Hours Later, Everything Changed

I was in bed early for a Friday, exhausted from the week it had been, wanting to get up for a planned early-morning assignation with EVG, who wanted to pop by before he went to work on Saturday. Figured I had to do all those booty-call prep things -- make sure the legs are shaved, carefully apply my makeup for that no-makeup makeup look, arrange the hair to look sleep-tousled and sexy, change out of the flannel jim-jams and into that sexy little black thing, as if to demonstrate, "What? Little ole? I always look like this when I wake up in the morning!" instead of like Grace Poole's first cousin.

At 1:30 I was jolted awake... who the hell calls me at 1:30 in the morning? I keep my phone next to my head for one reason and one reason only -- to wait for the call that something has happened to my mother -- that she has fallen down, is back in the hospital, is dead.

First sleepy thought: Well, mom must have died. Yes, it was that clinical.

As I'm fumbling for the phone, the theme from "Halloween" ends as the call is kicked into my voice mail. I see that it was my friend Roni. The phone begins to ring immediately again. Roni.

"Hey."

"Janey, I need to tell you what happened." I'm listening closely to her voice to see if I can detect slurring. She and I have a history of DnD-ing each other. Usually the calls come MUCH later in the evening, and there is always loud music in the background, and the overall theme of these calls is "Oh, my god, this song came on the jukebox and it made me think of youuuu, I had to call youuuuu..." This time. But. No slurring. Only a strange tense urgency. Her voice, normally deep and resonant, sexy, has a stringy tautness to it, as if it's coming from the top of her throat. There's no breath behind it. Suddenly, I'm awake, and I know it has something to do with her boyfriend, Michael.

He had an accident on his motorcycle. Now, this is not a new occurrence. I guess if you live the biker lifestyle, have breathed motorcycles since you could drive one, you're going to drop one occasionally. It happens. Once, Michael totalled a Harley Davidson on First Avenue and walked away with nothing more than bruises. God watches over small children and drunks, I've heard.

But the past couple of years have been different for Roni and Mike -- seven of their friends have died in motorcycle accidents. Some guardian angel was looking out for them, I guess, that is, until Thursday morning, at 10:30. Michael's guardian angel must have gotten distracted. He was outside Greenwood Cemetery. Roni wasn't with him. Maybe the guardian angel thought there were enough angels around the cemetery that she could take a coffee break. She should have stayed at her desk. God dammit, I wish she would have stayed at her desk.

Something happened. No one is really sure. No other car was involved. The road surface there is bad to begin with. The guy at the gas station who phoned 911 said that they saw Michael drive by, passed behind the pumps and the next thing they saw was the bike on the ground, sliding along on its side.

When the EMT's got there, Michael wasn't really breathing so great. The ambulance took him to Lutheran Medical Center, where some smart-ass ER doctor made this diagnosis: another drunk biker, let him sleep it off. I guess he became agitated, so they sedated him.

He is in a coma with a brain contusion.

They are doing another brain wave scan or something today.