Road Journal .3 (Almost Dead- Mid July)

Monday, July 17, 2006
Road Journal .3 (Almost Dead- Mid July)

Almost Dead

Casey Stengel once said, "There comes a time in every man's life. I've had plenty of them." Such has been my experience; times when I've been more scared than a child, times when I've wrapped my toes around the bluffs of a brink, times when I had my back to the wall with no escape route, and times when death stared me in the eye.

A few droplets of rain stung my cheeks as I leaned into the thin part of a wide curve along the Alabama highway. In the right lane a truck sped past towing a speedboat. To my left, a thousand pairs of headlights blinded me one by one. The thin part of the curve turned fat, the slight decline deepened into a steep downhill and the two southbound lanes that were leading me to Florida merged into one. From my right periphery, the boat glided toward me. Ahead, the truck had already overtaken my lane. In the rearview mirror, the grill of an eighteen wheeler shined through the mist.

Three feet to my left, northbound traffic was speeding by. To my right a speedboat on a trailer was twenty four inches away and closing fast, pushing me into oncoming traffic. I was blocked from the front, and had a pair of headlights burning into my back.

I recall, for a fraction of a moment being certain that this would be a fatal accident. Death was a heartbeat away.

Of this experience, that is the last thought I can remember before I channeled a higher consciousness.

Instinctively, I gripped the throttle in my right hand, tightened my body to the cycle and steered with precision onto the double yellow lines. Steering and holding the throttle steady as cars passed just inches to my left, I stood up on the pegs, pressed the horn and waved my left hand in a quick wave over my head. The man in the pick-up truck, dragging his boat just inches off my right flank, still didn't see me in his mirrors.

The road curved more sharply to the right. I leaned into it while standing, still waving my left hand, still pressing the horn, still riding both wheels over the double yellow line.

Then I hit a puddle. My bike went into an over-steer skid, the back wheel fish-tailing to the left. I pulled my wrist back on the accelerator, the truck on the right still ignorant of me, and saw a gap between the northbound cars. With the turn of my wrist I kicked the engine into high gear and cut across oncoming traffic, slowing to a stop in the safety of the shoulder.

Resting my feet on the gravel I took a deep breath, restarted the bike and cut back into the southbound lane, getting off at the first exit. The road spit me out on a small town main street next to a gas station and a tanning salon. With my heart pounding in my chest and my breaths heaving through my lungs, I sat on the hot asphalt of the gas station parking lot realizing how narrowly I'd escaped death.

Still Kickin'

Cars drove by at thirty miles an hour: Cadillacs, pick-up trucks, Chevy SUVs. The neon sign blinked in the tanning salon window. People walked in and out of the Wal-Mart across the street. I was lying on my back in a gas station parking lot. Marshmallow white clouds stretched like cotton balls crossed the blue sky. Horns honked, people talked on cell phones, radios sang through car windows, wheels squeaked, employees returned to work from lunch, news analysts were arguing about the economy, tabloids were fabricating stories about pop singers, guns and bombs were firing in Iraq, I was alive and in America in July 2006.

Looking around you wouldn't have believed we were a nation at war. There were no Rosies riveting, no food or supplies being rationed. To the contrary, things were being bought in excess: electronics, Nike's and fashion. Newsstands and television programs were filled with celebrity gossip while an ocean away, bodies starved, corpses were riddled with bullet holes and blood dripped from the serpent's mouth.

I was supposed to be there. I had gone to college on an ROTC scholarship and if it weren't for a torn vertebra I'd have been in Iraq. Was I upset about it? I still don't know.

What I do know though, is that I had a handful of friends serving overseas and I felt guilty and ashamed not to be with them.

A car bleeped its horn behind me. I sat up, moving out of the space for the car to park. I couldn't lay there thinking forever. It was time to move.

Leaving for a Birth

I'd passed through Alabama, the Florida panhandle, and the Orlando area. I'd seen my father, stayed with my grandparents, and spent time with my oldest sister. I'd been on the road for three weeks and had worked my first job building a fence in someone's backyard.

Around that time I got a phone call from my younger sister in Virginia. She'd been pregnant for over eight months and was awaiting her due date. I'd have to sprint to Virginia for the birth. It would be more than just the introduction of a baby into the world but the reinvention of my life situation. With a moment and a whimper I'd be shifted from brother and son into the role of uncle. My life would find a stronger meaning.