Save your life, don’t drink and drive

I ran into some chap I know at an Indian shop in Parklands where I was buying a screen protector. My screen looked like it had stopped a rubber bullet.

After niceties I asked him how another mutual friend he is close with was doing and he said, “Well, he was buried last week.” I thought I heard him wrong. I said, “What do you mean he was buried last week?” He said, “He died. Two weeks ago.” I said, “No way. I saw him two weeks ago!” He asked where. I said in the bar, at the parking lot. So we forgot the stupid screen protector I was buying and we narrowed down the day! I was like, “My goodness, he died that same night I saw him do you know what time he died?” He said sometime in the night.

I was leaving my local bar shortly after 11:30pm; he was waiting for someone to move his car to allow him to leave. I remember that he was leaning on the hood of the other person’s car, a Land Rover Defender, his phone pressed against his ear. As I passed I waved but he held one finger up for me to wait a sec as he wound up on the call, so I hung around. He finished and we hugged. I could tell that he had had a great deal to drink because his tongue was heavy, he slurred and his face was shiny, and he had those foolish droopy eyes we all sport after a few and one side of his shirt was untucked and I he kept calling me, “Zulu man.” I hung around and we chatted as we waited for the gentleman to come move his car.

He was funny. I was funny. Everybody is relatively funny when they have had one to drink. We both laughed at each other’s jokes. Mine were obviously funnier because my tongue wasn’t as heavy, so they came faster. Just idle banter. I distinctly remember this night because the person who came to move their car turned out to be a lady. I might not have remembered this night in its detail because had the person who came to move their car was a man. I remember it because we had a moment of shared unspoken chauvinism; we were both taken aback that the owner was female.

'BEASTLY CAR'

I remember him telling her something like, “You are driving a beastly car, you know that, lovely girl?” And the lady, a slim chocolate girl wearing blue faded jeans torn at the thigh area seemed used to men like us, so she said something and climbed into the car. “Probably her boyfriend’s car,” he said as we watched her bring the car to life. “Yes, nobody drives a Defender in those jeans and that red lipstick,” I said. We said goodbye, I might have told him to drive safe. I walked to my car as he drove off and the Defender lady reversed into the empty parking slot.

I was told he rammed into a tree and crushed his lungs and heart. Maybe they exploded. Maybe he screamed at that final moment. Maybe he thought of his children, or mother. My pal told me the front of his car was completely wrecked. The tree survived. It’s still in the same spot, that tree, waiting for the next drunk driver with kids to leave behind.

I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know this guy well, never once drunk with him or had lunch with him, but to think that I saw him the night he died just messed up my head. I thought of him for the next day two days. All the time. I would be interviewing someone and my mind would drift to him. I’d stop writing a sentence midway and think of him and that last night I ran into him. He must have been hours from death that time if he passed by another bar for one drink, or literally under an hour away from death if he headed home straight. Death is always with us. Lurking. Waiting.

My next feeling was of guilt. I knew he was drunk and I knew he was in no position to drive safely but I didn’t say anything. Maybe it wouldn’t have changed his date with death, maybe it would have, but all I had to do is say, “Boss, maybe you shouldn’t drive like that,” whether he takes my advice or not. But I didn’t. Maybe I should have. It might have made a difference. His children might have grown up with their father. His wife might not have had to start off a single mother, struggling with the son at teenage. At some point, to console myself, I said this thing was already written, he was going to die anywhere. I was a nobody to stop fate. Who was I? But still.

There is a lesson here, at least for me. Don’t let anyone get behind the wheel when drunk. I think it’s a collective responsibility. Stop them. Stop them for themselves, stop them for their mothers and siblings and for their children and for their wives. Stop them for people they owe money and people they make happy. Stop them for other road users who are sober. Sometimes other road users with children in their car. Stop them for themselves. The worst they can say is no and if they do then you will have done your part.