Speed Trap (1) With San Antonio in his rear-view mirror, Charlie Weaver couldn’t have been a happier man on the planet. His wife, Laurel, sat beside him reading the latest Steele novel, not having said a word to him since they’d left her mother’s house this afternoon, and that was fine by Charlie. It was just over two hours back to Georgetown, and if Laurel didn’t want to talk to him about her mother’s judgmental behavior, then so be it, but he’d be damned if he was going to stand there and take it. The meddlesome bitch had done enough damage over the years, and it was about time –-high time-— someone put their foot down and put Mrs. Lincoln in her place. Charlie didn’t care that Laurel’s family owned a nice sweeping estate with 100 acres of land, or the 36-foot boat that Laurel’s father, Montie, couldn’t help but push into his face at any given opportunity. No, Charlie neither cared or gave a tin-shit about the wealth of the Lincolns’, but what he did care about was the amount (or lack thereof) of respect that the Lincolns’ gave him and Laurel. It was currently at an all time low, and Charlie had just had enough. They were traveling north on I-35, a 140 miles back to home as the crow flies, and Charlie had his Honda Accord at the posted speed limit of sixty. The afternoon had turned out beautiful for a trip home --not too hot but just right to have the windows down-— and that great Texas sky which seemed to stretch into eternity promising more of the same. Charlie lit a cigarette, knowing full well Laurel wouldn’t appreciate it, but at the same time not caring. Acres of sagebrush and dry grassland dotted I-35’s horizon, and nary a home or farm could be seen against its seemingly endless backdrop. Staring into the vast distance, a sudden chill ran down Charlie’s spine, the stark reality of just how isolated and desolate areas of Texas could be hitting him with a momentary surge of helplessness. A person stranded out here, he thought taking a slow drag of his cigarette, might as well be on the surface of the moon--traffic was next to nothing, not a car in sight for the last fifty miles. Charlie sighed, taking another puff of his cigarette, tendrils of gray smoke billowing from his nostrils. He thought about maybe trying to start up a conversation with Laurel, talk about something, anything, to pass the next few hours, but instead turned on the radio. An old Lynard Skynard tune was playing, and Charlie turned it up, his fingers already drumming out the beat on the steering wheel. A few more miles of Texas flatland passed into oblivion, when it was Laurel who finally broke the silence between them: “Could you turn that down?” she asked. Charlie knew she was uptight, the tension in her normally mellow voice like piano wire. Her mother had done a fine job on her this morning. “Sure can,” Charlie answered, his fingers already on the volume control, “but it’s a shame to turn down the classics. I love this song.” “Do you even know what you’re listening to, Charlie?” Her sarcasm was open and blatant, not to be missed by the naked ear. Charlie thought about it a moment, rubbing at the morning stubble on his chin. He’d heard the song a hundred times –-a thousand times-— and knew it was something about a man in a bar who had been kissing some floozy named Linda, but the actual name of the song, at least for the time being, was a complete mystery. “I know who I’m listening to,” Charlie answered diplomatically. “But I can’t remember the name of the song, can you?” Laurel closed her romance novel; her rose colored lips pressed tight, which Charlie knew all too well was a bad sign. A tornado was coming, but it wasn’t going to funnel down from the Texas sky, of that much he was certain. “I’m too tired for guessing games, Charlie,” she said. “Not after this morning. And I wish you’d put that cigarette out. You know damn well the smoke irritates my asthma and the smell clings to everything.” Well excuse the living hell out of me, Charlie thought, and was tempted to voice that exact sentiment when up ahead he saw another car. It was pulled over in the gravel and debris of the breakdown lane, but it wasn’t just any car, and Charlie identified it immediately: A Crown Victoria with a dark blue, almost black paint job. The hood, roof, and trunk were stark white, with an outline of the state of Texas pasted on the driver’s-side door. In the empty state were four words printed in bold black letters: TEXAS DEPARTMENT PUBLIC SAFETY. Great, he thought, just great. Any trooper sitting out in the middle of nowhere was just looking for someone to pull over, in Charlie’s unabashed opinion. Why should this cop prove any different? Checking his speed and making sure his seatbelt was secure, Charlie meant to tell Laurel to do the same, but Laurel was still talking. And by the tone and pace of her voice, Charlie knew she was bound and determined to have her say: “…I just don’t see why you can’t get along with my mother,” Laurel was saying. “It’s not like we see them all that often, and dad always enjoys our visits, until you and mother start up. Just last night I was telling...” But Charlie wasn’t listening anymore, Laurel’s voice nothing more than a buzzing in the back of his skull. It was a trick he’d learned (more of a necessity than a trick, really) over the twelve years that Laurel and him had been married. A safe room, per say, where Charlie could escape the woman’s sharp tongue –-eerily like her mother’s-- when Laurel began running off at the mouth. “Are you listening to me, Charlie?” Laurel demanded from the passenger seat. “Or did you zone out again like a friggin’ zombie like you always do when I’m trying to talk?” Charlie didn’t answer, but he did hold up one hand, pointing out the windshield to the road up ahead. Laurel hadn’t seen the trooper’s cruiser before, too intent on getting her point across to her husband, but she did now, and immediately checked her seatbelt. “Slow down!” she ordered. Charlie checked the Honda’s speedometer which was hovering just below sixty. “We’re not speeding, Laurel. Just check your seatbelt and calm down. You’re acting like we just robbed a bank!” “Slow down anyway!” Laurel cried. “You’ve been speeding for the last hour. Don’t think I haven’t noticed, either.” Charlie shook his head as they sped past the trooper, flicking his burnt cigarette out the window. Laurel didn’t want any butts (or ashes, for that matter) in the car’s ashtray. Charlie thought it was stupid, but never voiced it, afraid it would only cause more tension in their already strained relationship. He loved Laurel, he really did. From the first time they’d met as sophomores at Texas University, Charlie had been in love. Laurel’s high lilting laugh when she appreciated a joke, the curves of her hips that had fit Charlie’s hands as if God Himself had created her just for him. But Laurel wasn’t laughing much these days, Charlie had noticed. And if she was it was usually at him, not with him; laughter that was full of nothing but venom and scorn. A far cry from the laughter he remembered that had put magical stars of love and desire in Laurel’s penny brown eyes, when they’d first made love at a Ramada Inn across from the University’s campus. What’s happened to us? Charlie asked himself. Have we grown apart already after only twelve years of marriage? He had known she’d wanted children, and that they both had agreed to graduate from college before starting something as mystifying (if not terrifying) as an actual family. But was it his fault that… “Oh, no…” It was Laurel’s voice cutting into his thoughts. Charlie couldn’t help but think what now, followed immediately by a sharp pang of guilt. “What is it?” he asked. “If it’s anything about your mother, look, I…” But Laurel wasn’t looking in his direction. She was staring in the passenger’s rear-view mirror, her mouth open in a perfect “O” that matched only her wide eyes. “Pull over, Charlie,” she said in a surprisingly calm voice. “Pull over now.” “Why…?” Charlie checked the center rear-view mirror and understood perfectly what Laurel meant. The Texas trooper’s cruiser was behind them, no siren, its headlights wagging back-and-forth in perfect synchronicity with its spinning red, white, and blue flashers. Something like an air horn on steroids went off behind the Honda, and Charlie’s stomach dropped somewhere near where his asshole met his balls. “I wasn’t speeding, Laurel,” he spat out. “I don’t know why this asshole is pulling us over, but I wasn’t speeding.” “Just pull over, Charlie. See what he wants. Maybe it’s nothing big.” Nothing big? Charlie thought, pulling the Honda over to the side of the interstate. He’d yet to be pulled over by a state trooper for nothing big. Charlie looked in the rear-view mirror, again, the trooper slowing to a stop right behind him. He turned the Honda off and then put both hands on the steering wheel, something he’d heard from someone or another that you’re supposed to do when being pulled over by the police. Whether it was true or not, he had no idea, but better the devil you know than the devil you don’t. Charlie waited on the state trooper, Laurel oddly silent and staring straight ahead out into the Texas wilderness. The sound of a car door being slammed shut, and then the soft crunch of roadside gravel, as Charlie listened to the officer’s approach. Momentary panic seized him as he suddenly wondered where he’d put his driver’s license and the insurance papers. Why is it people always wait until their pulled over before checking this shit out? he thought frantically, and then almost cackled with laughter at the irony. Charlie turned to Laurel, her face expressionless and drawn in the warm afternoon sunlight. “I think I have my driver’s license somewhere in my wallet, hon’, but where’s the…” “Afternoon, sir,” a rich baritone voice greeted from outside Charlie’s window. “I need to see your license and proof of insurance, please.” Charlie stared up through the window as if God had just introduced Himself, and smiled. “Afternoon, officer,” Charlie replied. The trooper was no less than six foot three, towering over the compact Honda; his eyes hidden behind a pair of polarized shades, the Texas sun reflecting off them in sharp spears of light. The gold plated name-tag pinned on his barrel chest read: Chris Parker. “Just a minute, officer,” Charlie said in what he hoped was a calm voice. He began fumbling for his wallet in his back pocket, and turned to Laurel, who was already digging through the center console, rummaging through old napkins, breath mints, candy wrappers and an assortment of pens and pencils. Charlie opened his wallet, found his drivers license, and withdrew it one deft motion, handing it over to the state trooper. “Hope it’s not expired,” he chuckled nervously. Officer Parker held the license up in front of him. “Insurance?” he said tonelessly. “My wife is looking for that right now, sir. You know how it is. Laurel…?” “I found it!” Laurel suddenly exclaimed. She was waving a small piece of paper in front of Charlie’s face, until he had to grab her by the wrist and take it from her fingers. “Thanks,” he said, turning back to the trooper, “and here you go, sir. One proof of insurance. Can I ask why you stopped me? I don’t think I was speeding.” Charlie, in fact, knew he hadn’t been speeding, so it had to be something else. But what? Parker barely glanced at the insurance paper before handing it back to Charlie, when Charlie noticed something printed on the trooper’s upper forearm. It was a tattoo of a red cobra intertwined around a wicked looking black dagger. A small name was carved in the skin beneath it in blocky lettering: M A R K “Nice ink work there,” Charlie said. He noticed Laurel had gone back to staring out the window, but at least she was being quiet. “Thanks,” the trooper replied in the same dead voice. He hefted Charlie’s license as if testing its weight. “I need to go call this in, sir, wait right here.” He started back to the cruiser, but then turned around, and bent down beside the window so Charlie couldn’t help but smell the odor of rancid meat emanating from the officer’s mouth. Stifling the urge to gag, to vomit up the meager contents of the breakfast he’d had this morning all over the state trooper and the edge of I-35, Charlie only swallowed, and said, “Was there something else, officer?” Parker smiled, his square teeth –-the front tooth chipped-- a perfect yellow. “I’ll need your car keys, too, sir.” My car keys? Charlie thought bewildered. What the hell for? “May I ask why, officer?” he asked. “I don’t plan on going anywhere, that’s for sure.” Parker rose to his full height, a monolith dressed in a khaki uniform with a gold badge blocking out happy rays of fresh, Texas sunshine. “You have a problem with giving me your keys, Mr. Weaver?” It wasn’t a question, but a warning, and Charlie knew it. “No, no…I’ve just never had to give my keys up for a simple traffic stop, that’s all.” Reaching down, Charlie snatched the Honda’s keys out of the ignition and offered them to the trooper. Parker nodded and took the keys, touching the brim of his trooper’s hat. “Thank you, Mr. Weaver,” he said, “I’ll have you fine folks out of here as soon as possible.” And with that, Charlie was left in silence with Laurel beside him, watching the state trooper return to his blinking cruiser. A minute or two passed before Charlie looked over at Laurel. “So what do you think?” he asked, managing a wan smile. “Does this qualify as nothing big?” Laurel paused, a thoughtful look crossing her pretty features, and then said in a matter-of-fact voice, “I think we’re fucked, that’s what I think. A couple of mice caught in the claws of one very big cat.” Charlie shook his head –-trickles of icy fear leaking into his belly—- refusing to believe in Laurel’s portent words, secure in the knowledge that they had nothing to fear for they had done nothing wrong. It was a simple traffic stop, nothing more, probably a busted tail-light or some damned thing. Probably give me nothing but a warning, Charlie thought, and tell me to get it fix because next time I might not be so lucky. Cops always added that last line when they were letting you off the hook. Laurel was just overreacting, per usual. “I think you’re wrong, Laurel,” Charlie said. The trooper was still in his cruiser, apparently still calling him in. “We didn’t do anything wrong! Not even as much as a parking ticket.” When a thought hit him. “You don’t have any outstanding parking tickets, do you?” Laurel rolled her eyes, looking at him in disbelief. “You aren’t that stupid, Charlie, are you?” she asked. “No, I do not have any outstanding parking tickets, thank you for asking, and for your information, genius, a state trooper is not going to be running a check on you to see if you have any outstanding parking tickets. Jesus!” She gave a derisive snort as if to end the conversation, and then added: “And why the hell did you give him your car keys? Smooth move, doc!” Charlie felt his temper rising --boiling at a slow roll-- and fought to control it. He reminded himself, again, that he loved Laurel and knew they were having troubles, and that reaching across the seat to slap the ever-loving shit out of her would solve nothing. It would feel good, undoubtedly, but only add to their problems. Taking a cleansing breath, Charlie responded, “I had to, Laurel. Do you understand that? He’s a cop, a Texas state trooper, for Christ’s sake. If I hadn’t I’d probably be on the back of our trunk, spread-eagle, enjoying the sun and scenery with his hands around my nuts. If you had a better suggestion, then you should have spoke up.” Charlie turned away from her, sagging back into the Honda’s bucket seat. This argument was not only useless but entirely pointless, and Charlie knew it. Insane, is what it was. And when wasn’t it when he was trying to explain something to Laurel? It was a good question that deserved a good answer, but Charlie was clueless (as Laurel would have happily pointed out). “Mr. Weaver?” Charlie snapped his head to the left. The trooper was standing in front of his window, Charlie’s driver’s license in hand but minus the car keys. Charlie had never heard the trooper leave his cruiser, let alone walk up on him by surprise in broad daylight. The trooper was smiling. “Y…yes, officer?” “Everything checked out, sir,” Officer Parker said. “Here’s your driver’s license.” Charlie took his license with a cool rush of relief spreading throughout his chest. He’d never been so happy to see that ugly mug of a picture -–reddish-blonde hair tousled as if he’d been wrestling, gray-blue eyes set close the color of demon’s fire from the camera flash—- and slipped it happily back inside his wallet. Charlie looked up, his own reflection staring back in the mirrored eyes of the trooper, awaiting the keys to the Honda. But instead of handing over the keys, as Charlie expected, Parker bent over at the waist as before, his breath filling the cubicle of air within the Honda with its noxious odor. It reminded Charlie of cottage cheese gone black and clabbered milk; a smell he could only imagine finding in some third-world restaurant where stewed rat was served daily. “There is one minor problem, though, Mr. Weaver,” Parker said, still smiling. “Yes, sir?” “I’ll need you to step out of your car first, slowly, if you don’t mind.” Parker took a step backward, his fingertips resting lightly on the butt of his 9mm. He unsnapped the holster, waiting. “Don’t do it!” Laurel hissed beside him. “Find out why.” Charlie turned his head, hoping to God the trooper wouldn’t overhear them, “Are you crazy, Laurel?” he demanded in a hoarse whisper. “The man just told me to get out of the car. What am I supposed to do?” “Ask him why, Charlie.” Her voice had taken on a frightened, almost pleading tone. “Just ask him why. There’s no law against it.” Charlie thought about it --the gorilla dressed in a state trooper’s uniform just outside his window—- and decided that maybe Laurel was right this time. Sure they had their fair share of problems, and who didn’t, but he knew despite Laurel’s harsh tongue and condescending attitude, that she would never willingly lead him into serious trouble. Besides, they hadn’t done anything, right? Clearing his throat, Charlie leaned back through the open window. “Excuse me, officer,” he said, “but could you tell me why you need me to get out of the car when you’ve already told me that everything checked out? I mean, you have my keys, so I’m not going anywhere anyhow.” Parker looked up into the stern glare of the Texas sun, leaning his neck once to the left and then once to right as if listening to silent yoga instructions, Parker stepped forward placing both hands against the side of Charlie’s car. His smile had disappeared in the wind. “Are you refusing to leave your vehicle, Mr. Weaver?” he asked. “Is there a problem I should know about? You have drugs in there? Alcohol?” Charlie was already shaking his head vehemently in denial. “No, sir,” he answered a bit too quickly. “No, sir, I just wanted to know why you wanted me out of the car. You told us that everything checked out, and all I want is my car keys back so we can get back to Georgetown as soon as possible. My…my wife is feeling a little ill. Sh…she may be pregnant, we’re not sure, yet.” Parker nodded silently as if he understood. As if he’d heard the same story from a thousand other motorists, and that the stories always turned out to be ironically comparable. Funny thing that. “Do you even know why I pulled you over, Mr. Weaver?” Parker asked. Charlie shook his head, realizing he’d been doing nothing but shaking his head for the last twenty minutes. “The state of Texas has laws against littering, Mr. Weaver. And that cigarette butt you threw out your window a few miles back constitutes trash. That’s a two hundred dollar fine, sir.” Parker paused a moment, allowing Charlie the chance to defend or deny the accusation brought against him, when he didn’t, Parker resumed: “But seeing how your wife is sick and all, Mr. Weaver, I’m going to give you a choice in the matter.” Parker suddenly stopped and stuck his large head in the window pushing past Charlie in a sick wave of week old vomit. “Congratulations on the coming baby, ma’am!” he shouted. “That’s a hell of a thing! Boy or girl?” Laurel nearly screamed, shrinking back against her own window, but still able to offer the trooper a weak smile and an answer to Charlie’s lie. “It…it’s a boy, I…we think,” she muttered. “C…Could be a girl, too. We d…don’t know.”
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Copyright © 2009 Matthew Lett |