From nowhere, red and blue lights flash. I know to pull over. I also know I’m just about home? If I were to hit the gas it’s two seconds to Innovation Road then take a left on the frontage road near Menards past Cub to Jamaica turn right and then left up the block on the street where Hillside Elementry is and lose him in those streets. I know them pretty good cuz the chuker lives around there and thats how I know them pretty good, but whatever, I pull over. Thought after thought, please God after please God hits my mind over and over and over. I’m done. Now I’ve done it. I’ve really done it. I could tell him I’m Nick. I could be Nick. I know his birthday, his age, we look the same, I could just say I forgot my ID and he’d let me off with a warning. I think about this as I inhale from my smoke then let it slip out the window. As it falls down past the window, there he is. Standing right at my door. Flashing his light square in my eyes.
What was that? What did you just throw out the window?
A cigarette.
A what?
A smoke, it was just a smoke. (I slurred every single one of those words)
He crouches down to find it.
Why would you do that? Don’t throw anything else out. He scolds me.
And with that he walks away from my window. I eye-ball him through the sideview mirror to watch his every move as If he might be the one to make a get-away.
He hustles back to his squad car and I go back to rehearsing hopeless excuses. Or, I could just grovel. Beg and plead to this man with all my might.
The minutes spent in his car will forever be the second longest number of minutes. It gave me time to resign myself to the fact that this is not a dream. I am living in the moment and for the moment I have no more thoughts. This will be DUI 3 and I’ve got serious problems. What is going to come of my life? I don’t want to fight it. I want to let things go the way they were meant to go, good or bad because sitting in this car letting pride and booze determine my fate is too big for me to fight. I’m beaten. Not a thought of God. Not a plea to The Lord. This is me in utter life resignation, and a lot of tears.
He gets out of his car. But really, this would be the best time to catch him off guard and hit the pedal, don’t you think? I’m hit with a sudden rush of energy… so how much time do I have to think of something? Anything. I don’t want to resign, I can fight! ANYTHING that will get me out of calling you and dad again.
I check my rearview again, and I don’t see him.
I look out my window and I see the corner gas station, not him.
I check the sideview and he isn’t there either.
Headlights turn on behind me and that same patrol car pulls out, makes a U turn, and drives away.
[very.long.pause]
With all lights off, he drives the complete opposite direction.
He just drove away. No hold on. No stay right there. No I’ll be right back. No don’t go anywhere. No I’ve got another call. No today is your lucky day. No your prayer has been answered. Just-drove-away. And so did I.
Never to utter a word.
Now, months later, I’ve learned nothing. I’m back in the same exact situation facing DUI number 3 (unofficially number 4) again. Mind racing, blah-di-dee-blah, blah-di-dee-blah --
It’s so easy to blame you. Dad, actually. No, both of you equally. Shouldn’t I? Can’t I? Look at the history; a knack for a disgusting family tradition. Alcoholism. I didn’t even have a say.
We were at a bar. It was the same bar I had left sober dozens of times before. And the same doors I had stumbled out of dozens and dozens of times before. I had practiced what I had learned over the past five years. One beer an hour will keep you under the legal limit or something like that? I put it to good use except that I’d slip in a shot, because hold-on now, because by the time that Hooter would kick in I’d be home, right? Better yet, we had just decided to go to a friend’s house to crash for the night so that I WOULDN’T have to drive all the way home – and, while we all just happened to be there at the same time - finish the party. I wonder if anybody wondered why I didn’t show. I wonder if they thought I might have crashed my car or stopped at the gas station, or just went home for the night. But I wonder if they even noticed that I never showed.
“Dennis has a problem, Dennis has a drinking problem.”
Why is it that some people tell the funniest jokes, some people fall asleep, some people (mostly girls) cry, and some people lose all sense of common sense when they are drunk? I’m the one who just has to be addicted to stupid. I lose every bit of common sense and intelligence to do things for no reason other than my own pleasure. Why do I have to deal with this? Can’t a guy, me, just be a really bad drunk? Can anyone list off the good things I’ve accomplished in my lifetime? I dare them too. I challenge someone other than you family members to do that. Maybe I should challenge you family members, but if you didn’t know I’d have to start a completely different blog, so I’d rather not know.
Why does the major focus of my life have to revolve around the decisions I’ve made when I was drunk. It’s a rhetorical question, but I get it, that’s what even comes to my mind when I think of my life. All the bad things show up before my memory remembers the TV commercials, the modeling contract, the movie appearance, the move to LA with no cash to my name and no friends to lean on, the magazine I was in, the Teen Reporter contest that I won out of thousands, the years I was a reporter at KARE11 when I was – thirteen, Yeah, that’s right, thirteen!? There’s the start for anyone who wants to take me up on my dare.
Three bad moves are all it was. I’m no idiot, there were a ga-zillion other mistakes inside those three, and I don’t mean to simplify things, but damn, I’ve had over a million drinks in my life and three mistakes will continue to affect my life in every-single-possible way.
Pride is a nasty thing to try and conquer. It wins most of the time. It lurks. It hovers. It hangs around with more patience than a hungry pack of lions. You get cocky just one time and it sprawls out from behind your already bashed-in low self-esteem and pulls you down even further.
but I digress.
Number three wasn’t my fault. This number three, which should be number 4, was the cops fault. Totally.
I’m driving, slowly, along the road. A cop is right directly in front of me and the learned reaction of shaking with nerves when I notice those types of cars triggers me. But it’s all good because I’m the legal limit. BREAK LIGHTS flash making me light up my brakes. They didn’t use any yellow blinker when they suddenly slowed to make a right turn. I PULL the wheel to the left to avoid hitting them from behind because if I hit them, I might as well bend over and give them an invitation to screw me. I JUST MISS cracking their bumper and while doing so cross the solid yellow line of oncoming traffic.
As I continue to drive to the after-party, an brilliant white spot light floods the back of my head. That’s when I knew it wasn't Jesus returning from Heaven. Want to know the image that was burning in my mind?
Black. Nothing.
I didn’t want to do this anymore. I’m done, drinking wins and I throw in the towel for good. This game sucks and I suck at it. Let’s just get this over with.
And I made yet another mistake.
I opened the door and stood up. I didn’t know the cop was there but when I opened my door the cop was there and I think he thought I was going to make a mad dash right through his flesh and keep sprinting all the way down Main Street to highway 94 West because he grabbed me by whatever he could get his hands on literally picked me up and threw my head into the hood of my car, er, my dad’s truck that I was borrowing for the night and shoved my nose through the green paint and damn near ripped my arms off. I didn’t know my arm could bend like that, but then again, based on the pain I felt, I don’t think it can. He grabbed the back of my shirt and yanked me on my feet when I saw there was another squad car, which made two, and I realized that they both had made me kiss the engine at the same time. I remember thinking that this man is either freakishly strong, or that I was incredibly easy to handle, but now I realize they tag-teamed me. Assholes.
Why did you try to run?
I wasn’t going to run sir.
Are you telling me you weren’t trying to run?
Yes sir, that’s right.
Why did you get out of the car?
I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know. I just wanted to get this over with.
I do everything he asks. Almost automatically. Cars are slowly driving by looking at me and secretly celebrating it’s not them in my shoes, I’m sure. I’m humiliated again. I don’t see anyone else standing beside their car in front of a cop whose holding a breathalyzer on the busiest street in town under all the street lights. I was afraid that one of those secretly celebrating cars driving by would have a friend of mine in it and if it was I’d be even more embarrassed, but then again I don’t really care at this point.
We go through the whole routine. Backwards alphabet, touching of the nose, watching the pen glide from one side of my face to the other. They asked me to tilt my head back and extend my right foot outward and six inches off the ground while they slowly, and I mean intentionally slow, count to ten. Then the notorious walking the invisible line while counting my steps. Again, all of this while other people my age are cranking their necks to stare at me as they drive by. It throws off your focus and probably affected my performance - Assholes. Talk about feeling ‘this big.’ The feeling only gets worse when they bring out handcuffs and you’re the one they bring them out for. The fast zip of them tightening around your wrist is very sobering. Pun intended.
At that minute, I can officially start comparing myself to every low life that I’ve ever seen on COPS being arrested and thinking – how can people be so stupid?
I’m all the stupid people that I’ve ever judged at this second.
It was a short ride to the police station but it was the quietest, longest ride I’ve taken since a ride back to school when I went to Winona. I’ll tell you about that car ride later. Not a word was said. It’s exhausting when your mind is reviewing and looking back and thinking ahead all at the same time.
I get to the police station and the miracle that I prayed for happens...
