What If?

I just left my best friend Nicks place. I’ve got a little wooden table and chairs set in the back of my truck ready to be placed in the area behind my house. With any luck in the future it will be used for card games, BBQs, and drunken arguments about religion, politics, and who has the biggest Wang.

Its dark now and I want to get my daughter home to bed, snug in her blankets.

I have a habit of thinking too much. I have this thing that doesn’t allow me to enjoy company when things aren’t going well because there is this light in the back of my head that is always turned on. Was it a shitty day? Why? Who? When? Why? Why? WHY?

I am driving an old Toyota truck down the freeway thinking about where I am going to throw this table. I am thinking about the conversation that Nick and I had while Emma slept soundly on his bed. I am thinking about the weekend, and hoping that Emma doesn’t freak out when she wakes up and realizes that she is in my new place and not with Momma in her crib/bed combo.

I wonder about life, and how I got here. I wonder what I’m going to wear tomorrow. I wonder when I will be able to eat a meal again, as I have been living off of maybe a meal every couple of days and Cigarettes are the only thing keeping me from hunger pains. I have lost my appetite. I don’t care to eat or sleep well. I don’t really care how shitty I feel, or think about why I have been bruising so easily. I don’t bother with why it’s getting harder for me to walk up the stares or that I’ve lost nearly 25 lbs.

When I am with Emma it all goes away, and I am a super hero. Ready and able to do anything she needs me to do.

I think about these things while driving down the 10 freeway. I am leaving the city of Rosemead, and am passing through San Gabriel. After that it’s on to Alhambra, and then I am in The City of Los Angeles. I have driven this freeway all my life, and all my memories are the same.

I think of the car rides to and from my father’s who had me on the weekends. I think about when it all ended with him, and how much I loved those car-rides. I think about all the times he let me rent Highlander II and Big Trouble in Little China (Jack Burton is God in my eyes). I sat listening to his rock music while he had the windows down, it was cold but I didn’t complain because he didn’t complain. Now I don’t mind the cold.

All this goes through my brain in a matter of seconds. I am paying attention to the road and notice that there is a large Semi in my lane in front of me. It’s the slow lane, second from the first lane that allows you to jump on and off the freeway. Seeing as how I am just a bit faster than him, but not that much faster I decide to pass him on the left. You don’t think about why you think something. Your brain just reacts. “I think I will go left”.

But I don’t got left, for whatever reason I go to the right, on the slow lane. Maybe it’s because there would have bee another vehicle in my lane trying to pass him too. Maybe it was the SUV one lane over to the left of that vehicle. I don’t know. I passed on the right when I meant to go left.

So I do. Just as I pass the Semi truck I hear screeching tires behind me. I do not slow down or move I just glance into my rear view mirror and relax. I mentally prepare myself for what I am going to see. I make ready the clutch in case I need to shift, move, brake, or dart anywhere. The vehicle on the left side of the Semi truck is spinning out of control in what I can only describe as a Ballet. In order to avoid hitting him, the vehicle further left is swerving, and has begun spinning as well. Two SUV’s who have not hit anything (at least, I haven’t heard a collision) but I see smoke from burning tires, and the Semi has not been touched. They are moving at full speed all while spinning 360 degrees.

Traffic stopped and I am alone still driving. I look at the back seat to see my daughter stretch. Music is playing but I cant hear it.

Had I not gone to the right when I did, I would have heard a collision.