To the Ends of the Earth

“I must have the worst luck in the world,” the exasperated Steve Williams moans to himself. “How did I get myself into this mess?” he grumbles under his breath, continuing his conversation with himself, as he awaits the approaching officer that he spies in the side mirror of his 2013 red Honda Accord. He tries to think of some positive thought to comfort himself with, but he knows this doesn’t look good for him. “I’m not built for prison. I don’t think I can survive it,” he thinks, getting more worried with each step the motorcycle police officer makes in the direction of his parked vehicle.

Steve, getting carried away by his panicky thoughts, staring straight off into space out the front dash window, is brought back to reality by the sound of two taps on his driver side window. He turns his head to the left and is momentarily blinded by the bright beam of the officer’s flashlight aimed into the car. “License and registration. Care to explain yourself, son?” the gruff voice of the policeman asks. At first Steve thinks about making up some elaborate lie and cling to the hope that the officer is very naïve, but this doesn’t look like a rookie cop. Plus, his mother always told him that it always works out for the best if you tell the truth.

Being the nervous wreck that he is, once he starts giving his explanation to the officer, he starts rambling out the whole truth of his recent days, but not in chronological order:

“I was on a mad scramble to locate a ‘Lost & Found’ chocolate bar made by Gem Chocolates for my wife.”

“And that is the reason you were doing 93 in a 45-mph zone while not having your seatbelt fastened, and having an opened bottle of Coors in your front seat cupholder?”

“It’s a long story, officer, but here goes: You see, my wife, Felicia, had a rough bout with pneumonia two weeks ago for Valentine’s Day, and then the following week she stepped in a hole and twisted her ankle and we had to cancel our rescheduled Valentine’s celebration. All this after she got a terrible stomach flu one year ago at Christmas and don’t get me started on her rubbing her arms against poison oak on her birthday and inadvertently walking into a hornet’s nest the day before our Anniversary.

“But all that was water under the bridge, and we were finally ready for our 3^rd attempt at having a Valentine’s Day three days ago. That’s when the COVID-19 struck and since she has asthma, it is extra severe for her. Her breathing got so bad that she had to go to the Emergency Room for oxygen. As she lay there struggling for breath, she just had one request: For me to bring her ‘the best chocolate in the world,’ so she would have something to look forward to when she survives this damn Omicron.

"Well, I got on Google and immediately typed in ‘best chocolate in the world,’ and this ‘Lost & Found’ bar popped up. I thought, ‘Surely, I can just hop on down to Walmart or Target and grab some of these bars to make her day a little brighter after the spate of bad luck she’s had lately. Well, officer, apparently the curse was on me and not just her, let me tell you…”

“Get to the point, son, I’m losing my patience,” Officer Parker says as he gestures for Steve to get out of the vehicle and walk a straight line.

“So, I plant a tender kiss on my wife’s forehead and make a dash down the hallway and to the exit of the E.R., unfortunately too quickly to notice the yellow ‘Wet Floor Cones’ placed in several spots in the hall. My feet start shuffling on the slippery floor and somehow, I manage to remain standing, but I stubbed my right toe really hard against the corner of the mop bucket.

“That got me in a grumpy mood, but I told myself, ‘You have got to refocus all your efforts on getting the world’s best chocolate – your wife may be on her deathbed for crying out loud! Screw your stubbed toe, you wuss!’ (Yeah, I know, my inner voice can be a bit of a dick sometimes)

“Anyway, I make it to the parking lot, and I see a guy in tattered clothes sitting in the corner next to where my car is parked, so I decided I could use all the good Karma I could get right now, and I pulled out a $5.00 bill from my wallet and offered it to the man. He looks up at me and says ‘Fuck off with that! I can’t get anything with five dollars anymore. I need at least $8.00 or don’t even bother, you cheapskate.’

"Then as I’m starting my car and then backing out of my parking space, he throws his cup of coffee mixed with cigarette ashes onto the rear window of my car and I can’t see out of it. This causes me to back into a light pole, scraping up the back of my car and ruining my back right taillight. The jolt from the impact caused my eyeglasses to rocket off my ears and shatter into pieces on my dashboard.

“’Asshole!’ I curse to myself about the tattered-clothes-guy, now speeding out of this damned parking lot, not even getting out to look at the potential damage I just did to my vehicle, not that I’d be able to see it without my glasses anyway. With that craziness, I had forgotten to use Google Maps to scope out where in the world I’m going to begin my search for this chocolate. So, I do the only logical thing, I get into a heated argument with Siri while driving down the road, finally doing irreparable harm to my relationship with the electronic assistant living in my phone, after telling her she is a ‘stupid bitch,’ followed by her giving me the silent treatment.

"Well, officer, this left me no choice but to pick up my phone and start searching and scrolling while driving.”

“Of course,” Officer Parker responded, jotting down more notes and adding citation comments to the continually expanding ticket he has been writing for this man.

“Peeling out of the car park, attempting to follow the confusing and contradictory navigation instructions being whispered in Pig-Latin by my now clearly passive-aggressive Siri, I drive about 10 miles before I slam on my brakes as I see an otter walking across the street, and there’s no way my Karma could survive me running over an innocent and defenseless otter. Thinking about Karma and my streak of bad luck, I decide to get out of my car and check on the little guy and make sure he’s okay.”

“Good for you, son. Not many people would be so thoughtful in this day and age,” the officer remarks.

“I wish it had turned out good, sir. But when I shut my car door and took a step in the direction toward where the animal was located, my right leg was viciously mauled. My first thought was, ‘holy shit, this otter has rabies!’ But then it dawned on me, ‘That’s no otter! What would an otter be doing crossing a road out here away from any bodies of water?’ The varmint using my leg as a scratching post was a Goddamn wolverine! And let me tell you, officer, they are not as friendly as Hugh Jackman would have us believe.”

“Are you joshing me, son? There have been zero, that is a big fat nada, never, zip, as in nothing, ever documented about an attack by a wolverine on a human. Plus, there are only three hundred, give-or-take, of those furry little guys left in the wild in America. You expect me to believe one of them attacked you?”

“Now you’re understanding what kind of Karma-slash-bad-luck situation I’m in, officer. I’m telling you -- I’ve never seen anything like this, and I don’t even know what I did to bring this curse upon myself, or lower my Karma points below the certain threshold where this stuff starts kicking in. It’s not like I go around kicking puppies or something, -- wait a minute, oh shit, there was a black cat last month on my front porch and I accidentally stepped on its tail. You don’t think that could cause all this, do you?”

“I would think to lower your Karma level that much, it would take something more serious than stepping on some feline furball. But to be honest, I’ve never been much of a believer in this superstition hocus-pocus stuff, and I’m firm in my conviction that people need to take responsibility for their own decisions, but your story is kind of starting to make me question some of my assumptions.”

“Oh, whew! So, you do understand why I did what I did?”

“You’re not getting out of a ticket that easily. I might not haul your ass into the slammer, but this citation is one for the record-books and will be told in stories to grandchildren of my fellow men-in-blue. So, please don’t let me stop your story. Go right ahead and tell ol’ Officer Parker what else happened next. Hell, I might have a future as a novelist just writing down the crazy stuff that happens on my traffic stops.”

“Let’s see, where was I? Oh right, the wolverine shredding my leg up like a slice of Swiss cheese. That’s when the Good Samaritan truck driver pulled over and rescued me, waving around a torch to scare the stubborn little bastard away. I guess once wolverines find a new toy, they do not want to give it up. Only problem was, the trucker wasn’t such a good Samaritan after all. I turned around to offer my thanks, and squinting and unable to see very well, I could still make out that he had a handgun pointed directly at my chest, and then heard his raspy voice demand, ‘Your wallet now, or your life!’

“I fumbled my Batman logo wallet out of the back pocket of my jeans and accidentally dropped it on the street in-between the bad Samaritan trucker thief and myself. Without meaning to, we both bent over to pick it up at the same time, and our heads collided. This caused his finger to pull the trigger on his gun and fired a bullet through my right shoulder. The trucker was apparently knocked unconscious or worse, I didn’t have time to check. I snatched up my wallet with my left hand, inadvertently leaving my ID behind when it slipped out of the card sleeve. That was why I panicked when I saw you pulling me over. I thought you were arresting me for murdering the trucker guy.”

“Well, we would have, had there not been bank security cameras across the street from where you were, which showed us exactly what happened there. Besides, the bad Samaritan trucker thief isn’t dead, just has a bump on his head. We’ve taken him into custody.”

“Oh, thank God for security cameras, huh? So anyway, I hobble back to my car, with my wolverine-ravaged leg, bruise on my forehead, and my shoulder bleeding out from the gunshot wound. I knew I had better get to the closest hospital or doctor or I’m a goner for sure. I made it into the car, in an extreme amount of pain, and I reach around and start the engine by turning the key using my left hand. Slurring my speech because of my pain and my rapidly diminishing consciousness from the blood loss, I thought I was asking Siri for directions to the nearest hospital, but the words came out all mumbled. Siri started navigating though, so I twisted my left foot over to floor the gas pedal and use my foggy brain to try to follow Siri’s rude directions.

“’Turn left NOW!’” she commanded, so I obeyed, swerving across lanes of traffic, miraculously avoiding the oncoming traffic, plowing over the mailbox at the end of the little parking lot. From the outside of this building, it looks like a small doctor’s office, not any kind of hospital, but at this point, beggars can’t be choosers. In my attempt to park the car, I hop the curb and slam the brakes just before smashing through the front glass windows. I fall out of my seat, bleeding all over the sidewalk pavement leading up to the entrance. As I’m crawling through the front doors, I glance up at the sign on the glass door: ‘Cincinnati Animal Hospital, home of the finest veterinarian in the state of Ohio!’ In my delirious state of mind, I just assumed that a veterinarian would still be able to help with a gunshot wound, or at least make a better attempt than anyone else nearby.

“I blacked out when I crawled up to the receptionist’s desk. They must’ve seen my shoulder bleeding out all over their carpet and had pity on me. I came to an hour later and the receptionist informed me that Charles Swanson, ‘Ohio’s finest veterinarian,’ saved my life by treating the gunshot wound, but that I need to hurry up and get to an actual hospital for people, or I could still end up dead shortly. She also reminded me to make sure they look at my torn-up leg. They offered to call me a Lyft, but I told her ‘No thanks,’ because I have to make a couple other stops to find some chocolate for my possibly dying wife.

“I get back to my car and I look at my iPhone. 3 missed calls. 1 voicemail. I listen to the voicemail and it is some good news from the doctors looking after my wife. She appears to be making progress in recovering from her COVID. The doctor on the voicemail said she wants me to know she is really looking forward to having me return with the gift I told her I would bring her. That’s when Siri finally chimed in and gave me the correct directions to the nearby candy store specializing in fancy and imported chocolates of all varieties and flavors. I speed my way there somehow without having an accident and barge into the shop barking out a request for the ‘Lost & Found’ chocolate bar. I panic and slam my fist on their counter and say, ‘It’s an emergency for my wife!’ They said they just sold their last one to the man who walked past me as I entered the building.

“I storm out the front door and chase down that man who’s getting into his car. I loudly tell him why I need that chocolate bar so badly, not even realizing I have grabbed hold of the man’s jacket with my left hand and shaking it in anger and desperation. At first the man tells me, ‘Fuck off you psycho!’ But then he has the epiphany he can profit off this. He says ‘Okay, you can have it, for $300.00 cash.’ I reply, ‘All I have is $200 in my wallet.’ He says, ‘Fine, I guess I’ll take that, along with your Nikes.’ I fork over the dough and my shoes. He gives me the damn chocolate bar. I step on a piece of glass from a broken beer bottle with my left foot on my way back to my car.

“With all my injuries, I decide I can kill two birds with one stone and just rush back to my wife at the Emergency Room and then they can treat all my wounds there after I deliver the chocolate that I promised her. As I was speeding down the road back to the E.R., that’s when you pulled me over, Officer Parker.”

“You know what, son, I kind of feel sorry for you after hearing all that,” the officer replies. “Before you say anything else, the answer is ‘No, you are still getting the craziest ticket in history!’ The good news is I have decided to give you a police escort back to the E.R. Hop in your car and follow me! I’ll get you there in no time.”

“The officer wasn’t lying, he got me to the E.R. very quickly, as we sped through the stoplights. I make it to my wife’s room with the chocolate bar and am very relieved to see she is able to breathe on her own. She took a look at me and asked me if I was okay, seeing all my wounds and bandages. I lied and said I was fine, and that I had some stories to tell her later.

"The look on her face became more confused when she saw the police officer standing behind me at the doorway to her room. I told her, ‘Don’t worry, this is a new friend I made along the way today. Oh, and honey, here is the gift I promised you.’ As I hand the chocolate bar, she says ‘What is this?’ I reply with ‘Lost & Found, Google says it is the world’s greatest chocolate, just like you asked me for this morning.’ Shaking her head, she replied, ‘No, sweetie, I asked for the world’s greatest COFFEE, not chocolate. I thought I was facing the end, and I wanted to taste my favorite Starbucks one last time.’

“I slump my head down and then dejectedly look back at Officer Parker, my new friend whose first name I don’t even know, and he gives me a wink. ‘Follow me, boy, we will go find that coffee for your missus!’”