The Price is Wrong

The Price is Wrong

The sun's rays pierced my lids and woke me up. 

         I tried to throw the covers of my bed off of me, but there were no covers, it wasn't my bed and my arms wouldn't move.  Suddenly, the world became surreal.  Pan out...enter the Twilight Zone.  My eyes finally focused on the tubes entering my arms.  It was clear I was in a hospital.  I don't know how I got there, what day it was, or my name.

         I only knew what the nurses told me. My name is Larry Parker.  I was in a tragic car accident. I was all busted up and had been in a coma for 30 months.  I had no family or friends, or at least none who visited. The driver of the other car, a woman, and her passengers, her daughter and two dogs, died in the accident. I was drunk and ran them off the road. The police were on their way to arrest me. An officer had been placed outside my hospital room. 

         I was already disoriented and confused, but this was a brain bomb.  I killed four beings.  Whispers were crescending from some deep, dark place into a clanging symphony of brain-crushing fear and regret.  Hemmingway was right in part and wrong in part.  Ignorance is bliss, but sometimes knowledge is devastating. 

      I remember suddenly feeling very tired and watching the : on the digital clock blink on and off, off and on, forcing the minutes to march on.  I waited for the police to arrive to arrest me. 

        Almost three years later, I still don't remember the accident. I don't remember my life, but I know a little more about me than I care to.

      My hospital records told me I had a traumatic brain injury, a TBI, they called it.  I may suffer seizures, mood changes or frequent rages.  Great. I also was pretty busted up.  It took a couple of months before I could stand, much less stand trial.     

      I was arrested for DUI vehicular manslaughter in the hospital  At trial, I learned I had been arrested...a lot.  At least it sounded like a lot when the judge read my arrest records in court.  Public intoxication, burglaries, battery, another DUI with property damage...the list seemed to go on and on. I was 22 years old.

    I kept my mouth shut and let the public defender do his thing at trial.  I prayed for the first time in my life.  All I wanted was less time than the 30 years the prosecutor was determined to make me spend in prison. 

    The family of the woman and little girl were at my trial.  I could feel their hatred burning into the back of my skull.  I kept my eyes down, afraid I was going to break down and cry.  What would my new home boys think?  I'm going to prison, of that there is no doubt. I need to be tough now and later, but there's no reason to be an asshole.  No reason to act like I didn't care. 

    Sometimes, sorry is a ridiculously impotent word.

    I got 16 years.

    I'm almost 28 now.  I walk with a limp.  I assume I didn't before.  If I did, I probably was the worst burglar in the world.  No wonder I got arrested so much.  I talk and think a little slow.  I know I do because the other guys give me a hard time.  Sometimes, my memory disappears like mist in the morning sun.

    I won't be eligible for parole until I'm well over 35.  Hell of a price to pay for partying.  They got me on medication so I don't cause any problems in prison by seizing up or becoming homicidal or suicidal, but they're not exactly party drugs.  At least, not the kind they told me I had in my system when I was admitted to the hospital.

    It's like  groundhog day in here. I go to sleep and the world turns off.  I wake up and it turns back on to the same shitty channel.  The only solution I can think of is to stay asleep, but they don't allow that around here.  Someone tells you when to wake-up, when to eat, when to take a shower, when to go to bed.  But lucky you, unhampered by the confines of privacy, you can piss and crap anytime you want in the reeking toilet in your cell.  That is, if you aren't shy. 

    Maybe I can start creating a different world for myself.  I could try to create one where I didn’t kill a woman driving her daughter to school with their two dogs riding along. Although the cravings are pretty strong, I don't think I could drink or drug enough to blot that out.  I know there are people in here who try.  I don't see it working for them either. 

    I heard there are AA meetings in here.  I heard some guys talking like they found hope or something.  That's pretty priceless in here, man.  Today, I think I'll check it out.  I can always kill myself tomorrow.