tailor-made for a Woody Allen movie; I was ecstatic.

An hour later, at a rest stop on Interstate 5, fifty or so miles south of Seattle, near Olympia, I opened the trunk and found a duffel bag containing a pair of jeans, some polo shirts, a swimming trunk, and four pairs of underclothing, and most importantly, a couple of cans of Red Bull. I assumed Johnson was about to head off on a short vacation with his girlfriend. I changed into his civilian attire in the back seat and dumped his guard uniform in a nearby trash can. To my disappointment, Johnson had only ninety-two dollars and many credit cards which would be useless to me, for any non-cash transaction would instantly identify my location to the authorities.

I made my plan to meet up with Alma and go to Tijuana where we could stay with my cousins for a couple of days and then fly off to Bolivia, which does not honor its extradition treaty with America, and where I could access my local bank account. I'd have to drive non-stop on the less-traveled highways 101 and -1, as far south as they go in California, before cutting back onto the interstate. Crossing the border with no documentation will be a problem I'll need to resolve at some point.   

Surrounded by the pitch darkness of rural Washington and Oregon, guided only by the light of the car's headlights reflecting off the yellow center divider, I drove south continuously for the next eight hours. Stopping once for food, more Red Bull, and gas, I arrived at Bender's Landing Boat Ramp on the Siuslaw River, about ten miles east of the small coastal town of Florence, Oregon, at around five AM. In these wee hours, I heard the mating calls of coyotes reverberating throughout this remote, verdurous terrain. I smelled the rich, sweet aroma from the many evergreen trees and their fallen pinecones. I could see my breath in the cold air and wiped the mucus dripping from my nostrils.

Sitting on the hood and sipping Johnson’s highly caffeinated drink, my mind wandered to our talk from the last Saturday before I turned myself in to pay my price to society. At the White Elephant Parlor, as the band strummed and crooned Eric Clapton's classic, "Wonderful Tonight," Alma and I danced cheek-to-cheek for one last time. I whispered in her ear: "Meet me next Valentine's Day by that rock in the cove at Lake Cachuma. " With a puzzled look, she asked how that was possible since the justice system of the state of Washington requested my presence for the next eighteen years. "I promise you, somehow, I'll get there." That promise made at that dance sustained me through the almost daily humiliations that Johnson subjected me to. For the most trivial infractions, such as missing a spot while mopping the bathroom floor, my bed not being made to his exacting standards, or misaligning the food trays in the kitchen, for example, Johnson's face would be an inch away from mine and his booming screams bounced between my eardrums. And the threat of physical violence was ever present, given his state-sanctioned authority and his massive build. That promise I made to Alma at the dance was the beacon that guided my escape when the tyrannical brute dropped to the ground.

For the next eighteen hours, I drove along Highway 101, cutting over to the majestic Pacific Coast Highway-1 near Leggett, stopping only to answer nature's calls and load up on coffee and Red Bull. During the daylight hours, my senses were satiated by the wild Northern California coastline. This winding single-lane road hugged the craggy cliffsides with hundred-plus foot sheer drops that lead to small, isolated beaches, ideal for the many California naturists. Dark brown and green wild brush danced to the beat of ever-present wind gusts, and the bright blue skies with a few patches of puffy clouds merged transparently with the Pacific over the horizon. Seagulls, terns, and other marine birds effortlessly navigated the air currents and swooped down to hunt for prey like kamikaze pilots.  Only denizens of the sparsely populated coastal towns or tourists from the Bay Area in their expensive convertibles, soaking up the West Coast sunshine, traversed this road, making it an escaped convict's ideal path to freedom.

By the time I arrived at Lake Cachuma Recreation Area, not far from Santa Barbara, it was around three AM, thirty-one hours since I left the company of Sargent Johnson in CenturyLink Stadium's bathroom, and more than forty-five hours since I rose out of my stinking, flee infested mattress in my cold prison cell on the morning of Superbowl LVI. 

Fond memories of my life with Alma flooded my brain. From our first date in the rotating Equinox Lounge on top of the Hyatt in San Francisco, seventeen years ago, we never stopped laughing…and loving. The little wrinkle that would form on the left side of her mouth every time she laughed, and she laughed a lot, was most endearing.  Her ravenous appetite for travel, and intense desire to not add to the world’s burgeoning population, matched my own. She introduced me to live theater—not the tacky Bradway musicals but the classics. I can’t recall how many renditions of “The Cherry Orchard”, “A Doll’s House,” or “Three Tall Women” we saw performed by small theater companies. And of course, each performance was followed by an intense discussion and analysis of the playwrights’ intentions, and the resonances of those themes to the modern world, along with a strong espresso or cheese platter and a glass or two of a fine Cabernet. Within six months we were married and had never been apart for more than a week. That is until my incarceration for the minor crime of embezzling a few funds from my employer started a little over two years ago.

I parked Johnson's Mustang in the same spot we used during our (first and last RV) camping trip when we celebrated our second anniversary. Exhausted, I collapsed in the back seat, only to be woken two hours later by a glorious Southern California dawn.

I yawned and walked into the cove where we camped, stood there, jaws agape at the algae-dense green water. The Santa Ynez mountains surrounding the lake were as brown and bare as a baby's bottom, remnants of the many dry California summers. The air was heavy and pungent with the smell of acrid smoke from the lightning-induced wildfires that are ever-present in this tinder-dry region. The morning rays mixed with the pollutants to paint the sky in bands of deep red, brown, and purple. I heard the twitter of robins and blue jays as if they were playing in Dolby surround sound. My nostrils were saturated with the sweet smell of honeysuckle and morning dew.  I saw a lush meadow, glittering golden yellow and brown with densely packed stalks of hay and daffodils on the other side of the lake, gently melding into the base of the mountains. This multi-colored canopy, almost eye-piercing, contrasted beautifully with the crystal greenish-blue water and the cerulean sky. "God must have had fun this morning painting those clouds, quite possibly with the help of Monet and Chagall helping her," I thought.

I smiled at the painted initials on the large rock in the corner of the cove where Alma and I made love on our second anniversary. The soft sand gently massaged my bare feet as I walked slowly on the water's edge. I cupped my hands to gather the cool mountain runoff, attempting to wash the sleep out of my face. Still exhausted, I grabbed the duffel bag, walked back to that rock for old time's sake, and laid my head down for a short nap on nature's perfect bedding.

In my slumber, I felt the warmth of lips against mine and the tickle of hair brushing my cheeks. My nostrils were inundated with the smell of Alma's shampoo, that lemony scent that always drove me wild. She remembered that conversation from when we danced to Clapton and came to meet me here, I thought. I was in high heaven.

I then felt an intense pain in my left side, just below the ribs. It felt like Excalibur had been thrust into my side and a malevolent King Arthur was twisting it back and forth for good measure. Every nerve was on fire. I reflexively grasped my left side, only to feel no metallic object or streams of gushing blood. Yet the pain intensified, and my head and torso were drenched in sweat. Dazed, startled, and gasping for air, I opened my bleary eyes to see the pale white, muscular, Proud-Boys tattooed, right arm of Sargent Johnson, holding his baton up high, about to strike me again. "Get off your lazy ass," he screamed. "Do I have to wake you up with a hug and a kiss each morning? The cell doors opened over twenty minutes ago. You have exactly fifteen minutes to get your sorry ass to the canteen, grab whatever shit is left, and start cleaning those toilets in Block C. You'll clean the whole bathroom by yourself for making me walk over here. And you better finish within two hours. I'll have another pleasant task waiting for you.”

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For the reader’s consideration, the following poem which was the inspiration for my short story is attached:

A Dream Within a Dream

 EDGAR ALLAN POE

Take this kiss upon the brow!

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow —

You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream;

Yet if hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand —

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep — while I weep!

O God! Can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream