The Plodder's Mile -- Chapter Twenty-one

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Paula and Greg sat looking at the house across the way. They were both getting very tired. Greg stood and stretched, looking at John Graham’s now darkened house. “I guess we could call it a night, and head back to your motel,” he said.

Paula was looking at the house, too, but when Greg suggested they go, she turned to him and wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him close. “Why would I want to go back to my motel and sit in my room by myself,” she cooed in his ear, “when I could just stay here with you?”

Her words made sense, and the long kiss made a negative answer impossible. “Well, I guess we shouldn’t desert our posts, even though it looks like a pretty slow night,” Greg observed, looking around the partially furnished house. “Do you want the couch or the futon? I don’t think we’ll both fit on either one.”

“Are you saying I’m fat?” she said, pouting out her lower lip, pretending to be hurt. Now it was his turn to wrap his arms around her waist, and without answering, kiss her long and hard. She seemed to forget the question.

“Go ahead and go to sleep,” Greg said. “I think I’ll sit here and watch for a little longer. You look tired, so turn in.”

“Yes, sir,” Paula Rogers said, saluting sharply. She crossed to the futon, and taking off her shoes, plopped down and was asleep almost immediately.

Cody was almost going crazy trying to figure out how to help John Graham. He thought back to the things he had been learning, searching for some answers to help him get this guy off his guard. As a paramedic, his first duty was to take care of the medical emergencies, but the other big part of the job was to make sure the injured parties didn’t panic, since that would further complicate the episode. Since they had at least another half hour to drive, Cody decided it was time to try out his “roadside” manner.

“So, does this John Graham guy owe you some money?” Cody tried this shot in the dark as a good starting point. Most people were about money.

Raymond Johnson grumbled to himself, but not because Cody was prying. “Yeah, you might say that he owes me some money.” Ray smirked thinking about a drama teacher stealing from him.

“You’re not gonna have to use the gun, are you?”

“Depends on what happens when I get to this guy’s house,” Ray admitted freely. “If everything goes well, nobody, including you, gets hurt. But I know how to use the gun, if that’s what you were wondering.”

Cody had no doubts that the gunman was proficient. But it did seem like he was beginning to open up. “You don’t look like a guy who would shoot people.”

“Nobody looks like someone that shoots people,” Ray interjected. “That’s why so many people get shot by surprise. The last person in the world they expect to get shot is them. You ought to see the look in most peoples’ faces after the bullet hits them. It’s like a kid looks when you take his candy away.”

Cody tried not to shudder visibly. Johnson was a guy who obviously had done both – shot people and taken candy from kids – and that was the way he was describing both sets of victims. While he had heard of cold-blooded murderers before, Cody never thought he would be driving one to his teacher’s house.

“So, this is over a lot of money, then. I don’t think you would kill someone over a little amount, would you?” Cody studied the man in the mirror, and saw that the softening was starting.

Ray smirked again, “Yeah, this is over a lot of money. But don’t get me wrong. I will kill you if you cross me, and that’s not over money.”

Cody knew this was true, and he was startled that Ray thought this conversation was about saving Cody’s life. But the hypnosis had begun. Part two, according to his training, was to get the other person to see you as a real person. Next, they would talk about what kind of training a paramedic had to go though.

Greg Jones sat for a while in the darkness watching John Graham’s house, wondering why Smitty hadn’t called about the capture of Raymond Johnson. Probably too busy with processing Johnson into the jail. But since there seemed no immediate threat at the time, Jones was able to sit thinking about other topics.

He intertwined his fingers and smiled. He looked over a Paula, by now fast asleep. He felt like a lucky man, indeed, and wondered at her patience and his thick-headedness. It was fortunate for him, he thought, that she was so determined.

He watched her breath rise and fall, and she seemed so peaceful. Not the fiercely determined reporter most people saw weekly on their television. Her blonde hair was short, fashionable, attractive. She had a great figure, and her personality was as tenacious as her reporting. She was no wall flower. Greg thought when she was younger she was probably the one leading the way of mischief in school. Then she would probably proclaim her status as the leader and most responsible, thus deserving of the most punishment. Which of course, always resulted in less punishment for everyone, including her. That leadership quality had served her well in tracking down murderers, rapists, con-game operators, neglectful mothers and fathers. Her determined questioning raised eyebrows at times, but the directness often caught her victims unaware, and they would confess into the microphone. Paula’s interviews had been used more than once to convict the guilty, and those who were convicted of their guilt without a trial often pled to lesser charges and were finally removed from the possible pool of people Greg had to round up.

This line of thought led him to wonder if her blunt questioning during the past days had made him confess the love he felt for her. His firm conviction of love proved her talent yet again, and he was glad that she had been so direct, after waiting for so long. Greg Jones knew how it felt to be trapped under the spell of Paula Rogers, and while it was an uncomfortable thought for the macho man in Greg to admit it, he was glad to be trapped. He thought that most of the people she usually trapped were probably happy to be out from under the burden of their crimes, guilt, or misery as well.

As Greg’s hands rubbed across his face, his brown hair ruffled at the sides. He marveled at the beauty placed before him, and counted himself the luckiest man in the world. But he shouldn’t let it detract him from his job. He should probably at least go to the car and check in with Smitty, or someone, to see if this lonely outpost he was enjoying so much was to be closed for the night.

John Graham continued to dream. Having gone back to sleep after the dream of losing the money, being laughed at by others and humiliated by his own stupidity, he found himself ready to sleep again, and was of the firm belief that one could control one’s dreams. He wanted to will this dream to be a good one, to show he had made the right decision, and that all would be well. He had changed his lucid dreams before, and now sleeping soundly, he was determined to find the happy ending in this complicated affair.

He was jogging again. Plodding again. What had happened during the past few days seemed like plodding, too. The package. The money. Prepare the fake bundle. Go see Greg. Watch the town get turned upside down as Raymond Johnson fell for the trap, killed Larry Skinner, shot Greg Jones with Larry’s gun. Then he had fled Ridgeway in Larry Skinner’s car. Paula Rogers had done the broadcast, and the videotape had shown Raymond Johnson looking very determined indeed to get the money.

Another step into the path. John Graham plodded on, wondering where this run would take him. In his dream, he struggled to look ahead to the finish line, to see if monetary gain or personal shame awaited. But the finish line was just too far away, just like in the marathons he had run. The wall awaited, telling those foolish enough to start the race that here was where it ended. The wall would win and the runner would stumble. Buried under the prospect of what lie ahead, the eager plodder would find that no amount of miles behind could overcome the short miles ahead.

In his dream, John Graham wondered why the wall often came at nineteen miles, instead of thirteen, fourteen or fifteen. If you were just over halfway, wouldn’t that be a greater cause for distress than being three quarters done? It didn’t make sense in his dream, and it never made sense in the marathon either. But there were only two answers to the despair of the moment. Quit; or keep putting one foot in front of the other.

One step. Then the choice again. Quit. Or step.

Another step. And plodding on, step after step, the runner doesn’t quit, doesn’t stumble, doesn’t even have to think about the next step, because the crisis has passed, and the wall has been overcome. All that remains is the victory of the finish line, no matter how ignoble the length of time it took to complete the journey.

So John Graham looked ahead. He knew the wall of the struggle he found himself within was just ahead, and after that wall was behind him, it would be smooth sailing to the happy conclusion. He put one foot in front of another, in his best plodding style, and came over the crest of a small hill. Always difficult, even the smallest uphill stretch greeted the runner with the challenge of walking, plodding or running. John plodded slower, but he did not stop.

Cresting the hill, he realized that now with the hill behind him he could enjoy the fruits of that small labor, and would take bigger, striding steps on the downhill side, making up for lost time on the hill.

But at the crest of this particular hill, there stood the figure of Raymond Johnson, holding Larry Skinner’s gun, pointed at John Graham’s head. John stopped dead in his tracks and stared into the barrel of cold steel, noticing the limp body of Larry Skinner lying in pool of blood behind his confronter. His race had stopped, and the wall was in front of him.

John Graham looked into the face of his adversary. He was short, with reddish hair that was beginning to grey, and was no longer a vibrant red. The lighter color didn’t soften the desperate look he saw in Raymond Johnson’s eyes, the steely resolve which told him that the end had come. The money would do him no good, because he would be dead and Raymond Johnson would escape to spend it elsewhere. The squat body of the gunman was stocky and not fat, but also not lean. His determined posture reinforced the message that John Graham had reached the end of his race. It was time to die.

Then John Graham’s point-of-view switched, and suddenly he was inside Raymond Johnson’s eyes, looking out at the pathetic figure before him. The gun held straight out the end of the short arm, the trigger about to be pulled ever so slightly and smoothly. John felt the supreme confidence of his killer, and looking through his killer’s eyes, he only saw weakness before him. John Graham appeared small to himself, though others often told him he was a monster of a man, tall and broad-shouldered, with dark brown hair and stunning features. The man who usually inspired confidence in his students and others now appeared to himself to be only greedy and weak.

He could see himself holding onto the bundle of money now, preparing to hand it over, with a look of puppy-dog shame in his eyes. Ashamed at the shame he saw on his own face, John Graham almost took pleasure in feeling himself pull the trigger to end his own life. He watched in slow motion as the handle pulled back, then went forward slowly, as the bullet crept out of the barrel and crept in slow-motion toward his own head.

John Graham jolted straight up in bed just before the impact of the bullet hit his forehead in his dream. Reba awakened for a moment and then collapsed back to her pillows. John realized he was damp from the night sweat of the nightmare. Trying to calm down, he reassured himself that it was only a dream – a very vivid and realistic dream, yes – but still a dream; that now he was awake, and alive, not shot through the head. He even tried to humor himself, muttering under his breath that the important part of dreaming was to wake up before you hit the ground. Or before you were shot, in this case.

He decided to walk to the kitchen and get a drink of Pepsi. John Graham needed to calm himself, and a jolt of caffeine might do the trick. One thing was certain; he would be glad when this whole situation had resolved itself, and he could get back to his normal nightmares of unruly high school students.

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