When we’re young, our lives as yet untouched by tragedy, we view each day not as a gift, but as a given.
Then things happen, and if we are lucky enough to survive, we look at life through a less rosy lens, at
least for a moment.
The day I turned sixteen in July of 1968, I walked out of the DMV with my driver’s license in my
hand. My dad surprised me by agreeing to look at the Austin Healey I’d found parked in a driveway a few
streets over with a For Sale sign in the rear window. It was a 1959 Sprite, faded light blue with a rough
idle and a little smoke coming out the exhaust. The windshield had a crack, but it was a two-seater
convertible, a low-slung roadster that looked fast.
We negotiated the price, and I promised my dad that I would save my money and pay him back
for half the cost. The next two weeks I spent every evening after supper in the car, my dad riding
shotgun, showing him that I could handle the roadster and not be reckless. I finally had permission to
drive it alone on a Saturday night.
My best friend hurried out the front door as I pulled in his driveway. His mom yelled out the
kitchen window, “Ronnie, you and Brad be careful and don’t stay out past eleven.”
The ragtop on the Healey was down, and the day’s heat was fading as the summer sun sank in the
western horizon. The uneven rumble of the engine almost drowned out the sound of buzzing cicadas and
the thwunk-thwunk of water sprinklers.
“Have you taken Doris for a ride?” Ronnie asked me. “No,” I muttered tersely. Doris was a
neighbor girl that I occasionally visited when her mother was gone. We smooched on her couch, which
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was fun, but she was two years older and not that great looking, so I didn’t really want anyone to know. I
made the mistake of telling Ronnie, and he routinely quizzed me about if I’d gotten to second base yet.
Shoney’s Drive-In was crowded, all the pull-ins occupied by teenagers I knew from school. I
waved at Steve, sitting in his Volkswagen Beetle with his best friend Jody as we eased past his parked
Bug. “Nice hotrod, Brad,” Kenny yelled from his Chevy Nova. Walter was in his front passenger seat,
Conrad and Barry were in the back seat. They were all going to be seniors this fall, a year ahead of me.
Sherry Parker, one of the popular girls in next year’s senior class, waved at me from the end of the row,
her daddy’s Buick Electra filled with girls. The big sedan could barely squeeze in the pull-in space. The
carhop gals were busy hustling between the restaurant and the drive-in slots, carrying trays loaded with
cokes, onion rings, and hamburgers.
Ronnie and I circled slowly around the drive-in twice. The Rolling Stones blared “I can’t get no
Satisfaction” from the 8-track player and speakers I’d installed under the dashboard just last week.
“Cool car, Brad,” someone yelled at me.
I dropped into neutral and revved the engine. A car slot finally opened up. We parked and ordered
cherry cokes. While waiting for our drinks, we leaned back and watched the other circling teenagers,
especially the girls. A few slowed down and waved. My status had definitely elevated a couple of
notches.
A car door slammed. Barry got out of the back seat of Kenny’s Nova and strolled over to where
we were parked, hands in the front pockets of his faded madras shorts, the collar on his sky blue Izod polo
shirt turned up.
“Hey Brad, I want to go for a ride in your heap.” Barry was a year older, but I knew him because
we were in the school band together for a couple of years during junior high.
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“Sure, jump in,” I said. “Hey, Ronnie, how about getting back there?” I pointed to the small area
behind the two seats.
Ronnie scrambled behind the bucket seats, sitting up high on the folded top, squeezing his legs
between the two seats. Barry slid into the passenger seat, surreptitiously taking a sip of a beer he had
hidden in a brown paper bag. He leaned back and propped one worn Weejun loafer on the dashboard.
“Hey Ronnie, loved your song at graduation last month. You ever thought about being in a
band?” Barry tossed his peroxided blond hair back out of his eyes as he twisted around to talk to Ronnie.
“Yeah, I think about it every now and then.”
“You’re good enough on the piano, man. Just need to get a keyboard, maybe. I’ve got the drum
set. I tried to get a band together last year, but it didn’t go anywhere.”
“Why not?” Ronnie asked.
Barry shrugged. “We had a terrible guitar player, a lousy keyboard guy, and none of us could
sing worth a damn. Other than that, we weren’t bad.” Ronnie and I laughed.
Barry looked over at me. “Kenny wants to know if you’re willing to take a run out to Highway
100, maybe see which car has the most pickup.”
“Hell yeah!” I revved the engine as we eased back out of the parking space. Barry signaled for
Kenny to follow us the next time we circled through the drive-in.
Ronnie held on to the two seatbacks as I turned out on the highway and floored the gas pedal. The
Sportster lurched as I shifted through the gears. Kenny followed, then Steve in his Beetle. Sherry, in her
daddy’s Electra, was close behind Steve. I looked back and saw other cars following them out of
Shoney’s.
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The caravan sped up as we reached the end of the 35-mile speed limit a short mile later. Within a
few miles, we were at the edge of town. All the cars behind us were going fast and following too close as
we approached a straight stretch of the two-lane highway. The houses were far apart and set back from
the road, with wooded hills behind most of them. A sprinkling of stars appeared in the warm indigo sky.
I shifted into fourth gear and tried to stay in front of the line of cars, but Kenny raced around me
and got in front, his two buddies yelling and giving us the finger as they passed. I drove faster, hugging
Kenny’s bumper, looking for an opportunity to pass him back. Ronnie leaned forward as he caught the
full force of the wind. He rode hunched over, holding on to the back of the seats, almost sitting on my
shoulder, his head sticking up higher than the windshield. His hair blew straight back, his shirt tight
against his body.
No cars were coming from the opposite direction, so I downshifted, floored the gas, and pulled
out to try to pass Kenny. A fat raccoon waddled out on the highway. I swerved to miss it, but Kenny
stomped on his brakes. Steve’s Volkswagen plowed into the back of Kenny’s Nova. Sherry’s big Buick
slammed into the Volkswagen, and sounds of shrieking metal filled the night. I let off the gas, my foot
reaching for the brake pedal as I looked in the rearview mirror, seeing car headlights slanting at different
angles.
“Holy shit!” Barry said as he rose up and looked back. His eyes bulged and his mouth gaped
open. I hit my brakes, but missed the clutch and stalled the engine, coasting off to the side of the road as
I ground the starter and stomped the clutch, finally restarting the Healey. I shifted into gear, spun into a
U-turn, and drove back to the wreck. Others stopped and ran to the smashed cars. Someone turned into a
driveway nearby, flung open the car door and yelled something to the man standing on the front porch.
As I eased past the wrecked cars, smoke was in the air along with the acrid smell of burned
rubber. Radiator fluid leaked out from under the vehicles, creating a dark river of liquid seeking a path
away from the wreckage. Steve’s Volkswagen was accordioned between the two cars, the front and rear
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ends of the Beetle pushed into a crushed box, with the small passenger compartment not recognizable.
Steve did not move. His bloodied face was smashed against the steering wheel.
I parked nearby. Barry jumped out and ran over to help. Ronnie swung his legs out of the
cramped area behind the two bucket seats and scooted across the trunk. We followed Barry. I saw Sherry
crying, leaning against the smashed front of her dad’s car, holding her swelling forehead in a
handkerchief. A girl I didn’t know sat in the passenger side of Sherry’s Buick with her head back,
holding her hand over her nose, blood on her chin, and down the front of her dress. Kenny staggered
around, his hand on the back of his neck. The mangled rear end of his Nova was pushed up. His two
passengers did not seem injured as they huddled nearby.
“My legs! Oh God, somebody help me!” Jody screamed from the passenger side of Steve’s
Volkswagen. His face was covered with blood as he frantically pushed against the dashboard. The front
seats pinned both boys’ legs in an impossibly small crevice. Two boys pulled on the door handles, but the
doors were crimped and would not open. Men from other cars crowded in and pulled on the doors and
pushed on the car seats, shouting back and forth as they tried to free Jody from the wrecked VW.
Three girls nearby hugged each other and wailed as they stared at the demolished cars, the broken
glass, and the blood. ”Stevie’s dead! Stevie’s dead!” one of the girls screamed repeatedly.
“Brad, this is your fault,” Sherry yelled as she leaned towards us, still with one hand on her
forehead and the other on her car for support.
“What’d I do?”
“You wanted to race. You and Kenny.” She paused and looked around at the wrecked cars. “If
you hadn’t, everything would be okay.”
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I didn’t answer, not knowing how to argue with her. It didn’t feel like my fault, but maybe it was.
Maybe I would get the blame, whether it was my fault or not. I was relieved my Healy wasn’t wrecked
and I felt guilty because it was the only car in the chase not damaged.
Sirens wailed in the distance. Other drivers stopped, and a few men gathered around the
Volkswagen. One stuck his head in the broken window and tried to provide some comfort to Jody. His
cries were now moans but they often crescendoed to a loud yell about his legs.
A police car pulled up, followed by an ambulance, their flashing red and blue lights casting a
kaleidoscope of color over the horrified expressions on the faces of the teenagers. The police officer
moved everyone back as the uniformed men from the ambulance examined the boys in the Volkswagen.
“This one is done for,” the man from the emergency crew announced as he pulled his head out of
the driver’s side window. “I’ll get the bar, and let’s work on the doors and get the other one out.” He
hurried to the ambulance and returned with a large pry bar. The two men began to work on the passenger
door of the Volkswagen, prying it away from the frame.
As word spread back to Shoney’s of the deadly crash, more cars pulled up, loaded with teens.
They hurried to join us, asking questions about the wreck, but they too quickly grew quiet and stared at
the smashed cars.
Ronnie turned to me; his eyes wide with fear. “If you hadn’t pulled out from behind Kenny when
you did, that would probably be us. The way I was riding high on the back, I would have been thrown
over the windshield, probably into the back of Kenny’s car. You and Barry would have been crunched up
under the dashboard. We’d probably all be dead.”
I knew it was true. I wondered why we were spared.
After prying and bending the VW doors open, the men pulled Jody from the wrecked car, carried
him to the waiting ambulance, and it sped away with siren wailing. A black hearse arrived for Steve, still
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wedged in the wreckage of his VW. I huddled with the other teens, all of us watching as the hearse driver
bent in to examine the body. The wails of a few girls grew louder, but most of us were silent, swiping at
tears on our cheeks.
A policeman walked over to us. “You kids don’t need to see this,” he said. “Y’all get in your cars
and head on home.” He made a shooing motion with his arms. “Let this be a lesson to drive within the
law, or you’ll wind up like those boys.”
Barry said he would catch a ride. Ronnie and I talked very little on the drive home. As I drove
away from his house, I unsuccessfully tried to think of something other than the wreck. I wrestled again
with why I was spared, and not dead like Stevie, or injured like Jody. I shuddered to think of how close I
came to serious injury and almost killing my best friend.
One of Mom’s favorite sayings was that everything happens for a reason. My dad would
occasionally mutter that sometimes the reason was you were stupid, and you made poor decisions. Or, he
would add, sometimes things just happen. I wondered if I was spared for a reason. Mom told me she had
a dream that God had a special calling for me. She said she prayed every night that the angels would
protect me from Satan’s temptations.
I tossed and turned in my bed. Jody’s screams of pain still rang in my ears. I couldn’t escape from
the image of Steve’s body, so alive a few minutes before the wreck, then eerily lifeless. I finally did
something I hadn’t done in a while. I prayed a prayer. I thanked God for keeping me safe and asked that,
if I had a special calling, then please let me know, though I really didn’t want to be a missionary to Africa
or some other faraway place. I vowed that I wouldn’t go back to Doris’s house when her mother wasn’t
home and do the things we had been doing.
I stuck by my promise, except for a few times when I didn’t.