The Accident

A car crash in 2007

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*This is an autobiographical short story about a terrible car crash I got into in 2007. All names have been changed. Some minor details have been altered.

Photo by Conor Samuel on Unsplash

The Accident

I sat on one of the old, padded stools at the L-shaped bar, my legs swinging, sipping leisurely from a pint of Pilsner. I was back at The Irish Rose, my drinking haunt down the street from Jackson’s house. Jackson was around somewhere, talking to people.

            The place was vibrant, thrumming with voices all interacting and clashing at once, though there couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, thirty people in the place. Karaoke carried on to my right: Some drunken fool with a long hank of shaggy black hair sang Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing,” a nightly curse. Above the karaoke stage was that familiar sign, ancient gold trim with pink blinking neon bulbs around it: The Irish Rose, Ventura, California, Since 1976.

            I lifted my pint, half finished, and swallowed a hefty mouthful. I was twenty-four years old and it would be another three years before I’d suddenly hit an emotional bottom and get sober, finally reaching the level of harsh desperation required for quitting the drink. My alcoholism at this juncture was pure and sadomasochistic, some demented animal inside that sought to tear my soul apart, piece by ragged piece.

            “Don’t Stop Believing” faded out, at last, and for a moment there was a silence. The chatter of indecipherable voices mingling increased.

The bar was low-lit, dark, red pulsing lights, and when I looked over I saw myriad faces, partially hidden by the fog of rising cigarette smoke—it was illegal to smoke in bars in California but this was one of those places that ignored this, deemed it as Fascist—a few women, wearing too much makeup, and a few haggard-looking older men, baseball caps drawn tight over creepy eyes, wanting to left alone. This was a cliché old man’s alcoholic den. The kind of place where, leaving the bar at noon, you’d walk outside, shielding your eyes from the sun, angry, as if the world outside were some fictitious zone and the universe within the bar was the true womb of America.

The stale reek of cigarettes, body odor, and the stench which rose sluggishly from the nasty, encrusted linoleum floor of the bar—grotesque from the spills of a million incidents over the decades: urine, beer, cum, blood—wafted under my nostrils like some eternal smelling salt. Some idiot metal-head, guy in his thirties wearing a cut-off jean vest, long blonde hair, sideburn mutton chops and thick motorcycle boots, started singing to “Crazy Train” by Ozzy Osbourne.

I took another swig of the pint. It was two-thirds done. Lifting my eyes, I spotted the round clock above the bar: Midnight. Johnny Blanco, the infamous Irish Rose bartender, stood within the L-shaped bar, arms splayed out at an angle, gnarled, muscled, veiny hands planted on the bar top, threadbare red rag over his shoulder, talking to some old drunk. With the music going, and all the chatter, I couldn’t hear their words. I was partly glad about this, partly annoyed. I liked to listen in on other people’s conversations. What else can a serious young writer do?

I don’t know why but I started thinking about the apple orchard my paternal grandfather owned while I was growing up. We called it The Ranch. It was this massive, sprawling tract of land. There was a cabin. It was somewhere—I can’t recall exactly where anymore—in Northern California, not terribly far from the Pacific Coast. Henry—my dad’s dad—had been a multimillionaire. He’d invested in computer stock early, in the eighties, before anyone knew how things in technology would turn out. He’d studied electrical engineering at the University of Nebraska during the Depression and had done so well that no one had matched his grades for over four decades. After that he climbed the corporate latter in several IT firms in Southern California Defense, in the forties and fifties and sixties, and he became a well-known and respected CEO.

I don’t know when he bought the land. But I remember it well. There were hundreds of rows of apple trees, wide hard-packed dirt paths between each row. There was a bridge from one side of the land to another, divided by a rushing green river. A few times when I was a kid, my mother, father and I, as well as my friend James, would drive up there from Ventura and stay in the cabin on the property. I don’t ever recall seeing my grandpa there. My father would drive us in the open-topped, Army-style, olive-colored Jeep, up and down those wide hard-packed dirt paths and I remember feeling terrified, seeing the rushing, roiling green river, thinking every time that we’d fly off the lurid cliff and hurl into that racing water. But I never said a word. I always thought my father wouldn’t understand, that he’d think less of me, that, somehow, he’d lose faith in his little boy.

It was right then, as “Crazy Train” ended, and as Johnny nodded to me for another pint, was in fact popping the top of the bottle off, pouring the thing, when I felt the cold, thin fingers grip my left shoulder.

I turned, eyeing Jackson. His pale Irish face was beaming, those freckles like tiny Christmas tree lights. His gelled short hair was spiky and, backed against the low-lit, red pulsing light, it looked shiny; you could even see little glops of the hurriedly-thrown-on gel. He was thin and tall, wearing his usual black high-top Chuck Taylors and a faux leather jacket, unzipped, showing off his hard, muscled stomach and chest. The kid worked out. We’d been friends for about four years or so.

We’d met through a good female friend of his, Carla, who’d I’d been dating when I was twenty. He’d always yearned for her like nobody’s business but had kept quiet because he had low self-esteem. She was a Goth chick, ivory face, severely cut blue-black hair, combat boots, perennially ripped Black Sabbath or Marilyn Manson T-shirts, old-school motorcycle leather jackets, Thrift store everything, and a reader of authors like William Burroughs, preferring the weird and surreal, such as Naked Lunch. Jackson had always taken pleasure back then of hating the new boys she dated, making their lives harder. Carla knew this and derived a sick pleasure from the process. She both mocked the new boy she dated, and also dangled her power in front of Jackson.

But it had been different with me. For one, she’d actually liked me and wanted a real relationship. For two, Jackson and I surprised each other by getting along. Fast-forward months later and Carla  was gone, leaving the fresh friendship between me and Jackson. We’d hit the ground running and had gone from there.

“Hey,” Jackson said, his voice low, glancing back over his narrow shoulder before facing me again. He seemed like he was going to cup his pallid, skinny hand over my ear and tell me a secret, like some fifth grade girl. “You want to head out?”

Right then “Born in the USA,” by Bruce Springsteen, started rolling on the karaoke machine. I wanted to turn and look at who was singing, but Jackson’s eyes burrowed down into me like some screw, turning into wood.

“Now?” I asked, raising my voice to match the pop music. Then I turned and snatched my fresh pint. It was ice cold in my warm hand. I lifted and slugged. It tasted so damn good, golden frothy wheat going down my gullet. “What’s the hurry?”

Seeming slightly nervous, Jackson glanced back over his shoulder again. I followed his antsy gaze and, down a ways, I spotted a girl standing alone, by one of the random metal pillars in the place that stretched from floor to ceiling. It reminded me of the punk shows I’d gone to as a teenager, having to swirl in the sadistic mosh-pit around those metal pillars, like gnashing sharks in the water you had to avoid. The girl was average height, much shorter than Jackson of course. She looked half Goth, half punk, white Chuck Taylors, tight black pants, red blouse, breasts spilling out the open V-neck. She toyed with a gold-colored necklace which hung above her cleavage. Her hair was shortish and dark and straight. Blue eye-shadow streaked on her face, thick red lipstick.

“She wants to take me back to her place, off Victoria Ave,” Jackson said. He placed his skeletal white palm on the sticky edge of the bar.

“What about me?” I asked. I’d driven down to see Jackson, crash at his place. My car was parked in front of his house. I was too drunk to drive, certainly. And it was past midnight.

Jackson sniffled, stood erect, and smiled. He looked back again. The girl smiled back at him, eyes going wide, her open mouth exposing perfect white teeth. Jackson swallowed. “She says she has a girl for you, buddy. We can stay there. You in?”