ESCAPED WATER FELONS RUN THE RIVER TOWARDS HOME

BY Dave Frederick

Crossing the Saint George's Bridge at twilight on a Saturday night in late
April 1983, heading south and homeward bound, all was right with Cape high
school track team and their Coach. We were coming up on the climax of an
undefeated season and had run well at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia earlier
in the day. Some of the seniors in the van of seven people I had known since
they were in third grade. We were a multicultural group and we all had great
affection for each other. Cruising into Southern Delaware we were now "below
the canal" with 70 miles to travel to reach the ocean. But in our heads we
were already in the backyard of down home Delaware.

I was tapping the steering wheel to the rhythm of the radio beat making sweet
time in the passing lane like a Villanova sprinter on the anchor leg of the
mile relay. The sky was reddish blue and cast an eerie shadow of the New
Jersey Salem Nuclear Power Plant.

"They got you Fredman," sweet James said from one of the back seats. "Coach
Fredman about to get him a ticket and lose some money too!"

I looked into the mirror and saw a police car with two cops and its lights
flashing. "Nonsense," I screamed. "I couldn't have been doing much more the
60. This is total nonsense!"

I pulled over to the side and jammed the van up into park. We were in the
middle of nowhere with farmers fields all around as the sound of speeding
cars broke the tranquility of a peaceful twilight.

"Why don't you go back there and see what they want Fredman," James said.

"Why don't you", I answered? "This is BS!"

"Hey Fredman! The cop is talking to you on the bullhorn, " James said,
continuing to be the eyes and ears in the back of my head. I rolled down the
driver's side window.

"Can you hear me," was the amplified question? "Now how am I supposed to play
this game when they have a bullhorn and I don't," I said out loud.

"Fredman crazy, "said Donald. "Fredman, you are crazy American coach, "said
Swedish exchange student Axel Sjoblad. I waved my arm to indicate I could
hear. Minutes went by but nothing happened.

"Fredman, one guy is walking real low to the ground going out in the field,"
James said. "He's carrying a flashlight."

"Who are you the Howard Cosell play by play man of roadside arrests, "I asked
James. Everybody in the van laughed." He got a gun," James screamed as
everybody in the back hit the floor! Only Darren Purcell, seated in the front
passengers seat, and I remained upright.

From out of the rapidly fading daylight of the field came a nervous cop who
was a dead ringer for the Don Knotts character in the movie," The Apple
Dumpling Gang." I was looking straight down the barrel of a loaded gun that
was jumping around all over the place. Darren leaned back so the nervous
officer could get a clean shot at my head.

"Thanks a lot Darren," I said out loud. "Your true instincts are coming out!
I've been your mentor and role model for a lifetime and your giving me up for
a clear bow shot!" I could hear Tim and Donald laughing from the floor of the
backseat.

"Would you please pass your license out here, " the nervous cop said the gun
still pointed at my head. "I don't know who you think we is but we ain't
them," I said sarcastically.

"Just pass the license out here sir!" I passed the plastic to Darren who
passed it to the cop keeping his body pressed back against the seat.

"This is a Western Auto credit card sir. I will be requiring a license!"

"Quit playin Fredman," James whisper screamed from somewhere under a back
bench seat.

"License coming out here boss," I said as we exchanged cards. The cop read
the license in the poor lighting for reading small print. " Sorry to bother
you Mr. Davis," He said backing away. "Mr. Davis," I thought, knowing that he
never got by my first name, David.

I sat perfectly still until the cop car, its lights flashing, pulled around
us and headed south. I sat still for an additional two minutes. Athletes
returned to their seats. Darren became less rigid no longer worried about
being in the line of fire.

"You common Darren, "I joked. "Of all people you be the one giving me up! And
the rest of you cowards lying on the floor."

"Fredman, the cop left his flashlight on in the field," James said. "Those
cop flashlights are heavy chrome with red lights on the back and expensive."

"That's fine James. We'll all wait here in the safety of the van while you go
out there and get that flashlight. I just hope there's not a third armed and
nervous cop on the other end of it!"

"You crazy Fredman, " James said. Ain't nobody in this van going out in that
field unless it be you!"

I threw the shifter into drive and we resumed the race home amidst wild
speculation as to what just happened and why. I said nothing because I
instinctively knew our adventure was in the beginning stages.

I often joked that the Delaware town of Smyrna was notable for two landmarks,
the Water Tower with its bold red lettering and the Rest Stop, which is
downstate Delaware's answer to Longwood Gardens. I never mentioned the Smyrna
prison.

Approaching a traffic light I looked across the highway into the Rest Stop
parking lot and spotted a brigade of pickup trucks and a bunch of flannel
shirt wearing redneck types leaning against the hoods and tailgates. "Aren't
we going to stop," Donald asked. "Sure why not," I joked? "We may look like
somebody the entire state is hunting for, but at least we have several black
people on board as well. You know, a little something for every hate
mongering moron."

The kids had no idea what I was talking about. Passing out of Smyrna James
sounded the alarm once again. Fredman they're on you again. The man has a red
light on his dashboard and he's waving for you to pull over."

"I ain't pulling over until I get to a populated area that's lighted, "I
said. These people are crazy. I don't want to get shot"!

I pulled into a strip shopping center but all the stores were closed. I
stopped under an overhead light near a phone booth close to the highway.
James was on duty. "There's a man out on the grass Fredman. He's wearing a
suit! He got a gun Fredman"!

Everybody in the back went down on the floor. I looked out of the side window
and this plain clothes B Movie detective looking character was standing in
the grass. His coat was pulled back so I could see the gun.

"Would you please step out of the van sir." I jumped down and started walking
towards him. "Would you please stop where you are and get your hands out of
your pockets?" I raised my hands up into the air. All eyes were peering from
the bottom of the van's windows. "The dude's drawing down on Fredman," James
yelled.

"That's not necessary," the cop said. "You can put your hands down!" "Hey
it's your game homeboy! I'm just passing through!"

The man got a nod from his partner back in the car that we were not the
sought-after prey. "Who are you guys," the cop asked?

"We are the Cape Henlopen track team and we are trying to get back to
Rehoboth Beach without being killed by you assholes. I guess if you're
looking for felons that would make us water felons."

The Broderick Crawford looking cop told me that there had been a rather
serious prison break and a dangerous prisoner was on the loose. He told me to
be careful that there were a lot of trigger-happy cops out on the road. He
suggested that we stop at McDonald's until the alert was lifted. At the time
I didn't know how closely we resembled, actually I resembled, the escaped
rapist/murdered.

The man had overpowered two guards and tossed them from their baby blue
unlettered State Owned Tagged prison van identical to the one we were
driving. The man was described as 6-2, 240 pounds about 38 years old with a
mustache the same as me. A police photo of the guy looked exactly like me.

The guy slipped the dragnet and got away. He lived the next six months with
his girlfriend at a trailer park in nearby Newark. The van was parked outside
in plain view. I'm sure we made his escape possible.
The redneck vigilantes from Smyrna followed the wrong guy home to his house,
busted through the front door and beat up the guy and his wife.

We stopped at McDonald's in Dover waiting for the heat to blow over. Two gay
guys kept staring at me from behind their Big Mac's.
"Everybody be wanting Fredman tonight," James said, as everybody laughed.

Sunday morning a state cop from the Rehoboth area followed me into the
school's parking lot as I returned the van. I got out and he got out.
"You pull a gun on me and I'm going to bend it around your neck, "I joked.

"Haven't you guys learned yet that the real guy got away?" "We just wanted to
warn you to be careful Fredman," the cop said as I walked away from the
circumstantial van.

But sometimes it takes more than being careful. You also have to be lucky and
good looking!