Saturday Night Special

(Continued from Chapter 2)

*

The sun rose above eye level as I pointed the Pontiac east down the four-lane. I hadn't driven to the beach this way before, but it seemed straightest on the wrinkled map in the car, so I took it. It was Sunday, and there wasn't much eastbound traffic.

I looked over at Teri and noticed she had retrieved the bottle of gin and opened it. She tilted her head back and drank from the bottle, two or three long, deep swallows. She made a face and shook her head, then smiled and offered the bottle to me.

"Damn, little sis, it's 10 in the morning," I said to her. She laughed, capped the bottle, and laid it on the floorboard. She pulled out a Coke and the bag of M&Ms, took a handful of the candy, and offered me some. "Keep it," I said. "Give me a couple of those pretzels."

She popped the Coke, then began alternating sips of cola and gin from the bottle. Again she offered me the bottle, and this time I took it, having a long, deep swallow. And so it went on down the road, passing the gin bottle back and forth, singing and laughing. At some point, Teri pulled a marijuana number out of her cigarette pack. I took a couple of puffs off it, and Teri smoked the rest, getting giggly and goofy as she drank and smoked.

I was buzzing pretty nicely by the time we got into the swamps. We came up on one of those nowhere villages in the lowlands, where you're sailing along at 75 or so and all the sudden see a 35mph sign. And sure enough, right behind the "Reduce Speed" sign was the law. I braked down as quickly as I could, but it was too late. The blue lights came on, and we all pulled off in the parking lot of an abandoned garage.

The door opened on the cop car, and I could see the word "sheriff" on the door. The deputy got out slowly, took a look at the license plate, then walked up to me on the driver's side.

"You kids know why I pulled you over?" he said, squinting at me and looking at Teri. "Radar showed you going 76 in a 35 mile per hour zone. I'll knock it back to 55 so we don't have to go to court. You can pay the ticket up here at the gas station."

This wasn't the way this trip was supposed to begin. Paying the ticket likely would eat up about half the money we'd brought.

The deputy looked around the inside of the car. "You kids been drinking?" he said. "No," I answered. "I might have got drunk last night, but nothing today."

"I'd like to ask both of you to step out of the car. Hands on the car where I can see them." The deputy's partner strolled up to the Pontiac on Teri's side and held the door open for her. I gave her a look, indicating to her that she play cool, and we both got out.

I'm pretty good at these kinds of situations. Be respectful, but don't play dumb. Do what you're told to do. Besides, I can hold liquor pretty well, and the few swallows I'd had wouldn't affect me. "You got your license on you?" the deputy asked. I pulled the card out of my wallet and handed it to him. I saw the other patrolman taking Teri's license as well. My deputy handed my card to the other officer. "Go run em both," he said.

"We're just going to do a couple of tests," he said to me. "I you pass 'em, just pay the speeding ticket and you can go on down the road. Where you headed, the beach?" I nodded.

We did touch-the-nose. Check. Count the alphabet backward. Check. Stand on one leg. My knee buckled a little from fatigue and nerves, but overall check. The other patrolman came back with the licenses. "They come up clean," he reported. "I thought you two was married -- same last name and all -- but the computer came up with a different name for you, miss. You get married or something?

Teri nodded. "Well, you need to get down to the bureau and get that changed soon as you get home," he warned.

Last test. The deputy drew a straight line with his boot in the gravel, about the length of the car. He stood at one end of the line and motioned me to the other end. "Now walk right on that line, one foot in front of the other, in my direction," he ordered.

Well, I did it, or I thought I did. The deputy looked at the patrolman, who was getting a long eyeful of Teri, who still stood profile to him, her hands on top of the car "What do you think, Jimmy?"

Jimmy smiled and looked back. "It's your call, Melvin."

Melvin took a long look at Teri, a look I didn't like. "You think you can drive, honey?" he said. I didn't like that either.

"She ain't driving anywhere," Jimmy sneered. He reached to the floor of the car and came up with the gin bottle, which was almost empty. "I'd say both of these kids have been biting the neck off this one."Jimmy continued poking through the car, popping open the glove box. "Oh-ho, what we have here?" he shouted.

He came out with the .22 pistol, and I about kicked myself. I'd left the gun in the glove box last night as we drove home after dumping Ronnie. Jimmy handed the gun to Melvin across the roof of the car, brushing against Teri as he did. Melvin looked at the gun, snapping out the clip. "It's loaded," he said to himself, then turned to me. "You got a permit for this gun?"

"I do, but not with me," I said lamely. "It's at home."

Melvin leaned his elbows on the roof of the Pontiac and rubbed his eyes as if tired. "So let's see. We've got speeding, possible DUI, carrying a concealed weapon, possibly unregistered," he said. "This is beginning to look like a court date to me, son."

Melvin was the younger of the two men, I guessed. He wasn't particularly striking, but he looked fit, self-reliant, rugged, a man used to taking charge of tough situations. He unsnapped the handcuffs from his belt and told me to turn around. He fastened them onto my wrists while reciting me my rights. I didn't say a word.

Jimmy did the same with Teri, patting her down as he did, hands feeling around her waistband and around the cuffs of her shorts. Jimmy might have been 35, tall, wiry and thin, with a long face.

"We'll ride up to Sam's on the corner. You can pay the traffic ticket there, and we'll write you up for the other stuff. Depending on what the magistrate says, he may want to hold you overnight in jail."

The two cops loaded us into the back of the patrol car, where we sat, cuffed hands behind our backs, separated from the front by a heavy wire rack. A shotgun hung on the rack on the front-seat side.

"Sam's" turned out to be a repair shop with a row of gas pumps in front, all closed on Sunday. Melvin had a key. He unlocked the front door, and we all stepped into a small office, which smelled of gasoline and old oil. They ordered us to sit in two battered steel chairs. Melvin went behind the counter, or started to. Instead, he spoke very quietly with Jimmy for a minute or two, both men talking and grinning.

Finally, Melvin came over and squatted in front of me and Teri. "Tell you what, son," he said. "We'd kind of like it if we didn't have to make a trip all the way to St. Paul's on a Sunday afternoon."

He looked at his watch. "Here's a deal for you," Melvin continued. We'll throw out all the charges against you, if,

if,

you let me and Jimmy spend a little time with your sister here." He laid a hand on Teri's knee and rubbed it up and down her thigh.

Teri recoiled, and my fury rose. "You sons of bitches," I said slowly, with as much threat as I could summon while my wrists were bound. "You touch her and I will personally kill both of you motherfuckers."

Melvin laughed. "That's no way to talk to the law, Robert," he said, citing the name on my driver's license. "Listen kid," his eyes darkened. "We're going to take your sister whether you like it or not. We're doing you a damn big favor by offering to let you off. All you got to do is wait until we're all done, then you can drive right out of here.

"I'm going to keep these charges in my pocket. If you don't like the deal, or if you think you're going to speak a word of this, I'll get the charges certified, plus throw in an unlawful flight charge on top. And I believe the computer says you're still on probation for an aggravated assault charge from a year or two ago. If you want, we'll stack it all up and let the state take care of it all.

He looked at Teri. "And you, honey, we were reading about a break-and-enter as a juvenile and a threat of bodily harm, not prosecuted, last year, I think, in J&D court upstate.

I was fully furious now, with genuine horror mixing in.

These things don't actually happen, do they?

I wondered. "You dirty fucking bastards."

It was all I could do to keep from bounding out of the chair somehow, kicking that fucking Melvin to the floor and somehow crushing Jimmy's skull with a tire iron. The handcuffs checked that kind of action, and I realized that I was fucked, that they had me, that there was nothing I could do.

I looked at Teri, and she looked at me with eyes full of fear and pleading, as if ready to cry. I shook me head, then mumbled angrily at Melvin, "OK, you bitch. You're going to drive me to the damn jail, wherever that is, and lock me up as long as you damn well like. But you ain't touching my sister. You got that?"

"I heard you, boy," Melvin said. "And I ain't listening at all." He now knelt upright between Teri's legs, rubbing them both with his hands. She started to struggle and tried to kick him, but he quickly grabbed her ankle and gripped it hard and tight.

"Jimmy," Melvin called out. "Take this boy to the garage and cuff him to something solid." Jimmy came over and yanked at my left arm, pulling me to my feet. I stuck a leg between his feet and tripped him, and he went down to the concrete floor. He came up angrily and hooked me across the jaw with his right hand. I had to shake my head to clear the effects of the blow.

Jimmy shoved me through the swinging door and over to the work bench. He swiveled the bench vise so that the handle was on the bench side, then clamped the chain of my cuffs in the vise. I tugged and yanked, as if trying to break the chain, but no, no way.

A couple minutes later, Melvin pushed Teri in through the swinging door. She was naked. Melvin apparently had pulled off her shirt and shorts, and she stumbled into the garage ahead of him with nothing on but her sandals. "What do you think of this little thing?" Melvin said to Jimmy, and Jimmy smiled and grunted approval. "How do you like the little sister now, boy?" he said, shaking her roughly.

Melvin gripped Teri's arm hard enough to leave bruises. He went to the Honda Civic parked in the bay, reached down, and pulled a garage creeper from under the car. Teri fought back fright and tears as Melvin forced her down on the creeper. He uncuffed her wrists, then recuffed them over her head, looping the chain around a hydraulics pipe that came out of the floor. He undid his pants and lowered them to his ankles, and his hard dick stuck out.

"Ok baby, be nice to me, and this won't hurt a bit," he said. He pushed Teri down flat on the creeper and kissed her roughly on the mouth, his hands ripping at her breasts. She turned her head to one side, resisting, and screamed for help.

"Ain't nobody going to hear you, sweetheart," Melvin said. He took off his gun belt and bandolier and pulled his shirt up to chest level. Then he jammed his dick into my kid sister.

I watched for half a minute in disgust, then turned away, both in humiliation and that I just couldn't watch. I could hear the creeper creaking as he fucked my sister, the casters scraping on the concrete. I could hear him grunting as he pounded Teri's pussy with his fireplug dick.

This had to be a man's worst nightmare, I thought. My arms ached, my wrists hurt, and my legs were tiring from standing so long in one place. Worst of all, though, was my shame -- that I was unable to protect Teri or to rescue her. I heard Teri moan quietly as Melvin's thrusts grew more insistent. Her mouth fell open and she cried out in time with his strokes.

Melvin jammed it into her deep and hard. The act seemed to go on for a long time. Finally, finally, I heard him grunt and go still, and he lay still on Teri for some time. I looked over and saw that Jimmy had his dick out of his pants and was stroking at it madly. Jimmy's dick was much longer than Melvin's, or at least it looked that way to me. Melvin finally climbed off.

"Damn Jimmy, that's some good pussy there," he said. "You take a crack at it. See if

you

can wear it out."

Jimmy knelt between Teri's legs and, like Melvin, lowered his pants to his knees. Without preliminaries, he worked his cock into her pretty hole and drove it all the way in with one long stroke. Teri looked at me, her face completely blank. Again I turned away.

From the sound of things, Jimmy was much rougher than Melvin had been. From the time he entered her pussy, he pounded Teri fast and hard, and again I could hear Teri moan, sounds I could recognize as pleasure -- involuntary? Again, the ordeal seemed to go on forever, with the creaks and moans and scrapes and slapping sounds as Jimmy fucked Teri unmercifully. I heard her cry out as if she were cumming, her hot breath fast and uncontrolled

Jimmy let out a roar and finished up inside her, his ass tightening in spasms as he filled her sweet pussy with his juice. He gave her a kiss and whispered something in her ear, then slowly rose to his feet and pulled up and fastened his trousers.

"You want to go for seconds, Melvin?" Jimmy asked of his partner. Melvin laughed and high-fived the patrolman. "I don't believe so Jimmy," he said. "You know we're supposed to be on duty. But that was some god damned good pussy, wasn't it?"

"The best, buddy," Jimmy replied. "I'd almost like to take that home with me."

The two cops went back into the office, and I heard them talking procedure. I looked at Teri, who lay naked and trembling, her arms crossed tightly over her chest as if to protect -- what? "You OK, baby sis?" I asked anxiously. She lay still for a minute, in silence. At last, she broke into a cry. "Ohh Bobby, my god, Bobby . . . "

Melvin re-entered the garage. He uncuffed Teri from the pipe and lifted her gently from the creeper, giving her a hug as she got to her feet. He then handed her her shirt and shorts and a couple of shop rags, apparently to clean herself with.

He then walked to me, unsnapped his holster, and pulled out his .38. He opened the vise and said to me, "You're smart enough not to try anything now, aren't you bubba?" I nodded with anger and shame, vowing silently to kill this man somewhere, some day.

"OK son, Jimmy and I have agreed to withhold all the charges against you. We'll take you kids back to your car. Then you're free to go." He paused, then added, "And you'll be a whole lot wiser not to come anywhere near this town for the rest of your natural life." The gun was still in his hand by his side, but he brushed the barrel against my leg, just to be sure I got his message.

Teri dressed quickly, and the two shitheads drove us back to the car. A line from a song looped in my head:

Just as every cop is a criminal, and all your sinners saints . . .

When we got to the car and got out, Melvin took the cuffs off me. I waved my arms and clenched and unclenched my hands to get the circulation going.

"You remember what I told you son," he said in a warning tone. "And take good care of your sister. We didn't hurt her. She'll be all right. She's a sweet baby, boy."

I looked Melvin in the eyes. "You remember what

I'm

saying, Melvin. I may or may not come back through this town during my adult life, but if I ever,

ever

see your ass again, anywhere, you are a dead man. Remember that."

"We'll see, buddy, we'll see," Melvin said easily. "Won't we?"

Teri and I got back in the Pontiac and drove away. Both of us were silent. I believed I needed somehow to explain something to her, and perhaps she felt the same. But neither of us knew what it was, other than we'd come under the shadow of absolute evil. I stared straight ahead as I drove, and Teri let her head fall to her right shoulder, as if looking out at something outside the window, something far away.

We went on just that way until the road came free of the swamps toward the coast. The air began to smell of salt and crab shells. We came to a stop sign at an intersection with the four-lane, and a sign pointed to Myrtle Beach -- 18. As I waited for a couple of cars and trucks to pass, I felt Teri's hand take my right hand and give it a little squeeze, soft and sweet. She continued to hold my hand as I steered south toward the beach.

That, at that moment, seemed to be the kindest, most tender gesture I'd ever felt.

(Please continue to Chapter 4)