No One to Run To

It was a crisp fall evening in the Edmonton suburb city of St. Albert. Though it was only seven o’clock pm, it was getting dark out. Just short weeks before the sun dawdled in the sky, often past ten. There was no snow yet, but as the wind shimmered through the yellowing leaves, it gave off the impression that cold winter nights were on their way. In this part of the world, cold winter nights were the kind where families and young lovers kept themselves insulated from the frigid air and icy sidewalks. Walking down the snow-covered streets in the evening, it seemed that when you looked at the houses in the darkness, there were people basking in the glow of their love for one another and in the warming light of a fire or a TV.

St. Albert was a unique place to live. It had the distinction of being one of the most preferred communities to live in in all of Canada. It was a city of about 50,000 people but was growing fast. St.Albert had been founded almost two hundred years before — which was ancient in Western Canadian terms — by a Catholic Missionary named Father Albert Lacombe. Out in the vast open prairie and unending trees of Northern Alberta he eked out a congregation, a home, and a name for himself that carried his deeds of faith and sacrifice all the way back to the Vatican.

St. Albert really was a great place to grow up. The only real crime problems seemed to come from teenagers. The adult criminals who lived there kept a low profile. One of the things that made the city different was that the place was almost exclusively houses. When you grew up in St.Albert as a child, you ended up fearing teenagers until such time that you became one yourself. Then, of course, you were quick to defend teenagers against others who had a disliking for them. Still, all in all, it was a much better place to grow up than in most of the major cities in Canada. It had the charm of a small town, it had endless parks and playgrounds, skating rinks and basketball courts that are so necessary for young people. Edmonton, the city of nearly a million, which had the biggest mall in the world, was near enough to go to if you wanted to have fun at something like the World Waterpark or watch a movie at one of the three multiplexes that were in the mall at the time.

On this particular night, Darren Corpus was driving through the quiet streets, the 800-watt stereo in his truck power-pumping Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train” into the surrounding quiet. As he drove he must have been pissing off multiple families in their time of relaxation, but he kept playing air drums on the dash of his vehicle while keeping time with the hard beat of the music by rapidly moving his head up and down to the tune. He finally lowered the sound as he pulled his truck into the student parking lot of Paul Kane High School so he could look for any signs of where his General Equivalency Diploma class was. He stubbed out the cigarette he had been smoking and stepped down out of the truck, making sure to spray a little bit of breath freshener in his mouth before proceeding.

Darren was a fairly good-looking young man, barely twenty-two years old. He had a small but noticeable tattoo on his forearm of a swastika that he tried to keep covered up. It was crudely inked, one of the key indicators of a do-it-yourself job one often sees ex-cons display. Darren glanced down at the tattoo and for a brief moment his thoughts carried him back in time.

“Darren, it won’t hurt, man, and it will make us blood brothers.”

“Ethan, you are like a brother to me. I would give anything to be your blood brother, but blood is blood, a scar is a scar. A swastika tattoo is just hate. There must be a half a dozen Jewish people that go to our school, and one of them is a girl I happen to like a lot. What are they going to think of me if I get your asshole symbol on me?”

“Maybe they will realize that they shouldn’t screw with us and lure everyone away from our parties like they did tonight. Maybe we will scare them a bit and we’ll see some kind of power shift away from those preppie jerks to our kind of people. We should be the powerful people — in school and out.”

“I think you’re wrong, man. I don’t think those people want power over us. They probably never knew about our party. Forget the tattoo, man. I will stand with you to the very end. You and I have shared secrets, gone through car wrecks, and been through hell together.”

“You’ll regret it, Dude. Tattoos hold magic for the wearer, I promise.”

“How are you going to know that in 20 years they won’t be using this tattoo to separate people, track them down easier. Don’t you know about the tattoos they gave Jewish people in concentration camps?”

The day-dream memory faded and he came back to focus on the present. The present where his friend Ethan had long since stopped talking to him, long since had his tattoo covered up and had moved to the West Coast to make it big selling real estate and basically betrayed everything their friendship was based on.

Darren wore a red plaid insulated work shirt over an Iron Maiden shirt. Although he had stopped wanting to belong to fringe teenage groups years ago, his shirts still told other people a lot about who he was. In some ways, he looked more like a teenager than a grown, independent 22-year-old. It might have had to do with his shoulder length hair and his boyish-looking face, but the symbols of heavy metal worship didn’t help. He was a somewhat bulky, muscular young man, tipping the scales at over 220 pounds and, though he was mostly oblivious to it, he was intimidating to just about anyone who didn’t know him. Those who did know him actually found Darren to be timid, even a little shy.

He couldn’t find an open entrance to the school right away, so he walked around the school. He noticed how small the place looked compared to when he first came here a millennia ago for grade ten. He found an open door by the front, next to the administration offices. It was confusing but, with the help of a few people, he found the room he was looking for. Two other students were already there, both women in their twenties who were sitting close to each other and chatting. When Darren walked in, they stopped talking and looked up at him, almost as though they were challenging his audacity to interrupt their chat time. Their look made even Darren wonder if he belonged in their class, yet their eyes betrayed an attraction to him.

“Is this the classroom for adult GED?” he asked.

“No, I think you want the class two doors down. We’re going to have a Tupperware party here,” the dark-haired woman said.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Darren said and turned to leave.
The girl that had spoken let out a laugh, and her friend spoke up. “Tammy! Be kind to the poor guy!” She went on: “Yes, this is the GED class. Please excuse my friend. I think she was dropped on her head as a child. I’m Vicky, pleased to meet you.”

“Hi, I’m Darren.” He put his hand out to shake theirs, and they gave him a smile as they awkwardly reciprocated.
“Sit down here, Darren. I’m Vicky, and this is Tammy. Tell us why you need your GED.” she said, pulling out a chair for him. She had a look of honest interest in her eyes.

“Not much to tell really. Grew up just outside of St. Albert here, dropped out of Chemistry and Physics in grade twelve because I had work right up until last fall. Got pretty bored sitting around waiting for unemployment cheques, so I decided I wanted to take some more school.”

“What kind of work do you do?” Vicky asked. Her relaxed look and confident tone put Darren at ease right away. He felt OK telling her more than he would tell even his best friend.

“Well, I was a farmer mostly. My dad passed away a couple of years back and I didn’t like the idea of being married to our land for the next 50 years. I let my cousin take over things, now I have a weekend job as a security guard for a high-rise which is even more boring than farm life. I’ve been working for the company for a couple of years. I want some new opportunities, new horizons, so I think I want to get my diploma then a teaching certificate and go overseas to teach somewhere, maybe China or Japan.”

“That sounds awesome,” Vicky said, looking away from Darren’s gaze. “I really wish I could travel. It’s my dream to get out of the Edmonton area, too.” Vicky paused and let herself stare at Darren for a few moments as Darren stared back. It seemed there was a brief glint of something special in their eye contact, something that made Darren want to keep on talking. Though she hid it well, Vicky felt the same thing. Despite the fact that she could smell smoke on him and that he looked a bit rough, she found him extremely attractive. Vicky’s friend Tammy seemed to be looking at him as well. When she noticed, Vicky kicked her under the desk.

“I notice you have some Steinbeck with you,” Darren said, pointing at the books Vicky had stacked on her desk. “For a whole year, I read every book he wrote. Is that ‘Cannery Row’?”

“Yeah, it’s great isn’t it?” Vicky smiled as she said this.

What if she’s single? What if I could somehow get her number, take her out? Darren thought.

He tried to smile back but ended up making kind of an odd expression, then looked up at the clock and checked his watch. Darren glanced back at her and managed a slight smile knowing his nervous side was showing. Still, he peeked down to see if Vicky had a wedding or engagement ring on. She didn’t, and she saw him looking. All she did was smile, seemingly knowing why he had looked at her hands. There were a few minutes of silence and then Darren asked awkwardly, “Which Steinbeck novel is your favourite?”

“I love them all. There are little bits and pieces in different books that stick out for me: the caring that Lenny had for George through the horrible things that happened in ‘Of Mice and Men,’ how the union organizer tried to help save people in ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ from the people that they were exploiting, especially when he convinced them he knew what to do when the woman in the camp was about to have a baby. So many things.”

“What about in ‘Cannery Row’ where they throw a party for Doc that Doc ends up paying for?” Darren asked.

“Oh, I haven’t got to that part, but thanks for ruining it for me!”

“Sorry about that,” Darren said. He began to blush.

“Oh, come on, don’t you know when people are kidding? I loved that part! Not to mention when the homeless guys went frog hunting. The language Steinbeck uses is so beautiful. Almost in the way a good song gets you going, but over page after page of clean, clear prose.”

“Do you like Bon Jovi?”

“Well, I don’t see how it relates, but I never got into them too much except for the ‘Young Guns’ Soundtrack.”

“That was my favorite too. Especially ‘Blaze of Glory’” Darren, a former Karaoke addict, resisted the temptation to sing to this young woman he had just met, but hoped he would get his chance.

Vicky and Darren went on talking as Tammy tried to look indifferent while reading a textbook. In their short conversation they brought up the subject of revolutions, strikes and uprisings, and how they related to the Heavy Metal and Punk Rock of the seventies and eighties. Soon more students arrived and took their seats. Then the instructor arrived.

The instructor seemed to be looking directly at Darren and Vicky when she said, “Welcome to my class. My name is Miss Brown. In case anyone is in the wrong place, this is a six-week GED course for adults. I want to tell you that if you fooled around enough as teenagers to not get your diploma, you will not find this course any easier than regular high school. We’re going to cover a lot of material, and you will need to study and try harder than you have in the past. I won’t be taking attendance, but I strongly suggest you come to every class. If there are no questions, I’m going to jump right into things and start with an overview of basic math.”

The nineteen students in the class opened their books and arranged their binders and calculators, got note paper and pens ready for their second and possibly final shot at a high school diploma. Vicky looked at Darren for a few extra moments and felt a warm, comfortable feeling. Darren put all his attention to getting ready to work but glanced back at Vicky, wanting to stare at her for just a little while longer. But, when he saw her looking at him, he quickly turned back to his desk and the task at hand.

As the class went on, time seemed to fly past. The teacher threw all kinds of information at them, from a twenty-minute crash course in Canadian history to the basics of the scientific approach and experimentation. At the end of their time, the teacher dismissed the class, and Darren stayed behind frantically scribbling. Out in the hall, Vicky stalled Tammy with talk about nothing meaningful, hoping to delay their departure long enough to catch Darren on his way out. Before he left the classroom, though, Vicky looked at her watch and noticed she had to leave to catch her bus right away.

When Darren made it outside to his truck, it had gotten even cooler, and the trees already seemed even more bare than they had just hours ago. He didn’t really know if he wanted to have to deal with another Alberta winter seeing as how he had money in the bank to go where he wanted now that his cousin had been faithfully depositing in his account as rent for his land.

He lit up a cigarette and coughed. Then he looked up at the stars as the nicotine hit his brain. For a few precious moments his awareness of his surroundings seemed stimulated. He revelled in the beauty of the only part of the world he had ever really known. The sky was a perfect mixture of moon and stars. The air smelled so clean.

Darren had something in his head he couldn’t quite put his finger on. It was a feeling of darkness he felt inside that left him feeling depressed. It hadn’t been all that much time since he was in a school like this as a teenaged student and still had a father to support him in every way and depend on for everything he couldn’t do himself. It had never occurred to Darren that one day he was going to have to take the reins of his life and think about what kind of father he would make for the next generation, if there was to be one.

He got into his truck, pulled out of the parking lot and saw a couple of the people from class, along with Vicky, waiting at the bus stop. His hands trembled a little at the thought of asking her if she needed a ride, but he knew that this could be his best chance at getting to talk to her again, and he had really liked talking to her in the classroom. Darren pulled up alongside her and leaned over to roll down his window after hurriedly putting out his cigarette and slamming the ashtray shut.

“Do you need a ride, Ma’am?”

“I sure do, but don’t ever call me ma’am again.”

“It’s a deal. Hop in.”

Vicky opened the door and had a bit of a hard time stepping up to the three-quarter ton truck’s high floor, but Darren reached over to give her his hand. She took it, and she couldn’t help but think it was a different type of hand than she had ever touched before. His hand was thick and muscular, but his touch was gentle. Though his hands were calloused from hard work, he took care not to grip her hand too hard and instead let her choose how hard to squeeze as she pulled herself up to her seat. Vicky believed a person’s hands told a lot about them. As she had this thought, she paused to look at his sincere and somewhat vulnerable looking blue eyes and medium-length blond hair. Not too bad, not too bad at all.

“What happened to your friend?”

“Oh, Tammy? She was going a different way home, couldn’t give me a ride tonight.”

“Where you headed then?” Darren asked.

“I live out in Sherwood Park way east of the city. You don’t have to drive me all the way, though, I can catch the bus from downtown.”

“No deal. I offered a ride, I’ll give you one. You have to sing for your supper, though; you have to tell me a joke, and if I don’t laugh, you have to buy us both coffee at the drive-through window on our way out of St. Albert.”

“A joke?” Vicky smiled.

“Yeah, I love jokes. You seem like a funny person. Lay one on me.”

“I don’t know too many.” Vicky paused for a few awkward moments then said, “Oh, there is one.”

“Shoot.”

“It’s a dumb joke and a bit racist. My dad told it to me one day when he got back from a trip to Europe.”

“I’m waiting.”

“How many aspirin does a German take for a headache?”

“How many?”

“Four. One for each corner.” Darren let out a half-stifled guffaw.

“That joke is only funny because I have a good friend who is German who looks like he has a square head. Not bad. I’ll buy our coffees.”

“I am going to pass on the coffee for now, but you can bring a large double double to class for me next Thursday. And for now, you can give me one of your cigarettes.”

“Oh, sure,” Darren said, passing over his pack and opening the ashtray. “Didn’t think you seemed like a smoker.”

“I’m not around my family, but I don’t mind smoking OPs.”

“OPs?”

“Other people’s.” Darren let out an open-mouth laugh and looked over at Vicky. She didn’t hold her cigarette comfortably between two fingers, instead she held it pinched between her thumb and forefinger. He could tell she wasn’t a regular smoker, but he liked that she could accept that he smoked without judging him, as many did.

“Been trying to quit for quite a while. It’s a nasty habit.” Darren said, trying to anticipate what was in Vicky’s thoughts.

“When did you start?”

“Oh, about ten years ago. I was at a dance, and some good friends and I snuck out of the school gym and lit one up and passed it around. I choked and gagged and all my friends laughed at me. I was so ashamed that I went home and practiced with my dad’s cigarettes until I was addicted.”

“You started smoking because you COULDN’T smoke AND it made you gag?”

“Yeah, you have no idea of the power that friendships can have in a small town.” Just then, Darren absentmindedly pulled up his sleeve and revealed his tattoo as he scratched at it. Vicky spotted the tattoo and wondered how this kind young man could have marked himself in such a seemingly hateful way.

“Oh, I think I have a bit of an idea about how small towns work.” Vicky replied. “One day I’ll tell you about my family.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” Darren said and cracked a smile, then said, “So, Vicky, if you’re comfortable saying, tell me where you grew up and what you want to do eventually. After school is over, that is.”

“Well, not much to say. I grew up in Edmonton, went to Harry Ainlay High.”

“So why do you live so far out of the way in Sherwood Park?”

“Oh, partly because my ex works there and partly because I have some good friends and a few relatives there too.”

“Why didn’t you finish your diploma?”

“I did. I just wanted to take this course as a refresher. I want to go to university and take liberal arts, so I thought this would be a good way to get my skills up.”

“Why travel so far just to take a class you don’t need?”

“Well, that’s complicated.” For the first time, Vicky didn’t seem happy and outgoing. Whatever she was thinking of made her look down at the floor of the truck and her face took on an appearance of sadness.

“That’s okay, no need to get into it,” Darren reassured her. “I might as well tell you why I’m in the course. I was a party animal when I was a teenager. I went to high school for four years and only made about sixty of the necessary one hundred credits. I drank a lot, stayed up late all the time watching TV and skipped a lot of classes. Everything changed when my dad died.” As he said the next words, his eyes softened, moistened. A sadness came to his face, much like how Vicky had just reacted. “He was a good man.”

“How did it happen?”

Darren kept his eyes on the road while he answered, not even glancing at Vicky as he spoke his next words, though if he had looked, he would have seen compassionate eyes looking back at him. “I was off getting drunk, and he had to change a wheel on a tractor all by himself and had a heart attack. I came home and found him dead in our front yard.”

“Oh, that’s awful. I hope you don’t blame yourself.”

“I do. That’s why I quit drinking, dope, everything.” Then he paused and looked down for a moment and said, “Except smoking that is. I rented out the farm to my cousin, decided to make something of myself, something I could be proud of, something my kids can be proud of.”

“You have kids?”

“No, no kids, but one day I would like to, you know. I always kind of thought that was how things worked. You work hard, grow up, build a life for yourself, find someone, fall in love and kids are kind of the next natural step. If I ever do have kids, I want them to know me and to respect my ideals and all that.”

“What about your mom? Is she still alive?”

“She is but my mom doesn’t want too much to do with me. She never believed I could straighten my life up. Her and my dad divorced a few years back, and I sometimes think she resents that my father spent so much time trying to give me everything I wanted and gave so little time attending to her needs. Lump that all together and you get a woman who stays silent and angry a lot. Every time I go to see her it seems she just wants to pick away at me. I don’t see her much these days anymore.”

“Divorce can be painful. Even if it’s for the right reasons it hurts both parties and any kids.”

“You sound like you have experience.”

“I do. I was married.”

“Oh, I never saw a ring or anything.”

“I was divorced, too. We married too young, I think. I didn’t understand that you can’t just grab a person at random and fix their flaws and expect things to work. I married my ex because of money, plus the way he seemed to adore me. But what I thought was passionate love at first ended up just some crazy obsession. He was so jealous and controlling. He had to be in charge of everything, everyone I talked to, even my friends. He wouldn’t even let me learn how to drive. It got to be way too much.”

Out of nowhere, Darren said, “Hey, want to cruise downtown?”

“Umm… I don’t really know. I’ve never done it.”

“It’s cool, there’s tons of lights around, a lot of the motorbike people bring out their machines for one last sprint down the avenue. Sometimes you even see cool retro muscle cars.

“It kind of sounds like fun. Why not?” Vicky said, though she felt a little nervous.

Darren took the exit at 112 avenue and then crossed over to 95th street where he turned to go downtown. As they were on their way, a cherry red ’57 Chevy Truck painted with flames went by. It had a blower sticking out of its hood. Darren pointed it out.

“Is that a Saturday night special?” Vicky asked.

“In the flesh. I love it when people take pieces of history and turn them into working machines. I’ll bet he has some serious horsepower under the hood too.”

“Looks wicked. Pull up next to him,” Vicky commanded.

“Sure.”

Vicky opened her window and leaned out, then got the driver of the Chevy to open his window. She said, “If you beat us to Jasper Ave, you can sleep with me.”

“What!” Darren said and tried to roll up her power window with the control on his side.

“Better drive fast!” Vicki said, and then blew a kiss to the driver of the Chev.

The light turned green and the Chevy gunned the accelerator and was out of sight in seconds. Darren hadn’t even figured out what to do until the Chevy was halfway to winning the race. He decided the best thing to do would be to hang a hard right and get the hell out of the situation. So much for showing off his V-8 engine.

“Damn girl, you’re evil.” Darren said with a smile. “What would I have gotten if I won?”

“I’ll never tell,” she said.

“Hey, you ever been to purple city?” Darren asked.

“Heard about it. But isn’t it just some cheesy nightclub?”

“Nah, you’ll like it. Let’s go check it out. It’s on the grounds of the Legislature.”

Darren took a turn back South towards downtown again on 105 street, then on Jasper Avenue turned right and drove to the grounds of the Alberta government parliament and office buildings. In between these, there was a reflecting pool, lovely trees and flowers, and fountains that would spout water and then pause just long enough for a drunk teenager to try and run through them without getting wet. Darren parked. They got out and walked and talked in an almost effortless, comfortable way like they were already old friends.

“I’ve never really been much of a wild girl you know,” Vicky told him. “But I have always liked bad boys.” She touched his hand. Darren took her hand in his and felt happy for the first time in a while as they walked among the statues, fountains and flood lights on the legislature. Eventually, they got to the other side of the massive building.

“Well, here it is.”

“Here is what?”

“Purple City. Do what I do.” Darren stood in front of a yellow flood light and stared into it. A little confused, Vicky did the same.

“Now look out at the city lights and tell me what you see.”

“Ha! That’s funny. All the lights are purple.”

“Welcome to purple city.”

“What a stupid thing! To think everyone in my school used to talk about this like it was a big accomplishment or something.”

“There’s another thing we can do, it’s an old Edmonton ritual, but I don’t know if you’re up to it.”

“Hey dude, I’m as much of an Edmontonian as anybody. What is it?”

“Well, there’s this cave on the South Side and…”

“Okay, stop there. Maybe another night. Maybe at day or when I can bring a flashlight.”

“Okay, okay. No problem. We could also walk across the high-level bridge on top. It’s a real challenge when the cars are whistling by under you.”

“I’ll get back to you on that one.”

Darren and Vicky walked on, telling each other about their parents and their first kisses, their first times getting drunk. Vicky was even comfortable enough to tell Darren about the first time she made love, but Darren seemed to blush and stammer when his turn to talk came, and she didn’t push him. For a few minutes they sat on a park bench in the darkness and just stared up at the stars. It was a night to remember, but eventually Vicky decided she had to go home.

It was a good half hour’s drive to Vicky’s house, and they both realized that they had talked and laughed and shared a lot of things with each other that usually take years to learn from even a close friend. They got to her house and, not wanting to wake up her roommate but not wanting to end the perfect night, they decided to park and talk for a while longer. They had barely been there for ten minutes when a silver Corvette pulled in behind Darren’s truck and parked so he couldn’t get out.

“Someone own this spot?” Darren asked Vicky.

“No, it’s guest parking.” She looked back. “Oh shit! That’s Donald’s car — my ex!”

The driver of the Corvette got out of his vehicle. He was a giant of a man with curly dark hair, well over six feet tall, wearing expensive casual clothes that revealed a build that was thick and muscular. He slammed his door and walked to Vicky’s window. Shit, he looks nasty, Darren thought.

The man stood on the other side of the passenger side window for a while and finally Vicky opened it and before she could say anything, her ex Donald spoke. “Vicky, get out of that truck and come and talk to me.”

“Donald, you’re not my husband anymore, and you don’t give me any support. You have no more say in my life. I could have cleaned you out, but I didn’t. I don’t want you, Donald; it’s that simple.”

“Vicky, I’m giving you five seconds.”

“Just wait one freaking minute, Mister,” Darren said.

“Shut up, boy. I suggest you wait until I pull out with Vicky in my car and then you take and leave this place and never come back.” Donald spoke like a man who was used to people listening to what he told them to do.

Darren opened his door to get out, feeling angry and even a little afraid, but ready to kick some serious ass. Before he could, Vicky yelled at him.

“No, Darren, don’t! Please don’t. Donald, I’ll go with you. Just leave my friend be.”

“Vicky, you don’t have to go with him.” Darren said. Vicky looked like she was about to scream.

“Darren, I don’t even know you. You just gave me a ride from the mall, okay.” Vicky looked at him and winked several times, but not in a playful or funny way, in a way that told Darren he would be wise to take her suggestion, but that this didn’t mean Donald had won.

Darren got back in his seat and took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment to gather his thoughts. Vicky got out to talk to her ex, and then got in his fancy sports car and pulled out. Darren didn’t know what to do, say, or think. He felt impotent and powerless. It had only been a short while, but he was starting to think he could actually have a relationship on his hands. It was a long ride home, and he couldn’t help but feel like he could have done something or said something more.

Darren went home and stayed up for a long time staring at the ceiling in his bed. His window was open letting in the cool, clean Fall air. Even though it had been a long day for him, it took him hours to fall asleep. He had been starting to feel something, some kind of connection to Vicky that he couldn’t explain. As he drifted off, he realized there was something he could do.

On Wednesday evening, just as the sun was going down Darren picked up some flowers from a Safeway and drove out to Sherwood Park, retracing the path he had taken to drop Vicky off. He went to her door, knocked and in a few minutes, she opened the door wearing just a thin robe and a look of surprise went across her face. Vicky let out a bit of a scream and slammed the door and yelled through it:

“Darren! Don’t you ever call people before you come?”

“I don’t have your number.”

“You could have just asked me.”

“Come on, open the door. I have flowers, and they’re wilting.”

“Give me a couple of minutes.”

Darren heard Vicky storm off and about 15 minutes later she finally came back fully dressed and opened the door.

“Come on in. You’re here, you might as well get the tour.”

“I like your house. Are you renting?”

“No, I bought this place a few years ago. When I was married we lived in a much bigger place and even though my ex got me to help manage his properties he made sure I had very little, even way before we split. His place near downtown is about three times the size of this. It was a big adjustment for me when the divorce was over. Just to sock away a little money to buy my freedom I had to pinch every penny I could on groceries and anything my ex allowed me a budget for. I saved all of it in cash, all in hopes of getting this house. I had my eye on it for a while, it needed fixing up and no one seemed to want it. I borrowed money from my parents and even had to get them to co-sign the loan. It started as just an investment but it became convenient for me to live here and share the expenses with a roommate. I’m thinking of selling and trying to get something near the U of A campus.”

“It’s nice, but I was hoping to take you out tonight.”

“Well, nice of you to get to know me and ask in advance.”

“Sorry, I’m not very good at this, am I?”

“No, it’s fine,” Vicky said. “I’m just kidding again. Wait until you meet my family, everything they say or do seems to be designed to set you up for a joke. I would love to go out with you.” Darren looked in her eyes and smiled, gaining just a tiny bit of confidence and thinking he must have scored points somewhere if she already wanted him to meet her folks.

“Well, let’s go then.”

“Darren, I’m wearing sweat pants and I haven’t even done my hair.”

“Where we’re going no one will see you but me.”
Vicky laughed. “Well, I have to look good for you, then.”

“Here, take these flowers, put them in something and I’ll wait in the truck.”

“Not with my neighbors and your stereo system you aren’t. Sit down in my living room. I’ll be a few minutes. Maybe more than a few minutes.”

“Take all the time you need. I totally understand.” Darren said. “I always like my hair perfect myself.”

Darren sat down and Vicky disappeared long enough for Darren to watch a full episode of the Simpsons on YouTube. When Vicky came out of the bathroom, his heart began to beat faster. She had looked good, even great, before. But when she took the time to make her hair and makeup perfect, and wear something that brought out the beauty of those hazel eyes, she was a knockout.

Darren didn’t say much. When Vicky got in the truck and they pulled out, he put a CD in his stereo. To her surprise, he was playing Mozart.

“What is this?” she asked.

“Mozart, of course. Something wrong?”

“You really don’t look like a Mozart fan.”

“I love Mozart, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky. I’m right into it, serious.”

Vicky raised an eyebrow at him and opened up his glove compartment to see that he had stashed some Slayer, Ozzy, Metallica and a few others where they couldn’t be seen. “Ok fancy pants, then what are these?”

“That’s my driving music. When I want to relax, I play this stuff. Listen to how you can see the birth of a nation and the rise of civilization in the music. Seriously, I love this stuff.”

“Well, it is good. I’ll give you that, but you don’t have to try and impress me. I like Ozzy just as much as anyone.” Darren laughed out loud and hit the eject button on his stereo and pulled the CD out, then motioned for Vicky to pick an album. She picked “Crazy Train” and when they put it in, Darren and Vicky both mimicked the drums and guitar riffs and Darren drove just a little faster than he should have.

They got into Edmonton and Darren drove up to 109th street, then went south over the high-level bridge so he could take the scenic trip down Saskatchewan Drive, where the view of downtown was completely stunning. Vicky looked mesmerized at the lights and Darren turned the music down as they saw the towers that seemed to climb higher each year and the bright lights of everything from the roads to the tallest building in Edmonton across the cityscape. It was breathtaking. They got halfway down the famous roadway and Darren pulled into a parking garage, let himself in with a magnetic swipe card and parked his truck.

“Come with me. We’re going to have dinner.”

“Where? That restaurant in the main floor we saw? What kind of place is that?”

Darren smiled, took a blanket out from behind the seat of his truck and said nothing, though he was tingling with excitement at what they were about to experience.

“It’s an East Indian Place. The owner is a friend of mine. We’re going to eat food from there but we’re not going to eat there. We’re going upstairs.”

Each time Vicky tried to ask another question, Darren made a motion with his finger for her to be silent and wait. “Trust me,” he kept saying. They rode the elevator to the top floor and then walked to the end of the hall to what looked like a utility door and he took out a large ring of keys and opened it. Inside was a stairwell and he took Vicky’s hand and guided her up. He silently prayed she wasn’t afraid of heights. The stairs led to another room with all kinds of pipes and tools and various gear in it and then Darren led her outside to the most incredible view she had ever seen in her life. Downtown, from the 20th floor, right out in the open air.

He wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and felt his chest pound as he looked in her eyes. Twenty stories up, they could see for miles, seemingly hundreds of miles around. Everything was so bright and beautiful from the winding river and downtown to the long stretch of flat ground on the South Side. Darren took her to a small table with two chairs that had been set up with snacks and wine and they sat down and talked while Vicky was practically breathless at the splendor of what was around them, and Darren couldn’t stop smiling just looking at this beautiful woman he was starting to really bond with.

They finished their meal mostly in silence. Darren told Vicky a few stories about working in the building and friends he made there, then they stood up and just stared out at downtown. It was Vicky who broke the silence.

“Look at all those cars down there. Can you imagine where any of them are going?”

“I figure most of them are either going to work or going home to spend time with their families.”

“I think there’s people out there, people like us, going on dates, getting to know each other, falling in love. But the ones I think about the most are the ones who are leaving. In all those people and all those cars there has to be at least one who is trying to get away, trying to start a new life, some place with more challenge, more happiness, more hope.”

“Is that what you want? To just drive off and never come back?”

“In a way, I guess. I used to think about it a lot. We didn’t have much money when I was growing up. I never had a car or driving lessons. When I met Donald, he said he would teach me and then one night after we made love I told him about my dream of being able to just get in a car and go somewhere, leave everything behind. Friends, clothes, home. Even family. I wasn’t really going to do it back then. I was happy, but he made sure I never learned to drive. Sometimes he even used to take my money and credit cards and just leave me with a card only good for cabs.”

“So why don’t you leave then? Why don’t you just pick up and get away? Nothing is stopping you now.”

“I wish I could tell you more. You’re so sweet, so kind to me. But I think I can manage. I have a lot of good friends, and I don’t know if I could ever replace them or really start fresh. I just always kind of wished I could.” As he looked at her under the blanket, for the first time he saw her as frail, scared, human. It was perhaps that moment that he knew he was in love.

Darren reached over and put his hand on top of Vicky’s and squeezed it. He had so much more to say to her but he kept it hidden inside. Vicky responded by putting her arm around him and resting her head on his shoulder. Somehow both of them knew without telling each other that this was all there could be for now, all they could really guarantee was this quiet moment with the cool wind blowing and the breath-taking river valley of Edmonton laid out before them.
The mood seemed to stay quiet and sombre and when they went back downstairs and got in the truck, Vicky leaned over to rest her head on Darren once again and he put in a Brahms CD he kept for just such an occasion. As he took Vicky home, she fell asleep, safe, trusting and happy.

That Friday afternoon, Darren drove out to Sherwood Park again. He knocked at Vicky’s door, and her roommate answered.

“Hi, is Vicky in?”

“Yeah. Are you Darren?”

“Yes, how did you know?”

“Lucky guess. Vicky seems to think you’re a pretty cool guy.”

Darren blushed. “Thanks, do you think you could ask Vicky to come to the door?”

“Oh, yeah. Vicky has been in her room reading all day. I’ll see if she can present herself. Sit down and watch TV if you like.”

“Thanks.” She left but came back right away.

“Vicky said she would love to see you and that she will come out as soon as she can. Put on a movie if you like, I’ve known her to take hours to get ready to go out.”

“Sure, no problem.”

What seemed like nearly an hour passed, though it was closer to twenty minutes. Vicky came out wearing a purple sweater that brought out the gorgeous color of her eyes, and her mid-length dark hair had been brushed and styled. She sat down, and Darren clicked off the TV.

“Vicky!” Darren said, smiling for possibly the first time while looking directly at her. “You look great. I had such a good time at that highrise the other day, but I forgot to ask you. Did everything go okay the other night when your ex was here?”

“Yeah, he just goes a little crazy when I don’t call him. He thinks if I go to a bar someone will pick me up and he is so afraid of losing what unhealthy semblance of a relationship we have left.”

“What if I did pick you up at a bar? That’s got nothing to do with him,” Darren replied.

“Just let it go Darren please. I can deal with him.”

“Would you like to go for a drive then?”

“Sure, that sounds okay. Where to?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“I don’t know how many of your surprises I can handle, but the last one was pretty good. Let’s go.”

Darren and Vicky got in his truck and drove through miles upon miles of brilliant red, green and yellow trees just shedding their foliage, framed against a perfect blue prairie sky. After they had been on the road for about an hour, Darren pulled into a back road and at the end of it was a huge empty paved parking lot. He stopped the truck, got out, and walked over to the passenger side.

Darren opened the door and made a motion for Vicky to slide into the driver’s seat. For the next two hours Darren patiently walked her through every little detail he could teach her about how to drive his truck, at least at slow speeds. When Darren finished the lesson, Vicky got out of the driver’s seat and went to walk around to his side, and he noticed something funny on her cheek.

“What’s this here?” He asked, touching the side of her face. When he did, she pulled away, but some makeup came off in his hands, then he held her steady for a moment and rubbed more off. When the makeup came off, it became obvious Vicky had a bruise on the side of her face that she had tried to hide. Darren closed his eyes, and a feeling of shame washed over him. He wanted to explode with anger. He wanted to find this guy and beat the hell out of him, but something told him he couldn’t, that this wasn’t the way to win this battle. Darren didn’t say another word but slid into the driver’s seat while Vicky sat and sobbed quietly. He drove all the way back to his home in St. Albert and the two of them went inside.

The first words he said since seeing her bruise were:

“Vicky, you’re not going back there ever again.”

“But don’t you understand? I can’t get away from him; he knows every trick in the book. He can lie to me and control me so bad I don’t even know what the truth ever was. My only hope is to keep him placated until I can get something on him, some evidence or something that goes beyond normal. He’s not any ordinary person, Darren.”

“No one can go on getting away with shit like that. You need to go to the police.”

“Darren,” Vicky said, looking at him with desperation apparent in her expression.

“Yes?”

“He’s the Crown Prosecutor in Sherwood Park. He’s got a lot of power: legally, financially, and in the old boys’ club of men he went to school with, which include half the police force and most of the lawyers in town. There is no one left to stop him.”

Darren stopped for a moment and closed his eyes to think. Shortly after, he felt a comforting and gentle presence. It was Vicky, and she was hugging him, and Darren felt her tears streaming out of her eyes down the side of her face onto his shirt. He hugged her back and felt something that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Maybe it was love, but despite having liked a lot of women, he wasn’t really sure if he had experienced real love. In a way Darren was afraid of it; afraid of the term, afraid of the concept. It seemed to have such an air of finality to it. All Darren really knew was that he had a feeling that he had to protect her, had to care for her and see her through this, whether she wanted to be his girlfriend or not. He gripped her more tightly and then tried to kiss her on the lips, but she pulled away.

“Vicky, what’s wrong?”

“This isn’t right. I can’t think of you this way. At least, not now, not here.”

“Vicky, I like you, I want to be with you. What could be wrong with that?”

“You’re what’s wrong with it! He’ll be after you now, too. There is no telling how many things he could do in his jealous fits. Prosecutors can get into social insurance numbers, phone records, criminal records, anything. Even your credit cards and energy bills. The abuse and corruption isn’t going to stop in just one day and until they do stop I won’t feel right about you and me, and besides…”

“Besides what?” Darren said, trying not to sound as frustrated and upset as he really was.

“Besides, Darren, there is a part of you I don’t know if I’m comfortable with. A part you’re hiding from me.”

“I’ve been totally honest with you in every way.” Darren said.

“Darren, I don’t know if we can ride this through. I like you a lot and I want to be with you.”

“This isn’t about us being together, this is about you standing up and living your own life. It’s about getting away from any coward of a man who hits a woman like that and then thinks he can run through the raindrops.”

Vicky said nothing for almost two full minutes when her eyes began to tear up again. She brushed them away, then stood up and tucked in her top, looking uncomfortable and awkward. She walked over to Darren’s DVD stand by his TV and looked through titles, hoping to change the topic after a pregnant pause.

“The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Back to the Future, Top Gun. You got some great stuff here,” Vicky said, then a look of surprise crossed her face. “Oh my God, you have the complete Twilight Zone Collection! I love these. I used to stay up late all the time hoping to catch a re-run of them!”

Darren closed his eyes for a moment and let out a sigh. He wondered if abuse and addiction were similar. When he had quit booze, he was told that for a long time he had been living in denial. He just couldn’t understand how someone could keep forgiving a person for horrendous abuse, keep thinking each time they went back that things were going to change or that the abuse was their fault. When he drank, Darren had partied a lot. For a long time, he never held back to just a few beers. To have a good time he needed to drink himself stupid, as his buddy Ethan would say. It left a lot of wreckage in his past, and now he was seeing it happen before his eyes. It made him feel hurt and helpless, but he was nowhere near ready to give up.

Finally, he spoke: “The old shows were on every weeknight on CTV when I was 12. They’re the main reason I failed most of my first period classes in school.”

Vicky laughed, carefully slid out a disc, ejected the tray on Darren’s player and took the remote in her hand. She was able to figure out how to link in his stereo and get the sound perfect while the introduction was going.

Darren said, “Put it on pause. We need popcorn for this. We’re going to binge-watch as many as we can tonight!” He was thankful that at least he was going to have some time with this woman whom he had to admit he was starting to yearn for more to the point where he might never be fulfilled.

He disappeared into the kitchen. Vicky paused the video and went to get a comforter from Darren’s bedroom. While she did this, she couldn’t help but notice that Darren had a neat and organized home. If someone tried to judge him from the way he dressed, they likely wouldn’t think he was someone that cared a lot about taking care of themselves and their surroundings. This orderly environment made her think about how Donald had been a rich prick, making messes and just expecting their paid maid service, or Vicky, to deal with it and never thanking people for picking up after him.

In a few minutes, a super-sized bowl of popcorn was ready and they dimmed the lights. For a moment they were able to forget their troubles as they left on a journey not only of sight and sound but of mind and body.

* *
The next morning Darren woke up with Vicky next to him. They had fallen asleep on his couch at some point during the third season of the old black and white classic. Between instances of Vicky moving her arm off his chest to get up and making coffee, Darren decided on a plan. He felt the one thing that was key was that it should be as easy as possible for Vicky to consciously decide to get away, and for that he needed something from her house. The first thing he did was write a long note for Vicky, leaving her with enough cash from his emergency stash he kept in his house to go shopping for clothes and some luggage for both of them but not telling her what he was going to do. Then he drove to his friend’s house and asked if he could run some errands with his car, providing Darren leave his truck with him with the keys. Darren was surprised that he agreed so quickly, but understood a little when the keys were dropped in his hand. He had a crude swastika tattoo exactly where Darren had one.

Darren then drove off to Sherwood Park and took a roundabout way to Vicky’s house to make sure no one was following him. He arrived and broke in her bedroom window, tripping a silent alarm. It took a long search, but when Darren found her passport he breathed a huge sigh of relief that now most of his troubles were over. He knew she would have one somewhere, especially since she wouldn’t have had a driver’s license. It was almost sad to think of Vicky having this and not ever being able to go anywhere. Time was ticking away quickly, and so he left by the front door. Just as he closed it, someone jumped out of the shadows and restrained him, yelling “Police! You’re under arrest.”

Darren yelled back, “I’m not doing anything wrong, the owner of this place sent me here!” The cop called him a liar and a little bastard, then put him into an arm bar he couldn’t get out of. Darren flipped him over his head making the cop hit the cement on the front step hard. Before he could make a move to get away, Darren felt a blunt object smash into his head, and he fell to the ground unconscious. The next moments were blurry, but he seemed to be in the back of a police car and then had a vague impression of being taken to a holding cell.

He laid there for hours, blood trickling from the wound in his head. Then, finally, two guards came in and escorted him to the interrogation room. It was an ordinary office made up almost like someone’s living room but lacking the personal touches. A detective came in with a voice recorder.

“Why did you break into that house?” he asked, in a plain voice.

“Because I was looking for money.”

“We’re not going to accept that.” The detective said sharply. Two women live there; we think you were there to rape one or both of them.”

“Look in my files, I’ve never been charged with a crime outside of public drunkenness.” Darren replied, trying to play the tough guy, trying to get the Detective to think more about him than about Vicky or her ex so she could possibly have more time to get to some place safe.

“Are you drunk right now?”

“No, I quit drinking a year ago.”

“I need you to help me out. If you can plead guilty to break and enter we can forget about the sexual assault part of our investigation and not charge you with resisting arrest. You probably know as good as me that if we profile you as a sex offender, you’re not going to have a very good time in prison, or in the city when you get out.”

“You do what you want and make up all the charges you want,” Darren replied.

Hour after hour he was grilled and grilled again, same questions over and over, trying to trick him, wear him down. Each time he went to his holding cell they just waited long enough for him to rest for a few minutes when they brought him back. After all that, he started to feel as though things had utterly failed. After more time than he could estimate, Darren was tired. Dog tired. Bone tired. Worn to a frazzle, and he almost didn’t seem to care anymore. In an angry voice, he finally declared.

“Why don’t you ask your Crown Prosecutor what the hell I was doing at Vicky’s place? He beat his wife so many times she divorced him. He’s still beating her so I went to get Vicky’s passport so we could get away.” As he said this, the stone-cold expression washed away the sharp interrogator’s stare from the face of the RCMP detective. Something had hit home.

“Come with me,” the detective said.

He walked Darren to the property room, got him everything he had with him when he was taken in, including the passport. He even let him wash up and drove him back to where he had left his friend’s car. Darren couldn’t understand why this was happening.

“Why are you doing this?” Darren asked as the detective let him free.

“Let’s just say you’re not the only one who has problems with that asshole. As far as he knows, I’ve got you in holding and I haven’t heard where Vicky is for days. I hope that buys you some time. I wish you the best, and I wish there were more people out there like you and fewer pukes like him. We’ve dealt with his disregard for the law and corruption for far too long.”

The rest only took a few more days. Darren and Vicky didn’t know where they were going to go first, so they bought a ticket through Iceland Air to Reykjavik. A few phone calls and a few hundred numbers read off bank cards, credit cards and passports, and they were able to transfer enough funds to a European bank account that was numbered and untraceable to keep them going when they arrived.

Their plan was to leave and see as much of Europe as they possibly could until their money ran low. Then they would take some courses so they could follow the dream of living in Korea or China or Japan where they could make a living teaching English as a second language.
They drove downtown, and got a cab to the airport. Darren gave the cabbie the keys to his truck as a tip, on the condition he have it detailed inside and out to remove any traces of who once owned it. They boarded their flight just a few short hours later.

The plane ride was long and tedious, but it was easy to pass the time together. After a few games of twenty questions near the middle of their flight, Vicky looked into Darren’s eyes and they could both feel once again the glow of love and attraction and pure joy from mutual respect and caring for each other.

“Darren, when you used to stay up and watch ‘The Twilight Zone’ every night…”

“Yeah…”

“Do you ever remember tuning into NBC Spokane and hearing a song by Cat Stevens?”

Darren didn’t speak a reply, he sung it.

“Morning has broken…”

“Like the first morning.” Vicky continued as she stifled a laugh. “That song was so beautiful, I think of it every morning, but you know what I’m going to think of now?”

“No, what?”

“I’m going to think of you. I’m going to think of the days when I hadn’t met you yet but somewhere across the city you were watching the same thing I was, thinking the same stuff I did.”

Their flight went on and a few hours later Darren fell asleep. Vicky took a small device around the size of a smartphone out of her purse and started fiddling with it. It emitted a number of jumping and voice sounds and some ominous laughter that woke Darren up. As he stirred, Vicky turned off her device and put it back in her purse.

“What did you just put away?” Darren asked.

“Oh, nothing.”

“I had a dream I was playing Mario 64 and when I woke up I heard sound effects from the game.”

“You mean you like Mario 64?”

“Of course. Did you ever get the star in the water world with the ship?”

“Only in the first week. I can get 76 stars and finish the game.”

“You never really finish it until you get all 100.”

“Have you ever done it?”

“I was close, I had 90 once but then a roommate pawned my system so he could buy weed and I never got it back.”

“Well I have it on the portable Nintendo.”

“No way, let me see.” Vicky opened her purse and pulled out the game.

“Vicky, I think I love you.”

“About time you said it.” Vicky smiled.

Somehow, right there and then, Darren and Vicky knew they would spend the rest of their lives together. They weren’t ready to marry, they weren’t planning what to name their third child or decide what city the two of them would settle in, but somehow both of them just knew they were destined to be soul mates. It was Vicky who broke the silence.

“It’s not going to be easy for me to talk to you about this, but do you remember when I said we had to wait before we could take that next step in our relationship?”

“Yeah, but we’ve only known each other a short while. It’s still too soon.”

“I know, but I was just wondering something.”

“If you’re wondering, the answer is no, I’ve never done it with anyone before.”

“Well, that wasn’t what I was going to ask, but it kind of answers my next question.”

“What question?”

“I was wondering if you ever joined the mile-high club.”
“What’s the mile-high club?”

“Darren, I have so much to teach you!” Vicky smiled a cheerful, happy smile and for perhaps the first time in his life Darren knew he had someone, someone very special with whom he was blown away with completely. He understood what she meant about teaching him and didn’t feel shy at all or blush in the slightest, but he felt joyful that soon he was going to see life from the other side of the lonely existence he had lived so far.

“You don’t have to worry about waiting or feeling uncomfortable though,” Vicky interjected. “I agree with you. Making love should be a very special moment in a person’s life. I don’t want to push you to do it or judge you in any way because of how you feel. I hate that I gave up that precious gift I should have saved for someone like you to a man who was so evil and in love with himself.

“I could live with that. It’s not really a bad idea at all. I wonder what kind of woman would marry me.”

Vicky laughed and punched his shoulder. She had a pretty good right cross too, and it hurt. “When the time is right, and the place is perfect. Then… maybe.” Vicky smiled and rested her head on Darren’s shoulder for a moment.

“But what was the thing you wanted to ask me?”

“Oh yeah,” Vicky said and sat up and looked at Darren. “You told me you were in jail after going to get my passport and all that. How did you get out?”

“That’s what I don’t understand. This detective just suddenly went from hating me to liking me, and he just let me go.”

“What did you say just before he let you go?”

“Well, I told him that I was trying to help you get away from that abusive jerk with the Corvette.”

“This detective — what was his name?”

“O’Connor I think.” Vicky let out a loud laugh and flashed a mischievous smile.

“What?”

“Detective O’Connor is my cousin.”

“No way.”

“Way. And you remember Tammy from class?”

“Sort of.”

“She’s been my best friend since high school, and she’s his wife. I introduced them.”

Darren laughed, then felt a touch of uncomfortable nervous energy go through him just thinking how close he could have come to all parties concerned being in deep shit if the detective hadn’t let him go. To calm himself, he turned and looked out the window at the massive Atlantic Ocean thousands of feet below and whispered a silent prayer for his dad, finally feeling free of the pain and guilt from his younger years, finally feeling as though he had made something of himself that he could be proud of. He decided that his dad would likely have been pretty happy to see his son end up with the woman of his dreams, and that they were about to make whole new lives for each other in a whole different part of the world than they had ever known.