At my brother’s going away party, back in 1985, on the eve of his departure for a job in South Carolina, a large-ish group of us packed into The Trio Tavern, a crappy, neighborhood bar in Cleveland. (It may have been a crappy neighborhood bar, but it was our crappy neighborhood bar.) It was an excited and raucous crowd. Someone even brought a deli tray, allowing us something to eat besides popcorn saltier than the Atlantic ocean, saltier, even, than our father’s attitude when he heard we were headed to The Trio.
At some point, one of my brother’s friends crawled on hands and knees through our crowd in the corner of the bar. I don’t know if he was trying to escape someone, or desperate to get to that deli tray. My brother, having just gotten his beer mug refilled and unaware of whatever the hell his friend was doing on the floor, took a step backwards and tipped over.
My brother slammed to the floor but somehow managed to stabilize his beer mug, spilling no more than a drop. As far as I know, it’s not a stunt he and his friend rehearsed. In a critical moment, he reacted to chaos and focused on what mattered most to him, that beer.
It was, in a word, amazing.
Meanwhile…
This past weekend, my wife and I drove from northern Wisconsin back to Michigan. The construction in Chicago, Indiana, and Michigan made for a grueling four hour stretch, and I saw more dangerous lane-changing and late merges than ever before (or maybe, as I grow into the salty, get-off-my-lawn phase of life, I’m more sensitive to a-hole drivers).
As we neared our home, we came to yet-another merge for construction, and I followed the big orange barrels into a welcome spot in traffic, merging safely. We were all so accustomed to it by that point that we slowed down from the typical high-70s mph to low 60s, which is pretty fast all things considered.
The lane I was in disappeared and three more cars rushed up quickly to merge. The barrels kept those cars from getting ahead of me, and two of them jammed in behind me, causing me to gasp, worried I might be rear-ended.
That third car was forced off the road, to the wrong side of the barrels. Rather than slow down or, I don’t know, maybe stop, the driver accelerated and swerved back into traffic ahead of me. At those speeds, this all took less than a two seconds, and I couldn’t believe what was happening.
I screamed as I swerved to avoid being struck, then swerved back to avoid the car in the right hand lane.
With my heart pounding and rage boiling my blood, I realized we were okay. When chaos descended, I focused on what mattered most, saving my car from being totaled and the insurance nightmare that would follow.
Also, not dying.
Others were not so lucky
Six years ago, a friend and neighbor I’d met twenty years before, died in a traffic accident. Four years ago, a coworker of mine died with her husband when someone slammed into their car on a West Virginia highway. Two months ago, another coworker’s husband died in a car accident.
My brother’s acrobatics at the bar to save his beer was low stakes. For the record, it was almost certainly Pabst, and he really should have dumped it on his friend crawling on the floor.
We’re told not to cry over spilled milk, but here I am chuckling about his move to save his beer. But I’m also thinking about the a-hole who could have done some real damage, and feeling grateful for each day.
Meanwhile, at My Writing Desk…
I’ve recently completed a couple of short stories I’m going to shop around, and I’m writing personal essays as part of this class on developing my comedic voice. (If you laughed while reading this newsletter, you’ll know the money I spent on that class was totally worth it!) But I don’t have anything awesome to share with you right now. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
By the way, I’m a big fan of the shrug emoticon, so I keep it on mickeyhadick.com if ever I need to copy and paste it into a message.
Maybe You’d Like
Thrillers and sci-fi, at their best, are entertaining stories that engage the mind with ideas and situations you wouldn’t ordinarily confront, and show you how some people deal with it. So take a look at this Science Fiction Giveaway (pretty on-the-nose title) to see if anything suits your fancy.
Recommended Reading
It’s about an uninvited guest at a dinner party taking up residence at the host’s house, refusing to leave, and the comical chain of events that triggers.
Next Picayune
I should have something out there for you to read next time, one way or another…
Thanks for reading the Mickey Picayune.
All the best,
–mickey