Kevin in the Parking Lot

Anyone out there watch 24? My husband and I have been fans since the first season and pretty much haven’t missed an episode. This season is the first time I’ve gotten a really cool visual image for a spiritual reality, however: Kevin, the creepy boyfriend? partner in crime? stalker? from computer analyst Dana Walsh’s past.

If you aren’t a 24 watcher, here are the salient details. Dana Walsh is a computer analyst with CTU about to marry one of the star security operatives (Freddie Prinze, Jr). As he is sent out to deal with the crisis of the hour, she gets a call from this creepy dude, Kevin, demanding she come out and meet him. Little by little details are revealed. Seems Dana Walsh is not her real name, but her new one. That in her past she was involved with this Kevin loser in some sort of crime. Both went to jail. She got out early for good behavior and because she was a juvenile. She changed her name, her identity, left her past behind and now has a new, respectable, successful life.

Perhaps, given some of what I’ve written about lately, you see where this is going…

Kevin threatens to reveal all unless she does what he says. It will surely destroy her new life. At first she hangs up on him. But he keeps calling, and finally reveals he is out in the CTU parking lot and wants her to meet him there. She resists, he presses, and eventually out the door she goes to the parking lot to meet with Kevin. Next he convinces her to let him stay in her apartment, for the night, promising to leave the next day. Instead he calls her later and demands she come over… and on it goes.

Kevin is the perfect metaphor for the old man. He calls you up. “Hey, come and meet me in the parking lot.” He cajoles, he presses, he threatens, he won’t quit… You know it’s stupid, you know you can’t trust him, you know that this is only going to bring disaster, but … like Dana, you do it anyway.

My husband thought she was an idiot to have anything to do with the guy. I was wildly uncomfortable with it, too, but I have been made very aware of the power of fear and the resultant irrationality it produces and our capacity to deceive ourselves. Kevin is played by an actor who looks somewhat like Leonardo DiCaprio, and just looks very evil. I can’t stand him. I can’t stand that she’s doing what he wants, thinking he’s really going to go away. Finally he persuades her to help him get past security into a police storage unit where some impounded drug money — cash — has been stowed. He can take it and no one will ever know because it’s a cold case.

We all know that’s not going to be enough, but she believes him when he says it’s only this once.

So much like our old man. It cajoles, it threatens, it manipulates, it promises. We give into it, even when we know better. For me, the battles are almost all thoughts. I am astonished at how often I have to fight against it, and lately, with the teaching we’ve been having, I’ve become even more aware of all the ways it tries to slip in and take control. I’ve started thinking of Kevin, when it does. “He’s calling you from the parking lot,” I tell myself, “and you’re answering the phone. You’re going out to meet with him. Where do you think this is going to end?” Nowhere good.

It’s perfect. The visual image and the emotional revulsion I feel for what Dana lets him do, has lately been strong enough to break me out of the pattern. And after last week, when the whole carefully orchestrated plot was turned into a total mess far beyond what I even dreamed might happen, the metaphor got even better.

3 thoughts on “Kevin in the Parking Lot

  1. Kyle

    absolutely perfect reference!!!! Kevin really does freak me out and I keep screaming at the screen, “Don’t answer the phone!” Maybe now I’ll be able to scream at myself to do the same when the time comes.

    Reply
    1. karenhancock

      Thanks, Kyle. Glad you enjoyed the reference. And I think I just got a letter from you in my PO Box! I don’t check the box every day so sometimes it takes awhile. Thank you. I’ll try to reply before long.

      Reply
  2. Kyle

    Hi Karen,

    Yes the letter is from me. I hope it’s encouraging. I just read your latest entry about getting in the right mindset for writing. I think by realizing what you should do you’ve taken a giant step forward, and when God intervenes, He’s going to do some sort of mighty work! I’m excited.

    Have a great day

    Reply

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