car is the best way to do that. Other reasons to steal a car are money, thrills, and revenge. If you steal a car to get back at somebody, though, you are probably only getting back at their insurance company.
I heard my mother say once that the hardest part of being a parent is not knowing which of the things you say to your kids is going to stick. Well, relax, Mom. Ninety-nine percent of it doesn’t. But still, I knew what she meant,because that little remark my dad made about reading the CliffsNotes version of Moby-Dick —I don’t even know if he was kidding or not—really got to me. I mean, there I was struggling with “Call me Ishmael” (the lamest opening line since “In the beginning…”), with five-hundred-some pages to go, and my dad tells me I’m more or less wasting my time. Unless he was kidding, which he might have been. So I was a little peeved at him and ready to give him a taste of the silent treatment when he got home, but he was all stoked over the latest development in the Elwin Carl Dandridge case and didn’t notice me being pointedly sullen.
“I’m going to get it thrown out of court,” he said to my mother, pouring himself a celebratory scotch on the rocks.
“That’s wonderful!” she said. I was surprised she didn’t jump up and down and clap her hands.
I, crushed into the sofa by the weight of Moby-Dick, turned the page. I was on chapter fifteen—a hundred twenty to go—and Ishmael still hadn’t met Captain Ahab, let alone any white whales, but he had a lot to say about clam chowder—an entire chapter, actually. My father’s verbal victory dance, disgusting as it was, was far more interesting.
One of the private investigators who worked for my dad’s law firm had turned up a witness who claimed that he and Elwin Carl Dandridge were partying at some bar downtown at the exact same time victim number seven was being rapedin the back stairwell of her dormitory. The witnesses even had a cell phone shot of Dandridge standing at the bar in front of a TV that was showing a baseball game. According to my dad, the particular game on the TV—once they got their experts to testify which inning of which game it was—would corroborate the witness’s testimony, proving that Dandridge was not the rapist.
“I thought they had his DNA,” I said.
“They do! That’s what makes it so great. If he couldn’t have done that one rape because he was someplace else, then all their DNA evidence for all the rapes becomes suspect. And best of all, the bar he was in is a gay bar.”
“What difference does that make?”
“Well, if Dandridge is gay, then why would he go around raping girls?”
“But…he’s guilty, right?”
“If he was someplace other than the scene of the crime, then no.”
“But what about all the other rapes?”
He shrugged and sipped his drink.
“That sucks!” I said.
“Kelleigh!” said my mother.
“Well, it does. What if he gets off and then rapes me?”
“I’m sure that won’t happen,” my mother said.
My dad swirled his scotch, listening to the ice cubes clinking the sides of the glass.
That night I couldn’t sleep. I kept smelling dead fish, so around one o’clock I changed my sheets and took another shower and got dressed and decided to go for a walk in the middle of the night. On the way out the back door I noticed my dad’s car keys hanging there, so instead of going for a walk I took my dad’s Lexus for a drive.
I didn’t really think about it much; I just grabbed the keys and went. Almost like it was a normal thing to do. I didn’t even think about what my dad would do if he caught me.
There are thirty or forty lakes in the Twin Cities area. I drove around seven of them and only got lost once. It was a quiet, dark night with hardly any traffic and no moon. Very peaceful. I didn’t even turn on the radio. I just drove until the gas gauge was on empty, then went home. It wasn’t nearly as exciting as stealing somebody’s car for
I heard my mother say once that the hardest part of being a parent is not knowing which of the things you say to your kids is going to stick. Well, relax, Mom. Ninety-nine percent of it doesn’t. But still, I knew what she meant,because that little remark my dad made about reading the CliffsNotes version of Moby-Dick —I don’t even know if he was kidding or not—really got to me. I mean, there I was struggling with “Call me Ishmael” (the lamest opening line since “In the beginning…”), with five-hundred-some pages to go, and my dad tells me I’m more or less wasting my time. Unless he was kidding, which he might have been. So I was a little peeved at him and ready to give him a taste of the silent treatment when he got home, but he was all stoked over the latest development in the Elwin Carl Dandridge case and didn’t notice me being pointedly sullen.
“I’m going to get it thrown out of court,” he said to my mother, pouring himself a celebratory scotch on the rocks.
“That’s wonderful!” she said. I was surprised she didn’t jump up and down and clap her hands.
I, crushed into the sofa by the weight of Moby-Dick, turned the page. I was on chapter fifteen—a hundred twenty to go—and Ishmael still hadn’t met Captain Ahab, let alone any white whales, but he had a lot to say about clam chowder—an entire chapter, actually. My father’s verbal victory dance, disgusting as it was, was far more interesting.
One of the private investigators who worked for my dad’s law firm had turned up a witness who claimed that he and Elwin Carl Dandridge were partying at some bar downtown at the exact same time victim number seven was being rapedin the back stairwell of her dormitory. The witnesses even had a cell phone shot of Dandridge standing at the bar in front of a TV that was showing a baseball game. According to my dad, the particular game on the TV—once they got their experts to testify which inning of which game it was—would corroborate the witness’s testimony, proving that Dandridge was not the rapist.
“I thought they had his DNA,” I said.
“They do! That’s what makes it so great. If he couldn’t have done that one rape because he was someplace else, then all their DNA evidence for all the rapes becomes suspect. And best of all, the bar he was in is a gay bar.”
“What difference does that make?”
“Well, if Dandridge is gay, then why would he go around raping girls?”
“But…he’s guilty, right?”
“If he was someplace other than the scene of the crime, then no.”
“But what about all the other rapes?”
He shrugged and sipped his drink.
“That sucks!” I said.
“Kelleigh!” said my mother.
“Well, it does. What if he gets off and then rapes me?”
“I’m sure that won’t happen,” my mother said.
My dad swirled his scotch, listening to the ice cubes clinking the sides of the glass.
That night I couldn’t sleep. I kept smelling dead fish, so around one o’clock I changed my sheets and took another shower and got dressed and decided to go for a walk in the middle of the night. On the way out the back door I noticed my dad’s car keys hanging there, so instead of going for a walk I took my dad’s Lexus for a drive.
I didn’t really think about it much; I just grabbed the keys and went. Almost like it was a normal thing to do. I didn’t even think about what my dad would do if he caught me.
There are thirty or forty lakes in the Twin Cities area. I drove around seven of them and only got lost once. It was a quiet, dark night with hardly any traffic and no moon. Very peaceful. I didn’t even turn on the radio. I just drove until the gas gauge was on empty, then went home. It wasn’t nearly as exciting as stealing somebody’s car for
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