Runaway

III. But I Do

If we had thought the trucker’s knocking was a wakeup call, it had nothing compared to waking up to the world shaking, and realizing that it was a cop poking you repeatedly with a nightstick as he scowled down at you. That woke me up a little bit more than that overgrown gray beard ever could, no matter the initial creepiness. I jumped and my elbow accidentally slammed into Charlie’s face, making him moan.

“What did I do?” he groaned, opening one eye. It took him a little longer to process the police officer than I did but before long he was jolting straight up, his eyes wide. He looked between me and the cop, his eyes wide, his mouth open as if he thought about asking us to clarify. He snapped his mouth shut, wisely deciding against it, and just turned and stared at the officer instead.

The cop looked a little amused, but I couldn’t say that I didn’t blame him. If this wouldn’t have been nearly as serious, I would have enjoyed taping Charlie’s reaction for future viewing purposes.

As the situation stood at the moment, I was so shocked I couldn’t even move my face.

“H-hello, officer,” Charlie managed, laughing nervously. “Great morning out, huh?”

And it was a great morning for a Florida morning in the middle of August. The humidity hadn’t quite settled into the air yet but there was still a trace of it lingering in the warm heat of the sunshine, the sun barely peaking over the horizon, enough that it couldn’t be more than eight o’clock in the morning. I blinked into the sunlight and caught sight of a family of four, standing about ten feet behind the officer in a tight group, staring at the two us with wide eyes. When they noticed me noticing, the two parents took each of the two children and maneuvered them behind them a tad, like I was something to be feared.

That was when it occurred to me that I was still, indeed, wearing my Scooby-Doo pajamas.

Damn you, Charlie.

So maybe their worrying of me being a crazy person wasn’t too far from the truth after all.

The officer still looked like he couldn’t quite decide on whether he was more amused or annoyed with the entire situation. Or maybe he had picked a side already, but I couldn’t tell what his mouth was doing because his mustache dominated his face to the point that it looked like hair grew on the guy’s lips. Like the hair was talking to us.

Charlie bit his lip so I had a feeling he had caught onto that as well.

The officer didn’t notice our preoccupation with his ’stach.

“There any particular reason the two of you are trespassin’ on the beach?” he demanded of us in a booming voice that was too country to describe, and I saw Charlie bite even harder into his lip. The cop was looking at me, and I hoped he couldn’t see me internally laughing at him. “It seems to me that the two of you have been here a while.”

“But sir, we haven’t,” Charlie replied with the perfect confused expression, and I closed my eyes a little. Oh, boy. Charlie tipped his head to the side and continued, “We only got here about a half hour ago. Leslie here isn’t very good company, so I must have fallen asleep when she was talking.”