Living the Life

It was a rainy and damp dreary morning in Memphis, Tennessee when I awoke. For some reason, unbeknown to me, I was outside by the pool laying face down in the grass. It was kind of cold outside considering the time of year it was, and the rain that was falling, was that intermediate stuff that always annoys everybody because its almost to light to really be considered rain, but your still getting wet. I was soaked and still in the clothes that I had been in previous night, which had been a while one from the looks of it. I hoped that the weather in Kansas City would be better then this, for that was the next stop on the tour.

I sat up and wondered just how in the hell I had managed to get where I was. My head felt like a thousand African elephants were trampling all over it with no let up in sight. I looked around and quickly realized that this wasn’t even the hotel that we were staying at. I wondered where in the world my band mates might be and worried that some how, maybe I had gotten left behind.

I slowly got to my feet and looked around for further indication of where I was. My feet squished with every single move I made and my jeans wanted to fall off thanks to the amount of water that was soaked up in them. I was at the Super 16 hotel I realized, which I remembered was down the street from our hotel. So at that point, I decided I needed to walk towards the street and find my hotel. I saw that it was three blocks or so, down the street to the right of where I was. I started the walk back to our hotel, The

Quality Choice, and hoped that the rest of the guys were there.

As I walked through the early morning rain that intermediately fell, I tried to think back on the previous nights’ escapades and just exactly how I came to pass out where I

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did. I couldn’t remember much, but I did remember talking to a rather cute blonde girl who wanted to thank me for a great show earlier in the night. We took a couple of shots of Southern Comfort in my hotel room. After that, nothing. I couldn’t even remember her name, much less where she went to or what I might have done with her after that moment in time. Just another night I thought to myself as I enter the parking lot of our hotel.

I walked up to the door of the room that me and Jason were sharing, not knowing what to expect when I opened it. I quietly put my card in the slot on the door handle and opened it. Inside it was a war zone, with empty bottles of Jack and Jim, along with my Soco bottle, laying everywhere in sight. There was a good size hole in the wall just above the bed as if someone’s head might have hit the wall in that spot. I bet we did some Wrestle Mania moves last night when we were all hammered, I thought silently. On the desk I could tell that someone had been doing lines, probably Pete and his brother. On the floor were two pairs of women’s underwear that were all tangled up in amongst the liquor bottles. I still couldn’t remember anything at this point and Jason was nowhere to be seen.

Then suddenly my phone started blasting that annoying ring tone that Eddie had downloaded while I was sleeping in the van a few days ago, Do You Really Want To Hurt Me, by Culture Club. I looked down at my phone to see that Jason was blowing me up, so I answer it quickly.

“Hey man, where are you?” were the first words out of his mouth. I looked

around the room and asked him the same in return. “We’re in the van around the block looking for you. Nobody knew what happened with after you hooked up with that chick

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last night. You kind of went AWOL after about 1 am or so, but the rest of us were all so wasted that we didn’t notice you were gone until this morning.”

“Really, I have no earthly idea what happened to me last night bro. I was hoping that you guys could help me with that.” Jason started to laugh hysterically over the phone, so much that I could hear him take it away from his ear and attempt to tell the rest of them what I had just said.

“So, where are you at man?’ Jason asked after he had finally caught his breathe again. I replied that I was in the room and that it was in pretty bad shape for even us to leave it in. Jason laugh, “Yeah, I know right. Those girls were crazy last night. We already got all of our stuff out of it and packed the trailer and van up.” “Did you check out yet?” I asked him. “Ahh, not really. We took a vote and decided that it would be best to just go ahead and bounce. It was an unanimous decision, I might add.” “Your kidding right?” I asked.

Just then I heard a voice outside the door. “Hey, be quiet for a sec,” I said to Jason. The first thought that I had was that it might be the cleaning lady, or some other staff member of the hotel. I walked slowly and quietly over towards the door, making sure to stay out of the sight of the peep hole and stuck my ear up to it. I couldn’t hear anything else, so I then peaked my eye through the blinds and saw that the cleaning lady was three rooms over to the right.

“Jay, bring the van around to the back of the hotel commando style,” I whispered. “I have to extract from a hostile environment, the cleaning chick is like three rooms down

and coming my way.” Jason chuckled, “Ok, we’ll be there in two seconds.”

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At that moment, I could hear her knock on the door to the right of our room. “Hello, the maid is here,” she said in a very sweet, southern sounding accent. No answer came from within the room. I heard her open the door and a foot step inside. It was at that moment I decided to make my move. I opened the door as quietly as a Navy seal would if he was somewhere he wasn’t suppose to be. I very cautiously stepped out into the open and shut the door behind me as softly as if I were laying a newborn in its crib, and took a look around to see where the guys were at.

Her cleaning cart was sitting there and I could hear the vacuum buzzing from inside the room. I reached out and grabbed a few bars of soap and two towels that were laying on top of her cart in plain sight. I began to walk down the causeway of the second story where they had put us the day before, when we had checked in, trying to be as quiet as a mouse.

I got to the bottom of the steps just as the green, dingy old Econo line van was pulling up with the white trailer that contained all of our worldly possessions in it, bobbing behind it. The side door slung open violently and I jumped inside like the SWAT team members do on Cops. Jay peeled off without looking back, “See, I told you guys it was smarter to pay with cash, then with credit!”

I am the lead guitarist of an alternative/punk band that goes by the name Unusual Punishment, or UP for short. I’m joined by my best friend, Jason Lee, who plays rhythm guitar and is the lead vocalist of the band. Jason and I have known each other since the sixth grade and originally started this band five years ago when we were nineteen and in

our sophomore year at East Carolina University. Since then, and along with Pete and our

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bassist Eddie we have taken over the east coast by storm. By touring relentlessly and playing every venue that we can get booked at, our band has managed to grab some headlines in the music industry.

Jason is a pretty wild dude, with a taste for living fast and creating as much craziness as possible; the perfect front man if you will. Sometimes it pisses me off, but what can I say, he‘s my best friend. We’re all crazy in a way or two when I think about it, so I tend to cut him some slack when ever something goes down.

We are on our way to Kansas City to play the next stop on the Vans Warp Tour. This is the tour that I have always wanted to play on, so its pretty amazing to me that we are one of the headlining acts on the bill. I still can’t get over the fact that people actually pay money to came see us. We are a great live band and with the other headlining bands playing this year-Brand New, Alkaline Trio, Taking Back Sunday and Rise Against-to name a few-the tour is one of the summer’s biggest events. We have come a long way from the bar scene in and around Greenville.

Pete was riding shotty when I jumped into the van at the hotel and Eddie was sitting in the back with me. I wanted shotgun so bad. It was the most comfortable seat in the whole van, complete with most of the original upholstery still on it and cushions still inside it. Eddie always sat in the back so that he could be out of view of any potential law enforcement officers that might be driving around us. One time, he actually puked out the window as we drove by a Georgia State Trooper, and needless to say we got pulled over and subsequently searched. Lucky, somehow the trooper didn’t find the BIG bag of pot that was buried in the trailer. That was the last time he rode up front actually, now that I

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think about it.

As we started out over the mighty Mississippi, my thoughts were still trying to sober up. I wondered who that girl last night was and if I did indeed sleep with her at all? I simply could not remember. I looked at Eddie next to me and he was in the middle of rolling a joint, and a fat one too. Next to him, in the cup holder on the floor of the van was an open 40 oz bottle of High Life, brown bag style. I knew that he probably had at least one more some where in the vehicle, and probably on ice too. He always comes prepared.

He lit the joint and we began to pass it around the vehicle and before to long, I was in sleepy mode. I drifted off to sleep as we entered the flat nothingness of the state of Arkansas. Only ten more hours to Kansas City, I thought to myself. I was still pretty tired on account of last nights debauchery and I must have fallen asleep pretty easily.

My eyes opened and I peered around the vehicle for a moment in recognition of where I was. The nasty ceiling upholstery was hanging from the top of the van. It doesn’t really line the roof of the van like it should anymore, but instead just sort of hangs there, waiting to be cut down, but none of us ever take the initiative to actually cut it down.

I picked up my head and looked out the window. Still dark and gloomy out, but not raining anymore. “Well at least that’s good,” I said as I leaned up towards the front of the vehicle. “Dustin your actually awake and alive!” Pete said sarcastically to me. “Yeah, well I gotta try at some point, don’t I?” I looked out the window and for as far as I could see, nothing. Just fields of nothing but grass with some little bushes here and there. The temperature outside as we drove along was noticeably warmer, even hot you could say. I

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looked over at Eddie who was passed out next to me with two empty forty ounce bottles at his feet. I was right I thought, he did have a reserve. I shook him and he didn’t move. So I shook him again, harder this time, and still no reaction. I leaned closer and could very faintly hear that he was breathing. The kid scares my sometimes, because we all party hard, but he goes above and beyond all of us. Like the time he decided it would be a good idea to trip just before playing a show at the convention center in Minneapolis. It didn’t turn out to good, especially when he fell -yes fell- off the stage half way through the second song and was to screwed up to continue on.

Eddie was a good kid when I met him at East Carolina in the fall of 2000, our freshman year. He didn’t drink or do really much of anything at that time. He did however, play the bass guitar very well and we started to jam together, along with Jason.

After a couple of weeks, we found Peter, who was a junior and had just left one of

the more popular bands on the local scene around Greenville. He played at the right speed for us and the rest, was, as they would say, history.

Eddie moved around a little next to me and then sat up with a pretty dreadful look on his face. “What’s wrong man?” I asked him, as if I didn’t know the answer already myself. He just looked back at me, all sorts mess up from the alcohol, joint and apparently pain killers, in his system. He looked at me with a cold, blank stare that would scare any kid that saw it. A stare so cold that it sent shivers down me spine and all the way to my finger tips.

At that moment there a tire exploded, almost like a twelve gauge shotgun going off. The van swerved sharply to the left and towards the median and oncoming traffic. I

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reached over for some part of Eddie as I was embracing for the massive impact that was sure to come in next few seconds. I was able to find his shoulder with my hand, so I held on, hoping in some way that I could keep any bad from happening to him during the brutal impact to come.

We start to spin and then I saw that little, white trailer behind us, come up next to us, and then pass us. I felt everything start to spin faster and then darkness, nothingness.

I didn’t know where I was, or what was going on around me, complete numbness from pain and an almost eerie good feeling of relief from all of my problems.

Then I came too. No sound. Just blurs of shapes that I couldn’t make out even if I

tried to, I still couldn’t have. I was still seat belted into my seat and after a few moments I could start to make out that Pete was still in front of me and that he was moving around

at least a little bit. Then, I realized that we were sitting sideways and the whole entire

front of the van was, in fact gone and no longer attached to the vehicle. I could tell that Jason was still inside the vehicle, but after focusing on him better, I could tell that his arm was outside and thus underneath the vehicle. He was screaming the most.

Then I thought about something that had never, ever caught my attention before to that point. One of those things that I had always noticed and never said anything about. I looked to my left and the side door on the van was gone. Nobody was there. The seat was still in place, but the passenger was not.

We all remained seated in the van until the highway patrol and the firefighters arrived, on account of our injuries collectively. Pete was still not really conscious and Jason some how still had his voice left. I knew that at least one of my legs was broken

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and maybe my wrist too. I couldn’t get the seat belt off anyway and even if I did, I didn’t have the power in me to climb out of that coffin.

It took them a little under an hour to cut us all out of that death trap that used to be our home. The firefighters had to be careful while cutting through the metal, because of the amount of fuel that was present on the scene at the time. One spark would have cooked us all to beyond recognition and that would have defeated the purpose of trying to save us, so they went slowly about their business. Pete was taken out first because he was the easiest to reach and it opened a clear path to take Jason out, who needed immediate medical attention or else. So I was the last to be pulled out of the car.

It was painful to watch my childhood friend be removed from that twisted vehicle, with his left arm almost not even attached to his body anymore and dangling helplessly. Blood was pooling up everywhere on his side of the vehicle. He had lost a lot by the time that they were finally able to get him out of that heap. One of the firefighters actually threw up when he saw how bad Jay’s arm was. And I just sat there and watched the whole time, completely powerless to do anything at all for my friend who had been by my side through everything. He was somehow still conscious, but due to the pain and adrenaline running throughout his body, he was obviously unaware of anything going on around him, including me. This has turned out to be by far the most dreadful, nauseating and worst day of my life.

Then it was my turn to get taken out of that twisted Ford and see daylight again. As they moved me through the hole that they had to cut in the side of the van, well actually the roof I guess, my body was streaming with pain from my leg injury. But I

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didn’t make a sound. I couldn’t. Not after seeing everything that I had just seen.

When they pulled me out and laid me down in the grassy median beside what was left of our van, I didn’t feel any better. I had one thought as I laid there on that road, and surprisingly it was not anything to do with Jason, for I think I already knew in my gut what the end result there was going to be. So I began searching my surroundings frantically, hoping all the time not to see what I thought I was about to see.

I could see that little white trailer, all the way on the other side of the highway.

It apparently had taken out two vehicles from the oncoming lanes of traffic. Two vehicles that might have actually hit our van as we crossed the median and would have probably decimated us much further. Out of those two cars, we killed three people with our little, white trailer.

I could make out Pete’s drum kit as it was scattered about the highway like debris

after a hurricane. I noticed Jason’s black fender Stratocaster laying in the median, with it’s neck, much like it’s owner, broken. And then, just to the right of that, I found what I was looking for. There, to the right of Jason’s guitar, was a bright white sheet draped over what was obviously a body. I knew immediately who it was that was under that sheet. I’ll never forget that last stare in his eyes or the accident that followed that day for the rest of my life.