Mind the Body

The absurd clairvoyance and imperviousness of adrenaline was starting to wear off and pain was creeping in through my body. My head started a slow throb, the rest of my body was slowly starting to burn. The old guy in the trunk probably felt worse, though.

Screw this, I thought, I've had enough. I wanted to go find a hole and go to sleep. The night was thick around me, insects buzzed around my ears. Two cars had merged into one, and two men were dead inside. My shirt was soaked in milk, both 2% and whole, everything smelled like paprika, it hurt to blink, I had no idea where I was, someone had tried to shoot me, my car was destroyed, and I had a gun in my hand. There's got to be a point where your brain just wishes your body good luck and powers down, but I apparently wasn't there yet.

I closed the trunk, wiped my prints off the lid. All I cared about was getting home, everything else -- the bodies, the auto carnage -- was just peripheral to that. The plastic shopping bag was still in the back of my used-to-be-a-car, under my canvas jacket. I slipped the jacket on and dropped the USP into the bag after flicking the safety. The airbags in the front seat were still inflated, so I fished the pocket knife I'd bought from the bag and took it from the box and wrapping, flicked it open, and punched a hole in the passenger side airbag. I took all the documents from the glove box and stuffed them too in the bag. I was ignoring Amy's questions, so she took a few steps back and sat down on the dirt road and wrapped her arms around her knees.

I used the knife to unscrew the license plate from my car. It wouldn't fit in the bag, so I slid it inside my belt under my jacket on my back. In my trunk was a small AAA emergency kit, from which I took a small package of first aid supplies and a handheld crank-powered LED flashlight. I appraised my car one last time, said a silent goodbye to my trusty ride of the past year, and started walking.

When I got my license shortly after my sixteenth birthday, my dad had bought me the car used from a friend of his' used car lot. It had a ton of miles on it and was in pretty cruddy shape, probably only cost five or six grand, but the Japanese safety record is what my dad was interested in for my first car. He gave it to me on condition that I not do anything to not deserve it, and said I should drive it until it falls apart or until I can buy myself another. Looks like both are the case now.

"Man, your car," Amy said as I pulled her to her feet. She nearly pulled me to the ground when my faulty muscles took the force, but I managed it.
"I can afford it," I said.

I hadn't told her about the guy in the trunk. He did pretty much verify that Mr. Pepper Spray wasn't a cop at all, and I liked the validation, but I didn't know how she'd handle the information of the sight. I squeezed the grip of the flashlight a few times, and a white light soon shot from the three bulbs at the end. I looked around for a bit, trying to find some landmark for baring, and started walking in the direction we'd come in the first place.

It took about an hour to get back to civilization, off the dirt road, past the lone house sunk behind trees, onto the main road, and to a gas station that was still open. My cellphone told me it was just after 11 when we'd hit the canopy of light and illuminated signs proclaiming the low prices of beer and cigarettes.

During the mostly-silent walk, I'd tried to imagine the information flow leading to me once somebody found the wreck. I took the license plate and all the papers that would lead to me, but there was still the VIN number. They could look that up and see that the car was last registered to Daniel Baker, deceased. It wouldn't take longer than a minute to connect that to me, since I'm at the same address. Casual glance might make it look like a genuine accident, that I'd just crashed into this police car that was split around a tree and blocking the road. Don't know how to explain my headlights being off, but teenage stupidity is better than vehicular homicide. Well, vehicular self-defense, but that would be hard to explain.

I decided I'd call the state police in the morning, that I'd figure out what I was going to say over the night and if I couldn't think of a way to not involve Amy, I'd let her know our version of the story before I contacted the police. I thought about calling a lawyer first, too. The guy who handled my dad's will seemed nice enough, but I had no idea if he was a regular lawyer or some specialized will-handling lawyer or what. Would I need a criminal defense attorney? Johnnie Cochran? What would I say? Do I tell him, or the police about the shooting range or buying a gun illegally? I didn't need to, since I never used the gun, but how would I explain being in Lorton? How would I explain any of it?

It just kept eating at me, between the throbs in my aching head and the shoots of pain from my feet up through my sore legs and seatbelt-bruised chest. Some guy killed a cop, took his clothes and car, then tried to -- what, kill me? If he wanted to kill me he wouldn't have used the pepper spray. Maybe he wanted to kidnap me, try to get my money. How would he know about the money? How would anybody, except the handful of bank tellers whose eyes always slowly widened as they eyed their computer screens after accessing my account. They'd go home from work that day and tell someone about the kid on a joint account with his mother that had over half a million dollars in it. They'd tell someone, and they'd tell someone. Then someone would hire some mercenary or something to follow and kidnap me? Does that make sense? If so, I would have to think about protection. If people know there's a lowly seventeen-year-old kid walking around the planet with a piece of plastic and a four-digit number between him and half a million bucks, I am in danger. My mom's name was on the account too, since I couldn't have my own bank account as a minor, so she could be in danger too. We'd have to move the money somewhere safer, maybe in bonds locked in a deposit box, or maybe in an account outside of the country. Swiss bank account. That sounds nice, but I'd probably have to wait a month until I turned 18 for that.

When we got to the gas station, I could finally stop thinking.

Since I was carrying a gun, and didn't feel like being party to any more adventure tonight, I handed the bag to Amy and asked if she could wait outside for a few minutes, then we could switch off. She nodded, took the bag, and leaned against the wall of the station's convenience store.

A heavyset guy only a few years older than me sat behind a thick bulletproof glass partition behind the counter. When I entered he looked at me, decided that I wasn't very interesting, and turned back to his portable television.

I grabbed a black cotton t-shirt with the gas station's logo printed across the front and "Driving Your Savings" printed between two cartoonish tires underneath it, then a box of extra-strength Motrin from one shelf, and some eye drops from the shelf across from it. From the refridgerated cabinet in the back I took two bottles of Gatorade and almost threw up when I saw the gallons of milk one door over. I paid for the items in cash, then went into the men's bathroom.

In the mirror was a person I didn't recognize. His hair was disheveled, his eyes were sullen and red. The skin around his eyes and nose was red and puffy. He looked like death incarnate. Not like me at all.

I took my coat off, then peeled the milk/sweat/tear-soaked shirt from my body and threw it in the trash can. I liked that shirt, but I figured I could afford to make my wardrobe disposable if I wanted to.

A dark and creepy bruise ran down my chest at an angle, where a seatbelt had gotten in a fistfight with inertia. It looked like I was wearing a messenger bag with a purpley-black strap. I opened the painkillers and took three with water from the sink, and then wrestled with the eyedrops for a while. I'm one of those people who doesn't like stuff in his eyes, so I tried to summon whatever stupidity allowed me to pour gallons of cow milk into my eyes so I could manage a few drops of saline.

I put the new shirt on, it was itchy and too big, then my jacket went over it. I tried to address my hair, then left to babysit the gun. I got to the door, stopped, turned around, went back to the bathroom and threw up.

When I was back outside and while Amy was inside, I looked through the phone book under a payphone for taxi services. There was one, which advertised itself as a 24 hour service with air-conditioned cars. Nobody uses taxis around here, I couldn't even remember seeing any taxis when I was in downtown DC. But I supposed there had to be at least one taxi service for any area, for situations just like this.

I smiled for a second, sure that this sort of thing happened all the time.