Fear Has a Name: A Novel (14 page)

21

Granger was fighting sleep while driving the speed limit northbound on a two-lane Ohio freeway. As the sun dissolved the morning mist, he could better see for the first time the car he had stolen from the old man with the limp at the gas station the night before.

The vehicle was medium blue outside with a light gray interior; totally average, older model, four-door sedan. He glanced over at the logo above the glove compartment: Chevrolet. He’d never been big on Chevys. This was an Impala, he guessed. The smell of cigarettes was deep in the seats and butt-filled ashtray. The windows were smudged with the same tar-and-nicotine coating that covered the windows of his old brown ride, which he had left at the gas station in Trenton City.

He punched the lighter, dug in the seat beside him for the crumpled pack of Newports, fired one up, and reflected on the last twenty-four hours. After bailing from the gun shop, he had driven out of town, into the Ohio countryside. Its curvy, hilly, little-traveled roads—its green pasturelands, leaning barns, and stark blue skies—reminded him of the places he used to escape to when he was a youth in northeastern Ohio.

He would light out there to the country in his old Charger, wind blowing back his hair, Springsteen cranking about those two lanes that could take him anywhere. And he would just drive and sing with the tunes about escaping, finding a girl, making something of his life.

Sometimes he would pull off and park in the cinders up there on the ridge. It was so quiet. He would turn off the music. The breeze comforted him. The air was alive with the smell of grass and animals. Enormous white clouds enveloped him. Something inside told him God must certainly have created the landscape out there in that beautiful countryside, yet that same God seemed to have penned such a cruel script for his life.

He would sit up there and just think, about the most recent berating by his mother, the rats that scurried about him in the shed at night, the most recent humiliation with the bullies at school, the fact that he was overweight and unattractive. He wished, oh how he wished, his parents would change, that he could live in a loving, uplifting home.

He reflected on many of those same things after he fled the gun shop and town the day before and drove out through the middle-Ohio farmlands, which were not a whole lot different from those at home. His heart ached. Having seen Pamela, something mysterious and powerful was pulling him back to her. If he could just spend a few hours talking with her. But he knew better than to go back—her house would have been swarming with police after his fight with Jack.

So Granger had just sat in the old brown clunker out in the country—thinking those same crummy old thoughts from his youth, and trying to figure out what he was going to do.

When dusk came, he had crept back toward the city limits of Trenton City to get gas and a bite to eat and figure out where he was going to spend the night. He hadn’t planned on stealing a car at the gas station, but the perfect opportunity presented itself. The man must’ve been eighty-five. He shuffled ever so slowly.

It was pitiful, what you did.

Granger had watched the old gentleman limp from his car. His thin arms shook like crazy trying to get the gas nozzle back where it belonged. Quickly Granger moved in, explaining that he was sorry, but he was desperate and needed to “borrow” the car. The old guy’s mouth just hung open and he looked up at Granger with sagging, yellowing eyes through crooked glasses. Never uttered a word. Didn’t seem to have an ounce of energy to protest. Just shuffled backward a step, got out of the way, rubbed the gray stubble on his hollow face, and watched Granger get in and drive off.

After having driven around for some time that night, he parked the Impala in the Sterling Business Park, where it looked like many dozens of night-shift employees parked their cars while they worked. He slid into a space several spots away from any other cars, turned it off, and went for a brief walk and a smoke. He thought about getting on the road and just driving into the night, anywhere. He thought about driving back by Pamela’s house. Eventually he just climbed into the back of the Impala, locked the doors, and fell asleep.

He awoke before dawn and got on the road, any road. He heaved a phlegmy cough that made him see stars as he always did in the morning, rolled down the window, and spat. Setting the cruise control just below sixty-five, he worked out the kinks in his legs. He wasn’t proud of himself for taking the old man’s car; he was ashamed. But as he looked out over the fog and rolling, tree-filled hills and leaned back against the headrest, he did feel a sense of accomplishment for letting Pamela go.

You’ve given her back her freedom.

Now if he could just escape from the cops, maybe he could start over.

Did Pamela want him in jail?

He hoped she didn’t think he was a monster.

But he
was
a monster, of sorts, wasn’t he?

Maybe behind bars was where he belonged.

Like he always said, no one escaped the long arm of the law forever.

Where are you going?

He told himself he didn’t know. But the fact was, he was heading straight for home. Yes, home sweet home, where those two witch doctors raised him to be the loser he had indeed become.

It made him sick.

Sick, sick, sick.

He grabbed another Newport, lit it, sucked the menthol smoke deep into his chest, and enjoyed the cool burn at the base of his throat. Then he cracked the window and blew out into the wind.

He would pay his dear parents a visit before he was captured, give them a proper thank-you for all they had done for him.

He pictured Pamela’s childhood home, not far from his own. Last he knew, her parents still lived there. He would slide by it one last time. Who knew how long it would be before he would see it again.

Pamela had aged so beautifully. After seeing her the day before, he swore she was prettier now than ever.

Jack Crittendon was a lucky man—in more ways than one.

Lucky he’s not dead.

He flicked the butt of the cigarette out the window and watched in the rearview mirror as it sparked orange and danced in the road behind him.

Where did those hideous thoughts come from?

You’re sick, you know that?

He would never have hurt Jack—would he?

His mother had told him repeatedly that he had a demon.

“You were designed for the Devil’s use, Granger Lawrence Meade,” she would say. “Just a puppet of the prince of the power of the air.”

Perhaps he would not stop to see them.

Perhaps he would just keep driving, right on up to Carvers Cove on Lake Erie.

There was a place he knew where he could sit on the enormous rocks right where the waves broke, mighty and unforgiving. And with the weight of the world—and all the badness and meanness of it on his shoulders—he could slip right into the water, and just keep going.

Cleveland’s Monday morning rush hour had dwindled by the time Pamela, Rebecca, and Faye blazed the trail up I-90’s Innerbelt Freeway and into the gritty old city.

Buckled up in the backseat—which was now scattered with muffin crumbs, crayons, books, and papers—the girls lifted themselves as high as they could, peering wide-eyed like panting puppies at men and women in suits bustling to work, a homeless person holding a cardboard sign, a messenger on a bicycle, a newspaper blowing across the street. Passing the familiar intersections of Carnegie, Euclid, and Prospect in the cool shade of the tall, ancient brown and gray buildings, Pamela let out a sigh, relieved to be “home.” She could finally relax.

They passed the concrete campus of Cleveland State and zipped on out past Superior and St. Clair to the lakefront. There was a shorter way to the Heights, but she wanted the girls to see the lake—and she wanted to see it too.

“Look, an airplane!” Rebecca pointed north at one of the small planes taking off from Burke Lakefront Airport. Heading out I-90 east gave the girls a beautiful view of Lake Erie, whose water was dark, choppy, and vast. They passed runners and walkers, bikers and skaters, and people walking dogs on leashes.

She viewed the people of her hometown as warriors of sorts for braving those frigid, snowy, gray winters when the sun rarely shined. Between the lake-effect winds and the freezing temperatures, it was brutal, both physically and mentally. When spring finally bloomed and summer blossomed—after what seemed like nine months of winter—so did peoples’ hearts and souls. They came out of hibernation to relish the thick green grass, to absorb the penetrating heat of the long-missed sun, and to stand between hedges in front yards and talk to their neighbors again.

She’d phoned Jack ten minutes earlier to let him know they were safe and almost to her folks’ house. They’d stopped once at a Starbucks along I-71 for a potty break and tea for Pamela. She felt rather proud they’d made the trip so efficiently. Jack had no news from the police on Granger’s capture. Surely it could only be a little longer.

Heading out Cleveland Memorial Shoreway, Pamela realized she was actually feeling sympathy for Granger. Who knew what it was like to be bullied as he had and to grow up in that home, with those parents? How difficult it would have been for anyone to overcome all of that mental baggage.

And now what? He would be going to prison.

For how long?

Would he dare invade her life again when he got out?

“Will PawPaw take us on that boat again?” Rebecca asked, referring to a boat tour of Lake Erie that Pamela’s dad had taken them on the last time they visited. That was when her mother had pitched such a fit about making sure they all wore life jackets; her dad had almost strangled her.

“I’m not sure how long we’re going to be here, honey,” Pamela said. “We’ll see.”

Of course, Pamela’s mother had not gone on the excursion. She’d said she felt sick that morning and, indeed, had probably made herself ill with anxiety. Of what had she been afraid? The water? Other boats? Drowning? It never failed—she always found something to fear.

Don’t even go there. Just keep it positive. Be a light.

They passed the picturesque green setting at Lakefront Park. It was spectacular. The sky was a piercing cobalt blue. The sunlight danced on the water.

“How long till we get there, Mommy?” Faye asked.

“Not long, sweetie,” Pamela said. “You girls have been so good on this trip. I am so proud of you. What good travelers you are.”

“I’ve got to go potty,” Faye said.

They would come back out to one of the parks along the lake sometime during the trip, after they got settled in at the folks’ house.

“Okay, sweetie,” Pamela said. “Just hold it a few more minutes. We’ll be there soon.”

In a few blocks Pamela took a right and headed inland toward her neighborhood in the Heights. The old streets, sidewalks, trees, buildings, and residences never changed much. It was the same where they lived in Trenton City. Not so in Atlanta. When they had lived there, the landscape changed constantly—roads being widened, new plazas going up, new schools being built, orange barrels everywhere. She didn’t miss it a bit and in fact loved Trenton City as a place for raising the girls.

They curved around Providence Parkway down into the valley. Granger’s street was just off to the left. She was tempted to drive by his house, which, last she remembered, was covered up by trees and had a deep, damp, slanting backyard enclosed by a chain-link fence.

The next street was Pamela’s.

“Almost there,” she said.

She took the familiar turn and felt a tug of apprehension as they glided along the shady, tree-lined street with spots of sunlight dotting the way.

“This is my street,” Pamela said, “where I grew up.”

The middle-class, two-story homes sat one upon the other, separated by abutting driveways and manicured shrubs.

“I remember this!” Rebecca said. “Oh, I love this place.”

Pamela had decided not to tell her parents that she and the girls were coming. It was a bit out of character for her, but she knew from talking to them recently that they were going to be home for the week, and with all of the emotion of the past days, she didn’t want to get on the phone and accidentally spill her guts. Plus, she thought they would be blessed by the surprise.

“I remember too!” Faye called.

Pamela swung the red Accord into the driveway and stopped next to the sidewalk leading to the front door. Both of the girls’ doors bounced open, and they were flying for the front porch before Pamela could even get out of the car.

Pamela’s dad’s little gold Ford wasn’t in the driveway. He was probably walking at the mall or having his fifth cup of coffee with his cronies at the food court. The mall was his refuge. It was only two miles from the house, and four or five of his boyhood buddies congregated there almost daily.

She got out, gathered some trash from the car, and headed up the sidewalk. Meanwhile, Rebecca had already dashed to the front porch and, with her hands cupped against her face, peered in the front window, while Faye rang the doorbell and knocked at the front door.