The Illusion of Impact

Work was done for the day. I hop in my truck; body covered in drywall dust. I am large, standing 6 feet and 6 inches tall. I am covered so much in this white dust that my daughter calls me the abominable snowman. I laugh when she says that. Roll my eyes in gesture. She’s only six and the way she pronounces such a big word makes me laugh even harder. Like when the person’s laugh is funnier than the joke that was just told.

“Abom-am-ble”, she will say in her small voice.

I have two older children. The age gap between them and her is 10 years. All were accidents, or surprises their mom will correct me. It doesn’t matter to me- it is what it is. Not like I regret it or would rather have different. It’s just a matter of fact. Of my two older children and her mother, my youngest of six years old is the only one that still likes me. It’s not my fault though. I work a lot to keep them housed and fed and with hobbies and sports teams. Yeah, I have a bad attitude. A bad attitude that matches the throbbing pain in my knee I have to continue to work in which I really need looked at by a doctor. Something their mom would push me to go see, but what time did I have? It just made me angrier when she said that. I got even angrier when we divorced. She pushed those papers on me so fast it felt like there was another man who came into the picture. When I accused her of that she said I was the other man. Someone different entirely. Cruel, angry, always in a rage, always drunk.

Yeah, I drank, but I was never drunk. I was buzzed. Well. Most of the time I controlled my drinking enough to never get that sick, out of control feeling. Just wanted to be loose. Silly. Liked. I don’t think I even liked myself. But at the same time, I didn’t give a damn about anyone else.

Sitting in the truck caused years of drywall dust that had fallen off my body- my abominable snowman figure- and settled into the seats to fly into the air with my heavy weight. The late afternoon sun illuminating all the white specks that my daughter would almost choke on when I’d pick her up for the weekends. She never seemed to mind. I always met her with a bag of Corn Nuts and a piece of Laffy Taffy I took from the candy bowl at the head office. Banana flavored. The Corn Nuts were ranch flavored. Her favorite things. I did give a damn about her. She looked the most like her mother of all the children. Lingering on that thought, I think that’s what I liked most about her. The way her blonde hair matched her mothers. The rounded tip of her nose was just as similar. But she was tall. Like me.

I smiled. Coughed. Shook the thoughts from my head for clarity. I pulled the keys out of my pockets and stuck them in the ignition. My truck roaring to life and struggling to cool down the cab from the heat outside. It wasn’t too hot, but I had no choice but to sit in directly in the sun. Most of the houses we worked on were new constructions. No trees to give solace to the baking metal of my company’s vehicle.

Blasting the air conditioning until it was safe to touch the steering wheel, I placed my callused hands on it. Like instinct, like I could drive blindly to this location as I do every night after work, though be it different work locations, there is always a convenience store around. This one I have been visiting frequently. I could almost smell it out. I pulled away from the construction site and within minutes pulled into the parking lot of the store.

The door chimed. Poorly too, as if it needed a new battery from the many years of customers visiting. I headed straight to the alcohol. Opening the glass doors, grabbing a 30-pack to last me through the weekend. It was Friday and I had my youngest daughter this weekend. A court-ordered custody agreement with her mother that I get her every other weekend. I brought it up to the counter, grabbed the pack of ranch flavored Corn Nuts waiting for me right at the front, and paid for the two items.

As I pulled out, I opened my first beer. Sitting the 30-pack next to me on the dusty bench seat in the cab. Making more drywall dust float around. In what felt like four big gulps, I crushed the empty can with my two hands, forming it into what looked like a can of chewing tobacco. Something we did as kids. I started drinking around 14 years old. It never got as bad as within the last few years. And honestly, if I had a nickel every time someone told me to quit drinking and driving, I’d be the richest man in this town. State, even. To stop or it will kill me. I would reply, “I could die right now. A plane could crash right into this building, and we would all die. Now get off my ass.” I know that to me it made sense and just made them mad. I laughed at them. I didn’t drink to get drunk. Just buzzed.

I punched my hand through the pack of beer again and started gulping down my second beer. Headed to my ex-wives house to pick up my daughter. I knew that I wouldn’t push for a third beer until we got closer to my house. Like I said, I didn’t want to get drunk. Only buzzed. Loose. Liked. In a state where I liked myself more. I started sipping a little slower on the second.

I pulled up to the house I used to live in with all my children. My oldest child was sitting outside working on his bicycle. I waved to him and something that looked like a glare washed over his face. He went inside to yell for his sister that I was here. None of them wanted to stay with me anymore. Because of my drinking, I’m sure. Nobody told me though. Just didn’t load up in the car for the weekends anymore. Pushed all of that on my youngest. For her to still uphold the court-ordered custody visitations that felt all too short. That her bubblegum body wash slowly faded away when she left my house. I never would get her long enough. I drank more when she left.

She came bounding out the garage door. Her mother behind her carrying a backpack filled with clothes and toys and books. I scattered to hide the case of beer in the backseat, covering it with a dusty towel. I put my opened container in the side of the door next to me. Can’t let her mother know I drink with her in the car. We said our greetings and goodbyes.

I felt happier already. I felt like I was back as the family man I always wanted to be. I felt my knee stop aching. I turned off the radio that I always kept on at a low volume to let my daughter’s high-pitched voice fill the truck. Telling me of her friends, her day at school, what she wants to be when she grows up. We are back on the road, taking the 30-minute drive over to my house, so I sip on my beer. She doesn’t notice, especially when I toss her the Laffy Taffy and Corn Nuts at her. Her squeal is the only thing that interrupts her talking. So, I just listen.

Halfway to the house, I start to feel sick to my stomach. I managed to eat a small breakfast burrito I microwaved at the gas station next to my house. For lunch, a cigarette I bummed off a coworker and a granola bar. Not enough in my stomach to make me feel sick. I feel nauseous and weak. Like I could throw up right here. So, I take another sip of my beer. My daughter still chatting away.

My ears start to ring. A wailing siren it sounds like piercing my ears. I groan and stick a finger to clear them out. The sound only intensifies.

“What’s wrong, daddy?” My daughter asks me. But it sounds muffled, like the way she says abominable, and I don’t respond. I look at her and she goes back to chatting. I take another drink.

Then, my vision blurs. The setting sun doesn’t give much light and I start to panic. My breathing catches. I look at my daughter and I can hardly tell that she is still looking out the front windshield. At least, that’s the direction her head is turned. I notice she puts a handful of her Corn Nuts into her mouth. My vision doesn’t get better. I wipe off my eyes. It only causes the blurry vision to kind of pulse as my eyes throb to the disorderly view around me. I take another drink. My eyes only get worse. I start to think I should pull over.

And with that thought, my vision goes dark. I scream. I can only think my daughter’s screaming matches mine, but the piercing sound vibrating inside my ear blocks anything and everything. The nauseous feeling is too much, and I know that I am throwing up.

The truck hits something. I can’t hear the impact over my ringing ears. The smell of vomit overpowering the senses. I feel us spin. All I can do is hold my hand out to hold my daughter back. The other I try to gain control through the steering wheel, but it’s like my depth perception is gone too. Like I am not reaching far enough to touch it.

We spin around and around, until I feel the truck go off balance. Leaning on two wheels on my side. We roll down something. We flip and flip and flip. I can’t feel my daughter anymore. I can’t feel where I am. I know that my vomit is covering us. My ears are still ringing that I can’t even hear myself screaming, I can’t hear her screaming. My vision is still dark.

I don’t know how long we flip for. It feels all too long. And for the first time in a while I feel fear. Just as quickly as it began, we stop. With the end to the sudden motions, my ears quit their painful noises. My vision comes back to blurriness to full on sight. I don’t notice my stomach aching any longer nor the smell of vomit in the cab. I hear the creaking of the truck, I see the smashed in windows and mirrors around us, I smell the smoke from under the hood mixed with gasoline that threatens a fire about to start. My daughter.

She remains seat belted next to me. A 30-pack of beers with two missing now scattered among the broken windshield in front of her. Glass peppering her face. Her head turned into an angle that isn’t quite right.

I scream her name. She doesn’t respond. I scream louder. She doesn’t move. I scream more and more and more, her chest doesn’t rise with her breathing.

A flame ignites below us, quickly engulfing the bed of the truck. I go to unbuckle my seatbelt, but a branch of a tree has shoved itself through the truck door and right into my leg. I can’t get out. I grab for my daughter, but her limp head rolls to the right. Blood pooling in the corner of her mouth.

I start to cough. The flames growing stronger. The heat burning the papers in the back seat. The back seat I should have placed her in. In a booster seat for her safety. But that didn’t matter now. I scream for her name to wake up, to look at me. But the face that looks just like her mother’s shows lifelessness.

I feel the heat of the flames kiss my feet, up to my legs. And I don’t care anymore. I only see my daughter. As her blonde hair is set aflame. As the flames incapacitate her body. As it spreads completely over her to melt the cans of beer scattered along the windshield. I thought for just a moment, which of the two did I truly love most, and I feel my skin melting.

The only thing I can do is scream. For nobody to hear. For nobody to help. For nobody to know what I just did to myself and my daughter.

But then I am back at that convenience store. I look around the cab of my truck. The windshield in place. A branch that isn’t lodged into my leg. A daughter that isn’t sitting next to me. A case of beer that hasn’t yet been purchased and not sitting next to me in the bench seat. Like a precious passenger. A wave of nausea like I remember encompasses me. But this time, it’s real. A vision, I realize, is what I just had. An illusion of my future. Of possibly the next 45 minutes. Or the next few days. Or the next few months. And a thought of clarity, which of the two do I truly love most?

The door chimes as I walk into the store. A cold sweat sits at the back of my neck. My hands shaky, my face flushed. I walk right up to the counter and buy a bag of Corn Nuts. Ranch flavored. The clerk looks at me and asks, “just these today?”

“Yes,” I tell her. “I don’t drink anymore.”