THE SCUMBAG
VILE SELF PORTRAITS, CHAPTER EIGHT
The treble of the radio. There was no bass in the standard speakers. The Scumbag never splurged on anything but coke. His 1998 Jeep Cherokee reeked of cheap vodka. Noah and Anne were in the back seat. Twenty. Drunk. In love. Fatal diseases. His hand reached for hers. Her smile glowed in the dark. The streetlamps shimmered against the windows. The film behind her eyes raced. He’ll clean up, she thought. He can get past himself. He’s so good. There’s so much good in him and not enough in the world. The world needs him, needs us, she thought. Her best friend Sarah was in the passenger seat. The Scumbag was Sarah’s wayward fiancé, the reluctant father of her infant child. The child was at home with Sarah’s exhausted mother who hated The Scumbag for ruining her daughter and never asked for any of it but still took it as it came.
As her own.
The music was loud and it suffocated reason. It became noise. The Scumbag reached for a cigarette. The Jeep swerved and hit a tree. Noah and Anne’s eyes never broke contact as they were thrown through the windshield.
His hand reached for hers midair.
◆◆◆
Every Fourth of July, the whole of Walpole gathers on the football field downtown to watch the fireworks. Street vendors sell silly string and glow sticks. Parents tow coolers and beach chairs. Teens binge booze in secret. People laugh and sing and wonder and love.
Smitty, Willy, Captain, and I ran into Noah and Anne by Blackburn Hall. Noah had his usual backpack full of Budweiser. His eyes were glazed and vacant, but his smile was true. Anne was bubbly and beautiful. I had to stop myself from staring at her.
After the fireworks, we all went to Captain’s and got drunk. Noah and Anne left around one in the morning with a guy I’d never met before. A coke dealer. He was obliterated.
My father woke me with the news.
He told me that Noah died on impact, but Anne survived the crash. He picked her up in the Medflight helicopter in a nearby field. As he explained what happened, I pictured him screaming through a bleak skyline at 150 knots, intermittently looking back at a beautiful, bloody girl letting go of life. Somberly cleaning the blood off the helicopter floor after they removed her corpse. Shedding his flight suit, somehow changed.
"They shouldn’t have been fuckin’ drinkin’, Joe. Some scumbag was drivin’, some olda guy. He survived, walked away with nuthin’ butta cut on his face. He was fuckin’ drunk and on coke. His fiancée was in the passenger seat… dead. Paramedics said he was doin’ ninety miles an hour down East Street when they hit the tree. No seatbelts. The girl, Anne… she was pregnant. It was early… she didn’t know. Sorry, Joe."
We’ll never talk about it again. Not another word. That’s the Dean way: seal your emotional state and swallow it like a capsule. An anti-depressant.
"Ya gutta move on, Joe. Can’t let it eat ya up. Move on."
Paperback/ebook here.
VILE SELF PORTRAITS© AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO DRUG ADDICTION
Heart rending recounting of an obviously real experience. When I was a kid, they used to put totaled wrecks on display to try and convince teenagers not to drink and drive. Alcohol is the most dangerous drug in the world. 😿
Damn, that's brutal. Your writing is always so detailed and you are a powerful storyteller.