Girl in the Headlights
Lawrence F. Farrar
Greg Ingram and Jack Miller, his Wilherst College classmate, headed back to campus from a road trip to Lake Champlain College. The late night blacktop stretched ahead, illuminated only by a freshening moon. They’d encountered no other vehicle for fifteen minutes.
But, now, peering across the steering wheel of his tired “61 Ford, Greg made out the lights of a car stopped off the road a mile ahead, its flashers pulsing red.
He belched. The taste of the last brewski traveled with him.
“Might be having problems,” Greg said. “We’d better stop.”
Tie at half-mast, sleeved rolled up, and jacket flung over the seatback, Greg was a slim, clean-shaven, twenty-one-year old. Already losing some of his brown hair, Greg kept what he had long and combed over. He had a mid-range voice he sought to purge of its Midwestern tells. But You betchas and Don’tcha knows still peppered his speech. Never accused of being a deep thinker, he was less sophisticated than he fancied himself to be. Life had given him pretty much all he wanted; he’d lived without penalty. Still, he had a good instinct for doing the right thing. He was, in the view of classmates, a good guy.
A slim twenty-year-old, Jack had on chino pants, a button-down shirt, and de rigueur dirty white bucks. His blond hair long unattended, he needed a haircut. He tended to show incredulity at anything passionate. Greg described him as a nay-sayer par excellence.
The car radio crackled with static. Earlier, like some country and western wannabe, red-faced, Jack had sought to harmonize with Freddie Hart’s “Easy Loving.” When Greg first called his attention to the off-road vehicle, he’d ignored him and wondered aloud if a claim of “bone spurs” might enable him to escape the Viet Nam draft.
Finally responding to Greg’s repeated suggestion that they stop, Jack said, “Maybe it’s best we keep going. None of our business.”
Greg ignored him, and moments later they pulled off the road opposite a Mercedes facing them at a cockamamie angle. It seemed an anomaly; the car out of place. Like some unwanted intruder, it occupied an ill-lit refuge in a universe of darkness.
Stepping on to the road, Greg called out, “Everybody okay?
A female voice wafted through an open car window. “We’re fine.” The speaker seemed confidant.
Nonetheless, Greg sought to reassure her. “It’s okay. We’re Wilherst students. I’m Greg and this is Jack. We’d like to offer our help if you need some.”
The shadowed form of a young woman emerged from the car and into the uneven illumination provided by the car’s headlights. “We’re okay,” she said. ”Just a little off course.”
Greg made out the figures of two more people in the car.
“I’m Sally. On our way back to Champlain,” the girl said. “Got a little drowsy, I guess, and just sort of drifted off the road.”
A tall girl, outfitted in slacks and a pull-over sweater, Sally was the victim of a collapsed beehive hairdo. Viewed through splashes of light, her hair appeared to be dark blond. While other features were difficult to make out, Greg suspected she was a bit on the plus size.
“We’re like phantoms in this light,” Greg said. “It would be better if we could see each other more clearly.”
She laughed. “No. It’s great this way. You can’t see my freckles.” Her voice smiled.
Did she really have freckles? In any case, he was struck by her confident and easy-going manner. Who was she? He wanted to know more.
What truly seized his attention was the music in her voice, at once provocative and happy. And he liked her laugh, full and knowing. He thought later that she sounded sophisticated, like the movie actress Katherine Hepburn.
Arms folded, Greg said, “How can we help?”
“We can’t seem to get any traction. We tried to push, but the wheels just spin.”
Greg stepped back to consider the situation, the silence of the summer night broken only by croaking frogs and chirping crickets. Greg gnawed on the bow of his glasses, as if engaged in deep thought.
“Looks like you found a stretch of loose gravel,” he said. “We can give you a hand to get out.”
A second young woman, came out of the car into the patch illuminated by the headlights. “I’m Marilyn,” she said. “Roommate.”
“That’s Patty in the back seat,” Sally said. “She is a bit inebriated.”
Greg thought all three girls appeared sleep-starved and “a bit inebriated.”
As if in confirmation, Patty’s voice, happily slurred, issued from the back seat. “Anybody want a beer?”
“Let’s see if we can get your car back on the road,” Greg said, like someone now seized with authority. “Let’s try rocking it.”
With Sally at the wheel and the young men and Marilyn pushing, they soon had the Mercedes back on the shoulder ready to go.
Leaning against the car, they paused to appreciate their success as the full radiance of the moon embraced them. For a time, a kind of serenity prevailed. It felt good to have accomplished the task.
“Really want to thank you,” Sally said. “I was worried I might have to end up explaining any damage to my dad.”
A truck slowed, flashed its lights, then rumbled by breaking their sense of isolation.
The car radio played on. Otis Redding emoted about “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay.”
“Nice music,” Glen said.
“A bit saccharine,” Sally said. “But good to hear out here in the middle of nowhere.”
Was it the girl herself or simply the idea of the girl that attracted him? Glen experienced a frisson of excitement and unbidden libidinous fantasies. Maybe they could get to know each other better. They spoke briefly of mutual acquaintances, graduation plans, music, and movies they enjoyed. They agreed that The Graduate constituted a kind of breakthrough.
But, then, too soon from Glen’s perspective, Sally said, “Thanks a lot. Really appreciate the help. We’d better be on our way.” Little more than an hour had passed since Glen had stopped to offer help.
Greg responded quickly. “I think you guys have had a long night. Why don’t you let me drive you back in your car? Jack can follow us. We have no classes tomorrow.” It was a stretch, but the girls’ situation had already tapped Greg’s well of helpfulness. More than that, he had immediately been drawn to Sally. He’d conjured up more from the situation than was warranted, but tugged hard by the talons of curiosity, he wanted to see more of her.
“Thanks, Greg. But we’re good to go. We’ve had a break. If we get tired we’ll pull over and take a rest. It’s only another thirty miles or so.”
Greg remained unimpressed. “Come on,” he said again,” Why don’t you let us drive you?” He tried to convince himself that he was without an ulterior motive, that he was simply motivated by altruism, by a concern for the coeds well-being. But who was he kidding? It seemed more.
Time, like the rising breeze, pushed by. “Won’t you at least stay a bit longer? Make sure you’re ready to travel?”
Marilyn agreed. “Maybe we should wait until it gets light.”
“No,” Sally said. “We appreciate the offer. But, like I said, we’re good to go.” She dismissed Greg’s offer with a wave of the hand. The edge in her voice seemed to signal that he’d implied her incompetence to drive on. He supposed he had. Consequently, he felt constrained about again trying to dissuade her from going on. He told himself he’d tried. However, he remained unconvinced.
His effort to delay the girls’departure had foundered. Nonetheless, Greg’s imagination pressed ahead. Undaunted, he asked Sally for her phone number. He said he needed it to “follow up,” whatever that might mean.
Sally searched a pocket and retrieved a name card. It seemed a chimeric quest; but he could hope.
“You’ve been helpful. Feel free to give me a call.” She delivered an innocent embrace to each of the young men and climbed into the car. Marilyn followed her.
Sally’s response amounted to little more than simple courtesy. But Greg saw it as a ticket to another encounter, one under more favorable circumstances.
Jack spoke up. “It’s not our business, Greg. You asked them. She said no thanks. That’s good enough for me.”
“They shouldn’t be driving,” Greg said.
“Hell, they made it this far. Like she said, they are almost back. Let’s not get too involved. What if something happens?”
“That’s exactly why we should get involved. So something doesn’t happen.”
“You asked. They said no thanks. That’s good enough for me.”
Greg experienced a sense of unease. He knew that going along with the girl’s decision was wrong. He should have pushed harder. But, he hadn’t.
Greg and Jack stood rooted like the pines rising above them as they watched the Mercedes’s tail lights disappear. The gossamer silence again became complete, save for the distant call of loons in flight.
“You’re just hoping to make it with her. Right?” Jack said.
Greg didn’t answer.
The risen breeze traipsed across the tree tops.
~ ~ ~
Greg slept fitfully, woke up disoriented, and killed time waiting to pick up the phone. Morning reddened the sky beyond his bedroom window. How early would a call be acceptable? He wanted to follow up.
Unable to restrain himself longer, he’d dialed the number on Sally’s card just before 10 o’clock. The phone rang and rang.
At last, a girl answered. It was a muffled “hello.”
“I’d like to speak to Sally.”
A moment of silence and then a quavering voice, “Whoever you are, haven’t you heard about the accident?”
“What accident?” Greg said. A sense of dread swept through him.
“Accident last night. Went off road. Hit a tree.” Sally’s dead.” The girl spoke with difficulty. “Two other girls injured, but ok. I can’t talk. Call the Dean’s Office. Maybe you’re the ones the police are looking for.” She hung up.
Greg experienced a rush of self-criticism. His intuition had been right. He should have been more persuasive. He should have pushed harder. He should have taken the keys. He should have . . . Something.
He knew it wasn’t so; yet he felt responsible. His well-meaning efforts had been to no avail. He sought to conjure an explanation. Perhaps there’d been a deer. Perhaps there was a headlight failure. Perhaps there had been another car. But none of these ideas satisfied. She’d likely simply nodded off. His immediate response was one of regret. His later response, too, was one of regret, enduring regret.
Had that feeling of guilt destroyed his life? Probably not. But it surely had affected it. It had simply been a brief roadside encounter on a dark night, but one that would stay with him forever. He’d tried but failed. Could he have done more? Could he have done more?
Lawrence F. Farrar
Greg Ingram and Jack Miller, his Wilherst College classmate, headed back to campus from a road trip to Lake Champlain College. The late night blacktop stretched ahead, illuminated only by a freshening moon. They’d encountered no other vehicle for fifteen minutes.
But, now, peering across the steering wheel of his tired “61 Ford, Greg made out the lights of a car stopped off the road a mile ahead, its flashers pulsing red.
He belched. The taste of the last brewski traveled with him.
“Might be having problems,” Greg said. “We’d better stop.”
Tie at half-mast, sleeved rolled up, and jacket flung over the seatback, Greg was a slim, clean-shaven, twenty-one-year old. Already losing some of his brown hair, Greg kept what he had long and combed over. He had a mid-range voice he sought to purge of its Midwestern tells. But You betchas and Don’tcha knows still peppered his speech. Never accused of being a deep thinker, he was less sophisticated than he fancied himself to be. Life had given him pretty much all he wanted; he’d lived without penalty. Still, he had a good instinct for doing the right thing. He was, in the view of classmates, a good guy.
A slim twenty-year-old, Jack had on chino pants, a button-down shirt, and de rigueur dirty white bucks. His blond hair long unattended, he needed a haircut. He tended to show incredulity at anything passionate. Greg described him as a nay-sayer par excellence.
The car radio crackled with static. Earlier, like some country and western wannabe, red-faced, Jack had sought to harmonize with Freddie Hart’s “Easy Loving.” When Greg first called his attention to the off-road vehicle, he’d ignored him and wondered aloud if a claim of “bone spurs” might enable him to escape the Viet Nam draft.
Finally responding to Greg’s repeated suggestion that they stop, Jack said, “Maybe it’s best we keep going. None of our business.”
Greg ignored him, and moments later they pulled off the road opposite a Mercedes facing them at a cockamamie angle. It seemed an anomaly; the car out of place. Like some unwanted intruder, it occupied an ill-lit refuge in a universe of darkness.
Stepping on to the road, Greg called out, “Everybody okay?
A female voice wafted through an open car window. “We’re fine.” The speaker seemed confidant.
Nonetheless, Greg sought to reassure her. “It’s okay. We’re Wilherst students. I’m Greg and this is Jack. We’d like to offer our help if you need some.”
The shadowed form of a young woman emerged from the car and into the uneven illumination provided by the car’s headlights. “We’re okay,” she said. ”Just a little off course.”
Greg made out the figures of two more people in the car.
“I’m Sally. On our way back to Champlain,” the girl said. “Got a little drowsy, I guess, and just sort of drifted off the road.”
A tall girl, outfitted in slacks and a pull-over sweater, Sally was the victim of a collapsed beehive hairdo. Viewed through splashes of light, her hair appeared to be dark blond. While other features were difficult to make out, Greg suspected she was a bit on the plus size.
“We’re like phantoms in this light,” Greg said. “It would be better if we could see each other more clearly.”
She laughed. “No. It’s great this way. You can’t see my freckles.” Her voice smiled.
Did she really have freckles? In any case, he was struck by her confident and easy-going manner. Who was she? He wanted to know more.
What truly seized his attention was the music in her voice, at once provocative and happy. And he liked her laugh, full and knowing. He thought later that she sounded sophisticated, like the movie actress Katherine Hepburn.
Arms folded, Greg said, “How can we help?”
“We can’t seem to get any traction. We tried to push, but the wheels just spin.”
Greg stepped back to consider the situation, the silence of the summer night broken only by croaking frogs and chirping crickets. Greg gnawed on the bow of his glasses, as if engaged in deep thought.
“Looks like you found a stretch of loose gravel,” he said. “We can give you a hand to get out.”
A second young woman, came out of the car into the patch illuminated by the headlights. “I’m Marilyn,” she said. “Roommate.”
“That’s Patty in the back seat,” Sally said. “She is a bit inebriated.”
Greg thought all three girls appeared sleep-starved and “a bit inebriated.”
As if in confirmation, Patty’s voice, happily slurred, issued from the back seat. “Anybody want a beer?”
“Let’s see if we can get your car back on the road,” Greg said, like someone now seized with authority. “Let’s try rocking it.”
With Sally at the wheel and the young men and Marilyn pushing, they soon had the Mercedes back on the shoulder ready to go.
Leaning against the car, they paused to appreciate their success as the full radiance of the moon embraced them. For a time, a kind of serenity prevailed. It felt good to have accomplished the task.
“Really want to thank you,” Sally said. “I was worried I might have to end up explaining any damage to my dad.”
A truck slowed, flashed its lights, then rumbled by breaking their sense of isolation.
The car radio played on. Otis Redding emoted about “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay.”
“Nice music,” Glen said.
“A bit saccharine,” Sally said. “But good to hear out here in the middle of nowhere.”
Was it the girl herself or simply the idea of the girl that attracted him? Glen experienced a frisson of excitement and unbidden libidinous fantasies. Maybe they could get to know each other better. They spoke briefly of mutual acquaintances, graduation plans, music, and movies they enjoyed. They agreed that The Graduate constituted a kind of breakthrough.
But, then, too soon from Glen’s perspective, Sally said, “Thanks a lot. Really appreciate the help. We’d better be on our way.” Little more than an hour had passed since Glen had stopped to offer help.
Greg responded quickly. “I think you guys have had a long night. Why don’t you let me drive you back in your car? Jack can follow us. We have no classes tomorrow.” It was a stretch, but the girls’ situation had already tapped Greg’s well of helpfulness. More than that, he had immediately been drawn to Sally. He’d conjured up more from the situation than was warranted, but tugged hard by the talons of curiosity, he wanted to see more of her.
“Thanks, Greg. But we’re good to go. We’ve had a break. If we get tired we’ll pull over and take a rest. It’s only another thirty miles or so.”
Greg remained unimpressed. “Come on,” he said again,” Why don’t you let us drive you?” He tried to convince himself that he was without an ulterior motive, that he was simply motivated by altruism, by a concern for the coeds well-being. But who was he kidding? It seemed more.
Time, like the rising breeze, pushed by. “Won’t you at least stay a bit longer? Make sure you’re ready to travel?”
Marilyn agreed. “Maybe we should wait until it gets light.”
“No,” Sally said. “We appreciate the offer. But, like I said, we’re good to go.” She dismissed Greg’s offer with a wave of the hand. The edge in her voice seemed to signal that he’d implied her incompetence to drive on. He supposed he had. Consequently, he felt constrained about again trying to dissuade her from going on. He told himself he’d tried. However, he remained unconvinced.
His effort to delay the girls’departure had foundered. Nonetheless, Greg’s imagination pressed ahead. Undaunted, he asked Sally for her phone number. He said he needed it to “follow up,” whatever that might mean.
Sally searched a pocket and retrieved a name card. It seemed a chimeric quest; but he could hope.
“You’ve been helpful. Feel free to give me a call.” She delivered an innocent embrace to each of the young men and climbed into the car. Marilyn followed her.
Sally’s response amounted to little more than simple courtesy. But Greg saw it as a ticket to another encounter, one under more favorable circumstances.
Jack spoke up. “It’s not our business, Greg. You asked them. She said no thanks. That’s good enough for me.”
“They shouldn’t be driving,” Greg said.
“Hell, they made it this far. Like she said, they are almost back. Let’s not get too involved. What if something happens?”
“That’s exactly why we should get involved. So something doesn’t happen.”
“You asked. They said no thanks. That’s good enough for me.”
Greg experienced a sense of unease. He knew that going along with the girl’s decision was wrong. He should have pushed harder. But, he hadn’t.
Greg and Jack stood rooted like the pines rising above them as they watched the Mercedes’s tail lights disappear. The gossamer silence again became complete, save for the distant call of loons in flight.
“You’re just hoping to make it with her. Right?” Jack said.
Greg didn’t answer.
The risen breeze traipsed across the tree tops.
~ ~ ~
Greg slept fitfully, woke up disoriented, and killed time waiting to pick up the phone. Morning reddened the sky beyond his bedroom window. How early would a call be acceptable? He wanted to follow up.
Unable to restrain himself longer, he’d dialed the number on Sally’s card just before 10 o’clock. The phone rang and rang.
At last, a girl answered. It was a muffled “hello.”
“I’d like to speak to Sally.”
A moment of silence and then a quavering voice, “Whoever you are, haven’t you heard about the accident?”
“What accident?” Greg said. A sense of dread swept through him.
“Accident last night. Went off road. Hit a tree.” Sally’s dead.” The girl spoke with difficulty. “Two other girls injured, but ok. I can’t talk. Call the Dean’s Office. Maybe you’re the ones the police are looking for.” She hung up.
Greg experienced a rush of self-criticism. His intuition had been right. He should have been more persuasive. He should have pushed harder. He should have taken the keys. He should have . . . Something.
He knew it wasn’t so; yet he felt responsible. His well-meaning efforts had been to no avail. He sought to conjure an explanation. Perhaps there’d been a deer. Perhaps there was a headlight failure. Perhaps there had been another car. But none of these ideas satisfied. She’d likely simply nodded off. His immediate response was one of regret. His later response, too, was one of regret, enduring regret.
Had that feeling of guilt destroyed his life? Probably not. But it surely had affected it. It had simply been a brief roadside encounter on a dark night, but one that would stay with him forever. He’d tried but failed. Could he have done more? Could he have done more?
