Friday, August 8, 2008

Sampson

When I took off my hat, she laughed at me. Not a girl giggle. A full-on, hand on the mouth, finger pointing, tears-in-the-eyes, belly laugh.

I knew she was looking at my hair. I’d had my hat on since early that morning, in lieu of actually grooming myself. I looked at my reflection in the rearview mirror as I drove. Admittedly, un-showered bedhead held beneath a cap for eleven hours isn’t un-funny.

A bit embarrassed, I scratched my head a little to loosen the tangles. "Thanks," I said sarcastically. Gina tousled my hair a bit more for me and then started scratching my head up and down and around in little circles, which she knew I love (as most guys do). Her tiny fingers were always cool on my scalp, and her touch sent shivers up my spine. When she stopped after a few seconds, I gave a little involuntary whine and looked at her with annoyance. “No, you need to drive,” she said.” “You always half-close your eyes when I do that and it makes me nervous.” When she didn't resume scratching, I put my cap back on and sunk a little in my seat, disappointed.

"Awww, you're just like a little whiney puppy," she said "Is your name Sampson, too?"

I looked at the little bobble-head dog on her dash that I'd bought her the week before and it nodded back in acknowledgement. "Nope," I pouted. “That’s his name. He can keep it.”

"But oo's a widdle puppy poo too, isn't oo?" she gushed, in the voice she knew I hated, as she put her knees under her in her seat and leaned across to scratch behind my ear..

"Stop it," I said I a swatted her hand away, trying my best to be annoyed.

"Es him is! 'E's a widdle biddy puppy pooo!" again she scratched behind my ears playfully.

"Please stop it."

"Awwwwwwwwwwww does da widdle biddy puppy poo not like it when Gina-weena talks wike dis?"

"Seriously! Stop it. I thought you said you wanted me to concentrate of driving.”

She settled back into her seat.

"Mmmmmmkay..." and after a long pause, "...puppy poo."

Looking infinitely pleased with herself, she smiled ahead at the road. God, she was beautiful just then. It was impossible to be mad with her.

So I smiled too, in spite of myself. I hate to admit it but I actually sort of liked it when she talked in that horrible little baby voice. Truth is, I liked the attention. Also, I knew she only did it because she knew it got under my skin, and I can actually appreciate that in a girl. You don’t find many who can give as good as they take.

I looked at her sitting there with her smug little smile and I felt blood rush to my face. It made me feel warm to look at her and I loved it. We met outside of an English class, and we'd only been dating for a little while, and it was scary how much I was into her. She made me think these awful, gushy thoughts that I never thought would find themselves in my mind. After all, I thought I was sane.

But now I knew something that connected me to the rest the men in history: This is what men fight for. This is why men write and sing. This was why men spend, travel and just plain lose their minds... to make something like her all their own. I thought things like this, and I knew they were inexcusably lame. I knew they were worse than the worst bad poetry. I just didn't care.

I was in the kind of love that made everyone around me want to puke, and I was all the better for it. And to think that she felt the same way about me just made no sense. We were in our own little world and nobody could touch us. It was ridiculous. It was gross. I was falling hard.

I don't know what we hit in the road, if we hit anything, but just then my front left tire blew. It just blew.

We were on the interstate going seventy-five miles and hour and this thing doesn't just go flat, it pops. "POW!" and I can't steer for anthing. I felt the left side of the car drop a few inches up front and heard the whump whump whump of the tire before it completely shredded and came off. I was in the left lane and we were between two of those concrete barriers in a construction zone. Everything started moving in slow motion. Gina was screaming beside me. When the tire came off the rim dug into the newly paved asphalt below us and jerked the car violently to the left. The front end slammed into the concrete barricade and the back end spun out behind me so I was staring straight at the barrier now in front of me. I looked to my left and saw a white minivan barreling towards us. The minivan swerved to its right and took the back end off of our car. The impact whipped my head into the window and busted it out. I could hear the glass breaking but I don’t remember feeling the smack. When the minivan slammed into us it spun us 180 degrees in the road and we came to a stop, again perpendicular to oncoming traffic. I felt warm wetness on the side of my head and face. I couldn't see well at first. Everything sounded muffled and Gina was shaking me and saying something I couldn't hear or couldn't understand. She had tears in her eyes. Everything was still happening so slowly. I looked to my left and saw the minivan and the back of our car crumpled together ahead in the road. Maybe five seconds had passed since the tire blew.

Dull in my ears, I heard the sound of screeching tires again. I looked back to my right and behind Gina's tear streaked face I saw the chrome grill of a big black truck coming too fast. My eyes widened and I tried to yell but nothing came out. Gina had just started to turn her head to follow my gaze when I saw the glass behind her explode. Even over the screaming tires I could hear the pieces singing through the air around us. The headlights of the truck lit them from behind and gave her a halo made of a million tiny stars. I couldn't help but think that she looked beautiful.


...


Now I hold her hand, and she sleeps softly beside me. Monitors beep and machines hiss around us under the fluorescent hospital lights. She is still beautiful and I wish that I could give her a kiss and wake her up like in the fairy tales. But I've already tried a hundred times.

It's been almost three weeks since I woke up in a bed like the one she lays in now and my mother cried over me. They told me I'd been asleep for nine days.

Gina got the worst of it. The truck hit her side. But she is alive and stable and they tell me that's a miracle in itself. They say she could wake up tomorrow or not at all.

I can't be here all the time. I've got class and other stuff, but I am here otherwise. The sun has been up for about three hours now and I've got to leave soon for my 9:00. But when I go, in case she wakes up while I'm gone, I want her to know I've been here and that I will be back real soon.

I reach in my book bag and pull out Sampson. I put him on the table at the foot of her bed. As I walk out, I give him a little tap on the nose and I hope he'll still be nodding when she wakes.

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