The Sad Tale of Fickle Death and Three Young Men

With a dash of social inequality mixed in.

The roads were icy that evening. The warmth of the sun reflected on the pavement all day, and ice and snow slurried together into a messy slush with each passing vehicle. The plows had been out the previous night — drivers diligently clearing the passes and roads of nature's wintry deposits.

The path was clear to the mountain.

Snowboards were strapped to the top of a black Jetta driven by a confident young man, the son of a local doctor, with sandy blond hair messed with gel and sweat from a day on the slopes. Liberated from the Burton beanie and sunglasses, this boy now laughed and joked with his friends, a pale, even blonder boy sitting in the passenger seat, his head almost touching the roof of the car, and their darker-haired, broody friend in the back.

Music blared from the speakers, guitar riffs and melodic voices filling the car with their upbeat rhythms followed by soulful ballads, all met with air guitar and drumming on armrests or legs or seat backs. The windows were cracked slightly to usher smoke from cigarettes and joints out lest their parents catch the scent of their indulgences in the upholstery.

The boys were full of excitement. It was the winter of their senior year. There were three days left on break, three days more to not worry about grades or college or answering their parents' inquisitions about girlfriends and plans for the future. Who knew where they would be in a year?

They embraced these final days of togetherness and convinced their parents to buy them ski passes to the same resort, and were able to make the trek all winter long through the winding mountain roads.

Here they were, freshly into the new year, driving back after a full day of powder. They remembered their fathers' lessons about respecting the road and not underestimating nature. To drive into the slide and to pump the breaks rather than slam them.

But overconfidence comes naturally and uninvited to boys on the cusp of manhood. They didn't believe in Death, though Death knew of them. And Death made an attempt, in the form of a patch of black ice on a hairpin turn, to change their minds.

The car skidded through a guardrail as the driver attempted to slam on the brakes, promptly forgetting the basics of winter driving in a moment of sheer panic. It careened down the slope, meeting the icy river below.

These boys were lucky because Death was careless, and a guardian angel in the form of an off-duty fireman in an F250 happened to be driving the same treacherous road a few hundred yards behind them. He saw a flash of headlights whip up toward the now cloudless sky and the dark mass of a car hopping down the mountainside. Death didn't anticipate a stranger's quick thinking and reaction time as three boys were pulled into the wet snow, one unconscious, all scraped and jarred, but each one was still alive.

The town rallied to these boys, cheered them on, and lectured their kids on winter driving safety. Prayer meetings were held, and offerings were made to the boys and their families. Friends, desperate at the thought of what a close call it had been, filled their time trying to help in any way they could. Rumors, so many rumors, flew around the town about the heroic fireman and what a miracle it all was.

These boys cheated Death and got to live.

Six months later, about 70 miles west on that same highway, a beat-up brown Bronco was speeding in the right-hand lane as if racing the sun on its journey west.

Three young men, windows down and music up, pumping themselves up for another day at the job site. Two of them gulped from mountain dews, their bodies craving the sugar and caffeine in equal measure. Their routine stop at the Conoco on the edge of town resulted in a full gas tank- a small miracle of change and loose dollar bills collected from each of them. The cashier, an older woman with fine gray hair, slumped shoulders, and a voice deepened by years of inhaling tobacco, wished them a good day while passing judgment on their caffeine intake in the form of joking small talk.

They were off. The sun was already heating up the semi-arid desert landscape. The horizon spread out before them, the road straight, straight, straight until it met the skyline. Small shrubs and wild grasses punctuated a mostly rocky, dusty landscape.

The driver, a young man with a muscular build and tattoos snaking up his biceps, fiddled with the radio stations and volume, searching for the right song to get them going. The air conditioning had failed long ago, so relief from the heat was only available through a cold drink from the gas station and the windows cranked down.

His friends, a skinny light-haired boy in a loose-fitting t-shirt and jeans held secure by a black braided belt and another boy with thick black locks and brown skin that darkened even further as the summers wore on, jostled each other, arms shoving from the front to the back, over some unknown grievance, though it was all in lighthearted fun. This is just another way to release some of the stress before working on-site in the hot sun for the rest of the day. Bills had to be paid, even as summer beckoned them with its coveted promises of relaxing fun.

They accelerated down that highway in the brightness of the morning, a whole new day stretching before them, much like the road they were currently on. A highway can be a lonely place, and this one was no exception. Towns- more like villages and hamlets- broke up the monotonous drive, but less often than one would expect, as many weary travelers out of gas could attest to.

And on that day, those young men were not alone, though they failed to notice Death keeping up with them. The optimism of having so much time left and the life-giving heat of the day blinded them to this unwelcome stranger, who was making an entrance as the young men were distracted by each other… and their drinks… and their snacks… and the radio dials… and the wind whipping through the Bronco.

Maybe Death was still miffed at its wintry failure, and a tribute of youth and unfulfilled futures was needed to rebalance the world or meet some bureaucratic quota. Maybe Death was just bored and enjoyed watching the life flee like a startled cat from those boys as they were ejected from their tumbling vehicle. Bodies slamming and skidding, broken beyond repair and recognition.

Maybe Death does as Death desires, and we will never have an answer.

Law enforcement and flashing lights rerouting traffic shut down the highway as bodies so recently full of promise were scraped off the pavement. An investigation was launched and closed just as quickly, ruling it a tragic accident that could have been prevented if only the driver had been less careless or if they'd worn their seatbelts.

These boys hadn't been in school the previous year. They had chosen other paths- or life had chosen for them. Working in lieu of learning was their destiny. They were the children of the invisibles- of single parents, the downtrodden, and those cobbling together a life in a small town where jobs were scarce, and nepotism was common.

A few parents used the accident as a cautionary tale- stay in school, wear your seatbelt, and work hard so that you don't meet a similar fate. But mostly, life moved on. A few white-washed wooden crosses were staked into the ground at the scene of the accident, adorned with flowers and tokens from the grieving family members and a handful of friends.

But the guttural cry of an anguished mother could not cut through the silence that followed, a woman on her knees in her grief, destined to bare the burden of tragedy alone.

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