Pull - Kevin Waltman D-Bow High School Hoops

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the door, I mash it. In the Nova, that only means we lurch ahead and then almost stall out when the transmission shudders under the strain. It’s enough to send Wes flopping back in his seat though. Point made.

      “I’m not trying to cause static,” I say. “I just thought we could hang like we used to.”

      “Used to ain’t…” But then Wes trails off. He was going to keep after me, but maybe he’s thought better of it. Maybe I can get the old Wes back after all. He sighs. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him grin. “Used to be you didn’t get yourself in a hissy fit just for a brother propping his feet up.”

      He makes a big show of it now, bending his knees and plopping those Timberlands on my dash with two successive thuds. This time it’s all play. I do my part, acting like I’m going to rip his feet right back where they belong again, but he swats at my hand. I try again, shouting at him that he better get those boots off my dash if he wants to keep his feet attached to his body, but I’m laughing as I say it.

      It’s all good, until I hear it: that quick whup-whoop behind me. Then the interior of my car gets lit in flashing red and blue. I know what’s up, but I check the rear view just in case, hoping that the cop is after someone else, maybe responding to a call from 38th. No luck. He’s right on my tail. We weren’t doing anything wrong, but both Wes and I instinctively straighten in our seats. As I ease to the side of the road, I feel my heart pound. My tongue gets thick in my mouth.

      Wes fidgets in his seat, getting more nervous with each second. I know the officer’s just checking tags, biding his time. But Wes keeps whipping his head around to look, squinting into the glare of lights. “You weren’t doing shit,” he says. “This is profiling, man. This is bullshit.” There’s a jangling anxiety in his voice, and it infects me—like the more he claims we’re the ones being wronged the more I think I might be in real trouble.

      “Just be cool,” I say. I really don’t want Wes to go all thug mode on a policeman. The way he’s been acting lately, you never know.

      The officer approaches. I roll down the window and look up at him hopefully. Here I am, all 6’3” of me crammed into this Nova. If I stepped out, I’d tower over that officer. But as is, I feel like a child, impossibly small under his gaze. He gets close—he’s thick through the body, some dough on his gut but a big broad chest that says you don’t want to mess with him—and leans down. He flashes his light into the car. Wes and I both look away.

      “Been drinking tonight?” he asks.

      “No, sir,” I say.

      “Then what were those swerves back there?” He tilts his head back toward the blocks behind us. He must have seen us veering all over the place. My shoulders relax a little. That’s it. Just those swerves and the sudden start. Hell, maybe it means I get a ticket, but if that’s all he’s after then I can relax. It’s not like we even did anything, but you get that police cruiser on your tail and you start imagining crimes—like somehow you robbed a bank and just forgot about it.

      “I’m sorry, sir, we were messing around.” I start to explain what had happened, but I realize the officer isn’t even listening to me. Instead, he’s locked in on Wes.

      Wes won’t look up. He’s got his hands in his lap now, nervously picking at one of his nails.

      “You have some marijuana in there?” the officer asks. It’s more a statement than a question. I start to stammer out a no, but he asks to search the vehicle before I can get out word one. Wes tries to tell me something under his breath, but I can’t hear it. I just tell the officer okay. As soon as that’s out of my mouth, Wes lets loose a big, disappointed sigh, like I’m the stupidest guy on the planet.

      He makes us wait until a second cruiser arrives for backup. It makes it look like some big bust, so everyone passing slows to a crawl and stares. I hope like crazy nobody recognizes me. That’s all it would take to get Twitter popping in the worst way. Then the second officer—he’s not as muscular as the first, but he’s got a military stare in his eyes—instructs us to sit on the curb while the first one searches my car. Sure enough, once he’s been rummaging around the passenger side for a minute he gives this real pleased shout to his partner—“Well, look here!”—and holds up a cellophane bag.

      I’ve never touched weed in my life, but any fool knows what it is. And any fool knows where it came from. I steal a glance at Wes. He looks away. He better not believe for a second that I’m taking the fall for him.

      The police finish with the car and then start on us. We get the full treatment—hands laced behind our heads while they frisk us top to bottom. You hear about things like this—how humiliating a pat-down is—but it’s just noise on the news until it’s happening to you. The first officer does me, and he’s not exactly gentle about it. He just gets all up into me. But I’m clean. And so is Wes—probably since he deposited whatever he was holding in my passenger seat.

      Finally the first officer addresses us both. He holds up the weed. “This belong to both of you or just one?” he asks. I don’t want to rat Wes out, but he doesn’t seem too eager to step up. The officer must see me glance Wes’ way, because he takes a step in his direction. “This yours, little man?” he asks.

      Wes looks down at his shoes. I can see his shoulders tense on that little man. I’m afraid he’s going to say something stupid. He shakes his head a couple times in disgust. Then, at last, he mutters something. The officer asks him to repeat himself and speak up. Wes lifts his chin about an inch and mumbles, “I don’t know where that came from.”

      Wes doing me dirty like that is the biggest disappointment of all. He must know it, because he won’t even turn his head my way.

      “Fine,” the officer snorts. “We’ll sort this out at the station.”

      There’s no excuse in the world that will work on my parents. I mean, I could have documented proof that the CIA planted the drugs on Kid two decades ago and it was still in the car through none of my own doing, but Thomas and Kaylene Bowen aren’t gonna hear it.

      Back at the station, Mom waited in the car. Dad came in and was about to bust. To anyone in uniform he was all yes, sir, but he turned that gaze at me and it looked like he’d been stung by a wasp. And he’s the easy parent.

      We got out of the station without much more hassle. I didn’t see Wes again, but he finally manned up before I had to turn on him. All I got was a charge of Unsafe Lane Movement, plus a couple lectures. As we walked out of that station, Dad practically shook with anger. “Derrick, your mother,” he seethed at me, “is about—.” And he trailed off, unable to even finish the sentence.

      I climbed in the backseat, right behind my mom. Squeezing in back there pushes my knees up near my chest, but I knew that ride wasn’t designed for my comfort. We cruised a couple blocks in silence. Then my mom slowly turned in her seat to look at me. Even in the dark, I could tell she’d been crying—but I could also tell she was ready to kill.

      Now it’s super late. Last I looked at my watch it was 1:00, but even that glance got Mom mad. “Pay attention, Derrick,” she said. So I don’t dare look again. We’re at the kitchen table, still hashing it out. There’s a single lamp on. My parents pace through the shadows.

      “What were you thinking?” Mom asks. It’s now about the fifth time she’s hit me with it. She stares at me intently, her face like a sphinx.

      Again, I try to explain. “It wasn’t mine. Wes even told the police.”

      “Oh, I know that,” Mom snaps. “Believe me, if it was yours, you’d be in for a lot rougher night than this one. But there were drugs in your car, Derrick. That’s on you.”

      I’ve had about enough. My shoulders get tighter and tighter each time we go around the same conversation. Finally, I just put my head down on the table. I turn it to the side,

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