Ten Seconds

A whole life can be determined in that short amount of time.

Go ahead, set your timer for ten seconds.

Did the alarm go off as quickly as you thought it would?

Compared to time we are alive; ten seconds is an infinitesimal amount of time when compared to the whole.

Or is it?  Ten seconds can be an eternity as I found out one night while driving on a two-lane country road…

I’ve been told all my life that your fate can hang in the balance of ten seconds, but as a young man, I did not believe that anything could happen in only ten seconds.  We were riding to one of Troy Alvanon’s parties, the four of us all looking forward to another good time with lots of beer and loud rock tunes that would eventually draw the cops.  It was all worth it.  I was driving, Barney Dilford was sitting in the passenger seat, Mary Collins and her boyfriend Carlton Newsome were crammed into my Toyota Camry listening to Soundgarden with Chris Cornell wailing on lead vocals. 

“I heard he’s got a keg.” Barney sounded overly excited.

“Dustin, did you bring some snacks?” Mary asked me as we turned onto the main road.

“Four bags.” I answered.

We had all just graduated from Oak Hill, the only high school in our small town of Wentworth which was in the Central Valley of California.  We were all looking forward to what we anticipated was going to be the highlight of the summer.  It was our last fling before we all shipped off to various state colleges in the state. Barney and I would be going to the community college since our grades were average while Mary and her boyfriend were both top students with Mary as our valedictorian. 

We had grown up together all the way from kindergarten to twelfth grade and we knew each other as well as our own siblings. We had gone to Mount Epps Episcopalian Church every Sunday.  We had attended our share of church cookouts and stuffed our faces full of potato salad and homemade biscuits before running off to all the games and contests laid out for us.  I was one of the fastest runners in the school whereas Barney was clearly the strongest.

I played second base on my little league team as Barney, Troy, Benny, and a few other kids I went to school with.  During the game, we would trade baseball cards during our long dull periods in the dugout.  I have so many awesome memories of the three seasons we played including one game I ran to the fence to rob someone of a home run which became the catch of the year. 

Troy talked me into joining the Boy Scouts and for two summers, I went to camp until scouting got boring and I quit.

The main road is nothing more than a two-lane road connecting some of the industrial farms between the town and Troy’s house.  Troy’s family had several hundred acres to grow cereal grain and hay.  From what we knew, the Alvanon family did not suffer for lack of want. Mr. Alvanon drove a Cadillac to church on Sundays to let the community know of their affluence. They lived in a three-story split level where they had installed a premium entertainment center on the ground floor that would have a keg in a trash can filled with ice and four card tables filled with food fit for teenagers. The music would be played through a large speaker system that could reach a couple of decibels short of a jet engine.  There was a video game system with a giant screen that was just about life sized. This was setting up to be the party of the summer.  We needed this, because so far, the summer had been hot and dull.

I had gotten a job at the Dairy Queen on the main road that we were traveling at this moment.  Barney cranked up the sound on the car stereo.  I’d have to make sure I turned it down before my dad got back in for work on Monday.  My father was a pharmacist in town, everyone knew him and with his shiny bald head, he was what most people would think of as a typical pharmacist.  Barney would kid me that I would one day be as balk as my father.  All my long curly sandy brown hair would one day all go away.  I did not see the humor Barney saw in the situation. As we traveled down the road, I noticed the traffic was light as the sky darkened.  Out here trucks would blow on down the road, filled with produce. With the double yellow line, traffic moved in the two separate lanes in a pattern that was routine and orderly.  In all our time, I had only heard of one gnarly accident when both vehicles hit head on with no survivors.  It happened about seven years ago, late at night when it was foggy.  California fog can be nearly opaque when it settles in during cooler weather. 

That night, the skies were clear, and the visibility went from horizon to horizon.  A couple of trucks went by, both were headed in the other direction.  I could feel the tailwind shake the car a bit, but nothing to worry about.  You get used to that type of thing when you drive these roads. 

One summer, my dad took us all to visit his brother in San Francisco.  It was a four-hour trip from our house and when we got there, I could not get over how steep the hills were.  He did a lot of cursing as pedestrians would simply walk off the street cars right into the traffic and the traffic was supposed to wait for them.  There were also people riding bicycles as though they were part of the traffic pattern and no matter how fast they peddled, they could not keep up with the vehicles.  Uncle Vern also lived with some guy named Dave who acted like his wife. 

“They were a gay couple.” Mary clued me in a few years ago. Mary was always showing everyone how smart she was.

“That’s just wrong.” I tried to run this idea through my head.

“Wrong how?”

“Guys aren’t supposed to be with guys.” I just could not seem to put this right in my mind.

“Everyone has the freedom to choose.” She stated definitively.

Uncle Vern and Dave would get married earlier in the year and even though we were invited, dad said it would be a cold day in hell before we went. 

Carlton’s older brother ran a crop-dusting business and he had taken Carlton on a couple of his runs.  Carlton told me all about the trip that included loops and spirals.

“How could you take it?” I asked when he told me.“I got a little sick to my stomach, but it was totally awesome.” He laughed.

You have a double yellow line which means it is illegal to pass anyone on these roads, but if you get stuck behind a slow-moving tractor, sometimes the tractor would pull over so you could pass.   But if you got behind a slow-moving vehicle that would not move over, you were expected to tough it out.  Hot-rodding down these roads was considered dangerous and fool hearted.  A mile from our destination, I got behind a truck that was going ten miles under the fifty-five-speed limit.  With Alice in Chains playing on the stereo, I pulled within a car length of him, flashed my high beams, but the truck did not speed up.

“Crap.” I muttered.

“Pass him.” Barney urged me.“Naw.  You know how things can be.” I shook my head.

“Shoot down in Los Angeles there ain’t no speed limits.” Barney said.  He had taken a summer trip down to Disneyland with his family last summer.  When we got back, he told me all about the movie stars he had seen on Sunset Boulevard as well as the unlimited speed limit. “Dad got passed doing over eighty.”

“We are not in Los Angeles.” I pointed out.

“Maybe he will turn up ahead.” Mary suggested, but no such luck. He even started to slow down.

“Dude, are we going to get there tonight?” Barney elbowed me.

I flashed my high beams even though there was nobody behind me, but thirty-five miles per hour is not acceptable.

A cool wind blew in the window.  Refreshing, because it had been a hot one today with the temperature in the triple digits.

I was getting anxious.

Carlton and Barney mentioned something about having a pair.

Passing against a double yellow was dangerous. 

There are certain standards that must be obeyed.

There are laws that apply to us all. 

Gravity.

Physics.

Motion.

No one was coming in the other land so say Barney.

Nothing.

Pull over.

Pull over.

Pull over damn it.

In the next ten seconds everything changed.

I crossed the double yellow lines.

Instantly I see the headlights of another vehicle.

I pull the steering wheel, but it’s too late.

The grinding of metal, the showering of glass as we try to break one of Newton’s laws about occupying the same space at the same time.  Second second I hear a scream it is gone by second three.  In that third second the airbags deploy and my world becomes a shadow. Barney disappears in fourth second along with the right side of the Toyota.  It all seems so surreal.  Second five, I feel as though I am going airborne.  Where is the rest of the vehicle? I can see the headlines on the newspaper my dad reads faithfully each morning over his English muffins and coffee.  He says something to me, but I can’t answer.  Mom is in the living room watching the morning news on television.  She will see the news flash about the accident. In the sixth second, I feel as though I am making contact earth after my flight.  I am still buckled in my seat, but I can’t feel my arm and when I look, I wish I hadn’t since there is a bone sticking out of my lower arm.  There is a burning pain that makes me cry out.  Not cry, scream.  I am screaming.  Barney is gone and all I can see is the road next to me.  The backseat seems to be gone.  In the seventh second, I am fumbling with the seatbelt, but when it unhooks, I fall on the road.  The jolt sends pain screaming from my arm that makes me feel as if I am walking into a dark room.  I hear voices.  These voices are too distant and garbled like when you are trying to find a station on the radio.  Is this what it’s like to be dead?  Did I die?  What will I tell Troy?  Sorry dude, can’t make it on account I am dead?  What will the newspaper headline say, the one my dad reads, “Local boy is killed in a car accident? “What will my obituary say about me?  My life was just getting started. This is not fair.  Second eight I hear someone screaming.  The person screaming is male.  I hear someone shout my name, but I cannot seem to respond.  In the ninth second, I try to stand up so I can see for myself what has happened. I was bringing four bags of Doritos.  I wonder where they are now.  Something is pressing on my chest, preventing me from standing.  I begin to panic, but any movement cause white hot pain that makes my eyes flutter and moves me closer to that darkness that scares me to death.  Ironic choice of words.  Somewhere around the tenth second, I hear distant sirens.  At this moment time becomes irrelevant. I enter the dark room.  I am no longer.  I am no longer…

Four Teenagers Killed in Head On Collision  

Last night on the Oak Hill Road, four teenagers were killed in a head on collision.  The driver Dustin Jensen, age 18, crossed the double yellow line and struck a truck driven by Patrick Oslet, age 28 who was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.  Passengers in the 2008 Toyota Camry included Mary Collins age 17 who was valedictorian of the recent graduating class at Oak Hill High School, Carlton Newsome, age 18 who had won a scholarship, and Barney Diford age 18.  The vehicle was crushed beneath Oslet’s truck where three of the passengers were killed instantly.  Jensen did survive but passed away on his way to the hospital.  This accident is the worst accident on that road in thirty years.  

To me, time is no longer relevant. The ten seconds became my eternity.  There are a lot of myths about death and being dead, but I really don’t wish to go into that at this moment.  Both Mary and Barney were killed instantly, because when I jerked the steering wheel, Oslet’s truck hit the right side of the car.  Sir Isaac Newton’s law of physics was not kind to either of them.  Somehow the door Carlton was leaning on was launched about a hundred feet talking poor Carlton with it.  I do not remember the ambulance ride.  There was not enough morphine, but once I entered the dark room it all went away.

While the newspapers called this one of the worst tragedies in our limited history, the fact remains that sometimes a whole life can be lived in ten seconds.  Something I can personally attest to.