Dead End
Coming to as he was being wheeled through an emergency hospital corridor, the first thing Tim remembered was the last thing he thought of before the impact.
He had thought of his best friend, of Nash, just prior to his dying. Prior to him red-lining his Suzuki, popping the clutch and a tall wheelie before driving 60-mile-per-hour arrow-straight into the concrete wall at the end of a dead-end street in the valley. Tim had thought of what Nash had said before he roared off to die.
There he was 13 years ago, a junior in high school, lean and tan as he always was, stoned immaculate as he always was. His shoulder-length black hair whipping around his angular face in the wind. That night, he was sad—devastated really—from the break up with his long-time girlfriend Jen earlier at school that day. He wouldn’t talk about, just spent the day getting more and more wasted until they wound up out in the farther reaches of the San Fernando Valley, sucking down a six-pack of Mickey’s malt liquor on a street known for its illegal drag racing.
And Nash just got worse, crawling deeper into a pit. Tim was doing all the talking, trying to get his buddy’s spirits up, but it was useless. Then it happened. Tim looked up as Nash fired the “zuke†to life and revved it hard. He looked Tim square in the eye, said something that was almost drowned out by the bike’s growl, and rode off in a streak of speed and sound, hitting the wall with a sickening crunch/slap sound moments later.
He’d said, “Watch me slam.”
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