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Heidi Ho: Part ONE
The arrest
I hate my car! I also hate Indiana, but who doesn’t? My therapist tells me that negative emotions like hate are counter-productive, but I don’t want the therapist in the first place. Rehab is just making me see her because they think she’ll do me good, but all I think she’s doing is fast-tracking herself onto the rapidly growing list of things about which I’m being counter-productive. She says that talking about why I feel the way I do will work as a catharsis to help me understand my feelings, but the only reason I’m complying is because I want sympathy. And because it’ll get me out early.
I work for never you mind whom, and my job is never you mind what. Suffice it to say that it is not always on the right side of the law. I was assigned to deliver a--ahem--”shipment” from Bloomington, Indiana to Columbus, Indiana, passing through Nashville on the way. The judges are still out on which is the most blighted, miserable burb on the face of the planet.
Because my "shipment” was fairly valuable, it was vitally important that I not be noticed by anyone (that is, by police). So of course I start out being very careful, using a battered, beat up car that could belong to any inconspicuous college student. It probably does, in fact. Sadly, I didn’t notice until too late that its brakes and acceleration and steering were completely shot. I think what tipped me off was the fact that by the time I was halfway to Nashville I was barely going the speed limit of fifty miles an hour, and I had to start decelerating in order to be going slowly enough to pass through Nashville without breaking its speed limit of thirty miles an hour. I guess I should have started decelerating while I was still going forty, but hindsight doesn’t need glasses, or whatever it is they say about it. When I passed through Nashville I was still going thirty-two, and some incredibly anal sheriff who was supposed to be in a doughnut shop decided that he was going to ticket me. Seeing as how I didn’t happen to have my license on me at the moment, and even if I did, it would probably have had a slight disagreement with the car’s registration, I hit the gas. Sadly, so did the cop. Luckily, he must have gotten his vehicle from the same dealer that cheated my donor, but he didn’t take as good care of it, or something. By the time I was going above sixty, he was off my tail, But the breaks weren’t quite up to stopping a vehicle with so much kinetic energy, so I had to use a little outside help by the time I reached Columbus. Fortunately, my--um--business associates are used to stopping cars in a hurry, using whatever means necessary. I’m still sore from that jerk that came when the stopped my car, but I don’t want to know how they did it. In this case, ignorance is bliss.
Of course, I then discovered that cop cares are not to be despised, no matter how pathetic the car I can use to outrun them. They are equipped with this neat little device called a radio, and my anal cop must have used his. My associates had hardly gotten away with my shipment when another sheriff who should have been munching fried rolls of dough found me, and tested me, and discovered that my bloodstream wasn’t compose of the right substances in quite the right proportions. So here I am, and that’s my story, and I’m planning a breakout in a few days, but don’t tell anyone.
