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| Drive friendly, now |
The story was in
all the papers statewide. A Texas State Trooper had overtaken a car being
pursued by the County Sheriff’s car, forced it to stop, and then discovered that the driver of the
’57 Chevy was not a criminal but a Deputy Sheriff. And the person driving the County Sheriff’s car was a civilian. Of course, there were pictures of the Deputy, the civilian, the cars, and the State Trooper, and much more.
The year was
1958, the Deputy’s name was Thumper, and the civilian was Juan, a teenage shade
tree mechanic from Balmorhea. The stories in the paper gave the Trooper’s
account big play mostly because the Balmorhea County Sheriff ordered his Deputy to say nothing
to anybody, and because Juan’s mom, Rosario, kept him indoors and made
reporters understand that crossing the property line to her home would result
in consequences they would regret. The long axe handle she carried out to the
fence line whenever reporters approached said everything she needed to say.
In the end,
Thumper didn’t get fired but he lost his seniority and
suffered public humiliation for months afterwards. The judge remanded Juan to his mother’s
custody figuring from the looks she was giving the kid that no court ordered
punishment could surpass what Rosario had in mind.
The whole mess
started when Mike Bennett Jr., ran his dad’s 57 Chevy off the road to avoid
hitting a family of armadillos. He was going fast despite his promise to keep
his speed under 60, swerved off the road and drove over a low pile of rocks.
Luckily, there wasn’t any damage to the bumper or the body but the muffler
had a gash from one end to the other and a hole the size of a silver dollar.
However, even if you couldn’t see any damage, you could hear it. Before the
damage the engine sound was a low rumbling whisper. Now each explosion from the eight
cylinder engine sounded like a gunshot.
Mike Bennett Sr. didn’t buy the armadillo story and revoked his boy's driving privileges for 50 years.
Juan was a self
taught mechanic just turned 19. He was known for honest work, low prices, and a
scrupulously clean garage. If you needed a tool he would gladly lend it to you but
would give you the dead eye if it wasn’t clean when you returned it. He looked
at the hole in Mr. Bennett’s muffler and said he could rivet a patch over it
and the thing would be good as new. No problem. You can pick it up tomorrow.
As promised, the
car was ready the next day. When Mr. Bennett came by to pay up, Juan got in the
driver’s seat, started the motor and revved it twice. The sweet sound of the
283 V8 was sublime to Juan’s ears. At that moment he would be hard pressed to
choose between the Chevy and his girlfriend. He left the engine running and got
out of the car.
“Sounds real
good. Whada I owe you, Juan?”
“Ten dollars. I
checked the oil and water, too.”
Mr. Bennett pulled
a 10 out of his wallet. Juan rested his behind on the fender, looked at the
money then back at car.
“Tell you what,
Mr. Bennett. I’ll trade you that 10 for your permission to drive the car from
here to Fort Davis
and back. It’s only 40 miles and it’ll blow out the carbon on the valves. Deal?
I’ll be back before you know it.”
The deal was
struck. Bennett went to Rosario's Good Luck Bakery for coffee and a donut while he waited for Juan's return.
Three
minutes later Juan was on SR17 heading south from Balmorhea to Fort Davis. He cruised at 60 for a while then took it up to 70,
then 75 by the time he whooshed past the Balmorhea State Park where Deputy
Thumper was waking from his usual morning nap under the trees.
Balmorhea is
farm and ranch country out in the West Texas desert 200 miles east of El Paso and 350 miles northwest of San Antonio with nothing in between.
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| Balmorhea, the Oasis of West Texas |
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| Where the deer and the antelope play Country Music 24/7 |
It took a minute
for Juan to notice the cop car closing fast behind him but when he did he knew
he was in a lot of trouble; not for speeding, not for leaving his driver’s
license at home. No, his big trouble was scarier than any judge, jury, or jail.
It was his mother, Rosario.
Rosario
was a very old forty-two. Her family had come to Texas as migrants to work the melon fields sometime in the
late 1930’s. They followed the harvests across the country year after year.
Spring and summer they worked the melon fields in South Texas then moved on to
the upper Midwest to the cranberry and bean harvests; back to Texas in the Fall
for the dreaded back breaking short hoe [1] work in the lettuce and onion fields. The men and women who wintered in the Midwest worked construction jobs or found work in slaughterhouses and kitchens.
It wasn’t a way of life for the weak. The ones that survived were tough.
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| Back breaker |
Sometime in 1938 Rosario married a young man from Balmorhea and she stayed behind
when her family moved on to the harvests in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Soon after her son was born she was left to fend for
herself when her husband was killed in a hay baling accident. A young woman with
a baby, no husband, and no family, she found work cleaning ovens and scrubbing
baking pans in a bakery. A few years later she opened her own bakery.
Years of keeping
a low profile because of her immigration status taught her to obey every single
ordinance, law, and local custom to the nth degree. Ever mindful that she and
her son could be deported for the smallest infraction or social slight she made
certain that Juan knew those risks as well as the dangers of disobeying her. So
as soon as he saw the Deputy’s cruiser in the rearview mirror, Juan worried
about what his mother would think and what she might do.
Thumper
recognized Juan in the driver’s seat and canceled the stolen car call to the
Sheriff’s office.
“Nice day for a
drive on the open road, son, but by my reckoning you were a good 20 miles over the limit. I know I don’t have to check with
Mr. Bennett to see if you’re telling the truth about your deal. On the other hand,
I can’t let you go so easy. I have a sworn duty to uphold the law. Speeding is a public hazard and you don’t have your driver’s license
either. ”
Juan remembered Rosario’s rules: Never argue with a policeman even if he’s
wrong. Never beg for a break because it makes you look weak. But despite his
mother’s admonitions he tried to explain.
“I just couldn’t
help it, Thumper. You know my car. I work on it all the time but there’s so
many things wrong I can’t drive it over 40 miles an hour. A car like this is a dream. It’s solid and
the V8 has more power than any car I’ve ever driven. I just had
to do it just once.”
Thumper stepped
back a couple of paces and looked at the white-over-powder blue Chevy and had
to admit to himself that he, too, coveted a car like that; great
styling, beautiful interior, a powerful short-block V8, and PowerGlide automatic transmission. For a long moment he imagined himself in the
driver's seat, left hand on the wheel and his right arm over his girl’s
shoulders, cruising to all the way to Midland for a night out on the town.
“Juan, I’m going
to propose something but you gotta promise it’ll stay between you and me.
Anybody finds out I could lose my job and you might go to jail.
“The next 15 miles the road is straight as a ruler. You and me trade
cars, drive as far as mile marker 98 and trade cars again. Nobody finds
out. Nobody. I let you go like nothing happened. Ok?”
Juan didn’t know
what to think. He twitched when he thought he heard his mother say, “Don’t argue
with a cop even if he’s wrong”.
“Well, ok, Thumper, but
only to mile marker 98. And go easy. I don’t want anything to happen to Mr.
Bennett’s car.”
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| The road's straight. The car's pointed straight. What could go wrong? |
Off they went,
Thumper in the lead, Juan in the cruiser close behind. At first, the Deputy
stayed at the speed limit and Juan was having fun driving a cop car. But guys
are guys and cars are cars. Put guys and cars together and they'll find a way to
get into some kind of trouble. It doesn’t take long.
Thumper stepped
on the gas and the V8 jumped from 50 to 60 in a flash. Seeing the Chevy accelerate like that, Juan
sped up to keep pace. The speed was addictive, the race was on. Juan goosed the
cruiser, speeding up until he was parallel with the Chevy. Thumper bumped it up
to 70 and Juan did the same. They were bumper to bumper then Thumper floored
the gas pedal and the Chevy bounded ahead.
They were having
so much fun neither of them saw the State Trooper idling on the shoulder. He
radioed Trooper headquarters in Fort Davis and the Sheriff’s office in Balmorhea reporting a
deputy sheriff in hot pursuit of a white-over-powder blue 57 Chevy. With lights
flashing and siren whining he took off after the cruiser and the Chevy. To his
surprise, the cruiser pulled over right away but the Chevy kept on going.
What the hell?
Some kid was driving the cruiser. There was no time to ask questions so he took
the keys out of the ignition, handcuffed Juan to the steering wheel, jumped in
his car to catch up to the Chevy.
Sheriff Jaxson was at the drive in window at Rosario's Good Luck Bakery on a donut run when the dispatcher relayed the State Trooper's hot pursuit call. He ordered a deputy to find Thumper's cruiser on the 17 and report back. Rosario, who was at the drive in window, overheard the radio call and knew instantly that the car was Bennett's Chevy and the 'kid' was Juan. Thinking fast about what Bennett might do if he heard something was going on with his car, Rosario casually asked him to mind the bakery while she went to the Post Office to get some packages. Oh, and help yourself to some more coffee and donuts --- on the house. She was out the door, in her truck, and on SR17 South in under a minute.
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| And a dozen to go |
Thumper was in
trouble. The accelerator linkage had jammed when he floored the gas pedal. He
was now traveling at 85 miles an hour with no way to stop. He tried to remove the
key but the PowerGlide transmission’s safety pawl was designed to prevent
accidental or intentional removal of the key while the car was in Drive. He dug
his foot under the gas pedal, frantically trying to pull it loose. The soft metal rivets on the muffler patch melted away, the patch fell off and the suddenly roaring V8 sounded like a runaway freight train.
In the meantime,
the State Trooper was catching up while a few miles down the road other Troopers
were setting up a roadblock.
The Chevy wasn’t
slowing down even though there was no way the driver hadn’t seen the State
Trooper's flashing lights. They continued this way for several minutes then the Trooper
decided to force the Chevy off the road but when he pulled up door to door he
saw it was Thumper driving. He was red faced, twisting around in the seat, and
yelling something that the Trooper couldn’t hear over the Chevy's thundering exhaust.
They were still
going bumper to bumper when they saw the roadblock a quarter mile ahead. At that
speed there was no way to avoid a roll over if they went off the road. The Trooper slowed down and watched as the Chevy barreled towards a collision with
the barricades at 85 miles an hour.
Thumper closed
his eyes, resigned to whatever fate would follow. Fate obliged by sucking up the last drop of gas in the tank. The surging V8 stalled and the Chevy rolled to a stop a few feet from the barricades.
A cub reporter
from the Daily Excuse made his bones and earned a byline that
day. He took dozens of pictures --- the Troopers at the barricades, guns drawn,
watching the hurtling Chevy limp to a stop; pictures of the Troopers, no longer grim professionals, laughing and mugging for the
camera. He took twenty photos of the Balmorhea County Sheriff arriving at the
scene, haranguing his humiliated Deputy without pause for a solid 12 minutes. And a single closeup of Rosario getting out of her pickup, her eyes fixed on Juan in the Deputy's car.
Footnote [1]
