The Kidnapping
By Evelyn Martinez
“Just act normal, Marilyn.”
The blue gaze widens, the big, soft hand grips his fingers hard. Hank’s heart leaps and sinks in one vertiginous somersault.
“Right, Marilyn?” He peers into the glassy depths of those eyes—looking for his friend, his secret love.
Marilyn flashes a wobbly smile, nods, and grips tighter. “Let’s go.”
Grinning back, Hank marvels aloud, “Imagine, two law-abiding geezers from the Central Valley gone rogue.”
The Californians shiver in Minnesota’s winter and step gingerly into squishy ice.
He picks up his pace and pulls Marilyn alongside him. They’ve got to clear the hospital grounds—must be acres of them—before someone finds her missing. She stumbles, almost falls.
“You’ve been locked up for two months, no exercise, no decent food. It’s natural to feel a bit shaky, Marilyn. But we can do this.”
He gets her upright and they set off, the tall, bent man gently guiding the shambling woman with tangled, blond-gray curls and bare legs in a too-big raincoat.
Blinking, disoriented by the glare of sun on snow, they repeatedly slip and sink. “Oh-oh, Hank,” cries Marilyn and clutches at him. Her fingernails dig painfully into his hand.
“You can do it, Marilyn, just keep moving, one leg after the other. And hang on to me. Not far to go.”
A wispy smile. “Okay, Hank.”
Step-step swish, step-step swish.
“What’s that?” Her head swivels around.
“Don’t look back. We’re almost there.”
Step-step swish…thwump. “Ooft!”
“Gotcha, gal. Couple more feet, then ’round the corner.”
“We’re, we’re safe, Hank?” She’s panting.
In between wheezes (shoulda given up the Camels sooner), he croaks, “Just about…”
No Cadillac limousine ever looked as beautiful as the bleached-out Ford Ranger at the curb ahead.
“Made it!”
Marilyn slumps into him.
“Let’s get you in, gal.”
A few fumbles with his frozen fingers and the passenger door creaks open. Hank gently but firmly eases Marilyn in. She starts climbing, then balks. “Want me to drive?”
Endearing, and utterly clueless. “Thanks for offering, Marilyn, but it’s best I drive—I’m used to my truck, plus I’ve figured out a route to the freeway.”
“If you say so, Hank.”
Just as he’s sliding onto the chilly vinyl, he catches a muffled but distinct, “Hey!!” from the building behind.
“Guess the cat’s out.”
They were lucky to get this far. Hank hops in, starts up the cold, cranky engine, and whip-slides into the street. “Steady now. Thank you, Jesus, they plowed this morning.” Their itinerary is a zig-zag pattern plotted out by Hank over the past few days. He’d scanned maps on the internet, outlining possible escape routes on paper with a fat blue marker. He’d cased the so called memory care facility from every angle, familiarized himself with the surrounding streets, the traffic and snow conditions.
They skate onto the freeway entrance heading northeast. Hank focuses on getting some miles behind them as Marilyn crumples into her seat.
It’s a crazy path that’s led Hank to his dangerous career as a kidnapper. He and Marilyn—originally Paul—have been neighbors, friends for over forty years. Hank and his wife, Ellen, never had kids but they enjoyed watching Paul and Cynth’s brood grow up. They witnessed their family tragedies, the horrific car accident that left Cynth brain-damaged, her death from melanoma sixteen years ago. He and Ellen had battled their own health issues; she died of colon cancer not long after Cynth. Hank and Paul had stood by one another, shared yard cleanups, compared notes on their prostate cancer diagnoses. Two years after Cynth’s death, Paul showed up at the feed store for the morning coffee klatch presided over by Sally, the owner. All jaws dropped; coffee spilled onto shirts and laps.
“Morning, all.”
Their friend leisurely poured out a steaming mug before joining the group sprawled in the metal chairs around the industrial-sized pot. “I’m the same person I’ve always been. You can call me Marilyn.” And then she proceeded to analyze the latest stock market report.
Hank never asked any questions. The two widowed neighbors continued their friendship, helping each other out as needed. Hank had no surviving family and knew Marilyn was estranged from her kids, who all lived out of state, the youngest in Minnesota. Lately Marilyn had gotten forgetful, had had a few scary mishaps driving her truck, was walking funny too—shuffling and stumbling in a way that suggested more than arthritis. Six months ago she quietly mentioned the Parkinson’s diagnosis and that she’d consulted at UCSF. Since then, if he asked about her treatment plan, she’d mutter vaguely about missed or incorrect appointments and start chatting about grapevines or gasoline prices.
Three days before Christmas Marilyn got in her truck and headed north to Oregon to visit her two daughters and the grandkids. They hadn’t invited her. The strange character in the flowery dress and pageboy hairdo was not their dad but a painful embarrassment to all the family.
Marilyn had an “episode” at a diner a few miles from her younger daughter’s home in Salem. She was hospitalized, diagnosed with Lewy body dementia associated with Parkinson’s. Two weeks later her younger son, Jim, enticed Marilyn to his Minneapolis home to recuperate, spend time with her grandchild, get a second medical opinion. Her children made all the arrangements; one of the sons-in-law escorted her on the flight.
“They shanghaied me, Hank.” Her son and daughter-in-law isolated Marilyn in a secluded part of the house away from the grandson and ordered her to stay indoors. They bullied her, played mind games. “I was on their turf, too confused to fight back.”
“They call that gaslighting,” sputtered Hank.
“Yes, well, a week of that was enough for me, and I called a cab from my cell phone. I was taking the next plane to California and never setting foot in Minnesota again.”
The police drove up as she stepped into the cab and took her into custody. They locked her up as a danger to herself. Her kids quickly obtained power of attorney and emergency general conservatorship. They confiscated her wallet and cell phone and all personal items. After a court hearing wherein her own lawyer backed down, Marilyn was transferred first to a restrictive hospital setting and now to an assisted living residence for Alzheimer’s patients. The family initiated legal proceedings to deem her mentally incompetent and incapable of performing the tasks of daily living without assistance.
Hank himself witnessed the elder son break into Marilyn’s home in California, court order in hand. He changed the locks, took damning pictures of the messy conditions. “Hell, they’d lock me up and throw away the key if they saw my place,” Hank fumed.
Her lawyer stopped by to return her cell phone and calmly informed Marilyn of the court’s decision—institutionalization in a long-term dementia care home a hundred miles up north from Minneapolis. “Hank, they’re planning to keep me here. I’ll never see California again. They’re after my money. I’ve made some smart investments, Hank.” Then, in a quavery whisper, “It would’ve been theirs when I died. They couldn’t wait. Help me, Hank.”
“Damn greedy bastards. We’ll figure something out, Marilyn. Don’t you worry.”
Hank and a few other friends, including Marilyn’s Vietnam buddy, a retired judge in Florida, had helped her stay tough and fight back. But the court ruled against her a second time.
Hank got in his truck and drove non-stop to the Minneapolis suburb where the care home was tucked away in a quiet cul-de-sac. On the long drive he cooked up a plan, a plan for the now and one maybe for the future. Hell, what did he have to lose? What did they both have to lose? He’d signed in at the front desk—a distant cousin passing through town, amiable and mild and harmless. Three days in a row he’d visited and walked every accessible area with Marilyn, whispering his plans, hoping she could keep the secret. He tracked staff entrances, kitchen delivery doors, the least traveled hallways, and the exit to the open-air patio. He carried his old Army ditty bag with a pair of shoes and a raincoat to throw on Marilyn once the chance for escape presented itself. After days of patiently hanging out, he spotted the rear door left ajar by a hurrying staff member—and they made their move. It wasn’t easy getting Marilyn to hustle out into the cold. But she knew what freedom tasted like, and once it came at her on the biting Minnesota wind, she was eager for more.
Suddenly realizing how far they’ve come and flush with his successful “kidnapping,” Hank whoops: “HEE-HAW!”
The blond curls jerk up.
“What’d you say, Hank?”
“On our way now, Marilyn!”
“We’re going home, Hank?”
“You bet, gal!”
“To California?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Going home to Livingston.” A happy sigh. “Bet my grapevines are covered in weeds.”
“Could be.”
“Evita will be so glad to see me.”
“Sure will.”
“Couple, maybe three days if we share the driving.”
“Um-mm, gonna take a while longer, Marilyn.”
Bright-blue eyes suddenly shadowed, non-comprehending, anxious.
“Miss Marilyn”—he can’t conceal a proud grin—“Miss Marilyn, we’re outlaws now. We’ve gotta throw them off the scent. That means taking the roundabout way home.”
“But my poor cat, all alone…”
“Nope, Evita’s safe and sound with Sally from the feed store.”
“My grapevines…”
“Can wait. We’re fugitives, Marilyn, like Bonnie and Clyde—” The blue eyes pop out in horror. “Er-r-r, no bank robbing or killing folks, of course. Think Robin Hood and Maid Marilyn in the Sherwood Forest,” chuckles Hank as the truck veers off the freeway and onto a narrow road lined with tall, bare-limbed trees.
Marilyn peers through the windshield. “You read my mind, Hank.”
Hank helps Marilyn out and guides her behind a thick tree trunk.
“Now don’t go too far…go—get it?”
“Got it, Hank,” Marilyn giggles.
A few minutes later, Marilyn peeks around the tree. Hank is tightening the final screw on a Minnesota license plate. Hanging onto the fender, he painfully straightens his eighty-year-old knees, stands, and stretches with a few creaks and moans.
Marilyn smirks. “Guess we’re officially on the lam, Hank.”
He pushes out his chest. “Yup. Now let’s get you in outta the cold.”
Once they’re buckled in, he reaches under the seat, pulls up a bag of McDonald’s burgers and a paper coffee cup.
“We eat on the run, too.” Hank hands Marilyn the covered cup — “Just the way you like, black, no sugar.” They munch in silence, passing the coffee back and forth.
“Hits the spot, Hank. And the coffee’s still warm!”
“Just for you, Marilyn. Ready? Fasten your seat belt, folks, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.”
“Hee-haw,” chortles Marilyn as they lurch backward over frozen clumps of dirt. The Ranger cautiously negotiates the back roads leading to the freeway.
Hank clears his throat. “Here’s our itinerary, Marilyn. Head northeast for a few miles—just to confuse them—then south, warm our bones for a bit. Could you handle some Florida sunshine, Marilyn?”
“Gosh, it sounds good,” she couldn’t help a shiver, “but…”
“Don’t worry, gal. I’ll get us back to Livingston, but it’ll take a month or two.”
As Marilyn stares bleakly out the front window, Hank leans slightly back and yanks a plastic sack from behind her seat. “I salvaged these out of the dumpster your boy filled up when he ransacked your house.”
Marilyn peers into the Walmart bag — a musty collection of French literary classics by Flaubert, Balzac, and Zola. “Oh, Hank, you saved my favorite, L’Education Sentimentale.” Her accent is perfect. Then angrily, “They considered these trash?”
“You know kids nowadays, Marilyn. All about technology, money.”
At the bottom of the Walmart bag hides a small, crunched paper item. Marilyn daintily holds up the bright-pink-and-white sack and turns to Hank, whose deep blush rivals the Victoria’s Secret color scheme. He nods bashfully, like the clumsy teenager he was sixty-five years ago. She removes the pastel tissue and unfolds a baby-blue lace negligee. She turns a delicate scarlet, not unlike her beloved grape varietal.
“Thought it matched your eyes, Marilyn. And you needed a real nightgown—not that ugly hospital rag they put on you.” Her smile radiates straight into his fast-beating heart. “All set, Madame Bovary?”
“Certainement, Monsieur!”
Marilyn settles back.
“Um, Marilyn, one more thing. I know you hate hats and glasses, but think of these as disguises. Or camouflage.” He grabs the big red-and-white Target bag out from further back, passes it to Marilyn. Out falls a soft, red wool beret and rhinestone-rimmed sunglasses. He plops a wide-brimmed outback hat on his head and steals a glance to his right.
“Oh yeah, just like in the movies. You’re a star now, gal, a genuine Marilyn Monroe look-alike!”
Marilyn leans over and stares into the rearview mirror. She squeezes Hank’s hand on the steering wheel.
“I’m ready for my close-up, Monsieur DeMille.”
“HEE-HAW,” bellows Hank.
“Hee-haw,” echoes Marilyn with a hint of Mona Lisa’s smile.
One fishtail or two later, they’re back on Minnesota State Highway 35, heading east. He slips a CD into the player, and Edith Piaf’s smoky “Non, je ne regrette rien” sweeps over Marilyn and Hank.
“So that’s what’s cookin',” whispers a sleepy Marilyn to herself.
The thin wail of a distant siren shocks Hank and Marilyn to full alertness. He checks the rearview mirror and nods in acknowledgement. “As expected.”
Hank winks jauntily, gives Marilyn’s hand a quick, tender squeeze. He guns the engine and screeches into the next exit with a spine-rattling lurch.
“Initiating plan B.”
THE END