Trey, Potter and the Hearse

The definitive transition from hot summer to autumn cool occurred on Tuesday, September 13, 1977. He should have known on that auspicious day that something was foreboding. A strong cold front brought severe thunderstorms and heavy rain to the area, permanently breaking the summer heat and plunging temperatures into a sustained, cool autumn pattern for the rest of the month.

By late afternoon the sun dipped low over the suburban landscape, casting long, amber shadows across the late season stunted grass. The oppressive summer heat had finally been broken and was now just a memory leaving the air with a crisp, cooling bite.

Trey walked briskly from behind the bleachers during the football game with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his denim jacket. He was fifteen, counting down the agonizing two months until he could finally test for his driver’s license. But he couldn’t wait that long. Not today or tomorrow.

His mind was a loud, chaotic loop of the words his so-called friend, Potter, had sniggered at him earlier. Potter claimed that Annalise - the quiet, enchanting girl Trey sat behind in fifth-period English had been talking behind his back. Saying awful things, she supposedly took a liking to repeating. Trey’s stomach turned, he was starting to fall hard for her only a week into the school year. The thought that her sweet smiles in class were a front, pissed him off. He kept hoping that Potter was just being his usual lying self and looked forward to beating the crap out of him.

Annalise lived on the far east side of town, miles past the isolation of Trey's neighborhood. Without a car, there was only one option left. He had never done it before, but desperation pushed him to stick his thumb out.

Minutes later, a vehicle pulled over right before the freeway entrance. Trey’s heart skipped a beat and his throat felt like it was closing. It was a massive, shiny black Cadillac Hearse.

The door seemed to open all on its own, revealing a sharp-dressed, forty something year-old Black man with a wide, wild gold-toothed grin. "Get in, kid! I ain't getting any younger!" the man hollered over the loud, thumping bass of a funk song.

Trey hesitated, then climbed into the burgundy velvet-lined interior. As he tore down the road, the man reached into his coat, pulled out a plastic baggie of green herb, and tossed it into Trey’s lap along with a pack of Zig-Zag strawberry papers.

"Make yourself useful, young blood," the man barked, laughing. "Roll us a joint. Gotta keep the driver happy."

Trey finally was able to swallow, needing to strengthen his muscle of trust. He had never hitchhiked before let alone been in a Hearse. The driver's intense energy made him nervous, but he kept reminding himself this was a risk for both with no contracts or guarantees. Relying instead on human kindness.

“How far you heading kid?”

“Just a couple towns over before the county line”

He turned up the volume on the radio to the Dr. John song as the speakers thumped, the man sang along.

The driver glanced over, and his booming laughter vanished instantly. His eyes flared with genuine irritation. "Man, what the hell you doin! You're messing with my groove; you can't even handle a simple joint! What d’you call that?"

The Hearse screeched to a sudden, violent halt by the side of the road. The man leaned across the seat and shoved the passenger door open. "Out! Get out! I don't keep no nervous ass hitchhikers who can’t roll a simple doobie in my ride!"

Trey scuttled out onto the gravel shoulder, the door slamming shut behind him. The Caddie roared away in a cloud of exhaust, leaving him stranded in the cooling dusk. As the taillights vanished, Trey straightened his jacket wiping the dust from his jeans. He turned back toward the road, his mind racing right back to Annalise. He started walking again, determined to hear the truth from her own lips.

****

The morning sun streamed through the tall glass windows of the high school, illuminating the dust mites dancing in the air. Early September, in the stifling heat, the classroom still smelled of fresh floor wax and new textbooks.

Trey sat at his wooden desk in fifth-period English, pretending to look at his copy of Moby Dick. In reality, his eyes were locked on the back of Annalise’s head. She sat directly in front of him. Today, her auburn hair was pulled up, exposing her smooth tanned neck and neat white collared shirt of her plaid uniform.

Mrs. Henrich, the teacher, droned on at the chalkboard about symbolism. Trey wasn't listening. He was trying to summon the courage to say something, anything, to her.

Annalise dropped her pen. It rolled backward against Trey’s sneaker.

Trey quickly leaned down to grab it. His heart was pounding as he held it out like a baton, his hand shaking just a little bit. "Here you go."

Annalise turned around in her seat. She didn't just take the pen; she smiled. It was a warm, bright smile that made Trey completely forget where he was.

"Thanks, Trey," she whispered, her voice soft and friendly. She leaned her elbow on his desk, tilting her head. "Are you understanding any of this stuff on the board? Because I am totally lost."

Trey swallowed hard, trying to sound cool. "Uh, a little bit, I think the clock is the only symbol I'm paying attention to."

Annalise let out a quiet laugh. She looked down at his binder, where he had doodled a rough sketch of a Chevy Camaro. "Nice car. You like driving?"

"Yeah, I can't wait," Trey said, growing a bit more confident. "Two more months until I get my license. Then I'm out of here."

"Must be nice," Annalise said. Her eyes narrowed just a fraction, a look that Trey thought was just interest, was actually something much sharper. "You must have a lot of freedom. Do you and your friends, like Potter, go out to the woods or the bleachers a lot after school?"

"Sometimes," Trey said, blinking. He wondered how she knew he hung out with Potter. "Just hanging out, you know. Nothing major."

"Right. Just hanging out," Annalise repeated softly. She gave him one last long, unreadable look before turning back around as Mrs. Henrich tapped the chalkboard.

From two rows over, Potter caught Trey's eye. Potter flashed a weird, mocking grin and raised his eyebrows, but Trey ignored him. Trey just stared at the back of Annalise's head; his mind lost in her presence.

The bell for the end of the period rang its startling alert, echoing down the crowded hallway of Lakeview high school. Trey slammed his locker shut when Potter slinked up next to him, leaning against the metal vents with a smug, knowing grin.

"Hey, lover boy," Potter mugged, glancing around before lowering his voice. "You still daydreaming about Annalise from English class?"

Trey felt his cheeks blushing. "Maybe. Why whose asking?"

"Because you're walking right into a trap, man," Potter said, tapping Trey's chest with his dirty finger. "I was over by the bleachers earlier, having a smoke and Annalise was talking to some girls when she brought up your name. She took a real liking to tell everyone your little secret. Let’s just say, once this gets around, you won't be able to show your face in school again if you’re not kicked out that is."

"What? What are you talking about?" Trey demanded, grabbing Potter by the collar.

“Hey go easy man, I’m your friend. Why the hell are you getting mad at me?” Potter just chuckled and backed away into the hallway with the flow of students, like salmon floating downstream. Yelling back out to Trey, "Go ask her yourself, man. If you have the guts to face the truth."

****

After walking the last mile and a half, Trey stood shivering on the porch of the neat suburban house on the far side of town. His knuckles were raw from the autumn wind, and his knees were still shaking from his wild ride and sudden ejection from the black Hearse. He again swallowed the lump in his throat and knocked on the front door.

A porch light clicked on, casting a warm yellow glow over him. The door swung open, and there she was. Annalise stood in the doorway wearing a tight short football jersey, her eyes widening in pure shock.

"Trey?" she inhaled, looking at his disheveled hair and the dust on his denim jacket. "What are you doing here? It's almost dark, and you live all the way across town."

"I hitchhiked," his voice cracking slightly. He stepped closer, his heart hammering against his ribs. "I had to see you. Potter told me what you said by the bleachers today. He said you were telling everyone my secret. I just...I needed to hear it from you. Is it true? Did you really tell them?"

Annalise stared at him, her expression shifting from confusion to sudden realization. A soft, sympathetic smile broke across her face, and she stepped out onto the porch, pulling the door closed behind her.

"Oh, Trey. I did talk about you," she admitted softly, her voice barely a whisper in the cooling evening air. "But Potter got it all completely wrong. I wasn't making fun of you. I was trying to protect you."

Trey blinked, "Protect me from what?" his anger melting into total confusion wanting to believe and trust whatever she said.

Annalise reached out, gently placing a hand on his arm. She looked around the quiet street before leaning in close to his ear.

"I found out last week," Annalise whispered. "The girl you sit next to in homeroom. She’s a Narc, an undercover narcotics agent investigating kids in our grade. I saw your name on a watchlist on her desk. I was telling the other girls to stay away from you so she wouldn't catch them, too.

“Catch what, what are you saying?

“Trey... who exactly gave you that bag of weed you've got sticking out of your jacket pocket right now?"

Trey froze; he looked down. In his frantic scramble to get out of the Hearse, he had completely forgotten that the crazy driver had tossed the bag of marijuana straight into his lap - and now it was peeking clearly out of his front pocket.

He looked up at Annalise. Her sweet, sympathetic smile had all but vanished. In its place was a cold, sharp look of victory that didn't belong to a teenager at all. His blood turning to ice as he looked down at his jacket again.

"Thanks for making my job easy, Trey," she said. Her voice lost all its soft warmth, sounding like an adult officer delivering a formal statement. "We've been watching you and Potter for two and a half weeks."

The pieces fell into place in Trey's mind with a horrible, sudden crash. The rumor Potter heard by the bleachers wasn't gossip about a teenage crush or high school drama. Annalise hadn't "taken a liking" to him as a boyfriend. She had taken a liking to him as a target. SHE wasn't a student at all.

Trey stared at her, his heart sinking into his sneakers. As he stood under the buzzing porch light, a terrible wave of regret washed over him. He thought about his frantic, dangerous hitchhiking trip across town with the crazy Hearse driver. He thought about how desperate he was to get to Annalise’s house and the realization that trust takes time to build and only seconds to break.

The whole way here, he had been praying that Potter was just playing a cruel joke. He had been hoping with every ounce of his being that the rumor was a lie.

But it wasn't a lie. It was a trap, and he had walked right into it.

Trey didn’t wait for her to reach into her pocket for a badge, or cuffs, or a radio. Panic exploded in his chest. He turned on his heel and bolted down the porch steps, his sneakers hitting the pavement with a frantic, rhythmic slap.

"Trey, stop! Stop!" Annalise’s voice rang out behind him, stripped entirely of its high school innocence.

He didn’t look back. He ran blindly into the cool September night, the autumn wind burning his lungs. The suburban streetlights blurred into streaks of yellow against the dark moonless night. He tore around a corner, his mind spinning in a terrifying echo. Potter hadn’t lied. The rumor was real and now the reality was a nightmare. The girl he had fallen for was setting him up, and he was carrying the evidence right in his denim jacket.

He sprinted four blocks until his legs felt like lead. He collapsed against a chain-link fence, gasping for air, clutching the baggie of weed in his pocket. It was his word against hers he told himself. The street was now pitch black, bordered by overgrown trees and empty fields. He was completely stranded on the wrong side of town. He should have just thrown it away.

Then, two bright headlights cut through the darkness.

A massive vehicle slowed to a crawl beside him. Trey tensed, ready to run again, but the door swung open to reveal a familiar velvet-lined interior. A wild gold-toothy grin cut through the shadows.

“Looks like you need a lift again, young blood" The man leaning across the seat, hollering over the low rhythmic hum of the engine. "Get in before the cold catches you."

Trey didn’t have time to think. He didn't care about the driver’s temper or the bizarre car. He just needed to disappear. He scrambled into the passenger seat again and slammed the door shut.

The driver didn’t ask any questions. He didn’t mention the baggie, and he didn’t ask where Trey was going. He just pressed his foot to the gas. The Hearse glided forward, moving seamlessly back onto the freeway heading away from the idyllic suburban landscape.

Trey sank deep into the velvet seat, staring out the window. The thumping funk music from before was gone, replaced by a low, hypnotic Miles Davis jazz melody that seemed to vibrate through the floorboards. The driver stared straight ahead at the asphalt, his expression unreadable, a cigarette burning slowly, hanging from his lower lip. This time there was no singing.

Minutes turned into hours. The streetlights grew fewer and farther between as the suburban houses melted away, replaced by the bleak, empty stretches of the open highway. The cool September breeze blew on his face as the only record of passing time.

Trey kept waiting for the driver to slow down, to ask for directions, or to pull over at a gas station. He kept waiting for the dashboard clock to change, or for the sun to show even a hint of dawn. But the night just stretched on, thick and endless. The long heavy black Cadillac kept rolling forward into the dark, swallowing miles of empty pavement under the moonlight. He trusted in the whale’s smile but forgot the size of its mouth. Trey fought to keep his eyes open, his hand resting tightly over the empty pocket of his jacket. Trust was a free ride that cost him his innocence. There was no more music, as he listened to the steady, unbreakable purr of the Hearse engine carrying him deeper into the night.