.+:Chapter 3:+.
The Incident
**Note~ This is a flashback chapter. . . .of what happened that one fateful night.**
The concert had been great. Justin's ears were still ringing. He wasn't really a big Offspring fan but he was glad that Lance had persuaded him to go. He had a fine buzz and he hadn't even had one beer. There had been enough marijuana smoke in the air to waste the security guards though.
"Where's the car?" shouted Justin.
"I don't know!" shouted Lulu. She was wearing tight white jeans and a skimpy red tube top. She was all over Joey and occasionally Justin. Not that he minded.
"It was I! The cat man!" shouted JC. Mariette clung to him and giggled hysterically. They had drank about a six pack each.
"There it is!" Tripetta laughed, pointing so vaguely that it could have been half the parking lot.
"I drive a Jeep! Not a Volkswagen! Lance, do you know where my car is?" asked JC. Suddenly Chris, Tripetta, Joey, Lulu, Mariette and JC burst out laughing, finding that question to be the funniest thing all night. The only two not laughing were Justin and Lance.
Lance began walking, everyone stumbling behind him. He was like the pied piper but instead of children following him he had attracted a group of drunk teenagers and adults. Lulu stumbled along behind Justin, one of her hands was in his back pocket and the other was in Joey's. Finally they arrived at JC's Jeep. JC had parked at the end of the parking lot so that they could make a quick getaway. Too bad the exits were on the other side of the lot.
The concert had their adrenaline pumping and now they were crowded into a car and had to move like snails. To make the wait more bearable they set to work on the three remaining six packs. Everyone grabbed a beer. As they were waiting there was a knock at the window.
"Jamieriquai!" squealed Mariette. "It is so awesome seeing you here!"
"I was with you when we got the tickets," said Jamie.
"Are you having car trouble?" asked Lance.
"Yeah, September and I. . . .the battery is dead. . . .we can't. . . ."
"Call the auto club!" Lulu interrupted.
"Pull over JC," said Justin and JC dutifully pulled over. They all got out of the car. Sometime between the end of the concert and waiting in the car it had started to rain.
They stood around September's Honda Civic. Justin checked the oil, Lance checked the gas, and JC tried jumpstarting it. It didn't even click.
"Call the auto club," said Lulu. "You are a member aren't you?"
"I don't know," said September nervously. "Am I?"
" I am. There was a a phone in the lobby, we'll go call somebody," said Jamie.
"No," said Justin. "It would take forever for them to get out here and this is a really bad neighborhood. It wouldn't be safe for you to girls to be waiting around alone. You're coming home with us."
"There's no room in the Jeep for eight people. I don't know how the hell we're supposed to fit ten!" said Lulu.
"No problem," JC belched. "You can sit on my hands!" he said to Mariette, who punched him. "I mean my lap." She punched him again.
"Lulu, auto club employees do not install starters in the middle of the night," said Justin. "They are coming home with us. JC give me the keys, you're drunk."
"If I was drunk," mumbled JC indignantly, "I would have trouble seeing like I am now." He handed Justin his keys.
*****
Two hours had passed and they were lost. They hadn't even seen another car in over forty minutes. Justin was sure that he had gotten on the freeway to Orlando. They were squished into the Jeep and more than half of them were drunk.
Justin was driving and Jamie was next to him in the front seat, looking at a tattered roadmap with a flashlight. Lance, Joey and JC were in the backseat. Lulu was on Joey's lap and Mariette was on JC's lap. Chris, Tripetta and September were in the hatch.
Nevertheless they were having fun. They had plenty of gas, plenty of beer and good conversation.
"Hey Justin should I tell them about the time about the time that we snuck into Coach Stefanci's house and caught him seducing one of the teenyboppers?" asked JC.
"Tell them the whole story," said Justin. They all knew about Coach Stefanci and his thing for his female students. The girls were always talking about who he was trying to seduce. He lived a few doors down from JC, but they had never been in his house.
"It was a Saturday night," JC began. "We thought the coach was gone for the evening and we were going to unhook the kitchen sink and put it in the attic so that when he called the cops he'd have to tell them that they took nothing but the kitchen sink!" Everyone laughed.
Justin began to get worried. They had the Ocean on one side and what looked like dessert on the other. Justin hadn't known that there were desserts in Florida. They were so lost. Tumbleweeds drifted across the road and Justin swerved to avoid hitting them.
"At first he was out," JC continued burping. "We almost had the last bolt unscrewed and we hadn't even scratched the sink. Then we heard the garage door opening and we knew that we were in trouble. But we didn't panic, we were cool. We raced upstairs and hid under the bed in the master bedroom 'cuz we heard a female giggling from the garage."
"Fuck off!" said Lulu.
"It's true! Now here comes the good part! When we were laying under the bed, what did we hear but Coachy bringing the little lady upstairs. I almost pissed my pants trying to hold back the laughter. Especially when I noticed the tiny tape recorder laying on the floor. So I hit the record button."
"What did they do?" September gasped.
"Everything!" said JC. "Things I haven't even done with Mariette!"
"Josh!" said Mariette.
"Mariette!" said September.
"What a crock of bullshit!" said Lulu.
"Justin," said JC, "wasn't I telling the truth?"
"To the finest detail," answered Justin. He yawned and glanced at the clock. 2:15. They weren't going in the right direction but they were making excellent timing.
"Where's the tape?" demanded Lulu. "If that's true then I want to hear the tape!"
"Aiight," said JC, leaning forward and fumbling in the glove compartment. He slipped a tape into the cassette player. "You will have the rare and exciting privilege." He turned the volume up. "This is confidential information, of course!"
There came the sound of sloppy footsteps, overlaid with fuzzy male and female voices. As the footsteps got closer, the voices got louder. To Justin's amazement it did sound like the coach. The girl also sounded familiar.
"How old are you?" came the coach's slurred voice. They hit another bump and Justin wondered if it had been a rabbit.
"Eighteen," the girl crooned.
"I thought you said you were a junior?"
"So I flunked," the girl giggled. Wet kissing noises and lots of heavy breathing followed. Except for September's stifled giggles, the car was silent.
"Have you done this before?" the coach muttered.
"Yeah this afternoon."
"With who?"
"Some jerk on your team."
"All the guys on my team are jerks."
Justin realized that the voice of the coach was JC! JC had always been good at imitations. That's one of those little things he remembered from their days on the MMC. Clothes rustled and zippers slowly pulled down.
"Let me do that," the girl sighed. "Oh that's nice! Oh I like that!"
"Ain't I great?"
"I've heard you're the best!" the girl groaned. "AAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!"
"You heard right baby," the coach whispered. "I love you Lulu."
The pandemonium was instantaneous. Louder than any chords pounded during the concert. Naturally JC was laughing the hardest.
"I never!" Lulu swore. "I hate that bastard! JC!"
"I love you Lulu!" shouted JC, knocking Mariette off of his lap, onto the floor, where she sat giggling in a puddle of spilled beer. A tumbleweed somersaulted across the road and Justin swerved to avoid it.
"Wow! That's neat! Do it again Justin!" cackled September. "I knew it was you Lulu!"
"How was he?" giggled Mariette.
"Shut up!" snapped Lulu. JC turned up the volume.
"We were meant to be lovers!" Coach Stefanci groaned.
"Fate," the girl moaned. "OOHH!"
"Turn that off dammit!" Lulu shouted. Lulu leaned forward and tried to turn off the tape player.
"You should never wear clothes Lulu," the coach whispered loudly.
"Turn it off!" screamed Lulu.
"Turn off the lights!" September cheered.
"AAhhhhh!"
"Stop it Justin!" Lulu screamed. "Stop it this instant!"
"I can't! I'm driving!" said Justin trying not to laugh.
"You're like me," the coach mumbled, "the best!"
"Ahhhhhh!!!! Ohhhhhhh!!!!!!"
"I said stop!" Lulu said. While she was trying to turn off the tape player she accidentally turned off the head lights. It might have been all right. Had Lulu's breasts not been hanging into his face and had he not been swerving around a tumbleweed.
The front tire caught on the side of the road and they all screamed. The front wheels were caught in the sand off the side of the road. It was like riding a twenty foot wave at midnight. When the car started spinning the flashlight flew out of Jamie's hand, hit the dashboard and went out. It was black inside the car and out.
Justin turned the wheel and the car swung free. And swung off the other side of the road.
"Ahhhhhhhhh!" the pseudo-Lulu's cries of ecstasy in the arms of Coach JC, cutting through the cries of the others.
The car slid down the sandy embankment. Breaking through weeds, bushes, shrubs, and tumbleweeds. The roar was deafening, burning rubber, shattering branches, blasting sand, screams and more screams. They bounced back onto the road, down close to the water. The car swung back and forth. Then hit it.
Soft, thought Justin. Too soft.
It wasn't like hitting a tree or tumbleweed. It was heavier. More solid, yet more delicate. The car stopped and stalled.
Mariette, September, and Tripetta were whimpering like small, scared children. The others were gasping like big, scared teenagers.
"Oh Lulu," Coach Stefanci whispered, "you were meant to be naked." Calmly, Lulu leaned forward and turned the tape off.
"I meant for you to stop the tape, not the car," she said to Justin.
Suddenly JC began to laugh. A wildly inappropriate laugh. Everyone joined in, laughing like maniacs for several minutes. When they were done they reassured themselves that they were really alive. Justin turned the key. The car started without a hitch.
"Anyone hurt?" he asked. No one spoke up. "Good." He put the car into gear and creeped along the road. He just wanted to get a couple miles away before someone spoke, when it would make no sense to go back and look at. . . .
What they might have hit.
"Don't you want to check for damage?" asked Mariette, snuggling back into JC's lap.
"No!" said JC and Justin, simultaneously.
"I need to get home," said Lulu. "My dad will be furious!"
"Right, here we go," said Justin, pressing down on the accelerator. Fifty Yards. Don't turn around. One hundred yards. It was just a cactus. One hundred and fifty yards. . . .
"Justin," said Lance quietly. Justin hit the brakes, threw the car in park and turned off the engine. His head fell onto the steering wheel. Lance was like his conscience, quiet, yet hard to ignore. Justin took a deep breath.
"Give me the flashlight." Jamie placed it in his hand. "All of you stay here, I'll be back in a few minutes."
Justin opened the door and stepped outside. He looked around.
Two hundred yards behind the Jeep, he came to the man.
He lay on his back in a casual position, his tan sports coat flung apart, untorn, but filthy with dust and sand. He looked like he was in his early thirties with Chris's height and Lance's build. His eyes were open, his gaze unnerving in the haunting light. A ragged trail of blood slipped out out the corner of his slightly parted lips. He looked like he was grinning. Justin dropped to his knees in the sand beside him.
Justin did not know how long he sat there, the flashlight forgotten in the sand. The next thing he was aware of was JC shaking him, seeming to call his name from the other end of a long tunnel. He raised his head with effort saw the others gathered around him in a circle.
"Is he dead?" JC asked. He was sober. His eyes had never looked so wide. He felt for a pulse at the man's wrist.
"Looks it," Justin heard himself say. JC touched the blood on the side of the man's mouth. It was not dry.
"Looks like he's been dead awhile," said JC trying to ease some of the tension.
"I don't think so," said Justin softly.
"You're saying that we hit him?" demanded JC startled.
"I told you to slow down Justin!" September squealed. "I told you when we were leaving the parking lot!"
"You imbecile!" Lulu screamed at September. "You told him to turn off the lights!"
"I never said that!" September screamed back. "I didn't mean it!"
"But it was you Lulu, who turned off the lights!" Mariette shouted. "You were so mad and drunk that you. . . ."
"If I was drunk than who gave me the beer?" Lulu shot back. "You! You brought the beer! You kept shoving it down our throats! No wonder Justin didn't know where he was going! Which doesn't leave you out Jamie! You were the one who told him to come down this damn road!"
"You're right," Jamie said. The acceptance of responsibility had a quieting effect on the group. Jamie knelt beside Justin and touched his arm. "What should we do Justin?"
"I dunno, find out who he is, I suppose." Justin was hoping that JC would take the initiative. He didn't want to touch the guy. JC understood and began to go through the man's pockets. Justin turned his head. They should have closed the eyes first. With every touch of the body they rolled slightly.
"He doesn't have a wallet," JC announced a moment later.
"How could a guy this well dressed not be carrying a wallet?" wondered Chris aloud.
"Someone must have raked him over already. We did not kill him," said JC decisively.
The wind was warm and dry and sand was blowing into their clothes, mouths, eyes, and noses. Like giant web weaving spiders, dark tumbleweeds scraped the edge of their tiny circle of light. The man stared on, fascinated by what they could not see.
"It may have fallen out," said Joey. "Let's look for it." He was the only one who searched. He found nothing. JC hiked back to the jeep to check the fender.
There was a dent in the fender but JC said that it was the same dent that had always been there. Justin could have sworn that there had not been a scratch on the car when the evening had begun.
September, Mariette, and Tripetta began to cry. Lulu started to pace. Lance remained motionless, outside the glow of the flashlight. Jamie continued to kneel by Justin's side, their heads bowed along with Joey, JC, and Chris. JC finally reached over and closed the man's eyes.
"We'll put him in the trunk," Justin said finally. "The authorities should be able to identify him."
"No way you are putting that in my car!" protested JC.
"We can't just leave him here!" reasoned Justin.
"Sure we can!" Lulu cried, stopping her pacing. She was no longer a sexy eighteen year old but a desperate woman. "My old man's a cop. I know those jerks. They'll question us separately. September and Jamieriquai will blab their mouths off. The cops will put the story together. Look, I'll admit it, I was the one who turned off the lights. I could be laid with a real heavy rap. Let's just get outta here, Let's just forget about it!"
"I agree," said JC. "Someone else killed the guy. He was probably killed miles away from here. The body was dumped here. No parked car, no wallet, no dent. . "
"There is a dent!" Justin objected.
"There already was a dent!" JC yelled back. "I should know, it's my car! Don't you understand? It's my car! Even if I was too drunk to be driving it I'm as guilty as you are! We all are!"
"I'm not!" September whined.
"Shut up or we'll run over you next!" snapped Lulu.
"I'm for leaving," said Tripetta. "He's already dead. What more can we do for him?"
"I was driving," said Justin, forcing the words out. "This was my fault. . . I should have. . . .I shouldn't have drunk. . . .I say we. . .we have to. . . ." His throat was so dry, he couldn't finish. JC grabbed his arm and began to plead.
"You're eighteen! Legally an adult! I know that law! You'll get manslaughter! And for what? Something you might not have done? Tripetta's right. He's dead! We can't do anything for him! We can only ruin our lives! Our careers! Listen to me Justin! I know what I'm talking about!"
"If we don't go to the police," said Jamie finally,"then we must at least bury him. We must show some decency."
"Would that be OK?" asked Chris desperately.
"We could say a prayer," Tripetta offered.
Justin nodded. That's how it was with prayers. They were always said when it was too late.
*****
They carried the body fifty paces into the field, the skeletons of the sun baked bushes grabbing for them like the claws of the damned. They did not have a shovel. They used the bar that undid the wheel bolts, a large screwdriver, and their bare hands to dig with. The ground was hard. The grave was shallow.
September gave them a brief scare when she suddenly jumped and screamed that the man was groaning. A quick check however, showed that that was nonsense. Lulu smacked September on the back of the head and dared her to open her mouth again.
They lowered him without ceremony, folding his hands across his heart, leaving what could have been a wedding ring on his finger. They begged Lance not to do it, but he insisted upon draping his crucifix around the man's neck, just before they replaced the soil. They said one Our Father.
They found the freeway with remarkable ease. The return route was not complicated. Justin remembered it well. Had they any desire or need to return to the gravesite, he would have had no trouble.
~*~
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