Drt (6 page)

The ad was written by a mind who was concerned with space. “Penn Quarter...Teaism…Sundays @ noon…Be Well.”
 

Be well. The words cascaded like the sound of a waterfall in the middle of a forest. I closed my eyes and smelled peace. I thought about a lazy brook that wandered through a thatch of trees. I thought about smelling the dirt and leaves, and the water, the clear clean smell of water running through a stream. I could visualize it, like I was there. I closed my eyes and felt my body relax. Standing in a forest listening to birds and the creek, looking around the trees and feeling peace, a tractor trailer cab twisted around the trees smells like gas with flashing lights, emergency lights, tow trucks whining, spitting, hissing, black blood clotting, pumped in chunks from a dying heart vomiting formed lumps onto the dust and dirt below the-.

I opened my eyes and looked at the ad again. “Be Well.” I loved the words but I needed to stay away from thinking about trees, at least for the time being.

Sleep was still going to be a challenge, but I thought about the group, “Be Well”, it already sounded like a rope from above. An offer to be saved from the roof of a burning building and a moment of indecisiveness would leave me to die.
 

Maybe food would help. I got out of bed and pulled on sweat pants and a white shirt that were lying in the corner of the room. Both of them were adorned with a spatter pattern of stains but I didn't notice. I left the air conditioner on and walked outside.
 

The sun was starting to dominate the skyline. Its effects were no longer pink and orange suggestions. The ball of fire was now starting to shine onto the waking world. I squinted, not used to seeing the sun that powerful in the sky. I held a hand of protection out in front of my face and went to the car.
 

I got in the car, closed the door and started. I squinted at the two cars coming down the street, police cars. They were creeping along at the speed you travel when you are searching for an address.
 

My face felt hot and my chest almost exploded. I knew what had happened. The police on the scene of the crash found the cell phone. Acting on protocol, they checked the last couple of numbers that were on the phone. Maybe they noticed the traffic center number, maybe they called it. Either way they would know.
 

Then they would talk to Bob, find out my name and maybe even my address. They could have just plugged my name into a computer with a couple of other bits of information and then they had it, quick, easy, over.

I folded forward in terror. The feeling had splashed into my face like a bucket of cold water, the idea that they knew. They knew and they were coming, at least to detain me. I felt my legs shaking and my mind go static. I closed my eyes, and then squeezed them tighter. My heart beating like a drum roll and my stomach was unable to remain steady. There was no hope, no hope for me.
 

I would be apprehended first. They would put me through vigorous questioning where there would be several cops in the room. They would question what happened, ask what I said to the dead man, ask what I was looking at when the driver was on the phone with me, ask why I had a meeting with my boss the day prior, what was I really looking at on Craig’s List? They would throw me in a cell, hands cuffed behind, in a dirt pit in the ground, with giant bright lights far above me, laying supine and trying to pull my shoulder out of the dirt, hands bound behind so that I can't shield my face from the brilliant white light above, still able to see the shadows of figures with their gleaming teeth and eyes, the only thing visible in the shadow, smiling and laughing at my pain, utter pain and humiliation while they laugh open mouthed forever because I will be there forever in torture and humiliation and hunger and hatred and sorrow, in a pit of dirt with hands bound and bright lights beaming upon me, never be able to leave, never able to turn over, dying in this thirst and hot and bright because I wasn't good at anything, because that had cost someone his life, someone who had birthdays and holidays every year surrounded by familiar family members who cared about him, would never again have any of those things because of a pathetic waste named Greg, a nothing, an invisible man that no one likes, who couldn't just act like a competent human being for once-

I heard the sound of the nightstick tapping on my window. My terror hit a new gear. I looked up. A young police officer was smiling in the driver’s side window, his hand making the circle motion to roll the window down. With a sick heart, I complied.

“I’M SORRY!” I screamed, near tears.

“Sorry for what?” asked the officer, his voice had a soft Virginia accent.

“I didn’t tell-“ I snapped out of it. The officer looked friendly but confused. “I didn’t tell my friend Happy Birthday! I’m so sorry about that.” There’s no way I sounded convincing.

“You look like you need some sleep,” said the officer. He pulled a piece of paper to his face. “Do you know Leigh Ann Morris?”

“No.” I was calming down.

“Well, the address brought me here,” he turned and looked at the house across the street, “but nobody’s answering. Do you know what time they’re home?”

“No, I…I work the overnight shift.”

“Yeah, where at?”

“I work on the News and Traffic station.”

He smiled wide. “Are you the traffic guy on the radio?”

“Yeah, Greg Harris.”

“Wow. Greg Harris! I hear you every time I get stuck on the late shift. Wow, not what I was expecting at all.”

I usually hated when people said that, but this time I was more relieved about avoiding the scenario I had freaked out about. “Thanks for listening.”

“You probably hear that a lot.”

“...”

“All right, well, you’re free to go.”
 

My breathing was still labored as I pushed the gas and the car headed forward. A few quick turns and I was in the McDonald's parking lot. I sat for a moment to reflect on the last few hours.
 

These moments of anxiety were going to come more often and be more severe as they washed over me one after another with no end. I immediately ruled out a doctor. My insurance was through work and I couldn’t risk the people there knowing that I was going to the doctor for confusion. That also ruled out therapy.
 

The Be Well meeting wasn't until the weekend. I would have to get through Friday and Saturday. I wasn't really sure how much more of this I could take but at least there was a peaceful light at the end of the tunnel.
 

I got out of the car and went in, the walls were antiseptic clean. The workers behind the counter walked like mental patients, carrying trays of wadded food and paper. I bellied up to a woman working one of the registers.

“Can I help you sir?” she said in a total monotone. The words almost ran together.

“Can I get a Biscuit with Sausage and Cheese meal?”

“Do you want that in a meal?”

“Um…yes.”

“You do want that in a meal? The meal comes with a hash brown,” she was looking over my shoulder. I turned to see if there was anyone behind me but there wasn’t. “So if you want a hash brown and a drink you can get the meal with the sandwich.”

“Yes, I want the meal.”

“What to drink?”

“Soda’s fine.”

“Regular soda?”

“Yes.”

 
She gave me the total and I paid her. Around us, people chewed in silence. Most heads were down, reading things off their phone or a bubbly yellow newspaper. The woman who took my order stood off slightly to the side, her gaze drifted up to the ceiling as if there was weight attached to the back of her head. Someone handed her my food and she set it down in front of me without making eye contact. I grabbed the greasy bag and walked out.
 

I sat back in my car and chewed in silence. Thoughts of the meeting this weekend danced in my head. Be Well. I loved the sound of those words. They played like a song, a sweet song that danced on perfumed air. I thought about how great it would be, to be well. The thought calmed me and I fell asleep in the car.
 

8

I drove to work in a reasonably fresh shirt and pair of shorts. After the indignity of being woken up in the McDonald's parking lot, I returned home. I slept a little more and dressed for work, picking the least wrinkly shirt and shorts out of the top of the dirty pile. I didn't have a lot of resources or time to do laundry back then, so trying my best to not stain clothes was about the only course of action available.
 

There were no police when I arrived back home. I was starting to blame myself more as time clicked on. Thinking thoughts such as ‘If I had just not fallen asleep on the job a couple of days ago, this would not have happened,’ and so on.
 

I had got the traffic job more than twenty years ago. The exact circumstances had dulled in my memory to be honest and the pictures looked like they were covered in cobwebs. I’d been at the network so long I scarcely had any recollection of doing anything else. Of course, I had very fond memories of my previous job. My previous job was my passion. This traffic job was my job.

Before traffic I had worked at a sports network. I traveled the country going to various games and championships. I sat in the press box and filled out score sheets. After the game I would point a microphone at the player’s faces while they spoke to the media, and then send the tapes to whoever needed them.

Eventually I got fired, as it is in media. Most people in radio and television have been fired an enormous number of times and it always happens when you least expect it. I held my severance check in my hand for what seemed like hours that day. It was the first time that I noticed my hands quaking; this would stick with me from that point on.
 

I missed sports. Every. Single. Day. I hated traffic from the moment I started and overnight traffic was the absolute worst. It was one of those jobs, overnights especially, that was supposed to be temporary. I had planned on doing this only in the interim while I looked for an opening at another sports station and then I could get back to my real life. I wanted to be back in press boxes, covering games, but I never got around to it.
 

At some point I found a balance in the traffic job. Balance is the wrong word. There isn't a word for accepting the fact that your worst nightmare has become Tuesday.
 

Now, I just did my job. The job was the only thing I had left. I lost track of all of my friends, so I couldn't really complain because there was no one to complain to, no one to even have a simple conversation with about mundane things like the weather or how awful reality shows were. If it wasn’t for reading the traffic reports on air my vocal chords would have withered long ago from atrophy. But for the moment I was just happy to have a job, happy to have a life, and the only way I was going to keep it was if I could maintain my composure. Maintaining composure meant vigilance, at least until I could Be Well.

I drove to work, just trying to adhere to the routine. If I got lost in the grind again, my mind would stop hiccupping. I tried to let everything go, twisting the window down so I could create a breeze. The air was soupy, a choking mixture of exhaust and humidity. It stuck in the air as if an ocean had been dropped on top of the road and the cars were merely swimming through.
 

I got off the bridge and kept right to stay on the Beltway. I realized where I was and felt the world around me slow down. I was approaching the place where it happened this morning.
 

Shivers ran the length of my spine. This was the same route the now dead driver took before he died. He took in the same information as I was taking in right now, I-66, the Bridge, the curve to stay on the Beltway, all of it the same but different in a million different ways in a span of a few hours.
 

I felt like I was retracing history. It doesn't matter if it happened yesterday or a thousand years ago. As soon as the moment has passed it is history and that word is what the trucker had been reduced to. He drove this same route that I drove now just like millions of people would do for decades after, unaware of the now vanished giant twist of metal with the clumping blood beneath it.
 

That’s when I saw the skid marks. They were gigantic. A pair of dark tire marks on a highway is commonplace, but from a massive tractor trailer they can take your breath away. The black marks were wide and the space between them stretched out for yards. They told the tale of a desperate fight to remain alive but their tale ended with an obvious conclusion. The giant streaks arched and went into the trees, which stood indifferently with small scratches where the metal had been removed in the afternoon.
 

I shivered as I buried these thoughts back down and drove a little faster past Connecticut Ave before taking the exit for Georgia Ave. I parked and gathered up the things I needed into my bag and hurried into work under the cover of darkness.
 

There was a so called break room at the network. It was a blue room with a refrigerator, sink, coffee pot and a window. An ancient TV perched high above the room on the refrigerator, always on News Channel 8.
 

“An area man is dead tonight after a crash involving a tractor trailer and a disabled vehicle. Forty-nine year old Jerry Morris was traveling along the Inner Loop of the Beltway when he swerved to miss a car that was parked in the right lane. The Beltway was closed for several hours before finally....”

Amy, who at some point had walked into the break room to get a frozen meal, said “So wow. That's the guy, huh?”
 

I didn’t respond to her question as I was too busy remarking over the puzzling coincidence that the man in the picture on television was the same figment of my imagination that had stuck its head in my car this morning.
 

“Greg, are you okay?” said Amy.
 

I felt cold sweat begin to bathe my skin. “I'm fine! I am…fine.”