He started to pull over to the side of the road. I rolled down the window and tossed the plates right in front of the officer.
“Go!” I said, “don’t stop, we can lose them.” I guess I suddenly grew some nuts or something, because I was in charge. Telling James where to turn, where the cops were (now there were a lot of them), and to stay calm, we would get away; I knew it.
We went top speed through the financial district, on both Broadway and Spring. We ran red lights in the middle of morning rush hour and didn’t cause one accident. We would make it if I could just come up with a destination. As it was, we were just guessing, driving faster than we were thinking and getting lucky. Then we hit a dead end. We were suddenly stopping, so we jumped out of the car and ran — in different directions (planned — one of us would escape). I found myself heading directly for some old rail yards behind a large industrial building. I had no idea which way James went. Fortunately I can run; with a dose of primal fear and adrenaline on the side, I was gone. Because James had been the reason for the intended traffic stop and he was the main target, they mostly followed him. While I completely immersed myself in a loose mountain of gravel, my brother was caught, beaten severely, and arrested.
After three hours, during which time I actually slept, I crawled very slowly out of my gravel cocoon and simply walked home. I told my beautiful wife what had happened and complained about how wrong the police were and went right back into my fearless, ignorant bliss.
