One Night

A story by Shaun Hurley

   I always knew Jim was going to die early. We were brothers, not in any biological way, but spiritual. Despite this knowledge of his self-destruction, I stood by him. His life is a Greek tragedy playing itself out. No author, just the laws of nature demonstrating their control.

    "Get in" he said smiled and winked. His grin is kind of sideways and cocky. Nobody could stay mad at him and few could resist his sly tongue. Fuck it, I shrugged and hopped in.

    Turning it over the engine purred and we darted out of the driveway, into a mailbox that rocketed over the car. "So I told him he had you parked in. The fool tosses me the keys and expects me to move it. I'll move it alright. He thanked me." Explaining how he got the car. I laughed, I couldn't help it, the dumb-ass should have known better.

    Mailboxes caused turbulence as we smashed into them while swerving all over the road. Twisting the cap off I handed him a bottle and we both drank. Rogue thoughts of cops coming up on us from the night entered my head. Here we are Mr. Officer, drunk. Don't mind the person driving he doesn't have his license and this car is stolen. Well it seemed like a good place to be driving, there are no cars on the sidewalk. Jail? Fuck you swine I want my lawyer! The kid we stole it from will make up some story about sodomy, drugs, and plans so evil that could only end in a stolen car. Bastards, all of them.

    A momentary lapse of control as we awkwardly clipped a mailbox then skidded sideways into a pole. The impact slammed my head against the window, a bump immediately formed and blood leaked out. Fuck, I rubbed my head, and broke out the window with the bottom of my bottle. Still running the car was relatively fine and despite the headache so was I, and we sped down the road in excess of 100 mph.

    We didn't talk we just enjoyed the cruise. In the country things are so peaceful, despite the two hell bent psychotics driving this death machine. "Who the fuck listens to Backstreet Boys?" I asked as I purified his CD collection by throwing it out the window. Jim laughed and I turned on the radio. Good, XM, I turned it to a hardcore punk station. Something sloppy and raw just like tonight was screaming from the speakers.

    And that is that, what can I say? We drove around for a total of two hours not really going anywhere but getting somewhere fast. We stopped hitting mailboxes out of sheer delight and drove a casual line down the rode. The wind blew through my hair on this peaceful summer night and I fell into deep thought. Jim was in his head as well.

    Is this really all there is? Why should we have to live for more? Throughout school we are pushed through life towards some great finish line, something beyond graduation, beyond college (if you went), some great goal that is set aside for all. The trouble being nobody knows what it is or if it even exists, so why bother? Destiny is a cruel mistress for some and a welcome drinking buddy for others. Oh but she lies! To any who are fool enough to listen and believe that you were meant for something takes away all of your free will. I am pushed into this concept of getting married, having kids, and then dying on a bed, but this is not what I want. Immediately I am branded a freak of the natural order. A large 'F' branded in my forehead and I am marked as Cain, the great slayer. Nobody will have dealings with me after that, but steadily my kind will increase and we will form a great gathering of freaks. Standing in a new majority, a new era, and Dylan will sing "the times they are changing" even though he is now the villain. Acceptance is proportional to the majority and there will be an over-abundance of it for me and those like me. Given my nature, I will cross lines, and be who I am. Neither here nor there.

    Then there is Jim, a man who will die young, for sure but a truer friend I'll never find. A sad day it will be but something his family and I will get over. What will become of him I wonder? So headstrong and foolish and blind to the consequence of his actions, will he ever learn? It would be twelve months later, a motorcycle crash would put him into a coma and jail when he awoke. Is that really living, existing outside laws to the point your own self-destructiveness starts to hurt those around you? Selfish, most certainly, but why should he have to change because others want him to? Questions are all I have and there is no wise sage to answer them in this story. None of this really matters, because we all fade into obscurity eventually. Still I ....

    Broken from my thoughts, Jim had passed out, and we were now shooting into a field through trees until the car came to rest, upside down in the river. "Fuck!" Jim yelled and here we were lying on our backs on the roof of the car as water poured in. I burst into laughter, "shit like this always happens when we're together!" I said and we got out of the car. Without thinking we took off and shot up the bank of the river and turned and watch the car sink.

    "Let's get the hell outta here!" Jim echoed my thoughts and we started running down the path laid out by railroad tracks. Surprisingly enough we didn't trip once on the wooden beams along the way. A short time later we were at his dad's farm, regrouping in the barn. We didn't hear any sirens it apparently went un-noticed. Thinking better of it we didn't go back to the party and decided to stay out in the barn the rest of the night. We made sure we had all of our personal belongings nothing that could identify us was left at the scene other then fingerprints. Hopefully those would be washed off in the water.

    For months we looked over our backs waiting for the inevitable. Spotted and arrested by an army of pigs, tossed in jail, and left to rot in an iron cell. Perhaps that is what we deserved, but we heard nothing of it. Luck apparently had mercy on us, nobody from the party remembered us not even the car's owner who so innocently tossed him the keys that night. Another narrow escape, neither Jim nor I died that night, and perhaps we were never meant to. We didn't learn any lessons out of the affair, and Jim was (and is) still due an untimely death.

I, however, will live on to grow into meagerness.