Excerpt: The Actress
The automobile accident was horrific. One car plowed into another from behind, pushing that car into the intersection to broadside a third car. There was a frightening prelude of screeching tires. A girl standing near the corner was a somewhat witness to the crash. She held her breath, she later explained to police, as the tires slid on pavement. She could anticipate the resolution of such sound. Impact came next. And then there was the jarring noise of exploding metal and plastic. The cacophony resonated a warning of injury and perhaps death. One of the car horns blared relentlessly as if it were screaming for help
Chad Court sat in the chase car next to Meredith Gibbs. She was the driver, she was pricelessly stoned. Chad was quite drunk. Air bags saved them.
This whole business had started with accusations, recriminations, and fault finding. They had all skipped school, Meredith and Chad and two friends; Jeff Hoover, the other driver, and his friends. Both cars were near each other in a Wendy’s parking lot. Yelling insults back and forth, they demeaned in street language. No one could remember correctly who spoke first to whom, but someone said to somebody that somebody was a supreme shithead and a pervert. And so it started. There was one insult after another.
These foul words were followed by cat-calls and other kinds of name calling. Soon, vague threats were hurled; from both cars. Self-righteous riders of Hoover’s car couldn’t stand it. The accusers in Meredith’s car would not desist. The Hoover car victims were indignant and tossed a nearly full jumbo Coke. The side of Meredith’s silver Honda was splattered with Coke, some of the liquid flying through the open windows.
A juvenile virus of invective took life and infected the gossipers and finger-pointers in both cars. Teenage dialogue had come into full bloom with action. The Coke tossers raced out of the Wendy’s lot and headed north.
Meredith followed as quickly as she could get her drink in a cup holder and hand her almost finished fish sandwich and fries to Chad. Hoover had the hotter car so he could stay ahead, intersection by intersection, making the green lights, blowing through a couple of yellows, and seemingly losing Meredith by two intersections.
She finally caught up with him at the intersection where it all happened. Whatever her intentions were, she would never really be able to explain. God forbid that she were texting a friend about what was going down. She slowed, but hardly enough, braked hard, and whacked Hoover’s car as it sat waiting for the light to change. Who knows why? Anger, frustration, poor judgment; perhaps all of those contributed.
Chad was the only person not seriously injured. He could hear a horn sounding continuously, the door was opened, and a man asked him if he was all right. He could hear sirens as he tried to figure out what had happened. Meredith hit somebody? How could she do that? What was going on? The sirens got louder.
The deflated air bag sagged in front of Chad as the police officer helped him from the car. Another officer attended to Meredith. Her car was part way into the intersection.
“You drunk?”
“I don’t think so. No, no, I’m not drunk.”
Chad stumbled to one knee, righted himself quickly, and sidled a bit to his left.
“I wasn’t driving.”
“We know that. Come on; get in the back of the squad car.”
“Okay.”
Chad had forgotten about Meredith, about the accident, about anything but maneuvering into the police cruiser. The first EMT van arrived. He watched it with fascination as the technicians jumped out and ran across the intersection. He was alone in the back seat; the officer had moved on to others.
The elderly couple, riding in the Prius which Hoover’s car slammed, were dead. After the impact, their vehicle veered right, traveled into a gas station, and hit the concrete base of a light pole. Hoover’s Lexus sedan sat in the middle of the intersection. It was the Lexus horn that continued. One of the police officers finally got it stopped.
Meredith had fought with the officer who tried to assist her to the patrol car. She sat on the curb not far from Chad. He could see her sitting there. He wondered what she was doing. He admired her legs stuck straight out from the tan shorts she wore. Bare feet; her sandals were gone.
“Why didn’t you stop?”
She turned and looked at Chad.
“Just shut up.”
None of the teenagers realized that the old couple was dead. They whined and moaned because of their injuries, some more dramatically than others, and were totally involved with themselves. Drugs and booze highlighted their conditions, mitigated the stupid and stupefied reactions to the whole episode. There was crying, laughing, and anger. Some of them were actually seriously injured. Two more EMT vans showed up and the techs set about to determine the real hurts.
Meanwhile, the police went about their procedures with a business-like way of step-by-step performance.
“Who was driving the car you were in?” the officer asked Chad.
“She was…”
“You mean the girl sitting on the curb?”
“Yeah. I don’t know why she didn’t stop…”
“She ran into the car…the one there in the middle of the intersection?”
“Yeah.”
“How fast was she going?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t see the speedometer.”
“Can you guess?”
“No, I have no idea.”
Chad knew that anything he said right then could hurt Meredith. He was not going to do that.
Two more ambulances arrived. Every one of the kids but Meredith and Chad were hauled away to hospitals. The old couple was taken to a hospital even though all of the emergency personnel knew they were dead.
Chad heard the officer who had spoken to him now asking questions of Meredith.
“You the driver of the Honda?”
“No. He was.”
She pointed at Chad.
“He says you were.”
“He’s lying.”
“Can I see your license?”
“In my purse…in the car.”
The officer walked over to the Honda and retrieved her purse. He handed it to her.
“Would you take out your license?”
She did and handed it to him.
“You Meredith Gibbs?”
“Yes.”
“We ran the plates. Car registered to Conrad Gibbs. Who is that?”
“My father.”
“You still say he was driving?” He pointed at Chad.
“Yes.”
“Kids in your car say you were driving.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“Just checking it out. Get in the patrol car with your buddy.”
“Piss off.”
The officer motioned to one of the other policeman. The other officer came and stood next to the sitting Meredith.
“Cuff her.”
Meredith was summarily handcuffed by the second officer.
“Now, get up and walk to the car or we will drag you there.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“You are being detained for refusing to obey a police order.”
“Fuck you.”
The two officers picked up Meredith and carried her to the police car.
“My father is an attorney who knows about police brutality, knows how you guys operate. You’ll regret this, you jerks.”
The officers put Meredith in the rear of the cruiser next to the slumped Chad.
She turned to Chad.
“You are such a wuss. I hope you’re satisfied.”
Chad looked away from her out the window towards the intersection. There it was. The result of their nonsense, he thought, the result of all the bullshit back there at Wendy’s. There were the smashed cars, the shattered scattered pieces strewn about, the milling emergency workers, and the press of gawkers and on-lookers. He wondered what he would say to his parents.
“You ran into a stopped car. What the hell did you think was going on? Did you think this was a demolition derby?”
“You did it,” she screamed. “You were driving.”
“They already know that’s a lie.”
Meredith looked at Chad, shook her head, and turned away. She scowled in defiance and stuck her tongue out at the officer who had stuffed her into the rear seat of the patrol car.
“You can all go to hell.”
Chad suddenly felt sick; sick enough to vomit. He turned and threw up into Meredith’s lap. Somehow he felt better and he thought that somehow he could explain it all to his parents. He was satisfied his Mother would understand.