BUT PEOPLE DIE IN HOSPITALS

AS THE CAR PULLED UP to the front of ALLEN PARK VETERANS HOSPITAL I squinted to see what and where I was going. I was supposed to walk in through the front doors somewhere amidst the blur of colors I could see in the distance. Dad's voice mumbled instructions as to where he was going to be... I think.

It was the morning after my three hundred-mile drive from Illinois across the distance of a two-lane highway in a total fog of mind and mentality. It was after having pulled a weekend posted in a heavily wooded training area where rain, cold air, frosted breath, and fog performed as adversaries to nerve and rationale of women and men signed on to defend the general public. I routinely pulled on army boots and pickle suit to do what I made an oath to follow through on... for my little boy and my little girl at home. They rested in the back room of their granma's house on most occasions such as this. But not this last time. This last time because we had moved, one was away at boarding school and the other sat impatiently awaiting my return from a three-day weekend. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday with instructions on what NOT TO DO "until I get back" held my daughter at frustration's helm well enough to cause lethargy in the limbs of the high school sophomore. We were still filing into necessary roles in a new state, community, and routine. My professional license had been tested for and I was awaiting a response from a broker on the option of working for his agency. The last drill date with the Military Secret Classified Signal Communications Unit and transfer into the vacant position under a similar designation was my goal.

"I had a good job and I left?" I had a "good man"... and he left?" I had a good home? but I left? Everything heard was not always so true. I was doing this to get ahead... the training and oddly enough, the extra pittance of money. This last training jaunt ended and the field cleared heavy communications equipment... satellite, microwave, and computer units with scramblers and encode and decoding rigs pulled out behind the unit command headed for home. We'd had a good run and everyone was in a good mood. One-quarter mile from the exit to our base the vehicle I was co-driver in flipped up the expressway after careening hard to the right where the passenger door flung open... we had no seatbelts... and I was slung outside the vehicle grasping the top edge of the door for dear life. Beneath me, for all that was visible to me, was a gaping hole and tiny trucks in some far... far distance. I later realized that it was a gravel pit. Below my dangling legs were trucks moving... inching around a grey line road and the vision changed abruptly as I was flung back inside the cab of the truck, and the truck rolled over and onto its side, then it was the top of the truck cab sliding along the pavement shearing off one and two signs posted for the safety of travelers along the roadway. I never thought of how dad... or the kids would react to hearing the story of survival or on "how the weekend had gone." I did think about the voice yelling at me to "hold my neck up" coaxing me to be obedient... and so, I did. It was my grandmother's voice... although she had died a few years before this last drill date. I obeyed my grandmom and scrunched my neck toward my shoulders... up and away from the pavement. I was not thinking anything when her voice came to my mind... I had struck my head on the ground and had a slight gash from a sheared sign. There was gravel grit from somewhere along the skidmarks and twisted metal. As I raised my neck I did see a metal stick pass by my face... the metal post from another sheared sign originally posted along the median. I must have blacked out from something after that, I could not and still can not remember anything else from the neck-raising moment to the moment someone called my name from the outside of that truck. I dropped from the seated position onto the grit and pavement that had folded the truck cab back and underneath itself leaving wheels spinning above us and debris from the wreckage of our dislodged generator, the communications rig, and the twisted truck cab and truck bed. I slid out at that prompt and the question of "how the driver was"... then slid back in to pull at his sleeve and shoulder. I was driven to a hospital escorted by an appointed man, Sargent Sanchez. My knee was X-rayed, and I was treated for minor cuts, and contusions on orders by Dr. Seymor Kirsten in the emergency room; then sent away with the Sargent back to our military base in North Riverside. I was later driven to my mother's home where I crept into her bedroom to lay down for a bit as she gazed at the evening news about a major accident on a local expressway. Some hours later I climbed into my dar and drove back to the out-of-state address... 300 miles ... to where we now lived. I had barely registered the mail change to the new address before the fiasco occurred. My employer knew of the relocation but had not yet taken me off the state employee files.

Three hundred miles later I staggered out of the car and through the garage through the kitchen to the guest bathroom where I slumped to the floor and puked into the pink porcelain toilet. My daughter came in to ask what was wrong and my dad followed after she yelled "something was wrong." They hauled me to my bedroom and sometime between then and morning I was relieved of my uniform, boots, and all. I was given a Tylenol and put to bed. The next morning I was ordered to, " ...get something on, I'm taking you to the hospital, Allen Park V.A.!" As the car pulled up to the front of ALLEN PARK VETERANS HOSPITAL I squinted to see what and where I was going. I was supposed to walk in through the front doors somewhere amidst the blur of colors I could see in the distance. Dad's voice mumbled instructions as to where he was going to be... I think. I steadied to position myself for leaning toward the door, the handle, and stepping out when the car suddenly lurched forward. I turned my head to see the horror on dad's face and hear him muttering more words, "No... people die in there! All they do is KILL PEOPLE IN THERE!" "You're coming home... I'll think of something else. We're doing something else." I simply returned, "Okay dad, I love you too."

What a father won't do for love. And again, I say "HAPPY FATHER'S DAY, dad... where ever you are."