Chapter Nine
Staring at flashing blue lights while echoes of multiple sirens filled the air
surrounding him, Butch McGuire’s eyes widened and his mouth opened. “This can’t
be. I haven’t done anything wrong! Why do they want to arrest me?”
“Run, Butch,” Stan hollered as the other gang members began to hightail it across the schoolyard toward the forest located at the edge of Gibsonville’s property line. “You need to get your ass out of here unless you want it locked up!”
Butch gave his friend a quick nod and scrambled around the corner.
I doubt the cops will realize I’ve headed in this direction, he thought as he continued to scramble. Most likely, they’ll assume I would follow everyone else.
After coming to a stop inside a small recess area near the front of the gymnasium’s side entranceway, Butch thought about Curt. It certainly would have been nice if my physique could have been a whole lot more like his. Having a scrawny build could be advantageous right about now.
“Paul. You’ve now become a major pain in the ass,” he muttered as he examined the various pathways around him.
While doing so, it didn’t escape his eye that only a few hundred feet away a Guilford County black and white Ford was quietly easing into the designated student parking lot.
Seconds later, it came to a halt.
“If you only haven’t been such a dumb-ass computer geek Paul and not even smart enough to know you don’t wear a gangs’ colors,” Butch continued in his private rant. “…then I’ve never wouldn’t have had to stomp your ass and wouldn’t be in this mess. … Damn you, you son of a bitching bastard. This is all your fault you f*cking moron and I almost wish your ass was dead. Then I wouldn’t have to deal with you anymore.”
Having verbally expressed his feelings, Butch stopped and smiled – but only for a millisecond. He then remembered that if Paul were actually dead, it would be impossible for him to wrangle out of this situation with anything as insignificant as a Probation sentence. Instead, The Man would probably send him to the Big House for the rest of his life.
Butch looked up and sighed. I have no choice. I must escape. So what would be the best route?
“There’s a cop sitting in one of those new hybrids inside the student parking lot so heading toward Church Street probably wouldn’t be a good idea. And if I know Sgt. Majors, he’s stationed an officer not far from the Administration Building’s side entrance since it would be the most logical route to take. So, hmm. Let me think. What if I …?”
About a hundred feet away on the far side of the gym just to the left of where Butch was standing, a car door creaked. Then a few seconds afterwards the echo of someone running across black asphalt resounded.
“Ah, Ha! Deputy Stevens must be heading toward the woods. … Yeah. You just keep heading that way you skinny pig-headed moron. … Didn’t your sergeant warn you I’d be smart enough to know not to go that way?”
Butch smiled a small smile and then started for the gym’s northeast corner. He wanted to peek around its corner. With any luck, the grassy area between the Office Skills classroom and cafeteria would be clear.
Okay. So far, so good.
Sprinting toward the end of one of the school’s main buildings and easing around its corner - Butch stopped to gaze at the school’s side parking lot where most of the faculty usually parked. Even though it was a weekend, he wanted to see if anyone might be parking there. Unfortunately, the school’s “Built in 1946” cafeteria was effectively blocking most of his view.
This caused him to grimace, and he exhaled his frustration.
“Damn it. It looks like I’m just gonna have to chance it.”
Even though no officer was in sight, Butch went ahead and checked both ways before starting to slither next to the side of the main building. Upon reaching one of school’s infamous tall oak trees whose trunk stood less than a foot away from the building a few moments later; he came to a halt.
It isn’t hard to believe this wall was built before 1918, Butch thought as he carefully examined his new location. I’d make a bet there isn’t another school within a hundred miles with a tree large enough or so close to a building; I could have hidden behind it.
He then diverted his thoughts back to the matter at hand and turned toward the part of the woods where his gang previously entered. Deputy Stevens was standing almost at the precise point his gang had escaped and from the way he was moving his head like a bobble head toy, Butch got the impression the officer was either lost or confused.
There was no doubt that Stan was smart and Butch knew his friend would have done a bit of double tracking before heading east. Therefore, unless Deputy Stevens came back with a K-9, the odds were slim that he would find them and by the time the officer realized that, it’ll be too late to try to locate him.
Butch chuckled at the Guilford County Deputy’s foolishness as he made sure the pathway leading to the cafeteria was still open.
Now, if Stan’s following the instructions we made for a contingency like this, he and the gang should be heading for the cave where they’ll be able to change out of our colors into regular street wear. And soon afterwards, we should be able to meet.
Feeling good about the way things were going, Butch dashed for the side of the cafeteria. However, the moment he reached the chow hall; a police siren resonated.
“Way to go, moron,” Butch confidently stated, keeping his back to the cafeteria’s reddish brick wall as he headed for the northeast corner. “If you were trying to keep your presence hidden, you definitely blew it.”
Within moments, a car door opened – making a scraping noise as if its hinges could have used a bit of lubrication three years previous.
“You’re not fooling us, Butch McGuire,” a voice coming from an amplified sound system began to wail. “We know exactly where you’re located and have you surrounded. You might as well give up.”
Yeah. Right. Butch thought, taking a single step backwards. When pigs fly.
“Butch. There’s a satellite fixed on your precise location. … Not only do we know you’re standing near the backside of the school’s chow hall. We can even read the word “Wrangler,” written on each metallic button fastening your overalls.”
“Really? Holy shit.” Butch grabbed one of the round buttons holding his pant’s straps and took a quick look. “He’s right. … Damn modern technology!”
So what do I do now?
Pulling out his iPhone, Butch remembered an application he had acquired off the Internet a few months earlier from a place considered to be a black market website. Rumors had it that a group of foreign terrorists had developed the program so it could help them escape. Scrambled, as the app was entitled - was designed to jam any electronic device within a hundred-foot radius of an iPhone by causing any nearby electrical transformers to repeatedly release a short-burst high-frequency pulse for a total of thirty seconds. After that, the program would have to be re-initiated.
“This probably won’t block that damn eye-in-the-sky, but at least for a moment, they shouldn’t be able to use radar to track me.”
Butch smiled as he pressed his phone’s touch screen.
“How about getting a good look at this, Sgt. Majors,” he then yelled, dropping his pants and shorts, so he could present a full moon to any high-definition camera above him. “Despite your modern high tech technology, you still haven’t caught my ass yet. So, bite me!”
As if the sergeant had been able to hear him, before a full minute had passed the rumbling of black-walled tires echoed as additional county sheriff patrol cars came to a halt at each corner of the faculty’s parking lot.
It seemed the demise of Butch’s freedom would be imminent.
“Ho. Ho. What’s this?” Butch questioned upon hearing a dull clank as he rushed along the east side of the cafeteria. “I was hoping something like this would be located here.”
Getting down to his knees next to dark-green industrial-size garbage bin, Butch brushed off the leaves that had fallen the previous Fall onto the top of a man-size sewer drain.
How convenient. The town of Gibsonville is going to provide me the convenience of a hidden escape route.
Butch grinned from ear-to-ear, and after lifting the heavy solid steel lid, climbed inside and replaced the cover.
“Just try to find me now you morons,” Butch laughed as he activated the lantern feature of his phone. “There’s no way you’ll ever be able to track me.”
*****
“So. How did you manage to escape?” Stan asked thirty minutes later, while Butch was taking a large bite out of the double-stacked hamburger he had the owner of Pedro’s Grill fix for him.
“It was simple. I just …”
As Butch relayed the details of his escape in a fashion, which made it appear that even a third grader could have done it, the rest of his gang leaned forward so they could capture every word spoken.
“A sewer drain,” Stan questioned when Butch had finished. “I didn’t know they had one near the cafeteria.”
“Well, they do,” Butch confirmed, wiping his lips after completing the last bite of his meal. “And it was a damn good thing it was there. Otherwise, I would have had to head for the elementary classrooms’ building and try to find a way to enter the woods from there.”
“It would have worked,” Curt remarked before swallowing a swig of Coke.
“I know. But using the drain was a lot easier,” Butch countered. “Now. If you don’t mind, gents, we need to hightail it out of here and find me a good place to hide.”
“Are you heading to Mexico?” James asked as they got up from the table and paid the bill.
“I’m not sure.” Butch answered, slipping his wallet into his overall’s front pocket. He then stepped out the front door and discovered four Guilford County patrol officers waited nearby.
“Butch Edward McGuire,” one of uniformed deputies began, while a second one handcuffed his wrists behind his back, “You are officially under arrest for Attempted First-degree murder, Assault and Battery …”
“But how did you find me,” Butch asked as he entered a patrol car’s back door. “I thought I had covered all angles.”
Deputy Stevens looked at him and smirked.
“For being a Class A punk, you managed to show us where you were,” he said. “Quite well, in fact. … Apparently, you forgot that for the past few years, all cell phones have a built-in GPS tracking device that is normally used for 9-1-1 purposes. Thus, once you left the drainpipe and were back out in the open. It wasn’t difficult to track you…”
Butch immediately gazed toward his pant’s pocket and frowned.
Damn f...cking technology!