THE CHASE

It is a beautiful day in Tucson, Arizona. It is just about 80 degrees Fahrenheit with a little wind. It is a normal day for Luke, a normal day for Luke consists of mainly being drunk or drugged up. It is around 3:00 in the afternoon, at this time Luke is usually sitting on his couch in his apartment doing absolutely nothing. He has a job but today he has off. On this particular day Luke has decided to go out with his friends. His friends invited him to go out to a bar. The name of the bar is Paddys Pub. As time rolls around and it starts getting late everybody heads over to the bar. It is currently 11:00pm, and Luke is just about to head over. Luke should not have gone out tonight, he should have stayed home. He doesn’t care all that much because he has driven under the influence many times.
Luke pulls up to the bar, parks his car in the parking lot and walks into the bar. Thankfully he had arrived safely. Luke and his friends catch up. They haven’t seen each other for a while, they spent a while in the bar. All four of Luke’s friends, including Luke were drinking quite heavily. Time kept moving faster and faster. Soon enough the clock reached 3:00 am and everybody decided to hit the road. Everybody had a great time catching up. One of Luke’s friends offered to drive him home but Luke insisted that he could drive home. He complained that he had driven home under the influence many times and when under the influence drives like an expert. Little did Luke know tonight would end up being the worst night of his life. Luke should have taken the ride home but made a very poor choice. Luke pulls out of the parking lot and starts driving home. The car swerves from side to side every so often. The car even goes off the road for a brief moment. Very few police patrol the road this late at night. Luke gets within a five blocks of his house until out of his peripheral vision he notices a police car parked on a side road. He kept driving, trying to not swerve and hoped that the police car wouldn’t turn on his blue and red lights. About three seconds later Luke looks out his rear view mirror. What he sees makes his stomach drop to the ground. Luke went from being hammered and drugged out to being almost completely sober. His mind made it seem that way. The blue and red lights flashing throughout his whole car. The only color Luke could see was blue and red. He never thought this day would come although deep down he knew some day this would happen. Luke becomes urgent and extremely scared. Luke has to act quickly, he has two options. One option, he could pull over, receive a DUI. Most likely after that go to prison. The second option, he could try and loose the police car. He knew the second option would end up very badly if he would get caught. Luke really didn’t want to get pulled over because he knew if he would pull over first he would get a DUI. Second he would most likely go to prison for a very long time.
In Luke’s early years he didn’t have such a good reputation with the police back at home. The police had arrested him quite a lot. The police had arrested Luke a total of six times. Four of his arrests occurred before he turned 18. The first three arrests dealt with drinking and drugging. The last arrest Luke committed the crime of breaking and entering along with stealing. After the last arrest, the judge sentenced Luke to six months in Arizona’s State Prison. The six months Luke spent in prison were the worst six months of his life. Luke had never got in trouble while driving his vehicle. The last two arrests that occurred after he was 18 happened when he turned 19 and 20. Both arrests happened on his birthday, the police in Tucson charged him with drinking and drugging once again. The judge gave Luke one last warning that if he got in trouble one more time with the authorities he would get sent to prison for way longer than six months.
The decision to try and out run the cops seemed like the best choice for Luke. Luke accelerates the car. The speedometer reads 50 then 60; it reaches all the way to 100mph. While he is speeding he thinks to himself. He says in his mind “You know I can outrun this police officer, I know the streets of Tucson with my eyes closed”. He was wrong; the police officer was always one step ahead of Luke. The police officer knew the town of Tucson better than Luke and Luke had been living here for his whole life. When he noticed the cop always being one step ahead of him he started to get scared. Deep thoughts were running through his mind. He thought about the six months he spent in state prison. He thought about those six agonizing months sitting in a jail cell. A bed hard as rock, a roommate shivering with fear and a toilet that barely flushed. His parents then came to mind. He could only think about what his parents told him when he left the house and moved on his own. They told him if he ever, ever got placed in state prison he would no longer belong to a family. They told him they didn’t want to hear or see from him again. Luke kept on thinking how he had let his parents down in the past by getting arrested six times. He didn’t want to let them down one last time because he knew this last time would be the last straw for everything. Then the worst possible thing that came to mind came to mind. Drugs. Luke started to think about it more and more, he started to get antsy. He was getting really excited about his drugs. Drugs and drinking had lead Luke into a deep dark abyss.
While he was still driving throughout the streets trying to lose the police car all he could think about was going back to his apartment and doing more drugs. He wanted to escape this terror just so he could get high. Once the topic drugs lingered into his mind he couldn’t focus on anything else. His main drug of choice happened to be heroin, once he thought about it he could not stop thinking about it. He couldn’t focus on his family, nothing. Drugs had taken over his mind.
The high speed chase escalates very quickly. Luke is going very fast but still focused on drugs. Taking glances every once in a while at his rear view mirror to see the location of the officer. Luke looks back at his rear view mirror and all of the sudden notices four police cars behind him. Luke was petrified; he didn’t know what to do. Different thoughts started to pop into his mind. He no longer thought about drugs instead the thought came to mind that maybe he couldn’t get away from the police. Luke thought maybe from the beginning his fate was already set. He thought his future may entail being caught and getting thrown back into prison. Luke thought and thought and eventually he threw this idea out of his mind. He didn’t want to throw his life away, not yet.
They chase got further and further down the highway. Now a helicopter was flying in the air. More than ten police cars chasing him down the highway. Luke trying to hard swerve his way between cars. His moves couldn’t shake off the police. Luke almost caused several accidents on the road. He trembled with fear; his face looked like the face of an actor in a horror film.
Luke tried to do his best and get away from the police cars. But he knew that nothing more could be done. He realized that he had to pull over. He thought about everything that he had thought about previously into the chase. He realized that he needed to help himself. He was a drug addict, gone through many treatment centers throughout his younger years. Thought he never would hit his bottom so he never would have to stop. He realized that this was his bottom, he had finally hit the bottom that everybody in the treatment center talked about. This bottom was not like everybody’s bottom but for him being in a high speed chase did it for him, it was the end. He had given up, even though he caused much trouble, probably will spend many years to life in prison. He came to a realization that the action he would take would be the right choice. He let his parents down big time, probably will never see them again. The main thing he was focused on would be getting himself cured of his disease. He wanted the drug addict out of his soul and wanted to live a healthy sober life.
Luke pulled the car over to the side of the highway. All of the cops quickly pulled to the to he side of the road. Yelled to Luke and told him to get out of the car with his hands above his head. This is the end of the fight, Luke lost. Luke actually feels good about himself; he is ready for his life to change.
Two police officers walk over to Luke while the others are by there cars with there guns drawn. Luke gets handcuffed, slowly taken to the squad car. The police officers place Luke in the back of the car. The chase is over.