“Benji,” Sheriff George Griggs says, his voice a deep bass, filled with undeserved authority. The definition of his face has been lost to fat, his cheeks soft jowls covered in black stubble. His balding head is hidden beneath the wide brim of his hat. “You’re out late.”
“You know I’m not. I just closed up the station, like I do every day at the same time.”
He narrows his eyes. “Is that so?”
I barely can contain the urge to laugh. “Yes. Why do you care?”
“Someone’s got to keep an eye on you, boy.”
“I’m not your boy.”
He ignores the harshness in my voice. “Been drinking tonight?”
Now I laugh. “You’re kidding, right?”
He’s not kidding. Or, he’s just trying to fuck with me. “No,” he says.
I can play this game. “No, I haven’t been drinking.”
“Is that so?” he says again, the beam of the flashlight piercing my eyes. I squint and look away. “I thought you were swerving a bit back there. You high, Benji?”
“No,” I say, trying not to grit my teeth. “I’ve never been high. I’ve never been drunk. I’ve never done a damn thing wrong.”
He leans in, resting his arms on the door to the Ford. He smells like sweat and aftershave. His scent invades my space. “Everyone’s done something,” he says. I can feel his eyes on me as I look straight ahead.
“What have you done?” I ask before I can stop myself. I don’t miss how he flinches, a subtle intake of breath, the beam from the flashlight wobbling before it steadies.
“You know,” he says finally, “a smart mouth like that is apt to find its owner in trouble one day.”
“Oh?”
“Serious trouble, Benji.”
“Can I go, Sheriff, or is there something else you needed?”
He watches me for a moment more before he knocks the flashlight against the door: a sharp rap that I know will have chipped the paint. “You be careful, you hear me?”
Before he can move away, my mouth opens on its own again as I turn to look at him. “You find out who killed my father yet, Sheriff?”
His eyes are hard, his face reflecting red, then blue. Red. Blue. The skin under his eye twitches; he tightens his jaw. “It was an accident,” he says quietly. “Big Eddie lost control of his vehicle and flipped into the river. Simple as that.”
“That simple?”
“Yes.”
“Have a good night, Sheriff.”
He’s been dismissed and he knows it. His mouth opens as he grunts. I think maybe he’ll say more, but he spins on his heel and walks back to the cruiser, opens the door and spills back inside. We sit there for a moment, me watching him in the rearview mirror, the lights twirling.
Eventually, he spins out behind me and leaves me in the dark, the ticking of the Ford’s engine the only sound I can hear.
I stay still for a moment. I breathe in and out.
A hand falls on my shoulder again, there in the cab of the Ford. Another flash of blue.
“I know,” I say to what does not exist. “I know.”
I tried to leave for college after I graduated high school, but it didn’t take.