The car swerved down the highway streets of northern Ontario, no other cars in sight, and Bens hands gripped around the tight leather of the steering wheel. His eyes gazed upon the road ahead, he was on his way across the country.
Every few moments he would glance in the rear view mirror into the backseat of his car, it was scarce. Apart from then dust, and garbage there was just one small duffle bag, filled with the only possessions Ben wanted to remember, his clothes. He left everything else behind, because Toronto was the one place he hated, the one place on the face of the earth that he knew that disappointment and regret would collide.
Still the roads were scarce and the only things he could see, were the things appearing the extension of his headlights, the road, the gravel, and the street sign reading “Manitoba Boarder - 136 km. A smile hit his face as he glanced into the rear view mirror one more time. His bag on the seat, his jacket on top, and red and blue lights flashing in the back window. Suddenly the sound of the siren hit his ears, so he hit the breaks, and pulled over to the side of the road.
He sits tensely in his seat staring at his appearance, and checking to see if there might be anything wrong with the picture of the vehicle. Everything looked spick and span, well except for the backseat garbage. Ben glances in his mirror to look at the police vehicle again. The officer was sitting in the drivers seat writing something down. Ben took a deep breath and held it in for five seconds, then released it in a time of five seconds, and went without breath for five seconds. It was a little trick his highschool drama teacher taught him to control his fear.
He glanced back into the mirror as the officer pulls himself out of his squad car. The officer had a pad of paper with him. He tucked it under his arm as he adjusted his trooper hat, and flattened out his shirt. He looked at Ben through the side view mirror, and gave him a little smirk as if to say “I’ve got you now.” But to Ben’s assumption there was nothing to get him for. Ben looked at the officer and confidently smirked back. The officer arrived at the driver’s side door and signalled Ben to roll the window down. Ben did so, slowly and with caution. Ben looked up at the officer with respect and asked, “What’s the problem?” the officer didn’t say a word for a few minutes, and just looked at him with hate filled eyes. Ben’s eyebrows raised and he looked at the cop with confusion. Finally the cop snapped out of it and spit his words out. “Is this your car?”
“Yes, this is my car.”
“Well we got a call recently of a woman saying that her car was stolen.”
“And?”
“Well she said it was white, Honda Civic.”
“Well you’re right there. This is a white Honda civic.”
“Did you check my plates?”
“Yup, they match.”
“Well what’s her name?”
“I can’t release that information. Now, could I see your Title and Registration?”
“Um, sure.”
Rain suddenly started beating down on the hood, making it very difficult to hear anything else the officer might want to say, but his lips weren’t moving, so Ben guessed he wasn’t saying much at all.
Ben reached for his glove compartment hoping to find three things, His title, his registration, and a pair of gloves because his hands were freezing. He grabbed the thin plastic handle and popped it open, papers nearly falling out. He riffled through it for a few moments stumbling upon Canadian Tire money, Gas money, little notes, and thick pieces of paper with orange markings on the back. In the darkness it was quite hard to make out what the writing said or even what the paper might be. He moved on from that and pulled out his title and registration, leaned back up and handed them to the officer in front of him. The officer looked in confusion as he read the registration. He held it in his hand looking at it from all angles. He grabbed his shoulder radio and pressed the side button making a call to the other officers. “Yeah, so I have the white Honda hear, licence plate, Delta, three, hummer, peanut, queen, six, four, monkey. Over.” It took a moment but the other officer finally answered back.
“Yup, that’s it. Over.”
“Yeah I know but the registration is all made out to him. Over.”
“Well, I don’t know what to do. Over.”
“Can I let him go, until we have further information? Over.”
“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Over.”
“Alright. Over and out.”
The officer looked back at Ben with a frown and said, “Alright the plate numbers match up the suspected missing car, but since it’s all made out to you then we have to let you go, but you have to stay in this province, okay?”
“In the province?
“Yes, now based on your direction I’m guessing you were planning of takin a little trip but hot cars are serious business, and we need to keep and eye on you.
“So how about you just turn yourself around, go back home and we can get this settled a bit later.”
Ben sighs and looks down at the maps resting on the seat beside him. He looks back up at the officer, “Guess I’ll have to save this trip for another day.”
“Guess so.”
“Thanks officer, I’ll just be a few moments”
“Take all the time you need, I’ll just be in my car back there. Now regulation says that if the suspect is within 200km, of the provincial boarder
than an officer must escort the suspect back, but you’ve been very co-operative so I’ll let you take your car back home, I’ll just follow behind
you for then next little while, to make sure you get there safe.”
“Alright.”
Ben rolled his window back up, and the officer slowly walked back to his car keeping an eye on Ben as he rummaged around his car.
Ben stared at the steering wheel for a few moments, thinking of what he would do, he needed to get out of the city, he needed to get away, but now he couldn’t. He had no choice but to go back to Toronto for a little while. He watched as the officer entered the squad car, and turned on the engine as if getting read for a chase, as if Ben would speed off down the highway.
Ben glanced back at that glove compartment, no matte how hard he tried to shake it off he still wanted to know what that paper was, what was the orange writing on the back. He leaned over stretching himself as far as he could and pulling the seatbelt with him, and opened the latch, this time everything did spill out including the thick paper. Now it was right side up.