Travel, Distress

Escaping Danger: A Spiritual Encounter in West Virginia

A chase, a church and a new chapter

At last, I saw a clearing next to the road where I could pull over and let the madman behind me pass. With flailing arms, he had been following me in a green sedan so old and damaged that, if later that day, the police asked me what the make of it was, I would not have been able to tell them.

With two wheels already off the road surface, I glanced back. I realized my pursuer did not want to pass me but was coming for me — following my tracks onto the shoulder of the road on the outskirts of the town I was leaving. An agitated, disheveled-looking man was driving so close that in the rearview mirror, I could see the foam in the corners of his contorted mouth, his face animated like a muted recording of a psychotic fiend.

I swung back onto the road surface, accelerating. The green car followed my every move, inches behind me, sometimes veering into the other lane, then back behind me. With lights flashing, the horn blowing, and a fist swinging outside the car, we left the town, heading for the open road.

Less than 20 minutes before, I entered this town, which looked like any other small, forgotten town in West Virginia, apart from the colossal police station with its fleet of shiny cruisers in the center, surrounded by houses in various stages of neglect and disrepair.

The route I drew on the paper map I took that morning made this one of the stops of my journey into a very remote area of West Virginia. I knew there would be no cellphone reception for miles on end, and to travel without paper maps would be asking to get irretrievably lost.

A few blocks away from the Police Depot, I noticed a house that appeared uninhabited with a blue, faded American Flag in the front, which, in 2021, was a sign that you supported the police following the historic protests after George Floyd’s death.

The house with the equally faded flag made for a good composition, and I took a photograph without getting out of the car. As I was pulling away, I heard a man yelling, which I presumed was at me for taking the picture. Always ready for a conversation with strangers, I stopped to look around, perfectly willing to delete the photograph if needed but also to find out what makes someone such a staunch police supporter in a town that already looked like a Gulag.

Nobody appeared, and I drove off, making a few more leisurely turns through the town before leaving for my next stop.

My pursuant continued to drive inches away from me, continuing to swing into the oncoming lane, at times right next to me but never passing me. I couldn’t figure out if this was because of the winding road and his inability to see oncoming traffic or an attempt to get me to drive faster and faster. Faster and faster until the police pulled me over to then, as a “friend” of the police, feed them a tale to get me in trouble. Or was it more sinister — to get me to speed up until I lost control of the car, getting me killed the way Lester Farley got rid of Coleman Silk?

I looked at my phone. The SOS sign where there usually are bars told me no 911 calls would be possible. The only other way to get to the police would have been to make a U-turn and drive back to the police compound in this man’s hometown, which was impossible with him inches from me. In the middle of a fight-or-flee reaction, I also felt the urge NOT to slow down while being pursued by a psychopath.

I am guilty of it myself, but there are times, in your comfortable chair, soft music playing, and with a cup of tea, when it is easy to write about your disdain for Spirituality in general and feel safe in your little cocoon of coziness and self-reliance. I will, however, unashamedly tell the reader that on that January morning, I fervently prayed to God to either let this savage behind me change his ways or send a cop car coming from the opposite way that I could somehow stop and seek protection from.

We were now 20 minutes into a medium-speed car chase simply because I could not drive faster on that winding road. I know that phones can still record GPS data even without cellphone reception. I started taking photographs and even videos of the chase, which is impossible when trying to keep a car on a winding country road. I thought perhaps my phone would be found after my murder, and the killer could be identified.

As we passed several rural houses and farms, I thought of a new plan: to drive onto someone’s property to ask for help if I saw any signs of life. I considered trying out a house with two cars in the driveway; indeed, there must be people in the house, but how long would it take them to get to the front door? Enough time for this hellion to kill me? I never saw anyone outside a house to set this plan in action.

According to the map, I realized we were about 5 miles from the T-junction of this road with one of the (busier) state Routes. I briefly interrupted my prayers to start thinking about a plan again. What if I had to stop for oncoming traffic? If I indeed came to a standstill, what would this lunatic do? Will he get out and attack me? Will he push me into the way of an oncoming 18-wheeler? Would he continue the pursuit into the nearby town I was heading for to get to where there were more people, and if not safety, then at least eyewitnesses?

But then we had company. I noticed the only other vehicle we encountered that morning on a relatively straight section of the road. Someone was driving down a country lane and coming to a standstill — waiting for us to pass. A car similar to the swerving jalopy with the indefatigable demon following me. I was going too fast to stop and ask this person for help without smashing into something. Also, we were close to the junction and wanted this potential eyewitness to catch up with us.

As if he read my mind, my pursuer suddenly slowed down, pulled over, and, in my rearview mirror, saw him make a U-turn back to where he came from. He disappeared behind the image of the newcomer now behind me, following me at a similarly uncomfortably short distance, indicating his desire to overtake me with brief excursions into the oncoming lane… Was this an accomplice? Did they make a devious plan to relieve each other in the time after I took a photograph and before he started his pursuit? I started praying again.

The road we were on appears to be a T-junction on the map. However, it splits into a type of Y, with traffic going in opposite directions, reaching the main road at separate locations, a short distance apart. As I took my part of the Y, planning not to stop, I noticed the other vehicle taking the opposite side. Before I could come to a standstill to let the waves of relief flow over me, thanking God for deliverance, he was already disappearing around a bend.

I will not bore the reader with my process of recovering from this, from driving back in a fog, with my feelings of anger and gratitude. Still, while driving, I saw the sign outside the First Missionary Church in Camden on Gauly, and when I read the message, I stopped to photograph it.

The small church to which this sign belonged reminded me of my complicated history with churches, of growing up in a Country where Apartheid was justified as gospel truth in the churches of my youth, of always being an outsider, merely tolerated in the American churches I went to, eventually giving up on trying to join those exclusive clubs.

Then it struck me that I may never find God in any one of these buildings, ever. Because, you see, He is not usually there — He is a Globetrotter.

A Globetrotter who is permanently traveling.

Traveling with you and with me.

My habit to look for messages outside churches was in part stimulated by Bob Mayer’s great article War Memorials and Church Signs — Searching for America.

I love Krasi Shapkarova’s (a fellow Globetrotter writer) article Chasing After Memories and Fall Colors, about travel in West Virginia which supports my notion that good travel is possible in this under-appreciated state.