This piece is horribly inadequate, both for the person I attempt to describe, and the message I hope to get across. Words simply cannot express my feelings about either of them.
I am writing this because I won't be here this weekend to participate in the wonderful social life of Oberlin College. I'm going to Princeton, NJ to attend a concert. It will be another chapter in the saddest, longest day of my life. A day that has been interrupted for a few hours here and there. But it has never ended. I don't want it to end. I want it to never have existed.
My mentor, hero and wonderful friend was killed on March 22, 1997 when, while returning from Spring Break in Florida, a drunk driver traveling at over 90 miles per hour slammed into the back of the SUV in which he was riding in the passenger seat, with his seat belt fastened. My friend had celebrated his 20th birthday just eleven days earlier. The SUV flipped over; his death was instantaneous. Another young man in the back seat was thrown from the car and miraculously survived. But he was not able to attend my friend's funeral the next week because he was still in surgery.
I remember so much about that night, the next morning, the week that followed. I'm so frustrated writing this because I can't possibly describe the love and respect I had for him. I always knew throughout high school that his opinion was the only one that counted when it came to any kind of performance that I gave, and now I was going to be singing at his funeral. I just did what I always had done, and always will do: try to impress him.
People did such beautiful things that week, but nothing could break the ugliness that was around the entire incident (it would have been impossible). But the thing that was truly ugly about the whole situation was how entirely preventable it all was. When you drive, you don't drink, and when you drink, you don't drive. It's a simple, beautiful, considerate thing that you can do to save the world. One of the most twisted misconceptions about drunk driving is that it only affects the drunk driver. That is so incredibly perverse and misguided that I have trouble even talking about it. In this case, the drunk driver walked away from the accident, and the most beautiful, hard-working, gifted and loving individual that I have ever met was buried a week later.
I assume that there are some of you reading this who routinely or occasionally or would ever drink and drive. I'm sure this is not the first horror story you've heard, so I don't expect you to change your ways. But take some time today and look around you. Look at the most talented person in every facet of your life, and then imagine being responsible for his or her death. I know that I will try hard to do things in this life because I knew my friend and what he was about and because he didn't get a chance. But if I try for the rest of my life and I live to be 100 I will be hard pressed to achieve the success and love that he was able to generate in just 20 years.
Oberlin has a proud tradition of giving all students talented enough to get in here the opportunity to "Change the World." Equality of opportunity is essentially the way in which we as Americans define the concept of justice. Driving drunk is perhaps the most effective way to indiscriminately deprive people of their opportunity to contribute to our society, and just plain live. For the sake of the lives you will save, who live will make to our world: please don't.
Knowing that most people alive today have truly little to look forward to, it's amazing to me that more people don't kill themselves. Maybe even weirder is that most of the suicides that do occur are attempted by youth. These kids still have at least a little chance at happiness; but what happens when you turn 60, or even 50, and your life hasn't been what you hoped? Do you honestly believe that things are going to improve? Look at Ernest Hemingway. Here's a guy I truly admire. He had a lot of great experiences and all but perfected an art form. Then he started to get old and said, "Hey! What the hell is left? Nostalgia? Fuck that!" KABLAMO, he blew his head off with a shotgun.
That's another thing, guns. This whole idea of banning guns, handguns in particular, would cause a great deal of problems for potential suicidees. Particularly men, who actually do the job right the first time with a firearm rather than take a montage of pills like all these namby-pamby females. And fuck giving them a second chance at life. Anyone who can't kill themselves correctly is pretty much bound to be a failure at everything else they do. So I say let the bitches die in their hospital beds. It's what they wanted, right?
That's why I support the NRA. In addition to keeping the deer population at bay, killing a few drunken rednecks a year, and weeding out irresponsible children, guns provide a ready outlet for us men to end it all in a flash. Unfortunately, guns cause problems for mothers and housewives, who wind up cleaning the mess, or at least selling the brain-stained house for a newer, not-brain-stained one. The men who decide to put a bullet in their forehead should really be more considerate of their loved ones, and drape the wall and carpeting with a thick canvas tarp, which can easily be rolled up and discarded, displayed as artwork or laid out for hungry pets.
On the other hand, there has been a long-standing viewpoint among the eccentric wing of the population that bad people, that is criminals, deviants, miscreants, vagrants, and riff-raff, also possess multitudes of guns, and by eliminating the sale of guns in the US the violent crime rate would plummet. That's silly. In my opinion it would be more practical and more fun to try to convince criminals what scum they are in hopes that with such quick access to weaponry they'll kill themselves. Think about that for a minute. We could revolutionize crime fighting! Police would carry a slew of slanderous insults rather than revolvers and billy clubs. I think this would make for great television and film. Imagine the possibilities! But then, as soon as ever~ one started to kill themselves in imitation of their favorite film stars, those same eccentrics who wanted to outlaw guns would probably try to outlaw suicide, too. But what the hell, I'd be willing to put up with all those idiots for the pleasure of watching a new genre of quality cinema.
So all you pissants who want to rob me of my gun, listen to yourselves. You want equal rights? Well, I want the right of being able to slaughter myself in ritual suicide whenever I feel like it, and I'll make sure to splatter some of my brain goo on your face. It only seems fair.
In the meantime, I plan to petition congressmen to pass an amendment that makes it illegal to take my guns on grounds that I have the right to shoot my face when I damn well please.
Copyright © 1998, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 126, Number 15, February 20, 1998
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