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Dougie and the Demonic Dodge

Why I Will Always Hate the Dodge Charger

By Maurice BernierPublished 5 years ago 9 min read
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I know the rule. I am to love people but like only objects. In my world, it is a wee bit different. I love people, like things, but I will ALWAYS hate the Dodge Charger.

I did not always hate this metallic monster. I used to like it at some point... until 1974.

As a youngster, I grew up watching NASCAR races on TV with my Dad. He was also a member of a local car club before my siblings were born. Soon after, I sort of became very knowledgeable about most cars even though I never touched a tool to one. I was able to spot a car as far as a block away and tell the brand and model. Yes, I was more of an aficionado.

I was even into the Aurora HO-scaled cars. My Dad and I used to sit with a controller in our hands and watch these matchbox-sized cars race around a tabletop track. Daddy and I always had fun racing these cars together. Eventually, my collection grew from two to ten cars which I kept in a special plastic case. A former friend used to invite me to his house to race our cars. We had similar cars in our collections, but he had one that I liked. It was clearly absent in my collection. It was a Dodge Charger.

I eventually obtained one. I raced it on my toy track, but later put it and the rest of my race cars away for good. My light lime-green Charger, however, always remained on my mind at the weirdest times. It was just a toy. Or was it?

I had a very nice friend named Doug. He and I grew up on the same block in our neighborhood. He lived near the northern section of our block while I lived near the south section of the same block. Sometimes, our friends would pick sides and we became rival leaders as he had more friends of ours hanging out with him than with me. That was okay. Doug was still my good friend. Somewhere in my collection, I have a picture of him and many of our friends at my 9th birthday party in my very home.

Doug easily outdid me in a few areas. First of all, he was two years older than I was. He was also easily one or two inches taller, the perfect height for a guy who loved playing basketball. I can still practically see him as he bounced his basketball on his way to a nearby park. Sometimes, I would see him driving his battleship green 1969 Firebird somewhere. Ironically, I never rode with him. He also had an Afro that easily beat all Afros in appearance. It had to have been at least three inches thick. I'd frequently see him using his pick, a comb-like device, in order to help his hair flowing outward. And despite it all, he was a neighborhood person, the only one in my age group, who I truly admired.

The last time I saw and spoke with him was the Monday before Thanksgiving 1974. I know this because I had just come home from band practice at the university I was attending at the time. I had just stepped off the bus and walked about an eighth of a mile to home. As I passed his house on the opposite side of the street, he was standing on his stoop tending to his hair while his sister and her friends were playing. I gather that he was sort of babysitting her at the time. I was 18 and just started school at St. John's University in Jamaica, New York just two months before. He was already 20 years old and already into his third year at New York University in New York, New York.

"What's that in the case?" he inquired.

I said, "It's my trumpet."

He then asked, "How do you like it at St. Johns?"

The very last words I told him were, "I like it."

Little did I know (or anyone knew), that would be the very last time I would ever speak with him again. I am pretty sure that he did not think so either.

Thanksgiving 1974 was a strange one for me already. One of my Mom's friends invited my family and me to have Thanksgiving dinner at her house in Freeport, Long Island. I woke up not with the jubilant feeling associated with the day, but with a feeling that something was just not right. I rationalized it by saying that it was the first time we, as a family, went to someone else's home rather than stay at our home as we usually did. I guess that, at the time, a change in our routine was good for all of us.

I was home in our own house that Friday. Nothing seemed different. I got up to finish some neglected school work since finals, my first at the university, were coming up,

The next day—Saturday—I got up and rode my bike for a few hours. When I came back home, my Dad was repairing a step in the side door entrance of our house. While he was working on it, he saw me and told me something. My world suddenly collapsed when he said it.

"Your friend Dougie died in a car crash yesterday,"

I thought that I would pass out, but I became truly numb. I dropped my bike and ran to the end of our driveway and looked north. What was I looking for—Doug to jump out of his house, see me, and yell "April Fool" on a crisp November day? No, but I did see his car parked in front of his house as it usually was.

"What was Daddy talking about? Doug can't be dead. His car is right there."

I went back into the house with my bike and then headed to my room after parking my only vehicle in our basement. I was visibly shaken. I simply could not believe that someone outside of my family who was very close to me could have been killed in a horrific situation. No, it could not be true.

It would just take me a few days to learn the entire story from various neighbors. Yes, Doug was gone. His life was extinguished by a careless act committed by the driver of the car he was in.

A red 1966 Dodge Charger!!!

It seems that Doug and a friend of his named Champ attended a post-Thanksgiving party. I don't know what Doug's condition was, but it seems that the driver was drunk and drugged. Perhaps Doug was, too. He offered to drive Doug to his job at the nearest airport. They headed out of Brooklyn at a high rate of speed. Somewhere along the way, the car lost its traction, hit a wall, turned over, and burst into flames. Neither guy had any chance of survival. The driver was easy to identify because he was the owner of the car, but Doug, who was sitting in the passenger seat, was ferociously burned beyond recognition according to a news story. He was pretty much cremated to death.

Yes, Doug was dead!!!!

A few days later, a Monday night, I was sitting in the living room at Doug's home. His parents, baby sister, and a few others, mostly neighbors gathered before heading to the nearest funeral home for his wake. I don't remember seeing his baby sister, but I do remember seeing the pain on his parents' faces. I especially remember watching his Mom in tears and sitting on a sofa as she painfully looked at his high school graduation picture from across the room.

Someone walked up and politely asked Doug's Mom if it was going to be an open casket to which she shakenly replied, "No" in a rather and understandably shaky voice. I did not attend the wake that night because I never made adequate travel arrangements myself. It was rather ironic that I could not attend the wake or the funeral the next day of a car accident victim's due to the fact that I had no ride myself. I also had a Philosophy test at the time of the funeral anyway. Imagine that. I had a test on how to make sense out of life and I had a real situation where I could not make sense out of life.

It took me twenty years to finally visit his grave. I drove my 1983 Toyota Corolla in order to make the solemn trip. The cemetery was quiet, yet so far away from home. I stayed at his grave and said a few words to him. I was hoping to hear his voice, but I knew that I wouldn't hear his voice anymore. I needed some sort of closure.

Dougie, my neighborhood best friend, was dead!!!!

Since he was taken from this life, I have not just blamed the faceless, inconsiderate driver, but I hated that big red beast that terminated Doug's promising life. He had so much potential and so much to give. It was not just my loss or his family's loss. It was the loss for the whole world.

To this very day, I will never ride in or drive a Charger. I don't care how cold it is, how far I have to go, or how late I am for an engagement. I do not even wish to see the Devil's chariot. It gives me no pleasure but gives off great angst. Even if I won one as a prize, I would not accept it or money in exchange for one even if it was the only means of transportation on the planet. No can do. Even the picture on this page repulses me as well.

I still have that light lime-green toy Charger. I take it out once in a while not to play with, but to think about my friend, the innocent pal who died in the front passenger seat. It is the nearest memory I have left of a true friend from the neighborhood.

Dodge Charger, you did your dastardly and deadly deed. I will forever hate your existence. Go away!!!!!

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About the Creator

Maurice Bernier

I am a diehard New Yorker! I was born in, raised in and love my NYC. My blood bleeds orange & blue for my New York Mets. I hope that you like my work. I am cranking them out as fast as I can. Please enjoy & share with your friends.

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