What July 4th Means to Me

It’s that time of the year again, July 3rd; a milestone in American history that has brought the masses together in celebration of vague concepts and declarations that were learned with mild reservations. We withered away in a tawdry classroom festooned with student interpretations of what the the founding fathers might have seen during the American Revolution, taught by some hussy High School history teacher fresh out of The University of California, Berkley that adorned scandalous miniskirts that peaked every school boys interest, unfortunately human anatomy was not a lesson in her class or we would have passed with flying colors.  

This day right before the metaphorical birth of this nation and its claim to independence from the Kingdom of Great Britian, families throw on their vented summer apparel with the hole in the crotch and make their voyage for 4th of July supplies at the local Walmart. In fact it signifies so much for this country and it citizens that I can’t help wonder if anyone realizes that our independence was actually declared on July 2nd 1776 and not the 4th as everyone has come to learn and love. I guess some traditions were not as relevant during its anniversaries in the early part of this countries existence. Soon after we just somehow eventually assumed everything happened 2 days later.

It’s not that I grow cynical or weary of celebrations like this. I’m all for the family get togethers, The smiles and connections with distant cousins, nieces, and nephews you haven’t seen in years. The crazy uncles drinking bud light christening the old grill with steaks and hotdogs, giving old pop the one-two and seeing dad being put in a hilarious head lock by his older brother Uncle Gilbert. Mom entertaining Aunts and Grandmothers alike and just little kids running to an fro with an electricity resonating something exciting in the warm humid afternoon of summer with bottle rockets in hand.

"Bottle Rocket War!!!" Someone yells in the background and all the little bastards with too much energy go fleeing into the Dusk with packets of ladyfingers, buzz bottles, snicker bombs, church burners, and finger blasters. The sounds of screams of children laughing, then a thunderous ‘BOOM!!!’ followed with more laughter is always an unsettling juxtaposition of sound but only on this day of the entire year is it an accepted custom that brings more smiles rather than unsettling concern.

So you see it’s not that I’m bitter. Not at all, if anything I suppose my misplaced emotions for this federal holiday lays more with my own history than it does with some notion of another consumer driven 50% off everything holiday, See as hard as this is too write its just as difficult to openly admit to an entire forum of anonymous readers, it is something I have not openly said to anyone let alone a community of supportive/empathic thinkers with brilliant imaginations for almost two years. You see on July 4th of 2007 (exactly 2 years ago) on the way to My Uncle Gilbert’s house In Anaheim, Orange County for our yearly celebration of Independence Day, as dad was turning for an exit onto a busy intersection from the Ted Williams Freeway that led to the conjoining I-5 North en route to L.A. a high speed pursuit was in process. The guy fleeing from the cops, I learned later had just robbed a Wells Fargo Bank in the ritzy section of San Diego of Del Mar and had been weaving in and out of busy traffic for nearly 30 minutes trying to elude the police. Unfortunately as we proceeded to our destination, this asshole flying at 90 miles per hour in the opposite direction made an emergency swerve to avoid hitting another car but instead came pummeling full force head on into our car. 

That direct impact instantly killed both my Mom and Dad, who were crushed in the front seats…. My sister Sylvia who was sitting in the back seat right behind my father suffered significant head trauma including skull fractures, broke both legs, most of her ribs, three broken vertebrate, broke both her arms, and was unconscious. she would later go on to be in critical condition, on life support and, in a coma. I, somehow being lucky/unlucky, sitting right behind my mother who is shorter than my father and had the seat further up only miraculously broke both my legs. The guy fleeing from the cops was also killed instantly and as I sat there in the totaled car waiting for the EMT’s to arrive. I kept thinking I was in the Twilight Zone, This was something that didn’t happen to people like me. It was something you watched on TV or saw happen to other people as you pass on to your destination giving little thought as to what happened. and as quickly as you stare hoping to see a horrific bloodfest you quickly forget when you pass the scene itself. The gravity of its reality doesn’t hit anyone until they are put in the situation itself.

I could feel the adrenaline and endorphins rushing and everything felt slow and surreal. I kept calling out to my parents and my sister but they weren’t responding. I also sluggishly kept trying to move my legs but couldn’t as if they didn’t exist anymore. There wasn’t any real significant pain but that was just my body releasing chemicals to counter act what had just occurred. I saw a cop peer into our car and yelled for assistance. I could tell by just the horror on his face that my parents were gone… we made eye contact and realizing I was alive he started to yell into the metallic wreckage.

"Sit tight buddy!!!!" he yelled indicating help was on its way. I sat there drunk in my own endorphins. The pain didn’t hit me until they pried open the car and attempted to extract me from the nightmare. What I saw that day was something I can never un-see and still haunts me to this day, the blood, the mangled forms of people I loved and were alive one second and gone the next. These are the nightmares that ravage my existence. There are nights I sit in the dark in a park somewhere of Seattle and just cry hoping the pain will just subside, but to ignore the pain I deny the events of what happened to me that day and these ugly scars and metallic rods in my legs are a reminder that life is so fucking unfair but the human will and spirit to survive and its tenacity for hope is a beacon of light in a dark, cruel, and sometimes hopeless existence. It’s difficult to talk about even now as I write this. 

Anyways I was released from the hospital after surgery to both my legs and about a week in hospital care. I was released into the custody of my Uncle Gilbert and Aunt Beth who took me in as one of their own. We buried both my parents, set fourth all the financial dealings that go with losing both your parents and being the sole survivor of the accident and being of age (18) I was the heir to the entire family estate. I had uncle Gilbert take care of most of the financial heavy lifting as they nursed me back back onto my feet, I  usually just signed off on the necessary paperwork.  I was bed ridden for 3 months and in a wheelchair there after. Eventually obviously my legs healed and I could walk again, but with a limp that I fear will never go away. During that entire time my sister was still in a coma and on life support. The doctors delivered the grim conclusion that she would probably never wake up from her comatose state and that if she ever did

she would probably be a vegetable. I decided it would probably be best to just pull the plug, so we did. All within about 4 months i lost my entire world and buried the 3 people I loved the most.

Within the next two years I constantly suffered from depression, nightmares, irrevocable pain in my legs which led me to an addiction to painkillers and later to harder shit like heroin. Most of my inheritance went to paying off medical bills, Funeral costs and services, and eventually the rest went to drowning my sorrows in chemicals. During that period  of addiction my Uncle and I had a falling out and I decided to move out of his house and hitch hiked back on to the familiar streets of San Diego. Broke, hopeless, and addicted to shitty Mex black tar heroin, I knew that a new chapter of my life was just beginning…..

 RIP Robert, Meredith, and Sylvia McGuillacutty