Survivor's Remorse

Hi folks, This one is partially true and partially fiction. The guy who wrecked his Mustang and went into a depression about it is absolutely true. I met him at this year's dream cruise. Coming to Mustang Alley and seeing all of the ponies was part of his therapy. I did let him know that I'd be taking a lot of liberties with his story. But there were some things that were too great to leave out. One of these is his real life, uber supportive, uber beautiful wife Saraya. I had to throw her into the mix. The rest of it is pure fiction. I'd also like to thank Barney-R for corralling my grammatical and spelling wildness. Maybe someday, I'll leave it alone when he changes all of my buts to howevers. And by now most of you know that I've never met a comma I didn't like. Enjoy, and drop me a line complaining about it if you don't like it. Readers, start your Engines. SS06

* * * * * *

My name is Vee. Okay, that's not actually my name; it's just what most of my friends call me. My actual name is Irving Raymond Dallbinger. As I was growing up my parents called me Irvy. My friends shortened it to Vee. I liked it. Vee sounds a lot tougher than Irvy. And it's less nerdy than Irv.

As I sit here my life flashes in front of my eyes. My right foot spikes downwards revving my car's engine. Seven hundred horsepower responds and an absolutely hellish sound erupts from the three inch tips of the Gibson Performance side exhaust system I recently had installed on the car.

I look to my left and stare into the most beautiful brown eyes on the planet. The woman the eyes are attached to, smiles at me. Why shouldn't she smile? She has nothing to lose.

On the other hand, this race means everything to me.

Race. It's a funny word. It's something we're born doing. Five year old kids get together on the playground, look at each other and ask ... "Wanna race?"

In its most basic form the word refers to a contest in which two or more competitors endeavor to discover which of them is the fastest. We can race on foot. We can race bicycles. We can race cars. Shit, we can race almost any mode of transportation.

In this case we're racing cars. It's something I used to do regularly. But I haven't raced in a little over two years. That last race cost me almost everything.

A tapping sound drew my attention. I looked across and saw her smiling at me. Her extremely white teeth contrasted against flawless caramel skin. "This ain't no ten second race," she smirked. "We're doing a lap of the entire park. If losing is too humiliating for you, you can just keep going when the race is over. But I hope you're man enough to at least come and congratulate me." I just nodded my head at her.

She revved her engine a couple of times and then started flipping switches. I realized then that she was setting her launch controls. Her engine revved up to its launch rpms and she looked over at me.

"No launch control?" she asked. Her expression, with one eyebrow raised was even sexier.

"Don't need em," I said. "My car's an automatic."

Her laughter was musical.

"I thought that real men drive Manual transmissions," she said.

"Real men drive whatever's faster and less complicated," I said. "I can't wait to see how manly you are on your back with me between your legs."

Her eyes seemed to light up when I said that. For the second time since I met her I was confused. It almost seemed as if she was on my side.

A man wearing a business suit walked out in front of us and between us. He snatched the handkerchief from his pocket and raised it in one hand. "When the handkerchief drops" you guys haul ass," he said.

Time stood still as his arm slowly rose above his head. He looked at both of us in turn to make sure that we were ready.

This was so different from my last race. This was semi organized, although still illegal as hell. That last race had been utter chaos. It had been an unplanned thing that just happened. I mean when I left the house that morning, I didn't consciously think, 'Okay, today I think I'll fuck my car up and risk dying. I just wanna ruin my God damned life, and I think today is that day!'

What happened was I was on my way to work and as I was cruising down the freeway, minding my own business, there was this Challenger. And you guys know that all of those guys who drive Challengers have something to prove. And this guy was showing his ass, so I had to edumacate him.

When I heard his tires chirp, my reflexes kicked in. My foot stabbed the gas pedal and the torque of my acceleration snapped my head back. I love that feeeling. (Yep, I intended to use three E's. Driving that fast is a feeeling.) I caught up to him in less than a second and rocketed by. He tried to keep up, but once I got past a hundred miles an hour, he backed off. Truthfully, I don't think it was any lack of speed in his car. I think he was a bit skeered, as they say in Ohio.

I took the off ramp and left the freeway, feeling good about once again defending the brand. Another victory for the valiant Mustangs over the tyranny of the Italian owned Chrysler Empire.

I was driving down Woodward Avenue, headed for my office, when out of the corner of my eye I spotted a biker on a crotch rocket. 'What the fuck,' I thought. It was a no lose situation. He was on a bike. Everyone would expect him to have faster acceleration. But I have those race car driver reflexes. We were stopped at a traffic light. He looked across at me and smiled. He revved his engine and I could tell he thought he would have me for lunch. He revved his engine again, but in mid rev, just as he was backing off, the light changed.

My foot hit the gas like lightning striking the earth. My pony car's forward leap caught him flat-footed and I was gone. The bike was far lighter, but I was pretty sure he couldn't match my top end speed. The problem was getting there. His acceleration was epic, but I had a big lead. As my speedo circled towards 100 he was gaining ground far faster than we were eating it up.

Unfortunately, we were running out of real estate. As we hit the end of the block and the next stop light, I still held a small lead. The light was red and I hit the brakes, but just as I hit the brakes and my six piston Brembo brakes began to clamp and slow me down the light changed to green.

He had nearly stopped, but I still had the momentum going for me. I hit the gas again and leaped forward through the light. A quick glance to the side confused me. He was looking at me and wasn't trying to get ahead of me.

Again my reflexes kicked in. But no matter how fast I was, it didn't mean shit. Life is full of all kinds of things that only matter in certain situations. They say that before you die your life flashes in front of your eyes. Mine didn't. I had perfectly clear vision and way above normal reaction time. The problem was that there simply wasn't enough time.

Thought moves at the speed of light. But waiting for physical action and mechanical movement is painfully slower.

Remember my ridiculous, six piston Brembo brakes I spoke about earlier? Why are they ridiculous? Because my front brakes cost over three thousand dollars. You can buy a used older model Mustang v6 for that. When you throw in another nineteen hundred for my rear brakes you begin to see the issue. No one who isn't totally obsessed with cars would ever pay that.

But I'm not alone. I've seen the same brakes on several Camaros and a few Challengers. They're standard issue on the higher end Corvettes too. And truthfully, they're usually worth it. My brakes can slow me down from sixty miles an hour to zero in only ninety three feet.

The problem I had that day was that I was moving a lot faster than sixty and the wall that appeared in front of me was a lot closer than ninety feet.

I watched with endless and painful slowness as it happened.

He was bored. He'd been on the job for too many years and had been driving for too many hours straight. He was doing a double shift that morning and had simply become complacent.

He always drove through the yellow in this spot. He was making the U-turn in front of the old State Fair grounds. It didn't really matter, if he went through the red light. Who the hell would ever hit a bus? This time of the morning there were very few cars on the road. And he had very few passengers. He had also had a few drinks between the end of the midnight shift and the beginning of the morning shift. His reflexes weren't quite as sharp as they should have been.

I later found out that he never even saw me. His first realization that I was there was my Mustangs thirty four hundred pounds slamming into the side of his bus so hard that it nearly tipped over.

I can remember it in infinite detail. I remember the hellish shriek of tortured tires. My expensive, super sticky, performance, directional radials crying out in protest. The aforementioned brakes clamping down so the car was simply sliding towards the bus.

Emotionally, I felt it as my front bumper deformed on contact with the bus. It was funny. The price of a replacement front bumper went through my mind even as that one was ruined. My custom grills were next. I could feel it as the aluminum billet grills bent and snapped. My chin spoiler was ripped from the bumper as the radiator was pushed into and through the serpentine belt. The engine mounts were designed to break loose under extreme pressure.

It helps to form the crumple zone in the front end. That crumple zone deforms and absorbs most of the force of the impact. My front windshield cracked and shattered, but not a single piece of glass broke free. I was thinking of the Mustang emblem imbedded in that windshield and whether or not the insurance company would spring to replace it, or would they try to give me some regular shitty windshield that just fit.

I was sure that I would have to pay for the tinting myself. And then the air bag blew. Strangely enough, that was when I got pissed. I knew that the airbag going off meant major repairs. I would be without my car for a month at least. That meant that I would probably miss the Dream Cruise.

The weird part of it was that I never lost consciousness. I shook my head and opened my seat belt. I had to force the door open. Then I got out and looked at my car. I knew it was going to be expensive. I knew I was going to need an awesome mechanic.

The light on my side was still green. One of the drivers in the other lanes came over to me. "He ran the red light!" he yelled, pointing at the bus driver. The bus had gone up onto the grass that bordered the road. He got out of the bus looking bewildered.

The guy on the bike took off then. He wasn't actually involved in the accident. I could see his smirk through his helmet.

The police were there almost instantly. There is a police station less than a mile away. One of the officers came to me; the other went to the bus driver. My witness quickly spoke up. "The bus ran the red light," he said again.

An ambulance pulled up. They put me in the back and started checking me over. I told them I was fine, but they insisted in taking me to the hospital anyway. While I was in the back of the ambulance, I called my wife, Wendy.

She got to the hospital less than twenty minutes after I did. She was frantic. I was fine. She checked me out, looking at every part of my body. It was as if she thought she could see things that the X-Rays and the MRI couldn't.

She hugged me, and then recoiled as she realized that her hug might have hurt me. She asked me millions of questions and never waited for me to answer. I was numb. Not physically, but emotionally.

I was given a clean bill of health and told that I would probably become very sore over the next few days. It didn't happen. Basically the fact that I ran and lifted weights, keeping myself in excellent physical condition, allowed me to walk away from the accident without a scratch. Hoo-fuckin' rah!"

* * * * * *

Wendy

I couldn't believe it was happening. My greatest nightmare was actually happening. I had planned to work on both the flower beds in the front of our yard and my tan. My idea was to get a very early start so I could weed the flower beds before the sun was at its full intensity. There was no sense wasting any sunshine. After all this is Michigan. Summer is only about six weeks long. At least that's the way it seems.

But before I could even get my tools out, I got a phone call. I figured it was one of my friends so I answered, and less than five minutes later, I was in my Jeep and heading for the hospital.

Vee was my life. He had to be okay. There were tears streaming down my cheeks as I flew into the hospital's parking lot. I pulled right up in front of the hospital and got out of my car. A guard started yelling at me.

"It's my husband," I cried. Maybe it was something in my expression ... Maybe it was the fact that I was wearing shorts that a stripper wouldn't wear and my bra-less boobs were fighting for attention under the thin t-shirt I wore, but whatever it was, he softened his stance.

"Ma'am, I hope your husband is fine," he said. "I really do. But you can't leave your car here. They'll tow it away. "

I went back to the car. The keys were still in it. I turned to look at him. It just seemed like someone was putting obstacles in my way to keep me from getting to Vee.

"Wow," he said. "You really were in a hurry. Okay, Ma'am. I'll take it from here. Your car will be in Valet parking. The Valet guy will have your keys. And here ..." He reached into to his pocket. "This ticket will make it so you don't have to pay for the Valet service, or for parking. I really hope your husband is okay." I was surprised at his compassion, but I had no time to thank him. So I just nodded and took off for the door to the emergency room.

A nurse told me that I couldn't come in through the door I used. I looked through her and walked up to the desk. I asked for Vee and another nurse, seeing the look on my face looked through the records. "You are?" she asked, before telling me anything.

"Wendy Dallbinger," I said desperately. "He's my husband ... I mean I'm his wife. Is he okay? What happened to him? Can I see him now? Oh God! ... I left my purse in the car. I don't have our health cards or anything else on me. Can I see him before I try to find the car and get all of that stuff?" My voice was getting louder and more frantic by the second.

"Please let her come in here, before she passes out," said a voice from just beyond the partition that separated the desk from the triage cubicles. I recognized the voice as Vee's.

"Vee!" I screamed joyfully. I bolted past the partition to find him sitting up on a small cot-like bed in the third of four cubicles.

I looked over his face and exposed body areas for cuts or bruises. Then I felt his arms and legs. "Are you okay?" I shrieked.

"My car is wrecked," he said sullenly. I had no time for that silliness.

"Fuck that car!" I hissed. "I'm worried about you. We'll get it fixed!"

"It's really bad," he said. "The whole front end is crushed. I'm not sure there's frame damage, but I think they're gonna have to weld in new engine mounts at least. But this could be a good time to add sub-frame connectors. They'll give me better handing and more frame rigidity.

"Will you stop talking about that God Damned car and tell me about you, Vee?" I said. He shrugged his shoulders and twisted his head from side to side.

"I'm fine," he said, matter of factly. "The car protected me."

"As much time and money as you out into that thing, it should have," I said. A nurse came in and offered him pain pills.

"I'm not in any pain," he told her.

"The doctor thinks you should take them," she said. "Right now you may still be in shock. Later today or tomorrow, you may begin to feel pain or soreness ... As a delayed reaction from the accident."

"I don't really take pills," said Vee.

"Well, I'll give you a prescription of ..." she began.

"He won't take them," I told her.

"Okay, you're supposed to take it easy for the next seventy two hours," she began. "And if anything changes. If you feel pain or soreness or any type of headache ... Come back in immediately."

There were several clues that should have told me that things were not well, but I was so glad that Vee wasn't hurt that I managed to miss them all. The first of those clues came that very same day. While on the hospital, Vee had called our insurance company to report the accident. We needed a police report and we also needed to meet the insurance agent to inspect the car.

Vee asked me to handle it. I thought that he was just tired or beginning to feel the after affects of the accident, but I was wrong.

I met the insurance agent at the shop they had towed the car to. We looked the car over and he declared the car a total loss. It would cost far more than the car was worth to repair it. I knew that would be tough for Vee to take. Another bitter pill for him to swallow would be the fact that the insurance company wouldn't be basing our settlement on the custom parts that Vee had added to the car. They would only be giving us the base value of his model. I was sure that Vee would shit a brick over that news. It was going to be a big shock to him that his precious car was worth far less to the insurance company than it was to him or any of the guys who'd offered to buy it from him over the years.

The only shock came when I told him about it, only I was the one who was shocked.

"Vee, Honey, they totaled your car," I said.

"I figured as much," he said flatly.

"The insurance company, because of depreciation, the age of the car, and the number of miles on it, is only giving us twenty grand," I said. I was prepared for anger. I was even prepared for outright shock.

"Okay," he said with about as much interest as if I'd told him that the pizza guy was late. Over the next few days things returned to normal, or so I thought. There were a few things that were different about Vee, but I chalked them up to the accident. For one thing I had to tell him that he should go out and do his run.

That was kind of weird because Vee is hyper competitive. Normally he's the one explaining to me that if he doesn't train well, he doesn't do well in the almost endless string of 5K and 10K races he does. He also runs in the marathon that a local newspaper hosts every fall.

So after I urged him to get back to training, he did go back out and run. But instead of running with his friends, he ran alone. That got my attention, but it took a weird incident for it to come out.

One of Vee's running buddies and best friend, Al Martin just happened to run into me at the grocery store.

"Hey Wendy, what happened to your hubby?" he asked. "Or did he just know that it was my year?"

I had no idea what he was talking about.

"Yeah it would have been better if he'd been there," he continued. "Since he's won it for the last four years. But I would have won even if he was there. Still it would have been nice to have won by beating him."

"Beating him at what?" I asked as I sorted through the tomatoes.

"You know?" he said. "The race in the park we run in. Every year they have that 5K. I won it yesterday."

"How many years have you run in it?" I asked.

"For about five years," he said proudly.

"So last year when he had the flu and ran with a fever and the chills, he beat you Huh?" I asked.

"Yeah I guess," he said. His tone was a lot less exuberant.

"And three years ago, when he limped home with the ankle sprain, he still beat you then too right?" I asked.

"Yeah but I was closing on him and ..." he stopped talking when he saw the dubious expression on my face.

"Vee ran faster this year in the earlier races this season didn't he?" I asked as if I didn't know.