The lake bent to the north, and as the trail wound around, Jamie grabbed a flicker of hope. He saw a pale night light, perhaps no more than a hundred yards ahead, atop a pole at the foot of a dock. Trees blocked his view up the slope, but Jamie knew he was approaching the Hugginses’ closest neighbor. He remembered the house from his summer hikes.
“They’ll call 911, Coop. We’ll get help.” Jamie didn’t believe his own words. “We’ve gotten out of a mess before, Coop. We’ll do it again. Dude. Just hang with me.”
Jamie pressed onward, trying to block out the insanity behind him and focusing instead on the last great escape he and Michael made together.
“Remember that night, Coop?” He whispered. “Autry’s body shop?”
Jamie focused on the terrifying thrill of an adventure they experienced two days after Michael’s fourteenth birthday. In the middle of the night, they ducked as they raced between cars – some of them heaps of junk – behind the decades-old body shop on Coverdale Street.
“There it is.” Michael pointed to a 1979 brown Impala. “Just came in yesterday.” Michael kept track of the inventory as he walked past each day to and from school. The boys’ decision to become car thieves was easy, after countless plays of a video game called Grand Theft Auto and any movie with “fast” and “furious” in the title. On this first escapade, Jamie brought along a coat hanger. He claimed the driver’s seat.
Jamie removed the casing under the dashboard and spent five minutes trying to rearrange the wires. The engine kicked in on his fifth try. He placed his hands on the wheel, registered a deep sigh, and froze.
“So, uh, tell me something, dude. How do you drive a car?”
Michael busted out laughing. He couldn’t control himself and banged his head against the passenger window.
After Michael’s shorthand course – finger-pointing while referring to gears and pedals as “this here” or “that there” – Jamie shifted out of park, pressed his foot on the gas and rammed into the back-right corner of a 1985 Chevy pickup. Five minutes later, the Impala found its way to Highway 39.
After a half mile, Michael switched the headlights on.
Their first twenty miles, most of which they spent on unpaved back roads, were easy. They switched roles several times, experienced the joy of driving on the wrong side of the road, and concluded they would become outstanding car thieves. They ignored speed limit signs when they returned to Highway 39 - until they passed an Alabama state trooper. They knew they were in trouble the instant the trooper hit the brakes and swung about.
Michael made a simple plea. “Dude, this ain’t the way to start our career. Hit it.”
Jamie forced the car to give all it could. That was enough to top 90. Fear and exaltation fueled Jamie as he gripped the wheel with frozen hands.
Michael told Jamie they had to lose this trooper before reaching town, so he hatched a plan. With bulging eyes, Michael told Jamie to get ready to tap the brakes, surge around the bend coming up and be ready to make a hard left into Haley Watson’s cornfield.
Jamie’s exhilaration blocked out the blurry shapes whipping by on either side of the road. He rounded the bend, waited for Coop’s instructions, and turned the wheel hard. The Impala launched for a second, swerved as it slammed to the ground, and weaved across Haley Watson’s front yard. The boys screamed and whooped as Jamie regained control, spun out the car and hit the gas. He found Watson’s road to the back fields.
Jamie felt like any slew of good ol’ boys he’d seen on television escaping from a dumb Southern sheriff. Not bad for a 14-year-old, he thought. Not bad at all.
He took a hard right into the pea fields, swerved again and drove the Impala into a shallow ditch and left it there, idling. They took off on foot. Only when they left the farms behind and found themselves in Michael’s neighborhood less than two blocks from his house did they stop to gather their breath. They knocked fists and smiled.
“They’re gonna lock us up one day,” Jamie whispered.
“Gotta catch us first,” Michael said. They couldn’t stop laughing.
Jamie treasured that night. They were partners in everything since the day they met on the Alamander River, and Jamie refused to allow that partnership to die. He trudged onward lakeside, even as the gunfire stopped, not thinking of the possible carnage.
His lungs burned. He heard footsteps. Suddenly, Michael became much lighter, and Jamie’s knees stopped wobbling. He shined the flashlight across his friend’s chest.
Trails of tears fell from Sammie as she reinforced Michael.
“You were right,” she said, her lips trembling. “There’s nothing I could do.”
She held the pistol in her right hand, pointed to the ground. Jamie wanted to lash out, but her tears reminded him of someone he grew up with, someone fragile and loyal, sensitive and shy. She was his angel at the window three hours ago, and now she stood where he needed her.
“Jamie, I’m …”
“Don’t say a word. Just help me.”
They powered through the final distance. The neighbor’s house sat on a slope fifty yards above them. They saw no evidence of life from inside, only another pale nightlight beside the driveway, which was empty. They laid Michael down and searched their surroundings for options. The dockside light illuminated an outboard.
“Stay here,” Sammie said. “I’ll see if anyone’s home.”
The deadened look in her eyes told Jamie what he already assumed – they weren’t going to find help here. As Sammie disappeared around the side of the house, Jamie scanned the lake shore as far as he could see. The nearest lights were a quarter mile off. He turned the flashlight on Michael and placed his fingers
