2001-10-10 - 9:24 p.m.

It�s raining slightly as I leave the meeting. I�m invigorated, feeling that at least some vague future direction in my life has been hinted at � a hint, a possibility, nothing more. It�s all I need, all I can hope for, at this point. Just keep giving myself more possibilities, and maybe, one day, one will seem worth pursuing.

I look back down the street I�ve been traveling and see that two girls from the meeting are coming down the sidewalk. I decide to wait for them. A new opportunity for meeting people � I can�t pass it up. I will be proud of myself if I talk to them. They recognize me from the meeting and say hello.

�Where are you guys headed?� I ask them as we wait for the walk signal.

�Right up this way,� she says, pointing in the direction I was not headed. �How bout you?�

�I can go that way, too,� I say.

In my distraction as I was waiting for them, I think I saw some minor commotion, some dispute between cars, out of the corner of my eye in the intersection to our left. Now I look over there and see what looks like a jacket. No, wait. It�s a person.

I jog into the intersection and see that a man�s been hit by a car. He�s sprawled out on the ground, moving nothing but his lips, which are muttering words hysterically. I can�t see any blood or sign of violence, but the lack of any movement in his arms or legs cannot be a good sign. A DVD from Blockbuster hangs limply from his right hand.

I yell out to the girls that this man�s been hit by a car. They run over; one of them has a cell phone and calls 911. And then I don�t know what to do; nothing comes to mind. I try talking to him briefly, but I don�t know what to say. I should be comforting, doing something, but instead I freeze and stand apart, afraid to look into his eyes. This man who was rushing home to watch his DVD on just another rainy Thursday night, and was struck down unexpectedly, his life perhaps changed forever in a moment. I can�t deal with it. I can�t look into his eyes. I�m afraid to see the fear in it, afraid to feel compassion for a man facing his own mortality, the shock of real, searing pain of trauma, nothing academic about it. I have no comprehension, no compassion, no comfort to give.

Instead, as we wait for authorities, the three of us just stand there block traffic. One man in his car shouts, �Get him out of the road if he�s not hurt!� I am incensed, want to kick his car.

I stand back as other people crowd around within a few minutes, a police officer, someone else with medical training. The police officer asks who did it, if anybody saw it; I say I thought I saw a black car go by out of the corner of my eye, but I�m not sure. A woman takes his hand and talks to him in soothing words. I am an ass. Of course I should have been talking to him, holding his hand, letting him know he�s not being left to die alone on the street. Now he�s in more capable hands. I�m reduced to holding up one side of a tarp to keep the rain from falling on him. But the ambulance comes and loads him on, and it seems that he�s not going to die.

Tomorrow I�m flying out for my mother�s surprise birthday party. I want to be excited. But the image of this man sprawled out on the pavement doesn�t go away. It stays with me when I go to bed, and when I wake up early the next morning for my flight, his image is the first thing that comes into my head.

It stays there, burned into my head, as I ride the train to the airport, as I fly over America, as I roll into Beverly from Boston on the train. It�s there as I help set up Kevin�s place for the big party, throwing together appetizers and setting out tables.

But finally it begins to fade as I try to throw it off or push it away, subsumed by the celebration of life. I can�t accept it but I can�t linger on it, I can�t do anything but push it away, distract myself from it; I can�t be morbid at my mother�s surprise party. I have to be happy, project that happy image that tells all my relatives and old neighbors that life is fine, I�m happy, nothing�s wrong at all. And nothing is the matter, I guess, that isn�t the matter with everyone � that responsibility that comes with being alive, the realization that life will slip away, and the inability to ever fully accept it.

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