Road Trip

by Dan Taylor

  “Yep,” I say.

  “Now hold on. Grace, is it? I need to know it’s okay with you, too.”

  Grace looks at me and I nod yes. Then she says, “If it’s okay with Jake, it’s okay with me.”

  “How romantic,” he says sincerely. “You two make quite the couple. Now, if you wouldn’t mind, it’s way past my bedtime. Jean, my wife, she’ll be worried sick.”

  “Okey dokey.”

  27.

  I remember the traditional wedding vows clearly, now, probably on account of my having googled them earlier in the day, and there isn’t one about sacrificing yourself for your bride, or vice versa. That strikes me as odd. Sure, you stick together when times are tough, mentioned in that bit about for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, which I always thought of as a given. But what about marital responsibilities when it really matters, when you inevitably fall victim to a serial killer when on a honeymoon road trip across these great states?

  Grace suggested we write our own vows before the ceremony, when we were drunk in some bar on TapTail mojitos. I put it down to the long-ago-mixed cocktails and never took her seriously. If I had, I wouldn’t have thought twice about writing in a bit about making the ultimate sacrifice, and I’m not talking about having children and the loss of most, if not all, of my free time and some of my disposable income. I wouldn’t have expected it from Grace, because I’m old school like that. But I would’ve said it and meant it.

  It’s this I think about as Officer Field walks us to the spot in the field that we’ll stand for the firing-squad-style execution, which just so happens to be opposite and twenty feet away where the scarecrow stands.

  “This place good with you guys?” he asks.

  “Looks as good as any to be shot, chief,” I say. “But what about your police car? It’s behind us, meaning you and the sheriff will end up shooting it up while shooting us.”

  He thinks a second. “Naw, me and the sheriff, we’re good shots, especially the sheriff.”

  “One of the bullets could go in and out, end up puncturing a tire or the part of the engine that contains the gas.”

  “The tank?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “You think so?”

  “We’re certainly wiry enough for that to be a good possibility. Ain’t much meat on these bones.”

  He looks at the biceps in my right arm. “I think you’re right. If you were fat, I’d have taken my chances. Be right back. You two don’t try to run, now. I’d just as soon shoot you in the back as you’re runnin’, like that German guy in that movie made by the guy with the large head and bad accents.”

  “Inglorious Basterds?”

  “That’s it.”

  “In the scene where Christoph Waltz tries to shoot the daughter of the French dairy farmer as she flees?”

  “Is that the one with the big tobacco pipe and glasses of milk?”

  “It is.”

  “Like that. Okay, I’ll go and move the car.”

  Grace and I stand silently as he goes over to the car and gets in, when he’s driving it away, Grace says, “Was that part of the plan, getting him to move the car?”

  “No, I just wanted more time to get myself ready.”

  “Smart. Do you think he suspects you’re going to try something?”

  “He keeps on telling us, if we try to escape, that he’ll shoot us, so I’d say there’s a good-to-strong chance he knows this thing isn’t going down as amicably as his demeanor suggests.”

  “Do you think that’ll make a difference?”

  “I sure hope not.”

  He’s parked the car behind the sheriff’s pickup truck and is walking towards us, so Grace and I end our conversation.

  He positions himself by the side of the scarecrow, about two feet away from it, and asks, “You guys ready?”

  “We are, but doesn’t the sheriff need a gun, to make this a firing squad?”

  “What do you mean? He’s unholstered his pistol and is more than ready.”

  “My bad.”

  He turns to the scarecrow. “You ready, Sheriff?”

  The scarecrow neither does nor says anything.

  And then Officer Field says, “Yep, I thought so.” And then to us, “Any last words before we do this?”

  “Ladies first,” I say.

  “What? I didn’t hear you.”

  I raise my voice. “I said, ‘Ladies first.’”

  “Oh. Grace?”

  Grace says, “I have no last words.”

  “And you, Jake?”

  “As a matter of fact I do, Officer. I’d just like to say…” I let my voice trail off and I bug out my eyes and look above and behind him, before I shout, “Behind you, chief! There’s a huge swarm of crows flying right towards you!”

  28.

  I’m pretty sure a bunch of crows flying in unison isn’t called a swarm. I think that’s for flying insects. Flock, is it? But that misuse of the word doesn’t stop my Kryptonite having the same effect. Officer Field turns around and looks up at the sky.

  When I was in junior high, I was one hell of a sprinter. I was a genetic freak; my legs grew way faster than my body, making me look like a baby giraffe. This meant I had a huge mechanical advantage over everyone in my grade and the lion’s share in the grade above when it came to sprinting. Of course, when I discovered marijuana and everyone else’s leg length caught up with my mine, I became a just-above-average sprinter. And now, as a man nearing his forties who only runs when trying to get to the liquor store before it closes, I’m less than stellar in that respect.

  But that shouldn’t matter. Officer Field and the scarecrow are only twenty feet away, and Officer Field didn’t draw his pistol before I distracted him, meaning, I reckon, if I can manage to sprint at the same rate when I’m handcuffed as I can when I sprint to buy another six pack before closing time, I’ll manage to get to where they’re standing before A) Officer Field realizes that not only is there not a swarm of crows heading his way, there isn’t a single one, B) he turns back to face me, realizing instantly he’s been tricked and draws his weapon, hopefully fumbling it a couple times before he can get a decent grip on it, and C) shoots me square in the chest as I’m running frantically towards him in the manner of a demented chicken.

  I set off, and realize straightaway that I’m not going to be able to cover the ground in the required time. The ground is muddy and I’m wearing decent dress shoes, which have little-to-no grip. It’s also much harder than I imagined running with my hands cuffed behind my back.

  But it turns out I overestimated Officer Field’s sense of awareness. Not only does he not realize he’s been tricked pretty much straightaway and then turn back around, he remains facing away from me, staring up at the sky, and says, “Jake, buddy! I can’t see them! Can you point them out to me?” despite my wearing handcuffs and my not being in his line of sight to point them out.

  This cockup affords me the extra couple seconds I need to charge the extra couple steps I need to get there. If I were to tackle Officer Field, there’s a good chance I could take him down to the ground, but he’d win in a wrestling match, make it up to his feet quickly, whereas I would not, and Grace and I would be back to square one. So I do the only logical thing, I tackle Sheriff Scarecrow instead.

  Just before I get to the scarecrow, Officer Field turns around, notices my running towards the scarecrow, and says, “Sheriff, shoot him!”

  The sheriff doesn’t, allowing me the opportunity to take him to the ground. My arms aren’t free, so I wrap my legs around him, and get a wad of his sheriff’s shirt in my teeth, securing him to my body. I then roll to my left, snapping the fortunately weak bit of wood that’s his right arm and then carry my momentum so I do a full turn, snapping the other bit of wood that’s his right arm.

  The idea is to recreate one of those scenes from the movies where two guys are wrestling on the floor, and the guy standing by them, who wants to shoot one of them, can’t do shit about it, as
he doesn’t have a clean shot.

  This involves rolling. Lots of it. Which turns out to be more difficult than I imagined with my hands cuffed.

  I roll a couple more turns to my left, away from Officer Field, and then go to town on the scarecrow: thrashing around like a crocodile trying to drown a wildebeest.

  I don’t know how realistic it looks, or how difficult it would be for Officer Field to just shoot me. All I know is that I’ve got a mouthful of hay, I’m pretty sure my ass squashed that old Happy Meal at some point in the process, and that rolling around on the ground is making me super dizzy and shit exhausted.

  Officer Field starts shouting advice to the sheriff, as though he’s his boxing coach working the corner: “Bite him back, Sheriff! Clock him with your pistol! Fight dirty! Do anything you can to get him off you!”

  I expect Grace to tackle Officer Field any second now, but I might have to play this out a little longer, and what he said gave me an idea. I act as though the sheriff is beating the shit out of me: I groan and cry out in pain, making out like I’m crying a little.

  “Good, Sheriff! Get that son of a—”

  Before he can finish, I hear a sickening thud come from where Officer Field is standing, to my left.

  And then Grace says, “You can stop now, Jake. I got him.”

  I stop rolling, and say, “Foo goff ‘im?”

  “And you can take the sheriff’s shirt out of your mouth.”

  I do and look up and to the right to see Grace sitting on Officer Field’s chest, who’s lying on his back, unmoving.

  “Jesus, you really nailed him,” I say. “Is he out cold?”

  “Yeah. Get over here and take his gun away from him before he comes to.”

  “Let me just use my face as arms so I can get up.”

  I work my way up first into a kneeling position, ungracefully pressing my face into the scarecrow, and then onto my feet, and then I go over to where Grace is sitting on Officer Field. I stand there a second taking in the scene, and then I say, “I’ll go get that pistol, then, so you can take your vagina away from his face.”

  “Are you jealous?” she asks.

  I totally am. “I’m totally not.”

  But I put it to the back of my mind and concentrate on the task at hand. I walk around to Officer Field’s legs and see his gun in his holster.

  Then I say, “I think I’m going to need to uncuff myself first. Any idea where he put the key?”

  “I think it’s in his pocket.”

  “His pant pocket?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let me just think a second how I’m going to do this.”

  Getting my handcuffs off involves lowering myself down into a sitting position next to Officer Field, fumbling in his pocket blindly, finding out it’s the wrong pocket, repeating the process for his other pocket after cussing a few times. I finally get the key out, get up into standing position, and walk over to his upper body, sitting myself down next to Grace, to whom I pass the key. She then cusses at me for not being able to stick out my arms enough so she can uncuff me without leaning over, potentially unpinning him. The last part of the process is three or four minutes of Grace blindly fumbling the key into the slot on my cuff. With mine off, getting Grace’s off is a doddle, which is as good a metaphor for our marriage I’ll ever think of.

  Now I’m standing two feet away from Officer Field’s unconscious body, pointing the pistol at him, wondering if ‘uncuff’ is even a recognized term.

  I ask Grace if it is.

  The adrenaline she must’ve been running on, along with the cocaine, must’ve worn off, because she says, “Jake, I need to get to hospital.”

  29.

  “What do you mean you can’t send an ambulance if you don’t know where we are?”

  “Think about it for a second, sir. I know you’re alarmed, but how can I dispatch an ambulance to you if the driver doesn’t know your location?” the ambulance dispatcher says. This is the third time she’s condescendingly explained this to me, but like any asshole who’s phoning up to get his shot wife an ambulance, I’m not too good at listening.

  I look around for any landmarks they might be able to use to locate us. Then I say, “There’s an usual-looking tree in the middle of this field, if that helps.”

  She sighs. “Okay, sir, describe the tree to me.”

  “It’s big… and it’s tall.”

  “You’re going to have to work with me here, sir.”

  “I am working with you.”

  I glance at Grace, whose pallor can only be described as ashy milk. Then I say to the dispatcher, “What about if I gave you our location in longitude and… what’s that other one, latitude?”

  “If you can give me GPS coordinates, that should do it.”

  “Oh, so you just thought of this now? Hang on a second. I’ve got to use an app on the same phone I’m talking to you on. Don’t go anywhere.”

  “I’ll be right here.”

  I start looking through the apps on my phone, searching for one that could provide the coordinates for our location. Then I come across Google Maps and realize what a panicky dumbass I’ve been. I pull it up, find out our location, and then relay it to the dispatcher.

  She says, “An ambulance is on its way, sir. Sit tight.”

  “Can you send a police officer, too? There’s a third party, whom we’ve arrested.”

  “I’ll do that. Can you put on your wife?”

  I’m still in belligerent mode, so I say, “What the hell do you want to talk to my wife for?”

  “Just put her on. I want to give her some advice.”

  Figuring it’s medical, I hold the phone to Grace’s ear. Then I say, “She wants to talk you.”

  “I kinda figured that with you pressing the phone up against my ear, but thanks, honey,” she says.

  I can’t hear what the dispatcher says; I only hear Grace say, “okay” a few times, and then she laughs, says, “No, I won’t forget that.” Silence a second. And then, “No, I think we’ll be okay until the ambulance arrives. Thanks for your help.” Grace turns to me, says, “She’s hung up.”

  I take the phone away from her ear and put it in my pocket.

  Then I say, “Did she give you any idea how long it’s going to be?”

  “About twenty minutes.”

  “Can’t they get here any faster?”

  “Just come and sit with me until they arrive.”

  I look at Officer Field, who I’ve handcuffed and put in a prone position, and who looks to be coming to. He’s says, “Is the sheriff okay?”

  “Hold on a second,” I say to Grace. “Let me just put a sock in his mouth.”

  I ignore Officer Field’s concern for the sheriff, especially the part where he said I should phone back up and get a second ambulance to come. I remove one of his shoes and then his sock. I then shove it into his mouth.

  I go over to Grace and sit by her, putting my arm around her shoulder.

  “Are you cold?” I ask. “Do you want my sweater?”

  “I already have it.”

  “Right. Then do you want my vest?”

  She shushes me.

  But I have a few questions before we sit in silence until the ambulance arrives. “What did she say to you, the dispatcher?”

  “She said not to panic, that it sounds like the bullet didn’t hit anything vital, if the lack of bleeding is anything to go by, and that I should just sit tight.”

  “Sit tight? What does she think we’re going to do, go for a jog before they get here?”

  Grace doesn’t say anything.

  I think of something. “What won’t you forget?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “On the phone, you said, ‘No, I won’t forget that.’”

  “I can’t remember. Is it important right now?”

  I look around at the field. And then say, “No, probably not.”

  We sit in silence a couple minutes. Grace in my arms, shivering a little, which has
me worried.

  “Grace,” I say.

  “What?”

  “They ask you about the cocaine in your blood, he forced you to take it.”

  “It’s not that far from the truth.”

  “Right.” I pause a second. Then say, “Grace?”

  “What?” A little annoyed.

  “I’m glad you’re going to be okay.”

  30.

  The ambulance arrives twenty or so minutes later. It pulls over a few feet from the field, something I guess is a safety protocol, just in case they got stuck in the mud. The paramedics get out and do this funny little run towards us. Not jogging, but not walking, either. Somewhere in between.

  Another protocol, I guess, just in case one of them fell over, twisted his ankle.

  They come up to us, look at us a second, and then the older-looking one, balding, says, “Are you Grace?”

  Before she can answer, he spots the pistol, which I forgot about. He looks at it a second, thinks about asking something, until I say, “It’s his.”

  He looks where I’m pointing. Then turns back to us, asks Grace, “Can you walk or should we go back and get the gurney?”

  “I think I can walk.”

  They help her up, as I stand there, not knowing what to do, Grace sucking in lungfuls of air, reassuring them that she’s okay, it just hurts like a son of a bitch. That’s verbatim. Grace doesn’t put airs on for anyone.

  They help her walk over to the ambulance and I follow behind, glancing every so often at the shithead behind me lying on the ground. Then they help her into the back of the ambulance.

  One of the paramedics gets in the back with her and the other jogs around to the ambulance’s cab, gets in.

  Grace sits on the gurney in the ambulance, and the paramedic who got in there with her takes the seat by the side of it.

  The paramedic says, “I need you to lie down, ma’am.”

  Grace ignores her, says to me, “I guess you have to be here until the police arrive?”

  “I guess. When they arrive, I’ll get one of the police officers to give me a lift to the hospital.” I smile. “By then, you should be eating ice cream.”