Ends With a Bang

First Time

Have you ever had one of those days where everything goes wrong? I mean, from the time you first get out of bed, till the time you wake up again the next morning, everything is really, really bad. You hit your toe getting out of bed. While jumping around, you step on your glasses. You burn your breakfast. You miss your bus. You’re robbed while walking to work. You’re fired for being late. You return home only to find an eviction notice on your door. You go to bed without dinner. You left your food cooking on the stove. Your house catches fire while you sleep. Murphy’s law. Everything that can go wrong, has gone wrong. This was not one of those days.

My day started off well. For the first time in years, I woke with no pain. I quickly jumped out of bed, fully awake, ready to start the day. Breakfast was great; Bacon and eggs on a toasted brioche bun and a cup of coffee; one sugar, two creams. I drove to work in a Bentley Bacalar. It wasn’t mine. It was on loan. I was test-driving it for a friend who owned a dealership. Me riding it gave advertisement for his business. I was able to stop a guy from getting robbed. An armed man walked up behind him at the ATM. I got out of the car, snuck up behind the gunman, and tackled him while the unarmed man got away. “Thanks,” he said as he ran off. “I owe you one.” At work, my boss gave me a promotion which came with a 50% raise. While this would not give me enough money to buy the Bentley, I would be able to get a nice car. To celebrate my promotion, I was treated to a meal at Alinea, a real food experience in Chicago. I was told that it’s the most expensive place to eat in Chicago. What a wonderful day! But that is when everything changed.

As I was leaving Alinea, I was stopped by the police. With no warning, I was grabbed, thrown to the ground, and handcuffed. As the officer read me my rights, I demanded to know why I was being arrested. As it turned out, my borrowed Bentley was stolen. The guy I “saved” from the robber that morning was an escaped prisoner known as Max the Menacing. The so-called robber was a police officer trying to capture him. I was handcuffed and put in the back of the police car. The door was slammed shut before I could move over, causing the door to hit me in the head. Hard. It seemed like a long time before the driver's door opened. I wanted to explain what happened. But it wasn’t an officer who opened the door. The same escaped criminal from that morning hopped in the car and drove off at top speed. “You saved me,” he said, ‘I’m returning the favor.” At top speed, he continued to drive. I didn’t have enough time to speak as he drove right into the back of a tanker truck. BOOM! As I was engulfed in a ball of fire, I woke up screaming. It took a moment for me to relax.

The Second Time

I pulled myself up and sat at the edge of my bed feeling like I had been in a fight with a Tasmanian Devil. I could still feel that spinning dust cloud going around me. My head was pounding, and my ears were ringing. I got out of bed, trying to regain my composure and my balance. As always, the first thing I did was turn on the TV and watch the news. The top story was about a high-speed chase that ended in a fiery death for the two people inside. One was an escaped felon. The other was recently arrested for being in possession of a stolen car. Weird.

I ate a small breakfast and took some extra strength pain reliever. (It took a good 2 or 3 hours to work.) I made sure that I had more to take with me. I ordered an Uber to get to work. My car was still in the shop. This has got to be the 10th time it’s needed to go into the shop. A mint condition, or at least mint color 1988 Yugo GV. I bought it for $100. I swear I heard the seller say “sucker” as he walked away with my money.

The Uber arrived 30 minutes late. The driver apologized and told me not to worry. He knew a shortcut to get to my job. “No,” I said. “Just follow the map. I still got a little time to get there.” He told me to trust him, and he drove off. He reached the main road and was stopped at a red light. The moment the light changed to green, he took off at 70 miles per hour. He made a sharp turn on Vollmer Road throwing me hard to the left. I guess that it was my fault for not wearing my seat belt. I pulled myself back over and screamed at him to slow down.

“Dude,” I said. “What are you doing? Slow down. I said DON’T take the shortcut.”

Everybody knows that Vollmer could get us there quickly. Normally. But everybody with a brain knew that construction on Vollmer made it a less ideal route. The fact that nobody, except construction vehicles, was on the road should have told him something. Nope, he continued. Less than a mile down the road, the police car started to chase after him. Of course, he did not pull over. Instead, he sped up. It seemed as if he totally forgot that I was in the car. I screamed but he ignored me. Maybe he couldn’t hear me. Whatever the case, he didn’t stop.

He pulled onto the expressway and started to drive even faster. Soon he was driving at speeds up to 125 miles per hour and still speeding up. There must have been twenty police cars behind him. I tried to scream again but he drove right into a tanker truck. As I was engulfed in a ball of fire, I woke up screaming. It took a moment for me to relax.

The Third Time

I pulled myself up and sat at the edge of my bed. My head felt like I was in an explosion. My ears were ringing. My eyes were blurry. I reached for my glasses but couldn’t find them. I always leave them on my nightstand. Why they were not there, I didn’t know.

When I jumped out of bed, I hit my toe on the foot of the bed. The pain was excruciating. I jumped around doing all I could not to fall. That’s when I found my glasses. Under my feet. I stepped on them. There was no saving them. I had to use an old pair that didn’t work as well.

Limping, I walked to the kitchen to make some breakfast. A homemade, Sausage, Egg, Muffin. I started cooking the sausage but had to run to the bathroom. While in there, the smoke alarm rings. My sausage was on fire. I didn’t have time to start over, so I headed to work with nothing to eat. That was bad since my stomach was already growling. There was a store next to the bus stop. I figured that I had enough time to run inside and get myself a small bite. As I was coming out, I saw the bus drive pass. I ran after it, but it didn’t stop. Looked like I was walking to work that day.

The man standing across the street looked like he was up to no good. I pretended to be talking on the phone so he would think I had help. “Hey man,” I said. “I think this guy is following me. I’m walking down Third Street now. Look out for me. I should be there in about 2 minutes.” I wasn’t really speaking to anyone. But he shouldn’t have known that.

I continued to walk, and he started to follow me. I walked faster but he was walking quickly behind me. I started to run but he called out my name.

“Yo! Eddie,” he said. “It’s me, Mike.”

Mike used to work with me when I worked for ASAN. American Scientific Advancement Something, I don’t remember. He offered to give me a ride. When we got to his car, a masked gunman demanded his keys. He also took my wallet, my cellphone, and my food. I was able to deal with the wallet and the phone. It was all replaceable. But I was starving.

Waiting for the police and giving my statement made me late for work. I tried to explain to my boss all that had happened that morning, but she wasn’t listening. She said that I should have called. The fact that my phone was stolen didn’t mean anything. I even showed her a copy of the police report. I was given 15 minutes to clear out my desk and locker. On top of all that had happened, I was fired.

I started walking home. If I didn’t mention it the first time, that’s a 5-mile walk; an easy task when I was in my twenties. Now, in my forties, not so easy. But what else could I do? Fortunately, Jerry, a friend of mine, saw me walking and offered me a ride. He already had a passenger in the front seat, so I climbed into the back. He drove off at a normal speed. I still clinched a little when I saw a tanker truck drive by. But there were no problems with it. No chance of crashing. I was able to relax.

“Eddie, this is Max,” Jerry said. “Max, Eddie.”

Max looked familiar to me. I swore I’d seen him before. He looked kind of menacing.

“I know Eddie,” said Max. “He helped me out in a jam once.”

My nerves were on end. I was sweating and found it hard to speak. I mustered up the strength to say a few words. “That’s right. I remember Max.” That’s all I said. That’s all I could say. It was at that moment, while stopped at a red light, that two men with guns opened the two front doors. They pulled Jerry and Max out of the car and drove off with me still in the back seat. It only took a minute and a half to reach the tanker truck that passed us by. I opened the door and jumped out one second before the car slammed into the tanker and exploded in a huge ball of fire. I woke up in the hospital with severe burns and possible broken bones. I was sent home with nothing more than some pain pills and burn cream. I guess that my insurance company had heard that I lost my job and refused to pay.

I arrived home only to find an eviction notice on my door. Apparently, I never turned off the stove from this morning’s burned breakfast. I almost burned down the whole building. Since this wasn’t the first (or the second) time, my landlord decided to get rid of me. It may also have been the fact that I was 3 weeks late on my rent. I planned to appeal it in the morning.

I didn’t want to repeat what happened at breakfast. So, I cooked dinner outside on the grill. It was only steak and potatoes. The biggest problem was that I noticed a little too late that there was a propane leak. The tank exploded. As the ball of fire engulfed me ….

The end