“There are two guys in the car, about twenty-something,” Jack tells me, “and they're laughing. What a couple of freaks.”
And then it hits meâat 140 kilometers an hour. “Chase's dealers.”
Jack's head swivels to the front. He looks at me in alarm. “What do they want with you?”
“They probably think I'm Chase. They must have heard he got out.”
The Passat pulls into the lane next to us and comes alongside of me. I have just enough time to recognize Ratchet and DC before a siren suddenly sounds. It is so close it's like it has started up inside my head. In the rearview mirror, I spot the flash of the light on the roof of a police car coming up behind us.
“I don't believe this,” Jack slides down in his seat. “The cops.” The word comes out a little like a balloon losing its air.
As I begin to slow down to pull over, I am aware of the Passat taking off at lightning speed. The cops don't pursue them; instead, they follow me until I've come to a stop on the shoulder of the highway. Jack opens the door and starts to get out.
“Remain in your vehicle,” orders an amplified voice.
Jack pulls his leg back into the car like he's been bit by a snake. He slams the door. “What should we do?”
“Stay in the car like they said.”
“Why do they want us to do that?”
In the rearview mirror, I can see the two cops approaching the car. One is a graying, middle-aged guy, the other has a mustache and is younger by
about ten years. They each have a hand on their holster. “Because they think we're criminals.”
Jack groans as I roll down the window.
“Any idea how fast you were going?” the older cop who is on my side of the car asks.
“Some idea. Probably close to one twenty.”
“Try one forty-seven,” he replies. “Can I see your registration and license?”
I dig my license out of my wallet. “Don't go anywhere,” he says, waving the license in the air. He takes both documents back to his car while the cop with the mustache remains next to the Honda. Jack and I sweat it out for ten minutes until he returns. He speaks to his partner before speaking to us. “Out of the car,” he orders.
Jack and I get out. They have us put our hands on the roof of the car while they pat us down for weapons or drugs, I'm really not sure what. They then ask for the car keys, lock Dad's car and follow us back to their own vehicle where we are told to sit in the backseat. It turns out that Dad's car has seven outstanding parking violations. It also has been spotted in front of some well-known drug houses. Chase. Again. They are taking us to the police station to clear it up.
Jack and I both protest that we can't leave our guitars just lying out in the open in the backseat. The young guy looks at the old guy, who finally nods. At least we are able to convince him of this. We give up our jackets, and
the younger cop returns to the Honda where he throws them across the backseat.
“I am sooo screwed,” Jack whines on the drive to the station. He can't sit still. His knees are jiggling, and he cracks his knuckles like he always does when he gets nervous. “My parents will kill me when they hear how fast we were going. It's already like they're handing over the keys to Fort Knox when I ask them for the car.”
I feel a little sorry for him. He has only one sibling, a sister who is not even ten. He's never experienced the repercussions of living with a criminal like Chase. Although I can't say many of my friends have.
Once we arrive at the police station, we are asked to wait in a small room with a wobbly table and three straight-back chairs. After a twenty-minute delay, the two cops who picked us up saunter back into the room.
“Okay.” The older guy balances on the edge of the chair across from us. The other one stands behind him. “Let's try and get through this quickly. Why were you driving like you were in the Grand Prix?”
“We were being chased,” Jack immediately offers.
“By who?” the cop questioning us asks, although somehow I get the feeling he already knows.
“No, we weren't.” I knock Jack's knee under the table with my own. “I just wanted to see how fast the car would go. It was the first time my dad let me drive it.”
The cop frowns. He seems a little annoyed that we aren't in agreement. Jack looks at me with raised eyebrows.
I attempt a small chuckle. “He just doesn't want me to get in trouble from my parents. Right, Jack? My Dad can be kind of tough when he wants to be.”
Dad would certainly kill me, but I have no choice. I don't want him to know we were being hounded by Ratchet and DC. If they find out, I'll have to tell them about the money Chase owes. Thankfully, Jack clues in that something is up, and he doesn't say anything more.
The cops don't believe me, though. They saw the Passat take off. They had the license and they are fully aware of Ratchet and DC and their profession. The graying cop explains all this in a calm matter-of-fact voice, but in a way that also makes me feel like I'm just another lying kid who is stupid enough to think he's smarter than the cops. He says, “So, what we want to know is why they were chasing you. Are you dealers or users?”
It's almost funny the way Jack's mouth drops open. Although I do feel like a piece of scum just knowing that they would think we were either of those things. “Neither,” I tell them. “I told you, I was trying out the car. I have no idea who was in that other car or why they were speeding.”
“All right.” The cop pulls a pen out of his shirt pocket and begins to fill out a form. It's a speeding ticket. I owe two hundred dollars. “You can go this time. But I'm going to warn you that you should be a little more careful who you go driving with. You're really lucky those guys didn't run you off the road.”
Jack is allowed to go, but I have to wait for my parents to show up so Dad can deal with the parking tickets Chase has collected. Both Mom and Dad arrive with Chase in tow. One of them needs to drive Dad's car home and Chase, of course, can't be trusted to be left alone.
“Oh, Gordie,” Mom says. A faint trail of mascara stains her cheek. She looks so disappointed in me, I feel like the worst heel on the face of the earth. “Imagine how we felt when the police phoned and told us you were here. Haven't we had enough to deal with without this?”
“I'm sorry,” is all I can think of to say.
Dad speaks to the police officer at the front desk. He pays the fines. Mom drives home with Chase after she drops me and Dad off to collect the Honda. It's a miserable drive home, to say the least.
“What about trust, Gordie?” he says. “I thought that was at least something I could always count on with you. You broke that.”
“Yes,” I say, “I know. I just wanted to try it.”
“But one hundred and forty seven?” he fumes. “What if you'd lost control? You would have been killed. You have no idea how that would have absolutely killed your mother and me.”
I try to imagine what it would be like for them. They are already so fragile they probably would wither right up and blow away. “I'm sorry,” I say again.
“Well, it's obvious I am doing the right thing. Selling it. This car is too much of a responsibility for you anyway.”
Steve and Bobby are a little ticked off that we didn't show up for the practice, until they find out why; then they are both impressed and amazed. We get together later that night at Jack's house to listen to music.
“You were clocked going one hundred and forty-seven!” Steve repeats when I tell him. “I got up to one hundred and thirty once. But one hundred and forty-seven, that would take a lot of nerve. Weren't you scared you'd wipe out?”
“I didn't have time to think about it. Those idiots were right on our tail.”
Bobby is slumped back in an easy chair, spinning a drumstick. “What's it like being interrogated? Do the cops really put the screws to you the way they do on
TV
?”
“I don't know how other people are treated, but it wasn't as bad as all that,” says Jack. He grimaces. “They weren't as tough as my dad was, that's for sure. I'm not
allowed to drive his car for at least a month, and then it will be reviewed.”
“But Gordie was driving,” Steve points out.
“Yeah, which I told both my parents. They didn't seem to care. I was with him, so I must have been a part of it. I must have goaded him on or something.”
“Sorry,” I say.
“Ah, it's not you're fault. It's your doped-out brother's.”
There is nothing to deny, and nobody disagrees.
“Hey, did they throw you in the tank?” Steve asks. “I mean, while you were waiting for your parents to get there. Did you have to share a cell with a load of thugs?”
“We were speeding.” I drop a disc in the
CD
player. “We weren't suspected terrorists. Let's drop it, okay? I don't want to talk about it anymore.” I press Play.
Chase doesn't say anything about what happened until I am alone with him the next day. “See why you've got to help me?” he gripes. “I told youâthey'll kill me if they don't get paid.”
Instead of apologizing for Jack and me almost being run off the road, for the police hassling me and Dad coming down on me, he makes it sound like it's a problem I brought on myself.
“You know what? This is
your
problem, not mine.”
“Come on, Gordie. Just this one time, please? You know they don't fool around. If they don't kill me, they'll hurt me. Think what that would do to Mom.”
“Don't you use that on me.”
“Okay, okay. But I can't do anything until they're off my back.”
“I'm still thinking about it.”
Chase has been home for nearly two weeks. Payment to Ratchet is a week overdue. Mom and Dad are urging him to do something: enroll in school or apply for a jobâanything. It will help build his confidence, they tell him. But more importantly, it will look good when his preliminary hearing comes up. That's the procedure used to decide if there's enough evidence to go to trial. I really don't know how much more evidence is needed, considering he'd been caught red-handed with the broken bottle in his hand and Richard Cross lying at his feet. But it could be months before the lawyers have all the paperwork figured out.
The one thing I do have to give Chase credit for is staying clean for two weeks. Even if it is the fear factor of being mutilated by his dealers, it's worked. But I'm also not naïve enough to believe it will continue. I've seen what has happened in the past and I've heard the statistics. A drug cop who spoke at school told us meth-amphetamine users have less than an eight-percent chance of recovering. Those are pretty poor odds for
someone like Chase, who has no interest in cleaning up; even if he did, he has no perseverance. He's demonstrated that many times over the past year.
The first time Chase was picked up at a meth house and ordered to go to rehab, he was out in thirty days. When he came home he was right back at it within twelve hours. He'd told my parents he'd needed to borrow the car to pick up a few things.
“Like what?” Dad asked. There was no doubt by his tone that he didn't believe him.
But before he'd even had time to invent an excuse, Mom stepped in. She argued that they would eventually have to trust him again, so what was the harm in letting him take the car to the store. Reluctantly, Dad gave in.
Chase returned three days later; starving, stinking and ready to crash. Dad was furious. It was the first time I ever saw him blow upâI mean, really blow up. He was just hollering at Chase who was so amped-out he could barely keep his eyes open to listen to the rant. Dad did tell Chase that he would be out on the street if it happened again. A threat that I knew Mom would have difficulty letting him carry out.
As for Mom, she had gone nearly berserk in those three days. She'd driven around the seediest parts of the city, looking for him. She'd called all his old friends,
not realizing they'd dumped him months before when he got into meth. The only response she did get was from Harris's mother, who hadn't seen her own son in weeks.
When he got home after his three-day binge, Chase slept for two days. Finally he got up, showered and, once he'd eaten everything in the fridge, asked Mom for fifty dollars. “What for?” Her tone was unusually demanding. “Why should I trust you this time?”
“It's for school,” Chase persisted. “Look, Mom, I'm sorry I lost control. It was just a reaction to being cooped up in rehab for a month. But I know that I've got to change. Believe me, I am so thankful you guys have stuck by me through all of this. I don't know what would have happened to me if you hadn't. I need the money for the application fee for Outreach. If you want me to finish my diploma, I've got to apply.”
Moms' face softened. If Chase could get a diploma for being a manipulator he would have graduated a long time ago. She gave him the money along with a warning that she really should call the college and run it by Dad, but she didn't want to interrupt his teaching, so she wouldn't as long as Chase gave her his personal promise that he wouldn't take off.
He didn't take off, but he did come home at midnight, high. Mom and Dad were in bed, although it wasn't likely they'd been asleep. Chase had phoned
around eight to say he was going to a movie. Still, not until they heard him come through the door could they ever really relax.
“Say, what's up, Gordie?” Chase was flying. He plunked down on the end of my bed, grabbed a pen from my desk and began following the pattern on my comforter, over and over.
“Did you apply?”
“Huh?”
“To go back to school.”
Chase laughed. “Oh, yeah, I applied to the school of life. That's where I'm going. I'm thinking of sales. I think I could make a killing at it. You ever notice how I can talk anybody into anything? I'm a natural. With my looks and personality, nobody turns me down.”