HIGH TIMES IN TRENTON

HIGH TIMES IN TRENTON!!!!!!!!!!

The week before Christmas. Y'all know what that's like.
I had high hopes and I tingled all over.
Could I have foreseen the conclusion to such a glorious day,
extruded through the answer to a question, repeated over and over;
freeze-framed in the shock of her mindless penetrating gaze?
"You just killed my son in law".
Blood soiled the periphery makin soft,
that poignant symphony of wailing sirens in the background.
My alarm clock rent the early morning calm.
I was sucked back from a deep-corpse sleep at the crack of dawn.
Greeting the cock's-crow was a daily occurrence in my profession.

The hand of Lucifer was nefariously realized in the form of my alarm clock.
A flood of golden sun ray's from a brilliant bright blue Virginia sky
poured through my window, and coerced me out of bed.
Christmas was just around the corner and I was returning home
after months on the road.
I'd been working my way around the east coast,
but now all images of piping diagrams and valve flows in my mind
were replaced with highway routes, miles per gallon and other items in my itinerary. The first thing on my list though, was to brew a strong cup of coffee followed by a brisk shower.

I wrote a short goodbye note to Brian and Karen.
They was in the back of the house,
sleeping off a goodbye party we'd had the night before.
Brain was my oldest friend and Karen was his newly-wed women.
I gathered my belongings and stepped into a cold sunny winter's morning.
My pick-up truck sat deathly still beneath a blanket of frozen crystals
which snapped and crackled as I opened the driver's door.
After starting the motor I scraped a thin sheet of frozen sky from the windshield while my Detroit big block warmed things up under the hood.
I had a long drive ahead of me but I was exited.
I was meeting Consuela. We'd arranged a luncheon date in Manhattan,
which I was determined to keep.
She was graceful, intelligent and extremely good looking.
The day promised high adventure
for a young man raised in a place named after four stop signs,
smack-dab in the middle of nowhere.
I had no idea of the carnage that was to follow.

I drove through the suburbs of northern Virginia still bewildered
by the photo copied houses in neat little rows with no end in sight.
One after the other as far as the eye could see.
After stopping to tank up with gas, I made my way to the interstate
and began my journey northwards through the megalopolis of Americas east coast. I'd planned a detour along the way, to the Philadelphia museum of modern art
for an exhibit of one of America's premier blacksmiths. 
It was closed when I arrived, but I had always liked Philadelphia
and I guess you could say that of all the states south of Manhattan
I liked Pennsylvania the best. I didn't mind the detour.
I proceeded uneventfully through Maryland and Delaware.
I grabbed another cup of coffee along the way.

As I entered New Jersey I felt a shiver of premonition, or perhaps it was only a jolt from the strong coffee burning a tunnel down my throat.
Since my childhood I'd always had a bad feeling about New Jersey.
As a youth I can remember my eyes being glued to the train window,
as I journeyed with my family to our yearly summer vacation at my grandparents sumptuous house on the Gulf of Mexico in Florida.
As viewed through a train window, northern New Jersey had always absorbed me with its shocking squalor and its run down, devastated urban landscapes.
It was a far cry from my home in the midst of New England's natural beauty
along the Connecticut shoreline.

At some point around Trenton, the interstate is routed onto the Kings Highway
which was bustling nervously with last minute Christmas shoppers.
I was wrenched from my intense focus on driving by a strong wind
whipping though the cab of the truck.
In astonishment I hurriedly began to roll up the window. Surprise! Surprise!
The windows were already tightly shut.
I had a sick feeling in my stomach and felt slightly dizzy.
I drove along for another mile or so before pulling over and stopping.
I stepped out onto the pavement and walked around to the shoulder of the road. Something wasn't right. I moved into a squat position with my head
between my knees and gulped fresh cold air deep into my lungs.
In short time the world began to right itself.
I stood erect, entered my truck and proceeded on with my journey. 

It's said that some people can hear colours.
I can't say that I ever have, (not on that day anyway)
but I did see the colours of smell.
Not very pretty ones though.
Brownish yellows like bile in the stomach of a dead man.
I bit down on the taste of burning chrome before I slipped into a great black nothing.
Time stopped short.
I have no clue as to how long I was in this state of no-mind.
In retrospect I do know that my foot was still on the pedal of a very powerful
Chevy pick-up truck.  The next thing I knew,
I was floating on celestial wings and soft feather pillows.
I had never felt so warm and safe.
Waves of tranquillity rolled gently up and down my body and soul.
I began to see warm colours and hear wonderful sounds.
I don't know where I was,
but all my life I have longed to return to this place of wonder.
Without drugs I had attained what every heroin addict seeks and never finds.

"You're license please, Sir."
I was groggy and didn't appreciate having my shoulder rudely jostled.
"You're license NOW, Sir." 
Gradually my rippling tranquillity was overpowered by a chilly draft,
entering my now open window.
My eyes were gripped in their upwards glance by the crisply starched uniform
of a New Jersey state trooper demanding my licence.
I quickly fumbled around for my wallet, withdrawing my license
and handing it over to the officer's impatient hand.
I was confused and the next question caught me off guard.

"Have you been drinking sir?" "No I haven't been drinking!!!"
I answered his question and followed up with one of my own. 
"What's wrong?"  I asked, like a village idiot from Mars.
"It appears that you've caused an accident sir and two men are seriously injured"
The sky's opened up and crashed down around me.
I swam between heaven and hell.
To put it more succinctly, I had just slipped from confusion,
straight into a turbulent raging shock.
I might add that Shock can alter ones state of mind,
more than any hallucinogen found in nature.
Time slows down and speeds up all at once.
All human feelings are suppressed beneath an implosion of synaptic activity.
I registered the blur of a uniform which moved into the periphery of my universe
(which was at this moment was focused on Officer Reilly),
and flowed into his right ear.

"Sargeant, one just died and the other one looks to be close behind"
Until then, I couldn't have imagine things could get much worse,
but in an ear shattering nano-second, my nightmare had just ripped into high gear.
"You're under arrest sir, as you appear to be injured, we will be transporting you to the hospital"
All this went by me in a surreal bubble.
I found myself pulled from my truck and subsequently led to a waiting ambulance.

What happened next has remained with me to this day.
Was it a mistake, an error of judgement or were they simply lacking in
ambulances on that day???
The mother in law of the man I had just trapped
between the bumper of my pick-up truck
and the now crushed trunk of the car before me, (separating his body into two pieces), had been placed in the same ambulance just moments before.
All the way to the hospital we stared at each other,
bridging the void between our dilated pupils.
We were sucked into each others eyes.
Nothing existed beyond the symbiotic thread of our mutual incomprehension,
except an endless tape loop, running over and over.
"What happened?" "You just killed my son in law." ,
running over and over, to this very day.