Lost in Clover (14 page)

37. WHAT MATTERS

Jeremy sped along the icy streets towards town.

“Where we going, Uncle Jeremy?”

“To the police before we get Shirley to the hospital. If that’s all right with you, Shirley?”

“Don’t worry about me. Let’s get that monster in jail first.”

But they never made it into town. Barreling through a stop sign, Jeremy saw the orange Bronco expanding in his rearview mirror. “Crap!”

“What?” Kalya asked.

Jeremy floored the gas, but his pickup’s four cylinders were no match for a V-8. The Bronco slammed into the back of the pickup, causing it to swerve.

Kalya screamed.

Careening around a curve, the Bronco clipped the side bumper, causing the Ranger’s rear wheels to lose traction and spin.

“Hands-in-the-air-like-you-just-don’t-care!” Kalya shouted involuntarily as the truck hurtled out of control, spinning in tight circles and taking out a barbed wire fence. When the truck stilled, they found themselves in the middle of a frozen pond. The tires whirled in vain, unable to purchase a grip. Jeremy tried reverse, stomping on the gas pedal and then easing on it. Nothing. Jeremy locked eyes with Shirley. Is this how it ends? Kalya, who had been hyperventilating, caught her breath and let out a piercing scream.

“Calm down, Kalya. Okay, listen. We’ve gotta get out of this truck.”

“This ice can’t be solid,” Shirley said.

“What does that mean?” Kalya asked, wide-eyed.

“Maybe the pond isn’t deep,” Jeremy said. “I mean, the ice is holding the truck, isn’t it?”

The unmistakable crack of breaking ice caused tears to streak down Kalya’s cheeks.

“Everybody out,” Jeremy said.

Twenty yards away, Crazy Eddie pulled up to the edge of the ice. Jeremy didn’t know what to do, but he knew he had to protect Kalya. It was the thing that mattered most.

Jeremy turned to Shirley. “I know I didn’t ask this earlier, and it’s quite obvious, but you don’t happen to have a cell phone…or a gun?”

“Left both of them at the store,” Shirley said. “Getting hit in the head don’t make you right when you need to be.”

“At least you’ve got an excuse.”

They shared a quick smile. Jeremy had lost his cell over a year ago from unpaid bills.

“Shirley, you take Kalya to the other side over there.”

“What you are going to do?”

Jeremy pulled out a tire iron from under the seat. It felt heavier than it ever had. “Try to negotiate with a mass murdering meth head. Just go.”

Shirley and Kalya gingerly stepped out of the truck and onto the ice.

“Be careful, Uncle Jeremy.”

“You too, Kalya.”

Jeremy stood on the slick surface on the pond. Cracks surrounded all the tires, but no water seeped through. Not yet.

Across the bank, Crazy Eddie was climbing over to the passenger side of the Bronco since his driver’s side door was blocked by a tree. Jeremy glanced back and saw Kalya and Shirley cautiously shuffling toward the shore.
Get across to the other side
, he wanted to shout.
Just get across
. He had to make sure they made it across. Then it hit him. This is it. This is what it is all about. His waste of a life finally had purpose. The endless hours of video games and reality TV schlock, not asking Carrie to the prom, flunking community college, and all of the other missed opportunities to live life and be somebody. He gripped the tire iron. It would lose to a shotgun anytime, but…he had to do something.

“Hurry up!” he finally shouted to his niece and Shirley.

When he turned, Crazy Eddie was on the ice, walking towards him. Jeremy inhaled a deep, cold breath and took a step forward, ready for fate to deal its hand, when Crazy Eddie slipped. He dropped the shotgun and in a thunderous boom it discharged sideways on the ice, sending the shot and lead pebbles skipping across the pond. This is the time, Jeremy thought. The pump action lay on the ice. With the pipe, he might have an advantage. Maybe, if he could land a precise swing on top of his head. A complete knock out. If not, then…well, Crazy Eddie would grab the tire iron and beat him into hamburger meat.

Crazy Eddie stood, dusting the ice off of his jeans. He looked at Jeremy before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a plastic baggie. He fished out crushed white crystals and snorted.

“Want some?” he asked, as if offering a piece of gum.

“Uh, no thanks, Eddie.”

He put the baggie away and shook himself. “You know. It’s not that I want to do this, but I gotta. I can’t have any witnesses. I ain’t going back to jail again.”

“Eddie, you’ll be going back to jail anyway. If you kill us, it’ll be a murder charge, not just robbery, assault, and battery.”

“But you’re the witnesses.”

Jeremy wanted to laugh at the meth logic, but he had to try to reason with him. “There’s a video of you back at the store, plus your fingerprints have to be all over the place.”

Eddie looked perplexed. “How do you know so much?”

“I watch TV. A lot of TV.”

Crazy Eddie looked up at the sky as if counting clouds and then reached into his pocket for the baggie. He took another snort and picked up the shotgun. Jeremy felt his grip on the tire iron weaken. Holy crap. Shirley and Kalya were on the shore. Mission accomplished, right? Jeremy started to back away from his truck. He noticed water seeping through the cracks of the ice. It wasn’t frozen solid.

“I gotta do this, Rogers. Nothing personal,” He said taking a cautious step towards Jeremy. “You were always nice to me. Better than most. You and Carrie and…that faggy kid were the only friends I had over. Maybe the only friends I ever had in school.”

Jeremy felt touched for a momentary second, but realized he needed to stall or run for it. He couldn’t dodge a shotgun blast, but the further he got, the less the pellets would penetrate.

Crazy Eddie started to walk towards him.

“Hey Eddie, uh, friends don’t shoot friends you know.”

“It ain’t like that, Rogers. I got a parole officer and if he finds out—”

“He’s gonna find out, Eddie. There’s a difference between robbery-assault and murder. I’m talking about you frying in the electric chair.”

“A stainless-steel ride.”

“What?” At least Crazy had stopped, the barrel pointed down at a forty-five-degree angle.

“Lethal injection. That’s what them on death row call it.”

Crazy Eddie gave him a look like he was stupid. Jeremy shrugged. He learned something new. But he needed to keep this going.

“Any other words in prison you learned?”

The ex-con belted out a huge laugh. “It’s a new language in there. Take me all day to teach you. But you’re stallin’, Rogers, and I got to finish business.”

He raised the shotgun and took a step forward. With a crash, the front end of the Ranger broke through the ice behind Jeremy. He heard Kalya’s scream in the distance. Water seeped through additional cracks that rapidly splintered from the center of the pond. Jeremy slid to his stomach, trying to distribute his weight. Crazy Eddie stopped for a moment, and then kept walking. Jeremy estimated he had to be over 250 pounds. He gripped the tire iron. One swing. Maybe two.

When Crazy Eddie was two feet away, he leveled the shotgun. Jeremy waited.

“Sorry, man. It’s business,” Crazy Eddie said as he pulled the trigger.

Click.

Jeremy raised up and swung the iron across Crazy Eddie’s hand before he could pump a shell into the chamber. Crazy Eddie dropped the gun and howled, staring at his broken fingers. Jeremy swung again, smashing the giant’s knee. The iron popped out of Jeremy’s hand and slid on the ice. Crazy Eddie hobbled, screaming curses, and grabbed on to the unsubmerged back end of the truck.

“You’re a dead man, Rogers. Dead.”

Jeremy looked at the shotgun and the tire iron. Both were several feet away. He crawled to the shotgun and pumped a shell into the chamber.

He turned and pointed the gun at Crazy Eddie.

“Come on, Rogers. It ain’t in you,” he said. “You don’t fool me.”

The ice gave way. Crazy Eddie and the entire truck fell through. Jeremy scrambled on his belly across the freezing wet ice towards the shore. Looking back, Crazy Eddie shouted and howled, trying to grip the edge of the ice as the truck sank.

Sheriff Dempsey and a deputy pulled up seconds later. They threw a rope to the drowning man from the shore. He held onto it as he was dragged out of the hole and across the ice. He was shaking so bad from hypothermia that he was no longer a threat, though handcuffs were applied before he was put in the ambulance. Through chattering teeth, he kept repeating, “Can’t have no witnesses.”

Shirley was also taken to the hospital after a bandage was applied by the EMTs.

The sheriff looked out at the pond and the large hole with just an inch of the Ranger’s cab cresting.

“We’ll tow the truck out for you, but I’m sure it’s nothing but scrap now.” He turned to look at the orange Bronco. “We’ll be confiscating that Bronco, and after is all said and done we might work out an arrangement where you could be driving it.”

Jeremy nodded. It would be an upgrade.

“I’m also going to need an official statement. It can wait until the morning if you don’t mind coming in.”

“Sure.”

“You showed a lot of courage today,” the sheriff said, looking at him. “What do you do for a living?”

Jeremy swallowed. It seemed like this question would dog him the rest of his life. “Unemployed for the moment. I work mostly in the summer.”

The sheriff nodded, taking it in. “Have you ever considered wearing a uniform to work?”

Jeremy was confused. What was the sheriff talking about?

“A job in law enforcement?”

This took Jeremy by surprise. He hadn’t, at least not since he was five.

“No, sir, I haven’t.”

“You might consider it. We can talk about it tomorrow.”

38. HERO

During dinner, a few hours later than scheduled, Kalya talked nonstop about the adventure she’d had. She painted her uncle as brave and unwavering. For the first time, Jeremy sensed respect from his father, mother, sister, and even Sam. It felt strange and awkward. It was too new to comprehend, like waking up with a third arm.

“Well, there is one thing that didn’t happen today—we still don’t have any chocolate milk,” Sam said, which caused an uproar of laughter at the table.

“It’s okay,” Kalya said. “It wasn’t that important.”

*

Calls came in before the birthday cake was cut from people in Clover and the media around the state. Jeremy was being hailed as a hero. He fielded calls for over two hours, repeating the line that he was just trying to protect his family and friends.

“It wasn’t a big deal. Anybody else would have done the same thing.”

By the third interview, Jeremy was on autopilot, but his mind was on what Sheriff Dempsey had said. Was there really a possibility he might get a job as a deputy? What were the qualifications? He tried to picture himself in the brown Clover uniform, but couldn’t.

Later that night, when Jeremy went down to the basement and looked at his room, he was disgusted. How did he live in such squalor? Clothes were heaped in piles, with snack wrappers and empty soda-pop bottles littered everywhere. He wanted to sleep somewhere else, not on the bed with sheets that hadn’t been changed in several months. He couldn’t be the person he had been earlier that morning. He needed to change, whether he was offered a deputy position or not.

In the morning, after he showered, Jeremy borrowed his father’s razor so he could get a closer shave than usual. He wished he had a haircut as he did his best to part it and keep it down. He wished he had done a lot of things differently, so many things.

He put on his least wrinkled dress shirt and a tie, and then walked upstairs.

“Do you want breakfast before you go?” Gail asked as he grabbed the doorknob, about to step outside.

“What? Sorry, I didn’t hear you.” Jeremy looked out the window at the media vans that had parked outside of the house.

“Would you like some breakfast?”

“I’d better not. My stomach is too jumpy.”

“Did you see that you’re a local hero?” Gary said, holding up the Kansas City Star. He had a smile on his face, which Jeremy hadn’t seen directed at him in years. “Take a look.”

Jeremy took the paper and looked at the article. It read: “Clover Man Saves 2 From Massacre Felon.” His senior high school picture was printed next to Crazy Eddie’s prison photo. He stared at his eighteen-year-old self—the one who got it all wrong.

“You look nice. Like you’re going for a job interview,” Gail said.

Jeremy set the paper down, but he couldn’t take his eye off of his picture.

“Yeah, who knows? Maybe I am.”

THE END

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would to thank several people who helped make this book happen.

First and foremost is Jay Hartman of Untreed Reads. He rejected my short story “Eggnog” for the anthology
The Killer Wore Cranberry
, but then asked me to expand on the story and make it into a novella.
Lost in Clover
wouldn't exist without him.

I’d also like to thank the first readers of my rough draft: Alex, Amulet, Andy, Dylan, Kevin, and Sachin. And a big thanks to Stephen and Sarah, whose critiques firmed up the final draft.

Finally, a huge shout out to Teresa, who deals with my misuse of commas, missing articles and other grammatical infractions…yet still sticks around. Lucky me.