Prologue

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

As I approached the middle of the intersection, I barely caught the blue flash to my left, vaguely identifiable, like a truck. It’s the last coherent image I can concretely remember. The impact on the driver’s side was explosive and wild. I’m violently thrown helplessly across the compartment. My ribs, shoulder, and leg were rendered useless by the collision as pain radiates down my left side. My head smashed into the steering wheel, and I passed out.

Blackness. Nothingness. Silence. I awoke briefly, but no one was here, I feel like I’m nowhere, surrounded by a thick blanket of fog. I didn’t feel pain or anything else, for that matter. I feel disconnected. With perfect clarity, I replay in my mind the entire accident. I see the dark blue 2019 F-250 4x4 speeding through the intersection, blazing through the red light. Colliding with my cherry red, mint condition, 1956 Ford T-Bird, obliterating the tiny car. I watched as the vehicle wrapped around and fuses with the metal light pole across the intersection. I watched in terror as a passerby stopped and tried to open the door to get my unresponsive body from the car. I’m enthralled by the emergency responders buzzing around, trying to extricate me, by cutting my precious car into smaller chunks. They finally have my body on a gurney where they furiously perform various emergency procedures, stopping bleeding, immobilizing extremities. Working tirelessly to bring this body to life.

I watch as put me into the back of an ambulance, and it sped away.

Thinking back, I should’ve towed the T-Bird, it was too expensive to drive. I knew that, but I couldn’t resist. It was on my bucket list of favorite cars; there were many others. If I had been driving my truck towing the T-Bird, I would be alive, but alas, I did not, and now I am not, alive that is. If I’m honest, it was a crappy end to a crappy day and a crappy life.

I’m more alert now, still, silence abounds, and no one else is here. I can tell I am not on a physical plane, as I don’t have a body. It’s ok, I suppose, after all the last few minutes before I got here, there was a lot of pain, loads of it to be exact.

But now I can’t feel anything, including pain. There are no odors, no sensations of any kind.

Soon I begin to think back on the time of my existence. It’s like an 8K movie with a matching Dolby Digital stereo soundtrack. At first, it’s a neat and fun exercise watching me. I grow from an infant through the toddler years and early childhood, with quickness, just the highlights, the fun and happy memories of being a child. There were, of course, the obligatory misadventures, bumps, and bruises. The occasional trip to the ER for a broken arm, from falling out of a tree—the time I missed being hit by a car by mere inches. You know typical everyday kid stuff.

Junior high was the next series of events. Here things changed. I’d quit caring about excelling in the classroom, turning in mediocre classwork and studying only for the test, not for the pleasure of learning. I let my friends slip away by not being active in their day to day activities. At lunch, I would sit alone, at first, by choice. But this soon turned into a self-imposed exile, which continued into high school. I was on the football and baseball teams throughout junior high. I had natural talent, and I was gifted with an athlete’s body. I didn’t have to work at it to be good. So, I didn’t. I was the star of the school. I was cocky and self-centered, soon I had no real friends left. I became miserable and hated their guts. I didn’t deserve to be treated like that. I discovered beer and girls, not necessarily in that order. I didn’t have a steady girlfriend. I just wanted to have fun. Coach told me I couldn’t play if I kept acting up the way I did during practice. He also said I needed to lay off the booze. I only drank on the weekends. But he said he’d cut me if I was caught hungover again. So, I quit drinking until that summer.

High school rapidly approached. During the last week of eighth grade, along with many others on the team, I was given an invitation to try-out for freshman football. I figured I was a lock for starting quarterback on the varsity team. Yeah, I know I must start on the JV squad, but I won’t stay there. I’m too talented. I just know coach Wilson is going to move me to the starting team. I mean, he didn’t promise me, but he said I had potential.

Why should I give my best effort for those losers? Coach hadn’t let me play in the last three games. We only have two left for the season, and he hasn’t even let me practice with the varsity squad, forget playing with them. I didn’t need this crap. I’ll show him; I won’t even come out next season. See if they win any games without me. I spent an awful lot of time in detention. I still think I was a nerd, but nobody accused me of it.

My grades were in the toilet. Well, no, they were worse than that. I turned in enough overdue assignments, and with a couple of good test scores, I managed to keep from flunking out. I was barely scraping by with a 1.975 GPA. I had very generous teachers who rounded it off to a 2.0. Somehow, I blamed them for my poor performance. I can’t really watch too much more of this junk. I know I screwed up, and this was only the beginning. I hope they don’t keep playing all my past mistakes. The rest of high school is a blur. There were a few highlights, the time I won the knowledge bowl, and made regional and state finalists. On the debate team, I could always win an argument. I wanted to be a lawyer, among other ideas. Of course, I had one class I excelled at, auto shop. I instinctively knew all about cars. They spoke to me in a language all their own.

Oh, boy, here we go the lost years ... I mean early adulthood. I’d rather forget ... No, I have forgotten them. Years spent aimlessly moving from one job to next with no goal, no purpose, and no clue. Jobs I quit because I knew more than the boss. Positions I was terminated from for lack of performance or some other just cause. Jobs I begged for, only to piss them away and lose them because I didn’t take them seriously or put any effort into it.

Of course, it’s not just jobs I lost; relationships went down in flames as well. Women I dated had a noticeably short shelf life. If we got to three weeks, I ended it over some pretext or another. The longest time I was part of a couple was four months, and for 2 of those months, she was in the hospital with a severe illness. I wasn’t trying to be a douchebag. I just wanted to have fun. My mother and father were always telling me I was wasting my life, and I was going to end up alone if I kept treating women like I was. I figured I had time to settle down later. Later became much later, then never. In the last ten years of my life, I had a total of 7 dates. Three of those dates lead to a relationship. But they quickly fizzled out, and I was told in no uncertain terms not to contact them ever.

Now I don’t want you to think I was a prick or an ass my entire life, or that I never accomplished anything because that would be untrue. I simply took too long to mature and realize other people counted for something more than a means to an end. I had to relearn this lesson as I had forgotten what my parents and society taught me in my youth.

Finally, the movie got to the present.

I restored cars, mostly American muscle, and classics. I made them better than new; I upgraded them to modern-day beasts. I added ABS, crate engines with DOHC (dual overhead cam) twin fuel injection, turbo, or superchargers. I updated the exhaust systems, added airbags, and improved safety equipment, such as tempered glass, advanced electronics, upgraded the stereo, with Bluetooth capability as standard equipment. I made them this way because my clients, while extraordinarily wealthy, were mostly not interested in “the classic car” experience. They didn’t like the harsh ride, or the lackluster performance and poor braking when compared to modern sports cars. Not me, I preferred them as they were. I enjoyed the quirkiness of the classic American car. Restoring old cars started as a hobby and grew into a business.

My clientele may have million-dollar pedigrees, but I was not getting rich off my company. Don’t mistake that for me being in the poorhouse, I did ok. I was just too self-conscious to take advantage of the situation. I have had many customers tell me they would have been willing to pay double what I charged them. But I thought better prices would bring repeat business, and it did, word of mouth was great. It is just one example of not taking advantage of opportunities that came my way.

I wake up once more. I’m alone, but not lonely. It’s bright, but not blinding. It’s peaceful and quiet. I still feel nothing; I still feel disconnected. I feel confused. If this is heaven, it’s not what I was promised. If it’s hell, I think they exaggerated greatly. No fire, no brimstone. No one else seems to be here. “Hello?” I yell out. “Is anybody here, can anyone hear me?” No response.

Suddenly, sometime later, I have no reference for how long, a day, a week, a month, it doesn’t matter; a voice calls out my name “Calvin.” Only my mother calls me that. Everyone else calls me Michael or CM. The voice is not my mom. It’s not distinguishable as a male or female, and it’s mid-range and tonally neutral. So even though I can’t tell who or what it is, in my mind, I ascribe maleness to the voice. Again, I hear my name,

“Calvin.” It’s louder and with just a hint of urgency to it.

“I’d rather you call me Michael or CM. I hate Calvin. Have ever since I was a kid, I got beat up a lot over that moniker. I started going by Michael right around my freshman year of high school.”

“Ok, Mike. Can I call you, Mike?” The voice asked.

“I guess that’d be alright. Just not Calvin.”

A man was standing in front of me. He wasn’t there a second ago, I swear.

Chapter 1 »