Death

I saw death on Friday. I watched two people die on Saturday. I didn’t see two dead people. I watched two people die.

Driving to my friend’s funeral, I was riding alone, as I am doing so often lately. It was a clear morning with very little wind which is a blessing to someone on a motorcycle.

This is why I was surprised when i saw a huge dust storm kick up off the other side of the freeway a little ways ahead of me. Then I noticed the big black SUV in the middle of the storm; spinning, suspended, flinging anger and plastic and steel in every direction.

I saw a man come partway out of his window as the roof gently placed his head on the pavement and squeezed it open like a water balloon filled with disgust. I watched his body fly through the air and land not gently about 40 feet beyond where the truck came to rest on that same roof.

Through the luck of the reckless idiot I made it out of the suddenly erratic traffic on my side of the freeway and crossed over through the dirt to the other side; dodging through cars, taking time to put down my kickstand before running through the dirt, luggage, board games, and broken dreams to the little girl strung across the lower levels of a barbed wire fence. Speaking calmly and clearly into the receiver I notified the 911 operator I wasn’t aware I had called of our mile marker and the gravity of the situation.

Her shirt had been pulled up to around her neck and blood was laced like ribbon around her frame and head from the barbs and safety glass. A set of what I imagine to have once been golf clubs decorated the scene not far away. They had a game of Trivial Pursuit. The cards were everywhere. I didn’t know that game had so many damn cards.

There was screaming from the truck. The mother was still inside, and whether she was screaming because she could see the inside of her husbands head or because of the blood running from her side, I couldn’t tell.

Hope springs eternal. I guess that’s why I ran to the father next, looking at his frame laying in an uncomfortable but almost believable resting position. He would almsot have been asleep if not for the top of his head missing and all those years of work and avarice leaking like so much scattered ofal on the road around him. If you ever get the chance to see the inside of someones head… don’t do it. It’s not worth it.

By this time others were on scene and attending to the woman in the truck and watching over the young one. I couldn’t do nothing. I have never been the person to do nothing. Even when I know that anything I will do is wrong, I still have to do something. Maybe that’s my problem.

I went back to the girl, climbing over the fence again leaving a dozen tiny holes in my jeans and a scratch of fresh blood running down my thigh. Her head was bobbing back and forth with nothing to support it and some impulse refusing to let it fall to the ground. She wasn’t speaking or opening her eyes. I wondered what color they were; how they contrasted or matched her dirty brown hair wrapped in the fence behind her head.

The blood trickling out of her mouth ran across her cheek and onto the gloves I had not taken off while I supported her head. Stroking her hair with my other hand, I whispered softly to her that everything was going to be ok. She would be on her way to the hospital and everyone would be just fine. Her mother’s screams from the truck named me a liar over and over again.

She didn’t have any wounds to put pressure on. She didn’t have any external contusions showing where there may be internal bleeding, and there were no visible lacerations of any size on her head. Just the blood across her body from the tiny cuts and the slow stream leaving her mouth with it’s miniature Hubba Bubba bubbles bursting in her red and white teeth.

This is how we sat. This is what we spoke of. Everything will be all right. I wonder what color her eyes are. *Scream* Your mother will be just fine, They are helping her now. This is how we spent the entirety of our life together. I held her head and lied to her over and over again. This is how we were when she stopped breathing.

The sirens came just before she started turning colors. She couldn’t hear them then. The last thing this tender little girl with the no colored eyes heard was my voice lying to her and her mother’s cries denouncing me for the truthless bastard that I am.

The helicopter came. The paramedics loaded the little girl up speaking of resuscitation and, estimating her age at 17, called her only ‘female.’ The blood was still on my hands. I had to go. I had a friend to bury that morning. The gloves I would eventually place in his coffin to be buried with him still had her blood on them when they closed the casket. It was dry, so it didn’t stain his nice new clothes.

I spoke briefly with rescuers and I left. I couldn’t cry for her there. I stabbed the cork back into that bottle full of pent up emotions and I rode like hell to see my friend before they locked him away.

His family was amazing, as I knew they would be. So many people knew who I was I was shocked. I asked his mother If I could give him my riding gloves; have them buried with him, and she happily said yes. Inside of them I slipped a piece of his ruined motorcycle I had picked up when we placed the cross at the crash site. Blue and black. Black and blue. Just like the clothing he had on. Just like my gloves. Just like our motorcycles. Just like all these bruises.

There was an entire wall of the building arranged with printouts of my words and the words that so many others left here on this web site. His aunt held me and we cried later, sad that we knew each other this way and not in joyful introduction.

I don’t know how anyone is supposed to carry this much. When the one person I want to hold me is gone. I don’t know what to do next.

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Update 3/3/08:

I finally found a couple articles online that talked about the accident. I got the best news I’ve had this entire year when I found out that the daughter was hospitalized, not interred. She is in the hospital with her mother, though I have not been able to determine what severity of injuries or where they are hospitalized.

In deference to the family, I won’t put their names up here as they are going through enough. The paramedics were wrong about her age, but they did their jobs and both the daughter and her mom are alive today. I’m contacting the reporters to find out what hospital they are in and planning a road trip to see them with my own eyes and add some flowers and maybe a smile to their day.

I was practically jumping up and down with excitement when I heard this today. Then I realized that the greatest moment of 2008 for me was learning that a complete stranger wasn’t dead. I guess you take the victories where you can get them and hold on for dear life.