The Blackout

The streets are still slick and damp from last night’s rain. The gravelly pavement is spongy with water from the downpour that bombarded the city most of last week. Although the sky is tinged with ominous looking clouds in the distance, the day is tepid and surprisingly not cold or misty at all, which is a rare occurrence in this city, where it’s common to see fog rolling in around the Financial District or Fisherman’s Wharf, after a perfectly sunny morning. Eerily, the fog rolling in on such a beautiful day seems like a harbinger of ominous things to come and a symbol of my current circumstances.

There is hardly any wind but I feel a peculiar energy in the air; a humming, thrumming restlessness infecting the day. As I walk along the wharf, I look around at the people, who are mostly tourists, bustling past me with such purpose. I can tell they’re tourists by their colorful,” I Love SF” sweatshirts and jackets, most likely freshly bought from one of the many stands lining the wharf. Their fancy SLR-type cameras and frequent photo-ops in front of notable San Francisco attractions or vistas also are a tell-tale sign of their vacationer status. I seem to be the only person walking around aimlessly, and without purpose.

My disquietude is at such odds with the scene before me. I spy the squawking seagulls lazily soaring above Pier 39, scanning the rough, wooden pier for bits of leftover food. I turn to my right and see a tall, shapely woman in workout clothes, smiling down at her child as she waits to cross the street. I notice the child absorbing in everything going on around him, with a look of utter ease and cheerfulness on his angelic little face. I look towards the sky and notice the mistiness has begun to fade away and rays of sun are peeking through the clouds. For a few moments, I feel as light and carefree as the child in the stroller.

The lighthearted and carefree moment lasts only a couple of minutes before fading away as the bothersome energy rolls back in. The air becomes thick and is brimming with an impending sense of doom, or at the very least, something unfavorable. My hands start to get clammy; I notice my forehead is sweaty and my heart is racing. Should I be feeling this way? Is this normal? I’m yanked out of my reverie by the shrill, wailing sirens of a police car racing down the road, heading straight in my direction. I can’t help but wonder if they’re finally coming for me.

Six months ago, things were so much simpler in so many ways. I mean life is life and it has its challenges but never in a million years, did I expect or think that one situation could have such a huge impact on my life and in my demeanor. Everyone always tells me,”Oh, Henrietta, give it time, your memory will come back. You will see.” However, no matter how hard I try to remember that fateful morning, all I can retrieve from my subconscious are bits and pieces. The intensity and vividness of the memories increase with each attempt but my brain seems to be working against me, providing me with very few new details of the incident. Each recollection, though infrequent, is remembered with precision, almost as if the incident occurred but a couple days ago.

It was a typical, twilit San Francisco morning and the dark sky was beautiful in its own way, like a scene from a Caravaggio painting. As I jogged, I focused on the rhythmic, steady pace of my running shoes hitting the pavement and the melodious music coming from my AirPods. I followed my usual route, alternating between uphill and downhill, sprinting and jogging. I was nearing the part of my path where there were some overhanging bushes and vegetation partially hiding the entrance to a small alleyway. I stopped to change the song on my Apple Watch and catch a quick breather. Suddenly, I felt two strong, beefy arms wrap around me and pull me backwards, further into the alleyway. I began to struggle and that’s when things start to blur and I remember only flashes of what occurred. I can recall pain from my head being slammed against the pavement, bursts of sounds, screaming, scratching, and then darkness.

I wake up to the sound of birds chirping flowing in from my slightly open window. I feel the warmth of my comforter nestled all around me but as I begin to move around to change position, I begin to feel a jabbing pain on my neck and I notice that my head is throbbing. I touch my forehead and come away with what at first I believe is sweat but instead I find my hands adorned by little speckles of semi-sticky, half dried blood. All of a sudden, memories from earlier that morning, flood my mind: images of a husky male body crumpled on the floor, dark stain spreading beneath him, and a small, black leather book. I’m horrified at the thought of the recollection being more than just a bad dream or nightmare! As I get up and out of bed, I begin to see the bruises, cuts, and scrapes decorating my body but more surprising than that is the fact that I’ve recently showered and all my cuts, scrapes, and bruises have been tended to.

I’m jolted out of my memories and brought into the present by the sound of knocking on my apartment door. Even though I’m decent, I stumble across my bedroom looking for any regular street clothes to wear and the result is a hodgepodge of an outfit. My anxiety starts to kick in and I debate whether or not I should attempt to escape through my third-story apartment window in case my visitor has come to take me away and punish me. Just as I muster up enough courage to walk out of the bedroom and open the front door, I hear an ear-splitting crack and the sound of wood breaking and I realize that my front door has just been knocked down by a mysterious, tall stranger. Much to my chagrin he states,” Henrietta Davies? You need to come down to the station with me ma’am”.

As I sit in the cold, steel chair with my hands wrapped around a small Styrofoam cup filled with burnt coffee, I wonder if this tall, mysterious stranger is my bearer of bad news, and why I’m even sitting in this small, dingy interrogation room. Oh wait, why kid myself. I know exactly why I’m here. I only really wonder why I hadn’t found myself here sooner. The thin hands of the ordinary clock hanging on the unexceptional wall tick ever so slowly. Then I hear the click of the door close followed by the scrape of a chair, and suddenly I’m staring into the face of the tall, mysterious man who, earlier that day, barged into my apartment. Fixated on the five ‘o clock shadow dotting the man’s chin and upper lip, I fail to realize that his mouth is moving. Apparently, he’s saying something but I can’t hear anything but silence.

Lying atop a metal table is a recent copy of The Fog City Journal, the local newspaper, with a grisly crime scene photo and sketch of a woman adorning the front page, alongside the headline, ”Attacker Becomes Victim”. My attention is pulled towards the gruesome photo in the upper left hand corner of the front page. There’s a large pool of bright, red blood with multiple numbered markers placed in and around the large expanse of blood. The photo seems to have been taken around dusk; that time of the morning when the sun is starting to rise but can’t yet be seen because it’s obscured by hills or buildings. My eyes scroll down to the bottom right hand corner of the page and I see a sketch of a woman, apparently the woman sought by police due to some connection to the bloody crime. As I stare at the sketch, I realize the woman’s high cheekbones, layered bob, wide nose, and fuller bottom lip seem familiar. It dawns on me that the woman in the photo is me!

Horrified, I begin to scan the article on the front page of the newspaper to determine what details the authorities have linked to me. I scan through the article, “…man suspected of preying on joggers…found early morning in a side street… contusions to the sternum…died on the way to the hospital”. I start to get flashes of jogging and all the suppressed memories from that early morning attack begin to flood my mind. Slowly, I realize the crime I was involved in really is as the headline states “Attacker Becomes Victim”. I become nervous and fearful; wonder what will become of me now.

Abruptly, I hear his deep, baritone of a voice say, “Tell me the truth, and I can make it all go away.” I stiffen with fear and can feel my already frantically beating heart stop for just a millisecond. Then I hear a high-pitched, squeaky voice whisper, “I swear…Didn’t mean to…” Mr. tall and mysterious’ face turns an ugly shade of purple and veins in his neck begin to bulge as he roars, “TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED!” Before I realize it, the squeaky voice murmurs, “He was…already gone… when I came to”. The room begins to spin, blur, and suddenly, everything goes dark.

After coming to and surveying my surroundings, I realize that I fainted and I’m still in the same predicament as I was prior to fainting. Mr. Tall and Mysterious’ face is once again inches from my face and he’s breathing heavily with frustration. After about a minute, I finally reach my breaking point and I confess all my memories pertaining to the incident. I delve into the strangeness of waking up later that day and finding myself all bruised up and tended to, and of the mysterious small, black book I found that night. I don’t just stop there; the words are just flowing freely and I share my intense feelings of guilt about the fact I killed someone and how for the last six months it interfered drastically with my life. With every word I speak, a weight is lifted off my chest, and with every sentence I utter, I’m that much closer to feeling liberated and at peace, regardless of the outcome. I have nothing left to lose anymore; Mr. Tall and Mysterious knows everything now.

After I finish spilling my soul to Mr. Tall and Mysterious, he heaves himself onto the chair opposite me and sighs, “In my gut, I knew there was more to it. I just had a feeling a straight ace like you wouldn’t just snap without reason”. Mr. Tall and Mysterious then divulges that the attacker had quite a long record of crimes involving jogging women and many of those much worse than what happened to me. Apparently, I had enough sense that misty early morning to call 9-1-1 and report the situation that had occurred. Help was able to reach the attacker and he made it as far as the hospital parking lot before dying.

As it turns out, that small, black book contained incriminating details linking back to his past crimes and by turning it in to police, I helped solve and close many other crimes. Due to that fact and given it was self-defense; the officer informed me that I was not only off the hook but also a recipient of a $20,000 reward. As the officer accompanied me out of the station, he grinned at me and said,”What’s next?”. For the first time in a vey long while, I looked to the future with excitement and as a fresh start of sorts and replied, “Can’t wait to find out”.