Timothy Johnston - The Current

“I don’t know. I guess because he doesn’t think anyone would believe him, ten years later.”

“You guess? He didn’t tell you that?”

“No. I’ve never spoken to him.”

“You’ve never spoken to him?”

“No. Like I said, I’ve never actually met him.”

Katie stared at her. Then she lifted her glass and drank and put the glass down again. She shook her head. “Danny Young. God. I thought I was in love. I thought we’d get married, someday.”

Audrey didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing.

“But it wasn’t Holly Burke that ended it,” Katie said.

“It wasn’t?”

“No.”

Audrey was quiet. She tried to breathe evenly and quietly.

“What ended it, really, was one stupid decision on one stupid night,” Katie said. And then she told Audrey about the night—August 15, which she remembered because it was Ginny Walsh’s eighteenth birthday and Ginny always threw a party at her house, and it was always the last party before the new school year. Ginny’s mother, Gloria, was there and so was Mr. Walsh, and everyone was allowed to drink one glass of champagne each , and the girls were going to sleep over. But then at three in the morning Katie had slipped away; she’d wanted to go see Danny and she thought she could go see him and sneak back in before dawn and no one would know the difference. She’d drunk three glasses of champagne and Ginny Walsh always left the key to her Honda under the seat and all the girls knew this and they would borrow it at lunch hour to drive to McDonald’s and Ginny didn’t care and Katie didn’t think she’d care this night, and she let the Honda roll down the driveway before she turned on the engine and the lights, and she was doing all right, she was doing just fine, until she rolled through a stop sign on Old Indian Road and the colored lights lit up in her rearview and Shit, oh shit , she was so screwed. Arrest. DUI. Her parents. College—it all just flashed before her eyes.

Audrey knew before Katie said it: it was Moran. Although Katie didn’t know him then. Had never seen him before, or if she had, had never noticed him.

He came up and put his flashlight on her and said, Can you turn that engine off for me, miss? and she did, and then she saw that his headlights were off too; just the colored cop-lights flying around in the night, in silence, lighting up the side of his face blue and red where he stood. Moran looking down at her, flicking his light around the inside of the car, over her knees, the short skirt she’d worn for the party. He said he knew this car and it wasn’t hers. She said her friend said it was OK to borrow it.

She did, did she, said Moran.

Yes, sir.

And where were you taking it?

She hesitated. Nowhere special. I just felt like a drive.

Just felt like a drive, so you took off in your friend’s car at three in the morning.

Yes, sir.

How much have you had to drink tonight, miss?

Just a little champagne, Officer. At my friend’s birthday party. Her parents were there.

Were they.

Yes, sir. They bought the champagne.

He watched her. And how old are you?

Eighteen.

Can you prove it?

Sir?

Can I see your license.

Yes, sir.

She handed it to him.

He put his light on it and handed it back.

He took a breath and put his hands on his hips, the leather belt creaking. They were all alone out there on the county road. No lights anywhere but the colored lights flashing silently.

We got us a situation here, Miss Goss.

I know.

I don’t think you do. I got you for failure to stop at a stop sign, driving under the influence, and possession of a stolen vehicle.

It’s not stolen, I told you, I—

Miss. Please. I don’t like this any more than you do. Young girl with her whole life ahead of her. College. But what am I supposed to do? What kind of officer would I be if I let you kids go driving all over the county like this, endangering the lives of others? What would your parents want me to do?

She’d begun to cry. She hated herself but she couldn’t help it—what her father would say, the way he’d look at her—or not look at her—when he came to collect her from the jail…

Officer, please, I promise…

He sighed. He clicked off the flashlight. He looked up and down the road.

Well, look, honey. There’s a solution here. Very simple. It will require just a few minutes of your time, but then you’ll be free to go on your way. You think you’re up for that?

She was looking up at him, trying to see his whole face under the brim of the hat but only half the face was there, the other half still glowing blue and red.

Either that, he said, or you get in this cruiser with me and we go back to the station and we take it from there, by the book. That how you want to do it?

No, sir.

All right then. We’ll do it the easy way. Come on back to the cruiser with me.

You said…

We’re not going anywhere.

And she got out and he walked her to the passenger side of the cruiser and opened the door for her and shut it again once she was in. She watched him walk around the front of the cruiser and then she just stared at the back end of her car—Ginny’s car—as he opened the driver’s-side door of the cruiser and got in, rocking the car with his weight. He shut the door and the dome light went out. He took off his hat and put it on his knee. He looked up and down the road again but there was no one, no lights, and there never would be on this road at this hour, and if someone did drive by they’d see the cop-lights and keep going—they’d be drunk or part-drunk themselves and they wouldn’t even look at those colored lights, they’d just drive on by—and she thought of her father and her mother and she thought of Danny Young and she thought of college and she thought of the whole town and she even thought of Holly Burke or some girl like her who would do such things, for whom such things were normal, and then she was doing it… his hand was in her hair and she was doing it and it wasn’t real and it was, and it was the only way and no one would ever know and when it was over she’d go back to Ginny’s house, back to her sleeping bag and no one would know and she would be the same person she’d been when the night began.

But she wasn’t the same, and Danny knew she wasn’t, and that was the end, really, that night. And two months later Holly Burke was found floating in the river.

THE WINE WAS gone. The water was gone. The music that had been playing earlier had stopped and they could hear the TV from the apartment below, a constant mumbling broken only by bursts of muffled laughter.

Audrey sat drawing her fingers under her eyes, one side and then the other. No tissues in sight. Her mind was racing ahead but she said nothing. She wiped her face dry and waited.

“When I got back to Ginny’s house,” Katie said, “she was the only one up. She was sitting there on the porchswing in the dark. She’d woken up and had seen from the bathroom window that her car was gone. Worried to death, she said, just about to wake up her parents…”

Katie told her she was sorry, she shouldn’t have taken her car, and Ginny made her sit down. She took her hands—Hey, she said, hey… what happened?

Nothing.

Did you see Danny? What did he do?

Nothing. I never got there. I got pulled over.

Oh, shit. Shit. Did they make you blow?

What—?

The Breathalyzer machine.

No.

There was a long silence.

They didn’t bust you or you wouldn’t be here.

They didn’t bust me.

What did they say?

Said go home.

What about the car?

What about it?

Did they ask you about it?