Mommy
“I dunno, we still got half an ounce hidden in the tire hub, and we could always smoke that if we get too bored,” Tommy said from the backseat.
Without a word, Keero took his eyes off the road and shared a glance with Jeff, concerning the danger of taking any of Tommy’s advice.
Jeff, who was riding shotgun, took Keero’s hint and said “I dunno, man, we’re in the deep, deep south, and I don’t think that it’s a good idea to get high and risk running into any of the backwoods hicks that live out here. You never know what kind of dirty cop or vengeful hick you’re gonna run into!” All three laughed.
“Yeah, Tommy, just cause you have nothing to fear, doesn’t mean that the rest of us can shrug off our consciences and get blazed. I’m half-Jewish, my full name is Keerian Schwartzberg, and Jeff here, well, Jeff is fucking openly gay. You really think we’re ready to meet some real good ‘ol boys and handle them, let alone while we’re high?” Everyone in the car laughed at Keero’s sarcastic, but eerily truthful wisdom.
Just as Keero was drifting off into reveries of the three boys’ spring break-road trip extravaganza, a clunking noise from the engine brought his brain back to reality. Keero looked down at his gas gauge, and to his surprise, he realized that he only had enough gas left in the tank to go at most about five more miles. Keero began to accept the absurd, newly developing situation: He was one of three boys in a car that was quickly running out of gas, driving from New Orleans back to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at 2:36 am on a Sunday night, currently somewhere North of Biloxi, Mississippi, nowhere near any open gas station.
“Umm…guys, I, uh, don’t wanna upset or scare anyone, but, well, we’re running out of gas,” Keero said. “And quickly, at that.”
Neither Tommy nor Jeff could muster the strength to share an optimistic or pessimistic comment of choice, as the car clunked a second time, this time much louder. Before Keero could decide what action to take next, the car lurched and throttled, and then the engine cut out. Keero was given barely enough time to guide the car off the two lane highway.
As the three boys got out of Keero’s Silver 1986 Chevrolet piece de mierde, they were shocked by the frigid windy weather of that March night in Mississippi. They also quickly took a disliking to the soft wet muddy swampland that the car and their feet were now sinking into.
“Fuck!” Tommy yelled into the night. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuckin’ fuckball, fuck, fuck FUCK!!!!” He yelled some more.
“Shut the fuck up!” Jeff intervened. “Dude, we’re in like a foreign fucking country, so for once, please don’t act like a little shit. We have to keep our heads cool.” Jeff looked at Keero with a pleading appeal. “Ok, so Keero, what do we do?”
Tommy and Jeff were both looking to Keero with eager hope that he could somehow remedy this ugly situation. Keero began to think, and all the while he mindlessly smoked a Camel cigarette as if in an attempt to thwart off the cold night air, and whatever lay hidden in the sky’s thick veil.
Surrounding the boys were many thin telephone pole shaped trees that stretched out in every direction along the sides of the road, eventually towering and fading into the dark sky, far above their heads. There were no lights around for miles, not even a dismal star in the sky from which to draw any hope or salvation. Visibility was limited by a solid black and faceless fog that seemed to encircle the three boys and their car. Despite their young age and good health, all three felt scared and threatened by the natural conditions of the land.
As the boys began to discuss their best plan of action, they heard a distant humming, and then saw two dim headlights from a car coming towards them from the opposite direction.
“We’re saved!” Jeff exclaimed with glee.
“Dude, we’re not fucking saved…I don’t think this is the right place, nor the right time of night for us to ask someone for help,” Keero said.
Tommy immediately jumped into the conversation. “I think we should take whatever fucking help we can get. It’s cold as hell here, and I’m not walking through these fucking backwoods to look for gas. I’m flagging this fucking Jim-Bob-Joe down, and I’m sure he’ll help us.” Tommy looked his friends right in their eyes, in order to see if they were “chicken” or not.
Keero certainly didn’t feel chicken; he only felt half cool and half Jewish, but this second half made him think about stereotypical films about the South. He was picturing stereotypical films that portray events within the first five minutes of truly nasty things happening to minorities. Things like a Jew and a black guy getting shot in the head by Mississippi policemen just for being in the South. Jeff remained more optimistic, but all the while he knew that his short spiky green and orange hair, tongue ring, nose ring, multiple ear rings, lip ring, and eye-brow piercing couldn’t exactly help him to blend in with the culture of the deep south.
Without waiting for consensus, Tommy flagged down the car, and the three immediately began to realize that they might have made a mistake. Of all the vehicles that Tommy could have chosen to flag down, he had chosen a large red pick up truck with confederate flags attached to its side mirrors.
The car spit up wet mud as it made a u-turn and then cruised to a stop in front of Keero’s car. The boys shared glances as they simultaneously read the bumper sticker that said, “Keep honking, I'm reloading." The two doors of the truck flew open and two very large men stepped out. Each of the men quickly turned on their own heavy mag-light flashlights, which created a blinding swirl of light that hurt to look at, but was also nearly impossible to ignore.
“Howdy,” said the blinding sun to the left. “What y’all doin out here in this here cold?”
“Yeah,” the right swirl continued, “I reckon it’s a migh-T cold night for this timea year! But not too cold for y’all from Penn-seel-van-ya!” The men had to be literate, for they had obviously correctly read and recognized the state that was written on Keero’s Chevrolet’s license plate as they had pulled up.
Before any of the boys could come up with something clever to say, the two approaching lights beamed towards the ground and revealed the site of two fully red-necked, hill-billy hat wearing, over-weight, and over-all wearing men quaking with laughter at their own jokes. Keero quickly observed that the heavier and dumber looking man on the left was holding a rifle across the coat pockets of his hunting jacket.
“What you all doing here?” The man on the right looked at Keero while he asked the question, but then he shined his flashlight into the eyes of Tommy and Jeff, so as to include everyone in the conversation.
Tommy decided someone should speak, and so he said the first thing that came to mind. “We just left mutha-fuckin’ New Orleans after our Spring Break trip, and man, we’re all headed home, all the way up to Penn, uh, P.A.! But as you can tell, our car is pulled over here, cause we’re so dazed from the whole trip, that we didn’t realize we were so low on gas, that we ran out—” Tommy could have continued on forever, had the man on the left not interrupted him.
“—Now that’s a mighty poor li’l predicetement y’all got yourself into!” Keero noticed that the man pronounced every letter of the word predicament as though each letter were actually an individual syllable.
The man continued, “Now me and Jim-Bob over here, we can help you out jus fine, so you aint likely to run into any trouble. Me and Jim-Bob, oh, pardon, allow me to introduce myself, I’m Randall S. Plumkin, great grandson of the famous confederate rebel Guster Van Heeblen of Plumkin. He was one of the first Germans to come down to the South, and his cousin who stayed behind in Germany, well she ended up giving birth to one Ms. Eva Braun!” Randall’s smile competed with the bright shine of his mag-light as he spoke of his genealogy.
Jeff, keeping his eyes stiffly aimed at the rifle, began to edge his way to Keero’s car.
“Hey!” Jim-Bob yelled out. “Pardner, where ya going?” the words seemed kind, but were spoken plainly, and Jim-Bob wasn’t smiling anymore.
Jeff continued to walk away.
Jim-Bob was kind enough to repeat his question, “I said, where ya goin, faggot?” Randall laughed, but Jim-Bob’s face remained stoic.
Jeff spun around and said, “What the fuck did you call me?” and then in a voice he thought was under his breath, he added, “Ya fucking hick?”
Jim-Bob looked stunned, and Randall stopped laughing. Randall’s plump belly wiggled as he cocked his rifle.
“Now just what the fuck did that faggot say?” Randall asked. Randall’s question was directed to no one in particular. He spoke in a thunderous rage to the dark starless sky, to the ground that stunk of swamp water, and to the rotting leaves at his feet.
Only the crickets could be heard as no one attempted to answer Randall’s query. Jeff continued to stare at Jim-Bob with disgust.
“Now I’d say that’s mighty disrespectful of ya to walk away on somun that’s tryin to help ya, and then to not even have them the decen-cee to turn around when asked what yer walkin way fer!” Randall said.
“Come ere!” Randall pointed at Jeff.
Jeff walked straight up to Randall’s finger without uttering a word or moving his eyes away from Jim-Bob’s face. Jeff could smell the thick aroma of cheap beer emanating from Randall’s lips, as he stood at about an arm’s length away.
Keero had temporarily slipped into a state of apathy, but he suddenly snapped out of it, and realized that smart, rational, and intelligent action was immediately required in order to prevent a very ugly scene.
“Listen, guys, I think that this is all a very big, and unfortunate, misunderstanding. I think, what my friend Jeff- that’s him.” Keero pointed his finger at Jeff as walked up to stand by his side. “Jeff is just really-”
Just then, two headlights appeared down the road. The three boys were relieved and elated as the car turned out to be a Mississippi State Police car. The car turned around and parked behind Keero’s car. They were saved.
The car’s lights blinked red and blue, but the sirens were off. The image created a disorienting and strange atmosphere in the dark night. Only Keero noticed that as the officer stepped out of the car, Jim-Bob made no effort to hide his rifle.
Officer Bradley, local shady cop at large, stepped out of his car and felt his thick boots slide into the mud beneath his feet. As he approached the five men, he acknowledged Jim-Bob and Randall by taking off his hat and nodding at them. The two men returned this salutation by smiling and nodding as well. Keero made his best attempt to appear friendly, considerate, and not Jewish for the officer. Jeff remained where he stood, still keeping his entire focus on Jim-Bob’s plump face. Tommy’s focus was on worrying about the stash of pot in the back of the tire hub.
“Hello, y’all,” the officer said. “What y’all doing out here tonight? Any problems?” As he asked this final question, he looked at Jim-Bob and Randall, with a mischievous grin.
“Good evening Officer Bradley,” the two hicks said in their best schoolboy voices.
Randall continued, “No, there’s no problem, just that these fella’s here seemed to be in trouble, and we were gonna help them.”
“Were you going to help them, with that gun?” As Officer Bradley asked Jim-Bob this simple question, Keero, Tommy, and even Jeff felt a sense of relief.
“Oh, no sir, I just always carry Betty around for protection. Ya never know who or what the hell yer gonna run into at this time of night on these here roads, ya know?” Jim-Bob had looked directly into Jeff’s sparkling blue eyes as he said the word what.
“Well, what seems to be the problem for ya,” the officer asked Keero.
“Oh, well, you see sir, I mean, um, officer, you see, our car has run out of gas, and we don’t know where the nearest station that’s gonna be open is,” Keero replied.
“I see, well, I reckon I can help y’all. Course it is standard procedure here in the South to introduce ourselves to strangers. I’m Officer Bradley, and I see you’ve already become acquainted with young Jim-Bob and Randall over here…”
“Hi, Officer Bradley. Pleased to meet you. I’m,” Keero paused before introducing himself. The dilemma of being half Jewish was still beating throughout Keero’s mind. While Keero realized that Officer Bradley was an officer of the law, he still feared his anti-Semitic stereotype of Southerners, so he decided to lie. “I’m John, John White. And these are my friends, Jeff Strykinski and Tommy McGee.”
“Well John, what say we have a little look-see at your vehicle here.” Jim-Bob and Randall both chuckled. Officer Bradley shot them a ‘shut-the-fuck-up’ look that worked like clockwork. Keero was only now beginning to notice the fact that a subtle conversation, one without words, was taking place between the two hicks and Officer Bradley. The three were trying to say something with only the use of their eyes and body language; only Keero couldn’t interpret their ape-like language.
The fear that had been subsiding in each of the boy’s minds began to rise again as the officer walked towards the vehicle. There was nothing to hide at this point, except a lot of weed and Keero’s fib about his real name. But this was a lot to hide from a police officer.
Officer Bradley first inspected the dashboard and assessed that the car was indeed out of gas. He then walked back to his car, telling the boy’s that he would radio in for help.
Officer Bradley knew that he could count on Jim-Bob and Randall to help him find probable cause to search these boys and their car, but he had to leave the scene to let them do their dirty work. But before either Jim-Bob or Randall could begin to perform any mischief, Officer Bradley leaned his head out of his car window and said to Keero, “Son, I’ll need to see your driver’s license. Why don’t you come over here?”
Keero offered his friends a look of deep apology for lying about his name, withdrew his driver’s license from his wallet, and trudged towards Officer Bradley’s car.
Randall then took it upon himself to walk over to Keero’s car and he began to examine the car for himself, as if he didn’t trust Officer Bradley’s judgment of the gas gauge. Randall next walked to the side of the car, made a clandestine motion with his right hand, near the tire, and then Jeff clearly heard the words “Oopsie doozy” slowly dribble out of Jim-Bob’s beer soaked lips.
Tommy looked ready to explode as he heard the sound of air rushing from the left-rear tire of the car and into the still Mississippi night.
“What the FUCK did you do that for?” Tommy yelled at Randall.
Officer Bradley, alone, returned to the scene. “Look’s like y’all are in a bit of trouble, aint ya?” He said to Tommy and Jeff. Your friend John, he ain’t no John. Seems his real name is Keerian. Now why d’yall think he decided to lie to me? Y’all got something to hide?”
“You better check out the tire, I think it’s flat, sir,” Jim-Bob interjected with a smile.
“Now what’s this?” Officer Bradley said. Officer Bradley bent down to inspect the tire, and then looked up at Jim-Bob with a smile. “Open the trunk, we’ll change this tire in a jiffy.” Officer Bradley felt a surge of power as he dictated his authority.
These last three words sent daggers into the hearts of Tommy and Jeff, for they knew all too well what Officer Bradley would find if he checked the inner-tire hub of the trunk: About an ounce of fresh, Pennsylvania Marijuana in a zip lock bag, duct-taped to the tire hub.
Tommy gasped as Officer Bradley began to remove bags from the trunk of the car. Officer Bradley wore an ear-to-ear grin that stretched across his leathery, taut face. Tommy felt defeated. It would now be only a matter of minutes before the boys would be getting handcuffed and read their rights.
Jeff had also given up any hope of avoiding arrest when a crisp, shrill electronic ring struck through the thin night air. Jeff pulled a small Nokia phone from his pocket and pressed the talk key. “Hello?” Jeff said. “Oh, hi Mom, how are you?” Jeff was suddenly smiling.
As Jeff talked to his mother, Officer Bradley continued to remove bags from the trunk and to carelessly toss them into the wet, clay-like mud on the ground.
“Mom,” Jeff continued, “what does the law say about detaining individuals without reading them their Miranda rights?” Officer Bradley stopped, mid-search, and looked up at Jeff for the first time since the phone had rung. Jeff continued, “I mean, a cop can’t just put you in the back of his car, and then search your trunk if your car is broken down, or out of gas…can he?” Jeff seemed to be taking control of the situation.
“Now just calm down there, son,” Officer Bradley said. He had walked away from the trunk at this point, but Jim-Bob had taken over things, and was about to begin unscrewing the spare tire compartments cover.
Jeff quickly continued the conversation; “and if that stranger were to find something illegal, it would have to be suppressed in a court of law, even though he had broken the law, because it was illegally obtained, you know, without a search warrant or probable cause, right?” Jeff was now beaming from ear to ear as he danced around and continued to talk into his cell phone. “Cause even joking about your name doesn’t give an officer probable cause, right?”
Officer Bradley quickly pulled Jim-Bob away from the car, and shot Randall a brutal look of disgust. He turned his attention to Jeff and said, “Listen, young man, there’s no need to get anyone else involved in this, please get off the phone.”
Jeff politely smiled at Officer Bradley and then said, “No, it’s cool, it’s just my mom, she’s a lawyer. She’s the assistant D.A. for San Francisco County; she’s a real big shot! Anyway, I believe that you may be violating my rights, so I’m consulting her, as my attorney, and I believe that the constitution, even the Mississippi constitution, grants me that right.”
Jeff resumed his conversation with his mother. “Okay Mom, yeah, that’s B-R-A-D-L-E-Y, I believe. Yeah, you call me right back, and we’ll talk more, okay?” With this final statement, Jeff put away his phone and looked Officer Bradley directly in the eyes. “My mother would like to have a talk with you before you take any further action, oh, and she’s calling her friend in the Department of Justice to inspect your credentials.”
Officer Bradley shuddered and then shot an angry look at his two accomplices. “Listen, Jim-Bob, Randall, you two get the hell out of here, this is official police business now,” Officer Bradley said through clenched teeth.
Jim-Bob and Randall nearly tripped over themselves as they scrambled back to their truck. After they had left, Officer Bradley let Keero out of the back of his car. He didn’t apologize to any of them, nor did he bother to make any eye contact as he gruffly told them to “stay out of trouble.”
The boys laughed aloud as Officer Bradley’s car sped away, and then they collectively sighed with relief as they watched his tail lights fade away into the veil of fog that continued to haunt the dark night.
Tommy looked at Jeff and said, “Holy Fucking Shit, how the fuck did you get your fucking mom to call you at this hour! That was fucking amazing!!!”
Keero clandestinely reached into his pocket. Suddenly, Jeff’s cell phone rang again. “Hello?” Jeff asked with a knowing smile.
Keero pulled a small cell phone out of his pocket, and said “Hi, Jeff, it’s your fucking mom, now keep a cool face, and pretend that I’m a big shot lawyer, like a D.A. from California or something, and let’s get the fuck out of the deep south!
