A Stroke of Luck

My head hurts. I’m upside down and my head hurts. There’s blood trickling down into my nose. I think it’s coming from a gash the seatbelt caused but I can’t turn my neck to look. Some lady is yelling at me through the windshield. She looks like an EMT. I can’t hear what she’s saying but it doesn’t matter. I can see another car in the distance with more EMTs around it. The car I hit. The driver is sitting on the road next to her car. She’s screaming and pointing in my direction, probably telling them how I cut her off. How I drifted into her lane and caused her to hit the median. Judging by the energy with which she is hurling insults in my direction she must be okay. I’m glad she’s okay. I would hate for my clumsiness to cause someone pain. There’s a small flash just below me. The police lights are reflecting off of my flask.

It’s not expensive or memorable in any way but it belonged to my dad. When I’m stressed I fill it up and go for a drive like my dad used to do. He called it his “drink and think” time. The name is stupid but the concept is sound. I’ve done it hundreds of times and never had an issue. Well, almost never. I don’t like to count my two DUI’s as issues because they weren’t my fault. The first was because of the new one way street they installed downtown and a cop that wanted to make his quota. I fought that one tooth and nail. My lawyer said that I had a good case although I feel like he says that to all of his clients. That’s the benefit of being paid before the trial. He can say whatever he wants. I didn’t really trust him but he’s the cheapest lawyer in the county and the bail had drained my savings. 

The day of my hearing I stopped by Mikey's place to take the edge off. It was maybe two shots and a beer at most. I've had more than that for breakfast. Of course the judge didn’t believe me he said he could smell the liquor on my breath and when he asked if I’d been drinking I said yes. That’s DUI number two. I can still remember the look on that lawyers face. But I told him when I hired him, I’m not a liar. My dad taught me that an honest man is a free man. He’s in jail now ironically enough. If I don’t die I’ll be seeing him soon.

My legs are starting to go numb. I really need a smoke but my cigarettes are outside with the pieces of my truck. They were the first thing to go when I flipped over. It figures that the first pack of cigarettes I buy in five years ends up being nothing more than a waste of my last dollar. Another casualty of my bad luck. At least my wife won’t know I had them. Although after today I don’t think she cares what I do anymore. That’s fine with me. She has always had a problem with my drinking, I gave up smoking for her and she still won’t let up. I just need a break from time to time and she doesn’t understand that. She doesn’t understand that drinking helps with my headaches. I’ve tried to explain it and she calls me an alcoholic, says the headaches are withdrawal symptoms. But she’s wrong, it’s genetic, my dad has them and he says my grandfather had them as well. They start to come along at a certain age. It's not my fault, it's just the cards I’ve been dealt.

There’s a loud noise to my left and the drivers side door crumples like a piece of paper. Large metal claws rip the door away and sunlight pours into the cab. Faceless shadows are yelling at me now but I don’t hear any words. Just voices, confused, angry, voices. I wish they wouldn’t yell it’s making my head hurt worse but I’m used to it at this point. Everyone is always yelling at me for something. The lawyer, the police, even my own wife. She’s the one who caused me to hit that woman. I looked back for one second to check on her and suddenly I’m ass over tea kettle. Well I hope she’s happy now. She always told me my drinking would kill me and here we are. I don’t know where she is but I’m sure they’ll find her soon and then I’ll really get an ear-full. 

I can feel the truck shifting again and an EMT climbs in. He braces my back while they cut the seatbelt. It hurts but the alcohol dulls the pain, like it always does. They’re pulling me out and I can see the whole picture for the first time. My truck is upside down at the end of about a hundred feet of skid marks. Three other cars sit along the road in various conditions but none of them look too beat up. There’s an ambulance right next to my truck and a second one fifty feet back in the direction of the skid marks. It’s surrounded by a half dozen police all watching a gurney being loaded up and I can’t tell if the body on the stretcher is alive or dead but I have a pretty good idea. A cop tells me that they need help identifying a body.

They tell me to prepare myself and pull back the sheet. It’s the familiar face of my wife, lifeless eyes staring out into nothing. She looks halfway decent for being thrown out of the back of a truck. I look up and the cops are all staring at me, waiting for the other shoe to drop, wondering if I’m going to cry or yell or pass out but I don’t do any of those things. I just stand there staring at her, at the gash that split her head open like an egg and spilled her brains all over the road. And I realize that they don’t know. They don’t know that she’s been dead for hours. She was dead when I dropped the flask, dead at the gas station, and dead when I put her body in the bed of my truck. I didn’t mean for her to die but she wouldn’t stop yelling and I didn’t see the stairs. I just wanted her to stop. Well she’s stopped now and they have no idea that I did it. I guess my luck is changing.