“What the hell are they doing?” I asked, just for the sake of asking it. “George, you’re right, something doesn’t seem right–but like you said, they could just be broken down in the one car, guy calls his buddy to come with the second car, they’re taking a break after working on the first car and giving up on it, then they start to move stuff from the first car…but…they’re just waiting for a tow truck now…or…”
“They sure are giving us the eye,” George remarked, then without missing a beat, added, “but it’s not like we’re not giving it to them, too.”
“So if they needed help, they’d get out of the car to greet us, wouldn’t they?” I theorized aloud.
“Probably only if they really needed it,” George replied, “Otherwise they might be leery of us just stopping and looking at them like this.”
“Same if there’s something else going on here,” I speculated, “They don’t want us here one bit.”
George’s recent ordeal wasn’t lost on either of us, of course.
“This stinks,” George said, “I swear I could almost think that’s like a small woman’s body laying on the trunk, wrapped up with towels and bungee cords or something!”
“And on the ground, on the side,” I chimed in, “Same thing. Holy s***. George, we have to find out.”
“I dunno,” George replied, nonetheless reaching over and opening the glove compartment to retrieve his pistol. I had already pulled mine out of my backpack, keeping it low along the door.
“We could just back up aways and try to get a better look,” I offered. I knew we weren’t about to go talk to them on foot, even though that would’ve been the most direct way to find out what was going on.
“We could,” George replied, “or we could just get the hell out of here, and call it in to the police.”
“Or,” I replied, “we could just sit here, and watch them to see what they do, if they approach us, if they get out of the car at all, if they maybe just drive off…”
“We’re miles from anywhere,” George pointed out. “There’s nothing out here. That gas station back there was like 20 miles ago, so who knows how far the nearest cop is from here. By the time they get here, these guys are gone, or it’s too late…” Suddenly realizing he was instinctively making the argument for getting involved, he stopped.
“George, we gotta at least find out if those are women or kids laying there tied up, if they’re alive…we have to get a better look, let’s back up. We don’t have to get out, let’s just back up alongside the second car and just ask the guys if they need any help–there’s no traffic coming at all, so it’s safe.”
“You mean it’s safe like when they suddenly attack us?” George grumbled. “And what happens to us after we have to defend ourselves?”
“We have to take the chance, what if the first car was a couple of women, or a woman and kid broken down we interrupted these guys in the process of robbing and doing whatever to them?” I protested, “We have to just check, like you said, maybe they’re just moving stuff from one car to other and it’s nothing.”
“I don’t know,” said George. “If it’s nothing, and they don’t need or want our help, and if they think we’re trying to rob them or something…” I could see where his mind was.
“Shoot, we don’t even have a cell signal out here,” I realized.
“That settles it,” said George. “Let’s get outta here, I’m not getting into something without even having a way to get the police here if we need ’em. We’ll drive until we get a signal and then call it in.” He put the truck in gear and we started rolling, pulling back onto the road and away from the scene.
I kept trying for cell service, noting the first mile marker I saw, as George drove and kept glancing in the rearview mirror.
We were several more miles down the highway by the time I was able to get the call through to the state police. I gave them every bit of information I could about what we’d seen.
We continued on, not learning what the result, if any, of our “not getting involved” was. We hoped and prayed that it wasn’t disastrous for what we imagined might have been crime victims in dire need of lifesaving intervention, because we chose not to intervene.
What we have learned over the last year and a half is that getting involved is something an otherwise actively concerned citizen is less likely to do, since the politically-motivated, attempted railroading of George Zimmerman.
Leave a Reply