Chapter 1
A/N: Alpha Dog is one of the best movies I have ever seen, and one of two I have so far only been able to watch once, the other being Black Hawk Down. Those two films succeed on such a level that casually watching them is not possible, certainly not for me. They deal with emotionally-heavy material and their respective directors treated that with the utmost respect.
So, you may be able to imagine my surprise, then, that Alpha Dog's fanfiction archive contains, hands-down, some of the worst excuses for writing I have ever had the misfortune to read. The mere 6 works currently listed are all bad, but some are truly awful. A lot of fangirling over Emile Hirsch (Johnny Truelove) and Justin Timberlake (Frankie Ballenbacher).
This story goes back nearly 10 years to when I first watched Alpha Dog in July 2014. AM83220 offered various thoughts about a possible fanfiction when I sent a PM raising the idea. What I ended up liking best was a story wherein Zack's planned murder is interrupted en route by the California Highway Patrol. Not implausible, since between Johnny Truelove, Frankie Ballenbacher, and Elvis Schmidt, none of those characters are exactly diligent citizens about automotive maintenance. So this story's premise and divergence from canon centers around the Chevrolet Suburban that Elvis is driving having a tail-light out, attracting the interest of a watching CHP officer not that far from Zack's age.
This story is, in short, an attempt to offer something better to readers than the rubbish uploaded for this movie since the archive's creation in approximately 2009. A film this good deserves better works than it has been given so far.
It was long after dark, and Cameron Ward was bored out of his mind.
There hadn't been a single car along this lonely, two-lane state highway for at least an hour.
'Officer' was a nice title and all, but they'd given him this '86 Chevy and tossed him out here on this do-nothing stretch of State Route 154 for the third night in a row.
Hardly an illustrious start to his post-Academy, post-probation, able-to-patrol-solo career. Sitting in absolutely nowhere north of Goleta. The mighty guardian of the San Marcos Pass. Woo.
Still. It had to be upward from here. Right?
Right.
With a frustrated sigh, Cameron slouched back in the Caprice's bench seat, letting the radar gun fall from his hand. Another sigh and Cameron ran both hands through his sandy-blond hair. He didn't know who he even thought he was kidding. There was nothing to do out here and no one to-
Wait. Wait, hold on.
Someone was coming.
With the same keen eyes that had served him so well as a lifelong surfer and avid gym rat back in Santa Monica, Cameron watched curiously as the twin pinpricks of light on northbound SR-154 grew slowly but steadily larger.
"Man. What're you doing out here at this hour?" Cameron wondered aloud. Then he laughed, mostly at himself. Whoever that is, they've gotta be as bored as I am.
Once they got inside radar range, a quick look at the little digital display on the gun showed the SUV- it looked like a 90-something Chevy Tahoe- was going only six or seven over the posted speed limit. Nothing to get excited about. Judges routinely allowed discrepancies of 5 miles per hour in court.
Only thing was Cameron couldn't shake one thought from his head.
I don't like it.
Maybe it was just an eagerness, a desperation to find something to get on this motorist's case about, having turned 21 just eight days ago and being unanimously treated as the rookie with something to prove.
Maybe it was nothing, just a feeling.
But Cameron didn't like that Tahoe, one way or the other. Something about it being here didn't seem right. Maybe there'd be some cause to pull it over, check it out up close and see if he was just being paranoid.
The Caprice was nearly as long, flat and wide as the Kitty Hawk, but tucked in as it was among a bunch of overgrown desert bushes and a cactus or two, and being that the Tahoe's headlights were the only source of light for miles in any direction, the driver went right by, not a single hint of anything from the taillights.
Cameron had hidden his patrol car well. They never saw him.
Hey, taillight. He's got one out back there. Passenger side.
The truck wasn't a Tahoe, either. It was longer, a Suburban. A difference in wheelbase and nothing else.
Just let 'em go, man. Probably just trying to get home. Y'know, like you'd like to be.
I don't like it, man.
It's a taillight, my dude. They probably know about it already. What're they gonna do to fix it at this hour? Let 'em go.
Cameron shrugged, then started the Caprice.
"Fuck it, man, got nothing better to do." He laughed at himself as he dropped the transmission into drive. "Shit, I really got nothing better to do. Let's go harass some taxpayers!"
As he pulled out onto 154 and stepped on the gas to catch up with the Suburban, which was still ambling along at fifty-something, Cameron reached for the radio, lifted the handset.
"78 to Dispatch, come in, Dispatch."
"What've you got for me, Cam?" Mark Evers answered. He sounded as bored as Cameron felt. At this hour of the night that was to be expected of dispatchers, officers, anybody. At least there was something to do now, if only for a couple of minutes.
"I've got this- probably a '95 or '97 Suburban, just passed me northbound on 154, he's got a taillight out." As he got closer, the Caprice's headlights made it easy enough to read out the license plate, which showed registration that had been left expired for two years.
"Oh," Mark answered with no small amount of sarcasm. "Is that all?"
"Listen, Crapgame," Cameron said, fighting down a smile for a moment. "Other thing is, his registration's been expired for two years. I'm gonna stop 'im and have a talk."
"Cool. That'll kill, oh, at least fifteen minutes. Talk slowly."
Cameron laughed. "Yeah, man. I'll keep that in mind. Hittin' the lights now."
ΩΩΩΩΩ
Elvis Schmidt was in no mood.
First, he had "Nuts" with him, and Frankie had never had the guts for this sort of thing. Second, it wasn't Frankie's ass on the line here. Elvis was in for a lot of damn money with Johnny Truelove. Ice the fucking kid in the backseat and all would be forgiven.
Do anything else and they were all going away. Elvis, Johnny, and Frankie, for a very long time.
Keith, too. Dumb bastard had actually agreed to dig the kid's grave, like he didn't know how this was gonna end for the twerp.
Elvis had no intention of snitching Johnny out if they did get caught- he didn't see any point to digging his own hole deeper. But no way was Zack Mazursky coming out of this alive.
At this point, if he was honest with himself, Elvis was just bored with the whole thing. Driving all this way out to shoot a kid so obliviously dumb, he'd probably need the first ten minutes just to figure out he was dead.
Focused on being disgruntled with the situation, and mentally prepping for getting this over with, Elvis barely took notice of the pair of headlights that came on a couple miles back. Gradually, they started getting closer.
As if on cue, Zack spoke up softly, almost reflectively, from the backseat.
"I just want you to know, like- I would never rat on you guys." A pause. "You guys know that, right?"
Frankie looked back over his shoulder, managing a half-smile from the passenger seat. "Yeah. We know that, man."
Oh, you poor, dumb fuck. You have no idea.
The kid had at least gotten laid before he died, apparently. And in a threesome, no less. Elvis would've been impressed, but he wasn't granting any points to a soon-to-be corpse. There was absolutely no point in giving a shit now.
The car headlights had gotten real close, real fast. The fucker was practically tailgating the Suburban at this point.
"I mean- like, I'm serious," Zack assured the two up front, babbling on like anyone cared. "I wouldn't snitch. You guys're cool."
"Hey, who is that?" Frankie asked, turning around to look.
"I don't know, and I don't care, man," Elvis said, trying to sound bored but instead sounding annoyed.
"He's close. He'll run right into us if we brake-check 'im," Keith added.
"Huh?" Zack asked. He started to sit up.
"Shut up," Elvis ordered him.
"Hey, man, it's cool," Frankie cautioned him.
Just as Elvis was about to answer, the red-and-blue lightbar mounted on the roof of the car behind lit up, the little revolving chrome discs serving to help wash the interior of the Suburban in the colors of Oh, shit, it's the law.
"Ohno-" Keith blurted out, eyes wide as dinner plates. He glanced back at the car tailing them. "Oh, shit. Oh, fuck. Dude."
"W-what's goin' on?" Zack asked, sounding and looking much more alert now. "What's happening?"
"I said shut up!" Elvis half-shouted at him. His mood, already in the shitter, was now taking a turn even further south. "Keith, shut the fuck up!"
"Okay," Zack answered hastily, nervous but compliant.
"Just pull over, man," Frankie advised. "He probably just caught you speeding a little or something. It's fine."
"This is the California Highway Patrol," the voice said through a loudspeaker. "Pull your vehicle over now. This is the California Highway Patrol. Pull your vehicle over now."
Even with the distortion from the not-so-great government-issue electronics, it was funny. The dude sounded barely any older than Elvis or Frankie.
Elvis thought seriously about running for it, but even with what looked to be an old square-body Caprice behind him, the prospects were doubtful. This Suburban was shaped like a brick, speed being the last thing GM had designed it for.
"You," Elvis said, pointing at Zack in the rearview mirror. "Sit still and don't say a fuckin' word."
"Yeah. Yeahokay," Zack nodded hurriedly, looking and sounding genuinely worried now.
"Just be cool, man," Frankie told him.
"I'm doing the talking. Don't you say a fuckin' word, either."
Frankie nodded and mimed zipping his mouth closed, but his eyes betrayed how nervous he felt. The cops snooping around in their business right now, with the Zack Soondead in the back of the Suburban, was not good. Not good at all.
Easing the Suburban to a stop on the side of the road, less than a ten minute drive from Zack's waiting grave, Elvis hastily ran the options through his mind. One immediately came up as far better, far more appealing than any of the others.
Maybe the cop opening his patrol car door knew something. Maybe he had no idea.
"Oh, shit, oh, shit," Keith moaned again. "Man, I wish I'd nev-"
"Dude, it's cool!" Zack exclaimed, probably thinking he'd be cool as ice for Frankie or some shit. Whatever it was, it managed to shut Keith up again. Dude looked like he was gonna piss his pants.
"Yeah, it's cool, it's cool," Frankie agreed quickly. "Just quiet down."
Elvis reached down between the center console and the driver's seat. As he rolled down the window, his right hand tightened around the square shape of the MAC-11.
"Man, I hope he gets lost soon," Elvis griped, hoping to sound cool and casual about it. He let go of the MAC-11, but left one hand lying near it.
You never know, Elvis thought. Maybe it really is about a taillight. If not I got my piece right fuckin' here. This pig better hurry up and get lost.
A/N: October 11, 2023. After 9 years of letting this story idea sit in the drawing room, I finally sat down and wrote a first chapter. I hope it comes across as worth the wait.
Revised: December 24, 2023. I realized that I had forgotten about the character of Keith Stratten entirely, so I edited this first chapter to include him in the Suburban. I also rewrote aspects of the end of Chapter 1 so the conclusion is more ambiguous. Elvis has not fully committed to any particular course of action yet, which I think makes sense under the circumstances.
Some notes:
-I don't believe the exact route taken to the site of Zack's murder is given in the movie, but since they were coming from the Los Angeles area and heading for the mountains (Nicholas Markowitz was murdered in the Santa Ynez Mountains), I did a little research and settled on them using California State Route 154 north out of Goleta in Santa Barbara County.
-Elvis Schmidt's character uses a MAC-11, .380 ACP-chambered machine pistol/submachine gun which is a sized-down version of the .45 ACP/9mm Parabellum MAC-10.
-The SUV used to drive Zack to the site of his murder in the movie is a 1995-1997 Chevrolet Suburban, as indicated on the Internet Movie Car Database.
-Zack Mazursky has no idea whatsoever of the immense danger he is in even by this late stage in the movie's events, but with the AU of a CHP officer initiating a traffic stop, the way Elvis and Frankie quickly start to get nervous in turn makes him nervous.
-The CHP dispatcher's deadpan response of "Oh. Is that all?" and Officer Ward's answer calling him "Crapgame" are both references to the 1970 war comedy film Kelly's Heroes.
Reviews are welcome! If you have any questions or would like to let me know about an improvement I could make to the chapter, like a proofreading item I missed, feel free to send a PM.