A Life Wasted

Calling Home

I spent a single night in the motel room in Atlanta. I spent much of that time soaking my feet and hands in warm water, which had the undesired effect of making me hurt more. But what really hurt me, what haunted me, was my wife's voice. I don't know anyone with more courage and fortitude than my wife. Nor do I know anyone who loves with more of herself than her. Mary had given me her love and with that a part of herself. On TV I heard that part of her bleeding through her voice. Not her words, but her voice. My wife was worried about me. So much so that she was in pain.

No one knew better than I that I had experienced an ordeal. No one knew better than I just how close to death I had come. With my black hands and feet, I could still lose that battle. The authorities might have had an idea of how messed up I was. They would know I'd spent all that time outside and they would have studied the security video from Wal-Mart. They would have seen my black hands, my severe limp, and how bashed up my face was. They would have been able to deduce the frostbite. What they would not have done is shared that information with my wife. At least I didn't think they would. Mary might have figured some of it out on her own. The temperature was no secret. I had told her the story of my Georgia escape so she had a sense of how difficult and how dangerous those things could be. So perhaps she was worried on her own, without any help from the feds.

Whatever the reason, I was sure that she was worried. I had to do what she asked. I had to call home.

I'd spent most of the nearly sleepless night thinking about this. Knowing that I had to call my wife but also knowing that when I did call the call would be traced and the feds would know where I was. I had yet to grasp just how large the hunt for me would become, but at the very least I knew the United States Marshal's Service would launch an active hunt. I would later learn that the hunt for me would be the largest in the U.S. Marshals Service history, but at this point I only assumed they would be looking. I knew our home phone would be tapped and trapped. They would hear every word I said and they would immediately know where I was calling from.

I had to call. That wasn't an option. I had to do it. The feds would trace the call and know where I was calling from and they would know it immediately. There was no doubt the call would be traced and I couldn't allow myself to think otherwise. So the only real question was where to call from. As I thought this through I began to view this call as an opportunity to feed my pursuers a bit of false information. I left the motel room at 5:30 AM and drove north. The next morning, I was in New York City.

I found a place to park the truck for $24 an hour then road a subway to another part of the city. I was careful to write down the location of the truck and the subways I would have to take to return. I have an excellent sense of direction (when I'm not dying of exposure and delirious) but I had little doubt I would get lost in New York City if I didn't mark my trail.

After getting off the subway train at a random stop I walked a block and found a little family store that I would later learn is called a "bodega." There I bought a local number telephone card. The local number part meant the cost of each call was cheaper because it didn't go through an 800 number, but it also meant there would be no doubt I had made the call from the Big Apple. That was the obvious reason for the trip. A guy could lose himself in a city this size, which is what I wanted the feds to think. If they were looking for me here, then they wouldn't be looking so hard other places.

I found a pay phone with a CCTV camera pointed at it, so they would be sure I was here, and then called home. I was so nervous as I dialed our home phone that I nearly vomited. Though I wanted to talk to Mary, needed to talk to her, it was not something I looked forward to. Talking to my wife and feeling her pain was overwhelming for me. I am a horrible husband, but I don't think anyone questions that I love my wife. I love her totally and I love being her husband. It's just that I suck at it. I know I suck at it, so at times like this I have to face the consequences of my actions.

All the physical pain I had endured in the past days did not compare to the mental pain I felt after that phone call. I kept the call short under the pretense of not giving them time to trace it. I even said this for the benefit of those listening. But since I wanted them to trace the call this wasn't the case. I needed to keep the call short because I couldn't stand to face the consequences of what I had done for long. Mary was worried so I assured her I was okay and safe. She asked if I had been injured so I told her about the frostbite. Being the momma bear she is she started to tell me how to treat it but I stopped her mid-sentence. I didn't know if her giving me medical advice could be considered aiding and abetting, but I wasn't willing to take that chance. I explained why she couldn't tell me and told her not to worry, that I had it covered. She knew I was lying about having it covered.

After the call I retraced my route and left New York as fast as I could, which wasn't too fast given the traffic. It turned out that all my efforts were wasted on the feds. They traced the call and they sent agents in the area to check it out, but they didn't believe I was in the City. They knew I was there but correctly figured I was only there for the phone call. Something else I didn't know at the time is that one of the FBI's impressive profilers had already done a full workup on me. That agent was actively involved in the chase and he immediately knew the call from NYC was an attempt to misdirect the hunters. As I would learn when I met this agent years later, this FBI profiler had my number.