I had gotten my driver's learning permit and knew how to drive better than most (it seemed to come natural). So if I found the keys in a car when no one was around, I'd take it for a little «joy ride», but always returned it no worse for wear minus a little gas. At least until one day in late January.
There was a couple of cars that some nearby homeowner parked in the back of a utility office parking lot where my paper-route drop-box was located. I found out they had the keys in them, so I started «borrowing» them for fun sometimes before or after delivering my papers, but never for more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time, and I always returned them as close to the way I found them each time. Until one time I didn't.
I had gotten into an argument with my mom and left the house with my empty paper-bags (cloth bags that I used to carry the papers over my shoulders with large pouches in the front and back) so my mom would think I was going to go deliver papers. It was late in the evening, but she didn't know my schedule, so this ruse worked.
I was on foot (I don't remember why) and I had no papers to deliver or anything to do. So, I walked to a new friend's house (from school). Nobody was home, so I broke in, naturally, and put anything I found that looked «interesting» inside the paper-bags. I remember taking a large bottle of Seagram's Seven (alcohol) and a stash of about $20 in quarters that I found.
Then I walked to the «Tom Boy» (convenience store) near my paper-box and bought some candy. I knew the owner's grown son, who worked at the store as a clerk, and lived in the house that his father also owned just behind the store. Since he wasn't working that night I figured he must be home, so I decided to see if he'd let me in for a few hours to kill some time.
He was home, but when he opened the door, his large long-haired setter came rushing at me and chased me off the porch barking and nipping at me. The store owner's son told me someone had recently broken into his house while the dog was home alone, and he thought by the dog's reaction that it was probably me (it was – I broke in and stole several pot plants that were growing under lights in the basement; the dog didn't bother me then though, not like it was now).
So I left, and walked to the paper-box more out of habit than anything else. Then I remembered the cars parked nearby and took one.
I drove about three miles toward my high school (Lakes High), and stopped at a 7-eleven store about a block away from my school and bought a burrito and a Big Gulp. While I was there some «friends» (kids I knew) from school saw me and asked where I got the car. They were «hoods» («stoners» who were known for getting in trouble) whom I normally never associated with. In order to impress them, I told them the truth; I stole it. Three of the four, boys my age, decided to go joyriding with me. The fourth said he was on probation and could not risk the trouble. So we left him at the store.
We drove around, taking turns behind the wheel, running over mailboxes and stop signs for fun. We did this for about an hour, until someone ran over some large rocks that we didn't see hidden in the shrubs around the base of one of the mailboxes we ran over. I could have been the one driving, but I honestly don't remember. But the car started lurching up and down as though the axle had been badly bent. So we parked it in an empty church parking lot, wiped it down for «prints», then walked to a nearby duplex where two of the boys I was with lived. We sat in the living room and smoked some pot as I recall, but before long the boys who lived there said they were going to bed so me and the other boy had to go.
I left, and parted ways with the other boy who I think must have gone home. I walked to the same 7-eleven where I had picked up the other kids, but there was no on else there at this hour (about five or six a.m.) except the clerk. I was very tired (sleepy) and had no place to go. I was several miles from home and didn't feel like walking so far while I was so tired. So I walked back to the duplex where the brothers lived, hoping they'd let me sleep on their couch (there were no «adults» in the house at the time) at least. But, when I knocked, nobody answered.
So I walked back to the 7-eleven (only a few minutes away on foot) and on the way this time I saw a Ford Pinto (seriously!) running with nobody in it as it sat in an apartment parking space; apparently warming up (it was a frosty morning). I looked around and couldn't see anyone watching the car as I walked by. But I kept walking to the 7-eleven, which was just next to the apartments where the Pinto was parked.
From the 7-eleven I watched the car for a few minutes, then decided to go for it. It would be an easy ride home. I'd only have the car for a few minutes, then I'd ditch it long before the police came looking. That was the plan.
I walked over, got in, and just as I was backing out I saw the curtains part in the window for the apartment directly in front of the car. It seems someone was paying attention and heard me get in and start to pull away. But it didn't matter, my plan was only to have the car a few minutes. I'd be home and in bed before the police even finished taking the report.
And in fact I did make it home as planned. I ditched the car next to the elementary school a block from my house. Then I walked home. But as I tried to sneak in quietly so as not to wake my mom, the «plan» suddenly went South.
My mother wasn't asleep. She had been up all night waiting for me so she could finish the «lecture» I had run away from in the first place. But now she was even more heated than ever after my long unexcused absence. In hindsight, I understand how worried she must have been. She had even been out driving around for hours looking for me. But at the time all I understood was her fury; and she terrified me.
So, before the front door even closed behind me I was back outside and running away, again, quite literally. I ran back to the Pinto, got in and drove off toward the freeway (I-5).
I got on I-5 North. My childish inclination was to drive up to Canada, where I'd heard kids like me could live on the streets unmolested by the police. (I honestly was not worried about any other sort of «molesters», and would have even welcomed such, if I had even known they existed. It would have been far preferable to the «hell» I called home.) But, before I even got to the next exit I noticed the fuel gauge was on «empty». So I pulled off to get some gas with the remaining quarters I had stolen earlier.
I pulled into a gas station just off the freeway, and got out to pump the gas. But, in those days you had to choose «leaded» or «unleaded», and I wasn't sure which type of gas the Pinto took. So rather than asking, or otherwise looking like I didn't know what I was doing, I got back in the car and drove off. My intention was to park someplace nearby and try to figure out what kind of gas I needed.
I drove up the road about a quarter of a mile then into a mostly empty Fred Meyer department store parking lot. The sun had just come up, so it was light enough for me to get out and look for a sticker or something that said «leaded» or «unleaded». Then as soon as I got out to look I remembered my Dad telling me that all small cars take unleaded gas. So I decided it must be unleaded. But, as I turned to get back in I saw a police cruiser driving past the parking lot, and the cop riding shotgun was pointing at me!
I learned later that the gas station attendant had a police scanner, and had heard the report of a stolen Pinto. So when he saw me pull in then pull out again he called the police. It took no time at all then for a nearby cruiser to find me by simply driving in the direction that the attendant said he saw me go.
I got in the Pinto and drove toward the lot exit away from the cruiser which had pulled into the lot and then got behind me and flashed its lights. As I exited the lot I hit the gas. I have no idea what I was thinking. I doubt if any «thoughts» would have made any difference at this point. My «instinct» was to run away from «danger». And cops were very dangerous!
So, I «floored it», as they say. But, in a Pinto that basically meant making a lot of engine noise (whine) but not going anywhere very fast. I still clearly remember topping out at around 80 mph, and desperately straining with my will to make the car go faster even though it felt lie the car itself was going to shutter to pieces at the speed I was already going.
I could see the cops directly on my tail in the rear-view mirror. They seemed calm and relaxed. I often imagine that they were discussing their wives or something during the chase. I was just another joyriding punk to them, and I wasn't going anywhere.
This continued for only a couple of minutes, if that. I ran one red-light, which they made a big deal out of in their police reports later. (They seemed more concerned about charging me with traffic violations than they were about the stolen car --- in fact, I was never charged with stealing the car at all because the guy I stole it from, the same guy who saw me drive off from his apartment window, did not want to press charges because I was «just a kid».) I drove straight, running on pure instinct, go go go! Run run run! I didn't realize until much later that I was instinctively heading for «home».
They stayed on my tail while they radioed ahead for a road block. I didn't see the other cruiser (a «State Trooper» if I recall correctly) until he crested the top of the train overpass and pulled his car across both lanes to block the top of the bridge. It was already too late for me to turn; there weren't any turn-offs, and the cruiser behind me made sure I couldn't turn around. But I spotted an opening between the guardrail of the bridge and the front of the Trooper's car, the service lane, and it was just enough for the Pinto to squeeze through.
As I approached the road block I saw the Trooper get out of his car brandishing a shotgun, and take up a position behind the front hood pointing the gun in my direction. I did have a thought at this point, and I remember the thought. I thought, «He won't shoot because I'm unarmed.» I learned that from T.V..
But, he did shoot, at nearly point-blank range as I drove directly in front of his cruiser to get past him. And he was aiming for my head! I remember hearing a loud «bang»! And then the side driver's window next to my head was just gone and there was broken safety glass all over the dash and in my lap. I couldn't believe he just shot at me! That was the second thought I remember having during the entire chase, «He shot at me!»
I continued though. The other cruiser was too wide to fit through the opening as I had, so there was a few seconds of reprieve while the trooper got back in his car to back it up so the city cruiser could continue the chase. But I didn't get any further than the next intersection, where I wrapped the Pinto around a utility pole, and my face around the steering wheel. I was unconscious when they caught up to me and called an ambulance. I remember having one more thought, though, just before I passed out and went into shock from the injuries (carved in right cheek and half my face-flesh torn off --- I still have the scars, of course, but they're not that bad considering) I didn't realize I was even injured at all. I just remember looking at the hood of the Pinto crumple against the utility pole and thinking, «I'm caught!» It was a very instinctual kind of thought; something like a gazelle might think, if it could, after being tripped by a leopard and feeling its fangs sinking into its neck. There was no more fear. And no more thoughts, though the police reported that I told them my name, address, and even what hospital I wanted to go to (the Army hospital, since my dad was still active in the service at the time). I don't remember telling them anything.
I do remember being put in the ambulance, and I remember them cutting off my clothes. But, I was in shock, so these were kind of weird, detached experiences. It was like watching it happen to someone else, only from inside that person's body. I didn't come out of shock --- i.e. I didn't feel any pain --- until the doctor started cauterizing my face wound closed to stop the bleeding. That woke me up!
I was in the hospital for a week, and then released on a «medical»-PR (so I never actually got arrested or had to go to jail). While I was on medical-PR, after a month or so, after I had gone back to the hospital to have the tubes and balloons removed from my face (that were holding my face bones in place as they mended), I took my parents' station wagon without permission, and crashed it too, while playing hooky from school with my future brother-in-law's younger brother, Craig, who was my age. I ran away again, and hung out with Craig (who was also a «run-away»), until the night police showed up at Craig's girlfriend's house while we were there, invited by her father to watch a brand-new program on T.V. for the first time called «Scared Straight».
I was arrested for «failure to appear» and taken to the juvenile detention center, where all the kids were required to watch «Scared Straight» (a program that despite its popularity has been shown to consistently increase recidivism rates for those kids who participate!).
On my second day of detention they gave me my «street clothes» back and moved me to the «downstairs» (minimum security) section. My mother came to visit, and after the visit they found a book of matches in the coin pocket of my jeans that I honestly did not realize was there. I got put in «segregation» because of the matches, and thus my experience with «criminal justice» began, and has long since continued to be all about «misperception».
[J.D. Jan 15, 2015]
