“Let’s go Sonya!” Niccole demanded of me as I checked my makeup for the nine hundredth time in the mirror. I looked at myself wondering why I had agreed to go, every part of me screamed with a burning desire to stay. Why did she have to have such shitty friends, why did I have to be such a good friend?
“Sonya tonight I am meeting my husband, can you please hurry the hell up?” She snapped.
We walked out the door of her three story dormitory, climbed into her cherry red Nissan Pathfinder and headed to a gas station about a block away to meet up with a mutual friend Jeff. He was a skinny, pale, strawberry blond guy that towered over people in an awkward manner. Unfortunately he was not alone Joaquin a very attractive younger gentleman was close in toe, just a few days prior he attempted to do some unspeakable things to my person and after I slapped the living shit out of his face I hoped I would never have to see him again.
“Hey!” He said smiling exuberantly, his aura jumping over itself with excitement.
Apparently I had not slapped him hard enough, because he was still talking to me.
“Are you excited?” He asked me, his eyes open wide as if he had just shot himself up with crack (maybe he had I don’t know anything about the kid).
“Not in the least.”
He looked at me as though I had kicked his dog, “You aren’t excited to see the best concert ever, in the entire world, of this lifetime, not excited at all?”
I didn’t make a sound.
“This is mother fucking Usher Sonya. USHER!” He got angry with me and walked away.
I wish anything in this world would happen so I don’t have to go see Mother fucking Usher. I thought. I just didn’t know I would get my way.
***
On the freeway between Tucson and Phoenix I chose the tunes, I lit the cigarettes, I didn’t buckle my seatbelt, I played air guitar, and pretended we were going somewhere else. I am not big on crowds; don’t care for concerts, but Niccole loved Usher so I agreed to attend.
“Tell me again why we aren’t riding with Jeff?” I asked her as I lit her second cig in ten minutes.
“He is an unsafe driver, Sonya. I would never ride with him.”
He was a very erratic driver, I wouldn’t have chosen to ride with him either, but Niccole was driving on a spare tire so I didn’t particularly want to ride with her. She had only been driving for a year at the most, her parents thought it best that she not learn until she was away at school.
“That little shit.” Niccole said her eyes on Jeff’s truck to the left of her. He was revving his engine, speeding up and slowing down, trying to get her to race. The freeway was full of cars. I didn’t think she would take the bait, but she laughed hysterically. I had no choice in the matter she jammed the gas 75…80…85…90…95 it all happened so fast. The second it started I clicked my seatbelt (by the way in no way is it cool to not wear a seatbelt, it’s just fucking stupid and irresponsible), I don’t recall being scared as we swerved in and out of people, I don’t recall being worried, I remember being annoyed but I cannot tell you why exactly. I mean I know now why I would have been annoyed but in that moment what exactly was annoying me might have just been a culmination of everything.
Steady at 95, I didn’t hear a sound, a loud boom, the only thing I recognized as the spare tire shred to pieces and came clean off the rim was the back right quarter was nearly resting on the ground while the rest of the SUV stood up tall.
We fishtailed.
The sound of rubber and metal violently scraping the ground as it is forces across asphalt in ways it was never intended; loud like the transformers movie, the sound that to this day makes me want to hurl.
Niccole wrenched the steering wheel; we swerved off the road into the dirt median, toward oncoming traffic on the other side. She was frozen. The traffic in front of us was hauling ass, as if they were trying to get out of our way so that we could run straight through it. I screamed at her to stop… to swerve the SUV the other direction so we weren’t plowed to death by a semi, she slammed on the breaks.
My heart stopped (no it didn’t it was racing uncontrollably).
The SUV skipped on land, it began to tilt and all I could think was pretend it’s a rollercoaster. I said goodbye to my family in my head. I got through my immediate family as the ground appeared in my passenger side window then everything went black.
I opened my eyes to silence, except for the sound of dirt lighting hitting the metal frame. Nicc’s moon roof caved in like an upside-down glass mountain. I couldn’t see her, but soon I heard “Sonya” in a mousey unfamiliar voice, Niccole was alive. I was alive. I answered her then my mind went completely blank.
I gathered my belongings like a hobo living in squalor, pushed open the door to a vast open valley of bushes and tumbleweeds. I became livid, why had Niccole parked so far away from the concert.
In the distance Joaquin ran across the freeway to get us, I turned back around to see the utterly demolished SUV and recalled we were in an accident, every window was busted out, the frame was crushed, one mirror survived the impact and I found it hilarious.
Niccole’s head was down when I got to her side, she was covered in dirt and blood, and so was I. My brain switched again thinking that we were in a movie, the makeup was so good it was painful.
“I can’t get the door open.” Niccole said.
I panicked, what the fuck do you mean you can’t get the door open? I reached out and yanked it with all my strength, it didn’t move, it didn’t make a sound. She wouldn’t look at me. She just kept her head down. Soon people were coming out of the woodwork, like ants, everyone was a professional that knew the best thing for me to do was get away. A man demanded that Jeff and Joaquin take me away from the car, as Niccole began screaming “WHERE IS SONYA, WHERE IS SHE?” I pulled away from Jeff, pushed past the massive group of people that were now surrounding Niccole’s driver side door. It wouldn’t budge for them either.
People were asking Nicc all kinds of questions and she wouldn’t answer a single one. “Where is Sonya?” She demanded again.
I finally got up to her and put my hand in the open window. “I am right here Nicc, I am fine, do whatever they say.”
She still wasn’t looking at me, she began repeating “It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.”
I had no idea what hurt.
Jeff pulled me away.
……
-ducksoup- 