I left work very late, or rather early, about 1:30 AM.  By about 2 AM I was in Fitchburg, driving down South Street.  There was a car in front of me.  Down the road a ways in front of him an enourmous pickup backed out of the parking lot of a bar into the road, and then switched its lights off.  That was the first indication I had that something was wrong...

After a second or two the truck switched its lights back on and began driving down the road.  Although "driving" is a debatable term in this case.  "Lurching" might be a better choice.  The driver was clearly drunk and had no business being behind the wheel.  He lurched left and right, sped up, slowed down, and was clearly having a great deal of difficulty controlling his vehicle.

Then he suddenly lurched over to the right and stopped.  Why I have no idea, but the guy in front of me and I took the opportunity to pass him and leave him behind.  In my rearview I saw him pull out after we passed and keep going.  He pulled all the way over on to the wrong side of the road before coming back.

Then I realized that I was coming to an intersection where I was probably going to have to stop.  I got in the left lane (cause I was making a left turn) and the guy in front of me got in the right lane.  I watched my rearview with dread as the headlights on the pickup swam into view.  He was speeding now, in the left lane, and coming right toward me.

At the last second he seemed to finally twig on that the cars in front of him were not moving and he slammed on his brakes.  At the same instant, mercifully, the light changed green and Vanessa's powerful engine allowed me to surge forward and avoid getting hit by this pickup, the headlights of which were about level with my roof.

I took a hard left and headed up Electric Avenue toward my home.  The drunken asshole in the pickup, unfortunately, decided that he too, was going left.  He took a wide left turn, riding up first on the right sidewalk and then into the left lane before he basically settled in and started down Electric behind me.

Dammit.  I could taste fear.  This guy was making me nervous.  But I was reassured because in about a block I was going to make a right hand turn onto a little side street that runs next to a cemetery near my home.

So when I reached the side street I gratefully turned right and then glanced in my rearview to watch the sot drive by.  I'll be damned if he didn't lurch to a near stop, and then turn onto the same road as me.

Fuck!  This road was little used, but ended at a stop sign leading on to the street where I live.  As I approached the stop sign the asshole accelerated, and was now driving completely in the left lane but slowly meandering back over to the right.  There was no way he was going to stop in time.

So I had to run the stop sign.  Fortunately I could see clearly that nobody was coming, and there were no pedestrians about.  I slowed slightly and made my turn onto my street.  In my rearview the drunk rolled right past the stop sign and lurched to a halt in the left lane of the road I live on.

Amazingly he turned right and again came barrelling up the road toward me.  My house was only about 50 feet up the road from the stop sign, and he wasn't going to give me time to make a proper turn into my driveway so I basically had to swerve in there, with much jouncing as I went over the lip at the end of the drive.  I was just barely in when he roared past, finally leaving me alone.

Back in the mid-nineties I was in the worst car accident of my life.  If things had gone slightly differently it might have been the last car accident of my life.  I suffered some minor cuts and bruises, and I screwed up my back, but I walked away.  For a long time after that, though, I would sweat bullets when I got behind the wheel of a car. If I ever dozed off in the passenger seat while someone else was driving, I would immediately have a nightmare replaying the accident, and awaken with my heart in my throat.  It took years for that to stop happening.  About 6 years before I could enjoy driving again.

And as I sat there in my driveway after the drunk drove away, I closed my eyes and it all came back again.  I could see the sudden glare of headlights through my passenger window, hear the incredibly load crash, the breaking glass, the shrieking tires as my car spun around and around and around.  I remember my foot pressing on the brake so hard it hurt, while simultaneously thinking it was ridiculous to do so, the brakes weren't going to stop the car from spinning.  I could feel the same bewilderment once the spinning stopped that the car was now rolling backward and I had no idea where it was going, and then the second crash as it impacted something behind me.  Then the silence.  The engine had stopped.  Somewhere along the way I had taken my foot off the gas and the manual-transmission engine had stalled.  Then, as I always do when this memory comes back to haunt me, I heard the sounds of the children in the other car crying as their terrified mother tried to determine if they were all right.

I had no desire to relive that moment for in either reality or memory, but the irresponsible drunk had brought it back to me.  I sincerely hope he makes it home, because having been the cause of a major accident once in my life, and having to live with the aftereffects, I would not wish that experience on anyone.

And if you are the person who was driving home inebriated at 2 AM on 7/8/2004 in a pickup in Fitchburg, please do me a favor.  Next time, sleep it off in the truck before you try to drive home, okay?

Thanks.