HIT AND RUN

HIT AND RUN(L DOUGLAS ST OURS) HIT AND RUN



Tenth grade.
I'm learning to drive.
Learners permit.
My father's nervous, reluctant, but willing to take me to practice my driving
in a shopping center parking lot on a couple of Sundays
because the stores were all closed then
and the lot was like a vast empty asphalt prairie.
Uh oh.
A car approaches, dad instinctively tenses and applies his foot as if he had a brake,
but it is I who is in control and on the pedal...foot to the floor..."easy" he says.
My apprehensions gradually peel away leaving me with an undeniable thrill.


Three months shy of my sixteenth birthday I obtained the coveted drivers license.
FREE AT LAST! True, I was still a bumbling virgin,
but what a difference, what an impression, what a big deal
to get out and go steering the symbol of my manhood machine.
After a binge of underage boozing, I'd overcome my shyness,
and begin anew my long and awkward quest to get past first base.


To protect and preserve the family station wagon
dad went out and bought a 1961 four cylinder VW for five hundred bucks.
The interior was as tiny and spare as an empty cupboard.
The engine generated the combined thrust of about three lawn mowers.
No heat, no defrost, a tiny clutch, a button choke, and a stick shift
that would grind and scrape metal till it smelled awful
and if you started from a stop to go up a hill
most of the time it would shake, shimmy, and stall with a last gasp puff of smoke.


Within a week and still a novice I piloted the beetle solo
carrying myself and three boys my age
into the fading yet boundless woods of hillbilly country.
Tommy and two other wahoos were squeezed in my old man's tin can
cradling four rifles and two hundred rounds of ammunition
to hunt what was then the rare and elusive white tail deer.
Tommy lent me a 22 caliber and I sprung for the ammo, a box of long shot.
My gun was a pea shooter compared to Tommy's 30odd6.
No one in my family ever owned a firearm, never had one in the house,
unlike those boys living in homes where the fully stocked gun cabinet
was the most imposing and expensive piece of furniture in their whole damn house.
In the south boys growing up with guns was as normal as girls playing with dolls.


We finally parked and got out of the bug
where timber blocked a jeep road of mud and puddles
and from there we hiked deep into the woods
me slipping in my soaked sneakers climbing a moss carpeted ridge.
We found a blind and hunkered down grabbing clumps of leaves
sweating in our coats while our hands and feet froze.


Tommy, the expert outdoorsman, picked the spot overlooking a meadow,
perfect vantage for an ambush if only a deer would come and graze.
Hard to believe how rare those deer were in 66.
We waited through the morning, Tommy said don't make a sound,
but I couldn't control my rattling teeth clacking as loud as a drum.
But nothing emerged and by noon the gray mist had intensified into a hard rain.
We threw in the towel and struggled down that ridge,
hacked our way through a thicket
and ended it all never firing a shot.


F***ing disappointment.
After squatting on our asses for half a day
we craved action and so after a few miles in the cramped car
we detoured into a slow poke main street town.
I parked in front of a feed store adjacent to a pool parlor.
We wandered in without the guns for a few friendly games of eight ball.
The joint was packed and full of a smoke which was to be expected,
but then the stares and shouts and shoves and threats
from a gang of drunk and rowdy patrons caused a change in plans and we skedaddled.
We were so spooked that we scrambled around the back to throw them off in case they followed us.
We circled the building and jumped into the car
hard landing on and bruising our bones
hitting the butts and barrels.


Panic stricken. I laid rubber after initially stalling out the weak ass motor.
I got clumsy and wild and turned the car too sharp and
"OH SHIT"
scraped a souped up Pontiac from stem to stern.
Fearing the rednecks' wrath I didn't dare hesitate - consequences could have been fatal.
But the bad guys apparently were too inebriated to notice the crash
over the din of breaking cue balls, racks, pocket shots, jukebox music, and fisticuffs.
I was more scared than worried at that moment to check
what sort of damage I inflicted on the bug.
we tore out of town on what seemed like bunny rabbit power
as I pushed the speedometer to thirty.
"Can't you get this tin of crap to go any faster?"
Obviously not with the weight of four teenagers plus those weapons.
We careened down into valleys between straining and lumbering up hills.


When I figured we went enough distance to be safe,
I pulled over by a pasture to examine the injury to my dad's cheap ass car.
In sunken despair I sighted and fingered the long ugly groove
embedded with the Pontiac's white paint...an awful gouge
streaking the entire length of the passenger's side.
"Damn it! What the hell am I going to tell my old man?"
No way I was going to admit that I hit and run another car.
For perspective I stepped backwards and bumped into a white split rail fence.
"Aha! Yeah! That's it! I'll tell dad I sideswiped a fence!"


I wasn't sure if it would be better to face dad alone with the news
or bring Tommy though I risked humiliation in front of a peer.
After dropping off the other two boys, I got Tommy to stick with me in the car.


When I found dad he was washing the station wagon in the driveway.
I told him "I got a dent."
Dad dropped the sponge into the bucket.
"A dent? You mean an ACCIDENT?!"
Before he got too hot, I said I had to leave and take Tommy home.
So keeping Tommy on board was a smart move after all.
I deliberately stayed out till supper time
allowing dad a chance to drink a beer or two
and wash down and away a good bit of that anger.


by L DOUGLAS ST OURS