Hailey's Hog Read online

  Returning to the ear-splitting roar of the oven-baked present, Hailey watched the headlights on the highway as she replayed Uncle Greg’s last words in her mind. Her heart clutched in sadness at the memory while the asphalt flowed under her bike’s chrome-spoke wheels like black water.

  She could still smell the antiseptic atmosphere of the hospital room as the lights pulsed and the machines beeped. Gray and gaunt, Greg lay in the narrow bed, a ghostly imitation of his former self.

  He took her hand. “I know what you’re doing. You’re hiding. You can’t lock yourself away like this. It’s not healthy,” he’d told her. “You need to live while you’re still young… maybe even have an adventure or two. Life really is beautiful.”

  In her mind’s eye she could still see him lean forward to kiss the top of her head. “But trust me when I tell you, life is also short…too short.”

  A part of the defense mechanism she’d devised since it happened, she sternly chided him for “butting-in” to her private life, carefully placing another stone in the wall of her self-imposed emotional fortress. Or was it a prison? The question rattled around in her head for miles.

  A warm comfort still spread through her when she relived him taking her face in his once-powerful and always-gentle hands, looking deep into her exquisite green eyes. “What happened to you wasn’t your fault,” he said. “If you let it change who you are, then they’ve won. Don’t let them win. Promise me.”

  “I’ll try Uncle Greg,” she sighed in resignation. “But I’m always so scared. I see them everywhere. I don’t think I even remember how to not be afraid anymore.”

  “It will get better. I swear it will,” he said, coughing forcefully as the pain racked his frail, disease-ravaged body.

  Those words of comfort were his last. He died later that night at the age of 51.

  As she blasted through the desert night, she thought back on his insight with a grim little smile of reluctant agreement.

  Uncle Greg, you were right. After the rape I was a different person.

  During that very brief, yet stunningly savage, attack the care-free nineteen year-old instantly became the world-weary and fear-ridden adult. She continued her self-recrimination as she blew past Picacho Peak. Ever since that day, she had been terrified of strangers, of being out in public. Never mind having anything like a normal life! She thought.

  Reacting to the trauma, her crippling phobias had overwhelmed the fragile woman, causing her to quit school and withdraw from her friends and family. For months she lived paralyzed by never-ending dread, refusing to leave her apartment. She saw monsters of her own creation constantly lurking in the shadows of her psyche and in every corner of the world around her. Her boyfriend David, try as he might, couldn’t adapt to the changes in her, dooming the relationship to a quick and very painful death.

  I couldn’t even force myself to go to the grocery store. All those people looking at me, they must know what happened. How could I face them…or anyone else?

  She had gone to the support group meetings as her mother demanded, but to no avail. Talking about it just wasn’t getting it done. The monsters remained; their teeth bigger and sharper than ever. How twisted is that! How do you live if you’re so scared you can’t even go outside?

  Continuing her disconcerted thoughts as she rode on through the desert, she shivered despite the incendiary temperature as she recalled how it all came to a head one cold November night. Despondent and alone, she’d sat in her small apartment, watching the snow flakes fall outside her window as the monsters chased her in a torturous game of mental hide and seek.

  She bristled in anger at the memory of succumbing to the fear, of being so out of control. She remembered the sheer hopelessness as she slid into the bottomless black hole of wanting to die, rather than having to assemble the courage to go forward and live. Every creak of the floorboards brought another spike of unrelenting terror.

  Consciously, she knew there was no one in the small apartment. The security gate and triple-locked doors ensured that, but the monsters chased her just the same, driving her to the hidden places in her mind, each one darker than the one before. In her desperation to escape, to end the living hell, she’d swallowed twenty-seven sleeping pills, downing them with a little left-over whiskey.

  In all the self-analysis since then, she never quite figured out why she counted the deadly tablets before taking them. That question remained unanswered to this day.

  Her mother found her a few hours later, her unconscious body sagging like a broken doll as she lay crumpled on the living room floor.

  She woke up in the hospital two days later, I.V. tubes in her arms, mother by her side and the gnawing of the monsters not even slightly diminished. The physical damage healed quickly, unlike the scars permanently etched on her terrified mind. The hospital staff referred her to a therapist specially trained to counsel rape victims. The attempts at counseling failed miserably.

  Riding forward into the dark night, she again admitted that the failure was entirely her fault. She just couldn’t bring herself to describe for a room full of strangers what it felt like to be at the mercy of those four vicious, perverted men.

  She recalled that first session. Surrounded by a ring of strange faces, she had broken into tears before running from the room, vowing never to return. Her mother’s arguments to get her to reconsider made sense, but she just couldn’t open herself to that kind of emotional scrutiny.

  That was when Uncle Greg came for his first visit in two years. That therapist didn’t know shit! She thought as she continued north, back toward Prescott…and home. Greg was in the first Gulf War. He’d seen death. He understood that fear and trauma changed a person.

  As his condition deteriorated, she sat by his bed. Through the long nights, he became her solitary confidant, gently encouraging her to open up and reveal what happened to her. After days of crying jags she finally broke her silence, replaying for her uncle every despicable detail of the unspeakable violation those twisted young men perpetrated on her innocent mind and body.

  He was the only one she could talk to about how the attack had changed her, not only defiling her physically, but destroying her sense of security and stripping away her confidence as a woman.

  Late one night she sat at his bedside, while the two talked about anything but the rapidly approaching end of his valiant battle. She had carried most of the inconsequential dialog while he dozed on and off. During one waking, lucid period he spoke quietly, stunning her with a single perception so incredibly insightful and sensitive it shook her to the core. That one observation had changed her life.

  She again heard his weakening voice in her mind as she rode on through the blistering hot night. Rape isn’t about sex, it’s about power. Don’t give them any more power. They’ve taken enough from you.

  While the voice had been reduced to desperate gasps, she again felt the controlled strength of the words as he lay dying. If you’re going to heal, then you need to take your life back. Face your fear and kick it in the balls.

  And take it back she had…with Greg’s help. The final note he left with the bike had created another cascade of tears as she read it for the first time, sitting in the lawyer’s office wading through a never-ending mountain of legal papers.

  Hailey,

  You feel like you have no power or control over your life since you were attacked. You must relearn how to live without letting your fears overwhelm you. Your life depends on it.

  This motorcycle is virtually a living thing. It demands respect, devotion in its care and requires that you control its power to ride it safely. Master this machine and the rest will follow in time…I promise.

  Love,

  Uncle Greg

  That first encounter with the “Hog” was permanently burned into her brain. She remembered meeting the lawyer’s assistant at the garage attached to her uncle’s apartment complex. After getting the required signature, he dropped the keys into her hand and turned, quickly leav
ing in disinterest. Unlocking the door to the small garage and flipping on the light, Hailey got her first look at part two of her inheritance.

  The pristine 1959 Harley-Davidson Panhead rested on its sidestand. The midnight blue paint glittered in the dim light emanating from a bare fluorescent bulb flickering above. She stepped into the cramped space, awestruck by the unadulterated mechanical beauty before her. Although she’d seen the bike before, she felt a little intimidated as the glass orb of its headlight seemed to focus on her, tracking her approach through the dark room, sizing her up with a single, critical eye.

  The antique machine was a masterpiece of restoration, her uncle hand-fitting every nut and bolt himself. The abundant chrome reflected the anemic light, leaving small constellations of stars dotting the dingy walls of the storage room.

  Like a child seeing that new bicycle on Christmas morning, she swung a well-sculpted leg over the tooled leather seat and tried to lift the bike off the stand. Grunting with the effort, she finally brought it upright, finding the center balance.

  I’ll never be able to ride this thing, its way too big. What was Greg thinking?

  She suddenly realized she had been unconsciously considering keeping the bike. That though was in direct contradiction to her conversations with her mother, who repeatedly ordered her to “Sell that thing immediately. You can use that money for something worthwhile.”

  Joanne’s cruelly rendered words flashed across her tired mind as the desert rolled by in the dark. That was Greg’s life, his friends. Haven’t you been through enough without associating with that criminal element?

  Wind whipping past her face as she rode through the night, she pushed her mother’s forceful rebuke from her mind and returned to the moment.

  The curiosity finally just too much to bear, she had fumbled for the keys. I just want to hear it run once. Then I’ll decide what to do with it.

  After spending several seconds locating the ignition switch, she placed the key in and turned the power on, the array of instrument lights now a multi-colored glow.

  She touched the starter button and the iron beast backfired like a Howitzer, the unintended explosion echoing off the walls. She flinched in a sizzling jolt of hot adrenaline. Whoa…Okay, that was loud!

  Steeling herself against another inadvertent detonation, she touched the button a second time and was rewarded with the loud, guttural growl of the engine coming to life. Ears ringing in the enclosed room, she blipped the throttle twice, settling the idle, feeling the vibrations climbing her body. Oh my God! This is freaking amazing! She freely admitted, energy now surging through every nerve.

  A week of lessons coupled with two thousand miles in the saddle and she could now handle the formidable bike as an extension of her senses. She had never imagined that a simple machine from a by-gone era could so radically transform her at the center of her being. Greg was right. This is the coolest thing ever!

  She now understood why he’d spent three years and who-knows-how many thousands of dollars restoring the Hog to its current museum-quality condition.

  Sailing forward into the darkness, she considered the new changes in herself. She now freely acknowledged that she became someone else when she was riding. On the Hog, the bookish and confidence-challenged wallflower, complete with all her fears and insecurities, disappeared. In the saddle she morphed into Hailey the biker, a leather-clad force of nature people noticed and feared. Her black boots and matching studded vest had become her suit of armor against the cruelty of the outside world. The leather gave her a pillar on which to build her confidence.

  Ignoring the heat, she smiled at the sudden feeling of elation threatening to overwhelm her as she continued rolling into the night. For long minutes she listened to the engine’s harsh bark and considered what she had done, arriving at the only conclusion her battered senses wouldn’t reject out of hand. Bastard got what he deserved!

  Chapter Three

  She’d found him on the internet of all places, after a T.V. news story revealed he played baseball at the University of Arizona. She recalled the moment in grizzly clarity as the desert flashed by.

  It was early morning on a typical Saturday and Hailey gently padded across her living room floor after getting a cup of coffee. She had stood immobilized in mid-step at the sight of Jason Grady’s face suddenly appearing in razor-sharp resolution on the screen. Her blood turned to ice in her veins as his voice floated across the room, uttering senseless commentary on the game he’d just won. She didn’t immediately recognize the face, but she would never forget that voice. Frozen in shock, she listened to him speak, the sound harsh and acerbic. It joined her pulse now slamming in her ears.

  Her fragile emotions imploded as she recalled every detail of his part in that senseless theft of her humanity. He had clamped his hand over her mouth as he fell on top of her. She recalled his weight pressing down on her from above, cutting off her breathing and trapping the scream before it could escape from her throat.

  The internal movie, every horrifying frame, unwound as she stood there staring at the T.V. screen. The terrifying images broke her tenuous control to flow unchecked. The coffee cup, momentarily forgotten, slipped from her hand to shatter on the floor in an explosion of porcelain and hot liquid. Circuits in her brain popping like firecrackers, the mountainous wave of dread pressed in on her body, crushing her beneath its weight. She remembered racing back to the kitchen and throwing up in the sink.

  She had briefly considered telling the police, or her mother, but instead spent days digesting her feelings in solitude, steeling herself before summoning enough courage just to visit the team’s website.

  She quickly matched up the grotesque image forever burned in her mind with the picture on the roster, finally giving the monster a name. She trembled as the reality of the discovery pierced her awareness. Staring at the screen, she heard Greg’s voice again, telling her to reclaim her life. Greg was right. I have to do this. No one can do it for me. Scrambling over the walls of her steadfast denial, a shocking realization dawned in a dark epiphany; Oh, God. I have to face him…I need to face him.

  The weight of the truth buckled her inner senses, the burden of Atlas now resting on her slim shoulders.

  She had planned the trip for days, trying to summon the nerve to actually make the drive. Her mind had no room for second-guessing, now filled with the kind of insidious dread that if left unvanquished, would surely grow as a precursor to madness.

  The grandstands were nearly empty when she arrived, only a few die-hard fans at the practice session. Getting her first look at her quarry, her initial reaction came as a disturbing surprise as he strode to the pitcher’s mound. Standing there, basking in the adoration of the small crowd, she observed him with an unexpected sense of detachment. He looks like a normal guy, not like he could do… No one would think he’s a…she balked at even summoning the word…rapist.

  She observed the faces of the spectators as they watched him. Throwing the ball with increasing speed, he smiled at his fans as the bright sun painted him in gold, a young god among lesser mortals. Hiding in the crowd, she waited for him to finish his workout, grappling with the conflicting feelings brought on by witnessing the hero worship.

  Mingling among the twenty or so people waiting at the gate, she saw Grady emerge from the locker room, walking toward the parking lot. She watched in a macabre fascination as he moved through his adoring public with the ease of a Hollywood movie star, signing autographs and posing for cell phone pictures with children and adults alike.

  Her pulse climbing to a high-pitched whine in her ears, she stood among the crowd as he passed by, looking right through her. He headed toward an older model white Jeep CJ, the convertible top off in the summer swelter.

  He’s here, I’m here. Frightened almost to immobility, her breath caught in her throat. Now what? How do I approach him?

  Looking at the clusters of people milling about, she decided that in this instance discretion would definitely be th
e better part of valor. I have to get away from all these people. I want to do this alone, just him and me.

  Putting the bike in gear, she followed the jeep from a distance, not wanting the Hog’s distinctive voice to alert him to her presence, or attract overt attention from passers-by. Let’s see where he goes.

  The sun now well below the western horizon, the relentless heat still drifted up from the asphalt as she tailed him south down National Champions Drive to Sixth Street. She pushed the bike into the left turn where he did, taking Sixth Street east to Campbell. Jagged ripples of fear still danced over her mind as the two moved through congested streets, now swollen with the last remnants of rush-hour traffic combined with revelers heading out for a Friday night on the town. The heavy traffic became her friend as she mimicked his movements, gliding along Campbell and leaving the U of A campus. The daunting task of dodging the cars and staying out of his line of sight tested her riding skill as the hunter and the hunted ebbed and flowed from light to light, her steel horse one more part of a moving herd of men and machines.

  She turned east onto Broadway, beginning to think about what she would say when he was standing right in front of her. I can’t wait to see the look on his face when he sees me. Several scenarios, possibilities for either victory or disaster, ran through her head in quick succession. I hope he’s scared to death…like I’ve been all this time. The thought of confronting him made her skin crawl, but she knew if she ever wanted to live, really live, again, she had to face the monsters and de-claw them once and for all.

  The motion of a car, parallel parked along the boulevard, suddenly ripped her attention from her target. She read the two-foot high letters adorning the side with trepidation as she passed by. A bright blue script stood out on the sedan’s gleaming white skin Tucson Police Department. The cruiser pulled out to join the traffic directly behind her. Oh, God. No! The squad car’s sudden appearance in her rearview mirror, complete with red and blue lights on the roof, sent another burning splash of adrenaline into her overtaxed system. Not now!