almost like a siren. I had never noticed it before. That’s when I spied the cherries in my rearview mirror. “Shit!” I pulled my left foot down. It wasn’t illegal to drive with one foot up, was it?
I slowed the car, my heart racing, and pulled off on a flat spot. I squinched my eyes shut and tried to hide in my shoulders, hope hope hoping it wasn’t Gary Wohnt. We didn’t get along so well when he was a regular guy. Now that he had Jesus in his life, I was sure he was going to be that much crabbier.
When the cop car raced past, scaring up dust on the shoulder as it swerved around me, my head shot up like a turtle. I hadn’t been the target, and there was no one else on the road. I peeled out after the royal blue vehicle without thinking. A police car in full rush at seven a.m. on a Tuesday meant something terrible had happened, probably an accident or a fire. What if it was Mrs. Berns hurt, or Johnny Leeson’s poor mom, or even, I suppose, Kennie Rogers? I was better off being at the scene to help rather than growing gray hairs at work, worrying about my friends.
The Battle Lake police car had a good lead on me, but I could hear its sirens to the south as I hit Larry’s Grocery, so I turned right toward 210. I spotted the cop car zooming toward Clitherall, tractors, pickups, and minivans pulling off the road to let it through. I knew everyone who saw it race by had a freezy grip on their heart like mine, wondering if it was their neighbor, their husband or wife, their child that the police were going to try to save.
I was cruising seventy-five miles an hour, but as I crested the hill where I could turn left to enter Clitherall or right to go to Koep’s Korner, it became chillingly obvious there wasn’t anyone available to give me a ticket. A half a mile ahead of me, all three local police cars were turning north. I rode the brakes, recognizing the back road they were veering onto. Clitherall Car Wash, the locals called it, because it took a sharp turn that no one was ever prepared for, particularly a person leaving Bonnie & Clyde’s. To the east of the razor curve was a large swamp, complete with cattails and sludge, that had christened many a vehicle full of drunk teenagers, tipsy housewives, and beer-chugging farmers.
As I turned down the Clitherall Car Wash road, a heavy, salty-bitter taste formed in the back of my throat. Somebody was seriously hurt, and I was about to find out who. I flashed back to the night the police had called my mom and me in to identify my dad’s car. His body had been burned too severely for a visual identification, but it’s hard to significantly alter the appearance of a 1980 Cavalier. It was his car, bent like a Coke can under a giant’s fist, the stench of cooked flesh still strong on it. Somehow, the Paynesville driver’s ed instructor got his hands on the wrecked car and set it up as a permanent, “don’t drink and drive” display, one that I was forced to walk past to get to school my junior and senior years. Even though the interior had been power-washed, I still imagined that smell, was embarrassed by it, was certain all my classmates could also smell my dad roasting next to an open bottle of vodka.
I never wanted to witness something like that again, but I couldn’t stop myself. I numbly noted the brown and orange-trimmed fishing shack to the left, contrasting with the bright green swamp grass of the shoulder against wheat-brown cattails to the right. Then I registered a group of people standing in the ditch at a low point in the road, at the spot just before it shrieked left toward Bonnie & Clyde’s.
I parked a hundred feet away from the gathering. I slid out of my car, the sound of the door clicking shut behind me muffled in the oppressive air. I floated toward the police cars, hearing but not understanding the shrill buzz of a woman, weeping. No one noticed me as I rounded the police car closest to the group and walked down through the sand-sprayed
I slowed the car, my heart racing, and pulled off on a flat spot. I squinched my eyes shut and tried to hide in my shoulders, hope hope hoping it wasn’t Gary Wohnt. We didn’t get along so well when he was a regular guy. Now that he had Jesus in his life, I was sure he was going to be that much crabbier.
When the cop car raced past, scaring up dust on the shoulder as it swerved around me, my head shot up like a turtle. I hadn’t been the target, and there was no one else on the road. I peeled out after the royal blue vehicle without thinking. A police car in full rush at seven a.m. on a Tuesday meant something terrible had happened, probably an accident or a fire. What if it was Mrs. Berns hurt, or Johnny Leeson’s poor mom, or even, I suppose, Kennie Rogers? I was better off being at the scene to help rather than growing gray hairs at work, worrying about my friends.
The Battle Lake police car had a good lead on me, but I could hear its sirens to the south as I hit Larry’s Grocery, so I turned right toward 210. I spotted the cop car zooming toward Clitherall, tractors, pickups, and minivans pulling off the road to let it through. I knew everyone who saw it race by had a freezy grip on their heart like mine, wondering if it was their neighbor, their husband or wife, their child that the police were going to try to save.
I was cruising seventy-five miles an hour, but as I crested the hill where I could turn left to enter Clitherall or right to go to Koep’s Korner, it became chillingly obvious there wasn’t anyone available to give me a ticket. A half a mile ahead of me, all three local police cars were turning north. I rode the brakes, recognizing the back road they were veering onto. Clitherall Car Wash, the locals called it, because it took a sharp turn that no one was ever prepared for, particularly a person leaving Bonnie & Clyde’s. To the east of the razor curve was a large swamp, complete with cattails and sludge, that had christened many a vehicle full of drunk teenagers, tipsy housewives, and beer-chugging farmers.
As I turned down the Clitherall Car Wash road, a heavy, salty-bitter taste formed in the back of my throat. Somebody was seriously hurt, and I was about to find out who. I flashed back to the night the police had called my mom and me in to identify my dad’s car. His body had been burned too severely for a visual identification, but it’s hard to significantly alter the appearance of a 1980 Cavalier. It was his car, bent like a Coke can under a giant’s fist, the stench of cooked flesh still strong on it. Somehow, the Paynesville driver’s ed instructor got his hands on the wrecked car and set it up as a permanent, “don’t drink and drive” display, one that I was forced to walk past to get to school my junior and senior years. Even though the interior had been power-washed, I still imagined that smell, was embarrassed by it, was certain all my classmates could also smell my dad roasting next to an open bottle of vodka.
I never wanted to witness something like that again, but I couldn’t stop myself. I numbly noted the brown and orange-trimmed fishing shack to the left, contrasting with the bright green swamp grass of the shoulder against wheat-brown cattails to the right. Then I registered a group of people standing in the ditch at a low point in the road, at the spot just before it shrieked left toward Bonnie & Clyde’s.
I parked a hundred feet away from the gathering. I slid out of my car, the sound of the door clicking shut behind me muffled in the oppressive air. I floated toward the police cars, hearing but not understanding the shrill buzz of a woman, weeping. No one noticed me as I rounded the police car closest to the group and walked down through the sand-sprayed
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