Ride the Nightmare

“Thank you,” said Chris.

They sat there quietly while the two policemen returned to their car. Helen sat staring at the light on the roof of the police car It glared hypnotically into her eyes, then was gone, glared, was gone. In the back seat, Connie snored gently. After a few minutes, the policeman returned and handed Chris the license and the ticket book. Chris signed his name and wrote his address. Then the policeman tore out the ticket and handed it in through the window.

“Take it slower now,” he said.

Chris nodded. “I will.”

The policeman cleared his throat.

“Look, it’s none of my business,” he said, “but—well, I’m an old married man myself. I have four kids and the missus and I have been through a lot together.”

He smiled at them. “What I mean is, these things seem a lot worse at night than they really are. I’m not trying to interfere but—well, why not wait till tomorrow before you decide anything? Go home, sleep on it. You’ll find it’s not half so bad in the morning.”

Helen braced herself.

“Thank you,” she said. “We will.”

The policeman smiled again. “Good,” he said. “Take it easy now.”

When he’d left, Chris said, “Now what are we going to do?”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ll have to turn back and I was going to Latigo Canyon.”

“Oh.”

Chris started the engine. When the police car had pulled off the shoulder and disappeared around a bend ahead, he made a U-turn and started back toward Santa Monica. He kept looking up at the rear-view mirror to see if the police car were following.

“Where are we going to put him?” she asked.

“I guess it’ll have to be Topanga,” he said.

Helen twisted around and looked at Connie to see if she was all right. Then, unable to stop herself, she looked down at the floor. As the car turned into a curve, the body shifted and bumped against the seat. Helen turned back quickly.

All along the first five miles of the canyon, Chris had kept slowing down as if he meant to stop. Then his teeth had set on edge and he’d picked up speed again as he saw that the spot was unsuitable. Now he had turned onto the old Topanga Road.

Helen looked at the dashboard clock. It was twenty minutes after twelve. She drew in a long breath and let it seep out between her lips as she stared at the road ahead, glancing at the occasional houses they passed. Once they had discussed the possibility of buying a house in this area. She’d never want to live here now.

Finally they stopped and the rasping click of the hand brake made her twitch. Chris pushed in the light knob and darkness blotted away everything around them. He sat motionless for a moment, his eyes staring ahead. Then, with a brusque motion, he pulled up the door handle and slid out of the car.

“Could I have the flashlight, please?” he asked.

Reaching forward. Helen pushed in the button on the glove compartment door. After a few seconds of fumbling, she found the flashlight and held it out. Chris took it from her and pushed forward the seat back on his side. It fell on the steering wheel and they both gasped as the horn sounded once in the heavy silence. Chris grabbed the seat back and held it.

Then, abruptly, he shoved it back into place. Helen looked over at him as he sat down, his back to her.

“Oh, what’s the use?” he said. He sat there turning the flashlight restlessly in his hands.

Helen swallowed.

“Chris, if you’re expecting me to encourage you.” she said. “I can’t.”

“I don’t want encouragement,” he answered. “I want—to end this, to get you out of it.” Abruptly, he drew his legs in and closed the door.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Going to the police.”

“Chris, please.“ Helen closed her hands into rigid fists. “I love you. I don’t want you to go to prison. If you think you can put him here without him being found, then do it. Do it! But, for God’s sake, get it over with!”

“All right. Helen,” he said. ‘I’m sorry.”

Hastily, he slid out of the car and unlocked the back trunk to get the shovel he always kept inside. Helen wondered why he hadn’t put the man in the trunk too, then remembered that the trunk door wouldn’t open when the garage door was down. Chris would have had to open the garage, but then someone might have seen. He had done the only thing possible.

The only thing possible. That was what made it all a nightmare. Everything seemed so inevitable. The phone call, the locking of the house, the man’s violent entrance and death, the placing of his body in the car. the drive along the ocean, the policemen stopping them, the burial now. Nothing could have happened in any other way. It was as if they were trapped in some inexorable plan which had determined their past and their present and would also determine their future.

Still it seemed impossible to accept. Such things did not happen really. Melodrama was confined to bad motion pictures. And now, melodrama had engulfed her so quickly and violently that it seemed beyond belief. If there had been something in the past to signal its coming she might be able to accept. But there had been nothing. She thought about it as carefully as she could. There had been nothing.

She’d met Chris at a concert—that was the start. The Santa Monica Music Guild sponsored a series of concerts every year to which she and her mother subscribed. That particular night, Helen remembered, Wallenstein had been conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

During intermission, she walked downstairs with her mother to get a drink of water and stretch her legs. Her mother had gone into the ladies’ room and Helen out onto the porch for some air. Only later did she realize that Chris was out there at the same time. If either of them had stayed outside until the intermission was over, they might never have met. The ironies of coincidence, however, were far from her mind that night and for years of nights to come.

When she decided that her mother had probably left the ladies’ room and was wondering where she was, Helen went back inside. She didn’t see her mother at first. Then, after several moments, she caught sight of her standing near the center aisle entrance, talking with Mrs. Saxton who owned the Melody Music Shop. She went over and they chatted a few minutes about how wonderfully the orchestra had played the Brahms Third, how marvelously adept Wallenstein was in drawing such a performance from them.

Then a figure stepped up beside Helen and Chris was in her life.

“Marjorie, Helen,” said Mrs. Saxton, “I’d like you to meet Mr. Martin.”

There were the usual amenities, the usual small talk about the concert, about Mrs. Saxton’s shop. Mrs. Saxton told them that Chris was working for her and that the way he was going at it, she’d be working for him before long. The laughter was polite, casual. Then the buzzer sounded and they were all returning to their seats.

“He seems like a nice young man,” her mother commented as they went up the stairs.

”Yes, Mrs. Cupid.” Helen answered.

The concert ended, they left the auditorium and, in walking to their car, were briefly joined by Chris and Mrs. Saxton. Again, the conversation was vague. There was no impression on either side, Helen felt. She experienced none in particular and, later on, Chris told her that he repressed what interest he had felt because he didn’t feel he had a right to become involved. He’d said it was because he didn’t have the time to spare from his work. Now, Helen knew why he had repressed it.

So the matter might have ended. Helen thought of that as she sat, her cheek pressed to Connie’s head, listening to the shovel strokes outside in the darkness. It might have ended, they might not have married, Connie might never have been born. And how did one decide if their life would have been better if things had happened differently?

They happened as they did—without intention, in the normal pattern of events. Her mother’s birthday was