I’m dead.
It’s weird how logical you can be, flipping eighty miles per hour end over end through the air. I wasn’t scared. My life didn’t pass before my eyes. It’s kind of like a video game – some stupid kid tosses a grenade into your path and you amble right over it. I’m dead. It’s a pretty normal reaction, right?
Life isn’t like a video game, though. It’s weird, I must have been flipping pretty quickly, I eventually lost track of which were oncoming headlights and which were stars – it was disorienting enough to make a guy nauseous.
No, that isn’t right. Really? What was making me nauseous? The view, or the spinning?
A traumatic event doesn’t make time slow down, it’s more like your ability to perceive increases. As I tumbled through the air I saw everything. My motorcycle, like some ballet dancer, pirouetted in the air before slamming into the guard rail. Fuck, I thought with an odd calmness, there goes my Ducati.
God, it died almost as sexy as I would.
That’s not morbid, it’s a fact – Ducati’s are the sexiest motorcycles on the market.
Cars swerved and slowed in the mayhem. I couldn’t hear anything though, which I thought was odd since the buzz of the engine was ever present on the open road. Kelly always told me that bike would be the death of me. Or was it Marissa? Jillian? It wasn’t important. Women were always telling me how to live my life, starting with my mother.
The ground was closer with every rotation. How do you brace yourself for a fall like this? The DMV makes you take a motorcycle safety course before they’ll issue you a license. It’s a big song and dance about knowing your vehicle, how to control a slide, and what type of clothing will best protect you from road rash. I guess it doesn’t really matter – there’s no way I would be getting up from this. My leathers sure as hell weren’t going to protect me.
I tensed my body hoping my left arm would hit before my hip, breaking a portion of my fall. As I struck the asphalt my arm hit with a guttural pop and grind. I’d broken my arm before as a kid, but not above the elbow. I remember it hurting like hell and I felt like this time it should hurt a lot worse, but… nothing: just like popping a knuckle. Maybe there wasn’t enough time, almost immediately afterwards my hip slammed into the pavement – suddenly I knew what it felt like to be a snail; that soft crunching sound when you step on them? The sound must have been really satisfying. The pressure on my body was overwhelming but I wouldn’t describe it as painful.
A near death experiences was supposed to be a blur of raw emotion and fear. Mine was crystal clear. Ever see on the Discovery Channel when a gazelle stops to take a drink and an alligator pops out. Surprise! The gazelle struggles to escape but it’s got a calm, almost logical, accepting demeanor. I couldn’t forget this moment with all the whiskey in Ireland but if I walked away from this, I intended to try. I rolled sixteen and a half times: nine in the air and seven and a half after hitting the street. My ribs snapped like a dry wishbone. If there had been two people pulling on my ribs, they’d both likely get their wish. One of them punctured my lung around roll twelve. As I stopped I realized I couldn’t catch my breath. Maybe this is what it felt like when I stole that kid’s inhaler back in the fourth grade.
I hadn’t realized what a sadistic guy I was.
Then again, I kill people for a living.
I laid in the middle of the road face down. Every breath I took a gasp. I still wasn’t in any pain. Maybe it was shock. I must have closed my eyes when I hit the ground. Every muscle in my body was taunt. My eyes finally opened to see blood oozing to the ground beneath me. Most of my nose and chin would be smeared on the road behind me. My visor must have splintered and broken away. That what I get for buying a helmet based on looks, not on safety features.
Wear a better helmet nah-nah-nah, I heard her say, as if mocking myself. She’d said it a hundred times with her incessant nagging. God, how is she nagging me on my death… road?
Turning over would probably be a good idea. I mean, I doubt breathing in asphalt was good for your health – although neither was a pack a day habit or wrecking your bike on the interstate for that matter. I tried to move my legs.
Nothing.
Not a good sign.
How had this happened anyway? I was tailing my mark in the Maserati, then…
White cars. Right.
Did I still have my gun? If someone had it out for me but didn’t have the common courtesy to just put a bullet in me, they probably wouldn’t break their stride to put me out of my misery after so blatantly sending my bike and I tumbling across the interstate but just in case, I wanted to be able to show them my ‘gratitude.’
I heard a car door slam, and footsteps running towards me. If they had come back to finish the job, I didn’t have a whole lot of time.
It takes a handsome, brute of a man to conceal a Desert Eagle .50. Luckily, a more sexy or brutal man than I, you could not find. I felt the muscles tense in my arm, then the rough blacktop beneath my hand as it tried to reach under my body into my shoulder holster. That arm was definitely broken. It had the same feeling as though it were asleep; you know, pins and needles? Almost like it tickled – no, not in a good way. There was no way I’d reach my shoulder holster in this condition and the footsteps were growing closer. Like it mattered. Vengeance was a dish best served when you’re not dead.
“Easy, lad. Don’t move. Help is on the way,” a thick Irish voice said from above me.
“Gurnnnngggg…”
That wasn’t right. I’d meant to say, let me die in peace you… you…
I guess if he wasn’t going to put a bullet in me, he didn’t deserve my wrath but god, good Samaritans were annoying.
I realized then the street sounds were back. That’s a good sign, I guess. I tried to get my hands underneath me – I was tired of sharing fluids with the street. That didn’t work out too well. The minute I tried pushing myself up I began to cough violently. Blood splattered on the ground in front of me.
Oh right. Punctured lung.
“Stay still, lad,” a hand pressed on my shoulder. I’m sure it was meant to be a comforting gesture but it was forceful enough to keep me in my place. “Exacerbatin’ a spinal injury is a good way to wind up in a wheelchair.” I couldn’t even see this prick and all I could think of was punching him in his fat potato face.
Suddenly all I could think of was a giant Mr. Potato Head doll restraining me in the middle of a southern California interstate. I must have lost a lot of blood; I mean, I’m not usually a racist, but potato face?
That’s hilarious.
With that level of lunacy I should have been knock, knock, knockin’ on Heaven’s door already. I wasn’t complaining, mind you; It wasn’t all that bad. I could barely breath, moving was out of the question and I had the cheery company of strangers I already knew I didn’t like.
Just like my birthday.
“Oh god!” That was a new voice. “Is he okay?”
I can’t even see me and I know the answer to that one, lady.
“Give him space, I think he has a broken neck,” Potato Face said.
Broken neck, that would make sense. I loved in those Hollywood espionage movies; they’d sneak up behind someone, snap their neck and down they’d go.
“Stay with me lad, and you’ll make it through this,” he lied.
I envied those spy bastards.
“Everyone just stand back, please. The paramedics are on their way.”
Everyone? I didn’t expect my fifteen minutes of fame would come on the interstate. Freak show always draws a crowd I guess, no matter where it is. I must have been a hell of a sight, too. Broken ribs, arm – my lower half couldn’t be in much better shape. My face! How could I have stolen that light from the world? Hell, it was that trustworthy face of mine that made me so successful. No one noticed a handsome man as long as you didn’t do things to draw attention to yourself. Like the opposite of a homeless man; everyone ignores you until you start begging, then they just pretend to ignore you.
I felt someone kneel down beside me. “Our Lord, God, has sent me to your side”
What was this guy, some kind of priest? If there was a God, he had a sick sense of humor.
“Our Father, who art in Heaven. Hallowed be Thy Name,” he continued but I stopped listening. If there really was an afterlife I hoped it was the seventy-two virgins kind. I’m not a womanizer, I just really like banging chicks. Didn’t the Vikings have some kind of hall where you could get shit-faced and kill each other until the end of time? That was probably more my style, I didn’t want to be nagged for all eternity.
It was getting really hard to breath. I forced out a cough and blood gurgled in the back of my throat. I started to feel very cold. Why did blood have that weird metallic taste? I could hear the faint sound of sirens approaching. Small miracles I guess, they would arrive just in time to pronounce me dead.
“May the Lord protect you and lead you to eternal life. In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.”
The commotion from the crowd rose as the sirens came to a stop. Doors slammed and footsteps silently approached me. My last thought was, How can I get to the afterlife without my bike?
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