Under the Same Sky (16 page)

“Oh, man,” I moaned. “Oh, man. I can't believe this. I can't believe this is happening. It's a cop. What do I do? What do I
do
?”

“You have to stop, Joe,” Manuel said urgently. “Pull to the side.”

“Oh, man,” I repeated as I steered the truck to the shoulder and stopped. “We're dead. I'm dead. Oh, man.”

The siren went off, but the red lights continued flashing. In the side mirror, I could see the policeman get out of his car. He shone a flashlight around in the back of the truck, even picking up the tarp and looking underneath. I had a momentary rush of panic, thinking how much worse this would have been had it happened on the way to Sodus instead of now.

It was plenty bad enough now.

The flashlight beam shone through the window on the back of the cab, lighting up Manuel's head and then mine. Then the cop's face appeared at my open window, and the light flashed directly in my face for a second, then went off.

“License and registration, please.”

License—forget it
. I remembered once when Mom had gotten pulled over for a missing taillight or something. She'd gotten papers out of the glove compartment and handed them to the officer. The door on the dash was still ajar from when I'd gotten the syringe for Luisa. I fumbled around until I felt a little plastic sleeve with some papers inside. I handed them over, and the officer examined them.

“This truck's owned by a James L. Pedersen. Is that you?”

“No, sir,” I said. “That's my father.”

“And you would be…?”

“Joe. Joe Pedersen, sir.”

“This vehicle is registered for farm use only, not for the highway. Did you know that?”

I shrugged.

“May I see your license, Joe?”

There was a pause, while I tried to think of something I could say that would get me out of this. “I don't have one,” I answered at last.

“Do you know why I pulled you over, Joe?” the officer asked.

I shook my head.

“You were going about thirty-five in a fifty-five zone. Now, in my experience that means a driver who is either drunk or very old…or else a driver who's young and inexperienced. How old are you, Joe?”

“Fourteen,” I mumbled.

“Would you mind getting out of the car for a minute, Joe?”

I opened the door and stood in the glare of the flashing red lights.

“Would you mind taking a little walk down the yellow line by the shoulder of the road there, Joe?”

I knew that he was watching to see if I could walk straight, and that made me even more nervous than I already was. I stumbled once, and was terrified he'd think I was drunk as well as underage and unlicensed. But he seemed satisfied.

“Okay, Joe, you can come on back here.”

When I was standing before him once again, he said quietly, “So, Joe. What are you doing out at”—he checked his watch—“close to three in the morning, driving without a license?”

I shrugged. “I don't know, sir.”

“Do your parents know where you are?”

“They're out of town.”

“And they let you stay home alone?”

“Yeah,” I said. I didn't see any point in trying to explain.

“And so you decided to go for a little joyride with your friend here?” He pointed into the cab at Manuel, who hadn't moved or said a word since we'd been stopped.

Joyride?
I thought.
If you only knew
.

I shrugged again.

“Did you boys get into any trouble tonight?”

“No, sir.”

“Just out riding around, is that it?”

“Yes, sir.”

He looked right at me for a minute, and I was surprised to see something like kindness or understanding in his eyes. I noticed the name tag on the pocket of his uniform. Sergeant H. V. Wellman.

“Well, Joe, we can't allow fourteen-year-old boys to be out driving around. It's against the law, I'm sure you're aware of that.”

“Yeah,” I answered, in a voice so low he might not even have heard me.

“I could take you down to the station now, book you, and keep you until your parents come back.”

He paused, maybe to give me time to think about that. I pictured myself sitting in a jail cell, and imagined the look that would be on Dad's face when he came to get me. I was dead.

“That could keep you from getting your night license, even when you are sixteen,” Sergeant Wellman went on.

Oh well
, I thought,
I'm not going to live to be sixteen, anyway
.

“But I've got a feeling about you, Joe. I'm betting this is your first offense, is that right?”

I nodded.

“Okay. I'm going to make this easier on you than I could, you understand?”

I nodded again, even though I didn't really understand, except that it sounded as if he was going to give me a break.

“What I need you to do, Joe, is promise me you'll never pull another boneheaded stunt like this. What do you say?”

“Yes. I mean, I do. I promise. I won't.”

Sergeant Wellman gave me a long, searching look. “Okay,” he said. Then he peered into the cab at Manuel. “You, son,” he said, “how old are you?”

Manuel looked startled at being addressed. “Sixteen,” he answered.

“You got a license?”

Manuel nodded, reached into his back pocket, and handed over his license.

“Manuel Velarde,” the sergeant read aloud, and I realized it was the first time I'd ever heard Manuel's last name.

“I gotta ask,” the sergeant said, looking at us curiously. “Why was Joe here driving, when you've got a license?”

It was a logical question, but there was no way we could answer it with the truth: on the trip up we were afraid of getting caught for transporting illegal aliens, and on the way back we were too freaked out to think of trading places.

“My dad's truck,” I said with a shrug.

“I see,” said Sergeant Wellman. If he suspected there was more to the story than that, he decided to let it go. “All right, Manuel, I'd like you to switch places with Joe and drive this truck home. Where do you live?” he asked, turning to me.

I explained where the farm was.

“You live at the farm, too?” the officer asked Manuel.

“Yes.”

The sergeant nodded. “Okay, then. I'm going to follow you boys home in the cruiser. First, I'm going to have to write you a ticket, Joe, for being underage and driving without a license in an unregistered vehicle. I won't make you go to the station now, but you are going to have to appear in family court with your parents, and there's a chance you'll get a pretty hefty fine.”

He went back and sat in the police car, writing out the ticket, I guessed. Manuel and I switched places and waited, too dazed and tired to talk.

Sergeant Wellman handed the ticket through the window, and I placed it on the seat without looking at it.

The sergeant told Manuel to drive home carefully. He followed us, with the flashing red lights mercifully turned off, all the way into the driveway at the farm. The windows in the crew's quarters glowed with light, and I pictured the rest of the guys inside, anxiously waiting for Manuel to get back.

The sergeant told me there were instructions on the ticket for what my parents and I had to do. Before he left, he said, “Now, don't make me sorry I gave you a break, Joe.”

“No, sir.”

Manuel and I stood in the driveway for a moment, watching the police car until it disappeared. “Well,” I began, “I—”

But Manuel interrupted. His face in the dim light looked very serious. “I don't know—how to say—except, thank you. I will tell your father when he comes back, it was not your fault. I—”

“No,” I broke in. “You don't have to say anything. I wanted to go. I knew what I was doing.”

Manuel looked right at me, and I almost had the feeling he was really seeing me for the first time. “We are—all of us—very grateful,” he said rather formally. Then he reached out to shake my hand. “Thank you, Boss.”

I went inside and climbed the stairs to my room. I put the ticket on the bureau and fell onto the bed, more tired than I'd ever been. It wasn't until the moment right before I slipped from consciousness that I realized Manuel had called me Boss.

I woke up hot and sweaty, and my room was filled with blazing sunshine. I closed my eyes quickly to block out the glare, along with the vague sensation that something terrible had happened that I didn't want to face. Dim memories passed through my mind, filled with darkness and furtive movement and flashing red lights.

Red lights. A police car. Luisa's face, her eyes huge and dark with fear. A nightmare?

I opened one eye and saw the ticket sitting on my bureau. No, not a nightmare. I opened the other eye, letting the pain of the blinding sun jolt me to full awareness. The events of the previous night washed over me all at once, and I sat straight up in bed. I glanced at the clock: It was after one in the afternoon. No wonder the sun was beating in so ferociously.

I let my mind linger on everything that had happened the night before. And the strange thing was, once I really thought about it all, I felt great.

When Dad got home and saw the ticket and found out what I'd done, I'd be in deep, deep trouble. I'd have to endure the look of disappointment on his face, watch him set his jaw to control his anger, listen to him say that he knew he should never have trusted me. We'd go to family court, where my father would have to promise to be responsible for me, since it was obvious I couldn't be counted on to take care of myself.

Mom would be all upset, and probably blame herself for leaving in the first place. LuAnn…I didn't even want to think about the grief she'd give me, or the smirk on her face when she said, “Joe, I thought I told you not to do anything stupid.”

It was going to be a big, fat mess, that was for sure, and I dreaded going through it. But, at the same time, I felt incredibly calm. I knew that what I had done was against the law, and that meant it was wrong. So why did it feel so right? That's what it really came down to. It felt right to have helped Luisa and Rafael and Frank. If I had to pay the consequences, okay. It was worth it.

That feeling of calm stayed with me for the next two hours, until the moment when Mom's van pulled into the driveway.

I heard all about the reunion while I helped my family unload their stuff. When we had everything unpacked, Mom announced that she didn't feel like cooking and suggested we all go out for pizza. Ordinarily, I'd have been the first one in the car. But I didn't want to go out and sit through what was supposed to be a happy, carefree family meal with all that was on my mind.

“Mom? Dad? Before we go out, could we talk for a second?” When LuAnn turned to me, her ears perked with interest, I scowled at her and added, “
Alone
.”

“Of course, Joe,” said Mom, and a flicker of worry crossed her face. She gave LuAnn a look.

LuAnn sniffed and said, “Come on, Meg. Let's go see if Luisa's around.”

I didn't even try to stop them. They'd find out soon enough.

As soon as the kitchen door had closed behind them, I said, “You guys probably ought to sit down.”

They did, both of them looking really serious now. “What is it?” asked Dad.

First I told them about Randy and Tony driving through the farm on Friday night.

“What were they thinking?” Mom said, her eyes flashing angrily.

“It was their idea of a
joke
,” I said, making a face. “I told them off. I don't think they'll do it again. And I won't be hanging around with Randy anymore.”

Mom looked at me thoughtfully for a moment. “Well, good for you, Joe,” she said. “That sounds like a very sensible decision.” She gave me a little hug.

“But that isn't really what I wanted to tell you,” I said.

She looked surprised, and so did Dad. “It isn't?” she asked.

I shook my head and took a deep breath. Beginning with the appearance of the I.N.S. in the cabbage field, I told them the whole story, right through to the end. Well,
most
of the story, anyway. I left out the owner's name and the exact location of the farm where we'd gone.

They stopped me from time to time to ask a question, but mostly they listened. When I had finished, I placed the ticket on the table in front of them and waited. It was hard to tell from the expressions on their faces what they were thinking.

They looked at each other, probably deciding who was going to talk first. Finally, Mom said, “Well. You've had quite a time, haven't you, Joe?” She sounded kind of dazed.

There was no good answer for that, so I didn't say anything.

She went on. “I guess the thing I'm having a hard time with is that you didn't call to tell us—that you didn't tell
anyone
. Why not, Joe? We could have helped you.”

“How?” I asked. “You were so far away and it all happened so fast. And Manuel—” I was about to say that Manuel had asked me not to say anything. But I didn't want to make it sound as if I was blaming him. “I mean, I figured that the fewer people who were involved, the better. See, the I.N.S. guy made it sound like if I knew where Luisa and Rafael and Frank were, I had to tell. I thought if you didn't even know they were missing, let alone where they'd gone, there was no way you could get in trouble.” I spread my hands as if to display the logic of my thinking, so they could see it and understand.

“I know it was bad to take the truck and drive at night and all that,” I went on. “I'm sorry about the ticket and having to go to court, too. I'll pay the fine out of my wages.” I paused, then added quietly, “But I'm really
not
sorry about what I did.”

There was a long silence, and my heart sank. They didn't understand. I guess I shouldn't have hoped that they would. I turned around, thinking I'd go to my room before I was told to, leaving them to talk over how they wanted to handle my punishment.

“Joe, wait.” It was Dad. “Sit down.”

I did.

“Give us a minute here,” he said. “This is a lot for your mother and me to take in all at once. You've had more time to think about this than we have.”

Well, that was the truth.

After what seemed a long pause, he said, “There's no getting around the fact that you broke the law, Joe.”

Here comes the lecture
, I thought.

“And as the sergeant said, we can't condone that.”

“I know,” I said glumly.

“And that puts your mother and me in a hard place.”

“I know,” I said again.

“Because the thing is, laws made by humans aren't always perfect. Sometimes there's another law, a higher law, that we feel we have to answer to.”

I nodded, feeling a tiny prickle of hope. What Dad was saying was exactly what I'd been trying to get clear in my own mind.

“The immigration laws are a mess—harmful and misguided in some instances, and just plain silly and contradictory in others. That's my opinion. However, they're still the laws of the land and, as a citizen, I'm bound to obey them. Just as,” he added, surprising me with a little smile, “we're bound to obey the rules of the road, even if we don't agree with them. Although in that case, I'm with the powers that be: fourteen-year-olds have no business on the highways.”

I had to smile back at that. If he'd seen me the night before, he'd know he was right.

Dad sighed. “Anyway, Joe, the point I'm trying to make is that this is a very complicated thing. As we get older, we realize that there aren't always easy answers when it comes to right and wrong. I can't look my son in the face and say it's all right to break the law. On the other hand, I can't tell you what you did was wrong, either. The fact is, I don't think Luisa and Frank and Rafael belong in jail. I'm glad they're safe.”

“I am, too,” Mom added softly.

I opened my mouth to breathe a deep sigh of relief. I'd been prepared for their anger and their disappointment, but I hadn't been prepared for this.

“If you had asked my permission ahead of time,” Dad went on, “I'd have told you, absolutely, positively
no
. But you didn't ask. Part of me wants to get upset about that, but I can't quite seem to.” He stopped and shook his head. “You made your own decision, and I don't imagine it was easy.” Then he reached across the table to grasp my shoulder. “Now that it's all said and done, and you and everybody else are safe, I'm going to say this, Joe. I'm proud of you.”