A Jog in the Desert

(This one's for Justin, er I mean Austin, and Sarah. Let the questions begin!)

It was a crisp, cool morning as Sarah jogged steadily down Avenue J. Turning north on 30th Street West, she stayed to the left, because the dirt on the left side was much kinder to her shins than the sidewalk on the right. Majestic mountains spread out in front of her and to her left. She took it all in — the awe-inspiring mountains, the spacious desert, the clear dark blue sky, still painted with the pastel colors of the almost complete sunrise. Most people thought of the desert as hot and barren. But in these early morning hours, Sarah felt blessed by the refreshing air.

“Wow!” she thought as she once again reminded herself of the reason she put up with the torture of her early morning runs. She loved the solitude and the quiet, giving herself a chance to clear her head before another typically hectic day. The wonder and beauty of God’s creation overwhelmed her, and she uttered a silent prayer of praise and thanks as she had done so many times before.

In spite of her general aversion to sports, Sarah had been jogging for almost twenty years now. She hated the torture, but enjoyed her slim, attractive figure and the athletic confidence it gave her. She enjoyed too the way jogging in these quiet hours was so calming. That, combined with the endurance and low pulse rate it gave her, helped her through the stress of her day. God knows she needed it, with a demanding career and two small children to take care of. It also was a break from the drudgery of a daily routine that Sarah often found boring for her active, intelligent mind.

The rare sound of a car approaching pulled her out of her daydream. She looked up to see a blue sedan only thirty feet in front of her and approaching at high speed. “Oh my God, he’s going to hit me,” she thought as she began her next step. Instead of a normal running step, she instinctively pushed down hard with her right foot, sending herself rolling to the left. The car narrowly missed her as she rolled onto her back in the soft desert dirt.

“Idiot! I can’t believe a drunk would be out at this time of day!”

She was still in a state of shock as she looked at the car that had just passed. She saw it screeching to a stop several hundred yards beyond her and beginning to turn around. “I guess he’s coming back to see if I’m OK.”

Then she noticed it wasn’t coming back slowly, as she expected, but was picking up speed again. “He’s coming after me again!” she suddenly realized. Out here on the open, sparsely vegetated desert, she wouldn’t have much of a chance.

She saw that her only chance was to cross 30th Street to the housing tract there. She sprinted across the street, hoping she had time to get there before the car came back. Fortunately, her adrenaline rush and her well-trained legs allowed her to sprint across well before the accelerating car came near her. She leaped up the back wall of the house in front of her. As she rolled over the top, she heard a loud crack and felt something whiz by her ear. “My God, now they’re shooting at me, too! I’ve got to get out of here!”

As she cleared the wall on the other side of the yard, she heard the car screeching through another turn. “They must be turning to get in the housing tract entrance just south of here. I’ve got to think. Got to get to some people, call for help.”

Sarah didn’t want to risk knocking on a door this early in the morning. Most people were probably asleep and, even if they did come to the door, it would probably take too long, making her vulnerable to attack. She had to keep moving!

A plan began to form in her mind. Wal-Mart, just over half a mile away, would be open, as it always was. There would be people there, and phones. How to get there though? She knew she couldn’t outrun the car. But she realized she could hop fences. “I may not may not be much of an athlete,” she thought, “but at least I learned to climb when I was young.” The winding neighborhood roads would slow down and confuse her pursuers, while she could more or less make a beeline through backyards.

She made it most of the way through the neighborhood safely. She could still hear the screech of wheels from time to time, but had avoided her attackers successfully. She had just crossed the last neighborhood street and was beginning to climb into the yard on the other side, when the blue sedan screeched around the corner. It caught sight of her and began coming toward her just as she cleared the fence.

“Great,” she thought, “now they’ll know where I’m going.”

Nothing to do though, but keep on. Over the back fence of this yard lay 25th Street, and beyond that the back of Wal-Mart. She would have to cross the wide street and run through the 200 yard long side parking lot next to Lancaster Boulevard until she reached the front of the store. It was a dangerous open stretch, but she had to risk it. She knew the car would have to go out the housing tract entrance a quarter mile south and then come back up. She hoped this gave her enough time to reach her goal.

Clearing the fence, Sarah sprinted across 25th Street into the Wal-Mart parking lot. As she passed the back of Wal-Mart into the side parking lot, she heard the blue sedan turn onto 25th Street. “God, please help me make it!”

Literally running for her life, she gave it all she had through the side parking lot. It seemed like an eternity. 100 feet to go, 75, 50, 30, 20 — almost there. Just then, the blue sedan turned from 25th Street onto Lancaster Boulevard, at the far corner of the parking lot. She heard a shot and felt the spray of shattered mortar as a bullet struck the store wall just behind her. But now she was at the front corner of Wal-Mart. She rounded it quickly and flew into the store.

The always present, friendly greeter seemed somewhat surprised to see Sarah rush in like that. Nonetheless, she maintained her composure and asked politely, “May I help you?”

“Please help me,” Sarah yelled breathlessly, “I need the police! Someone is trying to kill me.”

“OK, ma’am, please calm down, and tell me what’s happening.”

Sarah drew a deep breath, and tried as best she could to explain what had happened. The Wal-Mart manager was called, and he quickly phoned the police. Sarah was still nervous, but was glad to be around people again. She was also glad that her plan seemed to be working — there was no sign of her attackers.

While they were waiting for the police, the manager had Sarah rest at the in-store McDonald’s. He got her a coke and she was finally able to relax a little. She could no longer hear her heart pounding, and was finally able to put a few thoughts together.

“How’d I get into this mess?” she wondered. “I guess it all started so many years ago, during that fateful year in eighth grade…”

Her mind drifted. It hadn’t seemed so fateful at the time. It had seemed like a rough year. Her family had, until that time, been trying to get on the mission field, but had finally failed at that at the end of her seventh grade year. Then one thing followed another: they changed churches; switched to Desert Christian School instead of the last four years of home schooling; Dad had begun to commute to work again instead of being at home so much; and they had moved from an apartment into their house.

School had been a struggle. Sarah was a new student and felt very out of place. Fortunately, the students were friendly, but still Sarah found it difficult to make friends. Her class work was much more mundane and boring than home school — Desert Christian was so inflexible at times, and not many of her teachers seemed to appreciate her intelligence and creativity.

All of this, plus some family struggles, caused her schoolwork to suffer. Sarah did survive and graduate. She also began to enjoy school more. Perhaps most important of all, she determined to do well in school, no matter how boring it was or what people thought of her. This determination set the stage for her great high school success — between her intelligence and hard work she became her class valedictorian. Her academic achievements lead to a scholarship at Harvard, allowed her to escape her rather bland life in Lancaster and propelled her into the top of her law school class.

That same year too, the summer after her eighth-grade graduation, she had taken up jogging. “Yuck!” was her first reaction. But she was encouraged (maybe a better word is “pushed”) by her Dad, brother and sister, and friends to try out for the cross-country team. She didn’t become a great runner, but did slowly learn to enjoy the sport. Her teammates were often encouraged by her quiet dedication to do her best. It never was clear to her whether her determination got her through four years of cross-country, or whether cross-country gave her the endurance and mental toughness for her later academic success. Jogging was in many ways boring, but it had become a life-long habit, and in the process, her friend.

The cross-country years had also broadened her social life. The girls, and even most of the guys, on the team weren’t just a bunch of airhead jocks. Rather she found some serious minded, dedicated, intelligent people. She made many friends, at last finding people who could begin to appreciate her complexity, intelligence and seriousness.

In a way, that set the stage for where she was now. After graduating law school, she was hired by a top Bay Area law firm. However, she soon grew tired and bored of the office politics. She certainly wasn’t one to kiss-up to anyone, even if they were top-notch lawyers. She had never really cared about making huge sums of money. She only wanted to help people. She saw the only people they were helping were big corporations and the rich, and often helping them to step on the poor.

After quitting, a series of events lead her back to her hometown of Lancaster. Oh, she didn’t live at home with her parents — she was much too independent for that. But she found comfort in being home among old friends after her time away in the big city. The big city hadn’t really been any more exciting than Lancaster, just more frenetic. “May as well be bored among friends,” she thought.

Furthermore, she found there were plenty of people in need of help back in Lancaster. She opened her own office, and did OK for a while. She never made much money, but managed to get by, helping people as she could. She grew tired however, of the court battles. Oh, she could hold her own in a debate all right. But she again grew bored, this time with the courts — the petty little technicalities and the need in too many cases to kiss-up to judges and deal with lawyers who were too full of themselves.

While a lawyer, she had actually spent most of her time investigating. After all, the key to a good case is facts. Most of her clients couldn’t afford a decent private investigator, so she had to do a lot of her own fact gathering, which she enjoyed. She liked being out in the field, gathering facts, and solving problems. There she even enjoyed the people. They were much more honest, and not so pompous as people around the courts.

And that led her to change jobs again — she became a private investigator. This may seem a strange change, especially for a woman. But contrary to popular opinion (and TV shows), the best investigators are not “macho” men. Rarely, if ever, is there the kind of heart pounding danger and action that makes a good TV show and requires some sort of super jock. Private investigation is, in fact, well suited to women. It requires patient fact gathering. It requires talking to people, making friends, and getting them to trust you. And people much more readily trust women. This is not a sexist view, just a plain fact.

So, that’s where Sarah had ended up about five years ago. She had a healthy little business, never making too much money, but helping people and enjoying the chance to be useful. She was a whiz at problem solving, fact gathering, and computer use, all of which are essential to a good private investigator in the twenty-first century. Although it was somewhat boring at times, at least she avoided most of the pompous airheads she had been around.

Just a year later, the biggest surprise of all had happened — she met him. She knew she never wanted to get married — she had known since junior high. She had no desire for the mundane life that she saw her mom and dad lead. Oh, she loved them with all her heart, and they were wonderful parents. She enjoyed her childhood mostly, and even at times her clueless brother and annoying little sister. It’s just that that kind of life wasn’t for her. In spite of being a child of the nineties, and having friends and family that were pretty open about women’s roles, she still envisioned marriage and motherhood as tying her down to a boring life at home.

But Justin had changed all that. He was not only charming and handsome, he respected her. More than that, he treated her as an equal, gave full worth to her mind, her career and her person. Falling in love had not been as hard as she thought.

Even before getting married, they decided to have children. They both loved children, volunteering as Sunday School teachers at church. It suddenly dawned on Sarah that with her own children she could be around the children she enjoyed, without putting up with the adults that often annoyed her. They also realized that with Justin working nearby as a school teacher and Sarah working at her own business out of their home, she could pretty well keep up a full career, even with children. She did most of her work at home on the computer. When she did have to go out, it was often in the afternoon and evening, when Justin was home.

Sarah found herself where she never thought she would be: enjoying marriage, family and career, in love and happy most of the time in spite of her busy schedule. The one thing that bothered her, that had always bothered her, was that life still was often boring.

Her mind drifted back to the present, however. What had happened? She was investigating an ex-husband, delinquent in child-support. Ripped-off mom’s made up a lot of her clients: there were so many flaky fathers it was a big need. Plus, these abandoned women were often some of the most needy. The work was a bit mundane, but the challenge of finding a person trying to hide often stretched Sarah’s creativity and problem solving abilities. She loved the hunt!

The case she was currently working on had been particularly difficult. This guy seemed to have no end of false aliases and addresses. Just yesterday Sarah finally felt like she was making some positive progress, and hoped to nail him today. Could her case have anything to do with the gunmen in the car? She shuddered: that was a scary thought.

Just then the police arrived at Wal-Mart, shaking Sarah from her thoughts. They of course knew she was a P. I., since she was licensed and registered. They asked about her case. She couldn’t talk about it because of client privacy privilege. However, she thought her client wouldn’t mind. After all, her goal was to expose the bum who left her. So she called and, as expected, her client let her talk.

The police were shocked when they heard who she was looking for. “Do you know who Robert Hernandez is?” they asked.

“No, just some bum,” Sarah answered.

“Ma’am, he’s not just some bum. We’ve been after him for a year. He’s in charge of racketeering in for the whole Antelope Valley. He runs numbers, controls book, even has a hand in the state lottery.”

Sarah was floored. She had no idea. No wonder these guys were after her! “Can you stop them?” she asked.

“We’re trying ma’am, but he is a slippery fish. We hope to have a case built in the next six to twelve months.”

“Six to twelve months! What about me, what about my family?” Sarah felt a shudder go through her.

“For now, we’ll give you protection. We’ll have an officer watch your place, at least for the next several days. We’ll see what happens. Meanwhile we suggest you back off, and hope it cools down.”

Sarah hated to back down on her case, but she saw the wisdom of their advice. Even if she did succeed in finding Robert Hernandez, what good would it do? Besides, the police were working on it.

Sarah and Justin were pretty shaken that night. They were in way over their heads and they knew it. They didn’t really know what to do, so they prayed. In fact, they prayed a lot. They prayed for safety, they prayed for wisdom. They even prayed that God would work in the hearts of Robert Hernandez and the men who had chased Sarah.

A week went by, with nothing happening. The police had to withdraw the protection: they couldn’t just keep a man there for months at a time. Sarah and Justin understood that and thanked them for their help.

Sarah didn’t sleep at all that night. So she spent most of the night praying. It wasn’t just that she was afraid, although she was still pretty shaken up. She just didn’t feel right. She didn’t feel it was safe to stay at home. But what could they do? They couldn’t just pull up and move, could they?

Then God gave Sarah an answer! She woke up Justin and told him the idea, and after shaking off the sleep, he liked it too. They could go to CBS! Campus by the Sea was their favorite vacation summer spot. Justin had just finished teaching for the year and was on summer break. They had some savings and were planning to spend a week there anyway. The Catalina Island camp was secluded and hard to reach since it had no roads in or out. It would be easy to spot an intruder even if they did find them, and call for help. Sarah and Justin together thanked God for his answer and prayed that he would work out the details.

In the morning Sarah called CBS. The camp director said they had just lost a staff family, who had to make a sudden move back to the mainland. This left them with an open cabin and in need of staff to work with children. Sarah and Justin had volunteered in the past, and the camp director said that if they were willing to come they could even be paid staff and would really help the camp out of a bind.

Sarah hung up singing and praising God!

She called the police and told them the idea, and they agreed it sounded good. They could arrange with LAPD to be on alert, ready to helicopter out in the unlikely event there was any trouble on the island.

Sarah and Justin were able to pack and leave that day. They reached the island safely and enjoyed a great summer.

During the summer the whole camp, as well as their church and many other Christian friends were praying for them. As the end of summer approached, they began to wonder about getting home. Just a week before they were due to leave, they got a phone call in the office. It was the police.

“Lady, I’m not sure you’re going to believe it. I’m not sure I believe what happened. You must lead a charmed life,” the officer on the phone said.

Sarah replied, “I don’t know about charmed, but I and my family and friends have been praying all summer.”

“Well, there must be a God in heaven then.” the officer answered. “Two days ago we were at the station, when Robert Hernandez walked in the front door! He said he’d become a Christian and wanted to confess and turn himself in! We practically fell off our seats! He also said he called off the contract on you. It’s safe to come home!”

Sarah leaped out of the office and practically floated up the hill. What a great God she served!

Back on the mainland, Sarah and Justin were able to visit Robert Hernandez and hear his story.

He said that since early summer strange things had been happening to him. He kept feeling weird. He had dreams and premonitions that his career would end soon. Since mob careers usually end in death, this really shook him up. Then, just a week before he walked into the police station, his right-hand man, and best friend, died in a freak accident. At the funeral, the preacher talked about heaven and hell and the need to believe in Christ. This upset Hernandez so much, that he went up afterward to the preacher and said, “Nobody talks to Robert Hernandez like that. I’m going to get you, preacher.”

The preacher just looked back and said, “Well, sir, I just speak for God, and I believe he has the right to talk to anyone like that, even you!”

This shook Hernandez up so much, he decided to go to that preacher and kill him that night. He found the preacher alone at church that evening. When he came, he brought a loaded gun with a silencer. But when he got there, and began talking, the preacher said to him, “Mr. Hernandez, God loves you and so do I.”

Right then, Hernandez saw his whole life, full of evil, and said, “How could anyone love me?”

The preacher explained how he himself was also evil, how God sent Jesus to die for all men, for all men are evil. Hernandez just broke down crying like a little child and prayed to receive Jesus.

After hearing his story, Sarah and Justin went away, once again praising God.

As they got ready for bed that night, Justin joked, “So Sarah, just another boring summer, huh?”

Sarah quipped back, “It was OK. It wasn’t too boring!”