Arizona: The Story I Never Tell...

Prologue: May 10^th 2011…Five Years to Life.

His name was David, he said, like in the bible.

What I remember the most of David are his hands, of all things, his fucking hands.

Covered in scars, spots of seemingly fossilized dried blood, cracked, embedded in years’ worth of accumulated dirt, and that sickly yellow glow of nicotine inked into his fingernails. I remember his hands. They have haunted me for the better half of five years. Five years to life.

And that smell, that godawful smell. Gasoline, marijuana, unwashed skin and stale cigarettes, a trademark perhaps. Years later in the domino train of nightmares that have followed, there are nights when I wake up, still choking on that smell, still swallowing it down my lungs, drowning in my desperate gasps for clean air. But only ever drowning. Five years to life.

In the aftermath of David, were I given to the disposition of talking about those 13 hours, I decided firmly on a sanitized truth, a manageable set of details, a charade in which the cast of characters were cloaked in just enough truth but not quite.

Because truth be told, there are only two people that will ever know the full extent of that night. There are only two people that will forever live inside the details of those 13 hours. And each would give you a different story, never the two should meet.

David.

And myself.

What I can tell you is that I have been to hell and I have seen the devil.

13 hours across two states.

And that woman who was, was no more. David murdered her and left her body scattered in pieces across that godforsaken Arizona dessert.

And she came back a ghost.

What I can tell you of that 13^th hour is that I made a deal with the devil. And most days I am quite certain it was not worth what it cost. Because I know that I know that I know that my silence condemned other women, of that much I am certain. And I have lived for 5 years with blood on my hands, the weight of it ever pressing. Five years to life.

***

December 5^th, 2016

I am beginning to wonder I have lost my motherfucking mind. And yes, yes it appears that I have. Perhaps crazy is the new normal. What’s the going rate for sanity these days anyway?

It’s just past 8:30 in the morning and I am on the border of Boulder City, Nevada. It occurs to me that this next decision is akin to something out of a Choose Your Own Adventure novel, you know go right, end up at the Boulder Damn, take some pictures, buy a t-shirt, find the buried treasure, and voilà, a happy ending in thirty pages or less. Or the alternate ending, continue on, get lost on a deserted road, find yourself mired knee-deep in quicksand, all signs screaming ‘Danger Ahead’ and you’ll die before you ever figure out where you took a wrong turn…

And so, here I am, turn right, Boulder Damn, continue on, Arizona.

Arizona.

I close my eyes and inhale. And exhale.

My hands are shaking so bad that I cannot maintain a grip on my steering wheel.

This is all-out insanity.

I have indeed lost my motherfucking mind.

I pull over.

And get sick.

It’s a solid ten minutes before I am finished.

Arizona.

David.

Me.

13 hours across two states.

And when it was over I swore to myself that I would never again step foot on Arizona soil so long as I lived so help me God.

So. Help. Me. God.

Indeed, so help me God, it was the resounding plea in that moment on that day in that pause between where I had been and where I was going.

So where am I going??

I turn the engine, and press my foot down on the gas pedal and I fly past the exit to the Boulder Damn in a blur of dust and curse words. And in that moment, something inextricably solid clicks in my brain- there’s no turning back now.

I officially cross the state line at twelve minutes past nine in the morning.

245 miles to the Grand Canyon.

A two-lane highway of black tar pavement stretching out into an abyss of dust and desolation.

And I am alone.

This is no man’s land.

Every now and then, a long-haul trucker drifts by me.

Every now and then, I spot vultures off in the desert horizon.

Death is riding shotgun beside me.

And my heart is skipping beats.

I feel nauseous.

I feel faint.

I pull over.

And I get sick.

For 15 minutes.

Why am I doing this to myself?

My brain is on fire and all I can see is David.

All I can hear is David.

All I can breathe is David.

All I can taste is David

All I can touch is David.

I cannot escape him.

It’s 2011 all over again.

Welcome to hell, please enjoy your stay.

After a few colorful expletives, I manage to will myself back into my car.

At mile marker 107, I hit 119 trying to drive my demons out.

It’s a peculiar thing to exist between two worlds.

It’s wholly maddening.

Because you are.

And yet, you most certainly are not.

Mile after mile after mile, I am lost to this labyrinth of tangled hours.

What I can tell you of these lost hours is that try as I might, I could not find a solid divide between the past and the present. I could not find a linear path in my own mind. It was everything. It was nothing. It was up. It was down. It was to the left and to the right. It was all around me. It was the beginning, middle, and end. And it was a snow-globe, shaken up and crashing down in nonsensical rhythms.

I kept getting sick.

Again and again and again and again and again.

Maybe some things are better left untouched.

Maybe what is dead and buried ought not ever be resurrected.

One thousand, eight hundred, and twenty-six days.

What’s one more day.

And yet, here I am just the same, five years later halfway down the I-40 East.

…..

My car reaches the I-40/ Highway 180 junction.

I pull over and stare at the crossroads searching for something but not quite certain of what.

That woman five years prior, she sat in a bus stop in New Mexico looking at brochures on the Grand Canyon. She traced her fingers delicately across the pages and closed her eyes and smiled at the thought of it. She was infinite and fearless and full of wonder. She’d vowed to herself to see the whole world one day and right there in that moment, she’d settled her heart on the painted desert, never knowing that in a matter of hours all of her dreams would die in quick succession, at the calloused hands of godless man, in a sick chess game of violence and violation.

I feel the tyranny of tears roll down my face.

And I hold my head in my hands.

And I open my mouth and I scream, five years’ worth of rage, a woman undone.

And I hit my steering wheel until I feel my hands begin to bruise.

The air in my car stands solemn and still and for the first time in five years, I feel it, the weight of what David took from me.

You see, cuts and bruises will heal; scars will fade until some days you wont even know that they’re there. But the real crime, the true horror of it all is the aftermath, it’s the derailed life you were handed in return. Because your life becomes defined by the before and after, a complex and merciless purgatory.

In the aftermath of David, I learned to exist in a cage. That woman who was once infinite and fearless and full of wonder- she became small, and full of fear and carried with her a plague of darkness. And that woman did not entertain dreams. Because all of her dreams were covered up in death, dying and dead.

Sitting in my car, I paused at that thought, death, dying and dead- the utter finality of those words.

My heart sinks. And I feel this burning shame deep inside my bones. And five years’ worth of unshed grief. And this electric fear that I cannot do this. I. Can’t. Do. This. It’s too much. I am merely a woman whose courage was bled dry in 13 hours never to be restored. I look at this woman in the mirror and I hate her because all that remains inside her is a decaying hope and a disease of weakness.

What the fuck was I thinking. I reach for my phone, but I don’t know what to do with it. I sit there in the middle of that godforsaken desert, sinking like quicksand, wondering what the fuck am I supposed to do now.

 And in that moment, I know. I know what I need to. I know that there is no turning back. And there is no going forward. Not like this.

And I turn the engine over and I make the left-hand turn and for thirty plus miles I cry my way up that mountain. Hands shaking. Heart pounding. Swallowing sickness. Crawling out of my skin.

I pull up to the ranger station of the Grand Canyon National park and I pay the nice lady with a crisp twenty-dollar bill and she smiles while handing me a map and says, “Welcome to the Grand Canyon. Have a beautiful day.”

And I make the 4-mile drive to the parking lot. The whole while in shock, crying uncontrollably, while repeating to myself, “I am at the motherfucking Grand Canyon.”

Because I was at the motherfucking Grand Canyon

I park my car and I don’t know what to do. I am scared to leave. Maybe this is enough. Maybe I shouldn’t push my luck.

I close my eyes and the one memory that undoes me above all else overtakes me. And I am pulled under.

David. Death. The chess game of words. I did not bargain and I did not beg. I closed my eyes and I transported myself into the Grand Canyon. It was peaceful. And I was ready. Because it was what it was. My life was a carnival dancing before me. I wondered who was going to tell my sister that I loved her. I wondered who was going to deliver the news to my parents. I thought about the last words that I spoke to those whom I loved, the last hug, the last joke, the last of whatever the last was. And I waited for the come what may…

I open my eyes. And I know that I have to rescue her, that woman. I have to go back for her. I have to breathe life into her again. I cannot leave her to die. I have to go back.

I open my door and I can’t make my legs work. And so, I lean against the solid frame of my car. Inhale. Count to ten. Exhale. Count to ten.

I grab my backpack, determined to do what I had set out to do five years prior. I had a camera and a vison. And I had wanted so much to do an exhibition on the Grand Canyon. And by God, I was going to do it. For her. For me.

And I walk slowly towards the entrance to the rim. Up the hill, round the corner and then my eyes catch it, the glimpse of the South Rim of the Grand Canyon and something inside me breaks wide open and I start crying. Coincidentally in a sea of Asian tourists. Crazy Americans. Please don’t mind me. And hey, enjoy the photo bomb. And oh, hey there Mr. Park Ranger, I’m not crazy and I pinky-promise I’m not a jumper. Fun side bar: A week before this merry little adventure, The Arizona Sun Tribune wrote an article about a jumper at the Grand Canyon, followed by a discourse on how suicide rates increase during the months of November, December, and January and that the Grand Canyon is on high alert for potential jumpers. Mr. Park Ranger has a firm grip on his radio and he is moving ever slowly towards the crazy woman who is having a right proper breakdown surrounded by 50 of her closest Asian friends. And suddenly, I am keenly aware of the fact that I am a stone throw away from an ugly hospital gown and white padded room with a shot full of Haldol. And I start laughing. Like comedy show, laugh-a-thon, laughing. I’m quite certain that didn’t help me out whatsoever. And my brain finally starts firing the right neuron’s and I shut up and I walk quickly but not too quickly up the trail.

I walk to the railing, staring out at the beauty of the painted desert.

I find a spot devoid of crowds and I sit down on a rock. And feel it rise up in me like song, I made it. I made. It. I. Made, It.

And I cry for the woman who was. And I cry for the woman who is.

I made it.

David did not break me.

And David did not win.

Because I made it.

I stayed there for long time, making peace with death. And with life. And I suppose even with David.

Nothing will ever erase those 13 hours.

They will always be apart of me. And I will always carry the aftermath to some degree or another.

But sitting there in the cold of that December day, watching the sun set over the Grand Canyon, that woman who died five years prior, she was finally laid to rest. I let her go. I set her free.

13 hours, across two states.

David did not break me.

And David did not win.

Because I made it.

I made it.

And I finally took my life back.

Postscript (August 15, 2107):

We all want the finality of the happy ever after. But the truth is that there are sharp edges to trauma, not given to the luxury of neat and clean lines. While my return to Arizona was a monumental victory, it will not and cannot erase the aftermath of that trauma. I still have to maneuver through the triggers of this event as they relate to present day. What I can tell you is that in the initial aftermath of Arizona, I was unable to travel even short distances by myself. If I could drive there in an hour than that was my limit. For a really long time. And little by little, I was able to do more smaller ventures, but travel is now one of my biggest and oftentimes hardest trauma triggers. It causes a consummate downpour of panic and fear and anxiety. And it stirs up the wounds of David. And it takes an immense amount of energy to stand up to those demons. At present, I am a little under three weeks away from going on a solo trip across the Atlantic all the way to Ireland. Sleep and I have broken up. I pretty much call the trip off at least five times a day. My anxiety is on overdrive. I feel sick and I get sick at the thought of being alone in another country. My friend Kirsten and I were talking about it the other day and she asked me what worst case scenario is for me and without missing a beat, I immediately responded with “Rape, murder and robbery.”  In that order. This is what the aftermath of those 13 hours are for me. I never thought that I could stand up to David. But eight months ago, I drove up a fucking mountain to face a fucking mountain. And I cannot allow myself to believe that that was in vain, even on days like this where I haven’t slept in almost three weeks, when I can hardly eat, and jump at the slightest noise and call off a trip for the umpteenth time and possibly end the dream that I’ve had of going on said trip since I was 17 years old. It’s exhausting. But what I hold on to from Arizona post David is that moment inside of myself when I was standing on that ledge overlooking the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, David did not break me. And David did not win. Perhaps the victory just looks a little different than what I thought it would. And that’s okay. Because the sharp edges are making me brave. And those 13 hours, and not even David himself can take that from me. I won’t let him.

-Jillian Nichole, keeper of sharp edges, learning to be brave...