APB

2–3 minutes

graphix: spwilcen

APB

Hitching rides once was a respectable way to get from place to place.   Someone walking the highway would hear your car’s approach, face you, and stick their thumb in the air.  That ceremony meant that if you had a mind to let them, they’d appreciate riding with you as far as you were going or as far as your destinations overlapped.

The practice fell into disrepute for the often correctly presumed unsavoriness of “hitchhikers” and similarly questionable motives of drivers.  Let your imagination run free to suggest possibilities.

Most states have prison farms, work camps, detention centers, and prisons scattered around for prisoners’ convenience.  It’s not unheard of that these places have walkaways, and occasionally, “big house” escapees.  Once loose, escapees endeavor to put as much distance as possible between themselves and their former lodgings.  Motor transport is expedient. 

People still hitchhike.  Drivers still offer rides.  In areas where there are lockups, and therefore the possibility of escapees, cautioning drivers they are in an area where fugitives could seek rapid transport is prudent.   Imagination again provides interesting scenarios.

About five miles north of the interstate around midnight, my partner and I were considering lunch. The radio spluttered to life with an APB of two escapees, one serving life for murder, the other for felony assault on a police officer, presumed armed, had escaped the state facility not ten miles from where we were.

On a winding county road, our headlights picked up two denim-clad males walking the road.  “STATE PRISONER” was stenciled across their backs.  They’d not had time to filch clothes from a clothesline but time enough to forget they advertised their status.

My partner slowed, stopped, and honked, a driver’s signal of willingness to offer a lift.  The two unsuspecting desperados walked into our headlights.  Considering it “time,” my partner hit the lightbar switch as I popped my door and stepped out.   The two took off.  I pulled my 357 and poured one shot into the ditch.  Both men froze.  After a magnum barks, hearing is difficult.  Not much needed to be said.  With spotlights on them, and memory of a gunshot fresh, they did exactly as told.

We Mirandized them, shook them down, confiscating a timid-looking butter knife, cuffed them, and locked them in our unit.  My partner radioed the manhunt was over. Dispatch advised us to stay put; the State was sending a paddy wagon for our prisoners.

Swatting mosquitoes and smoking, we didn’t wait long for the State boys. After paperwork, swapping cuffs, and fastening manacles, the paddy wagon headed for the State Prison.

I suggested, “Let’s get something to eat.” Chauncy’s Truckstop was five miles south to the interstate, then three miles east.

Focused on the winding county roads, my partner broke the silence, “They hadn’t stopped what would you have done?”

“I’m hungry,” I evaded.

My partner drove in silence two minutes then rephrased, “They hadn’t stopped, would you’ve shot’m?”

“Dunno.”

We ate “lunch” at three a.m.

© spwilcenski 2020

TheProse 8/2/2020; spwilcenwrites 10/4/2022