Old Habits
An hour after seeing our faces on the evening news, Gabe and I had made our way onto Interstate Five and were heading north towards… well, I didn’t exactly know where. As usual, Gabe was driving and seemed to have a destination in mind. He was obviously nervous, making me nervous in turn; Gabe liked to hide his emotions, and when he couldn’t, it usually meant bad news.
The black van was running rough, probably from spending the past year locked in a secluded garage. I was worried we wouldn’t make it out of the state, let alone to wherever we were going. Though I was smart enough not to say it, I was really hoping for Canada. The more I thought about it, the more impossible leaving the country seemed, as neither of us had valid identification or passports. But I could still dream.
The sun was sinking fast towards the west. Though I wasn’t sure how long into the night we would be traveling. We had less than two hours of daylight left, which may or may not have been something working to our advantage. I’d somehow managed to forget most of the details of our first attempt at fleeing, but now wished I’d paid more attention to our habits. Had I known, I would have at least taken some notes.
“Do we know where we’re going yet?” I asked quietly from the passenger’s seat. We were in the middle lane of the interstate, but cars were passing us on both sides. Gabe was choosing to drive the speed limit so as to avoid being pulled over for any reason.
He tightened his grip on the steering wheel as if the sound of my voice grated on his nerves, but I really didn’t care. Our “friendship” had fallen apart long before this new adventure, but as he had told me more than once before, we were stuck with each other.
“Seattle,” he answered monotonously.
“Seattle?”
“Did I stutter?” He glared at me momentarily, trying to keep his eyes on the road.
I bit my lip, choosing not to pick this battle, though it was hard for me to understand why exactly he was so upset with me. I knew he blamed the entire mess we were currently in on me, but we both made mistakes leading up to this moment. There had been so many mistakes made that keeping count of who was to blame for most of them had become kind of pointless.
“No, you did not,” I stated coldly, shifting in my seat and staring at the passing scenery through the window. To be honest, there really wasn’t a whole lot to look at.
Gabe rolled his eyes, both annoyed and remorseful. “Look, I’m sorry, but friendly car-chat isn’t going to make this situation any better. I need some time to myself. I need to think this through. I need to figure out what we’re going to do once we get to Washington.”
I turned back towards him, furrowing my brow, frustrated. “There seems to be a whole lot of ‘I’ in that response, and a giant lack of ‘we.’”
“So, you’re saying you can come up with a working plan for us? You know what we should be doing?” he asked.
I opened my mouth to respond, but words did not immediately come. Through everything, he had never admitted how little he thought of my opinion and ability to make decision, but here it was, out in the open. Of course, I’d known all along, but it felt a little different hearing the words come from his mouth, no matter how he’d said them. “I’m not saying I can come up with a plan, but we can come up with one together, Gabe. This isn’t ‘you against the world.’ We’re both a part of this, like it or not.”
Gabe, not speaking, shifted in his seat so as to better reach the pack of Virginia Slims in his right pocket. After nearly a minute of trying to squeeze the pack from inside his jeans, he got them out, sighing in disgust as he glared at the package in front of him. I’d seen the look a hundred times before and knew if Gabe wasn’t already lighting his cigarette, he was out.
“I’m out,” he confirmed, signaling the van into the right lane as we a passed a sign showing we could exit the interstate in two miles.
“What are you doing?” I asked, dumbfounded. We were on the run, less than fifty miles from the town we were fleeing, and Gabe wanted to stop off for more cigarettes. I knew he was addicted, but this was a whole new level of dependency.
“I’m out,” he repeated as if I hadn’t heard him the first time, signaling again as we veered onto the exit ramp, leaving I-5 behind us momentarily.
Not wanting to piss him off any more, I considered keeping my mouth shut, but decided better of it. No one had proclaimed him the leader of our dysfunctional duo. As far as I was concerned, as petty as it may have been, the decision should have been for both of us to make. “Do you think this is a good idea?” I asked.
Now off the interstate, we turned onto a side street of the dumpy little town we’d pulled off to. The road sign had read Food, Fuel: Next Exit, but hadn’t listed the name of the town, if it even had one. It seemed unlikely the police would be looking for us in this place, this soon, but Gabe had still made the decision to stop, likely out of spite, without consulting me.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” he asked, keeping his sentences short and accusing.
“We’ve barely made it out of Behler, and we’re on the news as criminals. The whole area is going to be crawling with police soon. We shouldn’t stop this soon.”
Gabe considered my concerns, or at least pretended to, and shrugged his shoulders. We’d pulled up in front of a gas station, Gabe killing the engine. “Do you want to ride all the way to Seattle with me if I’m out of cigarettes the whole time?”
I rolled my eyes, knowing in a way, he was right. Gabe without cigarettes was a version of the apocalypse I’d rather not have to witness. “Fine,” I said annoyed. “Run in, grab cigarettes, but then we’re on the road for the next seven hours. No stopping until we’re out of California, at least.”
Gabe opened the van door and walked around to my side, lightly tapping the door with his foot. I opened it, giving him a questioning glance. “What?”
“I’m tired, when I come back, you get to drive for a while.” He said it so nonchalantly, smiling because he knew he was still in charge.
I scoffed. “You’re kidding. You’re tired… and I just had a giant shard of glass stabbed into my leg by an explosion! Is this your way of proving you’re still the boss? We’re not equal partners because what you say goes?” I was really getting angry.
Gabe lowered his voice and moved closer to my door. “No, that’s not it at all. You’ll understand in a few minutes, but right now, I really need you to get out of the van, walk to the other side, and get back in the driver’s side.”
“No,” I stated flatly.
Gabe clenched his fists in anger and took a step away from me as I continued to sit in the passenger seat, not budging. “You’re acting like a toddler!” he grunted in a hushed, yet furious tone. He slammed his fist against the side of the van and took a deep breathe. “Do you not realize I’m trying to help us here?”
“Do you not realize you’re treating me like I have nothing to do with this?” I asked, surprising even myself at my own lack of discretion at how angry Gabe had become.
He bit his lower lip. “What do you want?” he asked.
“God, you really don’t listen to a word I say,” I said. “Keep me in the loop, Gabe! Tell me what’s going on instead of just barking orders! It’s really not that much to ask.”
“Fine,” Gabe said flatly. “We need money. We’re robbing this place.”
I could only imagine the look on my face when he said it. Though I knew Gabe was closer to insane than sane, even this was a bold step for him. Last year he had beaten one of his own drug clients nearly to death with a baseball bat before my eyes, but this was different. Last time, there were no witnesses. Now, the gas station was hustling with early evening commuters stopping on their way home from work.
He smiled at me, knowing how the news made me feel. “You wanted to know.”
“You’re crazy,” I said in disbelief. “There’s no way we’re robbing a convenience store this close to home. The police will be on us in minutes.”
I hadn’t noticed at first, bu
t the two of us had begun walking towards the entrance, slowly, but surely, as we argued.
“We have how much money to our name? Eight thousand dollars at most?” he asked.
“Seventy-four hundred,” I responded, ashamed at the point he was using me to make.
“How far do you think that much will get us?”
I stopped, grabbing Gabe’s shoulder and spinning him towards me. “It’s enough to keep us from having to rob a gas station,” I said as a young mother and her six-year-old son entered the store a few feet away from us. “These places don’t keep cash here anyway. Everyone pays for gas with credit cards.”
Gabe pointed to the neon yellow sign hanging in the store’s front window without saying a word. The bulbs flashed off and on, advertising Money Orders Sold Here! Even I knew Money Orders were often paid for in cash and consisted of large dollar amount transactions. People sent hundreds of dollars all across the country and around the world all day long, meaning if we did rob this place, there was a good chance we’d run into a considerable amount of money, or at least enough money.
“No,” I said sternly.
“Are you going to wait in the van or not?” he asked me. As I shook my head ‘no,’ he pulled two mesh stockings from his pocket and held one in each hand, as if providing me with some sick decision. Choose to go down the rabbit hole… or choose to go down the rabbit hole wearing a slightly darker shade of stocking over my face. Each mesh stocking was a shitty decision I didn’t want to make. “You’re lucky I plan ahead. Put it on.”
I shook my head no again, desperately fighting back tears.
“Look, this is happening, Jamie, like it or not. Now you have two choices; you put the stocking on, come inside with me, and then we get the hell out of here, or you wait here and don’t even think about getting back in the van with me when it’s all said and done. How far do you think you’ll make it without me?”
I swallowed back my anger and snatched the mesh stocking from his left palm, quickly pulling it over my face and following him into the store. The bell above our heads rang, not drawing too much attention at first. A man in his mid-thirties, wearing a charcoal suit and looking far too stylish to be anything but passing through the town, noticed us and quietly gasped, “Oh, God.”
Slowly but surely, the other patrons took notice of us, each of them freezing amidst what they had originally been doing as they stared at us in fear. The man in the suit stood motionless next to a display of cigarette lighters. A teenage girl and boy stared blankly at us as the boy pulled a bag of candy out of his pocket, placing it back on the shelf from which he had stolen it. If he was going to die tonight, he wanted to do it with as clean a conscience as possible. A tired-looking woman with a gallon of milk in her hand silently crouched down behind the aisle she was in, still peeking out just to see what would happen next. The mother we had seen enter the store moments before took a step in front of her young son who wrapped his arms around her legs, not sure what was actually going on.
“Let’s go,” I urged quietly.
“It’s too late for that,” Gabe chuckled as he pulled a handgun from inside his jacket and pointed it at the ceiling. I hadn’t even known he had the gun on him. It was like he had planned this whole thing out before we had even left Oakley’s cabin.
I think even I was in shock as he marched towards the cash register and pointed the gun in the attendant’s face. “You know the drill…” he said, taking a second to look at the man’s nametag. “Eduardo.”
I surveyed the room as Eduardo immediately began piling cash from the register into a paper sack for Gabe to carry back to the van. I half-expected to see each and every person on their cell phone, calling 911, but no one was. No one wanted to be that one person risking their own life for the greater good. For all they knew, for all I knew, Gabe would murder them on the spot for calling the police.
Eduardo emptied the register and raised his hands as if to say he wasn’t going to try anything stupid. “That’s a-a-all of it,” he stuttered.
Gabe pushed the gun closer to his face so it rested against his forehead as tears welled up in Eduardo’s eyes. “I know you’re lying to me, Eddie. There’s more money, isn’t there?”
“There’s more money,” he answered, tears now spilling over his cheeks. “Please don’t hurt them. Please don’t hurt me.”
I watched, terrified.
“That’s the fun part,” Gabe explained. “You give me all the cash, and no one gets hurt. You forget any, and well, that’s how people get shot.”
His voice was cold, calculated, and disturbingly calm, as if this was something he did on a daily basis. I couldn’t tell through the stocking, but part of me knew he was smiling, probably even excited by the whole series of events.
Moments later, Eduardo had emptied the contents of the store’s safe into the brown paper bag and took a step back, still utterly terrified. He couldn’t have been older than Gabe and me.
“You did a very good job, Eddie,” Gabe said, “But I need one more thing from you. I need a few cartons of cigarettes. Virginia Slims.”
Eduardo eyed Gabe, confused, most likely by his choice in tobacco products, but wisely chose not to question the request. He turned cautiously towards the rows and rows of cigarettes behind him and grabbed as many packs of Virginia Slims as his hands would allow him, also dumping them into the paper bag.
“Thank you,” Gabe said. He scooped up the bag and began to walk towards the exit as I breathed a sigh of relief, thankful no one had gotten hurt in the process of our robbery. It seemed as if the whole thing was over more quickly than it had even begun. Our argument in the parking lot had taken longer.
Just as we were about to walk through the door, Gabe stopped one more time and spun back towards the crowd. “I almost forgot!” he shouted excitedly. “Each and every one of you is going to hand over your photo identification to my partner in crime here,” he said, gesturing towards me. “This way, we will have your name, address, and we will even know if you are an organ donor. This way, we will know who to hunt down and how to find you if you decide to talk to the police about what you witnessed this evening. And let me warn you, if we find out anyone talks to the police, there will be no organs to donate. Is this understood?” Gabe added.
Not sure what to do or say, half the room nodded their understanding and began pulling their ID cards from their wallets and purses. The rest followed suit as I slowly began walking around the room, taking the cards from their hands, stacking them into a nice pile in my hand, and sliding them into my jeans pocket. I had tried not to move upon entering the store, hoping no one would notice my limp, but that attempt had now failed miserably.
As we walked through the parking lot and re-entered the van, Gabe patted me on the back and told me how I had done a good job. He thought the way I just stood there quietly was extremely intimidating. He then asked me to pull the ID cards from my pocket so we could look at the names of the people we had just held hostage for ten minutes.
I slid them from my pocket and stared down at them silently, contemplating what we’d just done, and what I had just been a part of. We were back on the interstate less than a minute later.
“Well, read them.” Gabe urged with a laugh. A cigarette hung from his mouth and smoke moved softly through the cab of the van towards the cracked window, out of which it was quickly sucked.
I hesitated, wondering if he was serious. After seeing the excitement and joy on his face, I started at the top of the stack, saying “Boyd Fletcher, thirty-four-years-old.” He was the man who had seen us first as we entered the gas station. “Jessica Morrison, twenty-seven-years-old.” She was the woman with the gallon of milk who hid behind the aisle. “Bethany Burts, sixteen-years-old. August Sennett, seventeen-years-old.” Obviously, the two teenagers in the store. “Eduardo Muniz, nineteen-years-old. And Julia Burke, twenty-nine-years-old. Obviously her son didn’t have an ID to take.”
Gabe nodded his head
in approval. “Good, now hand them over,” he said, holding out his free hand.
“Why? What are you going to do with them?” I asked, almost scared.
Gabe snatched the cards from my hand before I could react and glared at me as he tossed them out the window. The sun had almost completely set, so I couldn’t tell where they landed, but part of me worried someone would find them and in turn, find us. “You didn’t think I’d really hurt those people, did you?”
I didn’t answer.
Gabe’s face turned cold as he realized I had no idea what he was capable of or what his limits were. “Jamie, I’m not a killer.”
“You’ve killed before,” I said, not taking my eyes off the windshield.
He clenched his teeth and stared at me, hurt. “That was different. I didn’t have a choice. If you don’t recall, we were in a life or death situation, and I did what I had to do. I’d never kill anyone unless not killing them would get me --or you-- killed.”
I turned in my seat and rested my head against the window, knowing I wouldn’t fall asleep, but still hoping to at least doze off for a few minutes. Shortly before closing my eyes, I saw the sadness in Gabe’s eyes as he glanced down at me. He quickly looked back at the road, yet no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t force myself to feel bad for him anymore.
“Gabe?” I asked, not moving from my resting spot.
“Yeah?”
“When we get out of California, I think it’s a good idea for us to split up.”
He paused for a moment. I knew this would be the moment he either decided to show anger or sadness, but all he said was, in a somewhat bothered tone, “What?”
“We can split the money. You can keep the van; I’ll find another way around. I think we should go our separate ways tomorrow,” I said.
For the first time ever, Gabe didn’t say a word.
(Matters of the Heart)
We rode in silence for another couple hours; me pretending to be asleep the majority of the time, though every now and then, I would pretend to wake up, checking out Gabe’s facial expression, a never-changing mold of stone-cold determination and drive. Never once did I see him take his eyes off the road, and never once did he try to start a conversation with me.