drunk driving
January 02, 2008 / 12:50 p.m.
raining, cold.
i walk down sandy and get a chalupa and taco... and sit and eat. calling sarah, asking her if i can use her car tonight when she's at work to go pick up a bus pass i found on craigslist for $40.
i'm gonna make $300 on thursday and friday working, so i figure i might as well spring for some convenience.
i throw my stuff out and trudge to seven eleven for some cigarettes... my feet are getting wet because these new tennis shoes i got have mesh over the toes, which i didn't realize when i was dying to get out of nordsrom's rack alive last friday with something halfway serviceable.
i get out of seven eleven, put my hood up, start tearing off the wrapper, and hear some girl halfway screeching at me from her open car door sitting in the parking spot five feet away.
i can't even understand what she's saying, and as i walk up she's trying to get out of her seatbelt. she says something about 'can you buy me a 22'.
and i say, 'a gun, 22?'
she thinks that's cute... "i think that's cute that you think i want to... buy a gun from you...but...'
she still can't get out of her seatbelt, and says 'no, a beer, 22... like a size'.
'come over and sit over here and help me get out of this.' she says
i don't even realize at this point that she's completely hammered, because she tried to say she had some sort of medical condition... waving it at me like a false flag... and i don't even realize it until after i've walked across 47th... missing her license plate because there's mud all over it..
but it is washington.
and i'm on the phone to 911, because i'm thinking at this point that, if nothing else, i'm not gonna feel good about myself as a person if i see on the news this afternoon that she's run over some girl walking home from school... or killed herself.
she could rear end a guy on his way to a carpentry job who's supporting a family and breaks his neck, never to work physical labor again in his life. she can slam into a pizza delivery driver who's just moved here from arizona and the glass breaks and punctures her eyeball... she could drive into an ambulance taking an old lady on death's door step, killing her... who was to die peacefully tonight from old age in the hospital... she could do a lap around the block and come back and take me out and kill me as i'm walking up 48th... off into the ether... and let me hear all your excuses after it happens about why it's everybody's fault but your own. let me hear it.
and she's my age, probably younger, not unattractive.
i guess it just comes down to not feeling sorry for her at all. not feeling sorry for douchebags who drag everybody down because they can.
I just don't give two shits about your potential $5000 ticket... i don't give two shits that you're gonna have to write that you've been arrested for DUI on any job application you fill out for the rest of your life.
anyway, so i stand by the bus as i talk to the 911 operator, as she's in the store with her car running, door open... and he asks me to stay on the line and tell me which direction she goes.
maybe i feel like an ass, like an old man, like a bored old man who does this sort of thing because he wants to feel better about himself, and doesn't want to face his own problems. false empathy with his own empty ethos.
but then again, fuck that. it really has nothing to do with that. it has to do with this overwhelming feeling of fatigue with all these people in this town that i live in who can't and won't take responsibility for themselves. a whole breed that literally is stuck for life in 14 year old mode.
i'm fucking tired of it... i'm fucking exhausted with the lack of dignity, the lack of being reasonable and being able to scrounge up that minimal layer of decency as a human being.
maybe i am a crank, you know, maybe i did fast forward to being that scrooge, that dick that flips his middle finger out the window at you when he's driving by if you were driving too slow for his pleasure.
anyway, so she gets in her car with the requisite brown paper bag really fast, after i see her wobbling through seven eleven in the window. way too fast for the cops to show up. nobody was in line.
the operator wants me to stay on and tell him what direction she heads... and she pulls out into the street...
'okay, she's going westbound...'
'on sandy?'
'no. wait (i'm confused and talking too fast)... southbound on 47th... towards providence... the hospital'
and then in a very business like manner, he dispatches me with 'okay, thanks a lot, we'll try to pick her up.'
'thanks'.
and i walk back up sandy wondering if i did the right thing, if this isn't coming from anywhere else.
fuck yeah, i did the right thing.