Thirty and Two

Chapter 2

  I was twenty-one and invincible. My ‘71 Ford Maverick was the hottest car at Center Technical Community College and I had a job that paid for insurance and gas. I’d often take the car out on my nights off and just drive. I liked the freedom four wheels and a full tank of gas offered.

  One night I remember taking a tight curve on Market Street at around fifty. It was after dark and there was no one else on the road. I remember a flash of high beams, a quick yank of the steering wheel and looking back through my mirror at the taillights of a car that had suddenly appeared from the other direction, in my lane.

  I remember thinking, “Holy shit! That was close!”

  I realized the next morning that the flash of lights was probably a drunk driver that just missed hitting me. A couple of blocks farther down Market Street, a bicyclist wasn’t that lucky.

  The drunk who apparently missed me plowed over the bike and through a couple of parked cars before his car came to rest, upside-down, in the parking lot of a bar.

  The cyclist, well, there was not a lot left other than a broken pedal, a reflector and a smear on the street. The debris and the memories he left with his family and friends were all that marked a life stolen by another.

  The drunk walked away with a nasty hangover and a couple of years for manslaughter. In my book, let’s just call it an unfair trade and I’ll skip the lecture.

  The police hadn’t released the name of the cyclist at press time and I never checked back. I had goose bumps, thinking, “That could have been me!” as I read the story in the local gossip sheet.

  The story scared the crap out of me. I could be dead, the car I worked on for so long, totaled! I was young and it seems funny now but I was as upset thinking about an accident damaging my car as I was about my body being mangled!

  I told no one about my experience the night before and I avoided talking about the actual crash, although it was the only thing people wanted to talk about the next day. Even my mother found a way to incorporate the story in a lecture.

  “Rog, just wait ‘til you’re a parent and you’ll understand,” Mom pontificated. “Every time you go out, oaah, I pray you’ll come home safe and in one piece! If I lost you…,” she’d wail, complete with the required loud sniffling.

  Her voice edged with emotion, a tissue suddenly in her hand and tears forming in her eyes, Mom played her part well. The performance was a standard response for Mom in conversations about my driving, regardless of whether I had done anything wrong.

  I always wondered where she hid the tissues. I thought of Mom stuffing her bra and my mind slapped me silly, a defense mechanism because Mom would have slapped me sillier if I laughed during one of her sermons.

  Later that night, I heard the first voice.

  I was working as a busboy at Lenny’s, a local restaurant. I was doing my favorite job, running the dish machine, when I heard someone whisper, “Roger!” I jumped about a foot and yelled, in a shaky voice, “What! Don’t do that. You scared the crap outta me!”

  No one answered. I was alone in the room, just me and a lot of dirty dishes. I told myself whomever it was would be right back. I waited, on edge, for a couple of minutes and forgot about it.

  Later that night, I was getting ready for bed when I heard the voice again. “Wake up!” The voice was a little louder but still like the whisper of someone next to me. I was alone in the room. The voices have come to me on and off since then.