Alyssa
I stayed perfectly still. The car tore down the road; whoever was driving it was doing so in a reckless manner that I never would. We peeled hard around a turn, the tires sounding out a shrill squeal. My heart pounded in my chest and I could feel the wet sting of perspiration in my eyes. I couldn’t believe how scared I was.
The thief turned on the radio and fiddled with the dial, finally settling on a rap station. Aggressive lyrics began streaming out of the speakers, and I allowed myself a few whimpers of fear. As we drove, the car thief began rapping along with the music, barely keeping up with the lyrics. The engine whirred loudly, and I could feel just how fast we were going.
Please get pulled over, please get pulled over, I thought over and over like a chant.
But I had no such luck. The driver kept on going, making wild turns around corners, driving well over the speed limit, and rapping along to the music.
After a time, I heard the chime of a cell phone. I heard the driver fumbled around for his phone, finally answering it.
“Yo, Russell! What’s up, bro?” he said, yelling over the music. “Fine! Damn! Hold on …”
The music quieted. I assumed that whoever was on the other end didn’t share the car thief’s taste in music.
“Yeah, I got it. We meeting in the same spot? All right, all right. Of course I’m driving carefully—what the fuck you take me for? Okay, see you in a bit, bro.”
The conversation ended and the music went right back up.
So, it wasn’t just this guy acting alone; this was some kind of operation. But what the hell would they want with my shitty little car? I couldn’t imagine them getting any more than a few hundred dollars for this old pile of junk.
I weighed my options.
Jumping out’s an option, I thought. I mean, I’ve seen it happen on TV enough times. Don’t you just, kind of tuck and roll?
I dismissed this possibility as not likely; this guy was going so fast that I’d probably just get smeared on the road.
Maybe I could grab one of these pieces of clothing and cover his eyes, I thought. Maybe force him off the road.
This was tossed aside just like the other ill-thought-out plan. I wasn’t exactly the strongest person alive, and even if I put all the power of my five-five frame into it, I doubted I could overpower a man. Not to mention the possibility that obscuring the thief’s vision might end up with him wrapping the car around a telephone pole.
No, it looked like my only option was to wait this thing out and hope that he and whoever else he was working with were just taking this thing along for a joy ride. Wherever he was going, I was along for the ride.
After a time, the car slowed and came to a halt. The music was still pounding, and the driver laid on the horn, peals of honks cutting through the music. I felt sick when I realized that this likely meant that he was picking up whomever he’d just been speaking to on the phone. Sure enough, after a few moments, the passenger side backdoor opened up. I froze in pure fear at the possibility that this meant that I’d be discovered.
Instead, I heard a heave, followed by the impact of a huge, heavy bag that landed square on top of me. The force of the bag landing pushed all the air out of my lungs, and I struggled a bit just to position myself in a way that allowed me to breathe. The door shut, and then the front driver’s side door opened.
“Come on, Russ!” I heard the driver say, his voice high and whiny. “Why the fuck can’t I drive?”
I heard a body settle into the driver’s seat, followed by another in the passenger’s. The volume of the rap lowered, and the two doors shut.
“Because you drive like a fucking asshole, and I can’t stand that rap shit you’re always playing.”
The new man’s voice was … different. Whereas the thief’s voice was whiny, bratty even, the second man’s voice was low and resonant, with both an aggressive edge and a purr.
“Come on, bro,” said the thief. “It’s gangster shit. Gets me pumped.”
The car pulled out of its stop, this time more slowly. Once back on the road, the new driver kept the car straight and steady, driving at a measured speed.
“You pull jobs like the fucking idiots in these songs and you’ll be in jail before you turn twenty-five. That is, if you don’t get yourself killed first.”
“Pshh, no one’s killing Cody Motherfuckin’ Carrick. Us bros ride hard, you know?”
I’d heard the driver call the other man a bro, but I’d just assumed that it was a casual term. Was this a brother crime team?
“You’re fucking lucky you didn’t get pulled over driving like that.”
“Man, if a fuckin’ pig tried anything, I’d just be like, pop, pop! Take that motherfucker right out.”
“Bro, you play too much goddamn “Grand Theft Auto”; you get into a gunfight with a cop and the only thing going ‘pop’ is your skull when the SWAT sniper puts a round right through it from a quarter-mile away.”
“You kidding me?” said the first thief. “With those fuckin’ guns back there? Shit, we could take out the fuckin’ National Guard with that gear.”
“Don’t you even think about shooting single fucking shot from any of those things. The buyers are paying good money for mint weapons.”
Weapons? Is that what was in the bag that was currently crushing the life out of me? I’d only held a twenty-two once before in my life, and I remembered it being heavier than I imagined it would be. If this bag was full of guns, it’d make sense.
“Come on,” said the thief. “We gotta take a couple of shots with these things. There’s some full-auto shit back there, bro.”
“You want to try that?” said the second man. “First, you give me my share of the money from the sale right now. The” you explain to the buyers why the gear isn’t mint as advertised. Put those video game skills to the test in the fucking gunfight you’d be dealing with after that.”
The first thief laughed a high-pitched laugh, a strange sound that hit my ears as a “ha-ha-haaaa“” the first two ha’s short and punchy and the last one long and drawn-out.
“So, bro,” said the first man. “What’s the plan now?”
“We ditch this car,” said the second man. “Meet-up location for the buy is near some abandoned quarry in Jersey. Figure we ditch the car and hoof it the rest of the way with the gear.”
My blood ran cold at this. They were going to just ditch the car in a quarry, with me inside? I had to do something; now my life was on the line.
“Then what, bro?” said the first man. “We just walk the rest of the way back?”
“They’re paying us in cash. I’m thinkin’ we cab it to the nearest used dealership, buy a beater, and haul the cash home in that. This shit needs to be clean and clear; I don’t want us to be linked to these guns in any way.”
Great, just fucking great, I thought.
Not only had my car been stolen, it’d been stolen by two men who were about to do a major arms deal. Any hope of this being just a couple of guys going for a joyride had gone right out the window. And I had to figure out just how to get out of this car without them knowing, before I took a plunge into a quarry.
This situation was going from bad to worse by the second. This wasn’t just about me getting my car back now—my life was on the line.
“Bro, what the fuck you gonna do with your cash?” asked the first thief.
“What do you care?” asked the second.
I figured the most I could do was listen in on the conversation between the two men. Maybe I’d be able to hear something that’d come in useful.
“Just makin’ conversation, bro,” said the first man.
“Not sure,” said the second. “Probably save it like the rest.”
“Man, that’s fuckin’ boring,” said the first man. “You live in the best city on the goddamn planet, you’re making money hand-over-motherfuckin’-fist, and all you want to do is put it in a fuckin’ mayonnaise jar under your bed like a grandma or some shit.”
“What’re you doing with your cash that’s so much better?’
“Spend that shit, bro,” said the first man without even missing a beat. “Gonna buy that pad in Williamsburg I’ve been lookin’ at, the one with the fuckin’ view. Trick that place out, maybe get me some of that hipster art-school pussy.”
“You oughta be figuring out how to run an operation with some discretion,” said the other man.
“Yeah, yeah,” said the first.
I couldn’t believe how scared I was. My blood felt like ice water, yet my stomach boiled like hot acid. I realized, to my horror, that I had two options: let the thieves know that I was in the back of the car, or take a long dive down into the quarry.
Soon, the car came to a stop. I could barely breathe for how scared I was.
“We’re here, bro,” said the first man.
“Then let’s do this fucking thing.”