'87 Dodge

Hi, this is for an anthology for school. I need a lot of crits on this. ^_~

It was a cold day in December, with the wind blowing in great icy gusts. There were

people from almost every house on the street, taking down Christmas decorations, their

cardboard boxes soaking through in the wet snow.

Charles Alvin looked out his car window and watched the people remove the

decorations. He hadn’t bothered to put up a lot of decorations, and those he had, were

already put away. He stopped at a red light and waited, studying a group of kids sled

down a steep hill across the street.

The light turned green and Charles depressed the gas pedal and the car sped up,

driving past the hill, and turning up Pine Street. He pulled into his driveway, parked and

got out of the car. He walked up the front walk and pulled his keys out of his pocket.

Charles Alvin was thirty, but he wasn’t married. He was too busy and he wasn’t

interested in dating. He had better things to do, like go out with the guys Saturday nights

and get drunk, then get in a fight with some other drunk, and drive home, his car creeping

along the street at fifteen miles an hour. It was late Friday afternoon, and he’d just gotten

in from work. Tomorrow, he’d do just that.

Charles opened the door, and stepped into his lvingroom. It was a mess and there

were papers from work strewn out across his desk. He threw his briefcase onto the couch,

and went into the kitchen, taking off his tie as he walked through the open door. He

dropped it on the arm of his chair and walked over to the fridge, opened it, and selected a

Coors from the third shelf up. He popped the cap, and took a long drink, while

unbuttoning the top button on his shirt.

He made his way carefully back into the livingroom, being careful not to stub his

toes on anything hidden under the clutter. He sat down on the couch, shoving the

briefcase away, which slid off the edge, onto the floor. Charles flicked on the TV and

skimmed through the channels, before settling on CNN. The news was the same as it was

every other day of the year. War, blood, and turmoil. After about an hour, Charles turned

the TV off, and stood up, pitching the empty beer can at the waste basket. It missed, and

bounce off a stack of CD’s, which toppled with a clatter.

This was the way his life was. He hated it, but he’d fallen into this rut, and it

would be hard to get out again.

He pulled a TV Dinner out of the freezer and put it in the microwave as his phone

rang. He finished setting the microwave, then turned, reached across his small kitchen,

and picked up the phone. It was his mother.

“ Dear, I was wondering if you might like some company tomorrow?”

It was a ploy to make him not get drunk, and Charles knew it.

“ No thanks, Mom, I’m doing yard work tomorrow.” She knew he was lying.

“ Charlie, you shouldn’t go out and drink. It isn’t good for you.”

“Yeah...” the microwave beeped, and Charles busied himself with

getting it ready

to eat, as his mother launched into a lecture about his habits.

“ Oops, Mom, I’ve gotta go.” He’d cut himself on the knife, trying to get the

packing off of the dinner. He hung up the phone without waiting for a response from his

mother.

He ate the dinner in about ten minutes, got another beer, and went back to the

living room, flicking on the TV, again. It was 10:30 when he finally went to bed.

<><><><><>

The late morning sun shone brightly into Charles’s window, blinding him, as he

woke up. He rolled over and looked at the clock on his cluttered bedside table. 12:47. It

was very late. He usually met his friends at the bar at around 1:00. He scrambled out of

bed, and donned a pair of jeans and a faded blue T-shirt. He brushed his teeth, as he did

every morning and walked down the stairs.

The sun was bright, and Charles was impatient to get going to the bar. He went

directly to his car, not even bothering to eat breakfast. He never ate breakfast on a

Saturday. The car started with a splutter and he pulled out of the driveway, and turned

East. There was light traffic, so Charles reached the bar just as his watch beeped at one

o’clock. he got out of the car and entered the bar, where his friends were already waiting

for him.

Jim Harrison, a friend from work, said, “ You’re right on time.”

“ I almost missed ya,” Charles replied, clapping Jim on the back, and ordered a

beer.

Three hours later, and on his sixth beer and third martini, Charles was completely

gone. He and his buddies were making a racket at one corner of the bar, while a similarly

drunk group at the other end, were contending their noise. The bartender looked on with a

sort of tired acceptance, and returned to drying glasses.

It was 9:30 at night when Charles and his friends stumbled drunkenly out the front

door of the bar and slowly lurched to their cars. Charles pulled the door to his car open,

and climbed inside. He felt in his pockets for his keys. They were missing. He began to

pat his pockets frantically, then noticed that the keys were still in the ignition where he’d

left them. He turned the car on, contemplated going back into the bar for another drink,

then slowly backed his car out of its parking space. The car creeped down the parkinglot,

then pulled out onto the empty road. His car was weaving all over the road, and he was

gripping the wheel tightly as the road swayed back and forth in front of him.

A pebble hit the side window of his car. He looked over sharply, and saw one of

his friends driving along beside him, on the opposite side of the road. He rolled down his

window slowly.

“ Dude, lets race!” His friend yelled.

“ I don’t know, what if we crash?”

“ Come on, lighten up. The one who loses, buys the beer next time.”

With that, his friend picked up speed and pulled away from his car. Charles did

something that he’d never done in his life, drunk, or otherwise. He floored the gas pedal,

and his car lurched, then shot foreword, gaining ground on the car ahead of him. It had

moved back over to his side of the road, and as he came up behind it, he pulled out,

across the dividing line, and into the opposite lane. Then he saw why his friend had

moved back over. A big tractor trailer was barreling down the road, in front of him, its

headlights blinding.

Charles slammed on his brakes just as the truck slammed into his little 1987 Dodge neon at 60

miles an hour. The truck threw his car to the left, then as the truck braked, its back tires

drove up and over the engine block of his car, crushing the entire front of the neon.

When the tractor trailer first struck his car, Charles’s face slammed into the

steering wheel and he was knocked unconcious.

The truck stopped and its driver leaped out of the cab, racing over to the

pulverized car. Charles’s friend’s car had pulled around in a big circle, driving over part

of a farmers’ corn field, and was creeping back towards the scene of the accident.

Twenty minutes later, an ambulence and two police cars had pulled up, and Charles was

pulled out from under the dashboard, which had pinned the lower half of his body. He’d

broken his jaw, and at least seven other bones in his body, including both femurs.

It was two months till Charles was discharged from the hospital.

From the moment he’d regained conciousness, Charles had vowed never to drink

any alcohol ever again. He held up that vow until the day he died, but his three friends,

never took that vow, and within five years of Charles’s accident, two of them had been

killed while driving home from the bar.

After that accident, Charles turned his life around. He cleaned up his house and

his life, and started dating, and after three years, was married. He’d survived, but the

accident had changed the way he lived his life forever.~