THE ARK

Day 302

Bill Etcher was driving fast, almost reckless. He was furious and almost wanted to be stopped by a cop. Then he remembered that he did not have a license and he would go back to jail if he were stopped. He slowed the ancient pickup just a little as he entered the town. He spotted the tavern on the corner and quickly made a decision. With brakes squealing, he brought the truck to a stop.

This tavern was one of his favorites, frequently he would stop here for an hour or more before heading home from work. He was going to head right home tonight, but after what had happened, he knew he could not face his wife Marsha without a few drinks. There were times when she was the most uncaring person in the world. His anger increased as he thought about how she was going to react and what she would say. She would automatically assume that his getting fired at work today was his fault. She would whine and complain. She would even dare to suggest that his drinking was to blame for his being fired. He knew the speech; he had certainly heard it plenty of times.

Actually, he was glad he had been fired, he needed a reason to get a better job. After all, he was thirty-five years old and he could do better than working for seven dollars an hour making tacos.

Making tacos six hours a day four days a week was more than he could take, especially when he had to report to that punk kid. The punk, as Bill frequently called him behind his back, could not have been more than twenty-two years old.

Anyone in his position would have had a few drinks before work. What right did that punk have telling him he could not drink before he came to make the stupid tacos! What he did before work was his business and not the punks!

Yeah, the more he thought about it the more Bill Etcher was glad he was fired. His only regret was that he did not punch the punk’s teeth in before he left!

He got out of his truck and pushed open the old wooden door of the tavern and stomped up to the bar.

“Bill, you’re looking more bothered than usual. What’s the matter?” said the large woman with the bleached blonde hair who was working behind the bar

“I got fired today”

“Here let me get you a beer, I know you can use one,” the woman said.

“Thanks”

The brown bottle was set in front of Bill who drank it down in three quick swallows.

“Get me a couple more, Babe”

The blonde set two more beers down in front of Bill and ten minutes later two more.

An hour and a half after entering the bar, Bill decided it was time to head home.

He climbed back into the old Ford pickup and headed for home. He was feeling much better and knew stopping at the tavern was the right choice.

He pulled into the driveway of the trailer that they had lived in for the last two years, and parked with his rear wheels on top of the small bush that his wife had planted the previous fall. Bill did not remember the name for the bush only that it was supposed to have red flowers; so far it had had none.

He went to the door and tried to place the key in the lock. He tried repeatedly to get the key in the lock before he gave up and pounded on the flimsy white door.

Marsha finally came to the door and opened it, he pushed his way in. “The locks broke; my stupid key wouldn’t work,” Bill said as he dropped into a faded blue recliner with cigarette burns on it.

Marsha quietly pulled the ignition key for the truck out of the trailer door lock where Bill had jammed it. She then switched keys and demonstrated that the lock was working fine.

“Looks like it works fine to me,” she said, as she threw the keys to him. He tried to catch them but missed. As he reached for the keys, he fell part way out of the chair.

“You’re pathetic,” Marsha said as she headed for the kitchen.

“You shut up! I had a hard day and I don’t need to put up with this when I come home. Bring me a beer.”

”Hard day? Is the stress of taco making too much for you, or did you get fired again?”

“Shut up woman! You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Bill was enraged. Everything was falling apart just as he had feared.

Marsha stomped back into the room and stared him in the eyes. “I don’t know what I’m talking about? Well, I do know that you’re a loser and a drunk who can’t even hold a job making tacos.”

That was all Bill could take. On the second try, he managed to stand up and screamed: “You’ll never talk to me like that again!”

With one hand, he shoved her back. She stumbled back and fell onto a small table with a plant on it. The plant and table were both crushed under her weight. Bill did not wait to see if she got up or to hear the familiar threat to call the cops. He ripped the door open, pulling the top hinge from the wall as he did and stormed out of the trailer. He fell on the steps but regained his footing and made it to the truck.

He started the engine and stomped the gas, the truck shot forward and crashed through the two garbage cans and continued into the back yard. Amazingly, Bill got the truck stopped and this time put it in reverse and stomped the accelerator. The tires spun and the truck rocketed backward leaving deep trenches carved in the dirt back yard. The truck just missed hitting the trailer. The neighbor’s mailbox was not as fortunate and was flattened as the truck made it out of the driveway and onto the dirt road. Bill slammed on the brakes, got the truck back into drive, and headed down the road as fast as he could.

By the time the truck got to the end of the dirt road there were already two calls into the local police department.

The dirt road intersected with the single lane paved road and Bill was able to keep the truck on the road as he made the turn. The radio was blasting and Bill could not even hear the noise of the engine over the loud country music.

The only time Bill almost went off the road was when he swerved to hit a cat on the side of the road. He felt a little better when he felt the bump under the wheel as he successfully flattened the old half-lame cat that was always seen by the road in this area.

Bill was going close to eighty miles an hour as he neared the town limits. He was approaching the two-lane highway that bypassed the downtown area when he noticed the blue and white flashing lights coming up behind him.

He knew that there was no way he could stop. Having no license meant jail for sure. He tried to push the accelerator further to the floor, but it was already all the way down. He looked forward again and realized that he was already at the highway and there would be no way he could stop for the stop sign. In his fuzzy mind, he thought this might be his opportunity to get away from the cops.

All of a sudden, a vehicle was passing directly in front of him. The other driver had not been aware that his pickup could not stop for the sign and had continued forward. Just before the impact, Bill saw the other driver turn and look directly at him, and saw the look of horror on the man’s face.

The pickup impacted the driver’s door of the Dodge SUV at eighty-eight miles per hour.

Immediately upon impact, Bill’s unrestrained body impacted the steering wheel with enough force to instantly crush all the ribs in his chest and destroy almost all the organs in his thoracic and abdominal cavity. Bill Etcher was dead from internal hemorrhaging before the pursuing police cruiser had come to a complete stop.

At the moment of impact, the driver’s door, floor, side and roof of the SUV were pushed in over two feet. As the steel intruded into the driver’s compartment the restrained operator of the Dodge had his left arm, shoulder, and ribs, pelvis, and femur instantly crushed. Two of the fractured ribs were forced inward where they punctured the driver’s left lung. At the same time, the left side of the driver’s head struck the car’s doorframe with massive force. Immediately blood vessels in the head ruptured and bleeding into the brain began. The force of the impact also instantly fractured the driver’s neck.

As the driver’s chest and skull began to fill with blood, the drivers breathing had already stopped from the severed spinal cord that had occurred with the neck fracture.

When the first police officer reached the Dodge there was no pulse. The officer considered trying to start CPR but realized that there was no way to get the driver out of the crushed SUV because of the damage to the vehicle.

Thirty-five minutes later the fire department finally got the car cut apart enough to free the trapped body. Just before the man was placed into the body bag, the officer retrieved his wallet and driver’s license. He walked back to his cruiser and got his clipboard, and from the license, he copied the name, James Cowan.