April 29, 1980
I’m still sort of freaked out about what happened today, but it’s all probably just my overworked sense of suspicion. I made it home from Charlotte okay (I was in Charlotte to see Rebecca, remember?) but while I was waiting in the bus station, sitting in one those plastic chairs, I looked across the room and saw this lady standing by a torn curtain, and she just seemed out of place, as if she belonged in another time era, say like 1946. She had long blond hair, in waves, like those women in old movies. A lot older than me, she was probably 30, and she wore a burgundy dress with high heels. She was looking around the room for somebody, only it looked as if she hoped that whoever it was wouldn’t be there. Her fingers were clutched around something in her hands.
I guess I was staring, because all of a sudden she felt it, and she turned to look at me. She gave another quick look around, then walked straight over, swaying slightly, as if she was dizzy or had vertigo or something. But right then this old jowly guy walks between me and the lady and stops so I can’t see her. He was bald, black suit, thin tie. He checked his watch, then walked off again. I remember thinking, ‘Weird’. This guy just picked a strange time to make a cameo in my life. Anyway, the lady came back in view, stopped in front of me and smiled. Something in her eyes was sort of spooky, like she was slightly psycho or something. “May I?” she said, indicating the chair beside me.
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My stomach was tied into a rope by what she was saying, but her tale also seemed like it was for the birds. Government secrets? Secret agents? “Harry, these men are ghastly, notorious,” she said in a foreign accent.
I couldn’t look into her eyes because every time I did I was spellbound, so instead I looked down at her hands, at the ring on her finger, a big gem, this yellow topaz color. “I think you’ve got the wrong man,” I said. “I don’t need this.”
She whispered, “The trouble with you is that you’re too young and innocent.” She sighed, and paused a few seconds. “You know, all I ever really wanted was just to have a family, a plot of land. Now this.” We sat quiet for a while, then I heard her take in a sharp breath. “They’re here,” she said. I turned to follow her eyes, and two guys dressed in gray suits and felt fedoras had just walked through the swinging doors. One of the guys was small and wiry with a face like a rat. The other was big with a square jaw. I felt the lady put a piece of paper in my hand, but I was still watching the guys. When I turned to look again, she was gone. I still don’t know how the lady vanished as quick as that, like a ghost.
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When the bus doors whooshed shut and no one else had gotten on, I felt a surge of relief. But then I walked to the very back seat of the bus and looked out the rear window. The rat guy was standing there alone on the curb, and he was looking through the window right at me. He was writing something down as the bus turned a corner. The piece of paper the lady had given me was wrinkled into a ball, I’d been holding it so tight. I rode the rest of the way home with a dozen or so strangers on a bus.
Now it’s late at night and my brain is in a frenzy. I confess that I can be paranoid at times, and the truth is that I was never in any physical danger, but the whole thing just feels eerie. I’m still just a kid, but I feel like a man, and I think I know too much, although I’m not sure what that is. And the piece of paper the woman gave me, it’s important. I know that beyond a shadow of a doubt.
I just feel like I’m all alone on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean . . .
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(this paper was taped to the bottom of the page)
