|
Scatter
Talk me down, safe and sound, too strung up to sleep...
3-17
- Every messy room has its reason. Every cluttered desk has it's something more important to attend to. We don't create chaos; we just find something more interesting to do. Inspiration over laziness. Distraction not cleanliness. Gratification before Godliness...
-
- I've started so many stories. I've begun so many tales. But sometimes they just don't find their way to conclusion. Sometimes what begins as an idea ends as a possibility unrevealed, an experiment unproven.
-
- In the end, it's just a mess of words that I didn't find the time to clean up.
-
- This is what I start; this is what I finish.
This is what you want; this is what you get.
-
- "Hey," a voice from behind me says, "what's that you're writing?"
-
- It's more reflex than anything that makes my hand close the cover of the spiral notebook. But having committed this far, it's only natural to smile with a shrug and say, "it's... nothing important."
-
- Randall and I have gone through this a hundred times, but for whatever reason, the answer is always enough to push his curiosities off of me. Truth be told, I don't think that Randall gives a rats ass what I write. I think he just likes to catch me covering up.
-
-
We've been on the road for three weeks now chasing Nellis. Three weeks crowded into a tiny car, trying to put together patterns, clues, habits... anything.
-
- How he got loose we don't even really know.
All I know is that we have to catch him.
-
- "Lend me your notebook" Randall says.
"What?"
"Your notebook, let me hold it, I want to write something down so I don't forget it."
"What is it this time?" I ask.
"What? ...Come on, just let me write it down.. quit being a baby."
-
- About a week after we pulled out of Charleston, Randall started on this kick of trying to come up with new ideas for reality television shows. Every couple of days he comes up with something completely off the wall, something that no one in their right mind would ever dare participate in.
-
- "We get a bunch of people, regular folks.. and we put them in jail for like three weeks."
"jail? You mean, prison?"
"Yeah.. lockdowns, inmate numbers, cellmates.. the whole bit."
"cellmates... you mean, actual criminals?"
"Yeah! Why not? It needs to be real, don't it?"
"What makes you think anyone would ever voluntarily go to jail just to be on TV?"
"Are you kidding? Big Cash Prize for the winner - Who could pass that up?"
-
-
Prime Time Cavity Searches.
Must-See Gang Initiations.
Monday Night Solitary Confinement.
Who Wants To Be This Inmate's Bitch?
-
- This is what I'm working with.
-
- Somewhere between Huntsville and Fort Worth, we got word that a stolen credit card was being used for hotel rooms, gas, and food purchases in Indiana. The card had been reported missing about the same time and place that we first lost Nellis. It was a long shot, but close enough for us to look into.
-
- Find hotel clerks, show them a picture.
Get the local PD to look over the rooms for trace evidence.
See if he said anything about where he was headed next.
-
- By the time we get there he'll be long gone.
-
- John Nellis is a family man from Virginia Beach. Two kids. Split level. SUV. He worked as an account executive for a healthcare agency, securing and maintaining hospital contracts for lab personnel and administrative staffers. He was up to his ears in student loan debt. He played golf on weekends with two co-workers who couldn't seem to think of a single personal detail about him when asked. John Nellis paid for special football packages on his satellite dish. He subscribed to Sports Illustrated, Maxim, and a National Geographic magazine for his kids. He shopped online for books and videos about the second world war. He liked to surf the web for pictures of Carmen Electra. Every now and then he would forward joke emails to his brother in Kansas, his school buddies in Norfolk, and his wife.
-
- John Nellis was last seen cleaning out his bank account and climbing into the passenger seat of a late-model Honda. Some reports say there was someone in the car with him, but there's no indication of who it was, or where they were going.
-
- "How about this? We take corporate executives, doctors, and lawyers, and make them work construction."
"what - like building houses?"
"Yeah... real fish out of water stuff"
"They already have that." I say. "It's called Habitat for Humanity"
"You're crazy," Randall says, "Who'd watch a show with a corny name like that?"
-
- Nellis grew up in Portland with his mother. He was an average student who went on to attend Oregon State in hopes of becoming an architect. Changed majors a couple of times, ended up with a communications degree. From there he went on to work in Tacoma, where he met and married a bank teller. They moved to Virginia to be closer to her parents. His wife spoke well of him, and didn't seem to think that there was any reason he'd disappear. She also wouldn't even consider the possibility that he was cheating on her, even after the bank withdrawal.
-
- We trade driving duties every couple of hours, pulling off to the side of whatever interstate we happened to be on to to walk around the car and switch. Randall is a pretty big guy, so there is always this five minute period where he tries to push the drivers seat as far back as it will go while he messes with all the mirrors.
-
- Every time I get in the drivers seat the wheel is a thousand miles away,
and the only thing I can ever see in the rear view is myself.
-
- He listens to the radio while we drive. Talk shows, mostly. Friendly-voiced speakers taking calls from hysterical girlfriends and frustrated guys who all seem to have a plastic smirk in their voice. Even though the names and cities are different, it seems to me like there's really only four or five questions that are ever asked. The same four or five problems, over and over. The silence on the air between words makes it seem like the host is really listening to what the caller is trying to say, really considering what response to give. Like the answer is different for each call. Like the solution is somehow singular to the person who is calling.
-
- Five problems in the world.
Five answers to make everything better.
Simple. Obvious. Organized.
...Clean.
-
- I'd tell you what the answers are,
but I never get to hear them myself.
Randall likes to give the callers his own answers, pointing and jabbing his finger at the speakers in the dashboard while he talks. He uses the callers' first names as he chides them, tells them how stupid they are for getting themselves in bad situations, how pathetic it is for them to make excuses that just perpetuate their pain. Cuts them off when they try to get a word in edgewise. Rolls his eyes at me when it becomes clear that the message isn't getting through.
Sometimes it's like Randall's whole life is a reality show.
Miles and miles we go, telephone poles and billboard advertising flying by the windows, like guard rails to keep us on some long distance roller coaster. I find it hard to sleep in moving cars, although sometimes the darkness just seems to overtake me, pulling me under it's blanket for hours no matter what's going on in the drivers seat. Mostly though, I work in my notebook, trying to pin down just what it is that set Nellis off.
There's not much to go on, I'm afraid.
He likes roadside motels and scrambled eggs for breakfast. BP gasoline, Doral cigarettes, and generic contact lens solution. He's heading west - sticking to the major roads. Not really all that much for a profile. He could be anybody.
- Maybe that's the problem.
"God, you're such a slut!"
Randall is pointing at the dashboard in disgust, reacting to a caller on the air. Caught off guard, I give him a questioning look.
-
He glances back at me, "What?"
"Take it easy" I say, "She's just trying to get some help."
"Like hell she is," he laughs, "People like that need their drama. They don't want things to get better."
"Maybe - but couldn't she also be looking for some advice? Maybe she just wants someone who will listen."
Randall looks me over long and slow. Then he reaches forward and turns the volume up a notch.
We stop in a town called Harrisburg for gas and to stretch our legs. I can't be sure, but it seems like almost every town we stop in lately is called Harrisburg. So many towns with the exact same name. Troy. Jackson. Oakdale. Aurora. After a while it all starts to look alike.
Randall goes to check messages while I order the food.
It took some doing, but we finally were able to get a freeze put on that stolen credit card. At first we wanted to keep the account open, so we'd have some way to track his movements - but then it became clear that he was getting too far ahead of us. Freezing the account will slow him down; give us a chance to gain some ground. Randall doesn't like the idea, but I don't think we have many other options. Besides, it's not like Nellis is made of money... he can't order scrambled eggs forever.
The food comes in paper bags folded at the top to keep the steam in. The burgers are on the bottom, the fries are on the top. The person who opens the bag is always the person who like fries more than they like burgers -- the person who will snag a couple of fries from each carton before handing it over. The same person who knows that whenever you take out the burgers, there's always a couple of extra fries underneath. Whoever finds those fries gets to eat them. Kind of like a bonus you get when fast food workers don't care about the work they are doing. Except that no matter what town you're in, there's always fries underneath the burgers.
Almost like a pattern.
Randall walks up to the table, a handful of empty plastic shopping bags. "Hey, have you ordered the food yet? I was gonna clean out the car real quick..."
Instinctively I reach my hand over and close the notebook.
He just stands there for a moment, somewhere between annoyance and hurt.
"Give me a break, Nellis. You know I don't care what you put in that thing."
|