Chapter 11

Excerpt

The stringy-haired blonde stuck her head out the window and yelled a line of obscenities that would have made even a liberal politician blush. I looked at the old, beat-up hillbilly pickup truck in the lane next to us. You’d have thought we put a dent in their Mercedes Benz. A man and two females stared at us, scowls on their faces. Quinn, typical 13-year-old, snickered from the back seat where he’d used a straw like a pea-shooter to blow a small chunk of ice out the window. The projectile bounced off the hillbilly’s truck, melting onto the hot blacktop. The traffic signal turned green and the truck peeled out abruptly with one of the women’s hand still giving me a one-fingered salute.

This was Utah for crying out loud; the land of milk and honey, the land of courteous citizens with friendly smiles and hardy handshakes. The barbarians in the pickup were an anomaly.

“You should have your mouth washed out with soap!” I yelled in return, indignant over the verbal assault and slightly miffed at my son’s recklessness. Having gotten that off my chest, and scolding Quinn for blowing ice at strangers, I turned into the shopping center parking lot. Mr. Redneck and his wife and girlfriend apparently saw us turning into the same shopping center they had turned into, because here they came barreling over speed bumps heading straight for our car. I tried to turn the car around, but it was too late for such a maneuver. In seconds the driver would be pulled up alongside of my window…