My father was sitting in the front passenger seat of my car which I was driving along a road in Gallia County. For quite a while I had wanted to pass a car which was in front of me, but was unable to pass because of a double yellow line. Finally, as we were going down a hill, I saw a place to pass at the bottom of the hill. I sped up, but the car in front of me had also sped up while going down the hill. I wasn't able to reach the car to pass it until we were almost at the end of the passing zone. I decided to go ahead and try to pass anyway.
Just as I got into the left lane I realized another hill was coming up and I wasn't going to be able to see if any cars were coming toward me. The car I was passing wasn't slowing down either. I honked my horn for it to slow down so I could go on around. As I passed the car I could tell from the look on the driver's face that he was perturbed. But I did manage to squeeze safely back into the right hand lane in front of him.
Even though I began driving around 75 miles an hour, my father didn't say anything about my speed. When we came to a curve to the right, I was going so fast that I slid off the left side of the road and turned the car around. Cars coming toward me quickly swerved out of the way and missed us. My car wasn't damaged in any way, so I pulled back on to the road and continued along. But I decided to slow down.
We were getting low on gas. Finally, I saw a gas station, pulled in and had the tank filled up. My father wrote out a check to me for $175 with which to pay for the gas, although the cost of the gas was only $15. My father wanted me to get the balance in cash and give it to him because he needed some money. I told him I didn't think they would cash a check for that amount. He said they had a system so they would be able to cash the check.
We pulled a short ways from the gas pump. The attendant, who was heavy-set, short and probably in his late 40s, came out and I handed him the check. He reminded me of someone but I couldn't place him. He was wearing a dark green work suit. He said there was no way he was going to be able to cash the check. I told him he was going to have to because we didn't have any other way of paying him.
I knew that was a lie because both my father and I had more money—we could pay him with cash if we had to. The attendant said he would see what he could do and he walked back inside. Finally, a tall lanky fellow (probably in his mid 20s) walked outside. He was holding his arm against his chest and was carrying a bunch of quarters in it. He told me he would have to give me the change in quarters. He said he was glad this had happened because he wanted to get rid of those quarters. I thought it was just a ruse because he didn't actually want to pay us in cash and he didn't think we would accept all those quarters. I asked my father what he thought and he said to go ahead and take the quarters.
The fellow then said he first had some 1950 silver dollars and he began handing those to me. I looked on the front of the silver dollars and saw the words "twenty centimes" written there. I realized the pieces were French money and only worth twenty centimes. After he had given me five or six I stopped him and told him to slow down. I explained to him that the coins he was giving me were French coins and that each one was only worth twenty centimes. Five of them therefore made one French franc. I told him a French franc was only worth 8 cents. So five of the coins were only worth 8 cents and he was trying to say that each one was worth $1.
So he took the coins back and then handed me a whole handful of change. There were pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters in the mixture. He told me to count the money and that he would write it down. He would then repeat the same thing over and over. I became frustrated and said, "We can't do this."
I threw all the money onto the ground in front of him. He was knelling on the ground and the money fell around his knees. I opened up the coin compartment in my car in which were a bunch of quarters and told him instead that we were going to pay him in quarters. I began counting out the quarters to him.
He told me to wait and went back inside. We waited and waited. Finally, someone came back outside. This person was apparently some kind of police authority. He said he was concerned about the coins. I was unsure whether he was talking about the ones the attendant had tried to give us or the ones we had tried to give him.
But apparently the official was concerned about some coins actually being drugs. They wanted us to wait a while and we went inside. There I saw a tray which had what appeared to be some powdery paint on it. There were about a dozen different colors and each color was in a circle about two centimeters in diameter. Each circle was about the size of a coin and apparently the circles had something to do with the drug we were accused of having. I didn't think the colored powders were drugs, but I realized the coins we had had did somehow have some kind of powder in them. I stuck my finger in the powders and began tasting them. The whitish powder tasted like vanilla. I thought another one was probably peach and so on. But I didn't feel any drug effects. It just tasted like a sugary-flavored substance. Apparently, someone was confused.
I walked back outside and asked my father if there was any possibility that any of the stuff we had had in the car was drugs. He didn't know if anything we had had was drugs. I was becoming more and more upset and wanted to leave, but we seemed to have become trapped in some kind of bureaucratic entanglement.
We waited for almost a week. I was frustrated because I wanted to get out of there, but I couldn't seem to leave. Many strange people were also staying there and during the course of the week I became acquainted with some.
One day I was walking outside close to the gas station and came to a shady area near some bushes and trees. I found some knives lying there. One appeared to be a shaving knife and had a long black handle. It also reminded me of a switchblade. I thought it was very pretty and elegant, picked it up and stuck it in my right rear pocket. Some other objects were also lying there.
I heard someone coming; an attractive, black-haired woman about 30 years old walked up. I had seen her before. Another fellow was with her. The woman began explaining that someone had been killed there and that the objects had been used in the murder. The fellow with her had come out to pick up the objects and he began putting them on a little tray. She didn't know about the knife I had in my pocket. I didn't say anything because I wanted to keep it.
After the fellow had placed the objects on the tray, he carried them away. The woman remained. This was the first time I had ever talked with her. I realized I had been rather withdrawn lately and I hadn't been projecting myself on people, but I wanted to talk with her and I decided to project myself more. She walked up close to me and I put my left arm around her. She brought her face closer to mine and I could now see that she actually wasn't particularly pretty. Her teeth were rather crooked.
I wanted to get away from her. But she meanwhile was looking at my face and saw that I was actually rather good-looking. She wanted to be with me. I asked her if she knew why she was there. She replied, "No."
I thought she was rather mixed up because she didn't know why she was there, but I told her I had been there for a week and I likewise didn't know why I was there. I told her I thought I was there because of something to do with drugs, but I was no longer even sure of that. I didn't know why I was there.
Copyright 2011 by luciddreamer2k@gmail.com
