Both Feet on the Dash

I'm a dead man.

#

I just wanted to have a good time. Drink. Meet some girls. I was eighteen; still not old enough for hard liquor in Ohio in 1978.

I was the new kid in a semi rural town, the vague borderland between suburbia and farm country. It was okay, I knew a few people, but I didn't really belong there.

I knew some guys, they knew this other guy, Frank. Frank had a car. Frank said "Let's go, I know a bar..."

The bar turned out to be 21 and older, but they looked the other way and told me to behave myself. I sat on a bar-stool, got drunk, watched some Eight Ball, and behaved myself. There were girls, but I was too young, too broke, and too drunk. By the time we left I was exhausted from keeping myself upright on the bar-stool.

Despite my own state, it became obvious very quickly that something was not right with Frank. He was not the same the guy I'd come in with. As soon as he was behind the wheel I regretted being there. Before long I regretted ever having met him.

We had only about ten miles to go to get home. Not long after Frank turned onto the main road, flashing lights appeared behind us. I put my game face on and prepared for the inquisition. I was starting to dislike Frank.

And then he floored it.

#

My brain short-circuited.

#

#

It was several very long seconds before I had any kind of reaction. I couldn't have been more stunned had Frank turned into a leprechaun. I blurted out something like, are you out your fucking mind? but he was past the point coherent discourse.

We had picked up a second cop. Frank turned off the main road onto a side-road, where mailboxes stood sentry every fifty yards or so. Instinctively, I put my feet on the dashboard, (the board upon which one gets their brains dashed?) This was in the days before the TV show Cops. In my young mind, there was only one possible outcome to running from the police; getting shot. Jumping was out of the question; Frank had barely slowed down for that last turn. The only thing I could do was hold on.

Frank's car was an old sedan with a big engine, he had a good lead and he was holding on to it. The road began to wind left and right, and every time we went into a turn we'd loose sight of the cops, but the wailing of the sirens was right there. We went into a series of snake-like turns that seemed to go on forever, then abruptly ended at a T intersection. We could go left, or we could go right.

We did neither.

The blur of the stop sign in the corner of my eye was the last thing I saw.

The sedan shot through the intersection and we were airborne in darkness.

One-one-thousand.

Two-one-thousand.

Three-

and-

Cornfield.

#

The field was a good fifteen foot drop. The car plowed twenty, thirty, forty yards before the stalks finally stopped us. We bolted. The adrenalin kicked in and I ran like a wild animal. Though still scared, I experienced a primal exhilaration at being suddenly free and the master of my own fate, no longer a captive victim. Just when I hit full speed and was running like I'd never run before, Frank started yelling for me to come back.

The cops had come to the intersection, and one went left and the other went right. I stopped running and started back, though I don't know why; it was obvious the sedan wasn't coming out of that rut without a tow.

Then the cops returned and were shining floodlights down into the cut the sedan had made through the corn. It hadn't taken them long to figure out what had happened. At that point I took off running again, and this time there was no turning back.

Eventually the adrenalin wore off and the drunk took over again. I had miles to go to get home. I have a good sense of direction, and even drunk I had a pretty good idea where home should be. I drew a line in my head from there to where I was and started following it. I stayed off the roads and went though fields and woods and back yards. People tend to let their dogs run loose in the country, but I was lucky and didn't run into any, though I heard a few barking not too far off.

I don't remember many details about the hike. I remember being tired and miserable, and wanting to sleep. I remember feeling relieved when I finally did get there. I remember being proud of myself for making it in a straight shot and doing it before sunrise.

###

Later, I was made to tell the story to the guys I knew who knew Frank. I had momentary hero status for surviving Frank, (seems he was known for being a drunken ass,) and for making it home without getting caught.

A few days later it got around that the cops had caught Frank the day after the incident and arrested him. I was happy about that. Real happy.