Stephanie Says

Haunted by the consistent beeps and noises that sweep through my mind: Stephanie is still there. She was so angry that night in 1995, and it’s still hard to wrap my mind around the accident! Sitting by my best friend in a comatose state, and staring at you Janie, as you tell me the story….

What happened to my Stephanie?

She called me from a pay phone in Compton! She was wearing her favorite Marolyn wig, smoking many cigarettes, and calling me to vent…. She, in my mind, looked identical to Julia Roberts in Pretty woman! Stephanie lit like a firecracker, calling me, per usual….I ran and got a bottle of Turkish whiskey to hear the tales from Cali. We talked for three hours, with the occasional f-bleep due to needing more change…. That was the last time, I ever heard her voice ….

As I look to Janie, a shell of herself, her hair almost gone, haggard, dying from Ewing’s Sarcoma: She opens her weary mouth to tell me the story…. I could not help but feel deep sorrow for her.

Stephanie liked this pimp squatter. They all awoke under a tree in Compton. Two young white girls, in a park doing heroin, with a pimp and two random squatters! Steph told me the night prior that they were going to Big Sur! All of them, piled up in her 1994 Black Honda Civic, with a marigold flower hanging from the rear view mirror… They ended up in a cabin in Big Sur, when Steph got angry with Jane. Jane was with the pimp and Steph was jealous… She and Jane were arguing when Stephanie abruptly grabbed the keys… She was more than High off heroin and drunk out of her mind. The rest of the folks thought that they were going to be left behind: They jumped into the car with a pissy Stephanie… They were driving on the 101 rapidly…. Jane asked Steph to slow down, but it just fueled Stephanie’s infantile anger… She stepped on the gas… Jane and the Pimp were begging her to slow down! As Stephanie, looked through the rear view mirror, the car was shaking furiously! She ran up on a gravelly part of the road going approximately 105-120… The car flipped five or six times, wiping the black completely off the car! Janie awoke from the passenger side with only a broken pinky… The sirens were approaching, and Janie looked at a dead Stephanie: With chaos and body parts in the back seat! The blues and reds became brighter and sounds amplified, as Jane stared at death all around her.

They were all dead. The pimp and squatters…. As well as my best friend Stephanie… Only Janie was left with just a broken pinky!

Her head was tilted in shame as she deScribed the horror of each flip of the car! Stephanie was just a shell of herself, as a dying Jane told me the story! Jane passed in 2003 of a childhood cancer, pain masked by heroin usage. The doctors revived Stephanie… She stayed around in a vegetative for the next twenty years… I was her only visitor.

My heart was broken for almost twenty years, until she passed away….My heartache was so severe and I broke…Her family left me no ashes , nothing, as I was the only one to stay by her side for 20 years.. I knew her for 13 years as a beautiful child, and 13 years as a vegetable! I, truly, loved her in both forms! My thoughts drift to her often, as I watch my children grow…My beautiful lovely Stephanie turned into a monster….. However, I still love her so! One youthful cackling child with a mischievous smile, into a stale mouthed-monster whose lips have failed her…. Never shall I take a day for granted!