Wearing only the thirty-year-old seat belt, I flew into the steering wheel, my head a bare inch from the windshield. My chest burning, the sound of smashed bumper in my ears, I ricocheted back into my bucket seat, my shoulders seared.
On the deserted road, the other car began to back up for another go.
Like an enraged bull, it seemed to stomp its feet and pant before it sped forward once more. The second of preparation gave me time to spin the wheel left, cutting into the oncoming lane, to get away.
I was heading right into what I now recognized as a Porsche.
The guy behind this wheel was also talking on a cell phone. He was middle-aged, suntanned, and wearing a Polo shirt, collar up. My full-speed approach shocked him off his call, and, shrieking like a chicken, he chucked the gadget into his backseat.
Frantically stroking my wheel all the way left, I crossed his path, barely missing him. Then I brushed a hedge, shearing off green shards, before completing a half-circle back to the right lane.
Sweating and wincing—too stunned to even breathe, which hurt like hell—I floored the pedal of the giant old car. I heard a rattle from my rear end and realized that my tormentor had done more damage than I had known.
He wasn’t finished with me, either. He was coming again at full gallop.
We were moving swiftly into a more populated area. Houses were becoming visible, closer together, and smaller. I yearned for ocean smell and solitude. I had been a fool not to take my chances there. Ahead of me was a stop sign. Beyond that was a busy four-way intersection.
I had a choice: I could slam on my brakes, feel his full impact, and go right into the windshield. Or I could barrel through the stop sign, get hit by cars from all four sides, be crushed and killed.
The choice was taken from me. My foot was frozen on the gas.
I zoomed through the sign. I pulsed luckily past a car coming from my right. One coming left, though, snagged my back door and spun itself around. I tried to steer away from the one coming at me, but my left headlight cracked deafeningly into its right.
The impact jarred me. I lost control, was propelled onto a sidewalk, then halfway up a shiny, green, trimmed lawn. The German shepherd sleeping there reared up and, barking in dismay, raced into a backyard.
The pedal brake was useless. I grappled desperately for the emergency. Not finding it, I yanked the gearshift into park, stripping it, noisily.
I stopped.
I tried to catch my breath. Then I looked behind me.
Zipping by in the street was the Honda. As it drove away, I saw the man at the wheel.
He was a clown. Or someone with a white clown’s face.
NO MATTER HOW MANY CARDS I GAVE THE COP, HE DIDN’T BELIEVE I KNEW Howie Romaine.
“But—” I said, as he was hauling me out on my feet, “ ‘Don’t say you weren’t warned!’ That’s what Howie always—”
“ ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ ” the cop corrected me, disgustedly.
“Whatever. But that’s what Howie always—”
He quickly had me turned around, spread-eagled, and pressed against the totaled Jag. Other cars in the accident stood, smoking and impaired, in the street near the lawn. The drivers were too scared of me to come any closer. The home’s owner even hid, growling German shepherd at her side, behind her screen door.
“If you’re such a good pal of Howie’s,” the cop said, “what’s his phone number?”
Of course, I didn’t remember. But I knew what neighborhood I was in and assumed I knew its rules.
“I’m afraid I can’t give out his private number,” I said, my lips pressed on the side door glass.
“That’s a hot one,” the cop replied.
My face was now pushed as if to burst through onto the backseat. My hands were jerked behind me, cracked upward, and joined by metal cuffs. I marveled at how far one’s arms could be stretched skyward before they broke. It made me think of Something’s Got to Give, the famous last, lost film of Marilyn Monroe. Also starring Dean Martin, it was abandoned when she was fired—and right before she killed herself. It later became Move Over, Darling with Doris Day and James Garner. Everything could be remade in show business, even madness, suicide, and death.
Clearly everyone today wished I was recast as someone unthreatening. How could I assure them that I was harmless?
Someone did it for me.
“He’s fine, leave him be.”
It wasn’t Howie. It was Dena, who now stood—I figured, for I couldn’t turn around—beside the cop.
“Who says?” he answered.
I heard feet crunch grass and gravel as Dena and the cop moved away. Their discussion became muted, private, worldly. I heard the cop say “Oh, sure, okay,” as if he were reminded of the rules that voided tickets, cleared records, and let people go.
In a minute, my hands were free.
Dena drove me in one of Howie’s other cars—the coupe, I think. I saw the rich people in the street staring after me, as if I were a frightening alien who had landed on their world.
—
“I told Howie I couldn’t drive,” I said, quietly.
“He’s not the best listener,” Dena nodded. “As you could tell last night.”
She blushed a little, then shook it off. She was in her usual conflicted outfit: an old-lady blouse over teenage, low-slung jeans. When we reached a stop sign—the same one I had failed to obey—she reached over and touched my hot, red face.
