The Chase Begins

I still limp pretty noticeably, but I don’t need a wheelchair or even a cane if the ground is fairly even and I’m not in the woods needing to step over logs or in a ghetto needing to step over dead bodies and other debris. I still remember sitting in a wheelchair just inside the door to the physical therapy room at Harborview Hospital. I sat in that chair seething with every negative emotion I knew. Negativity was all I knew. If only I knew then what I know now.

Because of the anti seizure medication I was on, I didn’t drink at all during the initial year following my crash. I had to feel every negative emotion I had, but after a year, when I quit taking the medication, all that changed. Coincidently, the girl I’d admired since junior high and who I’d been engaged to since shortly before my crash left me. So there I sat, crippled up and alone with no hopes of ever being able to walk or work again.

I paid a lot of taxes as a hot tar roofer, so the disability check I started receiving was enough to cover my expenses if I was careful. Shortly after getting off the anti seizure medication I moved out on my own and started drinking. When I drank, I drank with a goal and a purpose, oblivion! I didn’t want to think or feel or live. I didn’t really want to die, but I for sure didn’t want to live.

I drank so I could quit feeling the resentment, self pity, fear and constant anger that never left me. Fear was my biggest plague. How could I live with a disability? How could I do it? Then came the darkest day in my recollection. I was feeling especially bleak. On days like that, I’d drink, usually until I passed out. The beer would get me so drunk I’d forget about my miserable life, but this time, the drunker I got, the more clearly I saw how pathetic my life was. The beer acted like a microscope. The more I drank, the more clearly I saw how pathetic my life had become. Why should I continue making myself go through this misery? I’m not doing myself or anyone else any good, I might as well be dead. If I was dead, at least I wouldn’t hurt.

It was like I finally made a decision I'd been contemplating since I came out of my coma. Gripping my cane, I staggered out onto the front porch. Gripping both the hand rail on one side of the stairs and my cane in one hand, I carefully staggered down the two stairs to the ground. At the bottom, I kept holding onto the handrail until I felt as stable as I would get.

Once stable, I aim myself at my car parked by the curb and step away from the porch. The cement walk way leading from the porch to the sidewalk going past my house is coming at me like a conveyor belt. I’m gripping my cane and hobbling along like a crippled gerbil on his little wheel. I want to stop and get my balance, but I have to keep walking or I’ll fall for sure. I’m getting closer to my car when I lose my balance and start falling. Lunging the last 10 feet or so with uneven, awkward steps, I drop my cane and fall against my car. Clutching my car with outstretched arm, it takes a minute to get my breath and my balance.

When I can stand without leaning on my car, I pick up my cane then open the door and collapse back into the seat. The car is like an oven so I roll the window down before pulling the door shut and starting the engine.

A neighbor lady hurries over. “hi,” she says, coming up to my car.
I nod.

How are you feeling?”
I shrug.

Suddenly she dives the top half of her body through the open window, grabs my keys out of the ignition then runs behind my car.

Huh? I look in my rearview mirror and see a cop car she must have called before coming out.

What nobody realizes is that I lost my keys that morning and got my spare key then found my keys and put my spare key in my pocket, which I take out and start my car.

The police siren starts wailing as I pull away from the curb.

(In my live shows, and in my book No Limits, I tell the rest of the story.)