Plans

It was a gorgeous summer morning as I, my brother David, sister

Marcia, mom, dad, and baby girl were traveling home to Laramie from

Colorado Springs where we had gone to visit my grandma.  The atmosphere

in the car was fun and filled with laughter.  We were glad to be together.  Our

chatter was constant and our conversations often overlapped.  One learned

young that if you want to be heard in my family, you must merely speak

louder than everyone else.  Or, you might simply say, "Would you please shut

up for a minute so I can say something important?"  We all understood that

such a plain and politely spoken command was not meant to be offensive or

at all disrespectful.

We were a bit louder than usual that morning as we had great plans for

the day.  Since we had to travel through Denver, we all agreed that we should

eat at a nice restaurant and then go to the zoo where we could eat some more

and see the animals then probably eat some more.

Daddy was a bit tense and growly, his usual demeanor when traffic

was thick as it was on that Friday morning.  "Everyone and their Grandma is

on this one road to Denver," he grumbled.  My Daddy is claustrophobic.  He

hates traffic which is the main reason I think we moved long ago to

Wyoming, the land of wide-open spaces.  "You can drive more than a

hundred miles on a Wyoming highway without seeing another car," Daddy

would often brag.

That was not the case, however, in Colorado.  The cars were lined up

one after another, traveling 75 miles per hour, to the horizon and beyond.  We

passengers paid scant attention to the outside world as we were involved in a

thought-provoking discussion regarding the strengths and weaknesses of the

highly educational hit movie of the summer, Independence Day.  The movie

answered the question:  Are we alone in the Universe? with a loud no when

aliens arrived and began demolishing major cities all over the world.  We all

gazed out the windshield as we laughed at my sister's comment about the

president in the film:  "He was so broken up over the little wife's death that he

went immediately and put on his flying suit to go kick those alien's buts

himself." 

"And how 'bout the stripper who was perfectly happy in her job and...,"

David began and never finished as a large truck two to three cars ahead began

rolling away from us straight down the highway.

Someone was screaming.  Someone else was yelling.

"Oh my God.  Oh, my God!"

I heard the unreal sound of a very loud syncopated rhythm like a huge

unearthly drum mixed with the nightmarish noise of metal bending, crushing,

and scraping, glass shattering with each thud of that heavy truck against the

inflexible pavement of the highway.

"There's a guy on the road!  Oh God!"

"Stop the car!  Stop the car!"

Brakes were squeeling, screaming, as drivers reacted.  The acrid smell

of burning permeated the air.  What was that smell?  Rubber.  There was tire

rubber all over the road as ten or more cars skidded to stops.

Someone was still screaming.  Someone was crying.  Who was that

crying?  Oh, it was me.  My face was wet.

Mama was hysterical.  "Oh, no.  No.  Jesus, please help," she said over

and over.

The baby, awakened from her nap was crying, shrieking.  She didn't

understand why the world had just erupted into chaos.

Finally, our car stopped moving.  The seconds had passed so quickly

yet almost as if in slow-motion too.  The truck was lying on it's top 30 feet

away in the ditch.  The young man who had mysteriously appeared on the

highway was standing on his feet, just as he had landed, five feet in front of

us.  It's a miracle he wasn't run over.

"Mama, you've got to get control of yourself.  Quit, stop, stop

screaming!"  The craziest thought flitted through my mind.  I might have to

slap my mother if she didn't calm down.

Daddy, David, and Marcia were in the front seat.  They quickly leapt

out of the car.

That poor boy was standing in the middle of the highway.  He must

have come out of the truck.  I didn't see it happen.  He was running around.

He grabbed hold of a woman from a travel trailer that had stopped after the

accident.  He was hugging her, clutching her so tightly.  "Just like a drowning

man," I thought.  She didn't look like she knew him. 

"Someone help him.  Oh, please, someone help him," I kept saying.  I

gave the baby her pacifier.  Content now, she went back to sleep. 

Daddy asked the boy from the truck a question.  Daddy and David ran

towards the now still, silent truck.  "Oh, God.  There's someone else in there,"

I said.

Marcia was holding the young man from the truck's hand.  He was

obviously shaking.  He kept burying his face in his hands.  He wanted to run

to the truck.  I could tell Marcia didn't want him to.  He said something to her,

I didn't know what.  She lifted up the back of his t-shirt.  "Oh, God."  The

skin was scraped completely off his back.  It was bleeding everywhere.  He

shook his head as if to say it didn't hurt.

Daddy had reached the truck.  After he had peered inside a few

seconds, he turned away.  He talked to another motorist who had stopped.

Several cars had stopped.  At least four people with car phones were walking

around.  Daddy and David started back towards Marcia and the young man.

They looked pale, shocked.  Daddy put his hand on the young man's shoulder.

He spoke some words.  The young man shook his head and made a move to

run towards the broken, twisted pile that was a vehicle.  Daddy told him not

to go. 

Sirens blared shrilly as an ambulance and police cars arrived.  David

led the paramedic to the young man and then came to the window on Mama's

side of the car.  His voice shook and tears glided down his face as he told us

what he knew.  "There were two guys in the truck.  The one thrown out looks

like he's going to be o.k.  The other boy was decapitated," he said.

The paramedic was leading the young man away.  "Don't let him go," I

wanted to say.  "We need to help him."  He seemed to clutch Marcia's hand

before he let it go.  He looked back at her one last time as he got into the

ambulance.  "Don't take him,"  I said.  "We don't even know his name."  It

was too late.  The ambulance left.

Daddy and Marcia came slowly back to the car, shoulders slumped,

eyes downcast.  After they got in, Daddy explained, "The young man was a

passenger.  He doesn't know what happened.  One second they were driving

down the highway and the next, the truck was rolling.  He thinks he was

thrown out the back window.  He was lucky but his friend wasn't.  The body

of the boy driving was slung over the back of the passenger seat so, at first, I

thought the other boy had driven.  His neck was broken.  His friend said that

he was only seventeen."

We all cried silently as we drove away.  "What did he look like,

Daddy?" I asked. 

"I couldn't see his face but his hair was cut short and was thick and

dark blonde like David's." 

"Someone's brother," I thought.  Someone's baby had died that day.

The atmosphere in the car was silent, filled with shock as we drove

away.  I wondered what those boys' plans had been that day.  How scary it

was to think that life, so precious, could be snuffed out in an instant.  I looked

out the car window as we drove closer to Denver.  There were so many

people with so many places to go.  Did they know too how precious life was?

Somewhere people were at the zoo laughing, looking at the beautiful

animals.  We decided to return another time to see the animals.  Right then,

all our well-laid plans didn't seem so important.     

    

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