Chapter 28

the sound: Jimi Hendrix – Little Wing, The Guess Who – Share the Land, Cream – White Room, Rod Stewart – Maggie May, Chi Lites – Have You Seen Her, Bee Gees – How Can You Mend A Broken Heart, George Harrison – My Sweet Lord, Bells – Stay Awhile, James Taylor – You’ve Got a Friend

I tried to stand and kept falling down.

I remember Mike yelling at the drunk that had been driving the car as he jumped up and down on the hood of the car in his hobb nailed boots (probably just to get his point across). I remember thinking that the guy was lucky I was there or Mike would be “laying hands on him” something I knew he’d never do in front of me.

I remember hearing Mike kicking in the windshield of the car and I remember feeling like it was ok that I was “resting” on the side of the road. I tried to look over at Mike and the damage he was doing to the car but I seem to have fallen asleep.

I woke as they were sliding the gurney into the ambulance. I was on a board with my neck in a brace and Mike was climbing into the ambulance to sit beside me. He was holding my hand and looked all white in the face and scared. The next time I woke up I was in emergency room and I could hear Mike frantically calling the boys at the clubhouse to tell them what had happened.

Discretion being the better part of valor, I went back to sleep.

I woke as Mike came back into the room and I decided it was time to get up only to find that I couldn’t. Every time I raised my head or upper body offa the pillow I “fell asleep”.

Besides that, I seemed to be lying in a hammock, so even if I could have got my head up offa the bed…I’d have needed a hand (er three) to get out of that contraption besides Mike wasn’t having any part of that...I was stayin in bed and that was that.

I got a little frantic trying to remember why I was there so Mike reminded me what had happened at the scene and that I had to wait for an x-ray technician to come into the hospital to x-ray me because it was 4 in the morning and there wasn’t usually one there all night long.

He told me that the “fear” was that I’d done something to my neck or pelvis that might have a ‘lasting’ effect.

"What the fuck does "lasting" mean?"

He told me that he must have scared the driver of the car right and proper because when the police had arrived at the scene the driver and passenger both told the police that all the damage to the car had been done during the accident. He went on to say that the driver also fully admitted to being drunk and in the wrong, that he'd caused the accident thereby absolving Mike of the damages he’d done.

We’d laughed and chalked that up to Mike’s animal magnetism or his power of persuasion.

He went on to tell me that the boys were picking up his bike and taking it to the house, that he wouldn’t let the Dr examine him till he was sure I was alright.

And then he told me that he’d bit the bullet and called my dad.

That one surprised me.