With my window having already been rolled all the way down in order to get the full range of motion needed to obtain the most accurate aim, all I had to do was sit and wait for my short lived life of freedom on the road to come to an end. I watched in my mirror as two state troopers got out of their car and walked up to the bed of my truck, one on my side and one on the other. I heard the officer closest to me say, "We can see you hiding. Get up." Confused at this order, I turned around to se Andrew and Chris, not so cleverly trying to hide under a blanket. Talk about looking guilty. Then Aaron, also confused, started to get out of the passenger side. Before he even had one leg fully out of the truck, the officer on his side reached for his gun and shouted at him to get back in the car. Hey, what can I say, we were new to this life of crime.
Then the officer came up to my window. Surprisingly, his tone wasn't as stern as I thought it would be. He simply looked down at me and asked if I knew anything about a piece of pizza that had splattered on his window. So, being the good Christian boy that I was, I took a deep breath, looked him in the eye, and lied my face off. I turned my head backwards toward his squad car and with a bewildered look on my face I said, "I have know idea". I honestly don't remember his reply, I think my intense fear has something to do with my fuzzy recollection of this moment. The next thing I know he made his way to my accomplices in the back. At this point I was looking straight ahead. I only listened to the conversation that was going on behind me. I guess I was trying to pretend this wasn't happening.
I heard the same question come out of the troopers mouth. I felt a little more at ease hearing this being directed at someone else. I just sat there frozen, waiting for an ingenious response from my friends that would get us off scott free. Unfortunately, Chris didn't provide an answer any better than mine. "I don't know how that piece of pizza got on your car", was the best thing he could come up with as well. How could this get any worse you might ask? Well, just as Chris finishes giving his "air-tight" alibi, the semi-truck that I hit pulls up behind the cop car.
The man who got out of the truck was nowhere near as composed as the state troopers were. I could hear him yelling before he was even fully out of the cab. He ran up to the cop ranting and raving about his rig being hit with food. Then, when he was finished and out of breath, the cop calmly turned back to Chris and asked him again. "Do you know how a piece of pizza got on his truck?" We all new that the jig was up, and there was no way to get out of this now. But amazingly Chris was not so eager to give up. "I don't know how a piece of pizza got on his truck?" he said. I couldn't believe it. I almost belted out a laugh but quickly remembered the the situation I was in.
The officer told the man to get back into his truck, and that they would handle us. It took a minute for the man to comply, but eventually he headed back toward his ride; cursing America's youth the entire way.
By this time I had come to the realization that one, I wouldn't be legally allowed to drive again for a long time, and two, none of us were very clever under pressure. I was at the point where I knew there was nothing I could do or say to help the situation. It's like the feeling you get when you are caught in the rain with no shelter in sight. At first you start running and trying to dodge the millions of drops. Then, when you realize you're just wasting your energy, you eventually you give up, stop running, and embrace the storm that you're caught in. It's actually a very peaceful moment.
The officers proceeded to lecture us on the possible consequences of our stupidity, of which I am now in total agreement with. They talked hypothetically of a driver swerving off the road and into a tree, because they were startled by pizza hitting their wind shield. I thanked God that was not what had happened.
I don't remember there being much talk on the rest of the ride home. Each of us were contemplating the events of the evening and how worse the night would have been had something happened to one of the drivers we hit. It was a very sobering thought and a very very quiet ride home. We were silent, sorry, but very thankful, and not just for the fact that we weren't the cause of someone's death. The surprising truth is that, when we reached Andrew's house, I still had my license (the officer never even asked to see it!), and Chris was the recipient of a ticket for littering. He had to pay a fine, which we all split, and also had to do community service at the local S.P.C.A, to which I had to drive him. We gladly took this punishment almost with disbelief, knowing that we were the luckiest kids on the face of the planet. To this day I still can't believe how easy we got off.
The mood eventually returned to normal as we all laid around and watch TV. We tried to talk about anything else other than what happened earlier. Then slowly we drifted off to sleep with with thankful hearts and empty stomaches.
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