Night of the hunted

I grew up wanting to be a baseball player. And if I couldn’t be a baseball player I wanted to be the next-best thing: a sportswriter.

Knowing this, my dad subscribed to three papers, thinking if this is the worst thing this boy gets involved in, it’ll be worth it. Plus, my dad was a softie and probably couldn’t say no to the boys who came and shyly ask if we might want to buy a subscription.

The power of the press occurred to me in high school. My best pal Dave and I put together a radio show and put out a weekly newspaper. I wrote the editorials. His mom worked for the school and he didn’t want to cause her any trouble. Our school forever had had ridiculous plumbing. The showers in the girls’ locker ran only at a trickle. All the water in the showers became scalding if a toilet was flushed, and lastly, the lavatory sinks allowed washing only one hand at a time. The faucet handle, after you turned it to the left to get the water to run, would spring back to the right, shutting off the water before you could even get your second hand wet. So my editorials helped get the plumbing updated. Another editorial resulted in getting tastier and healthier hot lunches. I got the bug.

I became sports editor at the junior college paper, worked part-time and received internships writing at a couple of papers. One paper in Champaign, Urbana, actually, was the best paper I ever worked for. It closed on April Fool’s Day of my senior year. The staff scattered here and there. After I graduated I got a call from one of those colleagues and he helped get me a job in a suburb on the Illinois side of St. Louis.

I had an assignment to cover a state football playoff game about 90 miles cross state in a small rural town near the Indiana line. My old red Vega wasn’t up for it so I got a car from Rent-a-Wreck, the only one I cojuld afford and hoped for the best. I made it to my destination with hours to spare, leaving way early just in case.

I pulled into a hamburger joint and came inside. There was only me and one other fellow, a burly guy in his upper 30s, maybe early 40s, sitting a few tables apart but facing me.

We begin to chat and before long I tell him what I’m there for and he says that since we had time to kill, why don’t we got for a ride in his truck, “call up a few of my buddies and we can fuck around.”

A cold feeling came over me. Real cold. “I didn’t come here to fuck around,” I said without a hint of emotion.

That ended the conversation, but he doesn’t leave. It was then I noticed he hadn’t ordered any food. He was just sitting there sizing up the potential prey as they walked through the door. I sat there, too, not daring to leave, fearing that he’d follow me and use that CB to call those buddies of his.

Terrible, awkward minutes go by. He eventually gets up and leaves, but sits in his truck for another uncomfortable length of time. I’m wondering, “How am I gonna get out of this?” My heart pounds.

He drives off, but the fear stays. This guy knows what I look like. He knows the car I’m driving. He knows where I’m going. He knows.

My mind is racing. Is he going to hunt me now or hunt me after the game is over and everyone is gone — when he can call his buddies or maybe a cop pal to pull me over and fuck around.

I cover the game. It’s an easy, one-sided affair. The whole time I scan the crowd. I check the parking lot. Nothing. After the game I get the victorious coach to answer a few more questions, escorting me to my car.

Safe, so far. But I’m in this shitty car on this shitty night. I dread starting this stupid cheap car. I dread pulling out of the parking lot, I dread being the only one along the main road of the deserted town. The only car for miles.

But nothing happens.

A few months later I’ve landed a better job and am working the news desk at a paper in the northwest Chicago suburbs one afternoon when shit hits the fan. Bodies have been discovered in the crawl space of a home near there. The newsroom air is charged with phones ringing and reporters, photographers and editors racing around, shouting back and forth.

Breaking news comes over the TV set. A photo appears of the suspected killer. I turned to look. It was John Wayne Gacy. It was the same man.

My heart started pounding. It’s pounding even now. The terror of that night and what could have been has been imprisoned in my mind. A life sentence.

This was first brought back for me during the “Me, too,” movement when all these women after years, even decades of waiting came forward with their tales of terror and violation by predatory men. Why didn’t they speak up at the time? Why didn’t I? For crying out loud I was in the middle of a newsroom hot on the case. I could have told everybody.

I told nobody. Nobody. I didn’t want to deal with those looks, however imperceptible, that said, “Oh, you’re that guy.” I didn’t have to see those looks. I could feel them. I didn’t want that. Who would? And it wouldn’t have been just there. I’d have had to deal with being that guy maybe forever.

So when women wait decades to tell anyone about what happened to them, things far worse than what I went through, I get it. I’ll have the chills for days just from this writing. Thoughts creep in that haunt parts of my day, and definitely at night.

Still, nothing happened. And I’ve never forgotten it.