Reading · UNTET | HERED with Author Jessica Redmerski

**The following is part of my memoir. Please read this page for more information, as well as an easy-access list of each chapter.

Note: The images used in this chapter are placeholders until I can find the rest of my old photos.

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-7:21

“And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.”

Isaiah 30:21

Thirteen-year-old Jessica, officially a runaway in late 1988, sat in the truck bed of a stolen blue Chevy Silverado, a friend, Nikki, huddled next to her. Her heart banged against her ribcage and into the tips of her fingers, though it wasn’t fear that took hold of her that day in Greenville, Texas, but rebellious excitement.
Rob, another runaway friend, stood outside the truck, filling the gas tank. It had been a long drive all the way from Little Rock, Arkansas, and if they didn’t get this over with soon, they’d end up stranded on a Texas highway and never make it to San Francisco.
Jessica’s fingers tightened around Nikki’s when Rob placed the gas pump back and walked hurriedly around to the driver’s side. Jackie and Belinda, two more friends who waited impatiently inside the truck, motioned for Rob to hurry.
Rob jumped in, turned the key in the ignition, threw the truck into gear, and sped out of the parking lot, fishtailing as he rounded the corner onto the main road.
The chase was on.
Jessica felt her body lift from the hard metal, and she grabbed the side of the truck bed, holding on for dear life as they made their escape. Nikki screamed as she rolled from beside Jessica and hit the other side.
“Hold on!” Jessica called out to her, her fingers slipping from the metal.
More screams pierced the air as their truck crashed into another vehicle, and Jessica lost her grip; she rolled left and right, her head and back banging against the wheelhouse.
“Whoohoo!” Nikki shouted, trying to cover her fear with excitement.
After a few minutes, sirens wailed, but Jessica stayed low, lying flat against the metal. She couldn’t see how many cars chased them, but knew there had to be several—the owners of the store, the people from the accident, and now the Greenville police. She was shaken, but, like Nikki, she pretended to be on the wildest ride of her life. She cackled and hollered as the truck bounced, swerved, and fishtailed until finally it skidded to a dead stop, kicking up gravel and throwing her against the tailgate.
Seconds later, voices shouted at everybody to get out of the truck, and Jessica, dizzied from the dangerous ride, stumbled from the back of the truck, hands up behind her head and guns pointed at them, just like she’d always seen in the movies.
She spent the next seven days locked in a small, dingy room with one barred window at a juvenile detention center, wearing a bright orange jumpsuit, but not nearly enough regret.

I was the youngest of five friends who decided that day we wanted to go to San Francisco.

I left home without any possessions, and along with my friends, in the middle of the night, we stole a truck from the old man who’d let us hide out at his trailer. By the time we made it to Greenville, Texas, we were out of money, and the truck was nearly out of gas. So, what do rebellious, broke, runaway teenagers do when they don’t have money to pay for gas in a stolen truck?

They steal the gas, too. Back then, it was called “pump n’ jump”.

The first gas station we stole from was a big chain station, and we got away easily because no one chased us. But the second gas station was what southerners call a “mom n’ pop” store, and the last place you want to steal from is one of those, especially in the South—especially in Texas!

It wasn’t long after that when I heard the sirens as the police joined in the chase; they blocked us in on one street, and our wild ride was over. I was still alive and, surprisingly, never thrown from the truck, though I should have been.

Rob, Belinda, and Jackie, who were eighteen and nineteen, were taken to jail, and Nikki and I were hauled off to juvenile. Our little stunt even made the news and the local newspaper, so I was criminally famous for 1.2 seconds at such a young age.

Then, less than one year later, on October 17, 1989, a 6.9 earthquake hit the San Francisco Bay Area, killing sixty-seven people and causing more than five billion dollars in damage.

Of course, that might seem like a coincidence, and I’d probably believe it was nothing more, too, if a mind-blowing string of similar “coincidences” didn’t happen for years afterward.

Fast-forward to 1992, when I was sixteen. I tried to go to California again. This time, Los Angeles, on a Greyhound bus. It was just me and one friend—the same friend, Rob, who had been driving the stolen truck that day in 1988.

He had enough money to pay for two bus tickets, so we caught a cab to the Greyhound bus station in North Little Rock, Arkansas, bought our tickets, and sat down to wait for our bus to arrive. This was back in the day when people didn’t question or care about anyone underage catching a ride so far from home.

One hour passed. Two. Three.

The lady at the ticket counter told us the bus was having mechanical problems.

Yet another hour passed, and still no bus. By then, my friend had already changed his mind about going to California.

“Are you sure you want to go?” he asked me. “It’s a long way by yourself.”

“Yeah. I want to go,” I told him.

“Well, all right,” he said. “I hope you make it.”

He left, and I sat there and waited for that bus, but it never came. I left the bus station that night, and I can’t recall where I went, or even where I was living at the time.

Then, just a few months later, on April 29, 1992, four Los Angeles police officers were acquitted of the savage beating of Rodney King, and the famous Los Angeles riots ensued. Sixty-four people died, and over two thousand were injured.

As if the third time was supposed to be a charm, or something superstitious like that, I tried yet again to go to California at the age of sixteen.

Oh, this one is a doozy, so prepare yourself.