The car that got away

I’ll never forget the day I bought my first car. I don’t think any of us will.

It was a glorious day, right in the middle of my fast and furious frenzy. That movie was my favorite movie of all time, I had watched it dozens of times. At one point, I even wanted to get

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I live my life a quarter mile at a time, and for those 10 seconds or less, I’m free

tatted on me.

The hunt for that car took several weeks to finally find what I had envisioned. I was on a tight budget, with only $2000 to spend on a car. I eventually stumbled across a 2002 Honda Civic DX. A 2 door stick shift with a carbon fiber hood.

The first time I got in it was magic.

My best friend Cody drove it home that day since I didn’t know how to drive a stick. He taught me in the next few weeks. It took awhile to stop accidentally letting it die at stop lights, but we made it happen.

After a few months, I was dropping second like I was a race car driver. Whipping around corners, recklessly speeding down residential streets, and upsetting neighbors on the daily. To make matters worse, I was heavily involved in the party scene, drinking and doing cocaine almost daily. I would typically drink half a bottle of new amsterdam vodka daily, and I always drove home. I have driven absolutely shit-faced hundreds of times over the course of my addiction. Never once did I get a DWI or hurt anyone. I thank God for that.

On this particular night, I was at a friend's house and she and I were drinking wine while watching TV and taking shots of vodka. Around 11pm, she was ready for bed and I was ready to continue partying. I went to another buddy's house who was having a party after work. I was a few blocks away when the madness started.

I was listening to music, having a grand time. I started dropping second and flooring the car, shifting gears as I drove 40, 50, 60 miles per hour on a residential street in south Minneapolis.

According to the reports I was doing this for over 30 minutes, oh how time flies. I was driving with the bottle of wine half empty in my lap, we had finished the vodka. There were empty shooters on the ground and the car definitely smelled like straight booze. 

Several of the neighbors in that area woke up and called the police, hearing my obvious recklessness. I was not speeding at the time the police showed up, I was actually done with my shenanigans and on my way to the party.

I noticed the police about 100ft from a stop sign ahead of me.

I drove up, stopped at the stop sign, and proceeded like normal. Immediately they turned their siren on and got behind me. I was beginning to slow the car down when fight or flight kicked in. I realized there was no way I was getting out of this unscathed if I stayed in the car. The wine was literally in my lap and I was very drunk. So I opened the door, and started running.

I never looked back to see the cops or how they reacted. I just ran

The neighborhood was middle class, with normal cookie cutter houses and tons of families. A lot of houses had motion censor ring doorbells, and some had motion censored fog lights on their garages. I ran though the first driveway I saw into their backyard and jumped the fence. I ran at least 2 blocks with that strategy. Jumping fence after fence until I felt I had a decent lead on the cops. I knew they were behind me somewhere, but I never looked back to see them. I zig-zagged and ran in a maze formation with one goal in mind. I needed to get behind the police, on the other side of the street that I started running. They would assume I kept going straight, and would be less likely to think I would go back in the direction of my car.

I never intended to get that car, I was lucky enough to still be a hot mess.

An addict that never went to the DMV to change the name on the title of the car I bought 6 months ago. I was too focused on the party to ever do anything productive. In hindsight, that saved me. I knew the car was registered to some random 50 year old man who didn’t even know my name. I also knew the cops wouldn’t do too much digging into some mischievous teenager.

I heard dogs, I saw flashlights, I heard heavy quick footsteps. I heard what sounded like 10 dogs all barking around in the distance.

This is one instance where I believe God was watching out for me. I had made it to my goal, 2 blocks behind the car I left just a half hour before. I was hiding underneath a patio I stumbled across while jumping fences, I crawled deep into the depths on the moist ground. This particular home didn’t have a motion sensing light in the backyard. This home made me feel safe. 

I stayed under the patio for what felt like an eternity, looking back it was likely only 20 minutes. I was texting my buddy the situation, and where I was.

He was the mole I needed.

There was a neighborhood watch group chat, for safety. His mom invited him to the group years ago in case there was trouble in the neighborhood. All the neighbors would get on the group chat and attempt to locate the issue whether it was a burglar, missing cat, or a fire. He told me the group chat was blowing up with neighbors saying they saw a man in a hoodie jumping their fence, while a handful of others said they saw the same man on their ring camera.

My friend jumped in the conversation and told them he just saw “the man” 5 blocks in the opposite direction of where I was. Someone in that group chat must have told that to the police. I heard the dogs, footsteps, and flashlights quietly fade away. They were in the distance, but not nearly as close.

That's when I made my move.

I crawled out from under the patio, and ran to the nearest street corner. I didn’t know exactly where I was, but punched the cross streets in my GPS and realized I was a block from my buddy's house. I ran there, and blasted in his backdoor to the kitchen. Several people were there drinking, all honed in on that neighborhood watch group chat. They were so relieved to see me, and I was so relieved to be safe. I never went back to get that car, and didn’t learn my lesson either. The second I caught my breath I took a shot of whiskey and went outside to smoke a cigarette.

I returned home the next day and plotted to get a new car, how I was going to save for the down payment, and where I was going to buy the car from.

I never self reflected enough to understand how close I was to going to jail, or worse, killing someone going 60MPH on a residential street in the middle of the night.

That was a fun car for sure, dropping second was one of my favorite things. Needless to say,

I’ve never gotten a stick shift since.