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DUI
Jon Brunette
After Bruce drank his beer, he ordered vodka and orange juice, like he had everyday for three years. He had yet to fall into a rut, though, like many of his lifelong friends. They appeared headed for divorce or depression. Actually, the best days of his life had just arrived. The liquor stood on his tabletop in just seconds. Nobody sat inside the tavern but he and the lovely waitress. Obviously, the world had other things to do. Bruce and Melody liked it that way; it allowed them to behave playfully, like the friends they had become. The happy waitress brushed her blonde hairdo back, turned and pouted when he told her to work with haste. He had to drink quickly, with a baby on the way.
Melody shook sexily, mixing the next screwdriver. She looked at him while she mixed the liquor, and flipped her ponytail with a hint of awkwardness. Attraction to him showed in her blush and nervous gestures. It began when he first walked through the door. She found that Bruce didn’t smoke, throw bottles, or pinch her, which she likely wouldn’t mind with him. Maybe she wouldn’t mind it with anyone, but Bruce didn’t dwell on it. It would put her in a light about which he preferred not to think. And he enjoyed his friendship. He reveled in her playfulness when he walked through the front door and sat at a table where she would see him immediately. Without notice, she would look at him quickly, and blush innocently, with lust in her blurry eyes, like schoolchildren with puppy love.
Naturally, he told Melody how he met his wife. Also, he announced that he just drank to relax before he looked his bride in the eyes and told her about his lowly paychecks. One complaint lingered about Linda, who had married Bruce: her pushy quality. She wanted him to ask forcefully for a raise, but he would walk into the unemployment line if he did. She didn’t understand. Melody liked Bruce anyway. She loved to sit by him and watch him drink like his wife didn’t. He visited Melody frequently, joyfully yet not romantically. He had become her favorite customer; she had told him many times.
Minutes later, she set the tumbler on the tabletop. The surface showed thick marks, black liquid stains, and jagged indentions, imprinted by rowdy clients. Melody smiled and sat by Bruce like she would in quiet times. The small phone in his pocket bleated. He fumbled with it, but answered it on the third bleat. She bowed her head and didn’t listen. She offered respect to his life beyond her place of employment. People in her position learn quickly to become invisible, like butlers and housekeepers.
He spoke enthusiastically and told Melody what just happened. “My wife will have her baby, really, in just hours, by that medical person who just spoke to me.” His voice trailed with liquor in him. Awkwardly, he stood, tripped slightly, and jangled his keys before the lovely waitress. She smiled when he walked into the lot, shyly yet without playfulness, not happily at all. He didn’t know if she looked lowly because he had married and would have a baby or whatever other reason may exist. With women, it always looked mysterious why they hang their heads. Or look happy, for that matter.
Climbing into his Ford, he turned the key and heard music playing loudly, incoherently. Very few musicians play melodically anymore. Almost no traffic drove by the road that led to Highway 10, which led to the hospital. It would take just minutes to reach the highway, if he didn’t miss the light. Still, he had hours and would need time to allow his body to sober properly. Swerving the Ford, he floated over the yellow line, but barely. After all, he drove drunk frequently and would never stop fully. He bragged at his inability to attract police, with liquor in him or not. Nobody had arrested him before; likely, nobody would. Cops just didn’t look at him. Maybe he knew how to avoid them like few could. Assuming he went as planned, he should be able to hold his bride while she pushed the baby from her body. With a sly smile that he could accomplish anything, like bring a child into the world through a beautiful woman and finish three beers and a tumbler of vodka and orange juice beforehand, he pushed his foot into the accelerator and spun loudly in the brilliant dusk.
Shortly after he left the light, he turned onto the highway. Briefly, it appeared that time like the bumpy road would slip by him. The highway would narrow into two lanes before he would reach the hospital, instead of three lanes with thick shoulders. Like a hungry vulture over his shoulder, he could feel that his life would end before he walked into the hospital. After all, he barely felt his head; it swam lightly, sleepily, and his vision blurred. His foot wouldn’t always react while he drove, and yet he had just begun. Thinking about his baby, it should improve before he approached his destination. When he swung off the spiral, zigzagging off the lumpy curb yet pulling back, he floored the accelerator into traffic. Cars and trucks filled lanes, but plenty of room allowed for Bruce to drift. One truck honked, but didn’t follow. It appeared that truck couldn’t approach the lofty speeds that Bruce found in his rusty Ford. It took a youthful man with energy to impregnate a woman like his bride, drink liquor, and still arrive safely at the hospital before the baby popped from her belly.
On the highway, Bruce pushed the pedal downward, with lights behind him and bleats of sound. They annoyed him greatly. Does anybody enjoy the blare of sirens? Nobody likes the look of legal cherries. With money in the bank, if not in his jacket, he could pull to the side. He should allow the officer to arrest him. If he did, though, he would miss the birth of his baby. With little choice, he put the Ford into another gear. It threw gravel behind him, hiding the squad temporarily. When he arrived at the hospital, he would explain. With a wife in the maternity ward, the officer shouldn’t arrest Bruce. Nearly everyone suffers with this problem eventually, with a baby on the way and a jittery husband plowing frantically through traffic.
With police tightly behind him, he looked into dusk as the yellow ball in the sky lowered. Over the hospital, it loomed blurrily, with hazy clouds before it, yet it still stood majestically, like his black-haired bride looked, impregnated or not. And it blurred occasionally into pinkness, like the skin of his beautiful wife.
With Linda on his mind, Bruce pictured his wife yelling aggressively for the baby to emerge. With her behind it, the baby stood little chance. Bruce had joined with a wildcat; he had just never appreciated it before. Momentarily, he left the road mentally and physically, and failed to hear the horn bellow loudly, just miles from the hospital. Unlike the blare of the siren behind him, the throaty horn didn’t blend into the chilly twilight. It echoed thunderously, like foghorns in a bay, and it brought Bruce back to reality quickly. Bruce opened his eyes and looked into three lights aglow before the train, plowing down the tracks like a bullet from a rifle. At the nearby intersection, the lengthy wooden arm didn’t fall nor did flashers blink rhythmically. With the Amtrak about to hit him, he froze with the inability to react properly. Painfully, a brick broke his skull, or it seemed, and he didn’t attempt to pray. God wouldn’t help anymore.
Bruce didn’t bow but prepared himself to approach God without regrets. Always, he had approached life similarly. Although he had plenty of failures upon which to dwell, namely that he would never look at the black eyes of his baby, he never looked upon memories as hindrances and experiences as lessons. After all, people who lived like he shouldn’t atone before God. He had pleaded with people to help end his life somehow, with liquor or fisticuffs, like brutal animals that bare their teeth with little provocation. He brought his demise with little remorse.
The train traveled quickly, into a blur, especially as it approached, and hit the rusty Ford. Sparked by gasoline, flames burst from the Ford, keeping Bruce pinned to the leather, and fiery balls of smoke broke apart with flimsy metal. Sheets of automobile flew wildly around the train. Looking at his reflection with finality, the body named Bruce melted with a bloody explosion, mixed with plastic and leather. Most of the sedan shredded completely, like the beefy body, pulled for miles. Finally, the train slowed, loudly, metal-on-metal, but it wouldn’t save Bruce anymore.
The waitress wiped the table that had kept the vodka and orange juice like the beers before. She had already put the tumbler back on the lengthy bar. With a pause for the man who had sat there and would no more, she failed to watch the body walk into the tavern. She paid little attention, with her mind on someone else. Only his shadow presented itself initially, like Death on a chilly night to people with tumors in their brains. When the front door opened, she said, “We close in thirty minutes. Nobody has walked in here for hours, but maybe one”—she shrugged—“and he left. Probably, he won’t come back, not tonight, maybe never.” To herself, she said, “Maybe I shouldn’t either.” She said to the shadow, “We shut the doors without customers, regardless of hour.”
He replied that he had come to the tavern today and had sat on the stool she had just lifted onto a table. She shook her head. “I didn’t see you, but I don’t look at people anymore.” Finally, she looked at the bulk in the doorframe. Wide-eyed, she said, “You did sit here today!” She kept joy from her voice, but barely. “Why didn’t you leave for the hospital?”
He shrugged and said, “My car stalled about one block from here. It always does when I need it—especially when I need it.” Perhaps she knew the truth, but didn’t show it, and didn’t question him. And yet, a smile told him that she knew about his lie and didn’t mind. “Maybe I should take a taxi to the hospital. My head feels like a bobble doll.” He held his head for effect, and got the response he wished for.
She walked to him, shook his body, and said, “I will pay for that taxi—happily!” Tears welled in her eyes, yet she didn’t blink. One lonely teardrop fell onto her cheek, slowly, but she didn’t wipe it off, like it had fallen accidentally. “I have twenty dollars that I need to spend. It just sits in my purse”—she shrugged playfully—“and it will sit in my handbag until I find a purpose for it. Now, I can spend it productively.”
He told her that he would take her money. He had very little money in his pocket, and wished for Melody to know that friendship didn’t come cheap. Besides, he would annoy Melody if he rejected money offered. She shook his body tightly, with tears visible in her eyes, looking like she hadn’t spoken to him or anyone in years. “Certainly, I will pay for your taxi.” Like Melody understood what Bruce had envisioned, she said, “Truthfully, I have never spent money as prudently before.”
She touched the telephone and smiled. As a bartender, she had memorized taxicab numbers. Any would suffice. As joyful as she appeared, she offered a small sniffle that she attempted to hide. When she repeated, “I have never spent money as prudently,” she spoke to herself as to him. Then the Dispatcher answered and she listened to Bruce no more until she finished.
Moments later, her customer spoke; she lowered the telephone to hear him. With a wink registered by Melody on the telephone, he said, “I wonder if you ever will.” Finally, she replaced the mouthpiece and they both smiled. When he returned after the birth, he would pay her back, happily. She would accept happily. Married or not, he had found a partner in his waitress, in friendship if not romance. One problem existed with Melody; her lively friendship required him to kill his body. With alcohol, he had justification to visit her. With his wife and baby back at home, how could he visit another woman playfully, without justification? They would misunderstand completely.
