Road Trip

by Dan Taylor

  “Don’t worry about me. I’m going to Denzel this motherfucker.”

  I start my act.

  “I’ve got you on an eleven. I want you on a six,” he says.

  “No pressing my face up against the window, as though longing to smell the fresh air on the other side of it?”

  “No.”

  “What about my looking around as though regarding the interior of the car as the prison cell in which I’ll spend two consecutive life sentences? Come to think of it, when have life sentences ever been spent non-consecutively?”

  “No.”

  “First question or second?”

  “Shut up. We’re here.”

  We pull off the dirt into farmland that looks like it’s being rested for a year—long grass, random flowers and weeds. In the middle of it, standing by the side of a pickup truck, is the sheriff. As we get closer, close enough to see who the sheriff actually is, what I see blows my mind.

  25.

  Before we pulled into the field, I had a number of theories about what’s going on here. The first was I’m being extorted for money. Officer Field here poses as a cop, obviously, and has the guy from the restaurant pose as a drifter who gets run over by the mark, who obviously flees the scene of the crime when they see that lunatic running towards them. Marlboro Man catches up to the mark, hassles them, and then Officer Field comes along and ostensibly saves the day, gaining the mark’s trust, and then he flips the switch, and they have to go and see ‘the sheriff,’ who offers some sort of out-of-court settlement deal. Looking around, it’s also an out-of-office settlement deal.

  Being the good guy that he seems to be, apart from shooting Grace and what have you, Officer Field fears the repercussions of this guy who’s posing as the sheriff—I’ll go ahead and assume he’s the leader—who’ll shoot us all, if he found out Officer Field had injured, potentially fatally, one of the people he’s trying to extort. He’d basically be pulling the plug on this score.

  My second theory for what was going on here is less contrived, more on the nose. Officer Field and these other clowns are part of some sort of rape ring.

  It’s unlikely, I admit, not if you factor in that Grace ostensibly has a shot at convincing ‘the sheriff’ she hasn’t been shot while being undressed and whatnot.

  Anyway, the thing that blew my mind?

  When coming up with the aforementioned theories, not once did I think that the sheriff would turn out to be—I know you’ve already guessed it—a scarecrow.

  He’s either that or a he’s a man with hay for hair, is incapable of movement apart from swaying to and fro upon each strong gust of wind, likes to stand with his arms sticking straight out at his sides at right angles, and has a wooden pole that’s driven into the mud and is sticking up and deep into his ass.

  I see him first, and then Grace does. I expect her to start laughing, but she rubs her eyes, as though not believing what she’s seen, and then looks again. Who could blame her? And then there it is, she’s starts laughing. I elbow her, stopping her.

  “No laughing back there. The sheriff already looks pissed,” Officer Field says.

  Grace looks at me and mouths, “What the fuck?”

  I shrug, and mouth back, “Just play along?”

  She nods.

  We slow to a halt about ten yards from the scarecrow and the parked pickup truck.

  We sit in silence ten or so seconds, during which Officer Field waves at the scarecrow, not the whole time, you understand, but long enough to freak us out, nonetheless.

  Then he turns around to address us. He takes off his shades, sighs, and says, “I just want you to know, I’m sorry I got you caught up in this mess.”

  Clearly, with the sheriff turning out to be what he is, our days of bantering are over, and the days of me staring at him as though he’s mentally deranged and my mumbling in response to what he says have just begun.

  “What’s a matter, Jake? Cat got your tongue?” he asks.

  “No. It’s not that.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “Nothing. I just had a little cotton mouth. I tried to say, ‘You go out there and speak to him. We’ll be right here.’”

  He chuckles, says, “Of course you will,” and then does something that would’ve given me pause for thought before I knew what I know now but makes perfect sense seeing as though he’s going out to speak to a sheriff’s-uniform-clad inanimate bird deterrent: He takes out the cigarette lighter from the dashboard, holds it up to show us, and says, “Just in case you guys were thinking about using this to escape.” He smiles. “You understand.”

  Grace says, “We do.”

  “By the way, the acting worried? You guys are nailing it.”

  Grace and I say, “Thanks.”

  “Be right back,” he says, and then goes to get out, but hesitates. Then he says, “I nearly forgot. I’ve brought the sheriff his burger supper,” and then takes out a shit-old Happy Meal from the glove compartment, if the flies buzzing around it are any indication. Then he gets out and starts walking over to the scarecrow. I have a million questions for Grace, and I’m sure she has a million for me, but we don’t ask a single one. We just sit there, watching the guy as he walks up to the scarecrow. Yep, he’s just shook its hand, nearly causing it to fall over, before he caught it and propped it back up.

  Does he know on some level it isn’t actually the sheriff?

  He holds out the Happy Meal to him, which he drops on the ground, having presumably imagined the sheriff taking it from him.

  Nope, he doesn’t.

  Now’s probably as good a time as any for a Q and A session.

  Grace and I ask the same question at the same time: “Holy shit! Do you think he’s going to kill us?” and then, again at the same time, “You first. No, you. What are we saying? It’s a rhetorical question, anyway.”

  Low odds, I know. But Grace and I have always had a knack for finishing and then elaborately and identically expanding on each other’s sentences. It’s one of the many reasons we got married.

  “It is,” I say. And then, Captain Obvious, “This is bad.”

  “It’s not good.”

  “Is this the part where we come up with a plan?”

  “It is.”

  “Well?”

  “I think whatever it is, it should involve crows. If this were a superhero movie, and he were the villain, his Kryptonite would be crows.”

  “Do you see any crows?

  “No.”

  “Then let’s think of a way of getting him to take off our handcuffs, and then we’ll go from there.”

  “Just think of a way to get him to take off our handcuffs, or think of a way to get out of them. It couldn’t be simpler.”

  We sit and think a couple seconds, while Officer Field appears to be having a serious conversation with Sheriff Scarecrow.

  Then I say, “You come up with anything?”

  “Nope.”

  “Me neither, apart from saying they’re chafing a little.”

  “A little?”

  “Or a lot. They’re chafing a lot.”

  She shakes her head.

  And then I say, “I think you’re going to have to play your royal flush.”

  “Play my royal flush? What does that mean?”

  “You’re going to have to tell him you have to poop.”

  “We’ve already tricked him with that.”

  “I tricked him with it, and it was a piss. He might not expect it from you. You’re a lady.”

  “Jake, I’m not going to do it, and it wouldn’t work, anyway.”

  “Okay. Let’s try a little technique I like to call brainstorming.”

  “You like to call?”

  “Yeah. We just throw out ideas without critiquing them, and then sort the wheat from the chaff afterwards.”

  “Oh, so it’s just like regular brainstorming, your brainstorming?”

  I have no idea what Grace means; all I know is she’s being negative. I’ve alwa
ys said there’s no place for negativity when you’re sitting handcuffed in the back of a mentally ill fake cop’s car while he’s speaking to a bird-scaring effigy as though it’s an actual person.

  I say, “I’ll start. We could… start rubbing our handcuffs on the seats to start wearing them away.”

  “That’s for binds, not solid-metal handcuffs. And traditionally that’s done on rocks, not car seats.”

  “We could… dislocate the bones in our hands and just slip right out of them, Riggs style.”

  “Can you dislocate the bones in your hands? Can anyone?”

  “We could… tell him that Diet Coke bottle lying on the dashboard commanded him to let us free.”

  She raises an eyebrow.

  “It’s chaff, admittedly, but at least I’m coming up with ideas. You’re just shooting down every one.”

  “I think talking to him is along the right lines. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think you should do the talking. He seems to like you more.”

  “What evidence do you have that he likes me more than you?”

  “A bullet wound, where you have none.”

  “Fair enough. What should I say?”

  “I don’t know, but it looks like he’s finishing up his conversation.”

  Grace’s right. If anyone can talk our way of this, it’s me. And she’s also right about him finishing up the conversation with Sheriff Scarecrow. He’s nodding repeatedly, as though he’s receiving and agreeing with advice or a course of action.

  Then he walks back to the car. Gets in. We sit in silence a couple seconds, and then he says, “Do you want the bad news, the very bad news, or the good news first?”

  Grace and I look at each other, concerned looks on our faces. And then she nods, so I say, “Before we answer that, do you think you could take off our handcuffs? They’re chafing, a lot.”

  As I wait for his response, I can see Grace shaking her head in my peripheral vision.

  He says, “No can do, amigo. I could, but I’d have to shoot you afterwards.”

  “You sure you have to do that, chief?”

  “I know it’s a cliché, but I would.”

  I think a second. He seems to have his clichés mixed up. He’s getting taking off handcuffs mixed up with having to tell us some confidential information.

  “Okay,” I say. “We’ll take the good news first.”

  He turns around, a dumb smile on his face. “The good news is, the sheriff seems to be in a good mood tonight. His ulcer must be less inflamed, or his wife is putting out. Whatever it is, there’s a spring in his step and a smile on his face.”

  I look around him at the scarecrow. “A spring in his step?”

  He notices me looking and looks himself. “You can’t see it? He’s practically doing ballet as he walks. Beautiful to see.”

  “Now that you mention it, he does look chipper. I suppose we’ll take the bad news next.”

  He sighs and the smile leaves his face, replaced by gloominess. “The bad news is, the sheriff says you’re going to have to pay for fleeing the scene of the crime.”

  I knew it. He’s extorting us. “Great,” I say.

  “Great?”

  “I mean, I don’t like it that much, but I’ll pay whatever the sheriff needs me to pay. If you take off my handcuffs, I’ll get my wallet out.”

  He frowns. “The sheriff can’t be bribed. He’s a man of unbendable ethics. That’s where the very bad news comes in.”

  “The very bad news is that he’s solely motivated by ideas of right and wrong?”

  “No. The very bad news is that for your crime, you’re going to kinda have to pay with your lives.” He sighs. “That’s right. The punishment for this crime is death by firing squad. My hands are tied.”

  26.

  “I thought you said the sheriff’s in a good mood?” I ask.

  He frowns, “He is.”

  “Then what would have been our punishment if—”

  Grace interjects, “Officer, look at me. That man out there isn’t a man at all. He’s a scarecrow—it’s a scarecrow.”

  He laughs. “How much of that stuff did Jake give you, Julie?”

  “My name’s Grace, and you’ve been out there talking to a sheriff’s uniform stuffed with hay, which is propped up by a stake. He didn’t say anything in return, because he doesn’t have a mouth, not really, just one drawn with a Sharpie on his potato-sack head.”

  He looks at her a second, and there’s a look on his face like he’s coming to some sort of realization. When Grace basically inferred he’s a highly delusional maniac, I was unsure it was a good idea. I thought he could lose his shit, maybe shoot us. But it looks like I was wrong.

  That is until he says, “You look more like a Grace than a Julie. It suits you.”

  “You don’t believe me?” she asks.

  “Of course not. That would be ridiculous. The sheriff is a man. I’m pretty sure I can tell the difference.”

  “Okay, then call him over. We’d like to speak to him.”

  “You want me to call over the sheriff?”

  “Yeah. Get him to walk over to the car.”

  He thinks a second, and then leans forwards and whispers, “Between you and me, the sheriff is unhappy with the justice system and has gone a little rogue. There’s no way he’ll come over here and talk to you.”

  Oh, boy. We’re really in trouble. He’s so sick he thinks those two things are mutually exclusive.

  I glance at Grace, who looks equally confused and disgusted at his logic, and who is unable to come up with a response.

  Determined that Grace’s tactic is a sound one, I wrack my brain for how to progress the argument. “Grace is right, we just watched you speak to a scarecrow for the last five or so minutes. I’m sorry to say, I think there might be something really wrong with you.”

  And Grace adds, “It’s true. And he can’t walk at all, let alone move with the grace of a ballerina.”

  Officer Field sighs. “What the sheriff said is true. You two are criminally insane.”

  I say, “Just do one thing for us before we receive our punishment.”

  “What?”

  I probably should’ve thought of that first. I think a second, and come up with, “Go over there and tell him to wave at us. We’ve… never been waved at by the principal law-enforcement officer in a county before, and it’s always been a dream of ours. Isn’t that right, honey?”

  I glance at Grace, who says, “That sure sounds like the definition of sheriff, and no, we haven’t, and yes, it’s a dream of ours.”

  Officer Field thinks a second, and then smiles skeptically. “You two are fucking with me.”

  “We’re not,” I say.

  “Admit it. You’ve been waved at by a sheriff before.”

  “Nodded at, maybe. But never waved at.”

  He scratches his chin, thinking. Then he says, “Well I suppose I’ll have to make it come true. You two sit tight and I’ll go speak to him. I’m sure he’ll oblige you, but I’ve still got to check.”

  “We’ll be right here,” I say.

  He gets out and walks over to the scarecrow. He has a short discussion with it, laughing at one point, nodding his head yes, maybe after relaying that we’re skeptical he’s a real man, or skeptical that we’ve never been waved at by a sheriff before.

  Then he turns to us, says, “You guys ready?”

  I go to give a give a thumbs-up, but then remember I’m handcuffed, and then nod instead. Grace says, “Well this is going to be interesting.” And then, “Are you wearing a new cologne? I just noticed it now.”

  “I am. And I’m pretty sure that man out there is a serial killer. The top notes, if you were wondering, are mint, lavender, and something called bergamot.”

  “I’m also convinced we’re not the first to be waved at by that scarecrow, so to speak, and that’s not the first time he’s delivered the sheriff his ‘burger supper.’ And I’m pretty sure bergamot is a fragrant citrus frui
t.”

  “Without even googling. You never fail to impress me.”

  My hope was that Officer Field would move the scarecrow’s hand in a waving motion himself, maybe tearing it from its body or limb, and the result would be he would come to his senses, realize he has at least five undiagnosed psychiatric conditions, and let us go, after which we could get him arrested and he could receive help.

  But that doesn’t happen. He moves a couple feet to the scarecrow’s right and stands by the side of it, and waves along, presumably with it. I say presumably, because, of course, the scarecrow isn’t waving at all, which might be funny if the lunatic standing by the side of it wasn’t convinced it’s a rogue sheriff commanding him to dish out vigilante justice.

  Then he shouts, “See? Feels great, doesn’t it?”

  We smile, because it feels like the only thing to do.

  “Jake, I’m worried,” Grace says.

  “Don’t worry. I’ve just been stalling. I have a plan.”

  “Will it work?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Do you think we’ll make it out of this alive?”

  “You will. I might not.”

  “Don’t do anything reckless.”

  “Honey, we’re beyond reckless.”

  “I’m not sure what that means, but be careful.”

  “I can’t promise that.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Have you ever seen the movie Good Men Die Trying?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  She sighs. “Should I tell you I love you for the last time, while I have the chance?”

  “I want to say no, but I think I have to say yes.”

  She does, and throws in a kiss.

  It’s worth mentioning that Officer Field and, in his mind, Sheriff Scarecrow waved during the whole of that conversation.

  He’s really making an effort to make our dreams come true.

  He comes back over and gets in the car.

  Then he says, “That was a rush! Did you see it, the smile on his face? The sheriff really likes to meet his fans.”

  “We saw it, all right,” I say.

  “Okay, with the waving out the way, I suppose all there is is to shoot you.” He turns around. “That firing squad, it’ll just be me and the sheriff, with the short notice, and all. That good with you guys?”