Rocky

A friend in Canada is patching up someone tonight that was hit by a drunk driver and dragged. Burned. The friend is a nurse. What a horrible job.

I heard about it in a chat room. And the talk centered around drunk drivers. And how drunk drivers never get hurt. I offered up that drunks are relaxed and just bounce around in the car, so they don't get injured. Sober people stiffen before impact, so they don't bounce. They break. One of my teachers told me that in high school.

It got me to thinking about a girl I once knew. Rocky. She worked at the place I played racquetball. She was the happiest, friendliest most well adjusted human being I have ever known. I am jealous of her happiness. And my life has had everything perfect. I've never been in a hospital. My parents were successful people, and I had a big house, and nice clothes, and plenty of food. Never wanting for anything. And I'm a miserable cuss.

Rocky's entire family was wiped out when she was 7. By a drunk driver. In a car in which she was riding. She was knocked into a coma for 6 months. When she awoke, she was unable to speak and had to be taught how to do so again. She was also told that her father, mother and sister were all deceased. Her only living relative was a grandfather that passed not that long after.

We were as opposite as two people could possibly be. Seen Dharma and Greg on TV? That was us. Me a republican, living in the hills, living the plastic, pretentious Orange County, California life. Her, a hard-core liberal, with her hippy clothes, Grateful Dead music and a beat up car that reeked of incense and sported a Barbara Boxer bumper sticker that made me want to kill myself when I had to ride in her car.

But we were the best of friends. We could do anything together, go anywhere together, and enjoy each other's companies immensely. We went everywhere...did everything. Our social circle thought we were dating. She might have, too. We probably should have been.

Sadly, it was a relationship headed for an abrupt end. I had lived a youth of being a punching bag, and had taken an assertiveness training course to help me push ahead in life. And because I was often the 2nd choice for social events, and would be dumped if something better came along, I made a life-rule. You could drop me once for another engagement. It happened. The unexpected came up in life. But if you did it twice, you were telling me that you didn't respect me enough to keep your commitments with me, and I didn't need you in my life. I was firm about my rule. And I never told anyone. I just instantly removed them from my world.

Rocky did it. Twice. Unfortunately, she worked where I played. And we had many mutual friends. And she asked everyone about me. And they, in turn, pestered me about it. Eventually, she caught up with me, and I agreed to go to eat and talk. I made sure we ate someplace open and public, with lots of people so she wouldn't cry and make a scene.

She did anyways.

Why is it that tears can make a man agree to anything? I agreed to be her friend again. Even though I didn't mean it. She was an aspiring actress of incredible talent, and was moving to Los Angeles two weeks from then, to be closer to where she needed to be to further her career. And I knew this. And I just dodged her until she moved. She gave me her new phone number, and I threw it away.

This was 15 years ago, and I still feel the greatest regret. This is my big one. The big mistake I have made that will haunt me for the rest of my life. Rocky's friends were her family. Her only family. I was her family. And I abandoned her.

I hope she has forgotten me, and forgotten to hate me. She should hate me. I certainly deserve a little hatred. Most likely, she never did. She probably blamed herself for causing me pain. She was that kind of person. Too beautiful for the rest of us selfish creatures.

I think I saw her in a Saturn car commercial. I've watched it over and over, and just can't be sure. It looks like her. It sounds like her. I hope it is her. She should be a working actress. She has more talent than most I've ever seen. She should be headlining on Broadway. I hope to see her there one day.

And I hope that somehow, I'm still in her heart to some degree. She's in mine, and always will be. I wish I had known it then. I do now.

I loved Rocky.

I still do.