Bradley Bayless was driving his Escalade ninety miles an hour, heading north on Route 6 through the middle of the state of Maine. He was alone but spoke aloud into the night. “She left me and got the kids.” He paused and smiled, “I got the money though.”
Bayless sipped from a Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA. He had bought a cooler at a sporting goods store the day before, and it was full of the beers waiting for him in the back of the SUV. Four empties were on the passenger side floor-mat, and six more of the green six-packs were stacked behind his seat — just in case things did not go well.
He sipped as he drove the two-lane highway lined with lumberyards, gas stations, and views. This was not the Kennebunkport Maine where the Bushes’ summered. It was the real Maine with unnamed brook trout ponds next to unnamed logging roads. One of the few places in the eastern United States where things remained unlabeled, simply left to be what they were. Bayless thought perhaps only the interior of the Everglades was more remote.
He spoke aloud again and held his beer up as if making a toast. “Down to Florida after all of this mess goes away. Days of bass and tarpon fishing, and no one checking in on me.”
Bayless had spent the day driving past awful looking mines next to thick forests that are so quiet in the middle of the day that they make your ears ring. This was country where storms that look like stale bruises creep up and then blow like a hurricane, and they make you want to crawl into a hole and pray no matter where you are from.
He had not smoked cigarettes in a decade because his wife forbade it. He gave her that one and dipped and smoked cigars instead. Now, the water bottle in the cup holder was full of cigarette butts floating in water, stinking like only a bottle of cigarette butts can. It was all terrible, but it was his own dubious freedom.
Bayless did not see the state trooper on the side of the road, so the lights and the siren behind him came as a surprise. At ninety, he had some ground on the trooper. He pressed the pedal to the floor, searching for the next turn. He slammed the brakes just after seeing the reflection of a street sign, and swung his vehicle onto a gravel road. He accelerated up a gradual slope and into a grove of pine, and then he turned the engine and lights off. He finished his beer and threw it onto the floor with the others.
The trooper was not fooled. There was only one place to turn for miles, and the dust was still in the air on the gravel road. He pulled up behind the darkened Escalade and exited his cruiser.
The trooper was an athletic-framed young man. Fresh-faced and clear-eyed even at the end of his shift. He aimed his floodlight on the SUV, and he approached. Bayless already had the window down.
The trooper shined his flashlight into the vehicle. He lingered on the beer cans, and inhaled deeply.
“It takes a while to get the smell out, even if you open the windows before I get up here,” the trooper said.
“Yea, it does. And I am sorry for being out here drinking officer, but I have had a tough go at it the past few days, and I wasn’t sure if this was public land or what, so I figured I could stop and have a few cold ones and then sleep it off. I apologize for that. I’ll get right to sleep and then be on my way in the morning.”
The trooper listened. The pace of Bayless’s speech was one that did not invite interruption. It demanded to be heard and considered — it asked why wouldn’t you agree with me?
The trooper kept the light on Bayless. “You mind showing me your license and registration?”
“Of course. Of course. I didn’t mean to infer that you would just head on down the road without checking me out. You need to do your job.” He handed him the documents.
“Stay in the vehicle.” The trooper peered at the small writing in the dark.
“Oh, of course. I truly appreciate what you guys do. It is hard to be law enforcement, especially these days. So much violence out there, and then you protect yourself and you got yourself a damn law suit. I don’t envy your position.”
“Thanks for your concern.” The trooper handed him back the cards.
“I’ve never done anything like you do, but I am a lawyer down in D.C., so I see all the shit you have to navigate when you are just a good fella trying to help us all.”
“What are you doing so far from home?” The trooper peered into the vehicle.
“Heading up for some fishing north of Moosehead Lake.”
“That’s still a few hours from here.”
“I didn’t plan my accommodations well. I was hoping to sleep here and head up tomorrow.”
“Do you know why I pulled you over?”
“Pulled me over?” Bayless raised his eyebrows at the man. “I was already parked.”
The trooper shook his head. “No, you were driving, speeding actually, and then you turned in here.”
“That is just not true officer.”
“So you’re claiming that you were not just driving a few minutes ago?”
“Yes, that is what I am claiming, because that is exactly what happened. Are you insinuating that I am lying about that? Why in the hell would I lie?” Bayless leaned to the door and positioned his body to exit the vehicle.
“Stay right where you are.” The trooper raised his hand in Bayless’s direction.
“I’ve been parked here, with the engine off, for more than an hour. Go ahead, run my tags, you’ll see I have a perfect record.”
“I just saw you driving ninety in a fifty-five.”
“I was doing no such thing, and I am insulted you claim that I am lying. Do you have any evidence that would indicate that I was in the vehicle you saw on the road?”
“Yea. I saw an Escalade with D.C. plates drive by, and then I found you in an Escalade with those plates right here. And you smell like alcohol, and you have empty beer cans on the floor.”
“Did you see me driving? Did you see me drinking while the engine was on?”
The trooper did not answer.
“I can claim this vehicle is my sovereign domicile. Do you know what that means?” Bayless asked.
“I know what that means.”
“Good. Then you should know that I am permitted to drink in my sovereign domicile. I was drinking in the back, and I just recently climbed up here to sleep. No laws have been broken.”
The trooper tried to reply, but Bayless continued to speak. “You should consider that it is possible, maybe not probable, but possible that another similar looking vehicle with similar plates drove by you, speeding, and continued on while you came to harass me.”
The trooper was standing straighter now, hands on his hips, leaning back. He rolled his neck and took a deep breath.
“There was still dust in the air on the road.” He stepped to his left and placed his hand on the hood of the vehicle. “Your engine is still warm.”
“Did you forget that I am a lawyer?”
“No you have made that very clear.”
“I negotiate mergers for companies that have more employees than there are people in Maine. I argue with the Senate on a regular basis. You think your old Indian trick shit about dust on the road will hold up?”
The trooper did not speak.
“Here are your two options. One, continue to insist that I am lying and do whatever stupid thing you are thinking of doing. Then you get to deal with me, my lawyers, and the god-awful mess of litigation that I will create for this backwater Podunk jurisdiction. Or, just be the good guy you are and take me at my word, which pretty damn respected where I come from. Then you will never have to deal with me again. I’ll be out of here at dawn.”
The trooper rubbed his face with both of his hands. “Lawyers are the damn worst.”
“Everyone says that until they need one.” Bayless was leaning back in his seat. He knew he had already won.
“My shift ended five minutes ago. I’m not dealing with this crap tonight.” The trooper walked away, got into his vehicle, and drove back down the gravel road before turning back onto the main road.
Bayless waited for the trooper’s headlights to disappear, and then he leaned over and opened the passenger side door and brushed the empties onto the ground. He exited the vehicle and grabbed another six-pack from the cooler in the back before he returned to the cab. Then he drove off into the night, throwing each empty out of the window.
Bayless still had many miles to cover before reaching his destination — a little town near Moosehead Lake where he could find a man named Niko Chamonix. Once he found this Chamonix guy, it would all fall into place. He could be done with the entire mess — his divorce, his father, the rest of it.
A few hours before dawn, he approached a sign: “Welcome to Ladawambuck, Population Not Many.” He parked in front of Niko Chamonix’s fly shop — a square cabin with a covered porch full of rocking chairs and carvings of wooden animals. The shop was next to a bridge that crossed a brook that emptied from a large pond before making its way to the lake.
He opened the door and pissed in the parking lot, and then he put his head in his hands and said, “What the hell am I doing in goddamn Ladawambuck?” He climbed back into the cab and passed out with the engine still running.
A curtain behind the second-floor window of the small house across the street moved. A hand had pulled it open, and someone was peering down at the vehicle.
…
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