Brad Parks - The Good Cop

I was so distracted by that thought, I nearly missed another image-and not one that existed only in my imagination. This was a real image, in my rearview mirror.

It was of a silver Mercedes. And it was closing in fast.

* * *

Daytime running lights save lives. I can now testify to that because it was the Mercedes’ daytime running lights that first caught the corner of my eye in that mirror. Otherwise, I never would have seen it coming, and that very likely might have cost me the privilege of continued respiration.

As it was, I had perhaps two seconds to make sense of what I was seeing, and four seconds of useful reaction time. I was puttering along, doing thirty miles per hour in the right lane of an avenue that had two lanes heading in my direction. The Mercedes was coming up behind me in the left lane doing at least sixty.

I had, as best I could figure, two choices: try to stop in the hopes that the Mercedes would overshoot me; or hit the gas and lose them in a chase.

My six-year-old Chevy Malibu couldn’t outrun a well-tuned moped, much less an E-class Mercedes with a magnificently engineered eight-cylinder engine. But I knew if I stopped, I might as well just strip off my shirt and scrawl “shoot me here” on my chest. Besides, for all my outward refinement and education, I’m still a Jersey guy. Aggressive driving is a state birthright. So I straightened my right leg to the point of hyperextension and pressed the accelerator down into the floorboards.

The Malibu’s engine hesitated for an instant-its protest to the more-than-111,431 miles it had been forced to carry me and other travelers throughout its life-then finally caught with a roar reminiscent of a gas-powered golf cart climbing a steep hill. In my peripheral vision, I could see the speedometer begin a determined journey up the dial.

The Mercedes was still gaining on me, albeit more slowly as I blasted through the intersection of Norfolk Street-if “blasted” is, in fact, a verb that can be used in conjunction with a used Malibu. South Orange Avenue squeezed down to one lane at that point, which meant I had a momentary reprieve from being overtaken, assuming my friends in the Mercedes weren’t going to want to tussle with oncoming traffic.

But I was knowledgeable enough about the roads of Newark-probably more familiar with them than any town I ever lived in-to recognize I had a problem coming up. South Orange Avenue would soon funnel into Springfield Avenue, then cross Martin Luther King Boulevard, then feed down into Market Street. And there was no possible way, here in the middle of the day, I was going to get through all of that without having to stop for a traffic light, a pedestrian, or a slow-moving city bus.

And stopping, as previously mentioned, was not a real savory menu option.

Without touching the brake, I pulled my wheel hard to the right at the next intersection. The Malibu’s tires, which I had replaced relatively recently-I had, right? — made a horrible squealing sound, and for a moment I wondered if they were going to slip right off their rims and leave me running steel-on-asphalt. But they held and I was soon hurtling down Prince Street, a narrow two-lane road and one of the better car chase venues in downtown Newark, if only because there wouldn’t be as much stuff on it to hit.

I hoped my one fancy maneuver would be enough to lose my chasers, but the Mercedes easily made the turn with me and was closing in on my rear bumper. The driver was not being particularly subtle about his intentions. Then again, why did he need to be? He didn’t exactly need to rely on artifice or subterfuge. He had the vehicle with the better engine, the better handling, the better suspension. Me? I was probably better at Scrabble, but that was about it.

He made a move to pass me on the left, which I countered by drifting to the middle, leaving no room to pass on either side. Knowing he couldn’t get by me, I laid off the accelerator a little but was still getting along quite quickly.

In this manner we sped down Prince Street, with the town houses of University Heights on my left just a blur, toward the first of two traffic lights. The second one, I knew, I wouldn’t have to worry about. It was just Court Street, a road that wouldn’t have much traffic on it. But the first? The first was a concern-the aforementioned Springfield Avenue, one of the most heavily traveled arteries in New Jersey’s largest city.

As I closed to within about a hundred yards, I could see the light facing me was still red, while the light for Springfield was still green. There was no chance it would be able to cycle through from yellow to red in time. I thought about slowing down a little. I couldn’t just bomb right through, kamikaze-style, could I?

Then, with about fifty yards to go, I heard a popping sound from behind me, then another, and I knew damn well it wasn’t the Mercedes backfiring. I was being shot at, again. And that sort of solved the dilemma of whether to slow down. My quandary, instead, became how to elude whatever was in the intersection as I barreled through it. I glanced left and saw the way was clear. I wasn’t so lucky with the right. A red sedan of some sort, a Pontiac maybe, was approaching. If I maintained my current speed, I judged my front bumper would impale its side panel at roughly a ninety degree angle, and that wasn’t going to be good for either of us, especially the driver of the Pontiac.

Then again, if I jammed on the brakes, there was a good chance the Mercedes-now mere feet off my back bumper-was going to rear-end me. And that didn’t seem like it would end well, either.

I was left with one option, and that was to ask for more from the Malibu than it was perhaps able to give me. Using every muscle in my right leg to generate as much force as I could, I hammered the accelerator. Then I laid on the horn with my right palm, hoping it might alert the red car’s driver to the fact that I was coming, traffic signals be damned.

Then I held my breath and tensed my body for the collision.

* * *

I careened through the intersection like that, with the expected impact never coming. The red car responded to my blaring horn with an angry bleep of its own, but its antilock brakes were doing the job, bringing the Pontiac to a noisy but safe stop.

The next block was a short one, and I could already see the light was green. I was in the clear for a little while, except for the minor annoyance that there were some hostile young men behind me. I finally allowed myself a glance at my pursuers in the rearview mirror. On the passenger side of the car, I saw an arm stuck out of the front window holding a handgun. The muzzle flashed twice more, and I heard the shots, though the noise was surprisingly distant, almost like a BB gun.

I couldn’t tell where the shooter was aiming or where the bullets were going. I was fairly certain they weren’t hitting my car-I would have felt that, right? — and I knew for sure they weren’t hitting me. This, I was rapidly discovering, was the way to go when being shot at: pick assailants with lousy aim.

Still, there’s this thing about bullets. They’re cheap, disposable hunks of metal, and therefore no one thinks twice about expending a lot of them when the situation arises. And I was betting it would take only one landing in the right/wrong spot to make this whole little jaunt a lot less fun. I needed some kind of plan beyond hoping the jarring of Newark’s potholes would keep the shooter unsteady.

Prince Street made a quick jog to the left as it passed through Kinney Street. I followed the road, riding the brakes slightly as we sped through a residential area. The Mercedes kept attempting to overtake me on the left. And I continued blocking him. The Malibu may not be good for many things, but getting in people’s way is one of them. It has got a nice, wide rear end-the J. Lo of the car world.