Again, my apologies for the crude initial presentation of this segment.  I figured, what the heck, I've already got it typed, might as well put it out there seeing as how I haven't posted on the story in quite a while.  I am fully aware of it's need for attention and correction, but again, the next day or two will provide me the opportunity to re-draft these last two posts.  Thanks for your patience. -Adam-

“For Speeding?!?”  Aaron blurted in disbelief.  Panic suddenly taking an entirely new hold over him now.  “Hey wait, wait, wait!” He then added with that desperate quality of voice that a man with no ace left in the hole, so to speak, is notoriously said to posses at the time of his bluff being called.  The far more infuriating injustice of this new development against Aaron was that he had not tried to bluff anyone in the first place!

            “You never even told me why you pulled me over in the first place!”  He proclaimed indignantly, hoping in futility that he could somehow swing the element of techinicality in his favor.

            “You know why I stopped you, sir.  Get out of the truck.”  Was the cold reply of the officer.  Graciously, he added, albeit with some degree of insult, “Sixty-three in a fifty zone.”

            Damn!  Aaron thought.  This is a *colorful metaphor here* fix.  Aaron had no idea what else to do at this point but open his door and cooperate with the officer in the hope of finding some resolve to this misunderstanding.  He opened the door and stepped out of the vehicle with his hands awkwardly raised in half-surrender, half oblivious show-of-innocence and compliance.  The officer had not as of yet drawn his weapon, Aaron saw as he exited the vehicle and had his first full look at the man arresting him.  The sky was still mostly dark, and overcast with the lingering dreary soup of the early rain.  The horizon was just beginning to reveal the first promising hues aglow round the edges of the visible world that spoke of the coming day.  It was dark enough yet to warrant a flashlight and even headlights, but not so much that Aaron was unable to make out the look of the officer he was now forced to deal with.  The frantic flashes of red and blue in league with the seizure inducing strobe of the patrol car’s headlights both helped and hindered Aaron’s perception of the man.  From what he could reasonably make out, however, the man was indeed a black man.  He was tall, perhaps six feet and four inches so.  He was powerful and built with considerable girth, but in the healthiest of fashions.  There was nothing unfit or “classic” about this cop.  He did not have the trademark gut of the unjustly stereotyped police officer, nor the short with something to prove demeanor and physical appearance about him.  For the moment, he did not seem to be in heavy judgement of Aaron, rather, just a man focused on doing his job.  He was not hostile, but not hospitable either.

            “Just turn around and put your hands on the hood of the truck please.”  He suggested routinely.  Before Aaron could complete the actions required of him, while still moving to place one of his hands on the hood of the truck and considering further inquiry as to the nature of this confused arrest, his arms were yanked behind his back and cuffed in a deftly swift motion.  The officer turned him about and began the ceremonial procedure of damnation.  “You’re under arrest.  You have the right to remain silent.”  He went on with the monologue Aaron thought he would never hear outside the entertaining realm of television and cinema.

            Aaron’s mind was a flurry of instinctive impulses to flee somehow, or at least fight, as well as to cooperate and rationalize some useful thoughts suitable for communicating to the officer the underlying folly of this mistaken incarceration.  Despite this dizzying maelstrom of mental activity, the only product to come of it was manifest in a vacant, deer in headlights sort of expression painting a rather pitiable picture on Aaron’s face.  He spoke no words, and made no movement not dictated by the suggestive handling of the imposing policeman.

            “Do you understand these rights?”  The officer’s voice then asked Aaron with a tauntingly helpful inflection.

            “Uhm., yeah, I think so…”  Aaron replied like a man who had just been assaulted by a carnival side-show with a gavel.  Utterly at a loss in the face of something so inconceivable and unpredictable.  Stunned and forced to act accordingly with the due process of the law despite his certain innocence which as of yet he could not attest to on his own behalf, Aaron plodded towards the patrol car by the guide of the public servant now turned unbiased adversary.

            Once at the squad car, the officer turned Aaron about to make him ready for placement in the back seat of the police vehicle.  Upon being turned around for just enough time as was needed for it, Aaron saw more closely the impressive watch-dog of justice and was able to make out the name plate pinned just above the breast pocket of his uniform.  Tyrell Moses.  Then, rather forcibly, Aaron felt strong pressure atop his head and a somewhat tyrannical hand of “guidance” lending itself to Aaron’s transfer from the free world into the confines of the patrol car’s own little prison.  He hadn’t even noticed the swift movement of the officer in opening the door of the car.  And just like that, Aaron was a public enemy in the back of a squad car and he had no idea why.

            Panic had now evolved rapidly into catharsis and that once understated wanton Aaron had been distantly aware of was now fully realized and free to play upon Aaron’s wits.  He was on the verge of hyperventilation, definitely in the throes of a panic attack, and entirely unable to rationalize the matter in any form conducive to his mental integrity.  He prayed, despite not being a truly “religious” man, and he practiced deep breathing to keep himself from passing into the ultimate blackness of panic.

***

After the procedures necessary for securing and abandoning Aaron’s truck along the roadside where the arrest had taken place, a few squaking communications were made via the police radio system implemented into the patrol car’s engineering, and Aaron was underway with Deputy Sherriff Moses to the police station, or downtown or wherever it was that these things lead to.  Aaron had noticed the rank of the officer by means of watching the computer screen and looking in the rear-view mirror at the man’s uniform through the metal mesh divider separating the socially unfit passenger for whom the entire rear seat of the squad car was reserved from the law-upholding civil servant at the helm.  Aaron was understandably in desperate surrender at this moment, wondering what in all of the world was going to befall him next and unwilling to concede that the situation could not get any worse. 

“Do you have any idea why you’re being arrested?”  Deputy Moses finally offered considerately.  Aaron wondered if the look of utter oblivion and terror racking his face had somehow incited the notion to the officer that Aaron truly was baffled as to his present state of affairs.

“No!”  Aaron almost cried in a frustrated amdmission.  His head lifted and swung about to take note of the officer addressing him now and his eyes lit up with desperation at even the smallest potential for answers.

“Who is Aaron Goodspeed?”  The deputy inquired with complete and sincere interest.

“I’m Aaron Goodspeed!  Me!  I am!”  Aaron insisted.

“So how do you explain the social security number you gave me belonging to a woman in Colorado?”  Moses asked somewhat insulted.

“What!?!”  Aaron exclaimed in complete astonishment.

“I don’t know who you are, but for now, I do know that you provided me with a false identification, false registration, false license plates, and false insurance and nothing you gave me about yourself has anything to do with who you really are.  The social you gave isn’t yours.”  He said condemingly.

“That’s impossible!”  Aaron protested.  “Listen,” he tried to laugh a little, “I understand the confusion, but that’s just exactly what this is.”  He claimed frantically.  “Some huge mistake or something… I don’t know!”  He admitted.  “But I promise, I am not a criminal!  I’ve never had anything worse on me than bad traffic violations!”  He finished so sincerely that it seemed a stretch to imagine he could be lying.

“Uh huh.”  Moses uttered both to himself and to indicate acknowledgment of having heard Aaron’s testimony.  “Where did you get that driver’s license?”  He then asked accusingly.

“From the D.M.V.!”  Aaron retorted with aggravation.

            “You got that I.D. from the D.M.V.?”  The deputy asked with seasoned humor in his voice.

            “Well where else would I get it?”  Aaron said a little more compliantly now, guarding himself against seeming hostile or uncooperative. 

            Letting go a little laugh, Moses answered, “I don’t know, but you didn’t get it from the state of Kansas.”  He said smiling, seeming to be more and more convinced of Aaron’s story being something less than true, let alone believable. 

            “You can call my wife!”  Aaron suddenly shot out with great elation at realizing he had some form of an alibi in Sally.  Sally Jane Goodspeed was Aaron’s wife of just over a year now.  Aaron had entirely forgotten that there was a whole other world around him that could attest to his innocence and confirm his claims of identity.  He could have the police contact Sally, or Jan at the Warehouse, or his parents if need be.  There were all sorts of options now and he felt some relief in the realization.

            “Gimmie the number.”  The strong voice acquiesced pleasantly, but clearly not convinced.  To which Aaron spouted off the numbers of Sally at home as well as Jan at the warehouse where Aaron had been on his way to work.  He had to repeat the numbers a few times for all his haste to allow for the deputy to record the numbers so that they could be called.

            “Where do you work?”  He then asked routinely while punching something into the little computer he had.

            “At the Central Kansas Feed and Supply warehouse on Halstead.”  Aaron replied excitedly, keen to the possibility of clearing these menacing skies of stormy confusion.  Without responding, the officer made a call on his radio to dispatch, offering some numbers or codes or something followed by what Aaron guessed to be “trade lingo” for, ‘I’ve got a number for you to check out.’  The warm feeling of hope rose ever so pleasingly within Aaron then, slowly, and in small force, but so brilliantly shining as a beacon in the darkness of the mornings maddening melee and condemnation.

            BANG!!!! Aaron’s body jerked violently as it was dashed against the inside of the rear seat area of the squad car.  His head bounced off the frame of the door and rang with the combined intensity of the concussive impact and the horrifying noise of glass shattering, metal crunching, heavy masses colliding at bowel shaking force, tires squealing and the screaming absence of human voice in all of it.

            Aaron was only aware in the most detached conscienceness of the reality that the squad car had just been slammed into by some other vehicle and was now sliding and spinning slightly in the opposite direction of the ramming vehicular offender.  He was helplessly flailing about in the empty back seat of the car which he had not been seat-belted into.  Instinctively, his hands and feet and limbs all maneuvered uselessly in an effort to brace against the forces of so surprising a collision, when all of a sudden, everything was still and quiet.

            Aaron was barely alert enough to understand that hands were reaching about through the broken front windows of the patrol vehicle and he could see, though not fully comprehend, the deputy was not conscious himself.  Aaron’s head rang and was further jarred by the clunking of damaged mechanisms being forced to operate, thus opening the rear door that Aaron’s body was now leaning against in a daze.  He fell out of the opened door as much as his body was able what with half of it still being strewn out within the prisoner cab of the squad car.  He was drifting further and further into blackness and grew less and less able to understand what was happening, only aware somewhat that he was being pulled from the wreckage of the vehicle, and then, there was nothing.

“No way!” Aaron Goodspeed said to himself in delighted surprise. darting his hand to the thick, bulky, black, plastic volume knob of the old stock radio in his 1969 Dodge pickup truck, he gave the user-friendly rheostat an excited twist in the direction of increase.  “You wake up ina mornin… Ya hear da work bell ring….”  He sang along with great involvement.  Despite the drudgery of these early Thursday mornings Aaron always found comfort in the obscure radio broadcasts of the local, best of the 60’s and  70’s, station that aired in the wee hours.  The hours when few were listening, yet so much more devoted to the cause of good music were those few, it more than made up for the lack of audience.  And it was those devoted few who would be gifted with the gems that lay deep in the track lists and far from the scheduled norm. 

Aaron looked forward to the forty minute commute to work in the mornings for two reasons.  The enchanting, open, Kansas country he saw and the music he got to listen to while making the trip.  Both of these were enhanced to extraordinary magnitudes on Wednesday’s, when he had to leave home at 3:50 a.m.  Something about the loneliness of the world in the early hours soothed a perhaps morbid, but instinctive, wound of wonder in Aaron.  The feeling of the world fleeing from the last grasps of the ominous dark of night, but not yet in the safe of day, was strangely intoxicating to his spirit.  The world was sparsely walked in those hours and seemed rather like a theatre several hours before the show.  All the sets ready and staged, but only the dimmest and most necessary of lights being present to silhouette the scenery and the ghostly emptiness of the open stage, awaiting the actors to fill the portentous void. 

The music, of course, was afforded it’s time of freedom by way of the lessened amount of listeners at what most considered the un-godly hours.  Fewer listeners meant more liberty for the programmers and disc jockeys, as rare a breed as the latter were truly becoming, to step outside the boundaries of Billboard’s top 10 from any one of the twenty years worth of music that there was to choose from so as to appease the masses.  It was an unfortunate truth that the majority of those who tuned into the oldies radio during the day were given to fancy for the top ten’s and accepted hits of the era that all their memories were wrapped around and evoked from.  The business was obligated to give its customer’s what they called for during peak listening time.  But outside of those ephemeral monotonies, the tickle of the forgotten favorites or a newly discovered musical prize was a savored occurrence for listener’s like Aaron.  In this case, the selection was a forgotten favorite of Aaron’s, “The Midnight Special”, as preformed by Creedence Clearwater Revival..

The drawback to these enchanting earlier morning commutes, however, was that it came on the occurrence of a three o’ clock in the morning arousal.  Having to wake early from unsatisfying slumber that was almost always mid-dream and very deep when rudely interrupted by the cold blare of the alarm.  Once the nearly impossible effort of hauling one’s self out of bed was accomplished, the tasks of morning preparation remained yet an unapproachable obstacle until Aaron could manage to pour, prepare and take sip from that first cup of coffee. 

This particular Wednesday morning, July 23, of the year 2003, in the early onset of the four o’ clock hour, the weather was a bit on the dreary side.  A pleasant enough climate, however, just a drizzly rain falling in sheets that swayed this way and that with the playful tug of the soft breeze.  It was all the more peculiar, in light of this less than ideal outdoor activity weather, that Aaron should observe what he did just then.  There ahead some distance yet, somewhat in a stagger and stumble of effort, the figure of a man looked to be plodding along the right side of the road.  Aaron almost instinctively then began to slow his truck and was not entirely aware of the curiosity that swept over him for the oddity of such a sight occurring on his routine, unfailingly uneventful drive to work along these old mid Kansas roads.  Aaron politely tapped the foot switch on the left of the floor board to change the beam of his headlights to a considerate low.  Somewhat a guesture of goodwill on Aaron’s part as well, he was distantly aware.  It was also, though, a movement in the direction of curious maneuvering to indicate his openness to extended hospitalities, the most likely of which being that he would likely offer this unfortunate fellow a ride.

As Aaron drew near to the man, his curiosity increased upon seeing the man was clad in a nice, albeit vintage in fashion, grey suit complete with a matching hat and carrying a brown, leather briefcase in his left hand.  The man had moved to the most extreme right position of the paved roadway as was possible without entirely having to manage the treacherous, overgrown and wet ditch.  He was stumbling somewhat because of the grade of the roadside angling naturally downward toward the sudden depression into the ditch.  His managing of the tall, wet grass and sloped ground made his efforts a pitiable sight indeed.

Aaron turned down the volume of the music he had been enjoying as he pulled quite near to the struggling pedestrian.  He slowed until he was along side the man and then came to a stop.  Strangely, the man did not act as if he were interested in noticing Aaron.  He continued with indifference, seeming intentionally not to look at Aaron and the girth of the old Orange pickup truck stopped beside him.

“Can I give you a ride?”  Aaron finally called out to the man after rolling down the passenger side window to facilitate communication with the stranger.  The man responded with a heavy hunch of his shoulders and an almost indignant halt that was emphasized by the way in which he continued to leer ahead of himself, not wanting to acknowledge Aaron anymore than he already had.  He looked to be intently considering the matter.  Finally, after an unnerving twenty seconds or so of silent examination and waiting, the man responded.

            Turning his head to observe Aaron across his left shoulder, the man called back in a less than enthusiastic reply.  “Fine.”  He said almost bothered and in unmasked resignation.  Immediately Aaron found himself questioning the wisdom in his action of goodwill.  Not wanting to sell the man short based on his ignorance of him and his situation, but undeniably feeling somewhat leery of so odd a character and his even more peculiar circumstances.  He swallowed the doubtful nags of his gut and agreed internally to afford the unfortunate stranger his due consideration.  The man shrugged slightly and stumbled up the shoulder of the road and into the truck through the door Aaron had reached across the cab to open for the man in a show of hospitality.

            Once inside, Aaron allowed the man to situate himself, close his door, roll up his window and show his person to ready for the truck to get underway before he resumed his course on down the road.  He presumed the man was heading in the same direction he was himself based on the evidence of his pathetic trek through the chilling, wet morning which had been headed the same way.  Upon not hearing any objections, Aaron thought his conclusion a safe one and assuredly steadied his acceleration.

            “Where ya headed this morning?”  Aaron finally ventured.

            “Not far.”  Was all the man replied coolly.  Leaving Aaron riddled and unguided as to where exactly he should deposit this increasingly seeming, ungracious wayfarer.

            “Well, I’m going into Hutch.”  He said, still managing to be friendly.  “I work there.  I can drop you off....”  He offered both in kindness and in probing curiosity.

            “No.”  The man said without even enough time to consider the possibility.  Adding, “I’m only headed down the road a ways.”  His voice was impersonal and distinctly far-away, showing his thoughts to be preoccupied with some heavy considerations.  He finished with a forced note of acknowledgment to Aaron’s presence and questions by saying, “I’ll let you know when we get there.”

            Aaron had intended to offer some routine courtesies, perhaps his name in exchange for his new company’s, and subtle pleasantries about who each other was in the most impersonal fashion and hopefully some answer as to how the man had come to find himself in the fix he was in that morning.  He abandoned the cause, however, upon ascertaining a definite disinterest from the stranger for extended interaction beyond the necessary for accepting the aide to his journey down the road and the relief from negotiating the elements a while.  This was going to be an unsettling ride of quiet and awkwardness that Aaron was sure would put a lingering distaste in his mouth for offering rides to strangers along the road anytime in the near future.  It brought undesirable waves of eerie, paranoid speculation soaked with the recollection of so many people having made comments about the wisdom of not stopping for hitch-hiker’s and strangers on the road.  He forced the thoughts out of his head simply to evade their unnerving implications.  Aaron could not help, though, but to wonder about the puzzling fix of the man he had picked up along his drive to work.  He had seen no broken down vehicles along the side of the road before encountering this man which would have indicated any reason for his predicament.  And trying to imagine why a man dressed as the stranger was would be traversing an oft traveled but sparse remembered rural Kansas road as Avenue V, proved impossible.  It was becoming more and more an undesirable situation wrapped in strange mystery that Aaron hated to admit to himself that he was increasingly regretting allowing himself to get involved in.

            After agonizingly long minutes of driving in silence and unappoached questions, Aaron jumped when the man startled him with an emphatic exclamation of, “There it is!”  Almost sounding surprised to see the place he was bound for appearing exactly where he expected it to be.  Aaron pressed the brake pedal and slowed the vehicle as he looked ahead in the direction to the left where the man was pointing and staring intently.  He saw the turn off of an adjoining, dirt, country road.  As he came within range of visibility, he saw the antique road sign of an age he could not guess that was curved to it’s top, and against a black metal background, the unfriendly looking large white lettering on the sign read, John W. Rd.  Aaron was briefly stuck in consternation at his loss for any memory of having noticed this old road anytime before when he had driven down this road.  He let the trouble of it dissipate though upon considering that he did not travel this route to town from Sterling as often as he traveled the main highway and was thus disposed to not recall as much of the detail.  He also knew that he had a tendency to not notice his surroundings with any degree of involvement.  He regularly found himself being surprised by the presence of some house or building or tree or some such that had always been there, but he had never noticed before during any given trip in a vehicle from here to there.  For that matter, Aaron had to admit to himself that he often missed the world immediately surrounding him when he walked from one place to another as a result of his mind usually being absorbed in all manner of ponderings.

            The stranger was visibly anxious now as Aaron turned the truck to the left and began down the muddied dirt road; fidgity and tense enough to convey a vibe of eagerness that touched Aaron's nerves.  It was after about two or three minutes that the man suddenly and very aggressively insisted that Aaron let him out of the vehicle there in the middle of nowhere on the dirt road.  In fact, it seemed that in the middle of nowhere was exactly where the two men now were.  There were no telephone poles, no lights of houses or other structures anywhere to be seen, no fences, no proper roadside ditches, no driveways or other branching-off roads or any other signs of civilization to be seen in the area.  However, Aaron was all to glad to be rid of the bizarre man and his undesirable company.  He let the weirdo out of his truck there in the steadily decreasing drizzle of rain, among the darkness and nothingness of the area with naught but his briefcase and hat to do whatever the piss he wanted to from there.  Aaron felt a bit guilty at his take on the matter, but choked it down in reconciling himself with the knowledge that his welfare would be better acknowledged ridding himself of the disquieting person he had offered his good graces to.

            He had turned his vehicle about and began down the old dirt road again towards the main paved road that lead to the McPherson highway, which ultimately would take him into Hutchinson when he followed it’s connection to the south.  Along the old dirt road, he thought to assuage his discomfort for the unnerving occurrence of his meeting and giving passage to the very strange man down an oddly marked road he did not remember, to a place so void of anything but Kansas itself, by way of the radio.  He was puzzled when he turned the knob to regain volume.  There was nothing but very distressing and unusual static.  A garble of harsh tones and brief buzzes and garbled noises that almost sounded like words, all of it indistinguishably wrapped up in static and eerie, wavering, squeals.  He found this same unpleasant phenomenon no matter how he turned the tuning knob on the radio.