Hey guys-- sorry I'm late.
“I know the Lord ain't brought me this far so he could drop me off here ..." – Outkast, “Get Up, Get Out, and Get Something”
Summer 1997
I started smoking because Dean was in a coma.
I went to school with him for five years. He was a grade under me and a foot taller. We weren't best friends or anything, and I don't think we ever had a deep conversation. But it was a small school so everyone knew each other and he was rambunctious and wilder than the average teenage boy, yet he was still a good, happy kid-- most of the time.
When Dean was upset, he let his rage out. Most of us had learned to bottle it at that point, but not him (rage turned inward is depression, which explains why Dean was always so happy.) He played basketball and if he was fouled, he'd get up in the dude's face. If the ref made a bad call, he'd curse him out and get in his face too. This would usually get him ejected from the game and later he'd beat himself up for not being able to control his anger. Again. But before he reached regret, he was pissed. And on the way out the gym, he'd kick over a trash can, punch a wall, or snatch a poster down to make sure everyone knew. He only took out his anger on inanimate objects.
The year after I graduated, Dean was a senior at school and complained of a headache. As the story goes, he passed out and he never came to. They said he’d had an aneurism. By the time Marci and I went to visit him at his mother's house that summer, he'd been out cold for at least 4 months.
I stood by the bed, which was too small for his even bigger than I remembered body. I looked at the gray and bald patches on his 17 year old head, looked at the distorted features on his now-twisted face. This wasn't the person I remembered. I wished I’d never come here.
On the way out his mother's house, I said goodbye and thought about what it must be like for your only child-- an energetic, smart, funny, loveable boy— to become trapped within himself. I'm sure my thoughts-- then and since-- didn't even scratch the surface of her pain.
Marci didn't say much, if anything, as we walked to her car. We sat in silence, her pulling out a pack of Newports and smoking one as she sat quietly with her thoughts. I stared straight ahead trying to make sense of it all. I couldn't. (I haven't since either.)
"Marce, Let me get one."
I didn't smoke. She knew that, but she didn't question my request, just handed over the box.
At the first pull, I got a rush, then swiftly, the impact of my forehead clouding over. My head felt lighter, open. I leaned my head back and thought about Dean.
Summer 2002
I was miserable. If you've been reading Belle for any amount of time, you know that this was the worst period of my life. Away from NYC with no return date in sight, I couldn't find a job, and I was separated physically from the then-love of my life. I'd convinced myself that I would amount to nothing. To cope, I went to the gym every day, sat on my parents' back steps and chain smoked Newports, and listened to Lauryn Hill's Unplugged album on repeat, begging God to “please come free my mind" right along with her. Whenever I realized I was too close to the deep end (I didn’t want to fall into a permanent depression or die, I just wanted to get out of Maryland), I'd switch to Jaguar Wright's "Love Yourself." No matter which one I listened to on the treadmill, I'd cry the whole way through. One was tears of self-pity and fear, the other of determination.
I didn’t unpack my boxes when I returned. And any extra money I made from working my temp job (when I finally got one) or freelancing writing, I saved or spent at Wal-Mart buying things I would need if I ever got back to New York—cleaning supplies, paper towels, Kleenex, family size shampoo, etc. I packed that up in boxes too.
This was my mindstate one Saturday when I drove to Montgomery Mall. By that time, I hated malls, especially ones back home (to be fair, I hated everything back home. It’s actually pretty good shopping there.) But there’s not much else to do in the ‘burbs and it was what I did when I lived there before. Old habits are hard to break.
I walked around, looked at a bunch of stuff, bought nothing. This killed a few hours, which was the whole point. I was driving back on the Beltway smoking in the car, breaking a forbidden rule. My Dad didn’t have many rules for me by then, but those he did, he enforced like a cop trying to meet a quota. Don’t leave my cars a mess. Don’t leave the gas tank on empty. Don’t drive around with the car filthy. Don’t smoke in the car. I abided by most of them religiously, but on occasion, I would break the last one intentionally, holding the cigarette through the sunroof, then driving home with all four windows down so the smell wouldn’t stick in the leather.
That Saturday, “my” car, the one with the sunroof, was missing when I woke up, so I took another one for my joyride. I’m driving on the Beltway in unusually heavy traffic and smoking, customarily holding my cigarette out the window when I’m not pulling. I’m lost in the thoughts of my pitiful life and my dreams that will never be fulfilled and trying to hold onto a shred of hope. I suck in a hit of my Newport, then try to hold the cigarette out the window.
It hits the glass.
I grip the steering wheel with one hand, then fiddle with the button to roll the window down further. The doors unlock. I try again. The window moves lower. I stick the cigarette out again, then check to make sure it’s hanging out. That’s when I realize my car is dangerously close--- a few feet— to the highway’s concrete divider separating one side of traffic from the other. I’m going at least 60 mph.
Oh shit.
I pull the steering wheel hard to the left to get back in the far right lane.
I lose control of the car.
There I go, careening across the fourth lane into the third. I spot a black pick up in the second. My car is moving toward it like we’re two magnets. I am desperately pumping the brakes, but the car is not stopping.
I know I will die if I hit this truck. I brace myself with both hands on the wheel, preparing for the worst, lift up my foot and slam it back on the brake. The pick up continues forward as I careen backward and around, my car turning like one of those spinning carnival rides that leave you dizzy when they stop.
I hunch up my shoulders bracing for the impact of another car that will hit the driver’s side and me.
I am going to die.
The car stops at about 160 degrees in the opposite direction of where I was headed. I’m still braced. Waiting. Nothing. My eyes are shut. When I open them, I see all traffic has stopped behind me. There’s a 10 yard perimeter of space. A limousine van has pulled over on the side of the road.
I stare at the empty space, and the traffic beyond it for what seems like eternity, but was probably no more than seven seconds. Huh? I realize I’m holding up traffic, so I nervously throw my car in reverse, and turn it around. I am shaking.
My legs continue to jerk the whole ride home. I drive in the slow lane, going no more than 40.
The near-accident plays in my head on a loop the whole way. Finally, I wonder what happened to the cigarette. I don’t smell smoke or burning leather or upholstery. I have no idea where it went.
I don’t cry until I and walk in the house. I get through the breakfast room, but don’t make it through the kitchen when I break down.
Sometime later that night, I sit on the back steps smoking. I could have died. In fact, I should have. I lose control of my car on the Beltway, careen across three lanes in heavy traffic and nothing happened to me. NOTHING?! It doesn’t seem possible.
I keep thinking about that wide perimeter, picturing it. It was like a forcefield. The only way I can make sense of it is to say outloud, “God saved me.”
I can't figure out why.
Monday, August 25, 2008 at 12:28AM 
