I Need You to Pick Up Your Father

Sometimes in life, you get asked to do hard things—for a good cause.
And sometimes you get asked to do hard things that, well, hurt others.

This is one of those stories.

I was at home. On my computer, as usual. Always on my computer.
The phone rang, knocking me off the BBS I was dialed into. Caller ID said it was Mom, so I answered.

“Are you home?”

Duh, you called home and I answered.

“I need you to go pick up your father.”

Why?

“We don’t have time for questions. He was in an accident and was injured. You’re closer. I need you to go get him. Now.”

The tone of her voice rang sharp on the inflection of now.

“I need you to get him before the police show up. He’s at the crossroads.”

I knew where that was—just a few miles down the road.

“Drive fast.”

She hung up.

I grabbed my keys to the family station wagon.
It was a 1980-something Pontiac Parisienne, cream with wood paneling.
My friends and I had nicknames for it—everything from Dragon Wagon (a reference to our school) to The Grocery Getter.

It was a real piece of shit. Long past its expiration date. Dented and dinged.
It ran on pure desperation instead of gasoline—which we often couldn’t afford.

I tore down the dirt road we lived on, my usual MO, and whipped a right onto the paved road at the end.

That thing would do zero to sixty in about thirty seconds, despite having a big block V8 in it.
Like I said—it was a real piece of shit.

As I approached the crossroads, I saw the old man—walking toward me, blood running down his face.
The car stopped just as well as it accelerated, and I spun it around in the middle of the street.
I was practicing my J-turns—something I’d seen in a movie recently.

Dad poured himself into the back seat, laying across it.

“What the fuck are you doing here? I called your mother.”

The stench of cheap whiskey and cigarettes filled the car as he spoke.
I hit the gas.

“She called me.”

“You’re a real piece of shit,” he said as he passed out.

No thanks. No acknowledgment that I was doing him a favor.

I didn’t see his car. He must have walked a bit.

As I got the station wagon up to the speed limit, a couple of cops passed us heading toward the scene of the accident.
A blue state trooper sedan, followed by a brown county cruiser. Both with their lights on.

I got Dad home. Mom was there when I arrived.

“Better to have a ticket for leaving the scene,” she told me,
“than another DUI. One more and your father will lose his license permanently—and won’t be able to work. Then what would we do for money?”

Whatever.

I went back to my computer.

It was weeks later when I found out the real story.

“What the fuck was I just an accessory to?” I asked my mother,
showing her the article in the paper about the hit-and-run where someone was near-fatally injured.

“You’re a minor. They wouldn’t have been able to charge you.”

That was her fucking answer.

I was a minor.
That’s why she asked me to go. To do her fucking dirty work.

Because I was a minor.

What the fuck.

Dad ended up spending several weekends in jail.
He didn’t get a DUI. He didn’t even get in trouble for the hit-and-run part.
Mom pleaded he was in a fugue state from the head injury.
That he wasn’t even aware he’d been in an accident.

Reckless driving. A fine. A few weekends in jail.

He ruined someone else’s life—and that was it.

And I unknowingly helped.

What the fuck.