Second Run
The second time I got caught speeding, I was so close to my house, I didn't have time to think much. My mind had already leaped ahead to the rest of the day. I woke up to the trouble when I saw lights flash behind me in Darnestown. I had passed through the speed trap area fine, I'd thought. I'd relaxed. And I'd hit the gas while the speed limit exiting town was still thirty. Everyone did it. The long straightaway out of town had a higher speed limit going in, so the same strip of road allowed forty-five in one direction and thirty in the other, which everyone knew didn't make sense.
Of course, my parents had warned me the police were ticketing people doing exactly what I had just done. But still, I had acquired the habit of hitting the gas after the main intersection. I did it again.
As I climbed the hill where the speed limit was about to change, I reached fifty in the thirty zone. A police car crested the hill from the other side. The driver noticed my speed. He slowed and flicked on his light bar. I watched the bright blue flash in my rear view mirror. Then I topped the hill and dropped out of the officer's view.
If I got a ticket, that was probably the end of my driving. Or so I thought. (In retrospect, I question every bit of semi-thinking I did. I had no points on my license.)
This was when radar was new. Police had started using it everywhere. They flipped it on and the readout light brightened their faces. They measured trucks. They measured cars. They measured birds. This particular police car was probably returning from giving a ticket to someone like me, someone who had done precisely what I had. As I'd been warned.
In my mind, the likely ticket meant no more driving, so that raised the stakes. Living in the forest where I did, I couldn't go anywhere at all if I couldn't drive.
Part of my reaction was physical, too. In every difficult or dangerous situation, I tended to speed up. I wanted to get through the bad part as fast as possible, even if that meant acting before anyone was ready or slamming into everyone else at full speed. I leapt into fights to get hit, to be reassured I wouldn't have to wait. I got extra brash when trying to ask a girl out because I needed that. Taking my time was not an option. It was too painful.
Why not speed up a little and see if the cop car couldn't turn around? Maybe I would get out of sight before he could get on my trail.
I crested the next hill. No car in sight behind me. Good. In the next valley, which was a few hundred feet of flat road, I sped up.
On the next hill, I glanced back. Unfortunately, I could see a police car.
The car didn't have its siren on. Or at least, I couldn't hear it. The lights didn't whirl red, white, and blue. The light bar on top remained a steady bluish color. Or so I thought. I had to return my gaze to the front and watch out for traffic. Now that I was speeding in the fifty miles per hour zone, I felt leery about the next intersection, the one between Darnestown Road and Germantown Road.
This was where Germantown Road ended and a housing development, Spring Meadows, rose on the left. I saw no cars on either side, no reason to slow down. As I passed through the crossway, a pale yellow car pulled in from the right. It slowed to the stop sign on Germantown Road, which was good because I couldn't have reacted if it ran through the sign. Then I was gone down the other side of the hill.
I thought that maybe I could continue to speed just a little, enough to get to my turn-off ahead of the cop but also not much more than normal. I wanted to aim for the middle ground of having an advantage but leaving room to pretend I hadn't noticed an attempt to stop me.
At the top of the next hill, I could see the police car gaining. There was only one hill to go.
It was really, really important to turn onto my road, the entrance to which was partly hidden, before a policeman could see me do it. I needed to get out of sight.
On the down side of the hill, the road ahead lay empty. A tunnel of trees and vegetation cane up on my right. This was my turn-off. Behind me, the cop car was out of sight but closing fast. I had to slow down for the turn. It would be worse than speeding if I drifted into the oncoming lane. The country road I lived on was narrow. We had dirt birms and trees on either side with branches that poked into open car windows. There was no extra room. Vehicles had to pass each other with less than a foot of space or else drive hard into tree branches.
When I turned, I encountered no car coming the other way. And I thought I'd made it before the cop car could see. To the police, it might seem like I had disappeared or maybe sped up an awful lot.
Hyperventilating and shaking, I drove the quarter mile to my driveway. If the police had made the turn with me, I would have no way to know. Every bend in the little road hid cars from each other in every direction.
When I pulled into the driveway, I wanted to hop out while the station wagon was still rolling. I settled for slamming the car into park as soon as I could. No one was home. I sprinted inside.
Alone, I watched out the picture window. A few seconds went by. Half a minute. No police car pulled up. I glanced at my parents green station wagon. It looked hot. And it was. Anyone who touched the hood would know I had just driven it.
I wanted to hide the car. But going out to do it risked attention from the cops.
Another half minute passed. Suppose the police had passed by my turn off but realized I must have taken it? How long would it take them to turn around and find me?
Probably about this long. But maybe there was still time to hide my parents car. There couldn’t be that many big green station wagons. The side of our house was empty. It was wide enough to drive the car through. And to hide it behind the house.
That would leave ruts in the yard, though. It had rained. The ground was soft. Hard to explain. My parents would want to know why. For that matter, any cop who noticed me doing it would sarcastically want an explanation too. That would be a difficult conversation.
But it had to be done. Now.
I had ditched my car keys in the kitchen as if preparing to deny everything. Now I reclaimed them and headed back to the living room. As I started out, I froze. Through the picture window, I saw the cop. He sped along the road. Past my house. Past my driveway. He kept going.
Then the police disappeared down the hill. Gone.
I stood by the window, hyperventilating for a while. After I decided I didn’t want to be around if the car swung back up the road. I marched down in my room, instead. For a while, I listened to my racing heart.
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I'm pretty sure that, after the second run, I swore I would never do anything like it again. I would stop being stupid. For weeks, the memory of my guilt returned. It combined with my feeling of undeserved luck from the first time. I knew it wasn't worth feeling so guilty. And also, wasn't worth knowing that it wasn't just a feeling.
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