Day 36

Going back to grad school!  Probably.  Great.  Can't wait.  Those late night in the library I have not had in months.

Thirty six days!  My pacing is getting worse.  I better read through these one at a time. 

The bag of potato chips burst like shrapnel as Big Pete slammed down on both sides with a sumo slap.  Tommy’s older brother arched his head forward like a turtle going back into its shell, and turned round with a fist drawn and balled up.  Tommy got the brunt of it, a face full of spinach and sour cream chips.  The seasonings made his eyes water, because atleast according to him he wasn’t crying.

The car veered off the road and hung on the elbow for a minute.  Gregory was intent on his driving, whistling along with a mixtape of 1930s jazz he himself had made.  Big Pete was upset with the music, and more often than not was upset with something,   Gregory straightened the car out and ignored the fact that anything had happened.  Big Pete grabbed handfulls of chips out of Tommy’s lap before he caught a winding haymaker from Tommy’s Older Brother to the left solar plexus and caughed them out with the violence of the procedure formerly known as the Heimlich Manuever.

Blue lights flickered on and off with a blurt from a horn.  “Just fucking great.”  Gregory broke his silence as he pulled over onto the side of the road.  As he lowered the drivers side window an unholy gust of wind howled though the car, letting in the acrid smell of burning gunpowder.  Tommy’s Bro retrieved the entire content of the glove compartment and threw it into Gregory’s lap, who then rifled through the pile of papers producing the cars registration. 

The cop stood with his flashlight in his left hand on top of the car, leaning forward like he had drank too much himself.  “A bunch of kids,”  He said into his neck transmitter.  “Listen, sons.”  He spoke quietly, drowned out by the sounds of Tommy and Big Pete crying in the back seat.  “SONS!”  He boomed, and the car became quiet, with loud crying turning into gentle sobbing.

“Well, do you kids know what I’m pulling you over for?”  Officer O’Reilly started.  His bobbing state issued badge featured his name predominantly in the center.

“No, what seems to be the problem, officer?”  Asked Gregory with a prefunctory toothy grin.

“I don’t know what you’re so damned happy about.”  O’Reilly said.  Gregory turned to Tommy’s Older Brother for guidance, who was sitting upright and stiff like he was part of the chair.  Gregory looked to the back seat, sighing to himself about the heinous mess the two kids made out of the backseat.

“Alright, everyone is going to have to get out of the car,”  O’Reilly rolled his eyes and shook his head.  Gregory was wearing a ghost costume which looked more like a plain, no-frills white dress.  Tommy’s Older Brother had a Captain America outfit, complete with shield, Big Pete was (appropriately) a sumo wrestler, and Tommy had peed his pants.  Tommy appeared to be a man wearing overalls with a fake mousache, whatever that costume would entail.

“Are you boys on drugs?”  Inquired the police officer rhetorically.  He turned the attention of his flashlight into the back seat of the car as the boys formed a tight line parallel to the car.  “I was going to site you for a simple traffic violation, but now I’m not so sure.  Looks like you boys were having some sort of party in the back seat.” 

Tommy’s Older Brother punched Big Pete in the arm, and Big Pete flayed out, arms in front of him, and threw himself into the tall grass off the trail.  He disappeared from view, and the rustling of thickets and brush implied he hadn’t come to a complete stop.

A red corvette with the top down came whooshing past with a triumphant “FUCKING PIGS” and middle finger emerging with much bravado from its entrapment.  The boys snickered involuntarily, it was just something young boys couldn’t help but laugh at.

“You boys stay here.  I’ll be right back.”  O’Reilly puffed his face out, his features becoming rigid and stonelike. 

“Go get’em!”  Tommy’s Older Brother said with mock enthusiasm to the police car vanishing into the night, sirens filling the cold autumn air with purpose and intention. 

Gregory climbed back into the drivers seat and removed the keys from the car which was still running.  “So, do we take off, or do we stay?”  He asked to the rest of the gang.  The vote was unanimous to get out of there before the cop came back, but Tommy’s guilty conscience insisted that they locate Big Pete in the woods below.

“Where’s Pete?”  Tommy said.

“He’s gone into the woods,”  Tommy Older Brother laughed to himself.  “He deserves whatever he got.  I didn’t even hit him that hard.”

“Chaperoning a bunch of losers like you, of course it would turn out this way.”  Gregory said in an uncharacteristically cynical tone.  He was responding to the fact he had admitted to himself that they would have to go into the darkened woods and find Big Pete.

“You stay here with the car.”  Tommy’s Older Brother put a hand on Tommy’s shoulder.  The two older boys disappeared into the forest and Tommy went back into the car.  He used a brochure to sweep the chips off of the backseat and out onto the side of the road. 

The speedometer climbed to the 100 mark, as the gears shifted up and down.  Officer O’Reilly saw nothing ahead of him, no red corvette on the road.  He let out an exhausted sigh and swung the car around.  There were only two other officers working that night, he imagined them drinking beer and watching the game on the little TV at headquarters.  His little battery powered TV.  And he was stuck out here by the woods getting no respect from these no good kids.

The van was still there when O’Reilly returned, but as he got closer and noticed only one little head sitting in the center seat in the back he was furious. 

“They went into the woods,”  Tommy said as he leaned in through the front window.  “They’re out there looking for Big Pete.”