May you live in interesting times.
I got that from a fortune cookie once. A blessing or a curse. Who knows?
Those words come back to me now as I look in my rearview and see the police cruiser coming on, siren wailing and lights flashing.
I grip the wheel, doing my level best to keep my shit together but my red-stained hands and the screaming from the backseat are making it hard.
When I take a sharp left at the intersection the screams get so bad I can't even make out swear words anymore.
"Nearly there," I yell. "We'll make it, just hold on."
We had a plan and none of this shit was in it, I tell myself as I swerve around a dirt-brown old Ford going so slow its forward motion might be a trick of the eye.
In the rearview, the cop car bounces onto the street behind us.
Somewhere, a fortune cookie is laughing.
I take a right so hard that I feel rubber lift off the road as I head into the side-street, wide and wild. All four wheels have just started kissing asphalt again when I hit the brakes to avoid a head-on.
For what feels like a long weekend, we stare at each other through our windshields. A guy in a family wagon with deep bags under wide eyes wearing what looks like an S-Mart uniform staring back at me, a schmuck with red hands and screams pouring out his open window.
I haul the steering wheel away and I'm gone, leaving him to ponder whether or not we've just breached social distancing guidelines.
Another turn at the end of the street and somehow, we've made it. I skid to a stop out front, my brakes screaming along with my passenger.
A woman is just walking out the glass doors, a pack of cigarettes in one hand and a lighter in the other. She pockets them and comes running over, tying up the mask that was hanging loose around her neck.
I run to the back of the car and throw open the door. She looks inside.
"Hey guys, get over here and bring that with you!" She yells over the roof of my car at two paramedics, also in masks, who are just about to load a gurney into the back of an ambulance.
The police car comes skidding in behind me but I don't even look around as I help the paramedics get my wife on the gurney, her hand squeezing mine.
They get rolling but when I make to follow, the nurse holds up a hand to stop me.
"I'm very sorry, sir. No partners allowed," she says as over her shoulder, I watch the paramedics and my wife disappear inside.
I start goldfishing, my mouth opening and closing but no words. From a ways off, I hear my wife calling my name.
One of the cops steps forward.
"Excuse me ma'am, but the Governor reversed that a couple of hours ago," he says, holding his phone out for the nurse to study.
She takes a look and I hear her mutter "Thank Christ" under her mask.
She tells me to wait where I am so she can check with hospital admin. She's about to run back in but stops to look me over, finally noticing my hands and clothes.
"I'm fine," I say, waving her away. "It's paint."
Then she's gone and it's just me and the cops.
"I'm sorry I couldn't stop, officers. I was just..."
"Paint, huh?" One of them says, sniffing at me.
"I was finishing the nursery...I thought I still had time...she's two weeks early," I say, looking down at the red mess. "The tin said 'Powderpuff Pink'."
"Better get your money back," the other cop says.
Then he smiles and I figure between that and the assist with the nurse, maybe I'm not getting cuffed today.
I say this to the cops and they laugh, tell me that I was mostly under the limit and given the circumstances, they're willing to forget the times I wasn't.
I thank them, thank them again and then, just in case they missed it, thank them some more.
Then everything hits me like a ton of bricks and I fall back against my car, closing my eyes for a moment.
"Take this, pal. You look like you need it more than me."
One of the cops is standing an approved distance from me, holding out an offering.
"Don't worry, I haven't touched it yet."
I take it and say thanks again before telling them I'm sure they've got better places to be.
"We can wait with you a bit," one of them says with a shrug like it's nothing.
"Besides," the other says, "dangerous guy like you...someone's gotta keep an eye."
So we stand, me and my uniformed friends, apart but together, staring at the hospital doors and waiting for word to come, one of us covered in sweat and incorrectly-labelled paint and sipping on blessedly cold lemonade.
Interesting times.
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