Acre Under a Green Sky

My father was in an awful hurry to get rid of me that evening. Monday night was Kid's Nite at the Chrisco Roller Rink and I never missed it. He insisted we leave the house a good fifteen minutes earlier than usual and was in the car with the motor running before I was even half ready. When I finally slid in next to him, he was pulling away from our house before I could get the car door closed.

It was around 7:30 when my father turned south onto Main Street, and it was still daylight. Traffic on the two-way street was tight and jerky in spite of the hour. Pedestrians were making better time down Main Street than we were.

Cars were parked along both sides of Main street; and at one point, we had to wait forever behind a car waiting to trade places with a parked car. My father sat nervously bouncing up and down in his seat while the parked car inched its way back and forth out of the space. Then we had to wait while the car ahead of us tried to master the art of parallel parking. It was excruciating.

"Give it up, asshole!" my father shouted out his window, and the driver obeyed as if it were an order from God.

I was first shocked and then thrilled by my father's outburst. I was about to congratulate him, when I saw Joe's mud colored Mercury approaching in the north-bound lane. Suddenly, my mind reeled with the picture of Mr. Brennan standing in the office doorway intoning, ". . . north down Main Street," like an ominous soothsayer with gnarled finger outstretched.

"Look, Dad!" I shouted, but the mud colored Mercury was already passed us heading in the opposite direction.

"What?" my father shouted at me.

"It's Joe Scarceletti. He's headed that way."

My father looked into the rear view mirror, and said, "Yeah, I see him."

"But he's going north on Main Street, and it's Monday night!"

"And I'm too late!"

"Maybe we can catch him."

"What about skating?"

"Hurry! We're going to lose him."

"Hot damn!" my father said, and the chase was on.

We couldn't turn around on Main Street. We would have to go around the block. My stomach ached with anticipation and frustration as we haltingly inched our way up to the corner and made a left hand turn onto College Street. My father stepped on it and we turned those corners on two wheels. The traffic light on the corner of Pine and Main shone green in our favor and we were back on Main Street heading north, but Joe's mud colored Mercury was nowhere in sight.

"God only knows how far ahead he is," my father said.

Traffic was lighter in this lane, but still stop and go. Both my father and I were rocking forward and back in our seats as if that would propel us onward. It was stupid. We were speeding four car lengths ahead only to stop and wait for the next surge. And so it went for two or three blocks.

"This is a waste of time," my father said, "With Gwen gone, he's got no place to go."

"Where's he going then?"

"Who knows? Maybe he's going home for the night. And like fools, we're following him."

"Yeah, but it's fun," I said.

"It would be a hell of a lot more fun if we could see him. Look up the cross streets. Maybe he turned off Main already. We could do with some luck about now."

"What if we can't find him?"

"We'll try again next Monday."

"That's the 4th of July!"

"Oh, shit! That's two weeks we'll have to wait. This isn't looking good."

I got up on my knees to get a better look. We stopped for a red light, and I happened to glance back at the traffic behind us. I couldn't believe my eyes. I stuck my head out the window and craned my neck. Sure enough, the mud colored Mercury was just two cars behind us. It was perfect. All this time, Joe Scarceletti and his mud colored Mercury had been following us.

He must have been stuck behind parking cars while we sped around the block. How else would you explain our coming out ahead of him! Just then, the irony was compounded. The light turned green, and the one car separating us from Joe turned up a side street. Now Joe was directly behind us. I was on my knees with my arms draped over the back of the seat, and Joe Scarceletti and I were making eye contact. What else could I do? I waved, and he nodded back.

My father pulled me down into my seat, saying, "Do you think we could be more conspicuous!"

After two more blocks, my father hand-signaled a right hand turn, and pulled into the Gulf station. Then Joe accelerated ahead with a wave back to me.

Ken Jackson was already on his way out to the pump when my father completed the arc around the gas pump island and reentered traffic four cars behind Joe. I turned back in my seat to see Ken standing by the sidewalk with his fists on his hips watching our bright red Ford approach the turnoff onto Route 19.

My father had to hang back at the ramp leading to the merge with Route 19. Up ahead, we could see the mud colored Mercury at the head of the line tentatively nosing forward until it could inject itself into traffic. The sun was going down. My father turned on his lights, and when he looked up the Mercury was gone.

"Where'd he go?" my father said.

"He's fast, all right," I said, "I hope we can keep up."

We inched our way up the ramp until we, too, could join the stream of traffic. I was bouncing up and down in my seat shouting, "Hurry! Hurry!" as we zigzagged back and forth between lanes. We must have passed a hundred cars before spotting Joe and the mud colored Mercury about six car lengths ahead in the right lane. My father pulled into the right lane.

"Not too close," I whispered, as if Joe could hear me.

"I wish you'd make up your mind! First it's, 'Hurry, Hurry!'; and now, 'Slow down!' I can barely make him out."

"Don't worry. I got him in my sights. He's not getting away. But you got to slow down."

And once again, we had to hang back allowing two cars to pass and get between us and Joe –– then a third. It was dusk, but plenty light enough for Joe to spot us tailing him.

The trip between Waterstop and Lincoln averages twenty minutes to a half hour depending on traffic. By the time we reached the various exits into Lincoln, it was dark and I had to concentrate on the conical tail lights of the mud colored Mercury to keep it in sight. Surprisingly, Joe passed the first two exits for downtown proper and Morningside Heights and continued on to the Hill District Exit. I had never been this far out before.

"Where's he going?" I said.

"He's going to The Hill."

"What's that?"

"It's where people live. Poor people."

"What's it like?"

"I don't know. We'll see."

Joe made the exit, and our car was the only other car to exit after him. My father curved around the exit ramp until we found ourselves at the top of another ramp curving downward to merge with Route 22. Down below, waiting at a red light were the solitary tail lights of the mud colored Mercury. We slowed down to a crawl watching the dual ribbons of red tail lights and bright head lights on the four lanes of Route 22 just beyond that red traffic light. It was the longest red light I had ever seen. If it didn't change soon, we would be bumper to bumper with Joe.

"You gotta stop, Dad."

"That would draw attention to us."

"We're going to be in his back seat in a second!"

And we very nearly were when the light turned green.

Joe moved onto Route 22 and my father followed at a respectable distance, but in a flash we were overrun by traffic. Cars whizzed past us and pulled in ahead of us to fill the gap between us and Joe. It was bumper to bumper alternating between violent bursts of speed and painful crawls. And all along the way were side streets and brightly lit businesses with neon arrows diverting cars into crowded parking lots. At one point, we were stuck behind a car with its right turn signal blinking lasciviously while a parking lot emptied to make room for it.

"Pass him! Pass him!" I screamed.

"Are you crazy! Look!"

On our left, cars sped by without an opening. When at last we could move again, perhaps a dozen cars separated us from Joe. We had no way of knowing just how many.

"We've lost him, dammit!" I said.

"Watch that mouth of yours."

"Can't you get over there!"

"Not without a little charity. Unless you want me to run a red light."

"Yeah, I do. We're never going to catch him this way."

And sure enough, we were the first to approach the next red light, and I could feel the car accelerating. I covered my eyes and squealed. My father let out a war cry as we sped through the light and jagged into the left lane. It was the most exhilarating experience of my life, and I practically jumped into his lap and threw my arms around his neck. We were both breathless with excitement.

"Did you see that?!" my father said.

"That was so great, Dad."

"Did you see how I just zooooomed!"; and he took his hand off the wheel to illustrate the soaring zig and zag of the maneuver.

I nearly peed I was so excited. I just kept repeating, "That was so great. That was so great," until my breath literally failed me, and I couldn't say another word. But the excitement was far from over.

After that, my father was a wild man. He pushed his way in and out of traffic with no regard for his fenders until we spotted the mud colored Mercury stopped at a red light about four cars ahead of us on the right. When the light turned green, we managed to squeeze into the right lane just two cars behind Joe.

My father viciously maintained his place behind Joe cutting off drivers trying to nose in. Then we followed Joe under a low, dark overpass; and as we came out the other side, I saw that Joe had made a sharp right immediately after the overpass. I shouted to my father, but it was too late. We had already missed the turn-off. Together we watched Joe's tail lights recede slowly into the darkness.

"Is it over?" I said.

"Not just yet. This worked before. Let's try it again."

My father made the next available right turn and expected to make another right turn back to the road Joe had taken, but the second right never came, and we became hopelessly lost in a dark maze of deserted streets where no one lived. He finally pulled up under a streetlight next to what looked like a warehouse.

"Do you know where we are?" I said.

"Not a clue," he said, lighting a cigarette.

"Sure beats skating," I said, and my father choked on his cigarette and burst out laughing.

He mussed my hair, and said, "We'll get him next time, partner."

I looked into those smiling eyes, and smiled back without reservation.

It would take us an hour to find downtown Lincoln and another half hour to get home, and we loved every minute of it.