Unauthorized Vacation: Water Fountain?

NOTE:  This is a short chapter as it is a transition to the next installment.

The tracks soon came to a point in the city where Spratt would look suspicious walking on them so he had no other option than to continue on paved streets and sidewalks which left him feeling exposed and vulnerable.  Spratt was familiar with this part of town though and continued walking with the intention of getting to the trestle downtown to cross the river on.  Spratt finally arrived at a recently built park on the riverbank and entered it to get off of the city streets.  At this hour, the park was populated with homeless men and several of them tried to beg some change from Spratt who shrugged them off.  Spratt knew that this park was adjacent to the railroad trestle and continued on the main path which meandered through and traversed the length of the park.  As he came around a looping curve, Spratt’s heart sank; three city police officers were walking side by side, taking up the whole path, towards Spratt. 

            Spratt had no opportunity to duck and hide and knew that any furtive movements would draw attention to him and raise suspicions.  The only thing he could do was to keep walking.  Upon nearing the officers, Spratt asked in a friendly voice, “Excuse me, could you tell me where the nearest water fountain is?”  Spratt felt that some personal interaction while looking them directly in the eyes would lower their guard and not draw near as much suspicion as averting his gaze and ignoring their presence.  The officers pointed out the water fountain as being in the same direction that Spratt had just come from so he had no other choice but to thank the officers and turn around walking a few feet ahead of them until he got to the fountain.  He could not see the officers behind him but they sounded as if they were involved in general conversation and he hoped they didn’t decide to question him about anything.  Spratt stopped at the fountain and bent over to take a drink without looking back at the officers.  He took long, slow gulps of this tepid water to give the cops a chance to pass him but they came up right behind him and stopped.  Spratt turned around to discover the three officers were just patiently waiting their turn at the fountain and, relieved, he continued walking towards the end of the park as one of the trio bent over the fountain without paying any attention to Spratt.

            “Shit!” thought Spratt as he finally reached the end of the park and could see the railroad trestle in the distance, “how many fucking cops does this city have?!?”  He was able to exit the park through a row of bushes set out to delineate the property and got back on the railroad tracks heading towards the trestle.  Spratt had never crossed a railroad trestle before and wondered if there were going to be enough space to walk on the side of it or if he would have to take the long steps between ties and hope not to fall through to the water.  “I’ll find out soon enough!”  Spratt reached a point on the tracks where the wooden structure of the trestle began and started to step up onto it when, out of the corner of his eye, some movement caught his attention.  Directly underneath the trestle, right on the lower part of the embankment, next to the river, was a service road that was closed to the public.  Just to the right, parked facing him, was a marked police car!  “Goddamn!”  Spratt knew that he would be visible to the cop and that it was illegal to trespass on railroad property; crossing the bridge in plain sight would certainly make the cop question him and he needed to avoid any more contact with the cops.  Spratt immediately walked to the side of the tracks without stepping foot on the bridge and followed a sidewalk back to one of the downtown streets.

            Spratt’s only option now was to continue walking to one of the regular vehicle bridges and hope that he didn’t get ‘pulled over’ for crossing as a pedestrian.  He prayed that he would at least make it to the middle of one of those bridges before getting stopped since the middle of the river was the State Line.  Spratt walked a couple of more blocks then took a left for two more blocks when he came to the bottom of a vehicle bridge.  There was a sidewalk on this two-lane bridge and Spratt hoped it wasn’t an unusual event for a pedestrian to cross it.  Spratt started across this bridge without hesitation and a few cars passed him as he approached the middle of the bridge.  He was able to breathe a little easier when he passed a green and white sign proclaiming ‘South Carolina State Line’ with a smaller version of that underneath it announcing the name of the County.  Spratt didn’t relax at all though until he reached the other side of the bridge and set foot on solid ground.  “Thank fucking goodness!” Spratt exclaimed to himself, “At least I’ve made it to another State!”  Spratt continued walking into the darkness without stopping to rest his now sore feet so that he could get as much distance as possible behind him before the sun came up.