Chapter 4 #2
I’d learned more in prison than reading and writing.
Prison was a vault of half-baked wisdom, passed around like contraband.
Stories about crimes, tips of the trade, and other practical hacks for survival were swapped and passed from one inmate to the next like secret currency.
I wasn’t a criminal, so most of those didn’t interest me, but I did take to heart one unique tip from my cellmate, Clara, who’d told me about using gift cards as a banking workaround.
She’d used this to perform various scams, but it’d work for me too.
“Everybody sell ’em,” she said. “Walmart, Dollar General, Family Dollar. Buy a few different amounts, and you can use them just like credit cards. The good news is that your name ain’t on it. They can’t trace it.”
In a stall in the library’s bathroom, I separated out $150 for the Greyhound.
That left $132 for me to get to the bus stop in Anderson.
From here, the cost of a taxi would be too much, but I could walk the ten miles to Greenwood, breaking the journey in half, and take a taxi from Greenwood to Anderson.
I felt confident in my plan as I left the library and walked across the street to Family Dollar to purchase a gift card.
I searched the racks, but they were sold out of $150 gift cards.
Only the $100 and $200 ones remained. I sighed and calculated the amount on my fingers.
After I bought the bus ticket, instead of $132 dollars remaining in cash, I would have $82 dollars and another $50 on the gift card.
I preferred having cash over the gift card, but it came down to priorities over needs.
Yes, I needed to have money to eat. I needed to have money for a place to sleep.
But I mostly needed to get out of South Carolina.
I purchased the $200 gift card and walked back to the library, then slipped back into my seat at the computer.
The Greyhound bus website asked me to provide a name for the ticket.
My hands froze over the keyboard, anxiety creeping in.
Using Officer Madison’s name last night at the motel had been risky, but nothing compared to this larger danger.
A name scrawled in a ledger couldn’t be flagged, but using it electronically would surely raise alarms. Officer Madison’s name was not an option.
I needed a new name, one I would answer to without hesitation.
Daddy named me Leandra, after his mother.
“Leandra means lion,” he’d once explained.
“And that’s what you will be: a lion.” Years later, Leandra became the official name on my birth certificate and Social Security card and the name I used in prison.
But to Lila, I was always Leigh. It was her special name for me, the one I preferred.
To me, Leigh held the deepest significance, given to me by the person I loved the most. I’m sure if she could have spelled, Lila would have spelled her nickname for me L-e-a, but now, to mask my identity a little more, I typed Leigh into the first name field.
The common Smith went into the one for last names.
Still slightly uncertain about my decision but committed, I searched and wrote down walking instructions from Ninety Six to Greenwood and several taxi options for the journey to Anderson. Satisfied, I closed out of the computer and asked the librarian to help me print my ticket.
The walk to Greenwood sounded easy: Take Main Street out of Ninety Six to County Road, and continue along to U.S.
78. But there is nothing easy about walking in the South.
Southern hospitality, though kindhearted, meant people might stop to offer assistance, which I needed to avoid.
Once again, I chose to remain hidden in the woods bordering the road.
In this seclusion, I could move unnoticed and avoid the well-intentioned but unwanted attention that traveling along the roadside might bring.
As I walked, I continued to think about Lila.
She saw the world through color and made me take notice of it.
Every walk with her became a journey of discovery as she pointed out the subtle hues of each flower petal and the intricate patterns of leaves.
Lila’s love for flowers wasn’t just admiration; it was a deep connection that allowed her to appreciate the smallest details and find joy in the simplest blooms. Through her eyes, I learned to slow down, observe, and cherish the ever-changing canvas of the natural world.
Lila explored, much to Mama’s chagrin, especially when Lila returned home with cheeks smudged with dirt, nails lined with mud, and dresses torn by adventure.
Mama blamed me for it. “She’s going to be something,” she said, never clarifying what “something” might mean but making it clear that I wasn’t a candidate for it.
I was my father made over, the present version of him, the one she took her anger out on, and the one she leaned on to provide when he didn’t.
I cooked elaborate meals with what ingredients we had while Lila played.
I caught fish while Lila swam. Mama filled her days sleeping, listening to music, or teaching Lila how to style her hair or apply makeup.
Today’s walk was different from yesterday’s.
A disconnect crept across me. I was adrift in a world that once felt familiar and grounding.
The natural rhythm of the outdoors had slipped from me.
I found no peace being outside; it was a disorienting feeling, an untethering from what was once my sanctuary, the one place that had always accepted me.
Today, every step seemed like a struggle: I tripped over rocks, and even the dirt refused to yield, while gnats swarmed and bugs nipped at my ankles.
My body protested with every movement, muscles sore and strained; sweat beaded and trickled down my face, and every breath was a laborious effort.
I paused to catch my breath, my senses alive with the sounds of the forest. The air was thick with the scents of pine and damp earth.
I heard them before I saw them. A branch cracked.
And another one. Small footsteps. I gripped my stick tighter and listened.
The woods seemed to hold their breath; even the chirping of the birds faded into the background, leaving only the crunch of the steps.
Suddenly, two wild dogs emerged, their bodies a blur of rust and shadow.
They inched closer, low growls rumbling in their throats.
Wild dogs driven by instinct and hunger, their sinewy bodies coiled like springs.
My heart raced as I anticipated their next move, my eyes darting from one to the other as I slowly backed away.
But before I could turn, the black dog lunged, a flurry of teeth.
Go for the eyes, I remembered Daddy telling us.
I stepped back and stumbled over a dead log.
As I fell backward, I wildly swung the stick from left to right.
It hit the dog, and the other snapped at my foot.
I kicked my feet and kept swinging, adrenaline surging as I yelled.
The dogs stopped, then turned and darted back into the underbrush, leaving me breathless, bloodied, and shaken.
It had been a mistake to walk, to think I could be normal again.
How foolish of me to think I could return unchanged.
In my prison cell, my world was small, and I’d yearned to feel the wind on my face and walk on solid ground again.
Yet here, outside, I found no solace, no sense of belonging or home.
The loneliness engulfed me, suffocating me, like humidity, amplifying with every stride.
It angered me, this longing for something that had become estranged, the only anchor I had left. I had nothing, no one. Not one thing to call my own. I was alone in the world, the last of the Wildes, and rejected by the ground beneath my feet.
Though my mood had darkened, I again pushed down the feelings and stayed focused.
One measured step in front of the other.
I stopped a few times to relieve myself, clean the blood from the scratch I had gotten in the fall, and eat a can of tuna and a handful of Ritz Crackers, but I never lingered too long.
A few hours later, the trees along my route began to thin, giving way to growing sounds of traffic.
I had made it to Greenwood. Reluctantly, I stepped out of the tree line and walked along the sidewalk until a Walmart came into view.
Adjusting my hat lower on my head, I made my way inside.
Finding the bathroom, I sat on the cool toilet, resting my feet and enjoying the relief of air-conditioning.
I rolled a few loops of toilet paper around one hand and then tucked it into my bag.
Afterward, while I plotted out how to call a taxi, I freshened up at the sink, dabbing at my face with a wet paper towel and applying more deodorant.
I felt self-conscious in my Fourth of July shirt and hat, already bearing dirt stains from my fingertips and the fall.
At least I looked normal-disheveled, not the convicted-escaped-felon kind.
Leaving the bathroom, I spotted an employee and hustled toward him, impressing urgency in my voice. “Excuse me, my car broke down in the parking lot. Is there a phone I could use? I need to call a taxi.”
The worker twisted his lips. “Sorry, customers aren’t allowed to use our phones.”
I pulled the number out of my pocket. “Could you please call for me? I hate to ask, but I don’t know what else to do.”
“I’m sorry, it’s against store policy,” he replied curtly, walking away.
Before I could process what I should do, a soft voice piped up behind me. I turned to see an elderly woman beside a full shopping cart. “I remember when customer service used to matter,” she said. “You can use my phone.” With a kind smile, she retrieved it from her purse and handed it to me.