My Name is Jonah Ross- 4

The morning after the fighting ring I woke up before dawn, feeling not even slightly hung over. I was a bit stiff, and I stretched as I made my way to the cab of the truck and started the engine up. A stray glance in the rearview mirror showed me something interesting- all the bruises were gone, and my split lip was barely a mark now. I’d always just  thought I didn’t bruise easily, but recent events were making me rethink that theory. I’d seen how beat up I’d looked the night before, but it was as if the whole thing had been a strange and violent dream, except for the healing mark in my lip and the money in my wallet. No point in hanging around and getting that noticed by the locals, I reasoned, and I left the truckstop town behind me. To this day I can’t even recall the name of the place, but it was the start of my illegal activities, a list that was to get much longer.

I traveled on for another few days in the same paranoid way, sleeping in the back of my truck on the side of the road. My thoughts kept cycling back to my family. Mom was the worrying sort of mother, and would be fussing over where I could be, and if I was alive and safe. Dad would be doing his best to calm her down, but he couldn’t answer the questions I knew I’d left them with. I didn’t know how much they had told my two younger sisters, or what they’d been permitted to tell my older sister and brother who both lived far away in Pennsylvania.

I’d been living at home before all this, eating Mom’s cooking and helping Dad with the chores when he was at home. I may have been a college student but I was never the kegger sort of student. That was more of a jock thing anyhow, and wrestling team notwithstanding I was never quite a part of that social circle. I was happy to live my student days still going home to Mom’s questions about my day, and playing with the little girls, walking our family’s dog, taking out the trash, going fishing with my Dad… I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d ever get back to that normal life again.  

At a gas station one morning I fished a few coins out of my pockets and dialed on the metal keypad of a graffiti-scribbled payphone. I waited for a long while as the call placed through, and then I heard a voice, touched with weariness and a hint of a Jersey accent.

“Hello? Who is this?”

“Mom, it’s me.”

“Jonah?? Jonah sweetie is that really you?? It’s been nearly a month- Where are you? Are you alright? What happened, we just turned around and you left-“

“Mom- Mom- I’m okay, I promise I’m safe but I can’t tell you where I am. I’d rather not get turned into a lab rat.”

“Jonah, promise me you won’t do anythi-“

And then there was a click, and the voice was definitely no longer Mom’s. It was male, and very annoyed.

“Jonah Ross? This is Agent Felix. I’m here to help you. I need you to tell me where you are.”

“….Why, so you can find me and start the testing? No thanks, pal.”

“Mister Ross, I don’t think you understand the situation. We haven’t been able to decide on a course of action without you physically present, but I assure you the medical testing will prove infinitely valuable to-“

“You tapped our phone. You tapped the private line of my parents’ home phone to get to me!”

“As a matter of fact, we did, Mister Ross. Please don’t make this difficult. Come on home and we can discuss this calmly and rationally.”

I was far from either emotion. “I don’t think so, Agent Felix. If you people were willing to tap our phone line, how am I supposed to know you don’t have my whole family hostage or something?”

“You just spoke with your mother, Mister Ross, and I can assure you we are not taking anyone ‘hostage’. Please turn yourself in so we can handle this like adults.”

“Turn myself in? For what? I’m a criminal now? No. No, I don’t think so. I still have a say in this, and I am not handing myself over. Thanks but no.” I slammed the phone into the cradle and stalked back to my truck.

If I went home now, I reasoned, people would be waiting for me. Not only my family, but people in suits, from the FBI, likely. This wasn’t the kind of thing the CIA was supposed to deal with. This Agent Felix person sounded like he meant business, but was trying to do this the official way. I wasn’t exactly a criminal they could call police forces on, but I was someone they wanted to track down.

If I went home, I was certain I’d be subjected to the many tests I’d heard doctors so eagerly discussing. Bone marrow transplants, spinal taps, and skin graft donations were not how I wanted to spend the rest of my days, especially not when I remembered how poorly I responded to anesthetics. Drifting in and out of consciousness  during spinal reconstruction was now the subject of my very worst nightmares, the kind that make you wake up sweating, then run for the toilet and puke from the fear roiling in your gut. I was not going to go back so I could be strapped on an operating table again.


I drove down the road with a lot of time to think. I was getting a little stir-crazy from not having anyone to talk to, and only my thoughts for company, for what had been roughly a month by that point. Talking to yourself has been called either healthy or very insane. I was sure it was a little bit of each, but I did it anyway.

“How long can we continue like this, huh, Ross? How badly do these doctors want us back? We’re getting a little crazy out here all by our lonesome, y’know. Listen, even talking to ourself. Selves. Well there’s only one of us, but I can’t hold a conversation with ‘I’, so plural forms it is.”
I took a drink from my water bottle and continued, if only to organize my thoughts. “We might be able to find another fight to get into someplace else. If they have illegal prizefighting in one place, I bet a lot of places have it. We can make a bit of money that way, enough for gas anyhow. It’s autumn now but winter’s coming on, so heading West instead of North would also be smart. I wonder how they’re searching for us. Would they be using helicopters to look for the truck? Police don’t seem to care just yet…”

I trailed off as a favorite song came on the radio, but when it was over I started up my monologue again. “We are important to them because we’re a medical anomaly. What is important, then, is how badly do they want us back. How far will they go. Why involve the FBI… Is there more going on here than medical curiosity? And how the hell would I know if there was?”

On that note, I left off my rambling and just listened to the rock and blues coming in over the crackling radio. Music had always helped to take my mind off trouble, and I certainly had plenty of trouble.