My alarm woke me up around 5:40 or so and I hurried and called over to Casey’s, the guys with the van, to make sure they were up.  Nobody answered.  It made me mad because the night before, Chay was saying “You better be ready to go cause we want to have lunch at Mel’s.”  Mel’s is a diner off Highway 108, in Sonora, where we always eat.  That also bugged me because I love to sleep in like anybody but when I sincerely say, “Okay I’ll do it” about something that means I will, no matter what.  Even though I always get up when I say I will get up, people still don’t believe me.  Sometimes if something happens where somebody might get in trouble and I get blamed, I like to make people think it was me.  I’ll deny it the whole time while acting as guilty as possible.  It kind of gives me the upper hand, I guess.
So I drove over to Casey’s once I had brushed my teeth--so I could pack my toiletries--and had gotten dressed.  I banged on their door awhile.  Finally, Mark answered with his hair sticking up all over.  He didn’t talk.  He just swung it open, turned, and walked back downstairs and fell onto the couch with an old blanket.  I bet he fell asleep in about two minutes.  That place stunk.  It always smelled like cat urine or something.
I went into Chay’s room.  I said “Chay” in a whisper.  Sometimes I’m so careful not to be offensive.  When I think about it now it’s like, “You dummy!  Everybody in the whole house is supposed to be awake.  You should just scream.”  “Chay,” I said but louder.  He finally got up with his pissy six-in-the-morning mood.  Some of my resentment of Chay probably dealt with laziness and sleep.  This must’ve been about the two thousandth time I had said “Chay…Chay!”
And his dad Jack was there too.  I mean you’d think the dad would be on the ball when there was something like a snow trip going on.  He’s part of why my dad was reluctant, much of the time, to let me go to the snow with them.  One reason that even I thought was valid was our transportation.  A forty foot long Dodge van, circa 1977.  This was in 1991 so that made it pretty old.  I think the Casey’s had bought it brand new.  It had lots of high wear miles on it.
Once all of us got into the van—me, Chay, Mark, Sean and Jack, the dad--we said a prayer not to crash or die or anything (and I strapped on my seatbelt).  We pulled away and I saw the Morril’s house.  It reminded me of when me and Chay TP’d it.
Chay had smuggled seven or eight rolls under his shirt and slept over at my house.  I remember laying on the hide-a-bed in front of the TV with some R-rated movie playing, but scrambled so it was hard to watch.  Every once in a while we thought we’d see a wobbly thigh or a piece of a backside when a sex scene came on.  We had all the toilet paper—a total of maybe 12 rolls (I was always scared my step-mom would notice how much was missing)—under the bed with a tube of Crest to put on the cars or spell something on the lawn.
At about 12:30 am we tiptoed out the back door and started toward Morril’s.  Sometimes cops would drive by slowly and one time they told us about a curfew and we hid for about a half-hour.  But that night we didn’t see any.   I lived in a scarier part of San Jose.  Right on my same street was a “boy’s home.”  I have these two older sisters that were always getting into trouble.  I mean in my church, the Mormon Church, stuff like drinking and sex is not looked upon well.  But that’s just what they did.  And they always dated drug dealers.  That’s what my dad would call them.  Chay’s dad would drop him off after church and there’d be a Mercedes parked in the driveway.  He says he used to think that all black guys sold drugs.
We were tired by the time we got to Morril’s and both of us wondered why we hadn’t just stayed at Chay’s.  He lived right across the street.  We went to work on the house.  Their old Celebrity had the doors unlocked so we wrapped paper all around the roof and underneath the ceiling of the car.  We filled it almost full with TP.  We ended up just squirting the toothpaste all over the lawn and part of the driveway.  About half way through I got mad at Chay because I know I heard something in the house but he wanted to keep going.  I was really scared.  We were both incredibly tired by the time we finished so we slept at his house.
I knew I’d be in trouble for that.  My dad wasn’t too angry though.  I think now I know why.  In the morning he called over to Casey’s (somehow he knew I was there—he’s pretty good friends with the Morrils) and said, “Last night the Morrils had their home vandalized.  Maybe you and Chay should go over there and help ‘em clean up.”  So there we were the next day picking up all the wet-from-dew toilet paper and lathering and lathering the toothpaste suds until they finally ran off the driveway.  Cleaning up our own damn prank.  The mom, Labeth, fixed us chocolate-chip pancakes for helping.  That was pretty low.  I don’t think she realized how low.
Chay had his neck hung over the back of the seat.  His mouth was wide open.  He always sleeps that way.  He was a transplant from West Valley City, Utah.  They moved here when we were in 4th or 5th grade and we were all pretty nice to Chay, at school and all.   He went to our same church.  He was the new kid with the glasses.
 I remember the first time I had him over to my house.  We were on the trampoline and his glasses were on the padding on the edge.  I said, “Hey, let’s play fake-boxing.”  He didn’t know what it was.  “It’s when we do some pretend punches and pretend to fall.  You can do some pretty rad ones on the tramp.”  So we played for awhile.  The last time I said, “Okay, now this one’s gonna be really close.  I mean realistic.  So make it look good.”  I don’t know if I really misjudged or if he couldn’t see without his glasses, but I right crossed him smack into his left cheek.  It was like slow motion.  Since he was already jumping up, he ended up spinning about 300 degrees before finally landing on his right elbow and then his side.  My mouth dropped open and I jumped down next to him.  “Hit me!  Hit me if you want.  Hit me in the face!”  But he wouldn’t do it.  I gave him his glasses and made him promise not to tell my dad.
Chay’s mouth was still wide open.  Right then, I felt like shutting it.  Maybe we could go play on the trampoline a bit more.  I didn’t move my body—just my head—and I turned to watch the cars behind us.  One of the best parts of taking this trip, usually leaving at about this time, was getting to watch the sun rise behind us.  It was terrible for Jack with the rear-view mirror, but I liked it.
 Everyone was quite tired so we didn’t say much.  I just sat still and thought of the snow.  One year when it was more of a scout-sponsored thing, we all went up to Camp Ritchie where the girls in our church would go during the summer.  It was only about a two-mile hike into the lodge, but in the winter months it was still hell.  On this night it was actually raining.  So the snow was being turned into a kind of slush.  The conditions were terrible.  We had to hike along the edge of a lake that was supposed to be frozen over.  It must not have been too frozen considering I ended up falling in from the top of a table of ice about 8 feet wide.  I only fell in about to my knees and I was able to pull myself out.  It was enough, though, to cause real discomfort.
 After awhile me, Dirk Barney, and Chay fell behind the rest of the group.  I guess they all think of me as kind of a crybaby.  I was somewhat alienated, as I was the only member of troop 6253 who wasn’t gonna ever get my Eagle.   They say they used to hate me for the most part because all I did was complain.  This time I was complaining that I was tired and cold.  I guess my complaining had slowed us down.
 We came to a point on the trail where it is supposed to wind up the side of a hill.  On top of the hill was the lodge.  The problem was that it was very dark and we couldn’t find the trail.  We spent enough time at the hill’s base for Dirk, Jason Barney’s dad, to start to worry.  I knew they wouldn’t forget about us, but the way he was cautioning us not to get tired, and if we sat down, not to go to sleep, I thought it might be a serious situation.  I guess I kind of started crying.  I was agitated by my frozen legs, partly from falling in the lake and partly from peeing my pants because Robert Ortiz, one of the older, dumber of the guys, convinced me it would warm me up.  I think my crying was the last straw.  Chay let loose on me:
 “Dude, shut-up, Jackson!  Yer buggin’ the crap outta’ me.  There’s other people besides yourself.  We’re all cold.  I can’t even feel my legs.”  He waited for a second.  “Brother Barney still never got any gloves.  And have you heard him whining?  Anyway, don’t worry.  Worst case scenario is that we just wait ‘till morning to find the trail.  I mean they know we’re missing anyway.”
 Not much later we saw a light.  To me it was a beacon, like from a lighthouse.  It turned out to be a flashlight and we all realized that we were only a few hundred feet from the lodge.  We yelled and it was Jack’s voice yelling back.  I remember thinking, “My hero.”  We climbed on our hands and knees along a small waterfall that fell beneath the lodge floor then to the lake.  The water felt hot.  Boiling hot.  And it was difficult to keep my hands where I needed them to help me climb.
 I looked at Jack in the driver’s seat.  His bald spot was all you usually saw of him, especially on the way to the snow, from the back of the van.  Robert Ortiz invented the game where if you could “nail the bald spot” with a spit wad you’d get 100 points.  Jack never got mad about that kind of a thing.
He was the sort of guy I’m always defending from my dad.  He had a job and all but he was just irresponsible.  His house was a mess and his kids didn’t really have to abide by any set rules.  It always made me jealous and it made my father leery.  But I liked Jack.  Ever since he “saved” us from freezing to death in the snow I had always thought of him as the guy on a movie or something who nobody really likes and he does a lot of letting people down, until it finally matters.  Then he comes through.  At least that’s who he was for me.
 We finally got onto Highway 88 at Stockton.  I must’ve fallen asleep at some point because Stockton is almost 90 minutes from home.  Chay and Mark were joking about something.
 “I know, but Shawn’s small.  Patrick was just nice, that’s all.”
 “You’re a poet and you don’t even realize it,” Mark tried to joke.
 They were talking about Patrick Depew, one of our church friends who wasn’t on this trip.  He’d been on plenty of others, though.  I gave my two cents:  “I say Shawn’s a punk.  I don’t care who would kill who, Shawn’s still a punk and Patrick is cool.  I mean Patrick is a ‘man without guile.’  Anybody who’d take advantage of that is a punk.  Pure and simple.”
 I knew what they were talking about because they used Patrick and Shawn in the same sentence.  Patrick and Shawn Hawkes were longtime rivals, among “the boys.”  They were in perpetual feud that didn’t make exceptions for long van rides like the ones we’d take to get to the snow.  Their verbal quarrels would often escalate to physical war, and even though Shawn always seemed to make Patrick look dumb—he usually ended up with a nosebleed (one time Shawn pounded Patrick’s face into the partially opened window in the van’s second row of seats over and over until even I was ready to intervene) or a severe wedgie—I always thought that Patrick was holding back.  He was mostly a nice guy who always got a bum rap, and I think he could’ve really beat on Shawn had he wanted to.
 Other people picked on him too.  One of our favorite jokes was to say “Shut up, Rob,” in this really whiny voice.  This is because one time Robert was just wailing on Patrick.  Making fun of his squeaky voice and his lack of armpit hair—something Robert was incredibly endowed with.  Rob finally made the joke that the only place Patrick had any hair was on the top of his head.
 Patrick responded with something like, “Nuh-uh.  I’ve got hair everywhere I’m supposed to.  Just shut up.”
 We all joined in against him telling him, in essence, to prove it, but he wouldn’t do it.  And Robert just would not let it drop.  Finally, in this pitifully feminine voice, almost in tears, Patrick introduced the legendary refrain, “Shut up, Rob.”  It wasn’t what he said, but more how he said it, that made it such a popular means of riling the poor guy.
 Patrick ended up going on a mission for our church in Texas, and at some point he got very depressed.  He tried to kill himself and was sent home—actually straight into a hospital.  When he finally got out, one of the first things he did was shave his head—completely bald.
 Chay interrupted my thinking by saying, “Hshutup Robghert.”  He was making fun of Patrick’s mom, Wanda.  She had this speech impediment that was something like how a horse might sound if he had a lisp.  It was terrible, especially since we all had fun with it.  Hardly any of us liked her for so many reasons.  None of them valid.  She was fat.  She was the wife of the Stake President in our church, which is like a really high position, and she was also the biggest gossip in our local congregation.  She had blown the whistle on many a young man trying to get away with some kind of impropriety in our church.  We all knew it, and hated her for it.  Maybe the biggest reason we all disliked her was the fact that she used to take us aside individually and let us in on what a good kid Patrick is and how we treat him like crap and how he “neegs your friengschip, guysh.”  That was sure annoying.
 Once when we were waiting for Patrick to get ready for a scout court of honor, Wanda started really giving it to us.  It got pretty bad because she had been paying attention and named off some specific instances where we were mean to Patrick.  It ended up that Jason Barney, who was with us, called her a “big, fat, harelipped gossip,” right to her face.  That was the last thing anybody said while we waited.  She didn’t even have a harelip.
 The Patrick/Shawn controversy had settled down somewhat.  Mark was sound asleep.  Chay and Sean were now talking about girls, a subject that, by its mere nature, excluded me and Matthew.  It was specific and, to me, interesting stuff about things they had “done” with girls.  Stuff good Mormon boys really shouldn’t be doing.   Listening to their conversation kind of secretly, I looked ahead at the horizon.  The sun was up by now but you could hardly tell.  There was a pretty thick fog cover that didn’t make it hard to see as much as it just made it seem like dusk, instead of 8:20 in the morning.  The bleakness of what I saw made me tired.
 I popped my earphones in and pressed the “play” button on my portable CD player.  My sleep CD is the Unforgettable Fire by U2.
 
Somewhere between “4th of July” and “Bad” on the disc, I was bumped by Chay, who was sitting even closer to me.  I turned and noticed him smiling and mouthing words like he was talking.  I could tell that he wasn’t really saying anything.  He just wanted to bug me.  I’m pretty moody when I first wake up.  I guess I must’ve been asleep.  So I gave up on that idea and pulled my earphones out of my ears.
 He started, “I hope you don’t get grounded.  Did you tell your dad how long you were gonna be gone?”  He knew damn well that my dad knew.  They all knew how to get me going.  I am a pretty defensive guy and I’m always having to defend how strict my parents are.  Even though I didn’t like to admit it, it’s true that I was almost always in trouble for something silly.
 “Shut up, dude.”  I lowered my voice.  “Your dad probably doesn’t even know where you are right now, buttnose.”  I noticed Mark sitting up behind me in my peripheral vision.  He was lying on top of all the gear, almost in the back window of the van.  It was comfortable because all the sleeping bags and pillows were packed last.  You could tell he wanted in on the conversation.  “At least my dad leaves the house every once in a while.  Your dad just sits in the garage all day.”
 Chay was almost impossible to stir up.  He half smiled.  “Yeah.”  He paused.  “So you think we’ll pick up on any chicks at Bear Valley this time?”  A year ago a gorgeous redhead had made just about every pass possible at me, to which I responded by doing nothing.  They all tortured me for weeks after that.  They’d say stuff like “You wouldn’t know a chance for action if it walked up and bit your bottom lip.”  It was pretty much true.
 I responded, “Ha ha.  That’s a new one.”
 I guess Mark was feeling left out and particularly cutting because he turned and said, “Yeah, Jackson.  You could learn a lesson or two from Dianne and Rochelle.”  That’s my two sisters.
 “Dude, shut up, Mark,” Chay almost shouted.  He reached across the second row of seats and socked him in the arm.
Man that was rough.  It was silent for a few seconds.  I felt like just letting go for once and trying out some of that kung fu stuff from TV.  I couldn’t think of anything original to say either.  “No, that’s cool.  Maybe it’d be smarter if we focus on watching Chay.”  I turned to him.  Talk about displaced aggression.  “I mean we don’t have room for extra people in the cabin.  Even for call girls and stuff.  Sorry, man.”  I guess that was at least a little funny because Mark laughed quietly.
 “Okay, mister can’t-tell-whether-he’s-gay-or-straight-since-he’s-never-done-anything-sexual-one-way-or-the-other-ever.  What are you gonna do for fun?  Plug up your ears with some of your stupid Velvet Underground.  Lou Reed’s got all the answers for the sexually repressed.”  Man I hate it when somebody knocks my music.  I hadn’t even been listening to the Velvets.  I got one of those really nervous smiles on my face, where you’re trying like the Dickens to look natural and unaffected, but it ends up hardening and ruining your face.
 “Oh that’s really tough.  Always trying to cover of your lack of self respect by ripping on others.”
 “Calm down, Jackson.  You don’t have to get defensive.”  I hate that.  I wasn’t defensive.  Chay always thinks I’m defensive.  I used my really dopey slow-kid voice.  The one that means you’re totally disenchanted with saying it, along with very sarcastic.  I leaned forward getting my eyes to meet his.  I think I was about to cry.
 “OooooKaaaaay Chaaaayyy.  Whateeevveeer you saaay.”  It was a taunting voice.  The kind you do in someone’s face, just hoping that you can get them to lose their composure enough to actually punch you.  On one camping trip we were really at each other’s throats.  We were on kitchen cleaning duty and it got to the point where, over a vinegar-scented table, Chay said, “You know some day somebody’s gonna really beat you hard.”
 I tried to be tough.  “Oh really.  Like who?”
 “Like me.”  That was where it stopped.  Nothing really came of it except we became somewhat better friends after that.
 “Poor Jackson,” he said, and started doing that little violin thing with his middle finger and his thumb.  The jerk.  I wanted so much to keep going with the rip-session on his dad.  I especially wanted to say something like, “You know, you’re just like your dad.  You’re lazy and tired and antisocial and I bet you’ll never leave your house either.”  I held back though.
Nick laughed at Chay’s little violin.  Then it became quiet and I started thinking to myself.  Suddenly I hated everyone in that van.  After a few minutes I looked back and noticed that  Nick was asleep.  Sean was almost out of it.   To the side I saw Chay staring out his window.  For my fifth birthday I had a party and Chay showed up with his mom and without my invitation.  I wasn’t really his friend but he was a church kid my age and although my mom had me make up actual invitations to give to people, she went ahead and just invited all the kids my age, through their parents.  I was really surprised to see him there.  I barely knew him.  I said, “Hey, I didn’t invite you.”
 He didn’t know what to say.  “Yeah you did.”  Before it got any worse my mom grabbed me by my arm and yanked me into the kitchen to teach me a lesson about courtesy.  Looking back, I just can’t believe I would act like that.  I started feeling kind of bad about arguing.
 Nobody was watching ahead but me and Jack.  I saw a white Ford Escort up ahead on the right shoulder.  It was moving, veering somewhat right almost like getting ready to make a U-turn to the opposite lane.  I shook my head and groaned inside as I got this terrible feeling.  He jutted out in front of us with no time to stop.  It was slow motion.  I saw the driver’s face.  He was a fat-faced Mexican-looking man, with bulging eyes.  There was a rosary in his rear-view mirror.  As Jack said “Noo,” I yelled, “Shit!”
The van shifted forward violently in an attempt to break.  As Jack pulled the wheel hard left we smashed into the Escort’s driver’s door.  We leaned to the left like we were ready to flip.  I braced myself for the fall.  The van steadied but continued sliding left.  There was a terrible squealing sound, like metal biting metal that grated on my ears and made me close my eyes.  Finally we came to rest, mostly on the shoulder, but partially in the left lane.
 It was foggy.  A horn came and went, from a speeding car on our right.  I knew that me and Jack we the only ones who had been wearing seatbelts and I had no idea what kinds of accidents killed people.  I also figured that Escort guy must’ve been dead.  But I was so scared to look around me in the van.  I thought for sure there’d be a couple dead bodies.  I expected Mark to have been hurled out the back window.  I knew Chay was sitting kind of funny and I thought he’d be lying on the seat behind me with a broken neck or something.
 “Is everyone okay?”  I said.  I had seen one too many movies.  Everyone was okay.
 Jack said, “Well we need to get out of here.  We’re smoking.”  He was right.  There was a thick, gray fume filling up the cabin of the van.
 As if suddenly realizing what had happened, the front passenger Sean yelled, “Stupid jerk!” across the highway in the direction of the Escort.  The brunt of the impact was right at the front left fender where Sean was sitting.  I remember laughing inside at his exclamation because it seemed so silly.  I mean, the guy was probably dead and it was much too late to take back what he had done.  Sean was suffering from shock.
 We were all pretty afraid, especially when I tried to open the door and couldn’t.  Chay stepped forward and gave a couple adrenaline-aided kicks, and the door finally budged.  We all got the heck away from the van.  We noticed Sean was limping somewhat.  I remember looking across the two lanes at the virtually demolished Escort.  A hand slowly rose from the driver’s side, then lowered.  Just then a man had stopped behind the Escort and went to check on the driver.  I was so afraid to find out what had happened.  I was sure we had killed him.
 Emergency people were on the scene before we knew it.  At first we had all crossed the highway about 200 feet from the Escort.  We didn’t know if the van would explode or what.  It looked terrible.  All but one of the rear tires had blown.  The front left side was obliterated and there was another deep dent in the back portion of the van’s body.  It was certainly totaled.
 When the emergency people arrived we realized it was safe to stand near the van, so we came back across the highway.  They placed Sean on a gurney and braced his neck.  It was precautionary.  We all knew he was fine.  Everyone was talking about the fog.  By now there was the normal rubberneck traffic, along with what seemed like much too many people to actually be helpful to the cause.
 Almost as quickly as the police had arrived, came a news van, complete with news lady and cameraman.  Although it really had nothing to do with the accident, we let on that it was mostly the fog that decreased visibility enough to cause a crash.  We were playing along because it was obvious that she wanted a fog story.  We had a good time with that.  We weren’t sure exactly where we were, but we knew it must’ve been a pretty uneventful place.  They had a news team at an accident scene, for crying out loud.
 Everything removed from the van and repacked into police cars and tow trucks, we all set out to somewhere.  I didn’t know where until we talked to the truck driver.
 “Yeah, Lodi’s got a hospital.  This highway keeps ‘em in business.  Keeps me in business too.”
 Jack was in the truck with me and the driver.  “So it’s a pretty dangerous stretch of highway out here, huh?”
 “Yup.  Even just that intersection.  Where your guyses wreck was.  A couple a week.  We don’t get too many fatalities though.  They’re sposed ta put a light in.  On a highway, for chrissake.”
 Once at the hospital, Jack was on the phone immediately.  He called my parents but they weren’t home and we needed a ride back.  It’s kind of funny because until he mentioned needing “a ride home,” I still wasn’t sure whether or not the rest of the trip was cancelled.  I mean, I know it’s right to cancel certain big events when someone dies, on account of respect, but this was different.  Nobody had ever seen this situation.  I wasn’t disappointed though.
 We needed a van.  That was the biggest problem.  We had at least an Aerostar, but both my parents were gone.  Otherwise, we were screwed.  Finally, Jack got ahold of Depew’s.  Like any big Mormon family, they had a big van.  I watched Jack on the phone.  He looked so serious.  He never really showed emotion one way or the other, but right now he had an especially rock-hard expression.  It reminded me of how he looked when we finally made it to the lodge, that one night.  And that wreck.  If he wouldn’t have turned the wheel in time, and used the breaks the way he did, man.  Who knows.
 “Wanda Depew is gonna come get us,” Jack said.  “She needs to pick Truston up from swimming and then she’ll be out.  It should be about 2 hours.”   He also told us that they had taken Sean into Stockton to get a cast on his ankle.  I guess for insurance reasons or something.
 Man, two hours in Lodi.  Not only that, but two hours at this tiny hospital, with nothing to do.  It was funny because all our gear had just been dumped out on the sidewalk next to the hospital entrance.  Since it was a small place we all just stayed outside next to the stuff.
 We tried to make the most of the situation.  Chay was already dressed in his grubbiest clothes so we decided to just add to it.  He pulled a thick, wool stocking cap over half of his head and put on his snow pants, complete with bib.  I had an empty orange juice bottle that we put in a paper bag, and we were set.  Once we had covered most of the gear with blankets, Chay sat down and did his best hobo impression.  The rest of us hid.
 Patrons and personnel alike would stop, furrow their eyebrows, and whisper.  We really had some people going.
 “Wanda Depew,” I said.
 “I know, man.  Why couldn’t your parents be home, dude?.”  It was dead for a moment.  Then Chay spoke quietly.  “Sorry about your sisters.  I mean about what he said.  He’s just a stupid kid.”
 “Oh no.  That’s cool.  That’s totally cool.  To tell you the truth it was kind of cool that it finally got out.  I mean nobody ever says stuff in front of me.  Or them.  So it’s kind of like a first.”
 Chad laughed.  “That’s true.”
 A man from the hospital approached.  He assumed we were kids up to no good.  “I’m afraid you fellas are gonna have to find somewhere else to have your little party.  We’ve been getting complaints from hospital guests.”
 We were all chomping at the bit.  Whoever it was that got to respond won the honor because he was the fastest to speak.  “Oh, this isn’t a party, sir.  We’re merely enjoying the lovely Lodi landscape.”  It must’ve been Chay.
 “Glad you like it here.  Listen, there was a pretty bad wreck about 45 minutes ago and we’ll need this area clear.  So if you boys—“
 “Big van and some compact car.  An Escort, was it?”  The man lowered his eyebrows.  “Yeah, we heard about it.  Anybody badly hurt?”  I loved this opportunity.
 “Not sure.  I just heard—“
 “You remember how many passengers or anything like that?  I heard it was a vanload of kids on their way to the snow.  Man I hope nobody was hurt.”  I almost started feeling guilty.  “Course if it happened to me, I could see why you’d want us out of the way.  To make room for their gear and stuff.”
 The man shook his head.  The guys all laughed and he asked us about the crash.  His name was Adam Rollins, just one of the hospital staff.  Poor guy.  We spent the balance of the time talking to Adam and walking around the hospital property.  We were gonna be legends.  That night was a church dance that we’d all attend and tell our story, hoping to draw sympathy and reverence from everyone.
 “Man, I hope there’ll be enough room in the van, what with Wanda taking up the front half and all.”  That was me trying to break a silence and get attention.  Nobody laughed.  I think we were all too tired.
 “Yeah, and plus how much room Patrick takes up when it’s time to ‘tell us something.’”  Chay was the only one really paying attention to me.  “It could be pretty squishy.”
 “Maybe we’ll have to leave our stuff here,” I added, looking up.
 “’Member last time, Patrick was all—“
 “Speak of the devil,” I said.
 It had to have been less than two hours.  It was the Depew’s pulling up with their van.  Truston, Wanda, and Patrick.  Holy cow.  As soon as they stopped, Wanda jumped out of the van and embraced each of us.  “You boysch.  I’m scho glad you’re ochlay.”  I don’t know about the others, but she kissed me on the side of my head.  Once we finally got our things loaded we all sat in the van and said another prayer.  We just said thank you for keeping us safe and help us to get home alive.  Then we were off.
 Immediately Patrick started talking.  “So what was it like?  I mean, did you think you were gonna die?”  We took turns recounting, exaggerating the day’s events.  Patrick seemed enthralled.  “Yeah, I had a bad feeling about this trip from the beginning.”  I rolled my eyes.  “Even if I didn’t have soccer I still wouldn’t have gone.”  He was always having bad feelings.
 “Whatever, Patrick.”
 “No, I’m serious.  You can ask my mom.  Mom, didn’t I say I had a bad feeling about this trip?”
 She was talking to Jack up front.  “Whath?”
 “I said ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this snow trip they’re going on’ about this trip, didn’t I?”
 “Yesh he glid.”  Then she said more to Jack that we couldn’t hear.
 We got to the hospital in Stockton and Sean was in the ER waiting room.  He had been sitting there for over an hour and a half.  He had really missed out.  When he got into the car he was so mad.  I think partly because he had to sit alone for so long, but also because he was in a bed next to the driver of the Escort we hit.
 He had been drunk but wasn’t seriously injured.  I don’t understand that one.  I thought for sure he was a goner.  Sean said that he was moaning and whining the whole time.  He kept saying “What about my car?  Is my car okay?”  They had already explained about 50 times that it was demolished.  They had used the Jaws of Life to get him out.  But he kept on raving.
 Wanda turned.  “You boysch hungry?”  Nobody said anything.  I looked at Patrick and Chay nudged him, nodding his head.
 “I think we’re all pretty hungry, yeah,” Patrick said.
 “Thersh an IHOP on Pashific Avenue up here.  Me and Alan ate there wunsch.”
 That sounded pretty good right about now.  We raced each other through the parking lot once the van had stopped.  She told us we could order anything we want.
 “What are you gonna get?,” Chay asked me lowering his menu.
 I read the address on the back of the menu.  Jack and Wanda were talking and she glanced in my direction.  I tried to look down but it was too late.  She smiled.  “I dunno, what’s good?”
 Chay was watching the both of us.  “Well there’s always the chocolate-chip pancakes.”