The rock bounced off Ethan’s head as he was driving home on the dark road. Then he noticed that there was a hole in the windshield. That was the order of perception. First, the feeling of something bouncing off his head and then seeing that strangely, he was looking through a hole in his windshield.
He wasn’t hurt by the rock through the windshield. It kind of glanced off of the steering wheel and grazed his head lightly and ended up on the floor in front of the passenger’s seat. Or maybe it hadn’t hit him. Maybe it was the opening up of a hole in the windshield that made him think when he saw the rock that it had hit him. But he wasn’t hurt. That was it. It must not have struck him.
Just down the road he pulled off to the side of the four-lane highway and assessed the damages and thought about what had happened. He realized that he had gone under an overpass and someone must have thrown the rock down at his car. Randomly most likely. He couldn’t imagine at that moment that anyone was targeting him. All he knew was that he had to drive on. He had to get away from the culprit who had done this to him.
Culprit. What a word and it sped into and out of his mind as quickly as the hole in the windshield had appeared. Some culprit had thrown a rock and now he had a damaged windshield and he had to get back on the road and away from this place. Maybe the culprit, he kept thinking that word over and over, would see him from the overpass, see that he had pulled over, and come down to finish the job. But why? Why would he have someone trying to kill him?
Then, slowly, he remembered why he had gotten out of town early on Saturday morning in the first place, why he had taken this spur-of-the-moment trip by himself. He had relaxed so much the last few days that on the drive home this dark night he was just listening to some jazz on the radio and feeling safe before the open windshield jolted him back to reality. The jazz continued to play and reminded him of his seeing his Congressman coming out of the jazz club a few weekends back, just before it was announced that his Congressman had died at home after being sick for a week. But he knew better.
And now as he realized why the rock might have been thrown through his windshield he realized that this was no random incident, not just someone drunk or letting off steam or showing off to his friends that he could hit a car with a rock. He was targeted. Ethan began to realize as he drove that if the rock would have come through the windshield and struck him directly in the face he might well have crashed the car and died. The news wouldn’t even have made much of a splash what with all the car accidents that happen from time to time.
The more he thought of what could have happened the shakier he felt as he drove. As quickly as he could he went to a friend’s house and knocked on the door even though it was late. She opened the door and said the kids were in bed and her husband wasn’t home yet from work but of course he could come inside. She could tell that something had happened to him as soon as she opened the door and took one look.
Ethan closed the door behind him and locked it and looked out the front window. He walked around very nervously as he told her about the rock through his windshield. He didn’t tell her his speculations and what had happened about the Congressman but he told her about the accident itself and that he was worried that someone might be after him. She tried to calm him down and assure him that those kinds of things happened randomly from time to time and that it was all over now. He felt calmer hearing her say that but kept pacing and as he walked into the kitchen he noticed that the overhead light bulb was out.
She knew where a bulb was so soon she was standing on a chair with a bulb and replacing the burned-out one when it slipped from her hand. It seemed to explode when it hit the floor and Ethan panicked. It was like a shot had been fired and any calmness that had come upon him was instantly gone and he felt under attack. He balled up on the couch in the living room and she pulled him into her arms and held him for a long time telling him that it was just a broken bulb and that he was OK. He was safe now she said over and over.
Ethan rocked back and forth as he was held. He was like a child but also inside him he knew that he had reason to be afraid. Not from a light bulb or anyone in this home but from someone, some organization, that knew that he knew too much. A weekend away couldn’t make this all go away now. Two Congressmen were now dead and he might be the only one to know that there was a link between them and that the link was that if one more Congressman died and was replaced by a governor of the opposing party the majority in the House of Representatives would shift.
Would people really kill to take over power in Washington? It seemed as absurd to him now as it had when he had first thought of it. But now someone was after him too. Someone wanted to make his death look like an accident just like they made his Congressman’s death look like it was from some illness. If they would kill two Congressmen they would have no problem justifying killing him as well and eliminating any more questions. So many thoughts ran through his mind as she held him to calm him down. He started to relax in her arms.
Then he heard the garage door go up, a car driving in, and the garage door go back down. His friend let go of the hug as she slid to the other end of the couch. Just then Ethan’s phone rang. It was the voice of the man who had warned him before. He said to get out of the house. Now.
Ethan told his friend he needed to take this call in private as he got up and went out the back door, waving at her husband as he walked in from the garage. His friend smiled and then his expression changed as he saw the look on Ethan’s face as he saw who walked in behind him. It was the man from the jazz club. The one who without a doubt in Ethan’s mind knew the real cause of death of the Congressman.
Ethan ran around the house to his car and jumped in. Then he raced away, looking out through the hole in the windshield. He didn’t know for sure but it definitely was a good possibility that the jazz club man was behind a lot of what was happening. But why was he there at his friend’s house that night? Was the long hug a set up to give her husband plenty of time to get home that night? Ethan didn’t think so. It didn’t feel staged to him. He felt comforted by a caring friend. Nothing out of the ordinary in that.
But regardless of why the jazz club man showed up right then, Ethan thought of one real possibility. That man might well be the one who threw the rock through his windshield and was looking to finish the job. He definitely could be the culprit.
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