We pulled into the parking lot of an old carpet warehouse which led us to a loading dock garage. Brandon backed the truck in as we all sat quietly. I heard a moaning in the bed of the truck. At least she was making some sort of noise. I grabbed my wristlet and told the tramp to put it in her purse. It was one of the only things in the truck that hadn’t gotten dirty before the incident. She took it out of my hand and opened it, “Oh my gosh, is this you?” “No, it’s my fake I.D.” I was in no mood for a conversation with her.
“This girl looks like such a fat ass!” The tramped laughed.
When it comes to fake I.D.’s, sometimes you just don’t have a choice. One of my sorority sisters works at one of the local bars and snatches them from drunken customers who leave without closing their tab. She came across this I.D. and told me it looked like me so I could have it. What a bitch. This girl had frizzy hair and was extremely large. It was an insult, but I accepted it anyways.
I told the tramp to get out of my wallet only to hear the police siren. The sirens sounded the death march song in my head. They were coming after us. My friend in the back started crying because he didn’t want to lose his scholarship to Auburn. Brandon clutched the steering wheel. The others just sat there wide-eyed. And I got out of the truck. The tramp jumped out of the truck along with one of the other guys. Before I could turn around, I heard their footsteps running towards the woods. The police cars pulled in and I knew we were screwed. The smell of the vomit now just seemed to be less of a problem compared to what was about to happen. Brandon put his fumbling feet to the ground and stood by my side. He was my best friend. Always there for me whenever I needed him. “I won’t let anything happen to you,” he said. The questions started pouring out of the two police officers’ mouths as we fumbled to answer them. One officer drilled us while the other examined the truck.
“Well, looks like this one had too much fun!” The officer shined the flashlight down into the bed of the truck. What an asshole.
After realizing we were all intoxicated, the officer preceded to ask Brandon if he was driving. “Yeah, I was,” he replied. As soon as the words came out of his mouth, he had handcuffs on his wrists. He walked to the police car with his head down while the officer opened the door. The officer slammed the door after Brandon sat inside. My other friends and I stood by the police car while the five-o’s examined the truck. I looked down at the car and saw Brandon’s eyes through the crack of the window. He whispered, “Whit, please get me outta here.” I didn’t know what to say. I just looked down at my dirty flip flops and prayed my parents weren’t going to kill me. We were all going to jail.
Wait—no, not all of us. It occurred to me that the sober tramp ran across the pasture to escape the scene. Might as well go find her and drag her into this too. It’s not like I liked her anyways. If she didn’t cooperate with me then my good ole southern roughneck side was about to be unleashed on the bitch.
“Officer!” I called, “Look, we weren’t tellin’ you the exact truth. You see, we had a sober driver but she took off runnin’ through the pasture when she heard y’all comin’. She ran cause she’s on probation from shopliftin’ and doesn’t want to get in anymore trouble than she already is. The truth is, officer, Brandon wasn’t really drivin’, she was.”
“Well, I see the truth comes out now. If you can find her, then I’ll take your friend out of those handcuffs and let him go. But as for the rest of you, ya gotta come down to the station and call your parents to come and get you. We, as police officers, don’t take no consideration to nothin’ when there is drinkin’ and drivin’ goin’ on. This here is a serious matter.”
In a blaze, I took off toward the edge of the pasture with the officer’s flashlight. I wanted to kill that tramp right then and there. However, if I did, then none of us would benefit from getting out of this mess. She should have to suffer. She started all this by wrecking the damn truck. If it wasn’t for her putting her infectious lips on Brandon while he was driving down the road, then he would have never run off the road and hit the damn tree. God, it was all replaying through my head now—the screams, the blood, the vomit, and Kim’s body flying towards the windshield. I prayed to God she was okay. I climbed over a barb wired fence without a care of scratching up my legs. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I was going to do when I found her hiding—probably club her to death with the flashlight. But then, what would I do with her corpse?
I would throw her in the bed of a truck for her to suffer, and cover her up with a tarp. After all, that’s what she did for her friend. It’s the least I could do.
