A Tourist in Mayberry

8/15) Notes from my Diary Journal: Meanest Man on Earth Meets His Maker

Magdalena and I heard the cars approaching before we saw them. The sound of the engines, the rev of the motors. We were riding in single file when the cars rounded the curve. We saw the blue light, and we both braked with nowhere to go. I ran into the back of Magdalena's bike as the lead car swerved in front of us and incredibly, and in slow motion, braked and turned all at the same time.

We wrecked in a pile of tangled bikes and legs and arms and helmets. We did not see the second car, but we watched from the ground as the first car flipped and flipped again in a haze and maze of translucent smoke and dirt and kicked up gravel. All this happened in slow motion and "holy shits" coming from our teenage potty mouths.

When it was over, all deathly silence and then - are you ok's? I was blooded up and scrapped but alive. Ruined bikes and dented helmets, but no broken bones. Magdalena was the same. She looked up and said in a soft, calmer voice than I am sure she felt. "I think that is my dad's car."

"I believe it is," I said. "Looks like he was by himself". I was glad my mom wasn't still with him. A blue light on the top of the other car we just noticed was still going round and round. "Was the police officer chasing him?"

"I don't know, " said Magdalena with a low-key, unhurried cadence that was probably more shock than unruffledness. "I'll go check on my dad, you go check on the officer."

I ran to the officer and stayed with him. He was not initially awake but came to cussing. I knew him from the nursing center. It was Deputy Honeycutt and he was stuck, stuck behind the steering wheel. He was cussing up a storm. I was afraid to leave him until help came.

Help came in what seemed like hours but was probably a few minutes. A local farmer heard the wreck and came over from his field riding his tractor. I let him stay with the Deputy while I went to check on my friend and her dad.

Randall Michael Wall looked like he was crying. His eyes were all red, and he had tears streaming down his face. I knew this was impossible because he was too mean to cry. He musta got something in his eye.He smelled funny, and he was covered in blood from head to probably his toes we could not see because he was squished and crumpled up underneath the dashboard. He looked stunned. He was awake but not awake. He was talking out of his head, and Magdalena, who was patting his shoulder through the open window trying to calm him, told me later that he said some strange things even before I got there.

This is what he said to me when I got there: I never liked you. You are going in the trunk and your mama too. She is a bitch, a crazy ass brave bitch, but a bitch. Brave and stupid. You are a friend to my Magdalena. My Magdalena who once fought a pit bull for a turkey and won. I saw her do this. She is brave too. She is like her father. But for me, it is over. I am a dead man.

Magdalena was crying for the meanest man on earth. He was her daddy after all. "No daddy." We could see Sheriff Nichols as he arrived at the deputy's car. "Help is here."

"No matter what you done, Sheriff Nichols will help you. He's a fair man. He will listen to your side," I said even though I was pissed at what he said about me and my mama. I wasn't trying to help him, but Magdalena.

"No, no he won't, but it is not him I worry about. The boss. He will be mad, so mad. I need your help Magdalena."

That rotten snake of a man suddenly had an idea. An idea to get out of there and escape. He could fix this. He knew stuff, he had valuable information that could be traded for his freedom - information on people that maybe someone was looking for, but first he had to get out of here before they found the body in the trunk. Or so his thoughts and intentions could be speculated upon or guessed at based on his past selfish and rotten behavior, or maybe based on what happened next.