Our walk in the park is a last indulgence with my old friend who does double duty as my father’s mother. She loves the park, and walking here. Forty years ago, she moved to Northern California from Denver and, in her more lucid days, she used to say that Golden Gate Park’s majesty was sufficient proof that pioneers were right to cross the country in covered wagons. I would point out that there was no Golden Gate Park at the time. And she would respond that she’d thought I was smart enough to take her meaning, and then wait a beat and smile.
Her wry, sometimes ebullient, grin appears much less frequently these days. Often, her lips are pursed with what I take to be caution and curiosity, like that of a frightened child taking tentative first steps down stairs. But her blue eyes remain vibrant, her robust hair sits in a gentle curl on her shoulders, colored light blond, and she’s still physically able. In the retirement home’s dining room, she insists on carrying her food tray and does so easily. These relatively youthful vestiges put into sharp relief her stark neurological failings.
We stand on the edge of a wide-open grassy spot, ringed by majestic eucalyptus trees. Notwithstanding the phantom in the distance, we are alone, the last picnicking lovers having abdicated. Tranquil. The sky overhead is deepening to a gray slate, with a distant salmon hue west over the ocean.
Maybe one more lap around the grove.
Then I hear the distinctive click.
Danger.
I wrote a story recently about a biotech giant developing better hearing aids by trying to emulate the temporal lobes of experienced soldiers. The finest among the military have a hyper-developed sense of hearing that can pick up the action of a cocking rifle.
For the story, I listened to a lot of clicks to see if I could discern the ones that betrayed distant loading rifles.
“Want to sit on the grass, Grandma?”
“What?”
I gently pull her to the ground. Maybe there’s some weirdo shooting a pellet gun in the dark.
A popping noise rips through the dusk. A few feet behind us, a tree thuds from impact, spraying bark.
“What the…?!” I yell.
A second bullet hits the same tree.
I scramble on top of Grandma, forming a shell.
Then, in quick succession: Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!
Grandma lets out a wild cry.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” I whisper.
Silence.
The madman must be reloading.
I look up at the tree taking the target practice. It is a few feet away, the tallest and thickest among a line of eucalyptuses ringing the edge of the grove. Past the trees, I can see a slight embankment, sloping downward, then denser foliage. Protective cover.
Coursing with adrenaline, well beyond bewildered, I scoop up Grandma to carry her to safety.
“What’re you doing, Nathaniel?”
“We’re dancing.”
We fall to the ground on the down slope behind the tree. I’m obviously baffled. The park has an archery range but we’re nowhere near it, and these aren’t arrows coming at us. The nearest gun range is miles off.
Is this nut job thinking dusk at the park is a good time to hunt birds, or large mammals? Is it an adolescent who has gotten a little too inspired by his video game console?
Grandma’s blouse is torn.
“Are you hurt?”
She looks me dead in the eye, stricken. “Make a baby before it’s too late.”
I put my finger to Grandma’s lips. I examine her blouse. No blood. I search her eyes for comprehension.
“Don’t move or make any noise,” I whisper.
I pull out my cell phone. I dial 911. But before I can hit “send,” the phone rings. I answer. “Whoever this is, I’ll have to call you back.”
“Nathaniel Idle?” a metallic voice responds.
“I’ll need to call you back.”
“Poor execution,” the voice says.
“Pardon?”
“And a bad pun,” the caller says. “Unintended.”
“Who is this?”
Click. The caller has hung up.
“Who is this?!”
I look at Grandma. From my earliest memories, she’s been a touchstone, the one family member who made me feel like I wasn’t a commitment-phobic, procrastinating, terminal adolescent. Or maybe she just made me feel like being those things was okay.
She withdraws her hand from mine. My eyes catch the bulky imitation sapphire ring on her right index finger. It’s a reminder of the rebellious streak that made Grandma Lane a slightly ill fit for the confines of the Greatest Generation. One time, she saved money for a sports car without telling my grandfather; in her late forties, she took up karate and became a blue belt.
I’ve hated witnessing her precipitous decline and her fragility. I’m helpless to do anything about it, or the acute and bizarre danger we find ourselves in at this moment.
I dial 911. This time, before I can hit send, I hear the piercing sound of a police siren. It’s coming from Lincoln Boulevard, the thoroughfare that runs along the park and is only a few hundred yards away. The siren seems to be heading our direction, suggesting a good Samaritan heard the shots and called 911, or maybe the cops themselves heard the telltale blasts.
They should be here in mere minutes.
I peer past Grandma and through an opening between two eucalyptuses and into the open field. Squinting in the poor light, I make out the grove of trees that I believe hides One Bad Person with Gun.
I see movement. Leaves rustling. Is the shooter on the move? Then, more rustling — a shape making its way from the grove.
“I’ll be right back,” I mutter to Grandma.
I might be nuts, but maybe I can get a look at the shooter, and play hero with a police department that doesn’t much like me these days. We can’t stay here, a pair of sitting ducks.
“A train can’t breathe,” Grandma mumbles.
“Stay here. Don’t move. Don’t make a sound.”
“It’s the man in blue.”
“What?”
“You look tired, Harry,” she says.
Harry. Her friend from the retirement home.
“Promise me you won’t move.”
“I promise.”
I trudge into the darkness. Hoping to get an eyewitness view from a safe distance, wondering exactly how I’ll do that and about the mysterious phone call, wondering about Grandma.
Danger.
How did she know?
Chapter 2
Dense foliage envelops my feet. I take two dozen loping steps away from Grandma. I trip.
I rise to my knees and say a silent agnostic’s prayer of thanks for cortisol. It’s the fight-or-flight hormone secreted by the adrenal glands that heightens the senses.
It explains why I can make sense of my surroundings despite the quick onset of twilight. To my right, I make out Grandma’s shape propped against the tree, motionless.
I wade a few more steps, moving parallel to the line of eucalyptuses, protected by it. I crouch where I can look through another gap between the big trees at the grove containing the assailant. More movement, I think.
Then I’m sure.
A shadowy figure exits the left side of the distant tree enclave.
I crouch, suddenly fearful he might not be escaping but still on the attack. Is he circling around the other way?
Squinting. C’mon cortisol!
Based on our past experiences, our brains try to make sense of situations with imperfect information. Through the darkness, I piece together that a figure is carrying an elongated bag. I can see he’s trotting to a car parked at the edge of the grove; he opens the trunk, tosses in the duffel bag, climbs into the driver’s seat. Shooter seems lumpy, amorphous; brain concludes he is muscular and wearing a hooded sweatshirt. Car has distinctive wide back; brain sends message: Prius.
Police sirens blare. They can’t be half a minute away. Brake lights from the Prius pierce the dusk. The car lurches forward and starts to pull away. I stumble through the tree line, knowing I couldn’t possibly create enough cortisol to allow me to make out a license plate, let alone fly through the air, bring the car to a screeching halt and make the driver apologize to Grandma.