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Asleep at the Wheel

Bill Tope

Annie had fallen asleep at the wheel.
Again. She’d only felt a little tired, had
smoked just the one joint and had drunk
only two or three—okay, four—beers. Plus
a couple of shots. But, let’s face it, she
thought, she wasn’t getting any younger.
And at 40 she couldn’t expect to maintain
the same arduous pace of partying that
she had when she was just 20.

As she awoke she felt a thrumming in her
head; was that the after effects of the reefer
or was it something else? Looking out the
windshield, Annie saw that it was still night;
she’d left the bar at about midnight, anxious
for some sleep before she went to work
tomorrow. She had been trying to be good.

She wondered how long ago the car had
stopped. There was a streetlight to her
right. She saw that the car had come to
rest in a barren field. The idiot lights were
all on and the A/C was still releasing a blast
of icy air; that was the throbbing that she’d
sensed. She leaned forward and twisted
the ignition key to off, then turned off the
headlamps. No sense in running down
the battery.

Annie’s ‘68 Mustang was a stick-shift,
which accounted for the engine stopping
when she had taken her foot off the
accelerator. Thank goodness for that!
The car she used at work was an
automatic. She must have been really
buzzed to actually leave the highway; she
felt stone-cold sober now. Must be the
adrenaline, she thought.

Annie unfastened her seat belt and slid out
of the vehicle. Under the stark white glare
of the steetlight, she took stock of the
car, found nothing amiss. Wait: there was
a small indentation on the left fender and a
streak of red paint. She furrowed her brow.
Could she have struck something? The
damage wasn’t severe enough to have
been another car. A bicycle, maybe? A
cold streak surged down her spine.

She looked closer at the damage. That red
streak could be blood, she decided. She
could have hit an animal, a large bird, say.
Or a cyclist! But, at night? She rubbed her
finger across the red spot, which came off
readily on her skin. So it was blood! She
took a great breath, released it.
 

Annie looked back towards the road; the car had
traveled about a hundred feet, she estimated.
On foot, she decided, she would retrace the path
of her car from the highway. She wouldn’t allow
herself to consider what she might find, but she
knew that she had to look. Again, she wondered
what time it was; her cell needed charging and
she never wore a watch but when she was at
work. Taking up a large flashlight, she set out.

On her journey through the field, Annie found
copious empty soda cans, beer bottles, endless
crumpled cigarette packs, the usual rural trash.
She even discovered a full-size piece of
plywood, intact but now weathered to a pale
gray. She glanced up at the sky: a jillion stars
blinked back at her; no moon, though. Arriving
at the highway, and finding nothing, she took
another deep breath, but before she could
release it, she saw what she’d most dreaded.
There, just off the pavement, at a distance of
about 10 feet and lying at the base of a tree,
was a human form!

Approaching gingerly, she paused at the body
and shined her light onto the face. It belonged
to a young man—only a boy, really—of about 14.
She didn’t recognize him, and she knew
practically all the teenagers in town. This
sparked a smalll but fleeting sense of relief.
The pale body had suffered a tremendous
impact; his limbs were horribly twisted at
impossible angles. Christ, she thought,
this is tragic! She felt his neck for a pulse;
knowing there would be none, and his body
was growing colder, even on a hot summer
night.

She brought her fingers to her lips. What should
she do now? She didn’t want to get nailed for this:
involuntary manslaughter at the very least. After
all, she was driving impaired, but there was no
way a prosecutor could prove it at this point. In
her world, reputation was everything. Worst of all,
she stood to lose her cushy government job.

She had to be proactive. First she returned to her
car and started the engine, drove out of the field
and parked off the road, adjacent to the body.
Next she grabbed the teenager by his belt loops
and dragged him fifty feet from the apparent site
of the accident. His body would leave no trail over
the pavement, and no one would associate the tire
tracks she’d left in the field with the accident now.
Now what, she thought.

In a heartbeat, Annie was shocked to find herself
pinioned by a blinding white spotlight and a
kaleidoscope of glittering blue and red lights. She
shielded her eyes from the glare, discovered that a
police crusier was slowly advancing on her. The
cruiser came to halt not three feet from the woman.

A policeman emerged from the car, holding on his
shoulder a huge flashlight—like the one Annie
carried—and said, “Merkle? Is that really you?”
With a start she recognized the voice. “Hi, Steve,”
Annie addressed the cop. “What are you doing out
here, Annie?” he asked with curiosity but without
suspicion. It was as though they had run into each
other at the grocery store. He withdrew the beacon.
“I saw some skid marks back up the road,” he went
on. “And there’s a report on a missing kid.” Annie
said nothing. She wondered how much Steve had
seen. He was a friend but he was also a cop.

“Got a witness report says that a car out this
way drove off the road; I thought the two might
somehow be connected, you know?” She
nodded. “You okay, Annie?” Annie’s mind
spun hysterically; she had to get a grip. “Get
a description of the vehicle?” she asked stiffly.
“Yeah, a sedan or a coupe or an SUV or maybe
a truck. Blue or black or perhaps two-toned;
you know how it goes. All they were sure of was
that it had four wheels. Well, guess I better
look around,” and he set off with his flashlight,
going a hundred feet along the road, first in
one direction and then the other. Steve was
a good cop, Annie knew; he’d find the body in
no time. She hadn’t considered the presence
of skid marks. Damn it.

Ten minutes later Steve returned, looked blandly at
Annie. “Found the kid,” he said unemotionally.
“Looks like he got swiped by a car.” Neither spoke
for an endless moment. Annie fidgeted. “Look
Steve,” she began, but the cop interrupted her.
“Don’t say anything, Annie,” he told her.
“But I...”
This kid’s a runaway, doesn’t have anyone who
cares one way or the other about him. He’s not just
a runaway, he’s a throwaway. Don’t make no
sense to toss away your career over the likes
of him.”

Annie only dropped her head, trying to fathom the
enormity of what was going down here tonight.
She looked up into Steve’s eyes, gratitude in her
own. “Now, get on out of here and I’d take that
fancy Mustang to a carwash, if I was you. But, I’d
wait a month, maybe two, before I got the dent
repaired.” He added, “and you’re a good cop,
Annie, don’t let no one ever tell you any different.
Now, beat it.” She turned silently towards her
vehicle.

“One thing more, Annie...” She turned to regard
him. “You need to relax, girl; get out more and
have a little fun: drink a beer with the girls,
smoke a little weed. You need it for your own
sanity. Take a mental health day. Nobody can
do our job, what we do, without it. Remember:
you’re one of ours, Merkle, and cops always
take care of their own!”

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