I take my foot off the gas and tap the brake. It works just fine. I scrub a couple mph off, down to about 90. There’s the lane shift. I tap again, again, blip the steering wheel left. Too much, I’m headed for the center divider. Tap, blip right to keep from slamming the divider, and shoot into the left lane too sharply. Orange traffic cones hammer off my right fender, and rocket, wheeling into the sky. I keep my feet off all pedals as the Monte Carlo scrapes past the five-hundred-yard gouge on my right where the tarmac has been carved away. I’m down to 70 by the time the road widens back out. I hear the siren behind me again.
The sheriff’s car is entering the construction lane. What the fuck am I doing? This isn’t a monster, it’s a car. I get back on the gas, pop into fourth, and the engine rumbles happily back up to 80. The last of the streetlights disappear behind me as our chase clears the town line. I see the next sign, the one that warns about the sharp turn up ahead that you should take at 30 mph.
It starts as a bend, swooping to the right between a fallow strawberry field and a windbreak of trees. I tap, tap, tap and get down to about 65 for the bend. Rubber screeches, but the tires stay firm on the road. Then I hit the hard angle of the turn. I can take it. This huge mother will stay on the road. I know it will.
There’s a little bump. It startles me, and I jerk the wheel a fraction to the left, overcorrect to the right, and the rear end slips and starts to carry me toward the trees. I dart the wheel into the skid, feel the tires grab, take it right, into the angle of the curve, lose traction again. And the road takes control.
The rear end spins around, I spin around, the trees reel in front of me, traveling from right to left a foot from the hood of the car, and disappear. Something crunches and jerks the car and bounces it back to the center of the road, spinning in the opposite direction now. I keep my hands clear of the wheel as it flings itself around, not wanting to break a wrist by trying to control it. I see the trees again, traveling left to right this time and much farther away. The car falls out from underneath me as it skitters off the road, then it jumps up to catch me, crashing into the field, still spinning, plowing the field into a storm of dust that screens me from the world as the Monte finally grinds to a halt.
In all the skidding and screeching and crashing, the radio has clicked on. I loll on rubber muscles, unable to move. My brain is a flat horizonless plain. I can sense, but not make sense of the siren screaming close by and the red and blue lights fluorescing the dust cloud outside the windows. Closer by, I recognize a voice. Yeah, that’s The Warrior, the late night DJ for 104.1. The Hawk. I loved that station when I was a kid. The siren stops, and through the blue and red haze, a shape starts to emerge. The deputy opens my door and points his gun at me. The Warrior stops talking and a song comes on the radio. Thin Lizzy. “The Boys Are Back in Town.”
THE DEPUTY seems to have been trained well. I mean, sure, maybe he should have ordered me out of the car before he ran over here and opened the door, but other than that I’d say he’s doing a pretty good job for a kid whose most serious calls are probably knife fights at local roadhouse bars.
He takes one look at my limp body and knows not to move me. Thank you. He talks to me, tells me to put my hands on the wheel where he can see them, but my hands seem way too far away to really have anything to do with me, so I just leave them in my lap. He talks some more and I don’t move some more so he keeps the gun pointed at me as he reaches in and pats me down for weapons. I have none because both Danny’s pistol and Wade’s revolver have banged around the inside of the car and are on the floor somewhere. I’m just grateful neither of them hit me in the head. Wait a second. Did one hit me in the head? I concentrate on how my head feels. It feels bad. Maybe one of the guns hit me on the head. Not that I really care. About anything.
Now he circles around to the passenger-side door. It grinds open. He looks in the glove compartment, finds nothing, feels under the seat and comes up with the pistol. He tucks that in his belt, folds the front seat down, and checks out the backseat. When he comes back to me, I can see he now has the revolver as well. Good for him. He asks me again if I can move and takes my immobility as an answer. Now, just for good measure, he tells me
The Monte Carlo’s engine ticks. The dust is fading now and I can see an outline of the deputy standing next to his car, watching me while he talks on his radio. My eyelids start to flutter and droop. I force them back open. Concussion. I most certainly have a concussion and need to stay awake. My eyes close. I hear an engine buzz up the road and stop, a couple doors opening and closing. Voices.
– You OK? Need help?
– Just stay up there on the road.
– What?
– Don’t walk in the tracks there.
– I said, do you need help?
– Stay out of the wheel marks!
– What?
– Just get back up on the road.
– Sorry, just trying to help.
– Get out of the tracks and get back up on the road.
– Yeah, sorry. Dude.
And a pop.
And another pop.
And another.
And feet scrunching through the dirt. And hands unbuckling my seat belt and pulling me from the car as a new song comes on the radio. Led Zeppelin: “When the Levee Breaks.” Now this is rock ’n’ roll. But I just can’t stay awake to enjoy it. So I don’t.
– WAKE HIM up.
– Huh?
– Don’t let him sleep.
Someone is shaking me.
– No go.
– Slap him.
SLAP!
– Dude, not so hard, just a little smack.
Smack.
– He’s out, dude.
– Try some water.
My head is tilted. Something is in my mouth, filling it.
– Choke! Cough! Choke!
– On his face, on his face!
– Dude, you come back here and try.
My eyes open.
– No, wait, he’s awake.
I’m on my back. Lights swirl above me. I’m moving. No, I’m on my back inside something that’s moving.
– You OK?
Something dark looms over me. Someone.
– Sid, take the wheel.
The someone disappears. I hear shuffling.
– Got the wheel?
– Yeah.
The moving thing lurches, then straightens out. Someone new looms.
– You OK?
There’s that question. Am I OK? Well, honestly, that’s just a little too deep for me to handle. So I don’t handle it.
– Are you hurt?
That’s much less ambiguous, I can handle that one.
– Yeah.
