Death Drives a Lambo

                “C’mon, Dad.” I impatiently tapped my foot. We had been “discussing” my plans for celebrating the coming new year for the past fifteen minutes, and I wasn’t making any headway. Josh and some other friends waited, crammed into the small entryway of the house. I was the last to be picked up that night.

                Dad shook his head, frustrated. “It’s not a good idea.”

                I argued back. “Why not? It’s not like we’re going to drink and drive. We’re not going to do drugs or anything.” I felt low playing a line like that, but I desperately want to go.

                My father sighed deeply. Silence passed.

                After what seemed like eternity, he finally spoke again, and when he did, he looked directly into my eyes. “It’s other people’s choices that worry me. The roads are going to be dangerous tonight.” His voice trailed off but then came back more purposefully. “I’ll let you make your own choice, son. Just know that I’ll be disappointed if you choose to go. I just have a feeling that you shouldn’t.”

                A knot in my stomach started to form but not from any hunger pains. Deep within I knew he was right, but how could I explain that to the posse waiting for me?

                I swallowed down the guilty feelings. “Fine,” I blurted and resolutely, stubbornly, stormed out the door, homies in tow.

                “Be safe.” I heard him call over my shoulder.

                “Whatever,” I thought.

                Sliding into shotgun in Josh’s full-size van, I heard someone from the back whisper, “Dude, his dad’s pissed.”

                I turned around and glared into the dark; the back of the vehicle went silent.

                Josh turned the key, and the engine revved to life. I cranked the music to push the disagreement with my dad out of my head, and we pulled out of the driveway.

                We hit Rally’s for a cheap burger and fries before crossing west over the Mississippi, and soon we were cruising the winding spaghetti-like highways and byways of the greater St. Louis area. On and off freeways, we twisted and weaved our way to a plethora of party stops, only staying long enough at each one to see and be seen. It was, after all, New Year’s Eve, 1993, the last one before I graduated from high school, and I intended to celebrate in style, or at least in quantity.

                My buddies and I, floating natural highs, cranked the speakers beyond their capacity until they cracked and surrendered to our demands. Even when shouting in the close proximity of the van, it was impossible to understand what anyone else said. Greasy wrappers cluttered at our feet, near-empty drinks rattled in the molded vinyl cup holders, the piles growing higher as the night waxed on. We dropped in at various bashes and dances; from churches to community centers to private homes, we came, we partied, and we left in search of more.

                Midnight came and went, I recall, and we were hunting for more food before we moved on to the next stop on our list. We were driving west on Highway 40, I believe, away from downtown, and I’d guess we were cruising around 70 or 75 miles per hour—fast for that area, but not fast enough to be pulled over. When out of nowhere, we heard a raucous clamor over the thumping bass of Cypress Hill. I was sitting in the passenger seat. A little perplexed, I silenced the pounding tunes. The noise grew louder—the thrum of an engine. I looked out my window scarcely in time to see a yellow Lamborghini streak by, almost clipping the front bumper of the van. Neon purple emanated from underneath, underlining the blur. With an apparent kick of nitrous oxide, the car hit another gear and rocketed away from us, a fluorescent streak darting through traffic, disappearing into the darkness, like the Millennium Falcon making the jump to light speed.

                “Did you see that?” came a reverent whisper from the back. See it? We felt it as it whipped through the river or cars and trucks. The van now slowed involuntarily. I glanced up and down the freeway; we weren’t the only vehicles pausing to soak in the dangerous beauty of that car.

                “Dude!” Josh exclaimed. “He must have been going at least ninety!”

                “That guy’s gonna kill somebody,” I muttered under my breath. My stomach tightened. “Could’ve been us.”

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                Nanoseconds passed before the entire van buzzed with excitement about the Lambo. Tales of exotic sports cars we had seen or sat in or even driven filled the space—typical testosterone-fueled boasting. Even though the run-in with yellow Lamborghini only lasted a couple seconds, THAT was pretty cool.

                Soon we pulled off into some suburb to refuel both our van and our bellies; the entourage needed more sustenance to keep going. The goal to literally party until the break of dawn needed some assistance: caffeine and fast food.

                It wasn’t long after we had returned from our pit stop to the freeway that the world, or at least the traffic, slowed to a crawl, almost like a slow-motion scene out of a bad action movie.  A collective groan from the seven of us rose above the bass groove. Bumper to bumper the cars inched forward, stuck like concert-goers going through a turnstile, bunching, maneuvering to get ahead but going nowhere. Josh pounded the steering wheel in frustration. Horns blared around us, dissonant and piercing; they cut through the slow jams fuzzing through the cracked speakers, putting a damper on the night’s revelries. I lowered the window to catch a better sense of what was happening up ahead. A wicked sharp wind caught my breath and carried it away in the night, leaving my throat frozen. Lights flashed—red, blue, and the amber of emergency vehicles.

                “Wreck ahead,” I announced and silenced the music again. Impatience stirred.

                Incident management trucks, police cars, and fire engines blocked most of the view. Forty-five minutes and half a mile later, we reached the bottleneck. A lone officer directed the clogged artery of traffic. Emergency personnel moved back and forth. Glass littered the freeway. Some of it, we noticed, was tinged red. Several inspector-looking people flashed cameras. On the shoulder sat three or four cars, twisted and bent, forming a heap of metal usually only seen in a junkyard. As we soberly rolled by, we noticed along the cement barrier was a streak of yellow paint about the length of a school bus. And then we saw it. A heap of metal and glass and purple neon sitting by itself: the Lambo…or at least what was left of it. The only recognizable semblance that this mound had once been a car was a solitary yellow door, sticking straight into the air, a monument to this symbol of extravagance that not even an hour earlier had whipped past us without a care. The twisted scrap pile looked like the Terminator and Wolverine got into a wrestling match inside the Lamborghini and decided to rip it open like a giant aluminum soda can and spill its guts onto the pavement. Spots on the concrete were dark and wet.

                We watched in a horrified silence as an EMT slammed the back doors of an ambulance, pounded twice, and walked away. The ambulance drove off: lights on but no siren. I noticed that it fell in line with two others, who also flashed lights but no sound—a signal that there was no rush to get where they were headed. A nagging thought filled my conscience. A couple of inches, and that could have been us. Dad had been right—someone else’s choices ruined more than the night.

                All of us sat stupefied by what we had just seen. Josh kept driving west. The only conversation the rest of that night was when I suggested we turn around and go home. Josh only nodded. I think some of the others fell asleep.

                A contemplative mood fell over the van as we returned to the Illinois side of the river. Scenes flashed before me as the streetlights drifted past, shedding their own blurred orange-white light on the night’s events. All I could do was shake my head and try and shake the image from my mind.

                When we pulled up to my house, I noticed that Dad’s car was gone—already off to work, so my admission and apology would have to wait. “Dad, you were right,” I said remorsefully to myself as I stumbled through the front door. It could have been me. The slick red spots twisted into the silver and yellow could have been me. I might have wiped out my future without even having one. Splat. Over. Not my choices.

This is the last of the four personal narratives I wrote with my students this year. Somehow it got shuffled under a pile and forgotten until a few days ago. Some of this piece has been fictionalized for the sake of continuity and artistic license...and the fact that I don't exactly remember who was with me on this adventure. I can say that even though at times I was a butt-headed teenager and didn't listen to my dad all the time, I can say that now he is one of my best friends, and I always seek out his counsel. I'm not sure who coined the adage, and I'm too lazy to look it up right now, but I agree that the older I get, the smarter my dad gets.

A Little Rambling and a Little Waiting

This post is mostly for me to reflect upon what I have written recently.

So what have I written over the past month? Obviously nothing on my blog. That's pretty noticeable, but I have been busy. Mostly, I've been writing letters of application, philosophy statements, and scholarly writing samples. Well, I've been tweaking them. For those who don't know, I am looking to break into the ranks of academia on a full-time scale. It's somewhat similar to what I did five years ago when I was asked to apply for a university position and did better than I thought I would not having the PhD yet. However, as of this moment in time, since last March when I began this crazy go-round, I have applied to sixteen different positions across the country, received three online interviews, four rejection emails, one rejection letter, and a whole lot of nothing from everywhere else. Makes a guy wonder what's wrong. Now, I know there are many factors involved, so this isn't a pity party, and to be fair, it hasn't been very long since I've applied to some of them, but in the words of one of my favorite Spanish sword-fighters, "I hate waiting."

This past August, though, I was hired locally as an adjunct professor to teach Intro to Writing, a required freshman level class, two evenings each week. It's been fun, but it has taken up a lot of my time. I've written a few sample papers for that, but nothing of any consequence.

I've started tightening up my to-write lists as well. My list of narratives that need to be told is getting longer, although the production rate has slowed.

My plans to write a teacher education book are starting to poke through the soil as well. Maybe within a few months blossoms will form--or at least some greenery. I also need to go back and break down and put back together some professional articles from my dissertation. I know I need to do it, but other parts of me just want to seal that monster in the dungeon and throw away the key--the only access being a trap door that hapless scholars might succumb to. Who knows?

I did find another draft of a narrative I started a few months ago that might make an appearance soon. I guess we'll (you and I) will have to wait and see.