Death and all His Friends

His mangled body laid there on the shattered windshield. I should have run to someone or called someone, but all I could do was watch the pools of blood gathering on the hot dark pavement. I watched the warm red rivers flow like tears down a face. I watched until the river turned into a light rain. I watched each drop run off the bottom of the car and into the pools that had turned into oceans. I never knew a person had that much blood inside of them. I knew technically how many pints of blood every person has in their body, but I could never picture how much it really was. Until then. Then I could.
I remember the day very clearly. It was July of 1985 and I was eighteen years old. Although my nineteenth birthday was in three short weeks. That I remember very clearly. Finally, after years of sneaking around in friends basements. I, no lying no faking, could walk into The Big M corner store and ask for a six pack of Genesee. Then, I could go to the spot and drink them with the boys, and no cop could tell me nothing about it. I remember that day. It was hot. My girlfriend Margo and I had plans to go swimming down at a quarry to cool off. Her younger sister Janey had tagged along too as she often did. Margo seemed bothered every time their mother asked if Janey could join us in whatever adventure we had planned that day, but I didn’t mind. Janey liked The Police and we both knew the lyrics to every song. Not bad company at all. We all hoped in my van and started on our way. I popped Ghost in the Machine into the cassette player and rolled down my window. It was a hot day.
Margo was beautiful in every sense of the word. She was a short curvy girl. Her long dark hair was always tucked behind her left ear. Her ears that were pierced three times. She said she really only wanted them pierced in two places, but even numbers were a bad omen, so she settled with three. As we drove down the flat roads of upstate New York, I put my arm around her. Life was alright I thought to myself. It’s pretty alright.
I heard her screaming and screaming. All I could feel was the sun like lasers beaming down on my skin. I felt hot. It was a hot day. All I could feel was the lasers and all I could hear were the screams. “Janey shut up.” I finally said quietly. She kept screaming, and now her screams were more like moans and I could feel her terrified moans crawling into my skin. It was too much. “Janey shut up!” I was shouting now, “Shut the hell up.” It had all happened so fast and now I couldn’t think. Where had Margo gone? Maybe she went to get help. Yes, yes she went to get help. That is good.
The summer had been one to remember so far, and I knew after my birthday it was just going to get better. I had graduated with all my buddies and Margo in June and we were all headed off to different Universities in the fall. The last summer as a high school kid, but I wasn’t too disappointed. I had not appreciated my youth the way I should’ve. I wanted freedom, and independence, and to be a grown up. It all sounded like a pretty great deal. You do what you want, when you want to. I fantasized about being on my own, and that summer it was so close I could almost taste it. I had had a pretty great life up until then. My parents loved me, and my two brothers, and my sister. We all got along pretty well. It was easy. It was safe. I longed for adventure and experiences. Experiences that would change my life. Little did I know that summer would change it all.
We were a couple miles from the quarry. We were almost there. It all happened so fast. I turned a corner and… I want to say there was sound, a crash or a boom, but all I heard was white noise. I kind of buzzing in my head, and then screams. I saw him for a split second. For a split second I saw him alive. He was flying on an ATV head on to the front of my van. I saw him. If I saw him shouldn’t I have been able to swerve out of the way. I can’t remember why I didn’t swerve out of the way. Maybe there was no time, but I saw him. He was alive and then I blinked and he wasn’t. When I opened my eyes there was glass flying at my face. I should’ve have felt pain. But all I could feel was the heat. It was such a hot day.