Back Talk

Ch4: Prisoner no more

As I was running -no- sprinting towards those sliding glass doors, feeling the sweet air of freedom run through my straight brown hair, I saw they sold water bottles here. No not the cheap-o kind with those screw on lids, the kind that had the lid that snaps on and off for only $5. I took a moment to think, that could be a lot easier to carry around then those ones they sell at fast food places with the plastic lids. I grabbed two and quickly went to one of those self-automated checkout things and swiped them across the red laser.

"You total is $10.84." the machine lady told me.

"Thank you kindly" I responded swiping Shannon’s gift card.

Hydration? Check.

I placed the bottles in a plastic bag and made a mad dash to the doors when I spotted him, Darren talking to one of the checkout ladies.

I quickly un-checked Darren distracted off my escape list. Chet rushes over to Darren, his face red with a brand-new vein popping out.

And guess who was right behind him, probably just as nervous as me?

That’s right.

Shannon.

He picks up his precious little boy with extra-care and hands him off to Shannon.

Crap.

This was not good.

I knew Chet was after me, and in a way, I think he knew I knew, too. Wow, that was bad.

As Chet's face grew redder and redder, I knew he was hunting.

And I was the prey.

I slowly walked over towards the auto-doors and they swooshed open like the pearly gates to heaven, and I once again felt the sweet air of freedom rush at my face.

I was free.

And no one could take that away.

I pulled out the car keys and pressed the unlock button. I heard a soft beep-beep as the car automatically unlocked itself. I rushed in the direction of the sound and saw the jeep peacefully sleeping in-between two yellow lines.

I opened the trunk and the bottom compartment to reveal my old bag. I threw my water bottles in next to the laptop and slung it over my shoulder. The trunk made a thunk as I slammed it closed and rushed over to the driver’s side of the jeep and gripped the car key firmly it my hand. I quickly made one of those split-second decisions and decided to go for it.

I was finally going to be the bad kid Chet made me out to be.

I scratched 'prisoner no more' into the side of the silver Jeep.  There, that should set him off. I then opened the driver’s side door, locked the car then threw the keys in and closed the door. If there’s one thing I love, it’s making Chet mad. This was even better because I knew he couldn’t hurt me now.

I am free.

And I can’t stress enough how good it felt to say that after years of living with the devil himself.

Oh yeah, and his mistress too, can’t forget about her.

This was the part of the plan I had left out; what I did after I escaped. Or even where I was going to sleep tonight. I really should have planned this in my head in the car, too bad I was busy trying to control my adrenalin. So after pondering all my options I just decided to get as far away from Wall-Mart as possible.

I popped open a bottle or water and sucked a third of it down. My stomach grumbled and I realized I hadn’t had breakfast, but that wasn’t really unusual for me. I headed out of the parking lot and walked over to a fast-food strip-mall.

It was a pretty decent walk over there so I pulled out Chet's iPod and put it on shuffle, and boy was it yuck! All he had was country and podcasts of old Steven king novels. I made a mental note to myself to delete his crappy music when I got to a food place.

When I finally arrived upon the strip I went straight to McDonalds; just because the food is super-cheap and full of fatty stuff that I hoped would help me keep up my strength for the long ordeal I had ahead. As I opened the door it made a little ‘ding-sing’ and cool air rushed over my face. What was nice about it was that everyone in there seemed only a little weirder than me. I felt like I was with my kind.

I felt like I was home.

"Um, yeah ill have 4 cheeseburgers, 3 large fries, 4 apple pies, and a chicken sandwich." I mumbled. The lady looked at me like whatever I had was contagious; which was weird because she was the one with a serious case of acne and had more piercings on her face than I could count.

"Will that be all?" she asked with a little twinge of annoy in her voice.

"Uh, yeah I think so" gosh, all those years hidden from civilization didn’t do wonders for my confidence. I shuffled over to an island/bar set up in the middle of the restaurant and pulled out Chet’s laptop. It was fully charged and I thanked my lucky stars for that.

I opened up iTunes and had the most brilliant idea ever: run up Chet’s credit card full of iTunes bills! I felt so proud of my genius plan that I barely heard the lady call my order. I strolled over to the counter where my food was laid out in a huge paper bag with a big yellow M on the side.

"Excuse me." I said to the lady.

"Yes?" she asked in a what-do-you-want voice

"Is there free internet here?"

"Yep, nock yourself out"

I smiled at the lady and her mouth twitched a little which sort of looked like a grimace. I picked up my food and carried it to the stool where my bag was. I opened up the laptop and clicked the little music note icon that said iTunes.

The screen was filled with the words 'welcome back Chet! Please enter your password below' and there was a flashing blue box below it. I tried 12345 but the box flashed yellow saying 'password not acceptable'. And I watched my devious plan to run up Chet’s credit card bill go down the drain. And then it hit me, I pulled out Shannon’s credit card and set up a new account in her name. 'Welcome Shannon!'

"Well hello to you too" I mumbled.

I trifled through all the awesome TV shows and new movies, it was really astounding. I plugged Chet’s iPod into the side of the laptop and proceeded to delete all his gross-nasty musac (yes I did that on purpose, it’s like mucus and music together… you know what, never mind).

“Hey, closing time” the lady barked at me.

I looked up from the laptop and I realized that closing time was infact in 10 minutes.

“Crap” I mumbled to myself. I packed up my things and headed outside, I guess I would have to rain hatred upon Shannon later.

It was pretty dark outside now and only a couple dozen people were walking the strip. I flinched every time someone passed me, hoping it wasn’t Shannon or Chet. I plugged the little ear-buds into my ears and blasted my new and improved music, I always loved retro 60’s Beatles kinda stuff because it reminded me of my mom; she was really into that kinda stuff.

I sat down on a park bench next to a hair salon, pulled out a cheeseburger, fries and my water bottle and chowed down. When I finished I was so tired that I laid down on the bench, propped my extra clothes under my head and slept.

And I sorta wished I would never wake up