PREV: Part 2 - The Morning(s) After

I was living in the basement of a friend’s family home one summer. I was about to start at a new university and didn’t have a place to live. This family was kind enough to let me stay with them until the school year got going.

On a Saturday morning, I met a group of friends at a park to play basketball. We played in the St. Louis swelter for a few hours. During a break, I asked if anyone had brought anything to drink. I was directed to a cooler to the side. In it was a sea of floating cans of beer. Desperately thirsty, I pulled one and drained it quickly.

Twenty minutes later, one of the people said that given the heat, they were headed to Harper’s pool. About a mile into the drive home to get my trunks, I approached an underpass that went beneath some train tracks. As you enter the brief tunnel structure, there is a cement median about two feet wide dividing the two sides of traffic. When I came to the median, I somehow got my car straddled over it, so the driver's side was in the lane of oncoming traffic, and the passenger side was on the right side. I remember repeatedly jerking the steering wheel to the right, trying to get back in my lane, and was confused why it would not go as the wheel kept hitting the median (which I was not fully cognizant of).

Next thing I know, I wake up on the floor of my basement bedroom. I think back, and the last thing I remember is fighting with the steering wheel. I walk up the stairs and open the front door.

This house I’m living in, which is part of a standard suburban neighborhood predominantly made up of families with children, is set up on a little hill. By the street, they have created extra parking spots with some railroad ties and gravel. I drove through the gravel, over the railroad ties, through their front yard, and my car was sitting six feet from their living room’s bay window. The driver’s door was still open, and the parking brake was engaged. I scanned the street to see if there were people taking in this unexpected scene. Thankfully, there were none. I got in and rolled the car back onto the street and properly parked it.

I then got out, still looking around suspiciously, and moved to the front of the car. There I knelt down and inspected the headlights and front grill. I was looking for blood and hair. Thankfully and miraculously, there was none.

NEXT: Part 4 - The Dry Life