Down the Road: The Fall of Austin (12 page)

“We’ve been assigned to facilitate traffic
flow at south I-35 and William Cannon.”

What?
Mike smelled bullshit right
away.

“Listen, the shit’s really hitting the fan.
That girl that was sent to the hospital... You know, from the
apartment?”

Mike pictured the young girl—Brandi, her name
was—sweet and innocent and polite even through it all. “Yeah? What
about her?”

“Attacked two cops at the hospital. Bit them,
then bit four more people in the waiting room. This thing has to be
something viral.”

“If it’s viral, then those cops must be sick,
too.”

Derek sat silent, considering the
possibility.

“It’s gotta be,” Mike said. “You know?”

“It’s official now. Homeland Security took
over HQ, by the way. They’re running the show now. They sent SWAT
teams to Westlake Hills to secure portions of the neighborhoods
there.”

“Imagine that,” Mike said.

In both their views, in the middle of the
street, a pedestrian was attacked by another and bit with ferocious
teeth. Derek drove around the attack, ignoring it like the plague
that it was.

“Derek... didn’t you see that?” Mike
asked.

“Yep.”

“So we’re just not going to stop, huh? For
anything?”

“No time, my friend. We’re facing a new
world. Order is not going to be around for a while and I’m going to
get mine before it’s all over.”

“Hang on, man,” Mike said. “Where are you
taking me?”

Derek smiled. “Play along, Mike. Relax.
Listen, I don’t know exactly what is going on and for how long, but
we have a chance to make some bones, man.”

“Doing what?”

“Listen, just follow my lead,” Derek said,
putting on his overheads so he could run a red light.

9:15 AM

Two blocks south of William Cannon on
IH-35

IH-35 South out of Austin was an absolute
mess. The stop and go traffic that was a hallmark of Austin
workdays was stalled even more due to an overturned 18-wheeler that
had jack-knifed further south near the Slaughter exit. (The street
name
Slaughter
was somehow appropriate to the current state
of affairs, Mike figured.)

A Blazer had flipped into the ditch by the
highway up the road near the wreck. Luggage was thrown off of the
top of the vehicle and was scattered on the ground. A blonde man in
a blue shirt and slacks was confused, scratching his head, trying
to figure out how he was going to get it back on its wheels.

Officers Mike Runyard and Derek Tucker pulled
up on the side of the southern strip of south IH-35 just about a
mile south of William Cannon. They parked right behind an empty APD
car.

Mike and Derek stepped out of their vehicle
and approached the empty APD car. Both doors were open. No evidence
of blood or violence. It was Mike’s opinion that the officers had
abruptly chosen to ditch their vehicle. And Derek knew that a lot
of officers were deserting the force, and he figured this was
another example of it.

“Follow me,” Derek said, moving toward the
access road. He was marching to a line of cars that had attempted
to cut through the grassy median to move to the access road, but
were stuck in the median due to the congestion.

Three cars were moving in a line across the
median, a clear violation of the law. Derek approached the one
closest to the highway. He signaled for the driver to roll down his
window. The man complied.

“Problem, officer?”

“Well, sir, you know you’re not to cross the
white line into the median. That’s illegal.”

“Are you kidding me?” the man said. Mike
thought the same thing.

“No, sir. I’m not.” Derek was committed to
the defense of the law.

The man’s wife, sitting next to him, was
attempting to put a lid on her husband’s bad temper to no avail.
Two small children, no older than five or six, sat frightened in
the back seat.

“Listen, asshole. In case you haven’t
noticed, the world is done for. And…”

Derek quickly retook control of the
situation, throwing the car door open.

“Hey, what are you doing?” The man did not
expect the move. But if the world was done for, then the rules had
changed.

Derek unleashed his tazer on the man. The
family screamed as their father, loyal and true patriarch, was
humiliated in front of those he loved most.

Derek gritted his teeth and smiled, like a
bulldog spotting a wounded bird. He watched the man twitch and
flail in the seat, confined by his seatbelt he continued to
lawfully wear. The screaming family was like a chorus of banshees,
voicing their disapproval of the torture in sad screams.

Mike was officially scared. They had nowhere
near the numbers they would need if a riot broke out—
(rule
change
)—and he was not going to be a part of an unannounced bum
rush.

“I’ll get the next car,” Mike said.

He walked to the next car, expecting the
crowd to go apeshit. Expecting to get overrun. Expecting a
beatdown.

But none of that happened. The populace had
clearly been desensitized—anesthetized to the force of the police
state.

Derek finally let loose on the trigger,
unbuckled the dazed man, and threw him to the pavement. By the time
the man recovered, his hands had been zip-tied behind his back.

“Please don’t hurt my family,” the man
begged. “Please. I’m
sorry
I broke the law.”

Derek wanted to set an example, a show of
force to make sure everyone who witnessed the event would know not
to fuck with him.

Strength through fear.

Derek proceeded to zip-tie the rest of the
family while Mike moved to the next vehicle.

The man rolled down his window.

“Please, sir,” he was already pleading,
having seen what Derek was doing, “I don’t want any trouble.”

Mike put on his best Thespian mask. “I’m not
going to hurt you,” he said. The mask assured the family of his
sincerity.

“What’s going on?” the man asked.

“Just listen to me,” Mike said softly,
watching Derek parade the ziptiebound family in front of the cars
on the access road and off to the side of the road. He sat the
family down in a patch of grass under a tree. The children cried as
their parents sat helpless and exposed.

Mike took out a notebook, feigning for Derek
that he was executing some kind of administrative work. The family
sat silent in the car as Mike scribbled random jibberish on the
ticket book.

eggs bacon simpsons homer bart peter griffin
beer section 2 sitting in car avoiding problem seinfeld cavalier
chrysler volvo wagon four wheel drive hamburger 26 big beef burrito
supreme

Wait. Scratch that.

Why am I such a coward?

Whoa. Scratch that, too.

I’m in deep shit deep shit deep shit

It drew him back briefly to his youth, when
he naïvely accompanied some neighborhood delinquents looking for
trouble. He was only nine and the older boys were both fourteen.
Mike knew better than to hang out with them, as they were both very
cruel and abusive towards him. They always punched his arms or back
with heavy hands and generally played rough with him on the sunny
Texas afternoons. On this day, he would finally wise up and stop
taking the abuse.

Ruben and Miguel were always looking for
mischief, as Mike would always hear about straight from their own
mouths after the deeds were done. The trio were riding their bikes
one Saturday afternoon when Ruben got a wild hair to do something
that would give him his mischievous fix.

“Hey, Dumbyard. You know where LaCroix
went?”

The LaCroix’s were friends of the Runyard
family, and regularly held soirees at each other’s houses. Raymond
LaCroix was their nine-year old son and Mike’s friend. They always
called him by his last name. It made them think they could speak
French.

“They went to Dallas,” Mike said, somehow
feeling guilty.

“You and your family get along with them
pretty good. Your parents have keys to their house?”

The subtext was immediately clear, and Mike
wanted no part of it.

“C’mon, Dumbyard,” Miguel said. “Your parents
have keys to their house, don’t they?”

“I don’t think so.”

Ruben frogged Runyard in the back. It was a
kind of punch with the knuckle of the middle finger extended
slightly forward. It was a cruel shot to the spine that was
bruising and painful. The pain throbbed on his back, and he
cringed. Tears welled up in his eyes, but were quickly wiped away.
The boys laughed at him.

“C’mon, Mike the Dyke. Go get us the
keys.”

Mike didn’t know whether or not his parents
had keys, but it provided an opportunity to get away.

“All right, just give me a minute,” Mike had
said. He jumped on his 80’s brown Huffy Dirtmaster and rode it to
his front yard. Jumping off the bike, he started running to the
house. He knew his plan of escape must now be exposed, and knew any
minute the guys would ride their bikes to his yard and beat him up.
The mere yards to his doorstep felt like miles. He could feel them
hot on his heels even though they remained in Ruben’s yard across
the street. The door still open, he twisted the knob and dashed
inside the house. He closed the door quickly behind him, half
expecting the boys to bang into it and pound on the door. Mike
twisted the lock and let out a sigh of relief amid his bated
breath. He was safe.

He caught his breath, then peeked out the
window.

Like the morons they were, the boys sat on
their bikes waiting for Mike to return.

Five minutes. Then ten turned to fifteen.
Mike wondered if they would ever leave. Eventually they lost
interest and rode away.

And now, standing in the median just off of
south IH-35 near William Cannon, he knew he couldn’t save everyone
from his devious colleague, but he could help some, at least.

He handed the father a ticket. The man looked
at it. The nonsensical words and phrases scribbled on the paper
reminded him of the writings of a small child. But the
intent
of the scribblings

was clear.

“Thank you,” the man whispered.

The spring sun was poking through the clouds,
warming the city and adding some discomfort to the noxious fumes
coughing from the tailpipes of the backed-up vehicles.

Derek walked to another vehicle on the access
road, a Green Nissan Maxima. Mike moved to another vehicle.

Derek made no excuses for his next shakedown.
The man lowered his window.

“Sir, you see those people over there?” he
said, indicating the bound, detained, and shaken family. Before the
man could answer, Derek continued, “You and your wife will be
joining them now if you don’t pass on to me every bit of dough in
your wallet. And right now.”

Rule change.

The couple shared a nervous glance. It wasn’t
so much the money in their pockets, but the large satchel of cash
in the back seat. The chaos of the world had initiated a run of the
banks, and the couple had claimed their share.

And then some.

“You can have whatever you want, sir,” the
man said as casually as possible. He kept a pistol stowed away in a
small pocket in the door just within reach as he reached for his
wallet. His wife had placed her pistol in the same pocket on her
side, and made sure her legs obscured view of it.

The man handed the entire wallet to Derek.
The two hundred dollars within the worn leather made him very
happy. He removed the cash and tossed the wallet back at the man.
The man tried to muster up his best frown, trying to appear as if
he were robbed of everything he had.

Derek looked to the woman. “Your purse,
ma’am?”

She handed it to him with no argument. He
pulled out her wallet and threw the bag back at her. He opened the
wallet and found three crisp hundreds and a couple of twenties.

It was fortuitous. Maybe a little bit too
fortuitous.

Something was peculiar to Derek now, and his
cop radar was going off. He looked toward Mike, who was writing
another ticket.
Good man
, he thought. Derek figured he
wouldn’t need his help anyway. The couple looked harmless enough.
After all, he was the only one armed. Or so he thought.

“Just a little over five hundred dollars
between the two of you,” he whispered suspiciously.

Before he could finish his thought, the woman
chimed in, “Five hundred is the limit per day at the ATM.”

It was actually three hundred, but she
gambled that Derek didn’t know that.

And he didn’t.

Derek looked at the line of cars behind him.
A dollar sign floated over each and every one. No sense continuing
the shakedown despite the suspicions. “Have a nice day,” he said,
walking away from the vehicle and moving to the next car, which was
behind the one Mike was working. The occupant rolled down their
window.

Suddenly, an engine revved.

A small collision resounded.

Rubber burned into the road.

Derek was about to begin the same schpiel he
had given the others when out of nowhere a black ’93 Chevy Cavalier
tore out of line and barreled straight into him. The
low-to-the-ground Cavalier caught Derek at the knees. As his
ligaments and joints snapped, crackled, and popped, he could hear
every break, tear, and rip his body was going through even over the
revving of the vehicular Black Death’s engine. As his lower body
was being consumed by the undercarriage and his upper body was
twisting unnaturally, soon to be slammed face first onto the hood,
his last conscious thought was of the pancakes he ate just that
morning for breakfast. It was his first time to use Aunt Jemima
syrup over Log Cabin. He had grabbed the bottle by accident from
the store weeks earlier. His family had never bought Aunt Jemima.
This morning, he realized how much he had missed out on it in terms
of flavor and enjoyment. Aunt Jemima pancake syrup was heads above
Log Cabin. As his face slammed into the hood of the car before
being gobbled by the undercarriage and the warm gravel road, he was
glad he had a chance to taste it just once. Nothing else came to
mind once he was knocked unconscious by the hood. He slammed into
it so hard a small indention of his face was made, with slight
suggestions as to his contours. The car and the road swallowed him,
veritably chomping and tearing at his body and limbs. His twisted
and tattered remains were spit out of the rear of the vehicle like
excrement, only to be ground down even further by a massive and
jacked-up Dodge Ram. The large and heavy wheels added insult to
injury as it crushed the remnants of Derek’s knees and legs into
mincemeat. Ragged and misshapen like a wet towel, Derek’s remains
lay quietly on the side of the road as a stampede of cars began a
demolition derby of liberation, racing towards freedom. They all
followed the leaders in the phantom black Cavalier and big maroon
Dodge Ram.