“The Deputy and Imminent Danger” by Jim Reese
“And it was the noblest act of courage that I have ever seen." —Taylor Mali
Soon after the Thanksgiving pies have been violated and the Cool Whip containers scraped clean, some of the men and women who have prepped and cooked nod off in the living room and begin to snore.
“So do you wake up with your hair like that, or does it take time?” a cousin asks you. “You have a lot of product in there.” There’s something to be said about never outgrowing juvenile bullying, and you both embrace it.
A two-year tradition, and one you hope continues, is that your family goes around the room and tells everyone what they are thankful for. Your free-spirited aunt says, “I have everything I need right here.” On the drive over you tried to articulate your answer. We are so busy with our own small traumas—fears and anxieties. We are programmed to search for the next brighter and shinier thing, to forget what truly matters. When it’s your turn, you emphasize the importance of empathy for others and kindness to ourselves. You stole the last part from Neal Brennan’s new special Blocks on Netflix. At the end of it he said something that stuck. As he is referring to himself, he says:
“Dude, how did you turn self-help into self-harm? I’ve been saying all night that something’s wrong with me. And something is wrong with me. I won’t show myself any kindness. I won’t give myself any grace. Like I just grind and attack myself relentlessly like it’s my job. I would love to stop. I like to believe that my ways of being, like my thoughts, my habits, my emotions, my beliefs . . . . I’d like to believe they’re not defects. I’d like to believe that alchemy of a personality . . . my spirit . . . it’s got to be enough. Please. Let that be enough.”
Your father added Kalamata olives to baby carrots and glazed them in butter, sugar, water and chives. A simple dish that will stick with you a good long while. Your sister-in-law made her famous green bean casserole with cream and shredded cheese. Another cousin brought deviled eggs and you put the hurt on half a dozen. The turkey wasn’t dry—“It hasn’t made anyone sick yet,” your father says smiling. There was gravy and homemade stuffing—stuffed mushrooms like your grandmother used to make. It was the bomb. For so many years you indulged in the holiday spirits, drinking and toasts—you paid little attention to the food. Now, that’s not the case. There is a lot to be thankful for. A crew has traveled thousands of miles collectively to be together.
***
On the way home where 880 merges with I-29, you verge north towards Sioux City to South Dakota. It’s dark. Strangely warm for November. De Soto National Wildlife Refuge just to the west, Missouri Valley to the east. Also to your east are preserved Loess Hills—one of North America’s environmental treasures. It’s so dark you have to remind yourself where the river is—how close you are to your home state. You have been traveling these borders all your life. I-80, I-29 are as common as Kraft mac and cheese.
It’s 9:25. True North. Black. Glare of headlights. Your wife studying for another PA exam behind you in the backseat. Your oldest daughter next to you with her music turned up too loud. Everyone on their earbuds—hand-held devices.
You are listening to Dave Chappelle induct Richard Pryor into The Hall—another Netflix special. The last thing you remember is Pryor’s voice, “You ever hear of anyone blowing up? Why me? Ten million motherfuckers freebase, I got to blow up.”
As you are laughing you look into the rearview mirror, see flashing lights. You check the speedometer. You are cruising at seventy-seven—seven over the limit, in the interstate’s left fast lane. The siren mingles with your laughter at Pryor’s joke and the two together create an odd ringing between your ears that seems to cancel the volume and scream of what’s happening inside and outside the car. The lights throb against the dashboard—shoot off the hood. The cop flies by you in the right lane. Jesus, you think. Or say. Your heart pulsates. As it passes you on your right, this cop cuts in front of you and hits its brakes. You swerve, verge right. You begin to slow down. Always pull over when you see first responders. Like you have been taught. This is happening so fast. You don’t have — What is happening? Why are they hitting their brakes? You see the red. You see a cache of colors and high beams in front of the cop. The interstate in front of you lit up in a dark embrace.
At this angle you watch the cop play chicken with an oncoming truck who is driving on the wrong side of the interstate—in what was just your lane, this truck, straight into your entire family. As the cop is skidding to a halt on the interstate’s left shoulder, you are approaching the right shoulder, slowing now to maybe forty miles per hour. As you look over to your left you see the cop abruptly stop—dead set in front of a pickup—intercepting five thousand pounds of steel, ready to pulverize, head on. The front of the pickup is lit up. Its headlights punctured by an arsenal of red and blues. You see a white face leaning over the steering wheel. You see eyes squinting into the light. The person who just saved your life is an anonymous dark shape behind the wheel of a police cruiser. This happens in seconds.
Part of you wants to pull over and storm the man in the pickup . . . that part doesn’t come for a half hour. That anger isn’t present. What you do feel, are certain about, is that lives have just been spared by this stranger, this cop who just risked their life to save yours.
Through your earbuds you hear your wife yell, “Don’t stop! Cars behind us!” This scares you. Pisses you off. Why isn’t the traffic behind you stopped? Or slowing way down? Are they chasing this cop? Fascinated with lights? The macabre? Gruesome reality? Must see. Must see.
“What?” You scream. Pull out an earbud.
“Didn’t you feel me tapping your shoulder?” Your wife screams again.
In a kind of clear bubble of thought, you wonder why you had your earbuds in. You know about situational awareness.
The entire interstate is a swamp of terror. In your mirrors behind you a car and a truck loom. You know they watched this all unfold. The semi’s too bright headlights and red-and-orange running lights are framed in your rearview mirror. Objects in mirror are closer than they appear. The semi’s getting closer. You speed up to sixty-two—you can’t get past sixty-two. The dark bearing down on you and your family—your wife and your daughters. You strangle the steering wheel with both hands. The trucker passes in the left lane. Driving has become a threat. You see another cop heading south—you assume, to assist.
You won’t call 911 for another hour. You try to articulate with your wife what has happened. “What mile marker are we at? We just came out of Missouri Valley.”
“Why do we have to talk about this? We almost just got killed! You are so annoying,” your oldest daughter says.
“Because obviously we are pretty shook up,” your wife says to your daughter, who turns up her earbuds.
Your younger daughter is asking, “Why was he driving down the wrong side of the road? Why was that person driving at us?”
“Most likely because they are drunk,” you say. “Or lost. Or suicidal. Oh, my god,” you say to the windshield.
“Do you know how long that guy had to have been driving down the interstate for someone to call it in? Notify authorities? Dispatchers then to relay the message? Then this person respond? To save lives?”
Part of you wonders why you didn’t immediately pull over and charge at this person who would have crashed into you head on. If this were in the city, you most certainly would have had some serious road rage.
In the moment, you had no feelings of rage like you have had innumerable times in traffic. You had feelings of extreme anxiety, relief, and grace—is that the right word? Deep appreciation. Perhaps that’s the feeling you are trying to articulate. Your family shouldn’t even be on the road. You should be at the hotel fighting over who goes next in the bathroom. We would be raising our voices, telling each other to get ready for bed and stop banging around. But we decided to drive home instead.
Hindsight.
Some people you know have been affected traumatically by oncoming traffic. Death ensued. They lost loved ones. You remember—relive the stories you heard about those tragic accidents. A drunk driver and a head-on collision, on a divided highway just east of Yankton. On that same stretch of road, a former police sergeant you know was in pursuit of two men in a car who flew through the city and reached speeds over 100 mph, shut their headlights off, and drove straight into a family coming the other direction. Everyone died in the vehicles except one little girl, whom another peace officer held and talked to until the ambulance and paramedics arrived.
This act of bravery reiterates what you have seen time and again. You have to get this report right.
What you want to do is paint a clear picture.
***
You try to give students in your Crime, Literature, and Film class a play by play of the almost-disaster on Thanksgiving night. When you say, “Never before have I experienced or seen an act of bravery like this,” you feel your jaw begin to tremble. You turn your back to them and take some deep breaths. If you turn around and look at them, you know you will lose it. You’re positive the near-fatal head-on collision feels more monumental to your family than to a reader or observer. The reality is: you didn’t die. No one was severely injured. The reality is: readers want gore and guts on the ground.
As you begin to blink back tears, you look at the smart board you are facing. There’s a picture of an ex-con cued up and ready to play—A Drug Dealer Describes What It’s Actually Like Being Arrested. . . . Jesus, it’s all entertainment, isn’t it? The gore, the guts, the tell-alls. The fear and fascination. You are a part of it. Even right now.
You’re certain that you and your family would have been seriously injured or had your lives taken if it wasn’t for this cop who made a split-second decision to keep you and the other motorists safe. This person, who took an oath to serve and protect, did exactly that. And you kept driving. You had to keep driving.
You are still waiting to thank the cop who put their life above yours and others on that stretch of interstate. You have not been able to get through to this cop. You, along with the director of criminal justice at the university, have tried to reach out to numerous locations a few times. You discovered which district would have been called to respond to that area of interstate. The last correspondence you got was: Lt Borelli from Iowa State Patrol will research what trooper it was. He’s aware that there was a collision in that area because he reviewed the report. He will call tomorrow or Friday once he has all the info.
No one is returning your calls.
You do not know what collision has happened.
You keep googling Thanksgiving night, I-29, Missouri Valley, collision.
All you want to do
is say,
Thank You.
Epilogue
On 17 December 22 Lieutenant Borelli of the Iowa State Patrol identified who the cop was that saved our lives from this driver. He is Harrison County Sheriff’s Department Deputy Justin McMurray. Also arriving on the scene were Harrison County Sheriff’s Department Deputy Todd Denton, Deputy James Reynolds, Missouri Valley Police Department Officer Jacob Musfeldt, and members of the Iowa State Troopers.
On 26 December 22, Deputy Justin McMurray wrote:
“Thank you for doing all you could to try to figure out who the officer was that night, as it sounds like you did a lot of legwork to find me! I have been in law enforcement since 2015 and have seen quite a bit of action, even though our department is within a relatively small county. I would like to say that what I did was a huge act of bravery, but in reality I believe I did what any of my fellow brothers and sisters would do in the same circumstances to protect the public.
“I can’t go into very much detail about the case, as I am set to go to court on the matter. However, I can tell you it was a mid-30s female who was very intoxicated that had left the bar and got lost trying to find where she lived. This female was unaware that she was even going the wrong way down the interstate. In the moment, I didn’t even think about any injury that the driver could do to me in a head on collision. All I knew is that I needed to stop the threat before anyone was injured as there was so much traffic due to Thanksgiving. Thankfully, she stopped just short of the front of my squad car. It is very nice to hear the impacts we make on people’s lives when most of us in law enforcement act on instincts when presented with imminent danger.”
I am certain Deputy Justin McMurray saved my family’s lives and my own.
This essay is forthcoming in Coming to a Neighborhood Near You: the Business and Repercussions of Crime and Punishment (Potomac Books, Fall 2025)
Jim Reese is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Great Plains Writers’ Tour at Mount Marty University in Yankton, South Dakota. Reese’s poetry and prose have been widely published, and he has presented at hundreds of venues throughout the country, including the Library of Congress and San Quentin Prison—he has shared stages with David Sedaris, Craig Johnson, C.J. Box, Ted Kooser, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Marc Cameron, and many more.
From 2007-2021, Reese was one of five artists-in-residence throughout the country who were part of the National Endowment for the Arts’ interagency initiative with the Department of Justice’s Federal Bureau of Prisons. Here he established Yankton Federal Prison Camp’s first creative writing workshop and publishing course, editing a yearly journal, 4 P.M. Count, which featured creative writing and visual artwork by “inmates.” For three years he also worked as a Contractual Education Instructor for the South Dakota Department of Corrections Writing for Reentry Program. He speaks throughout the country on the repercussions of crime, the benefits of writing for wellness in a correctional environment, and connecting with people in marginal, non-traditional spaces.
His books include These Trespasses (The Backwaters Press 2005), ghost on 3rd (New York Quarterly Books 2010), Really Happy! (NYQ Books 2014) and Dancing Room Only—New and Selected Poems (NYQ Books 2024). His book of nonfiction, Bone Chalk, was published by Stephen F. Austin State University Press in 2020.
Reese’s awards include a 2022 Distinguished Teaching Award from Mount Marty University, First Place Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award, a Distinguished Achievement Award from Mount Marty University, and a Distinguished Public Service Award in recognition of his exemplary dedication and contributions to the Education Department at Federal Prison Camp Yankton.
