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A journey back to my heart, the place where I reside more often than not now. |
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- They thought perhaps the accident had caused me to have amnesia, and maybe the reason why I hadn't contacted anyone for several days. A private investigator was interviewing all of my friends, or at least the ones listed in my address book. Only one of them, Mark, had seen me the night before. He assumed I made it home safely. In fact, I had not. I woke up as the sun was peering through the trees. More accurately, I came to, as I slowly became aware of the early morning sounds of birds singing to each other. They slowly made their way into my consciousness, and then I noticed a dry taste in my mouth. The discomfort of my thick tongue was enough to jostle me from my deep sleep. Opening my eyes slowly, I discovered that I was slumped over the steering wheel, bent at a forty- five degree angle. Picking my head up from the dashboard, I saw that the windshield was cracked, presumably from where my head had impacted it. Looking down at my side, I could see the bent gearshift. Suddenly I realized there was pain in my knee, and wondered if that was the part of my body that bent the shifter. All of a sudden, my head began to pound, as I looked around to see where I was. There was a large tree front and center, just beyond the cracked windshield. Funny, I did not remember hitting a tree. The last thing I could recall was going around a curve, and then... nothing. Slowly the events of the night before made their way into my consciousness. Mark had driven me around for a while, in my car, to make sure I was okay to drive. After that, I agreed I would try to make it home. I lived about seven miles away, in the next town over. We had moved there the year before, but I missed my friends at the old high school, especially Mark. He had shown an interest in me when I was only fifteen. He was a year older, in eleventh grade. We had one class together - that was physical education. On days when it rained, we would sit on the stage and hold hands and talk. I felt I could talk to him about anything. My stomach would have a million butterflies when I was around him, but his presence filled me with exhilaration. When I was not around him, I thought about him constantly. That's the way first love is, I suppose. Everything is new and exciting. Time seems to stand still when you are with the one whom you admire. My father told me when I was very young that one day I would meet someone who would love me almost as much as he did. I had that feeling about Mark, that maybe he was the one. Once, when we were playing softball in our PE class, we positioned ourselves in the outfield, so close together, it was as if we were both playing center field We were so enamored in our conversation that we didn't notice when someone hit the ball and it rolled right between us. Embarrassed, he ran after the ball while I just stood there, laughing. Another time, a Grand Torino, the color of my father's last car came down the road next to the school. I remarked to him that it looked exactly like my father's car, and he asked me if it was my father. I just laughed and said no. I didn't want to tell him that my father had died unexpectedly four years earlier. He would find out soon enough. I didn't want to ruin the fun-loving mood that seemed to permeate all of our gatherings. That year he signed my annual in the back, stating that he had a secret all year long, and it was that he really liked me a lot. Then he instructed me to "stay sweet" and have a nice summer, and that he would see me next year. He then told me where he would be hanging out over the summer, at a restaurant where he worked. I took the hint and made a mental note of it. I was looking forward to seeing him the next year, if not sooner. Unbeknownst to me, I would not be attending the same school the next year, as my brother and my mother bought a house in a neighborhood where I would attend my fourth high school since eighth grade. This moving business was starting to get old. That is why I had driven to my old classmates' stomping grounds that night. I was supposed to go to swim class, but had somehow acquired a couple of Quaaludes. I took the first one and washed it down with some Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill wine. After a few minutes, I did not feel anything so I took the other pill. Soon I was feeling high enough to forget my shyness. I was painfully introverted, except when drinking or using drugs. I felt like they were the only way I could overcome my personality defect. You could say that I definitely had some limited coping skills at that age. Most of the previous night was a blur. I had stopped at a gas station, owned by Mark's uncle. I had stopped there a few times before, and his uncle knew how I felt about Mark. I was so drunk that I peed in my pants. Even the alcohol and Quaaludes were not enough for me to overcome my shyness to ask where the restroom was. I was embarrassed by my accident, which drew some laughs from the employees there. I am not sure how I later met up with Mark, whether his uncle called him or if I went by his house. I do remember trying to tell him how I felt about him, and he just dismissed it as drunken exaggeration on my part. It wasn't. I really meant it. I could never bring myself to express my true feelings when I was sober, whether it was anger, fear, joy, excitement, or just plain boredom. I always had to ingest something to help me "figure out" how I felt. It's no wonder. I had been drinking and smoking pot since I was thirteen. My brothers used to take me to concerts at that age and for a couple of years after, where I would get as drunk or as stoned as I wanted to, with no consequences. I don't blame them for my habit, though. If not for them, I would have found it somewhere; and once I found what I experienced as a powerful way to change the way I felt, it was a hard habit to break. By the age of sixteen, I was out of control, and my irresponsible lifestyle collided with the material world that night when I made contact with that tree. I was lucky there were no broken bones and there appeared to be no blood anywhere except for a few scratches on my arm. There was, however, a big bruise on my forehead and I inspected it in the rear-view mirror. Then panic overcame me. It struck me like a bolt of lightning as my heart began to race. What was going to happen when my mother found out? What would my brothers say (or do)? All of a sudden, I felt the need to get away from the scene of the crime. I opened the door and stepped out of the car, looking at it only briefly to assess the damage. Not thinking very far into the future, I left without taking any identification. There were only a couple of things in my pocket: a tie clasp that my father had made from his gold tooth, and a watch that he had worn, minus the watchband. These things I carried around with me for good luck. Little did I know I was going to need them. |
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