Letters from the Inside, Sarah Pender, #49 Part 2

[This is the personal essay she submitted to the book, Our Voice, I told her about.]

Harriet Tubman would be proud. Through a modern-day Underground Railroad a change of brave friends passed me from an undisclosed location to a Motel 6 to a sagging brown couch to a Super 8 to a place I can best describe as the Cockroach Inn. After being conveyed across state lines, I am left with two bags, three hundred dollars and time to find some direction, which have determined is anywhere away from Oppression.

For years, I prayed to the God of justice to rescue me. Then, disillusioned by a blind, ignorant Justice and an apparently deaf God, I vowed to save myself. Slowly, I stitched together the tatters of my shredded self-esteem and quietly harvested pebbles of courage until I had enough to smash out of the House of Pain.

If i return, He will kill me--mayben not physically but He will eat my soul until I beg for the swing of Death's scythe. That is, if I have soul left, because rightt now, I'm a so hungry I would sell it for a cheeseburger. Although I know that I am being hunted like wild game by a posse, led by Him, of trigger-happy thugs, starvation is a worse fate, so out into the concrete forest I go to forage for food. Luckily my hotel window frames the view of Super Walmart.

Sunglasses and a billed had shield me from the searing August sun. Thick air pushes against my face, smothering me, quickening my pulse. But I shove back against the anxiety and start walking. At the busy intersection the tiny walking man lights up and I quick-step across. From behind their steering wheels a dozen hostile eyes burn me. Though red, if the light abruptly turns green I wonder if road rage would have me run down. Feeling uneasy, I step into a half-jog, and just two steps from the opposite curb, a multi-tasking motorist screams to a halt, almost greeting me with a chrome bumper kiss. Then she glares at me like it is my fault.

My heart pounds furiously, demanding to be let out and absolved of this runaway nonsense. Slow, deep breaths soothe my colicky nerves. I focus on the sun-dappled sidewalk reflecting a shadowy dance of a sugar maple; it's low branches sweet my crown in calming solidarity.

Summer beauty is suddenly swallowed by alarm.

A jelly bean sub-compact follows me into the strip mall entrance and slows dramatically. The shaggy-haired driver rubbernecks like I am a highway accident.

I dribble in my panties.

He turns back.

In protest, my stomach attempts to wrench itself from my gut because it knows that He has come. However unlikely it may be for a hired assasin to drive a powder blue hatchback, I am convinced it merely disguises lethal intent. My legs want to bolt, but switch getaways are not made in heavy boots. People do not clomp their way to safety.

I hold my ground, but avoid meeting his eyes when he stops me.

Through the driver's window, he says, "Excuse me. Do you smoke?"

"Uh, no. Sorry." I tremble.

His hands brandish no weapon.

"Oh well. Alright then." His tone speaks not of a professional predator, but of a boy turned down for a prom date. "You have a nice day."

He creeps away leaving me confused. Smoke? Dude you just passed a gas station. Either I missed a vital puzzle piece or that heat has scrambled my brain because I don't get it.

Instead of exiting he recircles. A stall tactic.

I stare with dread at the approaching car. If this is it, just shoot me.

He pulls so close that his air conditioning licks my face. He says, "I can't believe you don't smoke pot."

This frozen pea of information unplugs me, and I really look at him. Just below his scruffy chin, his neck is strangled by a red tie laid over a thickly wrinkled shirt that puckers over his belly. Fast food trash litters the passenger floorboard, and from the rearview mirror, dangles a marijuana leaf.

He is not hunting me. He is soliciting me.

His chubby face waits for an answer, but words lodge in my throat.

He adds, "Because you totally look like you would smoke."

Oh, sure. I can see how my white t-shirt, jeans and twenty dollar shades pigeonhole me as a pothead. What a dope! Please put your Geo Metro in gear and putter away from me. Finally, I cough out a series of responses referencing a husband before I sidewind away from Shaggy, confusion still hanging in the air.

Inside the sliding doors, the cold blast flushes my lungs, refreshing me for about five seconds before a wall of sound slams into me. Beeps and clicks and a wailing child set hte backdrop for a widespan view of profound abundance. Ceilings erected for dinosaurs cover rows of shelves and towers of merchandise, enough to outfit the army of a small communist country. A front line of tanks is formed by checkout stands, lit up and ready to fire.

An ancient,smiling prune greets me.

I greedily accept a wire card as a possible battering ram inm case another svengali shows up in Frozen Foods. Of course, I get the retarded cart with one wobbly wheel that pulls left. It's a sales stragegy to crash you into stuff you dont' need or even want, but once collided with, you rationalize why you can't live without it.

In Produce, uniform stacks of colorful cornucopia beckon me to eat fruit once forbidden in our House. From a cascase of peaches, I select a fuzzy orb and tear off a plastic bag. I shake it, roll it between my fingers, and try opening it with my teeth. Finally, I give up, relinquish the peach, and peel open the uncoooperative bag.

A gigle bubbles up, and momentarily the dark tide recedes, but surges again, throwing me into a surreal Miracle-Gro induced hallucination.

Heads of broccoli, lettuce and other vegetables resembling bulbous yard weeds, pulse like Frankenstein's green heart. Potatoes blink at me. An Ugli fruit snarls.

I dark into the dary section, snagging a bag of baby carrots along the way.

Blessedly, the milk does not moo at me. I pluck cups of Dannon from teh refrigerated shelf, avoiding the probiotics. I can't believe they market this stuff as a seven-day program to make you poop. I pick up pre-packaged chedder and turkey slices, because a deli experience may induce psychosis.

Then I wobble into aisle four and am paralyzed by the Great Wall of Snack Bars. Thousands of colorful boxes line up in ranks like tiny soldiers divided into troops of chocolate, granola, fruits and nuts, low-fat, high-fiber, onm and on for endless minature battlefield miles. I am left with an unfocused stare and hinged-open mouth. like a heavily medicated psychiatric patient minus the drool.

The din of shoppers grows to a roar and together with the harsh flourescent lighting, is as torturous as any military interrogation room.

I must seek shelter immediately.

I manuever through the jungle of sweatshop labor goods to an express lane, but I have one item over the limit. l consider ditching the yogurt cup in the soda fridge, but that's only slightly less rude than leaving unwanted butter on the bubble gum rack, so I veer toward an automatic checkout, softly chanting, "I can do this."

I panic only briefly when the computer cashier loudly accuses m e of stealing. My innocence being verified on the screen, I defend myself. I scanned the stupid cheese, lady. I poke buttons until she shuts up and lets me feed a twenty into her hungry mouth.

As I collect my change a sense of pride swells in me.

Although I survived in the House for eight years, surviving was reative: obeying, retreating, silence, or saying yes to anything to avoid pain. The moment I decided to escape the clutches of oppression, I shopped surviving and started living.

Now, I get to say how it goes.

It takes a lot of courage to own my life, to make choices and deal with the consequences without anyone to blame. It takes courage to move forward through the fire of fear instead of backing away. Even if I get burned, on the other side is a reward for having the guts to try.

I leave with my plastic sack trophy dangling from my hands. Emotion pinches my heart and wrings tears from my eyes that drip off my chin and onto the thirsty pavement.

At first, I whisper into the wind.

Then, to the sun, I turn up my face and stretch my arms out l ike the wings of a great blue heron taking flight, calling into the sky with a triumphant cry, "I am free!"