-Inspiration

Sometime after midnight, Ross drove us back down Peachtree Street in the direction of the massive Turner Center and back to our hotel.  I swayed in the elevator till the doors opened and then staggered out.  I turned and mumbled and incoherent ‘night’ to my friends, then walked down the corridor and found my door, opened it, and poured myself into the room. 

I clumsily pulled off my clothes then flopped onto the stiff bed, draping my arms across it and reaching for my cell phone.  I called Terri, who wondered why I go so drunk and we argued about it for awhile, then I fell swirling into fumy sleep. 

I dreamed a fitful yet familiar nightmare about fog and frozen, dirty ground.  I wandered lost and afraid, not sure where I was or where I could go for help.  I slipped further and further into the mist until I tripped and plunged into an endless void, twirling and tumbling downward…   

“Ungh!” I shot up with a start, thrashing my arms to free myself from the sweat soaked sheets that entangled me like a net.  The darkness filled my senses with still, dead air.  I wasn’t quite sure where I was for a second, but came around as objects began to resolve from the blackness that held me. 

I was in a hotel room.  I was in Atlanta.  The clock radio on the nightstand showed 2:30 in dull red numbers.  I squeezed my eyes shut again.

My head swam in a haze of old beer and adrenaline.  My heart raced.  The room was hot and muggy.  Suddenly I felt sick.

Stumbling into the bathroom, I slumped to my knees in front of the toilet and considered it for a moment while waves of nausea rolled across me.  Suddenly the waves crashed and I thrust my face into the porcelain orifice to let loose with a violent spasm twisting deep in my gut, feeling like a piston was ramming through my innards.  I heaved up a small amount of beer and a few gobs of bright yellow fluid, then dry-wretched for several agonizing minutes.

Eventually the waves subsided and I lay down, curled up on my side in a fetal position, gratefully embracing the gentle sensation of feeling better as it slowly washed over me.  Of course I knew the sick could return, but it didn’t.  I lay there for a long time, my skin drenched with clammy sweat sticking to the cold tile floor, the scene all too familiar.

When it all finally passed, I collected my wits, pushed myself to my knees, and slowly stood.  I shuffled the short distance to the sink to turn on the cold water and splashed it over my face as it flowed from the tap.  There was an acrid and bitter taste in my mouth, so I fumbled for my toothbrush and quickly brushed my teeth.  Then I rubbed my hands over my face and stared into the mirror at the dark bags under my eyes.  They drooped heavily making me look tired and numb, defying the indecipherable stream of ringing thought still flowing through my head. 

With a huff, I turned and left the little bathroom, flicking out the light with a flip of my hand as I went.  I stumbled across the room and found the darkened air conditioner under the front window.  I fiddled blindly at the switches until it began to blow slightly more cool air into the stuffy room, then grunted and fell back on the bed, spinning again into restless sleep whirling like a vortex behind my thudding eyes.  I wasn’t sure where these familiar feeling were coming from, but I knew I had opened a long sealed tomb somewhere in the depths of my head.

Great.

I tried to shake off the rough night and intrusive thoughts the next morning with a lot of coffee, and eventually managed to get my head focused on the reason I was there, which was to learn radiological emergency response.  Like so many times before, I suppressed the intruding thoughts as they entered my mind.  They were the same images I had seen thousands of time throughout the years.  They never changed.

We got back to California several days later and Ross was greeted at the airport by his wife and little boy who ran up to him, grabbing his leg and hugging it with a locked grip.  I smiled as he said goodbye to Shelley and me and they all walked off together, a loving family. 

Seeing it made me miss James and Terri.  It was good to be home.

Shelley and I rode the airport bus to the remote parking lot and found my silver Xterra.  We loaded up our bags in the back and got in.  I started it and turned up Bob Dylan a little in my CD player, then pulled out of the lot and headed for the entrance of the freeway, and on toward Riverside to drop Shelley off.  Then I could finally travel home to Terri and James.  We drove in silence for awhile, while Lilly, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts filled the void.

“Are you going to write about that crash?” Shelly asked a few minutes after we got on the freeway.  I thought about it for a few seconds. 

“Yeah…”  I said finally.  “Yeah, I think I will.”

“I think it’ll do you good,” she said.  I knew she was right.

Eventually, we pulled up in front of her house and I helped her get her suitcase out of my car.  We said goodbye, and I watched as she trundled her way to her door, pausing to wave back at me.  I waited till she went inside, then the door closed and the porch light went out, leaving me alone with my thoughts.  I turned to go and inhaled a deep breath of the cool California desert air, taking in the dim glow of reflecting lights on the horizon below a dark, clear, star-filled sky.

Suddenly I felt good.  I felt inspired.  I felt motivated.  I had said I would do it, and now I had to do it.  I climbed into my truck and made my way home, thinking about the task ahead.

When I walked in, I was greeted by the loving arms of my wife and son.  It was good to be back, but Terri immediately saw in my eyes that something was on my mind.  After 15 years, you just know these things about your partner.  I told her about my revelation and of my plan to find the facts and tell the story once and for all, and she was genuinely happy, if not relived. 

She said she would do anything she could to help me.  I now really wanted to do it.  I had always wanted to do it. 

I just needed to figure out how. 

After so many years and cycles of starting and stopping, I had finally convinced myself that the story would never be told, and that my mom would be forgotten.  It had made me desperate and depressed, and I had to force my way through that now.  I began to think really hard about it for the first time in my life, and set my determination to get it done.