ShipsCrossing
Two Ships Crossing
WE DIDN’T SET
out to break the law. In fact, you might say we were on a quest to reverse
a major injustice.
Someone stole my brother’s motorbike --
in broad daylight --
out of our high school parking lot --
right during school!
They just backed up a tan van, dropped a ramp, rolled it up, and drove away!
My older brother, Ron, aimed to get it back.
Two problems: He didn’t know who took it; and he didn’t know where they took it to …
* * *
Brother Ron is pretty sure he knows who’s behind the “who” who did the taking: Don Ruskjer -- our adopted dad.
Those two never really hit it off. I guess when you’ve been raised primarily by your mom, and you’re entering your rebellious years, you’re not figuring some Johnny-come-lately-six-foot-six dude will be running interference for her …
This time the issue is, in fact, the motorbike.
Mom and Dad had OK’ed Ron getting a car -- if he used his own money.
Car, bike -- they’re pretty much the same, right? Except one gets a gazillion miles per gallon and is easier to park -- or so my 17-year-old brother figures.
Then, there’s the proven truth that motorbikes are better chick magnets!
Needless to say, he bought a bike …
Apparently Father Don doesn’t see the similarities. But it wasn’t Father Don who made the pickup.
Don’s Electric Service is my dad’s business entity, consisting of my dad and another six-foot-six freak of nature -- Art Martin.
Ron calls Art, who doesn’t always see eye-to-eye with my dad, but isn’t about to jeopardize his livelihood.
When Ron asks him who Dad sent, Art carefully crafts his response:
“I’m not sayin’
your dad did or did not send someone. But you know, Ronnie, I’m
not the only
one who’s ever worked for your dad …”
We’d heard stories. Some involved one of Dad’s former employees.
Without Google or the Internet, Ron manages to crystallize a name from the past -- Carl --
and match it with a present address.
At the sound of the last bell, a bunch of us pile into Ronnie Metcalfe’s car -- primed for the hunt, as he lays rubber exiting the school grounds.
We drive a long ways out.
City becomes suburb.
Suburb becomes farmland.
After a few wrong turns, Metcalfe finds the mailbox he’s been looking for.
“Alright, here’s the plan,” he says. “When we come to a stop, you guys spread out. Check every window in every building. I’ll knock on the door and ask if this is the place that’s advertising the blue Buick.”
It’s as if a huddle breaks. Four doors spring open. Four bodies head out in four different directions as Metcalfe calmly mounts the stairs to the porch. Before he can even knock, a lady in an apron opens the door.
“Yes? May I help you?”
“Is this the place that advertised the blue ‘65 Buick?”
“I’m afraid you have the wrong address,” she says, as she opens the door to go inside.
“Wrong place!” Metcalfe calls to his now dispersed posse.
We regroup as he calmly backs out of the long driveway.
“Well?” my brother asks.
“It’s in the shed. I can’t tell if it’s got a lock on it or not.” This from Jimmy Burgess, another classmate of Ron’s.
* * *
Surprisingly little is said over supper that night.
Ron calmly mentions that someone stole his bike.
Dad asks if he knows who might have done such a dastardly thing.
Mom just sits there, visibly uncomfortable.
We have a “lights out at 10” policy in our house. Ron and I fake going to sleep. Nobody seems to notice or care one way or the other.
At precisely 11:45 he whispers: “Are you awake?”
“Never more so,” I reply.
Earlier that afternoon he had gathered what supplies he thought we might need -- not the least of which is a coil of #12 wire -- useful for a controlled drop from the second story window.
He goes first, testing the strength of the wire.
I follow.
We leave the wire hanging. We’ll need it to get back in.
Not seeing any lights on in our parents’ room, we make our way to the sidewalk. The plan is to meet Metcalfe in the parking lot of the Battle Creek Sanitarium at midnight. It’s two doors down from where we live. We’ve still got time.
When we get there, there’s no sign of Metcalfe.
We feel a little conspicuous standing out in the middle of the parking lot in the middle of the night, so we nonchalantly make our way to a basement-level workers’ entrance.
Within minutes we hear the night watchman making his rounds. He comes to within three feet of us! Apparently he isn’t used to checking the entryway -- walks right past us. That’s too close for comfort! We decide to take our chances in the parking lot.
No sooner do we emerge from the entrance, than Metcalfe pulls up. Says he’s been parked on the street all this time, but didn’t see us until just now.
The drive seems longer at night.
Metcalfe parks a quarter mile away.
We cut through a cornfield, regrouping behind a small shed.
Two problems: The yard is lit up bright as day with one lone mercury-vapor light high up on a pole. Then there’s the light on in the house, just 50 feet away.
We’ll have to run a hundred-yard dash to get to the shed with the bike in it.
Metcalfe has managed somehow to get a hold of a huge pair of bolt cutters in case we encounter a lock or chain.
Being the runt, I’m assigned the task of lookout. If I hear or see anything while they’re liberating the bike, I’m to make an owl sound, giving them a heads up. Fine by me.
We huddle in the shadow of our cover. The two brave ones whisper-count to three, then bolt as if a starter gun’s gone off.
Immediately we hear a loud banging sound coming from the house!
They beat feet back to cover.
“What was that?!” Metcalfe asks, out of breath.
“It came from the direction of that light in the house,” I say.
“You think someone’s watchin’?” he asks.
“Maybe they’re signaling someone in that trailer on the other side of the shed,” Ron offers.
Metcalfe ponders this for a moment. “I’ll check it out.”
He circles around through the shadows to the other side of the trailer.
Finally he comes trotting back. “If they’re in there, they’re being quiet as a mouse. I even rocked it back and forth. Nothing.”
“Let’s try again,” Ron suggests.
Metcalfe looks at him, then checks his watch.
“OK. On three.” Again with the whisper count.
On three they bolt out into the light.
BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG!
Again with the loud knocking sounds.
Again with the diving back into the shadows.
Once is maybe coincidence. But two for two?
Our hearts are beating like out-of-sync jack hammers. It’s cool out, but sweat is forming in six armpits.
We wait in absolute silence for a full 30 minutes.
Nothing.
“On three?” Ron asks.
“On three.”
The all-too-familiar count.
The all-too-familiar bolt.
The way-too-familiar BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG!
It’s beginning to look hopeless. Three for three? There’s no way that's
a coincidence!
It’s been nearly two hours. No one’s shown their face. No flashing colored lights or sounds of sirens.
“We can’t stay past daybreak.” This from Metcalfe, ever the planner.
“I vote we go for it, come hell or high water,” Ron suggests. Being as how it’s his bike, he’s got the biggest dog in this fight.
“On three.”
They bolt.
Whoever it is, bangs repeatedly!
They keep going.
They can’t believe their good fortune.
The door to the shed is unlocked.
The bike is not secured in any way, shape or form!
They push it out of the shed.
Too scared to fire it up, we run/walk it the quarter mile through the cornfield to the road.
Metcalfe and I follow him to the Clark Oil gas station where Ron works. He plans to park the bike there for safe keeping.
Metcalfe drops us a block away from our house. It’s still dark out.
We manage to hoist ourselves up the #12 cable, reel it in and get under the covers just minutes before Dad comes to wake us up for the day.
* * *
Later that day, the principal pages Metcalfe. It’s two in the afternoon.
Fifteen minutes later, he pages my brother.
Fifteen minutes after that, he pages me.
A police car has been parked in the parking lot right outside the classrooms for the past two hours.
The cop seems to know everything already.
Dad had apparently called the police, telling them what he was going to do before he did it.
Shortly after dawn, his former employee, Carl, called him to report the bike missing.
Dad tells him to call the police and report the theft.
The officer says he could charge all three of us with trespassing. I notice he doesn’t mention theft. He says Carl chooses not to press charges.
In the end, it’s agreed that Ron can keep his bike, but has to get a helmet.
Of course we all wanted to know what all that banging was about …
Turns out Carl was just remodeling his bathroom. His banging was entirely coincidental.