Do You Understand These Charges?

There is a haze that has settled over my senses as I wake up. A dull pain is etched into my skull. Opening my eyes, I can’t seem to place where I am. The walls are white, the bed is white. This is definitely not my room. There is a memory that’s attempting to drag at me but I can’t bring it to the forefront. 

When my vision clears enough, that’s when I see him. A man. He’s seated in a chair at the far end of the room, which I now recognize as a hospital room. His eyes are fierce, staring intensely at where I lay. As I take in the rest of him, I realize that he’s a police officer. I attempt to sit up but an intense pain races throughout my entire body holding me down. 

“Excu…Who?...”, I can’t quite get the words out of my mouth. In my head I scream, Who are you? Why am I here? What happened? But I can’t get any of that out of my mouth. 

The officer stands and walks out of the room without a word. At the edge of my vision, I can see him standing with what looks like a doctor. He points towards me and waves his hands around and talks. I can’t hear a word. My ears start to ring from the attempt. I slip out of consciousness, blacking out and only waking as a woman steps into the room. She has long brown hair and hazel eyes. She looks kind, I’m not sure how I know but she reminds me of my neighbor when I was a child. She always gave me snacks and let me play in her yard. That was all until my parents lost their house and we moved away.

“I need to help you get into this wheelchair. Can you sit up for me?”, she asks, breaking me from my thoughts. That’s when I realize she’s the only one in the room. The officer has disappeared.

I slowly push myself upward, ignoring the pain as I do. “What happened?”, I whisper the loudest I can muster. My tongue feels like sandpaper. 

She looks down at me. She seems to be contemplating something. Thoughts warring in her mind. “There was an accident”, she whispers as well, “they will tell you about it when you get there. You’ve been passed out for two days and the doctor has now cleared for you to go.” 

...

Dalton, a young man in his twenties, is sitting in the wheelchair that was brought from the hospital. He was now in a courtroom facing the judge who sits far above him. The judge appears to be in his sixties with gray hair and light blue piercing eyes. The click of the stenograph machine is the only sound echoing through the room. Other than the officer from the hospital standing behind him, the rest of the room is empty. The silence drags on. Under the table Dalton’s leg is shaking. The movement makes the table vibrate. 

“What am I here for?”, Dalton finally asks.

Instead of answering the question the judge says, “Please, state your name for the record.”

“Dalton Williams”, he states. There are dark circles under his eyes and his eyebrows clearly outline the confusion he is currently experiencing.The judge can hear Dalton’s ragged deep breaths from across the room.  

“Mr. Williams, you are currently being charged with 2 counts of 2nd degree murder, vehicular manslaughter, and driving under the influence. Do you understand these charges? Have they been explained to you?” 

Dalton stares at the judge void of any appearance of emotion or comprehension of what is being said to him. 

“Mr. Williams…”

The sounds of the court reporter typing fill the room again.

“Mr. Williams…do you understand the charges?”, the judge raises his voice.

...

All I can hear is a scream in my head. For a moment, there are no words, no thoughts, just the screaming. I know what the words mean. I mean…I can tell anyone a definition from the dictionary but they don’t make sense. They are strung together in a way I can’t grasp. Murder? Manslaughter? Influence? 

I try to pull from my mind any memory from the last few days. I just can’t see anything clearly. The thought comes to me of being at home, smoking a blunt, as I normally do on Friday nights. I try to claw further into that memory when I hear the judge.

“Mr. Williams…do you understand the charges?” the question radiates through my body.

“You’re saying I murdered someone?”, the voice doesn’t sound like my own. It’s so much higher than I know it to be. 

“Actually, two people” the judge stated matter of factly. 

I slip back into my thoughts for a second. I see a flashing of light.

“On Friday, March 2 at 2 AM you were driving a silver 2000 Ford Focus down highway 152 going the wrong direction with your lights off. You slammed into an oncoming vehicle, red 2022 Hyundai Elantra, containing 18-year-old Bret Torres and his 6-month-old child Kaitlin Torres. Both were killed on impact.” 

Every word uttered by the judge seemed to come at me in slow motion. 

...

I inhaled the first hit of my second blunt of the night. I ground together my three favorite flavors: Blue Dream, Gelato and Skywalker for a badass night. I’d never put all three together but I was sure it would be fine. Oh, yeah that’s good, I thought. My normal Friday is usually just one blunt but tonight I was feeling the anxiety fill my belly with dread. I only had three more days at my job. They had to let me go because there was no job left for me. If I couldn’t work, then I couldn’t continue my degree in engineering. It was my only way forward. I needed to figure out what to do but today wasn’t for that. It could wait til tomorrow. Two was no big deal anyway. I would sleep it off on Saturday anyway. 

I started to watch Star Wars, my favorite movie to watch while high. Darth Vader was my favorite character. His voice was always so reassuring to me. After some time Darth and I would start talking to each other. I would tell him about my day and he would give me advice. We were in the midst of a conversation when I realized how hungry I was. I told Darth to hold up and I went to the fridge, where there was only beer. Fuck, I thought. Well beer is carbs. So I started drinking. I don’t remember how many beers I have. It couldn’t have been more than six but the number is a blur. 

The drinks didn’t stop the hunger; however, so I told Darth I’d be back and I headed out. 

...

“Can you hear me, Mr. Williams?”, the judge again interrupted my recollection.

That was it…I went out for food. I kept replaying the events from that day in my mind but no matter what I couldn’t picture the crash the judge was describing. It wasn’t there.  

“It can’t be. I didn’t have that much to drink…that didn’t happen. I don’t remember….”

“Just because you don’t remember doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, Mr. Williams.”

“But, but I’m not a murderer…No, that didn’t happen. It couldn’t,” I couldn’t stop the words that were spewing out of my mouth. My heart almost felt like it was going to beat out of my chest.

The judge looked over my shoulder to the officer behind me and motioned for him to come get a piece of paper. As the officer brought the paper toward me, I could see it was a photo. Then it was placed in front of me. 

“Is that your vehicle, Mr. Williams?”, the judge asks.

I stare at the photo. What I see is destruction. There is nothing recognizable here. Wait…it’s metal. Silver. It’s so smashed it’s hard to tell but…I bring my face closer to the photo. And there it is…the license plate. The front is almost gone but it’s there. 23XAB67. It’s almost as if the photo catches on fire. It’s hot in my hands as I drop it onto the floor. Light flashes into my mind. 

“So, I crashed my car?” Maybe it was just me. Maybe I can get a new job and a new car and keep going to school. It’s going to be fine. 

“Did you see the red in the photo as well? It’s barely a scrap of metal at this point but the other car is there. The one you hit with the people you killed”, the judge states so matter of factly. 

“I killed two people?” The words first come out as a question. I look up at the judge again.

“I killed two people”, this time it was a statement. Then I couldn’t stop saying it. “I killed two people, I killed two people, I killed two people.” It was like a merry-go-round that I couldn’t get off. Going around and around. “I killed two people”, I sobbed. My head was now in my hands. “I ruined my life”, sobbing I finally break the cycle. 

“Yes, but you also ruined theirs”, the officer finally speaks. I looked up to see the officer with two more pictures in front of me. One was of a young man, tan and smiling. He’s at the beach with his hands up in the air like there couldn’t be a better place. I wretch my eyes toward the second photo. It was a baby. She had a large red bow in her hair, almost bigger than her head. She looked like she was peering at someone off camera. Her eyes were lit up and full of life. I stare at that photo for what feels like a lifetime when the judge interrupts me again.

“Mr. Williams, do you understand these charges?”

“Yes, your honor.”

“Mr. Williams, how do you plead to the charges against you?”

I finally look up from the photo in front of me. I finally understand. “No contest.”

A shadow passed over the judge's face. It feels like I finally see compassion there. And then it’s gone. “Very well, you will be held until your hearing that will give the sentencing. Does that make sense, Mr. Williams?”

...

At the conclusion of the hearing, Dalton Williams is placed in handcuffs and escorted from the courtroom. One day he will meet the mother of Kaitlin Torres and then he will understand these charges again but in a totally different light.