by Yocum, Robin
I had been accepted into the journalism program at Indiana University and offered a chance to walk on to the baseball team. I was excited about my prospects. While I harbored no fears of the academic challenges before me, I did question my ability to hit a Big Ten-caliber curveball. I was equally concerned about Travis. The sentimental part of me hoped that Travis and I would always be close friends. But I was enough of a realist to know that this night represented a change in our friendship. It was from this point that our paths would diverge. Our relationship, precious as it was to me, would never be the same. It couldn’t be.
Whatever Travis’s future held, it certainly would not involve me. It was sad to see it all coming to such an abrupt end. Operation Amanda had brought us so close that I felt as though I was losing a brother. I was privy to his most intimate feelings. Together, we shared an enormous secret. Now, it was over.
It was a warm, clear night, the amber glow of the mill lighting the sky far to the north. Our fellow graduates came and went, taking turns sitting in a semicircle of folding chairs and talking of the future and the past. At a few minutes before eleven, a brown Ford station wagon with dealer plates pulled to the curb just down from the Robinsons’ and out poured Urb Keltenecker, Snookie McGruder, Brad Nantz, Johnny Liberti, and Travis.
Urb, having been given use of the car for the evening, part of his dad’s plan to keep sobriety at the front of his son’s consciousness, was sober. Brad Nantz, too, was sober. The other three were in various stages of alcoholic stupor, and Travis was virtually falling-down drunk. “Malone!” he yelled, waving a can of Iron City in his right hand. “It’s the beer drinker’s beer,” he yelled. “When you’re really ready to pour it on, pour on the Iron!”
Brad walked past me and said, “He’s absolutely trashed.”
Everyone within earshot turned to see Travis struggling to negotiate the steep concrete steps leading to the sidewalk that sloped up toward the Robinsons’ front porch. I stood to help him make the last three steps. “Whoa, I didn’t know if I could make it up,” he said, staggering forward into my arms. “Thanks, pal.” But he was dead weight and I couldn’t hold him; he fell sideways into the yard, and rolled onto his back, laughing.
“How ’bout you babysit him for a while?” Urb said. “He’s an obnoxious drunk. I’ve never seen him like this.”
“I don’t think he’s all that bad,” Johnny Liberti said, trying valiantly to help Travis to his feet.
“That’s because you’re almost as hammered as he is,” Urb said, heading toward the side yard where Mr. Robinson was pleadingly waving a brat in his direction.
“Johnny, go get yourself something to eat. I’ll help him,” I said.
Johnny staggered off, and Dwayne and I rolled Travis upright as he giggled at his drunkenness. “I’ve got to get me a fresh beer,” he slurred. “Whatta ya serving, Du-wayne?”
Dwayne looked at me and whispered, “No way my dad’s going to let him have another beer.”
“Trav, buddy, don’t you think you’ve had enough?” I asked.
Travis’s eyes closed to slits, and the corner of his lip curled. “You’re not my father, Malone. Don’t tell me what to do with my life, Mister College Boy.” There was an uncommon, hateful tone to his voice.
“Come on, Trav, don’t talk like that.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ve been drinking and you don’t want to say something that you’re going to regret later.”
“Screw you. I won’t regret anything. Go on off to college, big man. Mister big man at Indiana University. Mister Hoosier. Come on back and visit your old buddies once in a while, okay? Grace us with your magnificent presence, Mister Joe Fuckin’ College.”
“You’re drunk.”
“Oh, you think? Very perceptive. Did you learn that at college?”
I put my hand on his shoulder and tried to lead him toward the steps. “Come on, let’s get you home so you can sleep this off.”
“Get your fuckin’ hands off me,” he said, jerking away.
“Very nice, Travis.” My voice was rising, and I reached for the can of beer he still held in his left hand. “Give me the beer. You’re acting like a jerk.”
Travis dropped the beer from his left hand as he fired his right fist into my nose. I reeled back several steps but didn’t fall. Everyone who had been sitting in the grass jumped up to get away from the commotion, and Dwayne stepped between us as I lunged back at Travis. “Mitchell, don’t. You’re only going to make it worse,” Dwayne said.
“Come on, Malone, you fuckin’ pussy,” Travis goaded. “Come on, let’s see what you’ve got, college boy.”
I charged through Dwayne, knocking him to the left, and took two more steps, driving my right shoulder into Travis’s ribs. I wrapped him up, and we fell into a heap in one of Mrs. Robinson’s peony bushes. He shoved both hands into my face and my only punch was an errant one, which glanced off his cheek. Snookie and Urb pulled me off of him. A small amount of blood trickled from my left nostril. I said, “I’ll kick your scrawny ass, Travis.”
“Yeah, you and what Marine?”
This all brought Mr. Robinson down from his post at the grill. Urb handed me a paper napkin, and I dabbed my bloody nose. Travis was laughing. No one said anything. Everyone knew how close Travis and I were, and they were shocked that we would fight, even if he was sloppy drunk. Mr. Robinson said, “Travis, I think it’s time for you to go home.”
Travis squinted at Mr. Robinson. His jaw tensed, and he started toward the steps. “Fine. It’s a shitty party, anyway.”
“Dwayne, help him down the steps,” Mr. Robinson said.
Dwayne tried to hold Travis’s arm, but he shook free. “Get your paws off me. I don’t need your help; I don’t need anyone’s help.” He was yelling again. “I’ve made it eighteen years without anyone’s help, why would I need it now? Enjoy your stinkin’ party. Screw all of ya.”
Mrs. Robinson came out of the house and handed me a damp washcloth and everyone watched Travis as he ran, wobbling, across Grant Avenue and over the hill toward the United Methodist Church. “Don’t you think someone should go with him to make sure he gets home all right?” Mrs. Robinson asked.
No one responded or offered to escort Travis.
“What a jerk,” Urb said.
“He’ll be okay once he sleeps it off,” I said.
“I shouldn’t have pulled you off him. I should have let you pound him,” Snookie said.
I didn’t respond. There was nothing to say. I sat down in the chair and pinched the bridge of my nose until the bleeding stopped, then thanked the Robinsons for the invitation and started toward my car.
“Are you okay to drive?” Mr. Robinson asked, assuming that I, too, had been a drunken participant.
“I’m fine, sir. I’ve just been drinking RC.”
“Okay,” he said, not convinced. “Are you heading home?”
“I’m going to swing out to the Hatchers’ for a little while. If I know the Hatchers, things will just get hummin’ around midnight.”
He shook my hand, said congratulations, thanked me for stopping by, and asked me to please be careful.
My timing was good.
From what I was told later, I hadn’t been gone fifteen minutes when the rumbling made its way up Grant Avenue, causing everyone at the party to freeze and peer down the road. Aside from the train horns, the barge whistles, and the high-pitched siren that summoned Brilliant’s volunteer firemen, the single most recognizable sound in Brilliant, Ohio, was the rumble of the engine within the 1957 Chevy Bel Air hardtop owned by Francis Martino Baron. Before the car crested the knoll on Grant Avenue, Urb looked at Snookie and asked, “He wouldn’t do something that stupid, would he?”
But he had.
The tires squealed when he crossed the railroad tracks at the bottom of the hill, and a pair of headlights headed up Grant Avenue. He burned rubber twice as he shifted up the hill, slowing the car at the last minute in front of the Robinson
home. The black lacquered finish gleamed under the streetlights; the reverberation of the engine shook the asphalt. Urb and Snookie hustled down the steps, hoping to talk Travis out of the car. He laughed at them through the open passenger-side window. “How do ya like my new ride, boys? Better than the Rambler, huh? Big Frank gave it to me for a graduation present.”
“Really?” Urb asked.
Snookie winced at Urb’s naiveté. “Bullshit, Travis. Get out of the car,” Snookie said. “When Big Frank finds out you took it from the garage he’s gonna hang your balls from the rearview mirror.”
Travis opened the lid on the case of longnecks he had placed on the passenger seat. “Care for a brew? They’re Big Frank’s, too.”
“Please, Travis. Just get your ass out of the car,” Snookie said.
Travis revved the engine; the roar was deafening and hot exhaust billowed up around the car. “I’m takin’ her for a spin. It’s a little graduation present to myself.”
“Oh, shit,” Urb said. “Mayday. We’ve got a Barney Fife sighting.”
The Brilliant Police cruiser was heading down Grant and stopped next to the Chevy. Officer Cloyd Owens was in the cruiser. By the look on his face, it was obvious that he expected to see Frank Baron behind the wheel, not his drunken son. Travis grinned at Cloyd. “Hey, Barney, wanna beer?” he asked, holding a bottle out the window toward the officer.
Cloyd appeared to be in a momentary state of disbelief, not only because he had been offered a beer by a drunken teenager, but because the drunken teenager was behind the wheel of Big Frank Baron’s prize Chevy. “Turn that engine off and get out!” Cloyd ordered, opening the door to the cruiser.
Travis dropped the beer on the pavement between the two vehicles, and an explosion of foam and amber glass spread over the asphalt. He turned to his buddies and grinned. “I gotta dash, boys. Gonna take me a little joyride,” he yelled as he popped the clutch, leaving behind two strips of rubber and a haze of white smoke. Before Cloyd could exit the cruiser, the taillights of the Chevy disappeared over the knoll onto Wilhelm Avenue. Cloyd closed his door, hit the lights, backed into the driveway, and took off after Travis.
There was little chance that the cruiser could catch the Chevy. Travis drove away, and he was already heading south on Labelle Street before the police cruiser cleared the knoll onto Wilhelm. Urb watched from the knoll and said Travis downshifted and fishtailed through the bend in the road as Labelle crossed Steuben Street. That’s where he lost sight of him.
He stomped on the gas, burned rubber, and slid broadside onto Ohio Avenue, nearly clipping a car driven by Margaret Simcox. She later said that pieces of gravel pinged the side of her car as he passed. A trail of white smoke followed the Chevy. It was several seconds later before she spotted Cloyd in pursuit. “Travis was just running away from him,” she said.
When he drove past my house, Mom heard the car and said it sounded like a fighter jet going down the street. She looked out the window, but only saw the taillights and didn’t realize it was Travis driving.
He turned the corner at the Coffee Pot, and in seconds, Travis had the Chevy squealing through the soft left turn in front of Rudy Tarbaker’s house. He passed the high school and stayed on Third Street, following it toward the south edge of town. He passed two southbound cars and whizzed by three others heading north. All five cars parted as the cruiser gave chase.
At the south end of Brilliant, Travis continued under the Route 7 overpass and past Ohio Ferro Alloy, turning right toward Riddle’s Run Road, a four-mile gravel and pitch strip that connected with Ohio Route 151 just beyond New Alexandria. Travis slowed when he hit Riddle’s Run Road. Cloyd would later say that he never lost sight of his target, but he couldn’t catch the Chevy. When the cruiser turned onto Riddle’s Run Road, nearly sliding off the asphalt and into the ditch, Travis floored the Chevy. He easily distanced himself from Cloyd, who was fighting darkness and the dust clouds the Chevy left behind. The final mile of Riddle’s Run Road was a straight, uphill climb. Travis hit Route 151 just as Cloyd reached the bottom of the hill.
Travis continued through New Alexandria, jumping off 151 onto Jefferson County Road 19, known to the locals as New Alexandria Road. It is a winding, five-mile strip of asphalt that entered Brilliant at its northernmost tip, intersecting with Steel Road just north of Hunter’s Ridge Park. The park was owned and maintained by Ohio Valley Steel and had once been the grounds of the Thorneapple estate. There were no turnoffs or other intersecting streets between New Alexandria and Steel Road. Cloyd had radioed the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department for help. A sheriff’s cruiser was southbound on Route 7 and would set up a roadblock at Steel Road.
Travis again opened a huge gap between the Chevy and the cruiser as he homed in on the entrance to Hunter’s Ridge Park. He hit the high beams and pointed the nose of the Chevy toward the wooden gate that extended across the main entrance to the park. The gate exploded into kindling when Travis rammed it. He spun through the gravel road, which cut under the railroad and highway overpass. The car slid on the gravel and clipped the concrete abutment of the highway overpass, but Travis continued on for a quarter mile to the main parking lot, which sat on the edge of the cliffs overlooking the valley far above the Ohio River. He brought the car to a halt. The siren behind him was closing in.
Cloyd locked up his brakes when he saw what was left of the splintered gate to the park. He jerked the wheel hard and pulled into the park, realizing it was the only exit. He drove slowly down the road, shining his spotlight along the berm, certain the Chevy was lurking in the shadows, like a caged animal looking for his path of escape. But there was nothing but silence; the path was clear except for the last flecks of dust raised by the Chevy. Cloyd put the car in park and stood beside the open driver’s door, covering the parking lot with his spotlight. He feared he had somehow lost his quarry and was ready to leave when he saw the gaping hole in the white fence that rimmed the parking lot. On the asphalt before him were two thick strips of rubber. In the grass between the support posts were the rutted grooves that had been carved out by two hot-running tires.
Cloyd ran through the opening and carefully scooted down the sixty feet of grass that ended at the cliffs, a towering precipice that ran more than one hundred feet up from the river. At the bottom of the cliffs, rising out of the water, was a mound of jagged boulders that over the years had freed themselves from the rock wall. And just beyond that were the taillights of Frank Baron’s 1957 Chevy, sinking into the dark waters of the Ohio River.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
From the picnic area of Hunter’s Ridge, located at the top of the hill, across New Alexandria Road and behind the cliffs, it had looked surreal. I watched the car stop, its headlights shining off into the darkness over the Ohio River. A few seconds later, the familiar roar of the 283-cubic inch V-8 echoed off the hills. It sat for a moment, quaking, like an angry bull waiting for the gate to open so it could rid itself of the cowboy on its back. And when the gate opened, the beast erupted forth, and a plume of blue-white smoke grew from under the tires and the squeal of rubber pierced the night. The car broke through the fence, darkening a headlight, and lurched down the embankment, launching itself from the cliffs with all the high drama of a Hollywood death scene. It became a dart in the Ohio night, its lone headlight shining a cycloptic beam on the black target below. It hit the water and slowly bobbed as it filled with water, pulling it under only seconds after I spotted Cloyd with his flashlight on the edge of the embankment.
Within minutes, the emergency siren blasted throughout Brilliant. One of the two emergency squad vans pulled into the parking lot. There was another at the Brilliant Boat Club, where the firemen were taking pleasure crafts up the river in search of Travis.
The siren blasted longer than usual. Firetrucks and other cars pulled into the parking lot. Flashlight beams were everywhere. Panic arrested Brilliant.
It was a full twenty minutes after the car hit the water before Travis emerged from th
e line of pine trees behind me. He had taken the precaution of walking around the access road at the rear of the park. “What’s all the commotion about?” he asked.
“Buster, you’ve just caused more hell than you could imagine.” I pointed out toward the river. “They’ve already got the boats out searching for you.” We watched in silence for a long moment. “Anyone see you come up here?” Travis asked.
“Nope.” After leaving the party at the Robinsons’, I had pretended to be heading to another graduation party, but cut back on the gravel lover’s lane that led to the picnic area at the park. I was seated on the bench overlooking the cliffs, our prearranged meeting place, before Travis pulled the Chevy out of the garage.
“We’d better take advantage of the confusion,” he said, looking at his watch. It was eleven-fifty p.m. “We’ll never make it by midnight.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The duffle bag and two suitcases had been wrapped in plastic dry cleaner bags and stashed in the brush early that morning. We threw them in the trunk of my car and drove down the service road and back onto New Alexandria Road, a half-mile west of the park’s main entrance. Travis wore a Pittsburgh Pirates cap low on his brow, but that was his only attempt to conceal his identity. We were near New Alexandria in minutes and were passed by an emergency squad from the New Alexandria Volunteer Fire Department that was headed toward the park.