Soon there would be thousands of personal cars driven by solitary commuters indifferent to the wear and tear of the ozone and jealous of their right to come and go when and how they pleased in whatever they could afford to drive, using their own flight plans.
He steered his cruiser with a bony knee as he lit a Carlton Menthol, one eye in the rearview mirror, the other on a traffic light that was about to turn red and the guy in the Camaro next to him who thought he was going to make it. He did. Rhoad was disappointed.
Rhoad was tall, skinny, slightly cross-eyed and close to sixty. When he had been growing up south of the river, he had dreamed of being a radio disc jockey or perhaps a singer.
This had gone nowhere, and after high school he signed on with the Richmond Police Department. His first week in the academy he learned the assigned radio frequencies and areas, the proper operation of the radio, the correct procedures for relaying confidential information, the disposition of codes, the phonetic alphabet and, most important, ten signals.
When he was finally let loose on city streets, he was relentless, fluent, precise and omnipresent on the mike. He rode radio waves like the DJ he had never become, and cops, dispatchers and 911 operators dreaded his unit number and resonating voice.
They resented and loathed his habit of running his colleagues off the airways and into one another, and hogging the communication system in general. He was 'Rhoad Hog.' He was 'Talk in a Box,' and all wished the brass would transfer him out of traffic, into the silence of the property room, information desk, maintenance division or tow lot.
But the chiefs preceding Hammer were zealous about quotas, and Rhoad was a relentless one-person posse pursuing citizens who exceeded the speed limit, went the wrong way, ran red lights and stop signs, made U turns where not allowed, drag raced, drove drunk and ignored Rhoad's lights and siren.
As time passed and maturity waved Otis Rhoad through new intersections of his life, he realized that more important than his war against moving violations was an insidious disease that clearly was becoming the epidemic of modern times. The world was running out of parking spaces.
He began punishing those who left their cars at expired meters, in handicap spaces or in more selfish and ruder appropriations such as lawns, shoulders, driveways that did not belong to them, businesses or churches they did not visit, and bicycle paths. He started carrying his ticket book off duty, especially after the city changed to twenty-four-hour meters.
Rhoad tapped an ash and gripped the mike. In exactly six minutes and forty seconds it would be eight-forty A.M., and Communications Officer Patty Passman's meter would expire.
It was possible that Smudge had a slight concussion, but he refused to be taken to the hospital, and Bubba refused to let Smudge drive. Bubba had to admit that he'd never driven a truck quite as nice as Smudge's and he felt the bitterness once again, a resentment that had pickled a part of Bubba since the beginning of time. In his own way, Smudge was no different from all who had mocked and wounded Bubba throughout his life.
'Some good buddy you are,' Bubba muttered because Smudge seemed asleep. 'Sell me that piece-of-shit Jeep. Sabotage Bay 8 so you can win the competition every month. Get your free packs of cigarettes and sell 'em to me.'
'You say something?' Smudge mumbled as Bubba turned into Smudge's driveway, where Bubba had left his crappy Jeep last night.
'I guess you owe me a thousand dollars,' Bubba told him.
Smudge suddenly became alert. He sat up straight in his seat and blinked several times, taking in his surroundings.
'Where are we?' he asked.
'In your driveway,' said Bubba. 'Don't be changing the subject on me, Smudge. I won.'
He started to say fair and square but saw his manufactured coon eyes glowing in trees.
'Won?' Smudge acted drugged. 'Won what?'
'Our bet, Smudge.'
'What bet?'
'You know what bet!'
'Huh?' Smudge slurred. 'Think I have amnesia. Don't even know where we are. Don't recognize a thing. Where are we?'
'Your expensive house in Brandermill!' Bubba wanted to give Smudge a more serious concussion. 'The one with the swimming pool and the brand-new Range Rover in front. Because you don't give a shit about buying American or being loyal to Philip Morris who doesn't pay you enough to live like this! So you're cheating, lying, stealing all over the world!'
Smudge grappled with the door handle and almost fell getting out of the truck. Bubba got Half Shell out and she jumped into the back of his Jeep. Smudge's wife boiled out the front door to assist Smudge. She threw Bubba a menacing look as he backed out of the driveway. He didn't care. He didn't stop to explain. He sped through Smudge's rich neighborhood with its big homes and wooded lots. He darted out on Midlothian Turnpike and passed everyone.
Bubba was having a hard time staying awake, but this didn't stop him from driving aggressively. He wouldn't let anyone into his lane. If someone got too close to his rear bumper, he slowed down more abruptly than he usually did.
He turned off his CB because there was no good buddy to talk to anymore. He didn't raise Honey on the two-way because he would be seeing her soon enough. He unplugged his phone so it wouldn't ring.
At Cloverleaf Mall, misfortune, or perhaps bad karma, began to swarm in. It started with a tattooed woman on a Harley-Davidson. She thundered around Bubba, flying between two lanes, dyed blond hair streaming out from her bright red helmet.
'Hey!' Bubba yelled as if anyone could hear. 'What the fuck you think you're doing?'
The woman rode on. Bubba sped up. He wove through traffic and floor-boarded it after her, squealing off on Oak Glen after she did and backtracking to Carnation and Hioaks, past the Virginia Department of Corrections Headquarters, and down Wyck Street and over to Everglades Drive.
Bubba was too exhausted, his mood too foul, to realize the woman was having a good time with him. When she shot back onto Midlothian Turnpike, Bubba took the turn too wide and didn't bother checking for cars. Horns blared. People cursed. An old woman in a Toyota Corolla pointed her finger at him like a gun and fired.
A city police cruiser darted in behind Bubba, blue-and-red lights flashing in Bubba's rearview mirror. This time Officer Budget yelped his siren as he pulled Bubba into the same Kmart where they had met before.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Communications Officer Patty Passman was overweight, with prematurely gray hair and bad skin. She was single, antisocial, and suffered from hypoglycemia, but she was no fool. She, too, knew that her parking meter on 10th Street was about to expire.
If she didn't get to her car before Otis Rhoad, he would anchor yet one more ticket beneath her wiper blade. What was it now? An average of two a week at sixteen dollars each? Of course she would be better off parking-in the nice new safe parking deck one street over, but there were no spaces left today. Whenever this happened she was forced out on the street, where Rhoad was always chalking tires and stalking expired meters.
Officer Budget recognized the red Jeep Cherokee immediately and couldn't believe he was pulling it again in the same damn parking lot. What was wrong with this guy? Was he doing it on purpose? Did he have some kind of dysfunction like those people who were always getting sick so they could go to the doctor?
The Jeep pulled into the Kmart parking lot, in front of First Union Bank, same as last time. Budget got out and approached the driver's door. Bubba was wearing camouflage. He was glassy-eyed and filthy. A dog was in a pen in the back. Budget rapped on the glass with his portable radio. Bubba rolled down his window.
'Step out of the car,' Budget said.
'If you don't mind, I'll just give you my license and registration like last time, Officer Budget. I've been up all night lost in the woods coon hunting.'