It Must’ve Been the Heat

That made us climb

into the back seat of Ryann’s

coal gray minivan, code named

“The Whale,” and venture down the street.

“The Whale” was on it’s last

leg and we had to lean

forward facing down

the drive to coax the machine

into reluctant life. It spat and

gurgled and slowly woke from its

rusty nap. I hid under the vinyl seat.

Labor day weekend, hiding from the police.

Small town police with nothing

to do on a Saturday afternoon but bust

some gangly girls on an ice-cream run,

for having one too many passengers in a

decrepit minivan (max speed 45). Our parents

would skin us alive so as always,

I was the one to hide.

We cranked the radio up

too loud and laughed too hard at

things that weren’t funny but curbed our

giddy nerves, and we pooled what little

money we had and swerved into the Wal-Mart

parking lot. Aaren waited in the running van for fear

that cutting the engine would leave us stranded.

We bought a gallon of coffee ice-cream

and all four movies in the Final

Destination series, waiting for us in the

Bargain Bin. We paid in change and scanned

the lot for parents and cops, like they were

somehow aware of our cardinal sin. We jumped

back into the van, me under the seat,

and screeched tires on the tired blacktop

cheering our way back to Aaren’s house, a regular

band of small town outlaws.

That night we ate ice-cream floats and had

way too much caffeine and hid our eyes from

the gore on the television screen, periodically

nudging each other, winking and grinning in

celebration of a successful heist. If possible, it

brought us closer, and sitting there, shoulder to

shoulder on a pink bed with the window open,

the summer air pooled around us, filled

us with a strange blend of hope and

fear, because everything had somehow

changed.

It was the perfect crime.

Maybe if we had been caught, things

would be different now, but how

could we forget that first taste,

that life-affirming buzz of freedom on our

tongue, that great awakening of

escape glowing on our face?

We were consumed by it.

Well, they were consumed by it. I just wanted to hide

under that minivan seat, sweating

from the late summer heat with them

every day until I died.

But that’s not the way things go down in

this kind of town.