I went on my first road trip when I was sixteen years old with my friend, Tom McDonald. We left San Antonio in my Mom’s borrowed car and headed northwest for Fredricksburg, a small, quaint, German village in the hill country. An anomaly in Texas. Its claim to fame was The Enchanted Rock, a cluster of large granite domes. They were great for spelunking, hiking, climbing, and getting drunk underage. We felt like Lewis and Clark setting off to discover America.
This was in the pre-wireless era, so we felt free of any supervision. If you have ever driven on a desolate, Texas highway, you can understand the amount of self-discipline you must apply to limit the velocity of the 2000 pound metal wagon you controlled. I kept the speed around 75mph, which wasn’t bad because the speed limit was 65mph. We saw the exit signs for Fredricksburg, so I took my foot of the accelerator and I veered to the right.
At the bottom of the exit ramp, I noticed the speed limit lowered to 55mph. I read some where that it was better to naturally let the car decelerate, so I decided not to tap the brakes and let Newton’s Law of Momentum, friction, and gravity slow us down. Unfortunately, behind a “Don’t Mess with Texas” billboard was a state trooper in a brand new, black Ford Mustang who had set a speed trap. The speed limit had dropped to 35mph in only hundred yards from the highway and we were going about 57mph. He hit the sirens, sprayed gravel from his tires, and launched onto the pavement. I grew up on Dukes of Hazzard, so my first instinct was to tell Tom to get the compound bow from the backseat and light some dynamite-laden arrows. I’d look for a very conveniently concealed ramp that would miraculously shoot us over a river or ravine.
However, the coward in me knew that this was my Mom’s 89’ Chevy Corsica, not a 69’ Dodge Charger named General Lee. Also I couldn’t imagine me in prison, a six foot six, 138 pound virgin with a faggy mullet. So I decided not to out run Rosco P. Coltrane, tapped the brakes and gently brought the car to the side of the road.
The state trooper took his sweet time and moseyed up to the driver’s window. Officer Garcia was in the stereotypical battle gear: Smokey the Bear hat, mirrored aviator glasses, tight pants, and knee-high Nazi boots. Tom and I almost pissed our pants, because we had a twelve pack of Bud Dry in the trunk. The closest we had ever come to authority was when our Dungeon & Dragon characters were falsely arrested at the Red Dragon tavern by town guards for assassinating a guildmaster.
Three words—we were pussies.
Officer Garcia then said, “License and registration.”
It was a hot, Texas afternoon. Sweat dripped off my nose, I lowered the sun visors, looked under the seats—nowhere to be found. I kept apologizing to Officer Garcia, who just stood there stoically, unflinching, like he had just gazed at the gorgon, Medusa, yet still retained his flesh instead of stone.
An alien that didn’t sweat—I truly believed that he sprayed himself with Scotch-Guard® every morning to inflict subtle psychological mind games on his victims. Finally, I reached over to the glove compartment to open it, but when I did, it was locked. So I fumbled the keys out of the ignition, inserted the key into the lock, and turned it to the right. Tom and I both sighed with relief, because we could show the cop what he needed and we could finally be on our way.
Had I possibly known the fatal consequences beforehand of what was in my Mom’s glove compartment, I would have never opened it. But I wasn’t a clairvoyant, so I did.
Time normally flows forward like a river, but once I opened Pandora’s Box, time thickened to viscous, gooey lava. The next five seconds oozed by over a span of hours. My mother’s glove compartment contained: a small package of Kleenex, lottery tickets, Wet-Naps, a map of San Antonio, a mini flashlight, and a .357 Magnum with a six inch barrel.
Tom and my eyes widened. We tried to keep our eyes on the gun, look at each other, look at the cop, and not move a single muscle, all at the same time. Our bodies were twitching with an overwhelming desire to flee for the cotton field to the right of us. Officer Garcia went pale and immediately put his right hand on his 9mm, which was holstered.
He started to clench his jaws, ripped off his sunglasses with his left hand, and barked out, “Grab the gun by the tip of the barrel! Slowly, very slowly!”
I followed his instructions and inched my hand towards Dirty Harry’s weapon of choice. My mind raced with images of Officer Dickweed emptying his 16 round magazine into two geeks from the city. Then I became enraged at my mother for not telling us about her new gangbangin’ lifestyle. San Antonio could be dangerous, but the last time you needed to carry a revolver was in 1836 when 186 glorified outlaws defended the Alamo against Mexico because they thought it was their Divine Right to own slaves. Why the fuck would she let her sixteen year old son borrow her car with a .357!
My hand crept towards the tip of the gun. I braced myself for the cold, hard feel of blue steel and the heavy weight of the weapon, but when I touched it, it felt like a warm whiffle ball bat on a summer day. I pinched the barrel with all of my fingers and was surprised how easy it was to lift the featherlike mass. My synapses and neurons were firing back and forth information like a Cray supercomputer. In nanoseconds, my hypothalamus in my brain analyzed the tactile data and cross referenced it to my memory bank. My mind immediately deduced that this was my little brother’s toy gun, and not a real one. Every department in my head started to chant, “It’s fake, the gun is fake!”
Euphoria set in, endorphins flooded my body and I felt the happiness you experience when your computer crashes, you think you’ve lost everything but are fortunately able to recover your entire hard drive. Elated, I forgot Officer Garcia’s request to hold it by the tip and grabbed the gun by the handle. To recap on time, this all transpired in a duration of two seconds.
Tom shrieked like a little girl, and frantically tried to unbuckle his seatbelt and unlock the passenger door. Officer Garcia still hasn’t managed to unholster his gun. He’s hysterically trying to free his sidearm from its leather confines with both hands.
He was screaming, “BY THE TIP…BY THE TIP!!”
I kept saying over and over, “It’s not real, it’s a toy, its fake….”
Inadvertently, I pointed the gun at his chest. His eyes bulged out of his sockets, and his body went into an epileptic seizure. We thought he was going to shoot himself in the foot. It looked like someone had played a practical joke back at the police station and had super glued his gun to his holster. He was just another citizen of Camelot unable to unsheathe the sword from the stone. Another second passed, Rosco P. Coltrane finally drew his sidearm while simultaneously I threw my brother’s toy gun to the ground. It hit the ground producing the distinct sound of plastic striking asphalt.
He shoved his Beretta 92FS in my face and yell, “Don’t move!” Tom had managed to get his seatbelt unfastened, but didn’t dare open the door in front of this trigger-happy trooper. He kept the sights on my head while he crouched down to pick up my brother’s gun.
Tom and I had tears rolling down our face and pleaded, “Don’t shoot us…please…don’t shoot us…”
Officer Kid-Killer finally picked up the “firearm” and was even more enraged when had the same revelation I experienced only four seconds ago. He threw the gun over the roof of my mother’s car into the cotton field. Before it landed, a gust of wind blew from behind and took the gun with it. Officer Garcia finally took in deep breath and lowered his Beretta. He had the look of someone who had just been exorcised of a demon.
Tom and I nervously sat there waiting for a verbal lashing and handcuffs, but we didn’t.
Officer Garcia simply said, “What the fuck were you boys thinkin’? You know if this was night time, I would have shot both of you.”
In my head, I disagreed.
“Actually, Officer Garcia, I had the drop on you. You’re the lucky one.”
But of course, I didn’t say that.
I just said, “We’re sorry, Officer. It’ll never happen again.”
Tom and I drove off without a ticket, a sense of our own mortality and a luke warm twelve pack of Bud Dry in the trunk.
