by Flash Rex
"There's a station on the corner!" I said. The truck pulled in.
"What do you want? The super?" The driver asked as he tried to angle the truck next to a pump. I jumped off the back of the truck and scrambled over to the pumps.
"I think the regular will be sufficient," I said. I grabbed the hose but there was no way it was going to reach above the railings along the bed of the truck.
"Here let me do it," the driver said as he took the dispenser out of my hands. He tried to jam it through the openings in the side of the railing but it wasn't working.
"We need a little gas can! You got a little gas can?" I asked the driver. I could see that some of the locals were beginning to take an interest in the truck and us. "We're not in Kansas anymore."
"I did have a gas can but some idiot drop kicked out on Long Island somewhere!"
I put my head in my hands. "Do you have anything else?"
Grimshaw leaned out the car window and yelled, "Will you hurry up?" The driver and I both turned and gave Grimshaw the finger.
"I may have one thing," he said as he reached behind the seat of the truck. He pulled out an old, empty half-gallon container of Yoo-Hoo. "Let's try this." He held out the container as I angled the nozzle into the open top. I pulled the trigger and nothing came out. "Did you pull the trigger?"
"Yes! I pulled the damn trigger! It's not working!" I turned and saw a man in the door of the convenience mart at the station watching us. "Let me talk to this guy. Hold on." I walked over and the guy just watched me. "Will you turn on the pumps please? We need some gas." He just stood there. "What? Is this prepay or what? Here's a buck. We just need half a gallon. Come on."
"You're at the full service island," he said.
"Well would you come out and serve us then?"
"No."
"Why not?" I asked.
"We're closed," he said.
"I'll give you ten bucks to open for just a minute. Ten bucks for a half-gallon of gas! You can't do better than that!"
"Someone who'd pay ten dollars for a gallon of gas would surely pay twenty dollars," he said.
"Okay, okay!" I said and he opened the door. "I'll take a carton of Yoo-Hoo too. How much?"
"That will bring the total to twenty-five dollars. Cash only," he said.
"Five dollars for a carton of Yoo-Hoo. I wish I had a coupon." I fished around for twenty-five dollars in my wallet. "Price gouging's illegal, you know."
"So's dispensing gasoline into a Yoo-Hoo container. But I won't tell if you won't."
"The Better Business Bureau is going to hear from me," I threatened.
"Bite me," he said.
"Fair enough."
I started drinking the Yoo-Hoo as I walked back to the truck. I was so thirsty I, I just had to have a drink. I didn't care where we were, I was going to drink. I walked over to the pump and held the empty Yoo-Hoo in my left hand so the driver could fill it with gas. My right hand was throwing back the Yoo-Hoo. Just as the driver finished dispensing the gas a police car pulled in. "Alright," I said. "The cops are here." I was concerned for our safety because more and more people were looking at the truck and us. I was beginning to feel like Custer. We were in enemy territory and we were defenseless. The cops would change that.
The doors to the police car opened but the cops slid out and ducked behind the doors. I'd seen enough TV to know there must be some trouble so I ducked too. I was careful not to spill either of the two precious liquids I had in my hands. "Put 'em down!" One of the cops yelled. I was hunched over and I turned my head from side to side to see who he was talking to. I didn't see anyone doing anything suspicious. I looked back at the cops. "Put 'em down!" The cop said again.
"Who? Me?" I said.
"Yes! You! Put em' down! Now!"
"I don't have..."
"Do it!"
"I don't have anything! It's gas and a Yoo-Hoo!" I said.
"Put both Yoo-Hoos down! Now! This is your last chance!"
I squinted a little and saw the guns pointed at me. "Okay, okay!" I set both Yoo-Hoo containers down.
"Now step away from them! Put your hands on your head and lie face down!" I did as I was told. The cops walked over and frisked me.
"Look, officers. We have the shark." I said.
"What? Just shut up! Do you think arson's funny?"
"Look in the back of the truck! We have the shark that killed the kid! We're trying to keep it alive but the motor we're using ran out of gas. The hose wouldn't reach over the railing and the Yoo-Hoo was the only container we had. We're not arsonists! I've never even gotten a traffic ticket in my life! Go look for yourself!" At that moment the shark splashed some water out of the box. The cops were startled momentarily.
"You've gotta be kidding me!" One cop climbed up the side of the truck. "He's not lying. The shark is right here."
"We're taking it up to Rockland County. Up to the Aquarium up there," I said.
I could overhear the cops talking between themselves. "I say we let 'em go. I don't want to deal with this. I don't want to be held responsible if somebody wants this shark alive or anything else," the first said.
"What if we brought 'em in? This is the kind of thing that get's you noticed," the second replied.
"Screw that. This whole situation is such a mess and I don't want to be right in the middle of it! Let's get 'em out of here and the Port Authority boys or whoever handle it."
"I guess you're right. I wouldn't want to give the mob any satisfaction anyway. This shark dead is just what they want. They're gonna go ballistic if this thing is allowed to swim around an aquarium for the rest of its life." They paused for a moment. "I advise you guys to get across that bridge in a hurry. We've got a report that protestors are on their way to close the GW."
"Thanks officers," I said as I reached for the Yoo-Hoo containers. "May I fill up the tank on the box?"
"Yeah, go ahead. Quickly!"
"Aren't you guys going to stop the protestors from blocking the bridge?" The driver asked.
"It isn’t our problem. It's up to the Port Authority boys to stop 'em. They've got those big batons they use. 'Protestor be-good sticks.' Nothing like an old-fashioned ass-whooping, with the protestors providing the asses. I can assure you, you don't want to be without a stick when the fun starts up there, so get out of here."
"Thanks officers,” I said. I thanked people who had guns trained on my head just moments before. It was a strange day. The cops left as I poured the gas in the box's gas tank and restarted the motor. My heart skipped a beat as the shark was carried by the current to the back of the box. I thought it was dead. They looked the same dead as they did alive to me. The only difference was the dead ones didn't move. I reached in with both hands to move the shark back and forth. I tried to get the water flowing through the gills again. The shark had been motionless for at least fifteen to twenty minutes while we got the gas. Plus the water it was in was probably no longer properly oxygenated or whatever. Just as I figured the shark was dead, it started swimming again. I guess they weren’t as delicate as I was lead to believe. I was going to stay with the shark but a loud crack of thunder echoing through the canyon of buildings drove me back to the passenger seat. We were on our way again.
We got back on the highway but traffic was crawling along. We finally came out from under the buildings that the highway runs underneath only to find torrents of rain cascading down. Once we got up to the bridge we saw what some of the delay was. Drivers were slowing down to look at the dozens of Port Authority cops in full riot gear lining both sides of the bridge. We didn't see a single protestor. I noticed the green and black electronic message sign above us flash. Gone was "HAVE A SAFE HOLIDAY." "CAUTION WET ROADWAY SPEED LIMIT 35," replaced it. "How fast are we going?" I asked the driver.
"We're traveling at just a shade under five miles an hour. That's a guess because the speedometer has no marks between zero and ten."
The sign flashed to "ROUTE 9W CLOSED USE ALTERNATE ROUTE." "That's just grea
t!" I said and kicked the dashboard.
"What now?" The driver asked.
"9W's closed. Do you know any alternate routes?"
"Well, we'd have to go into Jersey and..."
I interrupted, "Just take the Palisades then. We don't have all night!"
"We can't take the Palisades. The Palisades Parkway doesn't allow commercial vehicles, only passenger cars!"
"We don't have a choice! This is an emergency! That shark isn't going to make it if we're driving around Jersey all night!"
"What if I get pulled over?"
"You won't. Even if you do, I'll just explain the situation," I said.
"Oh yeah. That's what we need. We nearly got our heads blown off trying to get gas!"
"Why don't you just drive? Okay? You're not a drivercommentator. You're just the driver."
The truck exited right off the bridge. The Palisades would take us within a couple of miles or so of the Aquarium. We passed the tollbooths on our left. Thankfully there was only a toll southbound if you wanted to take the George Washington Bridge. I just hoped nobody noticed the truck barreling up the Palisades. I figured the tollbooth area was the most dangerous for us because there usually seemed to be a police presence around them. I wonder if they have trouble with people unwilling or unable to shell out four bucks (it couldn't be five now, could it?) to cross a half-mile bridge.
We rounded the bend and the tollbooths disappeared. Since there were no flashing lights behind us, I figured we were home free. Other drivers leaned on the horn as they passed us and several gave us the finger. Such upstanding citizens. They got angry because we were breaking the law. Of course, many were nearly doubling the speed limit. Even the beeping couldn't keep me awake, though. My eyelids got heavier and heavier. I leaned my head against the passenger side window. That lasted less than a minute because my head kept getting knocked into the window every time we hit a bump. Finally, I just rested my chin on my chest and fell asleep.
When I woke up, I didn't remember where I was. I opened my eyes to find a line of saliva from my mouth to a big wet spot on my shirt.
"You really should do something about you're drooling problem," the driver said.
"Where are we?" I asked.
"We're almost out of Jersey. There's the sign for New York. You need a bib or something?"
I made a face like I was laughing so hard it was painful. I stopped and looked at the Welcome to New York sign. Governor Mario Cuomo.
As we came up to an on-ramp, a speeding car emerged from behind the trees on the ramp. The car didn't signal to enter the highway but we moved into the passing lane to give it room. "That's a cop!" I said. It was dark but I could make out the lights on top of the car. "Slow down! Don't pass him. Maybe he won't notice us." The truck slowed to fifty, then to forty-five, but the police car didn't get any farther away from us. He was matching our speed.
"I gotta speed up!" The driver said.
"No! Just wait him out! He'll move on. It's just a couple of more miles."
"We're gonna be rammed! Look!" the driver said.
I turned and looked out the back window and saw two lines of headlights gaining on us rapidly. "Get back in the slow lane!" The driver signaled and swerved back into the slow lane. The police car was about thirty yards ahead of us. We were under forty miles per hour now. The first car blew past us on the left. He must have been going ninety. The other cars all scrambled to get in the left lane to pass us. Some flashed us the brights. Others beeped as they got stuck behind us, unable to get in the left lane as the pack moved past us. The first car that had past us blew right past the cop too. The cop turned on his flashing lights and sped up to chase the speeder. The other cars that passed us now were hitting their brakes as they saw the police car. We sped back up to fifty-five. The cop was getting out of his car on the shoulder to talk with the speeder, when we barreled by. "Oh God! Look out!" I yelled. The driver swerved into the left lane. The pack of cars behind us slammed on their breaks. No one even had time to beep.
"What?" The driver screamed.
"The side mirror nearly took the cop's head off! That's what!" I looked back and saw the cop scrambling for his wide brimmed state trooper hat. I looked until my corneas were destroyed when the driver behind flashed his brights at us. "We took the cop's hat off!"
"It probably just blew off!"
"Whatever! That was too close! Speed up and let's get out of here."
"I don't want to get a ticket," the driver said. "Besides he's not going to catch us now."
"It's not him I'm worried about. He's got a radio and radio waves move a little faster than this truck. If one of his buddies pulls us over now, they'll screw us royally."
"You said you'd explain the situation if we got pulled over,” the driver reminded me.
"That was before we nearly decapitated one!"
Minutes later we reached the Pearl River exit. For the first time ever, I was in a vehicle that drove through the five stoplights between the Palisades and the town without stopping at every single one. It's a good thing we didn't have to stop because the shark was no longer moving in the tank.
The truck swung around the back of the Aquarium to the service entrance. A security guard opened the gate and we drove right to the main tank. Burns must have made some calls from his car phone because the crane we needed was already set up. "What took you guys so long?" Said the crane operator. I'd seen him around but I didn't know his name.
"Traffic," Grimshaw answered as he and Burns walked over from the car.
"Traffic and anarchy," I said.
"How's he doing?" Burns asked me.
"Not good,” I answered. "I think he stopped swimming in the last few minutes. We'd better hurry. It may already be too late."
"I don't want to hear that," Burns said.
I climbed up onto the bed of the truck. "Swing it around," I said to the crane operator. He did. "Okay, now bring it down." Another guy ran over with a stretcher for the shark. At least it looked like a stretcher. "We don't need that. We just lowered the net in with the shark and left it in the box for the ride." I wasn't sure if we should have left the net in the box earlier but I was glad we did now. It would save precious minutes.
I hooked the four corners of the net onto the big hook suspended from the crane. I reached into the box and pulled the motionless shark into position directly over the net. "Take it up!" The shark rose out of the box. "Okay, now over to the tank!"
I began to worry that the shark wasn't going to swim once it was in the tank. I'd seen and read enough to know that the only way to revive the shark was to jump in the tank and move it around to get the water flowing through the gills. The absolute last thing I wanted to do today was jump in a tank with two ten-foot sand tiger sharks at night in order to revive a great white (or megalodon, whichever it was). I didn't go to law school to swim with sharks.
I didn't have to worry. As soon as the shark was submerged, it shot out of the net under its own power. "Thank God!" I said. "We did it!"
Burns ran over and hugged me. "We sure did! What a day! I knew you could do it! I said you could do it!"
Grimshaw walked over and we shook hands. "Congratulations," he said.
"Thanks," I said. Now I felt bad for being mean to him all day. It wasn't his fault. He was out of his element. "I'm sorry about some of the things I said today, I didn't mean it."
"Apology accepted." Now I was mad at myself for apologizing to this jerk. I was right to get mad when he made the chum slick at Jones Beach. He could still ruin everything because of what he did today.
"Hey we were all under a lot of stress today. Why don't we all go home and get a good night's sleep. We're going to have a big day tomorrow. There's going to be a huge crowd here," Burns said.
"Tomorrow?" I said. It wasn't so much a question as a statement. "I don't think that's such a good idea."
Burns and Grimshaw looked at me like I was kidding. "What are you saying?" Grimshaw asked.
"I'm saying t
ensions around here are going to be pretty high tomorrow."
"So what?" Grimshaw said.
"So, I think we should stay closed for a few days and let people calm down a bit. We don't want any trouble to..."
"What are you talking about? We go out and catch a shark and now you don't want to display it? What was the point of catching it?" Grimshaw asked. I could see Burns wanted the answers to those same questions.
"This shark killed a little boy today. That sparked riots. When the public finds out that we caught the shark, we have no idea what the reaction will be."
"So what are you suggesting?" Burns asked.
"I'm suggesting we keep the place closed for a couple of days until people calm down."
"How many days are you thinking?" Burns asked.
"I think we should stay closed until Saturday. Funerals for the people who died today should be over by Friday. Of course, it may be longer depending on autopsies and all that. For now, I think we should plan on Saturday."
"I think you're wrong!" Grimshaw said.
"How long have great whites been kept alive in captivity before?" Burns asked.
"Well, it's hard to...” I didn't want to concede the fatal flaw in my position.
"Just give me a straight answer. I don't want any B.S." Burns said.
"Less than a week. Usually only a couple of days or hours."
"I see,” Burns said.
"But think about this. During the week we could let word slip out that we caught the shark. Word has probably slipped out already. Let the rumors fly. The publicity will grow. We won't confirm or deny anything until Wednesday or Thursday. We can stretch it out for the whole week. We'll be on the front page of every newspaper in the civilized world for a week. If you open tomorrow, it's a one-day story. Let's drag it out. Anticipation is usually better than whatever you're anticipating. Make the public wait a while. They'll want it more."
"You may have something there,” Burns said.
"Just weigh the pros and cons of waiting. If we wait, we lessen the possibility of trouble. And we drive up the curiosity level. Also we can figure out what the hell it is," I said. "It'll be easier to market."