Along a Highway

From the back of the truck Jumbo stuck his head through the gap caused by having a camper shell two feet longer than the pickup bed. He was trying to get some fresh air. What he saw, with his head stuck sideways through the gap, was flashing lights.

Jumbo knew the driver, Grady, wouldn't see the deputy's car since the camper's girth blocked all rear and side mirror views. He sought to scramble around and warn Grady but found that his head was stuck. The passengers, Kendell and Bob, smoked pot and drank the last of the Busch. Jumbo rode in the bed because he took up most of the cab.

Since the truck made no attempt to stop, and it looked to the deputy like there was a head caught between the tailgate and the camper, the cruiser pulled beside the pickup, lights and sirens going, and the deputy made hand signals indicating, "Pull over."

Grady made a hand signal back.

Deputies do not like to get out and work themselves up on steamy Delta days. They just as soon sit in air conditioning but there were too many variables going on with this truck. Soon, two more cruisers joined the chase. Grady decided to stop.

One deputy lowered the tailgate, freeing Jumbo who rolled his massiveness out the back.

"You boys," said the deputy, "wouldn't be in trouble if you just pulled over. I only wanted to tell you that you can't have a camper too long for the bed. Carbon monoxide sucks right up the gap. Look at this big guy. He's red in the face."

"Jumbo always looks like that," Grady said.

"Boy, you talk back, you shoot the bird, you don't pull over." The deputy looked over where another held up a baggie of pot. "And you got yourself about a quarter bag of illegal substance. You expecting a glaucoma outbreak? We gonna search you and the truck."

The boys leaned on the truck and spread their legs. They knew the routine. As the officers searched for drugs, guns, knives or bars of soap stuffed in the ends of socks (Grady once put his brother in the hospital with three bars of Irish Spring and a striped tube sock), the first deputy said, "Are you boys stupid? You have to be stupid."

In his slow Mississippi drawl Grady said, "We're not the ones with our hands down Jumbo's pants."

"You boys are stupid," said the deputy, grabbing Grady up by the collar and lifting him off the ground. They handcuffed Grady and stuck him the patrol car. They tried to handcuff Jumbo but the cuffs weren't big enough and he couldn't get his hands close enough together anyway. He was put in a different car since he took up the whole seat. The keys to Grady's truck were taken so nobody would die of carbon monoxide.

Kendell and Bob were left behind.

"I'm glad we didn't go to jail," said Kendell.

"Bob said, "Me, too. That would have been stupid."

"There's nothing to eat in the truck," Kendell said. "Jumbo ate everything. The beer's gone, too."

"Mosquitoes will be out soon," Bob said. "They'll fly right through that gap and suck us dry."

"I wish we'd said something to get us thrown in jail. There's bologna sandwiches there."

"We were just stupid not to say something and get thrown in jail," Bob sighed.

They paused a minute while the crickets began to chirp.

"We were really stupid not to go to jail." Kendell said.

"At least it wasn't us in Jumbo's pants."