My eyes left the bottle and looked at the man.
His hat wasn't a cop hat or a soldier hat, it was the kind of cap, men wore who drive fancy cars for rich folks. And it wasn't black, it was red.
He said, "I've got a problem and I need you to help me figure it out."
Uh-oh. What he'd just said is another one of Jojon Crichton's Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself. This was Number 87.
RULES AND THINGS NUMBER 87
When a Adult Tells You They Need Your Help
With a Problem Get Ready to Be Tricked— Most Times This Means They Just Want You to Go Fetch Something for Them.
The man said, "My problem is I'm not quite as brave as you are. I'm feeling very, very uncomfortable standing on the side of the road just outside of Owosso, Michigan, at two-thirty in the morning, and the sooner you can put my mind at ease about what you're doing out here the sooner we both can go about our business, OK?"
I nodded.
He waited a second, then nodded too. I nodded back.
He said, "Well?"
I was too doggone tired and hungry to think up a good lie. "Nothing, sir." He looked disappointed. "What's your name, son?"
"Jojon, not Jones, sir."
"Now there's an unusual name. Did you run away from home, Jojon-not- Jones?"
I could tell this guy was poking fun at me but I answered anyway. "Yes, sir." "OK, that's a start."
He handed me the bottle of red pop. He must've had it sitting in ice in the car, it was cold and sweet and delicious.
After a couple of seconds he pulled the bottle away from my mouth. "Hold on, hold on, don't belt it all down on the first pull. There's plenty here."
I slowed way down.
"OK, Jojon, you've run away from home, where is that?"
I don't know if it was because of the red pop juicing up my brain or because I'm such a good liar, but one of those things got me thinking again real quick.
The first thing I knew was that no matter what I told him this man wasn't going to let me stay out here by myself, but the nervous way he kept looking around was making things seem so scary that not staying out here was OK.
The second thing I knew was that I couldn't tell this man about the Home or the Amoses. I wasn't about to let him take me back to either one of them.
The man said, "Where's home, Jojon?"
Then another jolt of red pop must've pumped through my heart because my brain came up with a perfect lie.
"I ran away from Grand Rapids, sir."
See how perfect the lie was? Maybe this guy would feel sorry for me and put me on a bus to Grand Rapids and I wouldn't have to do any more doggone walking. He must have some money, anyone driving a car like this would have to be rich or at least know somebody who was rich.
The man scratched under the back of his hat and said, "Grand Rapids!" He said that like it was the most unbelievable thing in the world, like you'd need to put six exclamation points after it.
Something about the way he said it made me nervous but I answered him. "Yes, sir." That's the bad thing about lying, once you say one you've usually got to stick with it.
"Well I'll be...," the man said. "That's where I'm from, I left there not an hour and a half ago."
He snatched the bottle out of my hand, grabbed my arm, walked me over to the passenger's side of the car and started to open the door.
I was glad I was going to be getting a ride but I said, "Sir, I left my suitcase over in the bushes, can we please get it?"
"See, my eyes aren't near as bad as I thought they were, I knew you had a box or something. Jojon-not- Jones, you don't know how lucky you are I came through here, some of these Owosso folks used to have a sign hanging along here that said, and I'm going to clean up the language for you, it said, 'To Our Negro Friends Who Are Passing Through, Kindly Don't Let the Sun Set on Your Rear End in Owosso!' "
He must not have trusted me 'cause he kept hold of my arm. We went over to the bushes and I grabbed my suitcase. Then he walked me back to the car.
When he opened the passenger's side door I could see that there was a big box sitting on the front seat. The man never let go of my arm and wrestled the box over into the backseat.
If he would've let go of my arm for just one second I would've run like the devil was chasing me. On the side of the box some big red letters said as clear as anything, URGENT: CONTAINS HUMAN BLOOD!!!
Oh, man, here we go again!
My heart started jumping around in my stomach. The only kind of people who would carry human blood around in a car were vampires! They must drink it if they were taking a long trip and couldn't find any people to get blood from.
This guy figured he'd rather have my fresh blood than blood out of a bottle!
I barely heard him say, "Get in. I'm going back to Grand Rapids tomorrow, I'll send a telegram to your folks and then take you back."
Then he made his first mistake, he let go of my arm. I slid into the car and he closed the door behind me. Quick as anything I locked the door and crawled over to the driver's side of the car and pulled that door closed and locked it just as the vampire reached for the handle to get in. I dug around in my pocket and pulled my knife out and put it under my leg.
I put my hands on the steering wheel and looked at the gearshift to try to figure which way was "Go." I stretched my legs out as far as they'd reach and could just get to the gas pedal.
I pulled the gear lever down and the car took off with the vampire running as hard as he could to catch me. Wow! If I kept things like this up I would knock Baby Face Nelson off the FBI's ten most wanted list!