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Warning to the Reader
Sex! Drugs! & Rock n’ Roll!
Well, maybe not a lot of music. But this is a story about too many drugs, a little sex, and a lot of alcohol-enhanced gambling. It is a guide on how to live your life ostensibly for the singular purpose of making bad decisions and missing golden opportunities. While using the excuse of trying to have fun and live life as it comes, it instead demonstrates ways to fail with regularity and completely blow one’s potential.
It is not too graphic, but it can be revolting, make you angry, or at least cause you to slowly shake your head from side to side, while squeezing your lips together in a disturbed expression. It is definitely not for children or teenagers; especially if they are your own offspring and you don’t want to answer awkward questions about your own past behavior that one is reminded of herein.
Furthermore, although this story is not intentionally meant to resemble real life characters (because people, names, places, businesses and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination), the tall tales and exaggerations may resemble actual persons, living and dead, and depict events and locations as told to the author by Cousin Boogie—That’s Boogie … as in: The Boogeyman (scary guy under the bed or in your closet), Boogie Nights (the movie), Boogie board (water-related), Boogie Woogie (Let’s Dance or a type of music), Let’s Boogie! (Let’s get out of here) or Do you want to Boogie? (—have sex?) Not to be confused with buggy (accompanied by a horse), bogey (golf), or Bogey Blunts (vanilla cigarillo), the original Bogey (Humphrey Bogart), Hogie lures (fishing) or Hoagy (Carmichael). None of which should ever be confused with the Philadelphia or Atlantic City (White House) staple, the Italian hoagie. Not that Cousin Boogie didn’t spend considerable time in Philly, AC or Los Angeles, but his tenancy didn’t compare to the two aforementioned and legendary Hollywood characters.
Boogie drinks too much, and is therefore too loud and often obnoxious; uses too much, and is therefore melancholy or incoherent; smokes too much—the tobacco kind—owes everyone money, thinks nothing of asking to borrow your personal stuff, and is careless with other people’s most precious possessions, but is lovable, charming, funny and good company for telling a yarn or two. In other words, he is a manipulator and everyone around him becomes an enabler. Of course, he has spent considerable time in therapy and usually laughs at the ability and attempts by mental health professionals to counsel him—.
But I must let him tell you, in his own words, if I speak the truth.
The Accident
July 27, 2009
10:00 pm
A 2003 white 4-door Cadillac was traveling north at 60 mph, while the two police cars were engaged in a complicated high speed pursuit of someone else—a young man on a motorcycle—one car passed him on the right and the other black and white started to go through the intersection up ahead—crossing from his left. The Caddy first hit the rear right end of the FHP perpendicularly as the police car was screeching to a halt as part of the planned barricade in the upcoming intersection. Careening diagonally off of the Florida Highway Patrol car, the Caddy twisted slowly in the air, like in an old motion picture, before it hit the nearest fire hydrant and stopped upside down, three feet in front of the four people huddled against the store window. And all the while, the driver was high on two Xanax—just for the hell of it. Out to take a ride and enjoy the Florida night.
~~~~~~~~~~
Sound and color commingled. Touch and memory, senses and feelings all mixed and swept past each other. All were within his body and mind, surrounding Ben’s head and felt deep in his organs. Like swimming underwater very slowly, smoothly, serenely. But with one’s eyes closed, mouth open and the liquid flowing gently through, inviting and gratefully received, not suffocating; the temperature close enough to match the skin, so that the experience was one of gliding smoothly through the fluid, with just the slightest resistance to the pull of each stroke.
The lilt of sitar and zither music was felt, but not heard. Emotions were experienced without fear, surprise without fright. Dramatic of course. He had always been dramatic, even showy. But not here. Not now. But in this place the drama felt deserved and fully earned—even reasonable. Reasonable to believe he was dead. But he had committed no crime, was guilty of nothing. All the evidence was in Ben’s head and heart, at his lips, and almost able to be verbalized. But he could not speak or distinguish between what was his brain, his hands, his thoughts and touch, or the ability to feel.
~~~~~~~~~~
July 27, 2009
10:06 pm
The two EMTs worked quickly. They twice attempted, unsuccessfully, to wake the victim. Peter quickly read from the wallet in his left hand, “Benjamin Geller, 190 lbs, 5’11’, 1948 … 61 years old, Ft Lauderdale.”
“Mr. G! Mr. G, can you hear me?”
His eye twitched and with a dry mouth, he asked, “Who are you?”
“You can call me Max and this is Peter,” said the senior tech. Max’s hair was prominent, even in Pompano Beach’s downtown darkness. Prematurely gray, it looked almost white under the street lamps. “The stress of the job,” the doctors had said, with some “genetic history” thrown in.
As they leaned over the victim, Peter—having only been on the job six months—deferred to Max. A quick shake of the head by one and a nod in agreement by the other confirmed that—although Peter was a strong, well-built 6-footer—the two of them were definitely going to need help to stabilize, extricate and move the 275 lb. man from behind the steering wheel.
~~~~~~~~~~
July 27, 2009
10:40 pm
“Mr. G? Mr. G, can you hear me?” repeated Max. “You have to be strong. You have to stay calm. Try to relax and trust us.”
“Max,” asked one of the two other EMTs that had now joined them, “have you determined the extent of his injuries, yet?”
“Yes, I have,” Max answered without elaborating, and motioned for Peter to follow. “But not here. And the rest of you, not so loud. He may still be able to hear us. Peter, let’s step over there. Sometimes, when we think they’re unconscious, they can still hear. Let’s not scare him unnecessarily.”
While discussing the victim’s status, Peter and Max are suddenly interrupted by Boogie shouting loudly, from 10 feet away.
“I can’t move!” yelled Boogie, momentarily left alone.
“Please try and stay calm,” said Max, quickly returning to Benjamin Geller’s side just as he lapsed into unconsciousness, again.
Gently, Max asked, “Mr. G? Mr. G, can you hear me?”
~~~~~~~~~~
July 27, 2009
10:40 pm
“Mr. G? Mr. G, can you hear me?”
The words arrived as total whiteness, everywhere at once. They couldn’t be heard, but they were felt. It was a
