A Life Wasted

A Long Way Home

I ran into a little trouble on the way home. I'd stopped at a truck stop to get food and coffee. After eating I walked out into the parking lot to see a marked police car parked behind my stolen SUV. The cop had his flash light pointed at the VIN number through the windshield. He'd already figured out that the plates were stolen and was now learning the car was too.

I was able to duck back into the truck stop without the officer noticing me. I walked straight through the building and through the back door to the truck parking lot. I walked between the trucks until I noticed a driver get into the cab of a car carrier. Before he could start his engine I had slipped onto the back of his trailer and into one of the used cars he was hauling. Laying low so I couldn't be seen I looked up as we pulled on to the road to see a second police car had joined the first. Both officers were looking into the truck stop. I felt like I had barely escaped in time. The truck rolled down the interstate and I went to sleep. I woke when he stopped some time later at another truck stop. I got out not knowing where I was, which turned out to be a city I knew my way around.

I lost a lot of stuff in that SUV. Replaceable were the clothes I'd accumulated, my "Go Bag" and camping gear. Most importantly I lost all my identification. In the SUV had been my real driver's license, which I couldn't use during a traffic stop but did need when checking into a motel for the night. I also lost my pilot's license. I hadn't planned on using that either, but I hated to lose it none the less. I also lost all the data I had been collecting on the clinics. Lost it again. I felt like that might be God telling me to give it up. If I had any doubt left that I needed to forget all the abortion clinic stuff, losing all my data for a second time did the trick.

As much as losing all my personal stuff hurt, the worst part was losing the car itself. I'm not a very good car thief in that I don't know how to hot-wire a car. Every kid in every city in the world seems to know how to do this but I don't have a clue where to start. As much as I got into trouble and ended up on the run I should have learned how to hot-wire a car, but I never did. Still don't know how. To steal a car, I needed the keys. The only way I knew to do this was from a car dealership. But not just any car dealership. To find a dealership where I could get the keys and the car I had to travel around to several dealerships in order to find the right conditions. But doing this without a car was nearly impossible.

Here I am going to be vague and only say that not having a car and needing to steal one put me in the position of having to call on someone for help. Fortunately, that person lived nearby. This friend put me up for a few weeks, time I needed to rest and get my bearings. At the end of this time my friend played driver while I searched for a dealership where I could steal another car. This was another SUV, a Chevy Tahoe to be exact. With a fresh car under me I pointed north. I was going home. It was a stupid thing to do because it was the one place everyone would expect me to be, but I had no choice. I had to go home. I just couldn't stand to be away from my family any longer.