“Jesus, lady you have problems. Problems I don’t want to hear about.” The gun man looked outside his window.
“Where are we going?” I asked again.
“You don’t need to know. You have a full tank of gas. You can exit to the next highway ahead and keep going until I say something different. Next city we may hit an ATM. I just need to get somewhere”
“We’re heading out of the city?” I asked. Going out to the countryside would mean less witnesses. I didn’t like that idea. If he wanted cash from an ATM that would mean he would keep us alive. And I had the car behind me. Could I buy enough time?
He didn’t answer. He seriously can’t want to just get somewhere. Whatever his plan was, I needed to buy time for the calvary to come in.
We drove in silence for a bit. I waited to see what would happen from the man following behind me. We reached past the city limits and started heading into the countryside.
“Okay, I take it back. I just got to know. Why are you marrying this guy if you can’t stand all these things you're bitching about?” The gunman asked.
Diana was silent. She couldn’t very well say that she had been distracting him.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” she said.
“Well that’s too bad. I’m bored and I have a gun.”
“He’s not stupid.” She said. “Eventually he’ll figure out how to behave like a normal person. He doesn’t do anything dangerous, and he has a job. It doesn’t matter what stupid hobbies he has as long as I don’t tell everyone about them.”
Good play, I thought. She always jokes around about being the normal one. She would go off and have some fun with her friends. She would kiss me on the forehead and say, “Sorry, trip for normal people only, you’ll just be bored.”
“It’s hard enough putting him together with my friends, he just fumbles at conversations.” She continued.
The car that had been behind me slowed and exited.
My stomach dropped. Did he not understand the signal? Another car that had been behind him sped up coming close. I couldn’t see anything besides the headlights. It was dark outside. It dropped back a little bit. A single source of light lit up. Flashing. It looked like a spotlight, but it was pointed up into the air. Nice, it could only be seen if you turned around and looked at it. It flashed a code. The spaces weren’t uniform. The timing was off a bit, but it said
PROBLEM (QUERY).
Yes.
They read my license plate. Radio Operator. I operated my own Ham radio. The qualifying test was a pain in the ass because they required you to learn morse code. So I knew it well.
I thought about my reply. While my Diane bickered with the guy. “Why shouldn’t I change him. It’s for his own good.”
HSTG. 1 GN MAN BCKSET. GRL FNT RGHT SVE HR.
I waited a bit before I saw them signal back. R-E-P-E-A-T
I tried again. WE R HSTGS. 1 GUN MAN BCKSET. SVE GRL FNT RGHT. PRIORITY.
There was another long pause. They signaled back VE. I smiled. The morse code equivalent of 10-4.
“What are you smiling about? She basically just compared you to whipped sled dog.” The gunman asked me.
“Sorry I was thinking about something else.” I looked in the mirror but there was no further communication from the car behind. The gun man was in the back seat messing with my phone.
“He spends more time in his head than on planet earth,” said Diana. “Always thinking about stupid things so I have to remind him to get things done.”
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“I’m just thinking ahead. I’m sure we can resolve this in a good way.” I replied. Maybe Diana would get the message.
“Oh, would the lady be interested in a happy ending?” the gunman asked, ending the last part in an elevated tone.
“Go fuck yourself.” Diana replied
“Don’t you dare touch her.” I said
“I can do whatever I want. But even I have standards” said the gunman. “I don’t get it man, why are you with her if she just sees you as a comfortable way to ride through life?”
Because she’s awesome I thought. Because she helps me meet people with different interests. She helps me feel like I belong with the world. She tells me she loves me and makes me feel wanted.
“You wouldn’t understand,” I reply.
“So you don’t know, huh? Or is it just because you can’t pick up anyone else?”
I looked over at Diana, and saw a few cars racing ahead on the feeder road. I looked away.
“Yeah, so she sees you as her meal ticket. And you, you’ve probably had bad luck with girls. You just got to keep asking them out man. You don’t just settle with the first one that will have you.”
The light clicked on again behind me. Signaling.
GET READY
I saw the cars lined up on the road with hazards flashing. It was too dark to see what they were. I slowed. down to 20 and then a crawl. My headlights illuminated the profile of the cars.
The gunman leaned to the left around the passenger seat to see the cars. “What’s going on with those cars?”
The flashing lights behind me clicked on. Three officers sprinted to the car from each side, weapons drawn.
“HANDS UP!”
“GET YOUR HANDS UP”
“DROP THE WEAPON”
“PRESS THEM AGAINST THE GLASS”
All came at once.
“IT’S NOT REAL, DON'T SHOOT, IT’S FAKE!!!!,” shrieked the gunman. Hands hitting the ceiling of the car. A single cop approached the passenger door. I unlocked the door so he could open it. Diana had her seatbelt undone and almost leapt out of the car.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you.” She said over and over.
The officer on my side motioned me to get out. It was over.
The officer’s put the man in handcuffs and pulled the cars to the side of the road. Another car eventually pulled up. It was unmarked. I later learned it was the man who phoned in my message. They found the orange band the man had taken off his pistol. There were so many airsoft models that are completely realistic. The only way to tell they are fake is the orange band that is supposed to be on the barrel. He had taken it off.
The cops read the man his miranda rights as they patted him down while he was pressed against their car.
I moved to give Diana a hug. “It all worked out.” I smiled.
“Get away from me!” She shoved me away. “What do you mean it all worked out?! Somebody saw us at the gas station and managed to do what you couldn’t. And that is save me. You couldn’t even recognize that the gun was fake? Aren’t you supposed to be a man or even a nerd? Shouldn’t you be able to recognize a fake gun?”
“What.” I was confused. “Didn’t you know I was up to something? You weren’t putting on a show and distracting him?” I asked.
My brain whirled. The entire time. She wasn’t putting on an act or a show. She really believed those things she was saying.
“What are you talking about? What show? Why can’t you ever make sense?”
“I was signaling other drivers with an SOS using my brake lights. I used morse code to signal the cop car behind us to tell them what was going on.”
“What?” She said.
“Yeah, said one of the cops. “Had to have dispatch on Google to translate that. How the hell do you know morse code?”
“Dude,” said the idiot fake gunman, “you were doing that the whole time we were talking?”
I glared at him.
“Dude, that is badass.”
“I don’t want to hear that from you.”
I looked to Diana, she stood there stunned by the revelation. Her mouth formed an O. My own thoughts whirled in my head. She only agreed to marry me because she believed I could be molded into what she wanted. She didn’t respect me at all. I would always be the doormat. The one to make concessions. The one to fix problems. To fulfill her dream.
“You can keep the ring,” I mumbled.
I turned away and began walking to my car.
“Hey," the false gunman called after me. “Can I get you to put a good word in for me with the judge?”
I spun around. “Why in the hell would I want to do that?” I shouted
He looked straight back at me. “It’s the least you could do. I’m looking at some hard time for this, man. And I did just save you from a life sentence.”
Putting it that way, he did have a point.