63 Days

Fall 1986 - 2 years before Challenger

Mom and Dad took me over to the Jr. High School. It was 8th grade orientation and the school I was attending had just reopened after a year of asbestos clean-up and I could smell the new paint the second I walked through those heavy metal double doors.

WELCOME BRUINS!

The sign was blue and it was shiny, I remember. Other parents and students walked warily around, checking out the office, the round hallways that separated into pods that led off of every side of the main building like an octopus. The school was for 7th, 8th and 9th graders and I was glad to not be the youngest group of students this year. It sucks being the baby of the school.

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That night, as we all set our bedrolls up in areas designated for girls and boys to be separate, the counselors filled us in on what was happening with our journals from now on. We were informed that all of our entries were to be read and signed off by a staff member. Even our deep thoughts and fears would be critiqued, their eyes prying into even the smallest ideas of pain and rage, hate and love. Their reign was now part of every breath we took, each step we made, each thought we wrote down. Our bathroom breaks were now to be taken with another person and we had 5 minutes to complete them.

A staff member would come up and take us aside and read what we’d written, and they’d expertly correct any grammatical errors or misspellings we’d made. One particular entry that I wrote said “I don’t want to think about my parents. They still piss me off and I wish they’d just leave me alone” and one of the counselors came over and read mine and rewrote:

“I don’t want to talk about my parents COMMA because they still MAKE ME ANGRY and I WISHED THEY HAD leave me alone.”

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The next morning, all eyes were on me. The other students would stare at me out of the corner of their eyes, and I wondered what they were all thinking. I gathered my things to get ready for the hike when a tiny little brunette named Daisy came over to me.

“We’re not hiking today. We have to learn how to make a fire with sticks.” She backed away a few steps then turned around and scampered back to her things with her head down. I laughed to myself. These people were insane.

Murdock got us all gathered around in a circle as he pulled out a board, the size of a ruler.

“This…is a fireboard. You will each need to find a dry piece of wood later to make your fireboard. You’ll see in a moment why,” he said.

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I heard them before I saw them. A group of people were walking towards my camp and I could hear some shouting, a few orders being given out. I sat up quick and listened to what they were saying.

“When we get there! I’ll have her! Pack her pack! None of you move! I WANT! ALL! OF YOU! TO HOLD YOUR PLACES! THIS GIRL IS A RUNNER! SHE’S NOT YOUR FRIEND! SHE’S DANGEROUS AND IF I WERE YOU! I WOULDN’T GET MIXED UP WITH HER! GOT THAT?!?!? I SAID! GOT!!! THAT!!!”

I stood as quickly as I could, shoving my journals deep into the blanket as I rolled it up tightly ontop of the pancho. Folding it all in thirds, lengthwise, I started from the bottom and worked my way to the top and used the tiny rope they gave us to secure it closed. Then came the black thing that looked like a seatbelty kind of strap, and I made loopholes for my arms to go through, and pulled the pack onto my back, tying the slack of the black strap around my waist. Then, I hurriedly took it off and threw it in the corner as I gathered my rations and can.

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Solo was moving quickly. I began each morning with a stretch and a walk down to the small creek that was at the bottom of my hill. I knew people were watching me across the valley, in the hills, on the top of mountains…somewhere.

After Challenger and to this day, I will be at home or work or wherever, by myself, and I’ll still feel like I have an audience, 24 hours a day. I’ll be in my bedroom alone and think that there are people watching me. In my car, I think people can hear me talking to myself or singing along with the radio. I’ve never been alone since Challenger, I’m being watched 24/7 by an invisible audience. Call me ill, call me insane, but its my modus operandi. Its the only way I can live, to this day. I need to feel like I’m being watched.

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When I got home from Challenger in the summer, my family thought I looked radiant, I thought I looked like somebody else. I asked permission of my parents to do everything. Mother may I go to the bathroom? Mother may I open the refridgerator? Mother may I walk to the mailbox with you? They thought it was charming. I thought it was scary.

I layed in my bed the first night home…it was too soft. The ceiling was too low, and it had no stars. I felt safe and afraid at the same time. I didn’t fear the scorpions and it was too quiet, all this city noise was too quiet. I needed my own thoughts, tearing around in my head, reminding me that I was bad. Here in my bed, I was fresh, new, tortured inside. I was too clean but the process in which I’d been washed was so dirty. I was not unlike an infant, hating the bath. I had to get out, not to be naughty, but to sleep on the ground.

I crept outside to my backyard with one blanket and settled in on the sand and grass. This felt like me. This felt normal. I wasn’t deserving of a bed. I was dirty. I was an animal.

Morning slipped in quickly and the sound of the jeep shook my eyes to an awake state. I sat up fast and wondered if I’d slept in but the sun was barely creeping over the hills in the distance. The jeep rounded a corner in the distance, but not so far that I couldn’t see the driver. It was a woman. I wondered who she was. As she pulled up the hill to my camp, I got a look at her.

She was pretty, maybe 24, and she had big blue eyes and shoulder length brown hair. Her smile was huge and wide, her teeth white and clean. She stepped out and came over to me.

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Today, April 19. I am feeling great loss. I’m sad, I want to write the next part, but I can’t. I will tonight, tomorrow for sure.

The clouds outside the window look dark and full, but they aren’t raining. Don’t the birds know that I don’t want to hear them singing? The sun shines, trying to lift my spirits, but I’m not ready for that. I don’t want to think about Challenger today. I don’t want to hear the birds or the dogs down the street, barking at who knows what. Emotions run freely today, yesterday. I’m sorry. I keep you waiting for the next part. I read all of your comments, they help. The words of well wishes, they’re like hands, holding me up, every day, after I post my new chapters.

I’ll write more tonight, but this second, I’ve got to stop. I’m sorry.

The sizzle of water beginning to boil on the insides of an old charred peach can sounds like a swarm of gnats. The tiny buzzing almost roars in your head until you realize that its so loud because there isn’t another sound around you. Being from Las Vegas and Southern California, I’d heard background noise my whole life. Sometimes I even slept better if I had a fan on. Or a radio. You never notice how quiet the earth is until you’re out in it, away from people.

The sky was completely blue by now, and I was sitting around the fire, thinking about the bird I’d buried. It had been there watching me during the day, and I wondered when it had been shot. It certainly didn’t know to be afraid of humans. That is certain. Out here, everything should be afraid of humans.

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The sun was warm as I opened my eyes. The clouds were leaving to the east, and this the bluest sky I’d ever seen. Birds were chirping and I sat up to see what the wind had done to my little haven.

There were tracks in the sand. Footprints. They led from the entrance of the inlet all the way to the firepit, to the woodpile and all over the place. I saw that the tracks had come over to where I was sleeping, and then turned and walked away. Next to my pillow were some matches…matches and a note. It read:

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The evening crept in and with it came the cold. The wind that was blowing the storm away tore into my inlet, bouncing off of the back walls and circling around, digging deep into my bedroll. Sand whipped itself into every crack and crease, smoothing out footprints and filling in my firepit.

I pulled the blanket up over my head and listened to the howling it made as it danced with the old dead juniper at the entrance. Bushes and shrubs moved with it, sounding like great animals walking through leaves, and I had to check a few times that I was still alone, it was that loud outside.

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M&M’s taste like heaven when you’re looking at a bag of raw rice and oats. The candy shell peels off in tiny chips that hurt your jaw they’re so sweet. Chocolate is like heroin for a starving teenager, and I was the happiest damn junkie in the desert at that moment. I’d separated them into colors and piles behind the big rock. I looked around me suspiciously, knowing full well that the counselors might be watching my every move. I felt like a squirrel, hiding its summer and fall gatherings, preparing for the winter and cold that would leave the supply of goods scarce.

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I saw the jeep coming toward me before I could hear it. This made it worse I think, because silence can hold your fear to you and there’s nothing to distract it. I could make out two heads inside. I was sure one was Murdock, but who would the other one be? I got down from the rock and started to set things in order around the camp. I put my water bottle and other items in a neat pile under a little overhanging, I straightened my bedroll a little and tidied the woodpile I had yet to use. Something inside me was starting to panic.

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Day two of “solo” began with a start.

SNAP!

Something was in the brush around my camp. I listened carefully, but all I could hear was silence. Then it moved again. I slid down into my blanket even deeper and waited. Whatever it was, it was only about 20 feet from where I was laying and I couldn’t even move a muscle. Still, i sat, terrified.

It moved again, and I struggled to keep my body still. I held every breath in as I waited to hear the next move of whatever was out there.

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“So, what the heck am I going to do now?” I asked myself, outloud. The camp was a pretty good sized area, perhaps the size of a basketball court, but there was a 20 foot high wall of red rock that came around 3/4 of the place, kind of in a horseshoe shape. The big rock was maybe about as big as a Volkswagen Bug and it sat almost directly in the middle of the sandy inlet that would be my home for the next week. I climbed, barefoot to the top of it and stood up. Looking out through the opening that Murdock had just driven through, I could see Boulder Mountain in the background, covered in snow.

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The forum is up and running. Join up! I’d love to hear from you.

Thanks guys.

Alli

The jeep slowed to a crawl as we climbed up and down canyons. Bone dry natural washes served as our road, and as we rounded each bend I could see where the last flood level had been, marked on the wall with a white calcium line. The jeep was noisy, but not as noisy as the screaming in my head. We were out there, Murdock and I…alone.

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For Kady Wood:

Morning came and I realized that I was still in the hotel room. The curtains let only a sliver of light through, but it was shining directly on my face. I could smell the musty cigarette smell all around me, the scent of thousands of guests here at the Tropicana. The clock said 7:11, and I layed there for a moment wondering what day it was. It had been 3 days since the escape, and I was exhausted still, even after sleeping in a bed, under a roof, without the threat of animals…animals in human form.

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The back seat of the police car was cold, vinyl. Eddie sat next to me, his hands in front of him in handcuffs. I sat with my back against the seat and my hands were as well in handcuffs in front of me. He looked at me with fear.

“I’m sorry” I said. “I couldn’t let you do that for me. I did this to you. I’ll take care of all of this, I promise.”

He started to talk, then I saw tears in his eyes.

“I don’t care about me. I don’t want you to go back there. I was just-” he started.

“No…I know what you were doing. It’s ok. I don’t know what’s going to happen now anyway. I’m sure they’ll put us in Juvy.”

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I cried and cried when I saw his name on the business card. What were the odds of this happening? Different thoughts were going through my mind. Sometimes I’d feel relieved that we’d taken the Barnettes car because they knew my family, whom I missed. Other times I felt more guilt knowing that I’d hurt their family. I had kept my face hidden and my head down as we ran towards the car at that video store by my house, by Eddie’s house, by the Barnettes house. If I’d have looked at him, maybe I wouldn’t have gotten in, maybe I wouldn’t have let us all take that car! But, then we wouldn’t be here, at the lake, free from Challenger and the streets of Las Vegas that were surely looking for us by now.

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Liz, her sister Amelia and their best friend Brenda pulled into the parking lot of the Ramada and got out. They were in Salt Lake City, Utah for a conference for seminary teachers. Checking in was quick, and they were tired. It was around 8 oclock and they’d been driving for 6 hours. Showers, food and sleep were all they could think of at this point. Dragging their bags upstairs, they talked about how excited they were to go to the conference and how the lecturers were so amazing and such. The door opened to a room with 2 queen beds, and the sisters decided they’d share one and let Brenda have her own.

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Sleep came quickly. I slept sitting up, my head resting on the window, pillow on my lap. I was holding onto it tightly when I woke up, gripping it with white hands. Nobody else was in the car. I glanced out the window and saw the 3 other girls standing in the lake, kicking water at eachother, the wind tearing at their hair at 30 mph or more. They looked so calm…the wind making their hair flow sideways, pointing to the hills surrounding us. Their tshirts flapped violently and I could hear them being shaken by the wind in my head. The inside of the car was silent. All I could hear was my heartbeat. Eddie appeared from over the top of a hill, carrying with him a plastic grocery bag. As he approached, I noticed that my stomach was feeling a bit better.

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It’s funny how you can smell a friendly place even before you get there. I was sitting dizzy in the back of Kathy’s car and we were pulling up into her driveway when I smelled it. It smelled familiar, like her house, like the place I’d gone over to hang out and listen to music…talk about boys…do our hair. The scent of it was so overwhelming it brought me to tears. I leaned forward into my hands and wept.

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Cramps tore through my body as we made the slow 2 hour drive from St. George to Las Vegas. Natalie kept the driver happy by asking him questions about which button and knob did what in the cab of the semi-truck. He explained everything in detail, and as they yapped it up, I was pulling my hands apart, trying to ignore the pain.

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Every turn was making me sick. It wasn’t the constant back and forth as we turned this waaaaaay, then thaaaaat way…it was the paranoia that was creeping up the back of my neck just like the cold breeze coming from the rear window that was cracked. I’d peek into the darkness that was displayed in the sideview mirror just outside my door and I’d imagine a tiny light moving up ever so slowly behind us. I’d squint my eyes and try to focus on it, maybe even get it to disappear, and it would. I’d sigh and relax back into the seat for a moment before I’d sit up quickly, wide eyed, and stare at the darkness in that mirror again. First of all, if they’d heard us, they would have had to fix their tires. To fix their tires, they’d probably have had to call someone to help, and the phone line was cut. Then, even if a tow truck or help DID come, they thought we were going to head north, and we were most definately going south. South. Warmth…

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Sometimes I wonder if I should continue. Some have commented that this isn’t real, that this didn’t happen to me. It’s taken 16 years for me to speak, and even then, I am told that this “never happened”… All they’d have to do is Google Steve Cartisano. Jack said “it would have been a major news story”. Did he not read the Bryant Gumbel chapter? Did he not do the research before he told me I was a liar?

I look at the scars on my legs, feet…face. I know what happened. I read the nearly 100 journals and wonder how those can be false.

I can’t think now, I know this happened. I’m writing it. Who would try to tell me it didn’t. I can’t think.

Inside the cabin, the air was musty. A layer of dust coated the back of the couch that was covered by a Native American printed throw blanket made of scratchy looking wool. There was a small kitchen that was attached to the family room, and off of that was a hallway with a bathroom and 2 bedrooms. In each one were piles of shoes, clothes, various items that might have belonged to the other students that were still out in the field.

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The doctor’s office was as any other small town white coat’s office would be. Stale antiseptic spray hovering in the air around the fake greenery crammed into every spare corner and crease in the place. A woman sat behind the counter, a window drawn in front of her to protect her from…um…coyotes? We were in Escalante, population 610. I’m thinkin’ to myself that if someone was gonna rob this joint, they’d be known just from their scent before they got to the counter. Either way, Cody and another counselor told us to sit quietly in the waiting room chairs and that we were not to move a single inch. I was fine with this, I was under a roof at the moment, and I was savoring every single second of it.

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“What is this?” a kid asked Murdock as he tossed gallon ziplock bags at all of us. We were sitting on the ground, indian style, holding empty peach cans in our hands.

“Its rice. And here,” he said tossing another round of bags out at us, this with something else in it, “this one has oats in it.”

There could not have been more than an inch of rice and oats each in the bottom of each bag. Food was a commodity at this point, all of us already guarding the stash we’d just been given. I’d been so hungry the first 3 days, and when we got the peaches on the 4th day, a day early, thanks to Stephanie, we ate them so fast that we all got sick. Sick is something you don’t want to be when you’re in the wilderness with no toilet paper, let me tell you. I put my baggies into my bedroll and tied it all up and put it on my back. It was snowing and we had to go 16 miles today.

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Natalie and I sat down next to eachother on a rock, overlooking the slick rock basin. She and I had been cooking up a way out of this place, but first, we needed to figure out when.

“So, if you’re really wanting to make a big escape, we can just take out all the counselors and run like hell til we find people. I can definately hit a few with big rocks in their heads, crush them like grapes!”

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Morning came again, I watched the sun peek through the Ghost Bead trees that were sprouting out of the slick red rocks that surrounded our camp. Other kids were up, rolling their ponchos and blankets into neat bundles, tying them with the short rope they gave us, leaving loops for their arms, making a homemade pack. Stephanie was next to me, she was very still, and as I reached over to see if she was breathing wake her, she moaned a tiny bit and slowly her eyes opened. I realized that I’d been holding my breath, waiting for her to make some sort of sign of life.

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The third night we sat around the campfire, talking, listening to everyone else tell their stories. Jeff was there because he was a gang banger in Miami. He’d shot up a convenience store trying to pick off a guy who’d touched his sister’s ass. He was sentenced to the program. Stacy was there because she was an acid freak and because her parents said she was promiscuous. She was a quiet little hippie chick. I liked her. Jeremy was a boy who’d been sent to the program because his parents found out he’d been stealing money from his grandparents and buying weed. He was a chubby kid, and he had a really hard time keeping up with us. Stephanie, she was there because she was anorexic. She’d been handcuffed to the chair legs that were bolted to the floor in her parents motorhome and had been driven out by Challenger staff to Utah to be taught how to eat. Silly…rediculous! There were more of us, but I can’t remember their stories. Perhaps it will come to me later.

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I woke up the second morning outside, the first night out in the open air since the first night was in a teepee. This is what I saw. Peaceful, cold, silent. My prison was beautiful. My breath was taken away by the very thing that held me captive…it was an immediate love/hate relationship, this was. The relationship between master and servant, warden and prisoner, man and child. All around me was the reminder that even the most beautiful things in the world can lose their luster depending on when and in what circumstance you discover and view them. I look at these now and I see beauty, but the morning I took this, all I saw were the miles and miles between myself and well…myself.

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A boy named Jeremy emailed me today. He was there with us. He remembers. He’s still suffering:

2 divorces
can’t keep a job
bites his nails bloody
uses drugs
homeless at one point for 3 years
still can’t go camping

I’m blessed. I’m handling things a little better, I think.

“Hi, my name’s Natalie. I’m 16, how old are you” she said to me. She was about 5′10″, pretty damn big compared to my 5′3″ and she was fairly muscular. Her blonde hair was cut like a boy, and for a quick second, I wondered if she WAS a boy.

“Uh, we’re not supposed to talk” I whispered to her. “But yeah, I’m 15.”

She nodded at me and we kept filling out water bottle out of a stream that was running out from under a huge glacier of ice and snow. I’d never seen the desert mountains covered in feet of snow before, it was almost spooky.

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This next section was taken from both memory, and from the journals they let us keep…green steno pads.

Dreams fade fast when there’s a stranger yelling in your face.

“GET THE HELL UP! WAKE YOUR SORRY ASSES UP RIGHT NOOOOOOOW!!!!!”

My eyes popped open before I even knew that I was awake. Its interesting how you respond in panic when you’re in a dangerous situation. Its like some animal instinct or something, your body knows there’s trouble and it opens your eyes for you…fast.

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February 15, 1990; the day before:

Mom had just dropped me off in front of the High School, it was 7 am. I waited for her to go around the corner and pretended to walk across the street. As soon as she was out of sight, I walked back over to the church parking lot across the street and sat down on the grass with my book and waited for the boys.

The boys were Matt, Jon, Mike and Eddie. They were all best friends and I fit right in, for some reason. They said I made them laugh, and I secretly knew that they all had crushes on me, but I was only dating Eddie at the time. You know how boys always seem to fall for their friends who are girls. This was the situation here. They all liked me, so they protected me. I loved it. Interesting how I already found my self worth through the adoration and affection of “boys”…

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“You should probably eat something, girl” Cody said to me as we sat in a dark booth at the back of the Denny’s. He was a big man, stalky in build just like Horsehair, except that he had kind eyes. On the ride over to the restaurant, after we’d left my parents house, he sat next to me in the Jeep and looked at me with a strange expression of compassion while I cried…some kind of understanding between the two of us was there, I could feel it.

“I can’t eat” I mumbled.

“What? You really really should eat. You’re not going to get any food for 5 more days! Just eat Alli, you need to..” he started. Horsehair interrupted him with a slam of his fist on the table.

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“Wake up Alli”, I heard. Rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, I started to sit up in my bed and was caught mid motion by a face I didn’t know, peering down at me. His name was Horsehair, and he fit the part. His head was wrapped in a bandana, his facial hair trimmed short into a dark brown goatee. Sunglasses covered his eyes in black reflections of my room, and his neck was as big as my thigh. He spoke:

“We’re friends of your mom and dad’s. We’re taking you to a…” he was interrupted by my mother from across my bedroom. She continued “Alli, they’re taking you to a school in Utah for kids who have problems…like you. Just get up and put your shoes on.” I could now see her in the mirror, reflected back at me, her eyes rubbed red from crying, her hands wringing slow knots.

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