Spin

            by Joshua Caraco

 

“It was dark.”

            “What happened?”

            “I don’t know what happened.  You can’t know what happened.  Nobody knows what happened.”

            “Well, what’d you see?”

            “I didn’t see anything; I told you, it was dark…I heard it.”

            “Just start from the beginning.”

            “I was up the block a little ways, a friend was having a party.  We were drinking a little, you know how kids are.  So I was talking to this girl, god she looked good that night, she had this thing going, just one earring.  I mean how often do you see a girl wearing one earring, she pulled it off though.  She’s really sweet too.  Well, anyway I’m not usually too good with girls, but I just threw it out there…‘You wanna go outside?’ and she was like ‘Sure,’ so we stepped out.  My friend’s house is kinda big.  It’s up on the hill there, like most of the houses on the block so that you can get a view of the bay.  There are a bunch of stairs you have to walk down to get to the street.  I was careful to balance, myself.  The girl seemed fine.  So…. I was…I mean, we were walking down the stairs and chatting and I um…I mean, we heard it.”

            “The crash?”

            “Well, a car around the corner, then the crash.  The girl ran up immediately but…it took me a sec, I didn’t want to trip.  I got down the stairs and she was at the corner screaming her head off.  I ran as fast as I could and there was Joey’s car.”

            “Slow down kid.  Can you just be a little more descriptive for me, could you do that?”

            “That turn on Spruce is really sharp, almost a right angle, I’ve always thought that it could be a hazard but they have more signs now than they used to.  I’ve almost gone straight off the corner myself, it’s so steep a hill on the other side, if you had speed you could just go straight off.  I guess that’s what Joey did.  You’d think there’d be some skid-marks or something, I mean you could easily miss the turn, ‘cept for all the signs, but you’d think you’d notice, even too late and try to turn, and then spin out.

            “I can’t really describe too much more.  It’s all sorta a blur.  It was a clear night, sometimes it gets foggy; it wasn’t.  We had a great view of the bay.  Stuff like that didn’t seem to matter that much when I saw Joey’s car, driver’s side crushed against a pole or a tree or something.  I didn’t even want to look.  I got out my cell phone and dialed 911.”

            “What can you tell me about Joey?  Did you know him well?”

            “I didn’t really know him too well.  I mean I had been in school with him for the past few years, I’d had some classes with him.  He seemed like a nice guy.  Real jock, but not a jerk really, pretty smart as far as I could tell.  He got lots of girls, kind of a player.  I always thought he seemed pretty responsible in general though; I never saw him drink and drive at parties.  He wasn’t drunk was he?  I mean would you still need to ask questions if he had been drunk?”  

“You’re, a pretty perceptive kid.  He wasn’t drunk, we may still be talking if he was, I don’t know.  You remember anything else?”

            “No, not that I can think of.”

            “How about how the girl hit her head?”

            “I think she…tripped on the stairs.”

            “Did she know Joey better than you?”

            “No!  I mean I don’t know you’ll prolly have to ask her.”

            “All right then, thank you for your time Steven.  We’ll get back in touch with you if we think of any more questions.  Lt. Billings will see you out.”    

             

“Ms. Evans, could you tell me what you remember about that night?”

            “Well of course I can detective.”

            “Thank you.”

            “I was up until about nine-thirty that night reading by my front window.  I remember a great view of the stars, Orion right out the window.  I fell asleep, head in my book.  It was a delightful tale by that darling—” 

            “Ms. Evans, I’m going to be frank with you, what you were reading really isn’t relevant.”

“Uh! …No, I suppose this is more important.  So I fell asleep reading my book and then I awoke.”

            “To the crash?”

            “Yes, I heard a loud crash, you know thumping and glass breaking, and then—”

            “A girl screaming?”

            “No, some kind of metal bang.  Then the girl screaming.”

            “Metal bang, eh?”

            “Yes.”

            “Do you know what the girl was yelling?”

            “Oh, I couldn’t be entirely sure, ‘Help, please somebody help us,’ something like that, I’m not sure.”

            “Next?”

            “Well I looked out the window and I saw the girl screaming, so I called the police.” 

            “What about a boy?  Do you remember a boy?”

            “Hmmm…well I do suppose there was a boy.  Came running down a few minutes later.  He must have heard the girl’s screams.  I think he called the police, awlso, I saw the glow of one of those cellular telephones.”

            “Anything else, Ms. Evans?”

            “No, I don’t believe so.”

            “Ok then, thank you for your time.  The lieutenant will show you out.”

 

“Hello Sarah, you seem a little shaken up, but I’m gonna need to ask you a few questions. I’ll try to be quick though, ok?”

            “Ok.”

            “Just start by telling me what you remember.”

            “Well I was at that party, up the block, and I ran into this guy outside.”

            “Steven.”

            “Yes.  So we were talking for a little while and then we heard the crash.  I went running down the hill right away.  When I got to the corner, I…I looked over and I saw Joey’s car and…I just…started screaming.  Steven came down and called 911.”

            “How well did you know Joey?”

            “We were…friendly.”

            “Were you two romantically involved?”

            “No!  Well…we went out a couple times but we weren’t involved.”

            “Had you seen Joey at all that night?”

            “No of course not, I was at the party all night.”

            “How did you bump your head Sarah?”

            “I think I hit it on a tree next to the car, I don’t really remember.”     

            “Did you lean in the window of the car to check on Joey, before you started screaming?  Is that how your blood got on his dash-board?”

            “Yes, that’s possible.  I guess I don’t remember looking in.”

“That’s ok.  They found an earring in Joey’s pants, any idea how that got there?”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.  How well do you know Steven?”

“We haven’t had too many extended conversations in a while, but we’ve been in the same class for years.  I think he’s had a crush on me.  He is always really nice to me.  He may just be a sweet guy though.”

“Yeah, the sweet kind of guy who’d do anything for a friend who asked.”

“Sure, maybe.  I don’t know.”     

            “All right, Sarah thanks for talking with me.  Lt. Billings is going to make sure we have all your information and see you out.  Make sure you get that bump on your head looked at.”

 

“So what happened?”

            “The truth is it really was just an accident.  The boy may have been distracted for some embarrassing reasons, but we’re not really getting those in an official report.  It doesn’t really matter anyway.  You’ve told the family that a loved one is dead and they may want to know how he died or they may not care because knowing doesn’t change the fact.  Even if they want to know they’ll never understand exactly what happened and they can try to piece it together but it’s really just a fluke.  Life fucking sucks, Billings, it’s a loss the parents will never get over.  We could pry more out of the girl but she’s traumatized by it. And that boy Steven had a reason for his story.  It isn’t going to do the world any good to destroy a girl’s life by telling the parents, or putting it in a police report, that her boyfriend completely missed a turn and ended up in a tree because he was distracted by her lips around his dick.”