mired

The rain has been continously saturating the dry west Texas earth long before I woke up at six o’ clock this morning. Never a downpour, yet the eternally parched ground has a low threshold for moisture. I was much too busy trying to cement knowledge of the citric acid cycle and electron transport chain for a biochemistry test to notice the sounds of a drowning world outside.

I recall sharp irritation at the sight of rain as I hurried out the door, knowing that I would be late in spite of leaving on time. Delays in arriving on campus were filled with trying to remember the differences in regulation of phosphofructokinase-2/fructose-2,6-bisphosphatase-2 in liver, heart and muscle tissue, regretting that I did not have more time to study. Overly cautious drivers filled the roads and impeded my punctuality.

To make up for lost time, I sprinted to class and being without an umbrella was lucky enough to embrace the cold, wet rain in all of its glory. In a move of pure spite, the faceplate of my car stereo leapt from its place inside my messenger bag and collided with the sidewalk. Bitterly, I snatched it up and continued my run to class. Without sagacity, I attempted to return it to its rightful place without stopping, only to be rewarded with the acute pain of a freshly sharpened pencil as it pierced the palm of my hand.

In spite of all of the hard work I put into studying, the test was surprisingly brutal. Hopes of pulling my grade out of the B range atrophied and were promply replaced with anxiety. In addition to the fear of failure, I noticed that I was absolutely exhausted and kept finding myself wanting to lean my head against the wall and sleep. I turned in my test to Dr. Yao feeling the sting of defeat. Her delicate and tiny frame belies her utter lack of mercy. There are no curves and the class average is approximately a fifty.

The answers were posted and I missed four questions out of twenty-five. The same grade I had made on the previous test. On one question I had initially put the correct answer, only to second-guess myself.

I left and picked up my paycheck, then stopped by my mother’s office and had lunch with her. It was good to spend time with Mom. I haven’t seen much of my family since beginning the graveyard shift. Though I had to put effort into not acknowledging what was occuring outside of the breakroom of her office as we ate. She’s the nurse manager of the Digestive Diseases/GI Lab center at the hospital where I work, and I’ll leave it at that.

I deposited my check, paid my tuition, and had my hair cut. I’m still feeling the effects of the mono, though I have been affected far less than most people. I had an odd lucid dream when I went home to take a nap. When my alarm went off, I could hear it and realized that I could feel my sleeping body. I knew that I had to turn the alarm off, but I could tell that if I moved that I would be pulled out of the dream, and ultimately I found that my assumption was correct. It was a very bizarre feeling, like I had two bodies in two different places.

I watched the season premiere of Wonderfalls with Jonathan and found it most amusing. Word came that it was Shanelle’s birthday and that she was throwing a party once she left work. The only thing on tv was Being John Malcovich, which was bizarre. I fell asleep on the floor and missed a good portion of the movie. We finally got word of the party’s location and headed out the door.

The party was located far south of the city outside of the city limits. Jonathan mistakenly traveled down Quaker Avenue instead of Indiana Avenue, which is about a mile to the east.

The sky was dark with the horizons painted purple and amber as the clouds reflected the city light. The lonely road we were travelling on ended abruptly and without warning! Jonathan slammed the brakes on his F150, but to no avail and we glided onto a slick plane of mud. The two-wheel vehicle fishtailed capriciously and Jonathan struggled for control. He subdued the wild skidding, but the truck, now on the left side of the road, gracefully glided towards the right and into a ditch.

After numerous unsuccessful attempts to free the truck, Jonathan called his brother Tim, who has a four wheel drive Bronco, and ordered Tim to come and pull his truck out of the mud. With nothing to do but wait, we returned to the truck. I don’t recall who made the call, but Jonathan was on the phone with Trish who was at the party. He explained that we wouldn’t be there any time soon, if at all. When Trish asked for a reason why, he responded with “I don’t want to talk about it” and quickly ended the conversation. He was obviously livid. It didn’t help that we discovered that the party was not a Shanelle’s house, but at a friend of hers whose family was out of town. Neither one of us really wanted to have anything to do with that.

A worried Korey called Jonathan once she found out that we were being detained by something unknown to her or Trish. She too asked why we weren’t coming and Jonathan gave the same response and hung up the phone on her. I winced. She called back and he declined the call. His abandonment of tact was definately not going to help things.

Korey called me and asked about Jonathan, I explained that his phone had died on him and that he had not hung up on her. I also related our current situation to her. She was worried and wanted to help, but I told her that help was already on the way and that we where just fine. I tend to be extremely calm in emergencies, unlike the furious Jonathan.

I was much relieved when Tim arrived. He hooked up the Bronco to us and attempted to pull us out. About the same time another man in a truck arrived wondering if we needed help. we declinded, but he was going to stay around in case Tim coudn’t pull us out successfully. The man struck me as extremely odd. More on that in a minute. After several attemtps to pull us out of the ditch, Tim found himself mired in the same ditch.

We had to call on the friendly stranger for help. The man was obviously inebriated and seemed to be afflicted with Tourette’s. His speech was not fully coherent, slightly slurred and filled with random and forceful interjections of profanity. He kept screaming MOTHERFUCKA! at odd times. Sometimes in mid-sentence and sometimes when he wasn’t even speaking. GAWDDAMMIT! MOTHERFUCKA! His attemtps to pull Tim’s Bronco SHIT out of the ditch resulted in him becoming stuck in the GAWDDAMN ditch on the other side of the road. FUCK!

Things seemed rather hopeless. All three of us were stuck in the mud. The man’s truck obviously was bettered suited to offroading as he managed to free himself after about five minutes. He continued down the road away from us. We were uncertain whether or not he would come back for us, but about half a mile down the road there was a paved intersection. He turned around and made his way back, seeming to almost get mired in the mud several times.

As he hooked his truck up to the Bronco again he kept demanding that we pay him one hundred dollars in cash. But sitting in the truck, Jonathan and I could hear very little of what else was said. But everytime he demanded a pecuniary reward, a female voice would yell out for him to “be nice.” He pulled Tim’s Bronco out of the mud successfully this time and they backed up onto the pavement.

Jonathan decided to leave his truck in hopes of drier weather, even though I informed him rain is expected…