The first bullet screamed past my head and smashed into the wooden barn behind me. The second ricocheted, fwinnnnng! off a steel gate post. I was vulnerable — an easy target — perched on a ladder smearing some sort of glue stuff on our travel trailer's roof. Nowhere to hide, no time to duck. I vaulted off the ladder…and remembered, too late, it was the 10-footer. I hit the ground so hard I nearly bit my tongue in half.
Damned drunk-ass neighbor. Again. I heard Garry's psycho laughter as he drove slowly away, waving his little pistol from his big truck's window.
I got up and limped into the house to find Doc, wide-eyed, in the kitchen.
“I heard shots! Was that Garry? Are you all right?” Doc looked ready to hit the deck herself.
I nodded. “’ould you caw uh sheriff, peas?” Blood dribbled down my chin.
“Oh my God! You're bleeding! What happened? Are you hit!”
“I bi’ my tongue – ow! Caw uh sheriff.”
“But Garry will hear us!”
I was so mad I decided I didn't care that Garry had our phones tapped. He also had bugs in our house, knew every keystroke we made on the Internet and — ick — probably had a camera hidden somewhere as well. Pig.
My hands balled into goopy fists. “Jus’ caw.”
Garry was once our good friend. We did the Sunday morning crossword puzzle together. He took care of our critters when we were away. That all changed when he snuck up from behind and groped me at his annual New Year’s Eve party when his wife wasn't looking. I would have decked him but we hadn't eaten yet. That boob-mauling ended our friendship.
Years earlier Doc and I rented a lovely old farmhouse on a 30 acre vineyard next to Garry's farm. When Garry's father-in-law, our landlord Giuseppi, was diagnosed with multiple myeloma things went from awkward to ugly. Giuseppi drew up a lease for us to try and protect “our” vineyard. Garry found out Giuseppi planned to will the farm to us and decided he would stop at nothing to ensure he got our 30-acre vineyard. At any cost.
Garry made it his life's work to get rid of us — any way possible.
Garry had no worries. His wife was a former sheriff deputy. Maggie made all Garry's boo-boos go away. The sheriff’s department took no interest in our dilemma and the dispatcher refused to make a report after Garry shot at me.
Garry did hear the phone call that day and, boy, did he take an interest.
He retaliated. In the months that followed our house was burglarized, our dogs beaten, one cat maimed. He sicced pit bulls on us and stalked us until we felt like a couple of bull’s-eyes.
Then one day an old Eric Burdon and the Animals song popped into my head: "We gotta get out of this place, if it's the last thing we ever do. We gotta get out of this place. Girl, there’s a better life for me and you…." And I thought, Why the heck not?
Staying on the farm would mean “buying the farm” if Garry had anything to say about it. Doc and I would end up – literally – just another headline, another victim of a “Oh, he wouldn't’t hurt a fly” cold-blooded greedy murderer.
I knew how much the farm — and Giuseppi — meant to Doc, but soon I worked up the courage to ask her, “Babe, what do you think about taking the RV and getting out of here? I mean, yeah, I want this land, too, but we’re all miserable. What do you think? We could travel across the country and find some place where we really want to settle down.”
Doc leveled a glare at me and said, “How soon can we leave?”
We moved under cover of darkness, when we hoped Garry was passed out drunk. We piled our furry children into the trailer and ran for our lives.
So begins the Travels with Chris series: true adventure stories about the most unwilling RVers to ever hit the road. Doc and I, our dog Chris and three farm cats set sail in the world’s oldest toy hauler travel trailer; fleeing the farm from 30 acres into 30 feet.
Our travel hopes take us from California to Maryland and our dream is to find our utopia along the way; somewhere — please, God — where we can settle down and make a home and not be shot at anymore.
The route east holds nothing but questions: Will the big old trailer fit under overpasses? Where can we camp? How will we keep our critters safe? What if we break down? Can we do this without running out of money?
Come along — if you dare!
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