I never saw it coming. That drunk motherfucker came out of nowhere and destroyed me. It's slowly come back over the years first in big chunks, then more and more in bits and pieces. Her little giggle in the back seat. That loving smile during that last shared glance as Hailey butchered her favorite 'knock-knock' joke. Headlights. Then the offensive fluorescents burning my eyes as I choked and gagged on the tubes running down my throat in the hospital bed.
It's been just over a decade since that evil piece of shit took everything from me. I wish I never remembered anything. I wished for a long time that he took me too. Sometimes, in my darker moments, I confess I still do. Hailey was just four years old; just starting to develop her cute little personality that matched her adorable little pigtails. Meagan was 8 months pregnant with our twin boys when we were coming home from dinner that night. My prom queen, my college coed partner in crime, my beautiful wife. She was the only woman I ever knew and despite all of the struggles, our life was coming into its own when he ripped it from our hands.
Jerry Harris.
Jerry wasn't a race car driver, but fancied himself a professional. His old, pathetic ass had driven trucks his whole life, probably drunk the entire time. Despite his multiple DUI's and spotty driving record, he was hired by a big box store to carry freight from their distribution center to various retail locations. The lawsuit uncovered a myriad of human resource incompetence that ended up with him leaving the bar, picking up a load, doubling the speed limit, blowing the light, and killing my family. Finger pointing and lawyers, depositions and hearings, smattered my long physical recovery and stretched my mental state beyond its breaking point. The eight-figure settlement did nothing, but put a price tag on all that I held priceless.
Out of the hospital and into the courtrooms, I never had time to really grieve. Unfortunately, I never had anyone to grieve with. A year prior we had moved across the country as I accepted a promising opportunity with an upstart company. I had little family I cared about, had no friends to speak of anywhere within 2,000 miles, and Meagan's family just made me feel worse -- even though they did their best to convince me it wasn't my fault. Looking back, that distance may have been a bit more blessing than curse. Everything just reminded me of my loss. The calls, the cards, the visits, the flowers. Everyone did their best to help me, but it all just served to bury me deeper in my hole.
Our little starter home was a brutal memory reel. When I first limped through the door after that month in the hospital, I tried desperately to hold it together. Poor Bob, the only coworker I'd spent more than 5 minutes talking to watched in vain as I completely fell apart at the sight of the toys, clothes, and dirty dishes littering our living room. Her little socks. That creepy talking teddy bear. The crusty plate from that morning's breakfast on the table. Meagan's half drank cup of coffee next to it. After pulling myself together enough to shove Bob out the door, I sat there running my fingers over the plush ears of that stupid fucking bear staring through the tears at the end of my life. I sat there for hours before popping too Xanex and chasing it with a few beers, passing out amidst all of the painful memories.
I woke up that next day in a haze of depression and horror. I didn't remember anything at that point, but I knew basically what had happened. In that fog of pain and tears, I knew I couldn't be there. I couldn't be there ever again. Separated by all these years I wish I wouldn't have gotten rid of everything, but the overwhelming torture of that stuff, our stuff, bled me dry. I left that day, despite doctor's orders not to drive, and signed a lease on a shitty apartment across town less than a block away from a liquor store. I ordered a mattress that afternoon and lived in my filth for weeks. No clothes, no comforts, no possessions at all. Just a brand-new mattress, cell phone full of memories to bludgeon myself with, and a car seat in the back of my Accord that was only slightly easier to ignore after I drunkenly ripped my rearview mirror off glass and threw it out the window.
My boss told me to take as much time as I needed and Bob helped me immensely. He was a really great guy. I wish I still kept in touch with him or at least wasn't such a miserable fuck, treating him so badly. He really kept me afloat. He forced me to do the things I needed to do in order to not immediately end up a statistic. He bought me clothes, he cleaned out the house. He even helped me sell it, only making me step foot in there one more time before making the final decision to sell all of our belongings and dump the house a few months later. He managed my money throughout the process and I treated him like shit. I found out years later that he had a lot of loss in his life and felt helping me through it as best he could would bring him some catharsis. I hope to this day that he understood where I was and didn't hold it against me.
The weeks slowly turned to months and the months into a year as I ignored all the phone calls, knocks at the door, and helping hands coming from every direction. I abandoned Bob the minute the house was sold. I never really talked to anyone from work ever again. When the lawsuits wrapped up, I was drowning in the bottle and blanketing myself in misery on that now musty mattress on the floor. I had nothing. I had a bank account full of more zeroes than I could count, a stomach full of booze, and a first-name relationship with the gas station attendant where I'd stop some days to get something to eat on my way to the liquor store. One night in a drunken pity party, I deleted everything off my phone. I had nothing.
I cried all day when I realized what I had done that night. How fucking stupid of me. The only thing tying me to anything I ever cared about was now gone. Gone just like them. I couldn't even bring myself to get out of bed, finishing off the last drops of my vodka from the giant plastic bottle well before noon. By midnight I was in the throes of withdrawal, soaked in sweat and unable to even get out of bed to throw up. I don't remember much of what happened after that, but apparently, I got lost on my way to the liquor store around 8am two days later and was arrested after accosting people at a traffic light. Doctors said I was hallucinating and belligerent when they brought me in and I was held for observation for another three days.
During my recovery in the hospital, I happened upon my guardian angel. Dominque was a nurse, mid-50's, who took special interest in me. Apparently one night in the midst of my delirium tremens, I talked about the accident and it broke her heart. Dom was a single mother who had struggled for years with addiction after suffering loss early in her life. She never did tell me exactly what had happened, but based on the way she cared for me, it must have been pretty bad. She caught me at rock bottom and pulled me from the brink of self-destruction. Potentially putting her career at risk, she formed a personal relationship with me. She was my first true friend in years and is now someone I consider family.
Dom was no-nonsense. She slapped the shit out of me, verbally, many times as I came out of my stupor. The first shoulder I cried on, literally, was Dom's. After convincing me that I never wanted to end up in a hospital bed again, she talked me into seeking help. Slipping her number into my phone, she demanded I start coming with her to meetings. She saved my life even when I felt there was nothing to live for anymore. The meetings were terrible. I never spoke and slogged through them only to keep Dom from blowing up my phone or pounding on my door when I tried to ignore her. She was relentless and I could never thank her enough.
She kept me on the straight and narrow for months before I relapsed. Her stern demeanor softened momentarily when she picked me up that day, quickly returning as I tried to manipulate her into feeling bad for me. I stayed sober for two years after that, slowly becoming more of a human being than just being a meat bag full of hate. During that time, she invited me into her home. She introduced me to her family. She guided me through the pain and held me responsible for myself. Regardless of the culture shock -- her, almost 30 years my senior, born in raised in the LA ghettos -- me, late-20's white suburban degenerate, we both understood each other perfectly.
As my recovery seemed rock solid and she found out my financial situation, she convinced me I needed to move on with my life. It was late in the evening the day she pushed me to make the move. We talked about me needing to get out of California. We talked about fantasy places to start over. We made the decision that the best thing for me was to retire. See, Meagan and I had a plan. We'd stay up until the wee hours in the morning discussing the distant future. When the kids were grown, off living their own lives, we would retire somewhere tropical and travel the world. She wanted Europe, I wanted Asia. We talked Egypt, Russia, Africa, and everywhere else as 'if we get to it' options. I still get emotional thinking of that night at Dom's table, talking about 'what Meagan would want.'
I was off to Europe less than a month later. It was fun, initially. Infinite options, no concerns about money, the world was literally at my fingertips. I did all the touristy shit we had talked about, but not having her by my side slowly wore on me. I didn't even realize it at the time, but looking back, I shouldn't have pushed myself that hard. I was 6 months into my European tour when I rounded that corner and ran smack dab into, Lucia. Meeting her, at that fragile time, really shook me up.
